Opinionated Blogs (1,909)

May your stuffing be tasty,
May your turkey plump,
May your potatoes and gravy
Have nary a lump.
May your yams be delicious
And your pies take the prize,
And may your Thanksgiving dinner
Stay off your thighs!

Syndicates supply kids for str. corner beggars for as little as ZAR100 a day (+/- $6)
and the cops say there is little they can do to stop them.
Our laws are prescibed from Brussels and are religiously followed.
What next?

Lots of products are sold by weight, but I'm finding some are sold by wait. In that, the things in demand that have a long time are priced by how long it takes to receive. They are sold by wait.

Frequently, on the websites of Yahoo news and on Youtube, I see articles and videos with the heading "How much is (personality's name) worth?" or "What is (personality's name) net worth?", and it makes me wonder.

Firstly, why would you (the writer/video maker) put that information out there? Isn't it private? Are you even authorized to do so? And wouldn't that information make the persons targets for theft, kidnapping, etc, thus endangering persons' life?

Besides that, how shallow is it to base a person's 'worth', only on how much money they've made/inherited/etc.? But then, that's the state of the world that we live in, isn't it? Very sad, but very real. If you don't have money or wealth, then you don't have 'worth'...to many people.

And that's just another reason why some feel that they are better than/superior to others...Unity struggles to be heard amongst the noise of the dividers. But, we should all know our worth, without depending on others for confirmation.


How much are you worth?

I'm just curious as to whom the true benefactors will be if Scotland beats New Zealand in a rugby test.
Is it the satisfaction of the public of Scotland or the few lucky individuals that put on a wager that Scotland would win?7

We're talking about the all blacks here.

Arizona Ballots Make Stop at Runbeck Printing Company to Sort Ballots Before They Are Sent to County — WITH NO OBSERVERS.

Ben Bergquam was outside the Maricopa County election center and followed a Penske truck leave the center and return to Runbeck. Once at Runbeck, the gate is closed.

Every mail-in ballot that is returned in the county is sent to Runbeck first.

Runbeck is scanning the Maricopa ballots before they are sent to the Maricopa County Elections Center.

Maricopa County is the only jurisdiction in the country that picks up completed ballots at USPS Processing Distribution Center, but doesn’t bring them back to the election department or tabulation center.

Maricopa County picks up mail-in ballots and takes them directly to its print vendor Runbeck Election Services, which is headquartered in Phoenix.

Every single completed mail-in ballot, whether mailed or dropped off at a polling place, goes to Runbeck. All mail-in ballots collected on election day, and the previous few days, are sitting at Runbeck headquarters. Maricopa has no idea how many ballots are in their possession because the ballots are at their print vendor.

Maricopa allegedly uses Runbeck because they have “high-speed scanners.” Runbeck scans the ballots in batches to create a digital image of each envelope signature area. This batch of images is given to the Maricopa tabulation center (MCTEC) for poll worker review. MCTEC notifies Runbeck if any of those signatures don’t match. Runbeck separates out those bad envelopes, then delivers both sets of these envelopes by van to MCTEC, which is 6 miles away. MCTEC then opens the envelopes and starts the tabulation process.

This “batch” process is repeated until all “mail-in” ballot envelopes are scanned at Runbeck. This takes 10-12 days after every general election, and ballots envelopes are delivered each day by Runbeck vans. Runbeck uses the Bluecrest Vantage mail processing machines to scan these ballot envelopes. This machine can process 40-50,000 ballots an hour. These machines can also automatically scan the ballot signatures using embedded commercial-grade check cashing signature software from Parascript. But Maricopa continues to use its slow manual “batch” process of reviewing signatures.

These Vantage machines cost $1.06 million each, Detroit just purchased one in early 2022. Maricopa could purchase two of these machines and process roughly 90,000 ballots an hour in-house. But Maricopa continues to re-sign contracts with Runbeck, which prevents them from bringing all this in-house.

This is a travesty.

Well, I started an online dating site adventure again hoping to have a better result than when tried some out in the past (I was like mid 50's - empty nest, window, exploring options) ...

Well, so far not looking worthwhile lol only seem to get messages from individuals outside my area who could actually easily meet with if wanted, most are out of town, out of state, even the US ... I'm starting to get tired of messaging back, try to be nice but it's not always easy telling individuals thanks but no thanks ...

I likely put TMI out there but figured better too much info than too little lol only good thing so far is it's something to pass some time now and then and there are some interesting and even fun individuals to message with ...

I'm curious as to what other's are experiencing on these types of sites and would love to hear about yours ...

well take care everyone, play nice, keep it real and happy fishing ... xo debi

High Flight
BY JOHN GILLESPIE MAGEE JR.
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds,—and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air ....

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor ever eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

Gordon Lightfoot immortalized the wreck in a song that attributes it to the gales of November come early.
What are the gales of November? And did they come early that night in '75?

SS Edmund Fitzgerald was an American Great Lakes freighter that sank in Lake Superior during a storm on November 10, 1975, with the loss of the entire crew of 29 men. When launched on June 7, 1958, she was the largest ship on North America's Great Lakes, and she remains the largest to have sunk there. She was located in deep water on November 14, 1975, by a U.S. Navy aircraft detecting magnetic anomalies, and found soon afterwards to be in two large pieces.

For 17 years, Edmund Fitzgerald carried taconite iron ore from mines near Duluth, Minnesota, to iron works in Detroit, Toledo, and other Great Lakes ports. As a workhorse, she set seasonal haul records six times, often breaking her own record. Captain Peter Pulcer was known for piping music day or night over the ship's intercom while passing through the St. Clair and Detroit rivers (between lakes Huron and Erie), and entertaining spectators at the Soo Locks (between Lakes Superior and Huron) with a running commentary about the ship. Her size, record-breaking performance, and "DJ captain" endeared Edmund Fitzgerald to boat watchers.

Carrying a full cargo of ore pellets with Captain Ernest M. McSorley in command, she embarked on her ill-fated voyage from Superior, Wisconsin, near Duluth, on the afternoon of November 9, 1975. En route to a steel mill near Detroit, Edmund Fitzgerald joined a second taconite freighter, SS Arthur M. Anderson. By the next day, the two ships were caught in a severe storm on Lake Superior, with near hurricane-force winds and waves up to 35 feet (11 m) high. Shortly after 7:10 p.m., Edmund Fitzgerald suddenly sank in Canadian (Ontario) waters 530 feet (88 fathoms; 160 m) deep, about 17 miles (15 nautical miles; 27 kilometers) from Whitefish Bay near the twin cities of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, and Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario—a distance Edmund Fitzgerald could have covered in just over an hour at her top speed.

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