Unofficial Off Topic Thread

[sk47]

Dog owner had St Bernard puppies put down after they started attacking her (msn.com)
Hello; Odd story. Makes me wonder about the notion aggression is breed into the dogs.

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[sk47]

Wife asked 'when will they blame humans?' weeks before her dog killed husband (msn.com)
Hello; Not clear in the story so I am making a risky assumption. That being these folks must have thought themselves to be among the responsible dog owners. The sort of owners who believe they are doing the "correct" things in terms of training and handling their dogs.
Not lots of information in the story so my assumption can be wrong.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Maybe Hillary was right about the election being stollen from her:

https://reason.com/2023/10/20/hes-going-to-prison-for-twitter-trolling-thats-not-justice/

But what makes me suspicious is the people stupid enough to believe they could vote for Hillary by phone were the same people who's phones had been destroyed Wave-Charging.

 

[sk47]

This Simple Ford F-150 Repair Is Insanely Expensive (msn.com)
Hello; This may not be news to others but is wildly too expensive for my taste. I refer to new F-150 taillights costing $1000's to replace.
Guess i am behind the times and do not know what has been added to a simple taillight of late.

I guess a question is can a more basic pickup be had without these expensive taillights??

 

[sk47]

This Simple Ford F-150 Repair Is Insanely Expensive (msn.com)
Hello; This may not be news to others but is wildly too expensive for my taste. I refer to new F-150 taillights costing $1000's to replace.
Guess i am behind the times and do not know what has been added to a simple taillight of late.

I guess a question is can a more basic pickup be had without these expensive taillights??

2023 FORD F-150 5.0L V8 Tail Lamp Assembly | RockAuto
Hello; Had a look at rockauto prices for 2023 F-150 taillights. The individual prices are indeed higher than i would think reasonable for the product alone. I do get two things. One being this is a discount parts site so not sure how a dealership might price the same thing. Another is the labor charge added above simple physical instillation. I guess much like keys and dashboard replacement some time is needed to program fancy features.

 

[sk47]

New COVID Shots Roll Out, Pitiful Vaccination Rates Show What Happens When It Isn’t Forced on People (msn.com)

“The survey results suggest that when people are not threatened with being fired from their jobs or their children being suspended from school, most choose not to get vaccinated -- especially now that the myth that the jab prevents transmission has been debunked.

At the height of COVID hysteria, in many places, you couldn't go to a movie theater or a concert or eat at most restaurants unless you were jabbed. All this sounds crazy in retrospect.”

Hello; High prices have been paid and continue being paid to learn these lessons.

“Former Pfizer VP Dr. Mike Yeadon tells Dr. Drew that the mRNA COVID vaccines were deliberately designed to cause blood clots and attack the immune system. pic.twitter.com/UXbXXeL10E”

Hello; This is the more disturbing bit from this link.

“At the height of the pandemic, Vermont — which had the highest vaccination rate — suffered viral surges, while states with low vaccination rates, such as Florida, fared much better.

With 92% of adults & 91.2% of everyone 12+ least partially vaccinated, Vermont now has one of the highest infection rates in the US and cases are up 16,700% in the past 4 months

Hard to imagine a less scientifically justifiable policy than vaccine passports to keep others “safe” pic.twitter.com/kbP9JAYTdy”

Hello; Yet there are still some vaccine champions on this and one other forum I visit.

“The lesson to be gleaned from the tragic comedy of errors that was America’s pandemic response is that we must navigate such events without trampling on everyone’s civil liberties and shutting down the entire country.”

Hello; I recall being vilified during the pandemic early when I took a stance that shutdowns and the like were not the best way to deal with the outbreak. I and some others declared these tactics would be worse than the disease itself. We all are still suffering for aftereffects of those many follies.

 

[Strokerswild]

This Simple Ford F-150 Repair Is Insanely Expensive (msn.com)
Hello; This may not be news to others but is wildly too expensive for my taste. I refer to new F-150 taillights costing $1000's to replace.
Guess i am behind the times and do not know what has been added to a simple taillight of late.

I guess a question is can a more basic pickup be had without these expensive taillights??

On the bold, yes. I believe the XL and XLT trims can be had with conventional (non-LED) head and taillights, at least that was the case a few years ago.

One of several things my '19 F150 (XLT) went to the dealer for so far was condensation in the right hand taillight lens. At the time of dropoff, I overheard a couple of the service writers mention an Edge that had come in that a lens full of moisture, that had been denied warranty replacement. Once they ran the VIN on my truck, the fix was approved and the part was ordered and replaced, presumably since it was cheap. I can only assume the unit on the Edge in question was one of the high buck lights.

This experience was precisely the reason I ordered my '23 Jeep with conventional lighting, as I have also read horror stories on the Jeep boards of people being stuck with a bad LED taillight and it costing a grand. I see now for '24 the same model I ordered is LED only.

 

[sk47]

2023 RAM 1500 5.7L V8 Tail Lamp Assembly | RockAuto
Hello; did a check for RAM taillight 2023. Scroll down to the LED types. Some at $800 or more. This is crazy. Guess i will look at bumpers next.

 

[sk47]

The Earth Is Warming, but Is CO2 the Cause? (msn.com)

“The authors ask a simple question: Are computerized climate simulations a sufficient basis for attributing observed warming to human CO2?”

Hello, my comments; The earth’s climate may be warming for reasons other than human activity alone.

As statisticians, their conclusion: “With the current level of knowledge, it seems impossible to determine how much of the temperature increase is due to emissions of CO2.”

The correlation-to-causation puzzle is hardly the authors’ invention, having bedeviled the oracular Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change since its founding in 1988. But unrestrained name-calling is required, the critics say, because anything that undermines confidence in climate models undermines progress against climate change.

What really upsets the critics, though they are petrified to say so, is the paper’s ever so gently brushing its sleeve against the measurement problem.

Before 2015, as I’ve previously noted, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that 2005 and 2010 were equally warm to the second decimal. By 2015, the record was changed to claim 2010 was warmer than 2005. Such adjustments are common and the Norwegians point out the obvious: “It is impossible to evaluate the validity of such administrative changes for an outside user of these records.” In 2017, independent researcher Marcia Wyatt showed 16 such revisions had been made to the long-past temperature record in just the previous three years.

A spirit of disingenuousness already pervades NOAA’s use of these numbers to make “hottest year” and “hottest month” proclamations, ignoring its own stated margin of error, which is often a large multiple of the claimed temperature difference from one period to the next.

Hello; numbers within a margin of error range are essentially without value.

By now, it’s some people’s job, if not personal vocation, to enact these rituals of denunciation simply because it helps prop up the green corporate welfare that has become the primary substitute for climate action as well as the primary incentive for anyone to spend working hours participating in these now-tired activities

 

[K4fxd]

In 2017, independent researcher Marcia Wyatt showed 16 such revisions had been made to the long-past temperature record in just the previous three years.

I know I got laughed at for using Michael Crichton's book State of Fear but he points out temp chart redactions in this heavily researched book.
Another tactic used to increase the temp numbers is in 1940 the temp sensors were in the forest. Cities have overtaken these forests but the temp sensors have not moved.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Fear

 

[K4fxd]

But it was a sweet dog........

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...-old-detroit-boy-pit-bull-attack/71286752007/

 

[K4fxd]

https://banpitbulls.org/where/where-are-pit-bulls-banned-internationally/

List of countries that ban pit bull dogs. The US needs to be next.

 

[sk47]

I know I got laughed at for using Michael Crichton's book State of Fear but he points out temp chart redactions in this heavily researched book.
Another tactic used to increase the temp numbers is in 1940 the temp sensors were in the forest. Cities have overtaken these forests but the temp sensors have not moved.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Fear

Hello; during the 80's and 90's a friend of mine worked at the Oak Ridge National Labs. More specifically doing work for NOAA. One of his tasks, for a time, was to monotor the weather stations located in the area. We had conversations about the "heat island" effects of city compared to rural stations.
There were places around the world where such stations were placed on dark asphalt and also surrounded by buildings. Anyway, there were articles written in scientific journals of the time about how temps could be skewed. A garbage in equals garbage out argument of sorts.

Back in the science is cancelled thread before the Covid misinformation ploy was used to remove members there was a pages long back and forths about warming. I posted at least two links about the computer-generated models. The links were overall positive about the accuracy of the models. However, the parts of interest for me were the anomalies found in the models with respect to their accuracy in particular areas. I was, of course, railed against at the time by the usual suspects.

 

[sk47]

The first great green scandals are just the tip of the iceberg (msn.com)
Hello; No personal opinion on this story yet. Guess it is another big money sort of story. Huge amounts of other peoples money floating around so some take advantage I guess.

 

[sk47]

Hello; Had a question in the back of mind for many years now. Not sure exactly how to pose it. Perhaps this way. Are TV shows promoting unrealistic expectations in terms of lifestyles. Let me start with the way the question first occurred to me.
I was a public school teacher in rural southeast KY. I knew what I could afford in terms of a car, a place to rent and things such as TV's , stereos, and such. I would watch TV shows and the characters would have jobs with similar pay as my own. A thing that stood out was how nice the characters lifestyles appeared to be. The characters generally lived a much better lifestyle that folks I knew in real life.
Some shows built in an explanation such as Magnum P.I.. He was living on a rich guys estate and driving the rich guys Ferrari. I am not talking about that sort of show.

Back to the main point. I wonder if by watching many of these TV shows folks get a distorted idea of what sort of lifestyle can be had with a more ordinary job? That when they do go out on their own they somehow expect to have the things often seen on the TV shows. Reality has always been much different for many.

A new example showed up as I was browsing the internet news this morning. Briefly looked at a story about how some illegals from Venezuela are leaving a big northern city and actually going back to Venezuela. I get why they are not happy with conditions. News reports show many sleeping on the street, in tent cities, in terminals and other such places. I would not want to sleep in a tent in a place with a cold winter. Nor on the floor of a building. My question is what sort of expectations they had and did TV somehow give a false picture of American life???

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