I think that's at the discretion of the judge, if you asked for 15%, likely you'll get your principal back, if you asked for 1500%, chances are you won't get a dime back as punishment, and may end up owing the borrower if you went overboard trying to collect.

I live in California, building codes change constantly. I agree, it is maddening and often backwards. He was specifically talking about codes for building stand alone solar, which are newer building codes. Even old building codes are often poorly thought out and contradictory. I'm not saying there isn't an abundance of red tape here, especially for building.
That said, his contractor should have been aware of all codes, submitted his plan, and would have approval or notes on what to change in weeks tops. There's something wrong when it takes over a year to get a shed built, some reason his plans weren't approved like they weren't to code.
Citation : personal experience - I installed solar in California, it took 3 days for my permit approval....and only that long because my contractor was being lazy.

That's the thing I disagree with, no new laws are needed at all, just a removal of exemptions/deregulations for businesses that pay large enough bribes (contributions) to elected officials. Even making all credit businesses operate on the same rules, allowing them 30% interest, seems ok, but that isn't reality today. It's unconscionable to allow 1600% interest on loans peddled to desperate people that don't actually qualify for a real, legitimate line of credit, many of whom don't understand it's what they're agreeing to, but the payday loan lobby is well funded and connected.
Citation:
Although U.S. states set their own maximum legal interest rates, a Supreme Court interpretation of the National Bank Act of 1864 preempted state usury laws and created a path toward a national consumer lending economy. The most important federal case in credit card interest rate deregulation was decided in 1978.

Her problems were multifold. The predatory loan took a fixable issue, her terrible customer service, and compounded it with insurmountable and ever expanding debt, which in turn undoubtedly hurt her customer service more, thus increasing her debt..... It sounds like she never should have purchased a service oriented business, and likely overextended herself from day one just to do it.

I'm unsure of your point in the last paragraph.

Are you trying to say the Uighurs, but your racism got in the way? "Wigger" is a compound word, care to say what those two words are? Now, care to explain how you aren't racist but publicly use those racist terms?

FYI, they are actually backed by the Falun Gong new religious movement, not the Uighurs.

I didn't mean to upvote your post since it's misleading....so you don't get confused.

I thought you were saying everyone can benefit from chemical compounds that react in their body to produce certain effects.
That I agree with.

That everyone should use recreational (I'm assuming including unregulated, blackmarket, psychoactive) drugs I strongly disagree with.
Many people are not mentally equipped to have a single light beer, one of the least potent recreational drugs while some few can successfully smoke crack in moderation. Many don't have the experience to avoid fake, adulterated, or deadly drugs. Some have physical limitations that could make a joint deadly.

Remember, especially with humans, there are always exceptions to any rule.

My great great grandmother rented out houses in a small town in Louisiana in the early 1900's. One day when checking on her properties she found a chest full of KKK robes in a garage of one of her rentals. Instead of confronting her renters, she dragged the chest to the town square, pulled out the robes, and burned them all.
Her renters moved.

Holy shit is this moron deluded.

I'll never understand why they don't just buy a compound, and make it a club, admission by invitation only. Be separatist all you want, on your own property.

Wait, he thinks you can separate races by the language they speak? You've got to be kidding me, you moron.

Homosexuals are to be killed, just like people who eat shellfish or wear blended fabrics, or mow their lawn on Sunday even once. There are dozens to hundreds of rules that call for stoning, if you're Jewish. Not if you follow Christ. Those instructions come from the old testament, not the new.
If he thinks that doesn't matter, he needs to lynch himself immediately.

Ok, @bobknight33, grand wizard of N Carolina supports Trump, his chapter supports Trump, the grand Dragon supports Trump, the organization supports Trump. Not Biden. Of course, despite hearing it directly from the Klan you'll deny it and say they support Biden, that's called being delusional.

And my old compound eyes. :face with monocle: :face (both failed)

@newtboy,

EDIT: drafted this and sent while you were writing previous reply, so maybe some of this is addressed?

Alright, I've gone one step further and read through the shutdownld50 tumblr 'evidence' seeing as they of all places probably gather the most condemning evidence they could.

The evidence amounts to putting on 1 event/exhibit that included far right folks, and included "Brett Stevens", whom I'm not familiar with but the quote from him on Breivik certainly sounds bad. In addition to putting on this exhibit, the even worse accusation is that they didn't really advertise it much publicly. Now, call me skeptical, but I have to believe that if they HAD advertised it heavily that ALSO would have compounded their guilt.

To me it still looks like guilt be association. The gallery had the audacity to host speakers that people disliked, so ergo-nazi!

Please though, if there is more or better evidence then please do let me know, or point me to what I'm missing. Is the Stevens guy so vehemently pro-nazi and and pro-violence that the association really should be enough? I'm inclined to believe no else they'd have better and more extensive quotes to use against him.

Again, I'm coming from a place of not knowing any of these people's backgrounds or history, but if we are supposed to believe them to be villians of such a high degree, I want a stronger case than those people say so and if you spent a few weeks of research on it you'd agree, trust us.

Newt,

This is in response to your comment on my statement about Biden needing to lose in '20.

I recently wrote this as a reply to one of my readers (I write under a number of different names in other places).:

Dear <name>,

>I took some time to absorb what you wrote. It's a lot to juggle. The Atlantic has an article in the July-August issue on the worst and best case scenario in CLO defaults. I'll read more.

I read the article you mentioned, and while it's certainly good, it also misses a very important point that explains the mess we're in: the collapse of Lehman and Bear-Stearns, while catastrophic in their own ways, were not the nightmare that caused the Fed to freak out in 2008 -- AIG was. Had AIG gone under and the counterparty default contracts triggered, we'd be on the barter system right now. We came within hours of not having an economy in the western world. The $700b ($.7t) the Fed coughed up to stop this from happening calmed the panic, but did nothing to resolve the underlying issues. These issues continued to compound during the 2011-2020 stock run-up and now we're at the point where the Fed is throwing trillions of dollars at every piece of bad debt they can find just to keep the whole thing from imploding into an economic black hole. It is important to note that in September '19, the credit markets started freezing because of the debt that was already on the books then, -before- CV-19 started rolling, and it took $3t just to get them unlocked again. Absolutely nothing has gotten better since then, and I would argue things have gotten dangerously worse.

In an odd coincidence, the NYT ran an article today about the looming bankruptcy crisis. They're calling for 30-60 days before things start imploding, but I'll stick to my estimate of ~90 days. There's some talk about extending the $600 benefits (we'll see) and chatter about another stimulus check, but that's kicking the can as well as telegraphing how bad things really are. When the Republicans are getting behind free money, you know we're in some uncharted territory. For all intents and purposes, Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) -- the reason the Fed is backstopping debt and printing money like crazy -- is the hill the US economy will live or die on. Should the US dollar come unpegged as the world's de facto currency or should inflation begin (and there's already worrying signs this is happening), that's game over.

Please don't take anything I say as the Word of God; please do your own research and come to your own conclusions. Everything I've said is an opinion based on my education, experience and way of thinking. Your mileage may vary.

Here is the article I mentioned: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/business/corporate-bankruptcy-coronavirus.html -- might be paywalled, but clear your cookies for the NYT and you should be able to read it.


>Frankly, it's the physical danger in my area of the States that concerns me. There are the guns and bullying. During some BLM demonstrations in the Midwest, locals were standing around with semi-automatics. I drive a Prius for the fuel efficiency. Pick up trucks enjoy tailgating, trying to intimidate me. This behavior isn't going to change with a change of President but will get worse is we don't change. This ideological push to takeover the country instead of ruling by compromise started around the same time we came to the US in 1981, Reagan's first year. I was so shocked when I heard talk radio for the first time; this wasn't the country I had left in the 1970s.


And now we come to the giant pile of sweaty dynamite that's just waiting for the right shock to set it off. I could give you a prolonged lecture about how this all started in 1978 with California's Proposition 13, or how David Stockman's tragically prescient warnings were blatantly ignored, but Haynes Johnson does a far better job at this than I ever could in his 1991 book "Sleepwalking Through History", as does Kevin Phillips in 2006's "American Theocracy". Honestly, at this point, the prelude is academic. The reality of the situation is that a large swath of adult Americans are appalling ill-educated, innumerate and devoid of even the most basic critical-thinking skills. These people are now locked out of the Information Economy. They lack the most basic skills required to compete in the 21st century job market and thus will watch their standard of living sink into the abyss. These people are not blind to this fact because they're living with the reality of their situation every single day. They're totally without hope, cut off from all avenues of control over their own lives and they feel utterly abandoned by the very people who're supposed to be helping them. The reason you're seeing bullying and behavior like that is because these same people are totally removed from any avenues of recourse and the only people they can take their anger out on are people like you and me. Their anger is being stoked on a daily basis. FOX News and the GOP are experts at this and have a host of boogeymen to keep the anger from being pointed their way: ANTIFA, BLM (black Americans have always made a perfect target), "coastal elites" and, of course, Liberals.

Trump's election was a warning, not an outlier. Trump was the primal scream of these people and Liberals and the Democrats as a whole chose not to listen because they found the sound so abhorrent. The rage will only get worse and the number of people enveloped by this rage will only grow as economic conditions worsen. At this point, it no longer matters who wins in '20. Winning the election will be like winning the deed to the World Trade Center one second after the first jet hit. The damage has already been done and no steps are being taken to repair it; if anything, people are actively making it worse either through ideological blindness, deliberate malfeasance or outright stupidity. It took almost 50 years to get to this point and the endemic issues will not be undone in a single generation, much less a single election. Until the people who voted for Trump feel a sense of real hope, a sense of control over their lives and a genuine expectation of recourse for their grievances, they will keep right on voting for Trump, or people like him.

My unfortunate suspicion is that this country will rip itself to shreds long before those reforms are enacted.

Side note: the fundamental difference between the United States and Europe is that European history has forced the nations of Europe to live with the consequences of their actions. Not so the United States. Europe has suffered for her sins. Not so the United States. The two bloodiest wars in human history were fought on European soil. Not so the United States. The United States has never faced true suffering, nor has it ever had to live with the ramifications of its own actions. Both these facts are about to change and a nation whose character is built on a mythology of individual action and violence is going to have to face reality. The people of this nation are not prepared for this and they will not like it.

Second side note: many people are erroneously comparing the current situation to the Wiemar Republic. This is a lack of historical understanding. A more apt comparison would be to Spain in late 1935.


>As for re-opening, we could have gotten some control if the "leader" had simply donned a mask and used realistic thinking. People could go back to work more safely, wash hands, stay a certain distance. But his hubris led the way, so now we'll have a roller coaster for months and years that will affect the economy even more. France is a good comparison because they were unprepared also, having slashed the public healthcare budget for the last twenty years. But when they laid down the rules, troops patrolled the streets to be sure they were followed. So far, they've flattened the curve (for now), and used different economic incentives, such as paying part of employees' salaries to keep them employed.

At this point, the pace of re-opening is a difference between very bad and much worse. Had $3t been used to pay the yearly salary of every American, we could have saved lives and the economy, but we didn't. The history of 2020 will be littered with "what-ifs". However, the first thing you learn when studying history is that what-ifs are useless because things are what they are and you can't change that. It's already obvious we're going into a second wave. If previous pandemics are any indication of what's to come, this second wave will be many times worse than the first. The wait for a vaccine is indeterminate, but if we're going for herd immunity, ~70% of Americans will need to catch the virus. To date, ~1.5% have. If the US population is ~330 million, ~230 million will need to catch the virus. Call the mortality rate 2%, that means ~4.6 million Americans will die. That's a lot of dead Americans and grieving families.

Take care,

(my actual name)

It's not really about the ramp. He's an old rickety man, naturally he has trouble.

The problem is that he forces doctors to lie about his health, then things like this make the truth obvious.

Then he compounds lies upon lies. His skin is so thin he just can't let it go, he rambles for 10 minutes about how unfair everything is.

Remember, this is a guy born to incredible wealth, never worked a day in his life, thinks that knowing a fucking rhinoceros from a drawing is an impressive achievement, is cruel and demeaning whenever he has a chance, treats the world, and women's genitalia as his own personal playground with few repercussions, no matter how egregiously he's broken the law, rips off investors, contractors, the very country he now pretends to serve, lost billions of dollars in personal wealth while bragging about how good he is with money, had to turn to Russian lenders because US and European banks wouldn't touch him anymore, yet somehow fell ass backwards into the presidency of the US. Now he uses that position to line his own pockets, without the slightest care for those he hurts or kills in the process.

And yet... he finds life doesn't treat him fairly. He whines and complains.

You know the only time he's seemed truly sad and upset while President?

Was it when 100,000 Americans died while he made things worse?

No.

Was it when police started ramming innocent protestors and media with their vehicles, tear gassing, beating, and maiming with rubber bullets?

No.

What about when mass shootings happened on his watch, or school shootings, like Obama?

No.

He got truly publicly upset for the first time in his presidency when a disappointing number of adoring fans came to a rally.

He is so pathetic and useless, so self-serving and evil that pain, death, suffering on a scale that really hasn't been seen in the US in a very long time means nothing.

The only thing that matters is him.

Now, what were you saying about Biden?

Do you still want to do that side-by-side comparison?

Do you really think this is about a ramp?

Stuck inside sick then stuck in ICU = vitamin D deficiency. Like she says, correlation is not causation. But to netwboy's point, it's a very studied compound with not a lot of known downside if taken as directed, so whaddya got to lose? Just a bit of money, like all those vitamin C pills I took to keep from getting sick

So, we're up to at a minimum of 4 impeachment investigations now.
1) publicly asking and privately extorting multiple foreign powers to investigate American citizens to help his campaign, with mountains of evidence, including direct quid quo pro that isn't a necessary component of the crimes but compounds them.
2) a second whistleblower report from the IRS accusing multiple appointees of interference in the audit of his taxes.
3) hostile foreign powers bribing him directly through his properties by booking and paying for hundreds of rooms at multiple properties without even staying in them, or violating the emoluments clause if they're found to not be bribes..
4) multiple unequivocal obstruction charges, born out by both his statements and the administration's flat refusal to comply with subpoenas.

These almost certainly aren't the only investigations into his increasing criminality, but any one is more than enough for removal and prison.

There's a new move to push for anonymous ballots if it gets to the Senate. Without fear of reprisals from Trump and his cultists, up to 35 Republican senators have already privately indicated they would impeach today, but they're terrified he would ruin their careers, which they put ahead of their nation, or that his zealous followers might try to murder them or their families.

But that doesn't matter because some of the 4%(+-2% margin of error) of support he has in the black community made a rap.

Edit: Oops! Another report this morning indicates Perry, along with Giuliani and multiple Trump officials and Trump himself were pushing Ukraine to install Trump's friends on the board of a huge Ukrainian natural gas company in an unsurprisingly strikingly similar fashion to what they falsely accuse the Bidens of doing (it is his MO to accuse his enemies of the crimes he's involved in). That makes impeachment path #5 to be exposed, and explains the missing 18 minutes of the transcript of Trump's extortion call with the president of Ukraine. This is why we need the full, word for word, unredacted transcript of the call that Trump, in his idiocy, has already admitted exists.
Sorry @bobknight33, it's looking bad for daddy Donny. He also lost his case trying to block New York from his taxes this morning by claiming absolute immunity from prosecution, and claiming even a private examination of his tax returns would do him irreparable harm. Wonder why that would be.

Your video, Compounding Pharmacies: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This achievement has earned you your "Pop Star" Level 24 Badge!

What a disgusting piece of shit and outright liar.
Her achievements already outweigh his by miles...he's only managed to get himself kicked off Fox, impressively hard to do if you're right wing. Fox has apologized for his disgraceful ad hominem attacks against a child who he couldn't factually contradict....but Laura Ingram has also personally attacked her on her show, as has Trump on Twitter.

Being on the autism spectrum, she says she has aspergers, is a developmental disorder NOT a mental illness.
Being a pathological liar, that's a mental illness apparently now shared by an entire political party.
Being a fecal golem is a personality disorder he clearly has in spades.

The Carnegie Mellon study he sites said no such thing, and it's authors have stated that it's a total misrepresentation of their findings....repeatedly.
The study actually said certain produce at it's worst might be more ecologically harmful per calorie than some kinds of white meat eating by comparing things like bacon vs lettuce on a calorie to calorie instead of serving to serving rate, so 4 strips of bacon were compared to > 40 cups of lettuce. Get real.
To compound the confusion they chose a calorie poor produce like lettuce with high greenhouse gas emissions instead of kale, broccoli, rice, potatoes, spinach and wheat (just to name a few) which all rank lower than pork in terms of greenhouse gases.
The same argument holds for water usage...they chose lettuce, with high water requirements, instead of things like corn, peanuts, carrots and wheat which all use less water than all non-seafood meat.
It's also assumed the produce will be wasted at exponentially higher rates than meat, which can be preserved more easily. That may be true, but they don't include the preservatives or energy to refrigerate and/or freeze meat on the bacon side of the equation.

Of course the lettuce takes more resources if you eat 40+ cups instead of 4 thin bacon strips, just like when you compare a single fish stick to several giant pumpkins.

*rant over*

"In the next few decades"?! More like "a few decades ago".
Perhaps if we had started population control in the 80's with the goal of cutting global population in half by 2000 AND did the rest of what he suggests we might have a chance...we did not.

By the time we understood there was a problem there were less than a few decades left to solve it...that was around 40 years ago, and we've done everything possible to accelerate the damage we do on every front since then.

Ocean acidification is happening today, it's getting worse, it's slow to react to change so will continue to get worse even if humans disappeared tomorrow, it has built in feedback loops that have been triggered like melting methanehydrates and sequestered CO2 that are being released faster every single day, and we are increasing the man made causes every year. There is a point where it reaches critical acidification, the point where diatoms can't form their skeletons, and then the entire ocean system dies. That's far worse than the apocalypse it sounds like, not just because 50-60% of our oxygen comes from the ocean, but also because the rotting biomass creates huge amounts of not just more methane, compounding the greenhouse problem and further acidifying the oceans, but also immense amounts of hydrogen sulfide, which spread as huge poisonous clouds around the globe.
We are on our way to a man made Permian extinction, when >95% of all species went extinct and near 99% of all biomass was lost. We will not survive it as a species....and we don't deserve to.