billeisele

I was commenting on, and the article addresses, the fact that there are little to no credible stats on self-defense gun use. Yes, when the gun is fired and someone is shot the data is there. The experts agree that when no one is shot the data is not available. We agree on the rest of the comments. That raises the same ole questions. What legal and effective measures can be used to limit access to guns for people that should not have them while allowing the other 98+% of law-abiding people to have them? A number of suggestions have been made. One problem remains, criminals don't follow laws.

Good morning Wendy. I know you are much smarter than this statement. First, yes they will. Those two won't rob again. My statement was merely to point out that if those two were the ones doing that specific crime then there would be a drop in that crime ... until someone else starts doing it. Comparing two incidents, 10 vs. 2, has no validity. The media is not the place to find accurate stats/info on the various ways that guns are misused or used as intended. It's impossible to find good data on the correct use of firearms. This is one article that makes many statements about the lack of clarity on gun data. https://injepijournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40621-022-00384-8 This one discusses the phrase,“a good guy with a gun” is the only thing that can stop “a bad guy with a gun.” There is little clarity on the issue of legitimate gun use. https://www.thetrace.org/2022/06/defensive-gun-use-data-good-guys-with-guns/#:~:text=According to the survey%2C firearms,average of 36%2C660 per year. None of that matters. What is important is that the mass shootings are terrible. Some think that guns are the problem, others think not. We agree on so much.

Two robbers that won't do that again. I would be interesting to see if the 1/week jugging incidents stop. https://www.kbtx.com/2023/07/08/man-shoots-kills-2-men-trying-rob-him-atm-police-say/ In Alamo City: Jan - May 2022 - 704 robberies, Jan - May 2023 - 710 robberies

Another wrong assumption. He wasn't promoted. He was hired from the outside. He had a successful track record in marketing, specifically in a new area the company was wanting to move in to. Long story ... short version is there were 3 VPs, not that it matters, but because you will ask, all were white, 2 males and 1 female. The VP that hired him was a hands-off guy, except with the ladies, and he let the manager get too far out of bounds of the culture of the company and outside of spending guidelines. The VP let it continue and he covered it up because the guy was successful. The VP was fired for sexual harassment. Again, not relevant but because you'll ask. Apparently it's not OK for a married VP to have a pool party with his employees, that was on the expense account, drink too much, have a younger married woman sit in your lap and pull down one side of her bikini top. He had also done the lap sitting thing in the office. The girl didn't complain but others, male and female, in the department did. He had other infractions but that one stuck, too many witnesses. That was around 1995 when things were different than they are now. The next VP took awhile to learn how far out of bounds the guy was without permission. He tried to reel him in but got caught up in rope-a-dope stuff. He just couldn't keep up with how fast this guy moved and where he was hiding his actions. He was fired and the Exec VP told the guy to "stop it." The next VP, the female, had a much different idea of how things should be done. Those two had heated arguments in the office. Loud enough that anyone could hear it through the walls. The problem for all the VPs was that he was quite successful and he made them look good. She eventually fired him, it was loud. It was bad enough that Corp Security escorted him out then brought him back in after hours to clean out his office.

You just continue to bury yourself. Not one thing in your reply is accurate. It's all assumptions, that are wrong.

Interesting turn of events. One of the articles stated that Harvard admitted 34% of the legacy applicants. So 66% didn't get in. One-third is an unusually high acceptance rate. It would be interesting to know how many of these, and of the general student body, either don't graduate or flunk out. No doubt that money is the or one of the drivers. Their trust/endowment fund is $53 billion. The sum of the endowments of the top ten schools is approximately $2.5 trillion. https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/the-short-list-college/articles/10-universities-with-the-biggest-endowments One quote, "... from 2014, a men’s tennis coach thanked the admissions dean for meeting with a possible recruit whose family had given $1.1 million, noting that officials “rolled out the red carpet” for the family. He added that “it would mean a great deal” to see the student at Harvard." Translated that could mean that it would mean a great deal of money.

Interesting article providing more points on the topic. In the 4th paragraph it says: "The end of affirmative action really started in 1978, with Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr.,’s opinion in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke—the first Supreme Court case on the matter—which tried to split the difference between a divided Court by arguing that the race of a candidate could be considered, but not as part of a reparative, quota-based program that tried to reduce the harms of slavery and injustice. Rather, race could only be considered by an admissions office that wanted, for the benefit of itself and its students, to produce a “diverse” student body." https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/why-the-champions-of-affirmative-action-had-to-leave-asian-americans-behind?mbid=social_twitter&utm_brand=tny&utm_medium=social&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=twitter

That's an interesting thought. My gosh, so many examples. The worst ones I've had were white, both male and female. At lunch on Friday with the retiree group one name in particular came up. a Marketing manager. He was a white guy from NY, been in the south for 15+ years. He wore expensive suits, unusual for our type business in SC. Did some borderline crazy things, and often had out-there ideas. One idea was using front row tickets to a premier boxing match in NY as a prize. We were in a 20 story bldg with cubicles. He had an oriental type rug in his office and would shuffle his feet like a boxer when he got excited about some wild scheme. He eventually got fired for a combination of negative behaviors. He got things done but they just didn't like how he did it. They hung him due to an unauthorized expense outside of his spending authority, the last one of many. Then there was the middle age white guy manager. on our floor, in another dept, that got caught with child porno on a jump drive in the office. This is when jump drives were fairly new and having one was unusual. His group, GIS, used them to give large files to each other. Corporate Security and the feds took him out of the bldg. Nice guy, no one had a clue. People do dumb stuff.

You are the most special kind of person. One with the unique power to read between the lines creating a story that never existed. Twisting and turning words and thoughts into a whole new meaning to justify yourself. Then demanding that one answer your questions. Always chiming in like a Chihuahua behind the big dogs, yapping up a storm then trying to lead the pack. Never with a unique thought of your own. It's impossible to have an intelligent conversation with all the background noise. Carry on, enjoy your yapping. You remind me of someone that just wants to argue and eventually does a great job of arguing with themselves.

It's really not complicated. I didn't provide all the details, all the evidence was there. Not a Peter P thing but plenty of that stuff also.

No doubt it is, and has been, a complicated topic. Some things are quantitative and others aren't. In this instance a minority group said they were being denied opportunities because others were being given preference based on race. Basically, no fair I'm more qualified. I'm not familiar with this issue at the college admission level but have seen it in the workplace. When bad decisions are made with promotions or hiring it harms the enterprise. I'm acutely aware of one example where a highly educated black female had another black female put in place as her manager. The new manager was super unqualified. The good employee quit and stated that was the prime reason for quitting. Not good. Bill V, Kallend and others will like this ... if you're in the electric utility industry in a technical department, and your new manager, that has worked in the industry for 15+ years, is representing your group in a meeting and they have to ask you, "What does frequency mean?", that's a sign that they are unqualified for the job. This particular manager was being placed in a job with a group of highly talented, long-term, competent employees. She was put there to be "out of the way", with the thinking that she couldn't mess it up. All she had to do was smile, sign off on administrative tasks like time sheets and expense reports, and keep her mouth shut. But no, she had to be in charge and tell people how to do things. So dumb.

What's interesting is that the lawsuit was brought by a group that was or still is a minority. They believe that are denied opportunities because of what they believe is preferential treatment of those less qualified.

Experienced risk takers :)

Thanks, it was funny. Clarity is a good thing.

The peeps that previously took the trip are probable thinking, "that wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done."

If this guy is still employed at HD, he won't be for long. https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=1535681783505351

Nice walk back in time. I remember the Philips earth tubes with the green ends. Encouraged a ton of customers to convert to electronic ballasts and 34W lamps, then to T-8s. Now there are the LED conversion tubes, and better yet the LED fixtures. It's interesting that the new LED fixtures have 5 temperature settings. Installed some new fixtures in a mechanical space last month and played around with the color options. Building inspectors must be disappointed since they can rarely bust an inspection due to an exit sign not working. The old 7W lamps used to be a guaranteed find, burned out. I still have my light table built with a U-bend T-12 shining thru milky plexiglas. It's great for reviewing slides. Wifey and daughter are currently emptying the 20+ carousels to decide what to get converted to digital.

God save the Queen As said before ... We'll see how it all plays out.

Help all of us understand how this makes sense in terms of: - Hillary with the basement server, the smashed blackberry, leaked classified documents that the convicted felon Weiner received, the 33,000 deleted emails (of which the FBI recovered 17,000 that were determined to be work related) and bleach bit - Hunter and his laptop - Joe with his corvette files and the files found in other places

We agree on much more than we disagree one. Didn't we already know that?

You sound like that, "I did not have sex with that woman" guy. So demanding! It's been said that the louder they are, either they have something to hide or just like to intimidate. Neither are good. Frankly, it's none of your business. If you somehow think you or anyone else has a right to know how anyone voted then we'll just have to disagree. But ... yes, I am flat denying that I voted only for R candidates in those elections.

What Wendy said :) I thought it was clear enough. Yes, we have finally advanced in the little country town that I'm addressed too, population 590. The voting location uses a tabletop electronic voting machine. The first page has boxes to vote D or R. To vote for individual candidates one has to scroll through the various pages. When finished the vote is electronically recorded and a paper ballot is printed. The ballots are deposited in a box in case the machine fails. One could click on the D or R box (pull the lever) and be done. Based on how long folks take to vote it appears that they are scrolling through the pages. I still like the pull-the-lever image, like a slot machine, it's often a gamble regardless of the candidate.

Thanks for the insights. Makes sense. No matter what happens there's plenty more drama to come.

Interesting question. It seems that anyone should be able to do anything they want, regardless of how irritating, anti-social or aggravating it is, as long as it's not a violation of the law. It would be great if the law and rules applied equally to everyone regardless of political party, race, sex, etc. Having said that, it would also be nice if the clock could be rolled back to a time when civility was the norm.

I'm wondering about what happens if... New history being made with this.