Ski By Fire

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yogi
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Re: Ski By Fire

Post by yogi »

Be it waste disposal, cable television, or maintaining a jail, life in 2019 cannot be conducted without them. There are a few quirky people who live out in the wilderness and avoid all this modern city life, but they are by far the exceptions. For well over 90% of humanity all those city services are necessary to keep up our standard of living. I can't argue against providing those services the most cost effective way either. All I can do is remind you of a point we agreed upon long ago in one of our rambling threads, i.e., corporations run this country. Neither you, nor I, nor those people dedicated to public service are calling the shots. I think a lot of people are aware of this but choose to believe we still have freedom of choice. That's the way Big Brother and his corporate buddies like it to be.
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Re: Ski By Fire

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Yeppers!

The corporations, especially the big ones, have all the poly-TICK-ians in their pockets.
And this is how our congress members become millionaires on a 100+k salary. They are bought!

Here I go with percentages, hi hi.
Previously I made the statement that 1% of Americans are Millionaires, and 50% of member of congress are millionaires.
I did my own research to get the facts straight, even if just for myself.
Turns out (excluding old money) 4% of Americans have become millionaires, and 51% of members of congress have become millionaires while in congress. 16% were already millionaires before being elected, but this figure includes old money. I could not figure out if the old money for these was through politics. Eg. The Kennedy Families children who went into congress did so as millionaires, so are not counted in the 51% who became millionaires while in congress. The finances of nearly every poly-TICK-ian are hidden from the public, so we only have historical data to glean from.
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Re: Ski By Fire

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Don't misunderstand me. I am against any illegal activity in general, and particularly not from those people who are representing me in congress. There may be people around me who have a different set of values wherein they can justify and promote illegal and immoral behavior. I think this difference is very obvious these days when it comes to the so called blue states verses red states. The values of people living in those states simply are different and thus we could expect representatives in both houses of congress to have wide and varied points of view. As you certainly must have heard over the years there is the political philosophy that favors business and there is the political philosophy that favors the average man. There are other philosophies too, but these two are the big ones.

In consideration of all the differences I see nothing wrong with representatives who have friends and associates in big businesses and or labor unions. It's not only natural but a requirement for a political representative to have contacts with many sectors of the country. This networking is how things get done on a political scale. The constitution of the United States specifically says that the president cannot use his/her office for personal gain, the infamous emoluments clause. I don't know, however, if that applies to the legislative branch as well as the administrative branch. I'd guess it does apply, but more than that the office itself would demand selfless service in the best interest of the people.

Lobbying of itself is built into the system and is necessary. I"m not against that either because that is how I personally would be able to get touch with my representatives in congress. As far as accepting gifts (or bribes) from lobbyists is concerned, it should be discouraged and illegal. Unfortunately there are some gray areas when it comes to the effects of supporting certain legislation. For example, the AARP has zillions of members (most of which live in Florida would be my guess) and any legislation that favors their cause would garner a lot of votes. Is this an illegal act? Those voters who were ecstatically happy about their representative's support might also be inclined to send money for his/her reelection campaign. The rep did something for the people and incidentally benefited personally. Is this too an illegal act? I'd say on principle it is not illegal, but certainly raises a lot of eyebrows from people not familiar with the ways of politics.

Obvious criminal acts are never justified. It's just that there are a lot of cases where it's not obvious. As far as congressmen becoming millionaires while in office goes, I'm not clear on why that is an issue. Being a millionaire in 2019 is not like being a millionaire was in 1969. Of course any suspicious gains in fortune should be investigated regardless of who you are. I doubt that it would be possible to find out how those people in congress obtained their millions, but I have a feeling not as many as one might suspect did it illegally.
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Re: Ski By Fire

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Tell me this, how did TOC who couldn't even afford a small apartment suddenly become a millionaire?

If you slip some bucks to a law enforcement officer, it is bribery.
But if you slip some bucks to a poly-TICK-ian, it is lobbying.

Sure looks like bribery to me! Big bucks to get them to vote a certain way, even when they don't want to lean in that direction, they take the money and do so anyhow.
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Re: Ski By Fire

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You and I are on the same page when it comes to bribes. It's illegal, period. Telling a representative that contributions to his/her campaign fund would be forthcoming depending on how they vote for given legislation is a bribe. However, think about the AARP organization that represents millions of older folks. Any legislator that votes in the interest of us older folks is more likely to get our vote than not. So, when the AARP lobby talks to a swing voting representative about the needs of the people the AARP represents, is it still bribery when those people send money to support the representative? You personally could lobby for the same thing the AARP does (not likely I know, just saying) because you want to have your opinion heard using the lobby system. Would you be guilty of bribery if you sent money to support his campaign and voted for him/her to boot?

I doubt that is the kind of situation that gets a rise out of you. It's the greedy corporations who need certain laws to be passed to improve their profits that bothers people the most. A corporate lobby will see the congressman before you would simply because they represent a greater number of people and have way more influence than does any individual. It just makes sense to talk to those kind of lobbies first. Plus, why would a congressman vote for something we as individuals advocate when the alternative is to vote for a group or corporation that represents millions of people? They are there to represent the people, right? On the surface that doesn't seem fair at all, but that's what politics is. You know ... you can't please all the people all the time and all that.
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Re: Ski By Fire

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When I was in my thirties to forties, I used to write to our congressmen all the time.
A few of those letters actually made it to his desk after being screened by his secretaries.
It was not uncommon to get a canned response letter saying he would take it under advisement or some other such form letter.
But a couple of times I did get back a letter requesting a little more information.
I remember one that said, What Happened to prompt you to send this too me. Please Respond.
It included a special envelope to send the response back in so it went straight to him.
So long ago, I don't even remember what it was about anymore.
But it seems something was done in a small way to alleviate the problem. Not what I wanted done, but something which helped the situation.
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Re: Ski By Fire

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I think the lobbyists get a lot of publicity, but there are times when they respond to requests from individuals as well.

I probably told this story before because it impressed me immensely, but it's worth stating again in this thread. I worked with a guy who came here from Pakistan to study. He got his engineering degree and decided to stay. I can't recall if he was a citizen at the time or not, but I recall he was working toward that end. We would have lunch and breaks almost every day and talk about how rotten the US government is compared to Pakistan. So, I asked why he didn't stay in Pakistan, and he said as bad as things are America is still better.

At some point after earning his degree and being employed by Motorola, he went back to Pakistan, married a lady, and impregnated her. He came back after the wedding but she did not want to leave. Eventually as the baby was about to be born she changed her mind. The problem was that she had to deal with the American consulate at the embassy in Pakistan. They were not very helpful given the circumstances.

My buddy ran out of ideas and complained all the more about how bad the system is. So, half jokingly, I told him to go right to the top and write a letter to the president fo the United States explaining his situation. That president was Ronald Reagan. It took a week or so but he managed to compose a letter and send it off. He showed it to me and it is what you would expect from a person whose native language was not English. The points he wanted to make were clear enough, but it certainly wasn't anything I figured would get to Reagan's desk. All we could do was wait. The baby was born and still no response from the American Embassy. We waited weeks to hear from the president, and then months. Nothing. Not even an acknowledgement that the letter got to its destination.

Then, one day, my buddy was very excited when he came to lunch. Apparently the consulate in Pakistan decided to process the application his wife put in. Three days later (more or less) she was on American soil with the baby. The truth is he never got a response from the president's office. But, things happened after he wrote the letter. I'm guessing somebody, if not Ronald Reagan himself, decided to lend their authority to this case to make it happen.
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Re: Ski By Fire

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I'm glad she finally got to come and join him.

Sometimes the letters we wrote did get acted upon, especially when it was 1/3 of the members of our subdivision.
Unfortunately, the bureaucrats who implemented the solution, did so bass ackwards, which made the situation even worse.
More than 3/4 of the members of our subdivision were up in arms and lined up at the county offices to protest the lame-brained action.
Apparently, this made a few in the county office super mad, because they came out, took down the signs, and placed a barricade across the problem entrance.
No worries though, the Fire Marshal came by that same day, or the next morning, and called a wrecking crew to unblock the entrance for fire safety reasons.

The problem was only in the morning, folks taking their kids to skewl would cut through our subdivision, rather than going one more block to the street the school was on. In the evening after school, they would stay on the street the school was on up to the intersection, because their was a light to make their left turn to head back home again.
Now, folks who lived in the subdivision would naturally turn into the subdivision off the school road.
In other words, we had zero problems with short-cutting traffic after school let out, it was only in the morning.
In their infinite wisdom, the erected a No Left Turn sign at the entrance to our subdivision at the school road.
This meant those who lived in the subdivision now had to go all the way up to the highway, make a left, then wait until they had a break in traffic to make a left into the subdivision off the highway. Very dangerous.
While the short-cutting traffic we complained about in the morning actually increased due to the added congestion of those waiting to turn back into the subdivision after taking their kids to school.
So the cure the county tried increased traffic on our subdivision street by triple, instead of stopping the short-cutters.
But what did we expect, that's the government for ya!
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yogi
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Re: Ski By Fire

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The world's most brilliant people seldom end up with a government job, unless they are doing research on a grant or something like that. Thus I feel your pain when you say the solutions coming out of city hall are often worse than the original problem. The government's ability to solve a problem isn't the same thing as being able to petition the change in the first place. To my way of thinking access to the decision makers in government is way more important than how or if the solution is implemented. You know, democracy and representing the people and all that are at stake. Competency is something else.
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Re: Ski By Fire

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You got that right Yogi!

I can't recall the number of times my jaw hit the floor when I saw how something was implemented by government.
In a subdivision behind us, they turned the main drag through the subdivision into a one-way street, going the wrong way to solve the problem they had, and as usual, it only made their problem worse too, hi hi.

It's not only government, some large businesses do dumb things also. Take the entrance doors on Walmart as an example.
It makes sense to have the doors backwards on the left side of the building to facilitate ingress to the store and egress after checking out with a cart full. But to have them backwards on the right side of the building only causes a major traffic jamb at the doorway. People leaving with full carts, have to cross paths with folks trying to get in with empty carts.
I'm sure some college grad came up with that stupid idea.
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Re: Ski By Fire

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I went to WalMart yesterday for the first time in more than a year. I needed three things they sell, but came away with only one of them. The greatest disappointment was that they don't have and pre-emergent weed killer. They have tons of weed killer that can be applied to an established lawn, but no pre-emergent. I asked one of the associates for help and they said all the stock isn't in yet. Come back in about a month and they probably will have it. That would be nice but a month from now would be too late to apply the stuff. I really dislike shopping there. Can you tell? LOL
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Re: Ski By Fire

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I hate Walmart also. The stores here are all higher priced than the local stores, and Walmart rarely carries anything I buy anymore. Most of the things I went to Walmart to get, they eventually quit carrying, and/or started selling another brand I can't stand the taste of.
One of the local stores I shop at most often, will actually keep in stock in the back room some things I have him get for me in a bulk order on a monthly basis. The ones I buy most often he has a bin for me in back with a Keep Full sign on it for the vendors who deliver the products. This works out well for both of us, because he doesn't have to make a special order, and I don't have to buy a whole months supply each time.
We also found a small commercial supply store a little ways northwest of us who still carries the standard 4-1/2" width toilet paper, and at about 1/3 less per sq. ft. than Walmart, and it's the texture I prefer in TP also, so it's a win win for me.
They also carry the kind the frau likes as well, but only about 1/4 less per sq. ft. than Walmart.
There are a few things my little local store cannot get for me, and this new store we found up north can in any amount I want, for a fair price too.
I'm slowly building up deals down here similar to the types I had in St. Louis County, unfortunately, I'm no longer able to do most of the things I would like to be able to do, nor do I have the money to do so.
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Re: Ski By Fire

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I like the idea of special deals to satisfy my needs for things that are not standard fare here in O'Fallon. There is a brand of pizza sauce, for example, that was in every store up north. That brand is nonexistent down here. However, I discovered that I can buy as little as one can of the sauce from Target if I buy it online. To add insult to injury, they will be happy to arrange for me to pick it up at the store that won't sell it off their shelf! So I order it online now, a case at a time.

I also have a favorite brand of coffee that happens to be distributed from a place in a suburb of Chicago near where I used to live. Their coffee, like the pizza sauce, was in every store I shopped at up there. It turns out that the brand is in every store down here too, but it is not sold in the fine grind that I desire. I haven't talked to anybody at Schnucks to see if they would special order it given that they deal with the company anyway. It's just easier to order a six-pack online and have it delivered to my front door.

I like the idea of being able to use 4 1/2" wide sheets of toilet paper. It's a surprise to me that it is still made because I haven't seen it in a long time. I'm sure if I were to find it, however, it would be the texture of fine sandpaper. Sounds about right for this town.
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Re: Ski By Fire

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But I like the Coarse Sandpaper type of TP to get the job done instead of just smearing it around.
Although It really isn't much different than Pom and other low cost brands.
Array is the brand name. Distributed by Gordon Food Service.
I buy the softer types to use on my nose drips, like the kind Mr. Whipple squeezed, hi hi.

The TP industry has always been a big con game. They give all kinds of totally useless numbers on the packages, while at the same time shorting the customers by thousands of sq. in.

The number of sheets on a roll is also meaningless. Sizes range from 4-1/2 inches all the way down to 3-1/4 inches in the length of the sheets. I only go by the number of sq. ft. per roll of double ply. Albeit, some double ply is now thinner than what one ply used to be, so they have come out with three ply now.
Every time the size of a roll gets less, they claim it is more and up the price even higher.

Scott's was the only brand that consistently gave more for the money than any other brand, if you like that brand. I didn't so always looked for something else, but of a similar price value.
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Re: Ski By Fire

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Never used a bidet, but I'm convinced it's the only way to get the job done right. I'm guessing I could buy a lot of TP for the price of a good bidet, but there is this matter of quality. It's the same idea behind me not caring about the sq ft on a given roll. I want the texture more than the economy. I will, however, keep the Array brand in mind when I go on my next TP hunt. Who knows, I may like it.
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Re: Ski By Fire

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The Array is fairly soft on the outer layer, a little rougher on the inner layer.
Depending on the job at hand, I may roll a wad on my hand backwards to get the scouring affect desired, hi hi.

You may have a Gordon's Food Service distributor around you. Not sure if Allen's still carries Gordon's or not, or even if Allen's still has a place open to the public. They used to downstairs around back which was open when I moved south around 15 or more years ago.

When I was raising 8 kids, we did almost all of our shopping at Allen's, hi hi.
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Re: Ski By Fire

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Couldn't find Allen's on Google but there is a Gordon's Food Service next door in St Peters. Interesting enough there is also one in Illinois and a couple more places in MO. Their web page looks appetizing but apparently they are geared up to sell to businesses.

I learn so much from you inadvertently. LOL I think that double textured toilet paper is a brilliant idea. I know about multiple ply paper, but always assumed they were the same texture throughout. I might have to go out of my way to find Gordon's and try some of this Array stuff.
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Re: Ski By Fire

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Look at whatever TP you have in your house, almost all brands have a soft side and a rough side, especially if it is embossed with a pattern. The soft side has indents, the rough side has bumps from the indents, and the back side of the paper is slightly coarser on most brands.

About the only brand of green beans we buy are from Allen's. I forget what they are called, possibly Italian Green Beans, the wide flat ones. We cook these down like a southerner, hi hi. Allen's has the best flavor of them all. Don't know why, they just do. Even just for the two of us, a gallon can cooked down is only enough for two to three meals, mainly because I eat tons of them when we have them.

As far as baked beans go, we only buy Bush's Baked Beans, in the 303 size can. Walmart does not carry that size, so we will stock up when we go to Sam's or Aldi, when they have them.
We have numerous cans of Bush's assorted styles of beans which we don't really like, so will often add them to the Original Baked Beans, sometimes after we rinse them off a little, like the Maple Cured baked beans have a wee bit too much Maple to eat by themselves.

Another thing we do is mix a can of Cobcut Corn, with a can of Cream Style Corn, for something a little bit different.
The frau thinks I'm crazy because she likes to drain the Cobcut and add butter when she cooks them.
Told her to leave mine in the water and serve with a couple of slices of bread. I like to sop the corn juice with the bread as I eat the Cobcut corn. But since we learned the trick of mixing a drained can of Cobcut with a Cream Style, that is how we do it most often now.
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Re: Ski By Fire

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My first official job ever was as a dummy boy (don't ask) for an envelope company. It was a fun job but just something to hold me over until I found a real job. Anyway, on that job I learned that paper has a wire side and a gloss side. Not sure those are the correct terms anymore, but they are close. All paper is made on a conveyor that is basically a wire mesh. The conveyor runs through some rollers that puts the smooth finish on the exposed surface. It's all very finely tuned and there are different grades of mesh and gloss, but in all cases the printing must be done on the gloss side. Well, that's how envelopes are done anyway. It never occurred to me that toilet paper would have the same design, but it makes sense that it does.

I make a pea salad with cheese that can only approach perfection if I use those tiny canned peas with a French sounding name. The small size has something to do with it, but I think the unique flavor of the water in which they are canned is the defining factor. It's also the reason why I don't like to use canned vegetables. The packing liquid changes the flavor, plus I'm not convinced that the metal of the can stays put and doesn't contaminate the food. I've taken a liking to frozen vegetables when I can't get them fresh. Those called "steamables" are the best in that they are often bland out of the package. I can add my own spices and oils to those.

Beans from Bush are arguably the best. They are readily available down here in O'Fallon which makes them all the more attractive. I have made a few specialty dishes that require good beans and for those I would go through the trouble of using dry beans. By far the Bush beans are the ones I use in most of my recipes. Those baked beans from Bush would cause you to go into a diabetic coma if you ate them out of the can, or so it seems. The nutrition label suggests they are not so bad in small quantities. My favorite use for old cans of beans (any variety) is chili. It's a great way to clean out the pantry. LOL
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Re: Ski By Fire

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I went through a Georgia Pacific paper plant once, but only in the tour hall, not where the work was going on.
It was just a long hall in each building with windows so you could stand and watch the machines and workers adding the ingredients.
There was a video first that showed some of the things the machines were doing with doors or covers open so they could film the process going on inside.
What interested me the most was the plant that made newspaper stock. It came out on humongous rolls, and this is how they are delivered to the newspaper printing companies.
A few years later I went through the Post-Dispatch printing plant, and there I was most interested in the paper feed room, to see how they used those humongous rolls. Very interesting the way they are all lined up and using straps to get them spinning feed one right after the other, almost so fast you can't see the paper flying through the presses.

You do know that cans are lined with a plastic film. Heck, an aluminum soda can would deteriorate in short order without that plastic liner. Before the invention of plastics, steel cans were coated on the inside with a tin alloy, thus the reason for them being called tin cans.

You are right about the water used in food processing and canning.
Before soda water companies began using RO water, I could tell you what brand of soda, and which bottling plant it came from. My family often tested me on this with Pepsi Cola from several different bottlers in our state and adjoining states.
At that time I could tell you if it came from a 10 oz bottle, 12 oz bottle, or can, and from which bottling plant.
It really wasn't all that hard to do either. If you were used to drinking from 10 oz bottles like we had at work, a 12 oz bottle tasted weak, like too much water. Or vice versa, if you were used to 12 oz bottles, the 10 oz was sweeter and stronger. This is because they used the same amount of syrup in both size bottles.
Cans were a dead giveaway because they had a different taste, and only two plants did cans back then, and the southernmost plant their water tasted like rust compared to the plant up north.
Bottles could come from four different plants, and naturally, the taste I was accustomed to was from the St. Louis bottling plant. The one that always came close to tripping me up was a plant over in Illinois, had a close taste to the plant in Oukaville, but the soda bottled in Illinois had a different smell, sort of like coal oil smell, which was not in the taste of the soda.
Then the plants all switched to using RO water and I could no longer tell a difference in 12 oz bottle or can, but could still pick out the 10 oz for a few years. I think they may have changed how they packaged and did the blending first before it went into the bottles or cans because it wasn't long before it tasted the same across the board, at least up until the time they came out with 2-liter bottles. Never did like the taste of soda in plastic bottles. It also warmed up too quick after you took it out of the fridge.

I prefer canned over frozen on some veggies, but prefer frozen over canned on others. Then there are some I only like fresh, not canned or frozen.
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