We're finding out that most of what he's said is lies, and then we find out that he got money from the cousin of a Russian oligarch. On top of which, the repukes have been curiously silent about him. Except for Margie, who was all for him.

Kinda makes you wonder... is it time for a tinfoil hat? Or is he just a first-class dumbass?

OTOH, I would think that the Russians would be a bit more careful about their sleeper agents.

Sorry if this has been posted before...

Probably like a lot of us, I've wondered why the state of CA is sending out tax refund cards instead of depositing the money directly or sending check. Like, is the card cheaper once you consider what the bank may be charging?

Then it hit me: is the card (the bank) just keeping track of what we spend money on, so the bank can sell the info for marketing purposes?

We have an Oster toaster oven from when we cleaned out a deceased friend's house a few years ago. It was brand-new, still in the box. Yesterday I decided to give it a try toasting some Thomas' Toaster Cakes, so I read the instructions such as they were.

They told me what buttons to push to toast something, but there was nothing on whether the thing turns itself off, like a microwave, after a given amount of time, or if you have to stop it manually. All I could do was check it now and then and stop it when I thought the things were done (and before burning down the house).

Can anyone here give me some remedial help?

These gol-danged modern contraptions, geez!

Santa is going over his list. A reindeer is standing behind him saying stuff like, "Oh, Santa, you're so good at making that list," "Santa, you're such a good sleigh driver," "I love being on your team." Stuff like that.

The caption at the bottom says "Randolph the brown-nosed reindeer."

Purely speculation, of course, but wondering if they might be thinking about cutting ties for visibility or other reasons.

BTW, the alliteration in the subject line was totally accidental.

into RWNJ sites some months ago?

I can think of fun things to do to tfg's latest scam.

Is it safe?

I'm sure I can find the answer to this online, but it would probably take hours. From what I've read, the issue is that railroads don't want to give workers sick leave: they want them to take it out of PTO.

A friend of mine worked for years at a huge medical conglomerate, and all staff had vacation, sick time, and holidays all in a PTO "envelope." The company figured out how much vacation time etc. each employee rated and added it all up, and gave them that much PTO. It worked fine because everyone was aware of the system. And, for the company's accounting systems, it was probably easier.

So, with the railroad workers, is it that they just don't get enough paid time off to cover everything, or that they may think PTO is all vacation time? It seems, from the MSM, that the battle is specifically about "sick time," when just increasing the amount of PTO might take care of the problem. Or do the railroad oligarchs just don't want to think about it that way?

what the Church did in the Middle Ages: a constant barrage of this-is-bad that-is-bad you-should-not-do-this bullshit dumped on the uneducated masses to rein them into supporting the institution. The funny thing is, the Church depended on the masses being uneducated (and encouraged it) to avoid people questioning their "teachings."

The first universities during this period were run by the Church, and it was a matter of finding the bright (or gullible) ones, bringing them into the fold, and keeping them there to help spread the word and control the money.

So far the repukes haven't started talking about hell and excommunication, but I wouldn't be surprised if they bring those up one of these days. Heck, right now they have some evangelicals swallowing the bait.

I was raised Catholic and attended parochial schools and church for a long time, so I think I can safely say this.

Older generation... we were expected to eat what Mom put on the plate... no questions asked. My Mom was a really good cook and I generally liked what she served, but now and then I just didn't like something. So I came up with a brilliant idea: I would eat what I didn't like first, as in scarf it up, and then take my time with everything else. Worked like a charm for a while.

Until one day when an aunt came to visit. There was something I really didn't care for, so I scarfed it up. My aunt saw this, said, wow, look how much he likes it, and dropped a huge spoonful of whatever-it-was on my plate. My nine-year-old image of myself as a genius was shattered. Back to the drawing board.

This post was inspired by a piece on Huffpost about what not to say to your kids at dinner time.