A latex balloon bio-degrades about as fast as an oak leaf. A birds' most-likely smart enough not to swallow one whole.
No lady, you are passionately mistaken. It takes less time for the latex to degrade in salt water the temperature being a non-issue. Admittedly though, it's a waste of helium and a balloon for the sake of video game software and it might choke a few seagulls, none of which will be missed, as San Fran has seen such an explosive rise in their numbers since being placed on the over-protected list, that they are encroaching on the habitats of less fortunate and more endangered species.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/31/san-francisco-seagulls_n_3672793.html

Fucking Californians. Heads-shoved-up-one's-own-ass-disorder seems to flourish there like barnacles on a ship's hull.

*promote

Chokes me up a bit.

I remember first hearing about it by seeing it on the front page of a newspaper in front of a neighbor's door as I walked past heading out to work. I couldn't believe it at first.

Glad he straightened out the bit about the stingray's barb. I still to this day hear people retelling how he caused his own demise by pulling it out.

SO uh....mom probably did abandon it or thought it fine, if it had been in any real danger of predators chances are good there aren't toooo many black bear
bobcat, lynx, cougar, or coyote in Hudson NY, river town (har)...smallish, quaint, lotta antique shops...cops with terse tones t'wards defenseless animals (probably bullied in school, hope he doesn't have kids). Why call animal control, free the little guy and let him loose back into the food chain, he/she looked fine innit?? Not like it was frikkin' choking on those xmas lights.

The reason MMA fights are more likely ending with getting choked out than having your limbs broken is quite simple. If you are the guy who breaks everybodys shit, nobody will want to fight you anymore because broken bones take you out of fighting (the thing you do to make money), training (the thing that allows to compete on such a level in the first place) and the enjoyments of life (ever tried to masturbate with two broken hands?) for weeks. Weeks or erven months.
Nobody will book you or allow you in their competitions anymore because 30 second fights aren't that interesting (which is why proffesional boxing matches rarely turn out to be like Muhammad Ali vs random guy from the audience), getting qualified and equal fighters as opponents becomes next to impossible (see above) and "liability" would be the word promoters mutter in their sleep while having nightmare about faceless lawyers.
MMA isn't the Kumite from Bloodsport. MMA matches are a business and their cash cows are their fighters otherwise it would be just bum fights. You can't milk a cow with a broken udder. But you can choke its nipples until the milk flows, you just gotta have the right technique.

First things first: I read the article you linked as well as three others by the same author, given that he's teaching at a nearby facility. His article "The Three Types of Austerity" was quite enough to know that I'll never see eye-to-eye with him, or anyone of the same views.

"[Austerity] frees up resources for private investment" is a statement that does not match my perception of reality, given the absolute abundance of (financial) resources within the eurozone. It's a lack of demand for investments that's the problem, not supply. Savings are at record highs, investment is at an all-time low.

So, demand vs supply... we all know that discussion won't be resolved here, ever. It's utterly pointless. Same for the gold standard vs fiat, inflation good or bad, or any related discussion, really.

Instead, I'll try to reply to unrelated statements.

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"Do you think The Wire paid for their production assistants' healthcare? Did they make more than the $50/day for their 12 hour days (if they weren't working for free as "interns" for the 'privilege' of 'paying their dues' in 'the industry')?"

I know nothing about the situation on set of The Wire. My assumption is that it involved the regular amount of abuse of labour, including unpaid interns.

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"Haha, of course, "liberals" get a pass from other "liberals", but no pass for the Kochtopus (even though the Kochs give way more money to charities than The Wire would even be able to)."

Well, good for them. But I don't see why you drag them in here. You made a set of rhetoric questions aimed at hypocrisy by David Simon. I pointed out my view that any possible hypocrisy is dwarfed by the point he made vis-a-vis guilt/Perkins/watch/whatever.

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"Yeah? Like you know (the other) David Simon and can vouch for his "lack of guilt?" And "guilt" about what? Having money? Being successful?"

Feeling guilty about the discussion amongst the establishment regarding, for instance, the minimum wage. He finds it questionable how one can argue against giving a fella at Burger King 10-12 bucks an hour without feeling guilty for it. That's the disconnect we're talking about. When extremely wealthy individuals deny even the crumbs to the folks at the bottom.

Shamelessness was my addition, my interpretation. It was aimed at the demand for tax breaks and subsidies for extremely profitable corporations or extremely wealthy individuals. I would feel ashamed for any demands to my benefit if a) I didn't objectively need them and b) they would come at a detriment to others in worse situations than me.

Since I'm arguing from a different economic perspective than you, a shortfall in tax income (aka tax breaks) to me means either more taxes at another place, probably from weaker entitities who can't afford to buy their own representative, or a cut in essential services. I operate under a very broad definition of human dignity and see it as the first and foremost objective. Food, shelter, health, etc for all -- which might just be a reason why some people refer to me as a "pinko commie".

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"Does he? Really? How? And how are you doing more for "society" than that? Who are you and what exactly is your great "contribution" to society?"

He "weakens" society, economically, by suppressing aggregate demand. The more wealth you accumulate, the less of it, as a percentage, translates into demand. For an economy that depends on the circulation of goods and services, a massive and non-temporary accumulation of debt or savings (same coin, different sides) in the hands of single players (be it state, corporation or individual) chokes up the system. Less demand, less investment, less growth.
Accumulation is all fine and dandy if it translates into economic activity, but given the pathetic % of GDP that is being invested, despite mountains of unused cash that are forced into financial shenanigans looking for profit, I'd say it is dead weight and a drag.

But since you apparently share the views of Hollenbeck, all of that was probably hogwash to you.

------------

To answer your question: a human being and my great contribution to society is my charming personality, of course.

And with that, I bid you adieu. I've had long-ass discussions about Snowden/surveillance and other topics that led nowhere and I'm not interested in having one about economic theory, especially not in a second language. The floor is all yours, including the last word.

You might be ahead of the curve on that one.

I agree that a bit (or a lot) of fear might force our representatives all over the world to realize that even the richest donor cannot provide you with a replacement for your head after it was chopped off by the mob. Hell, we might find out soon enough if the troika keeps choking the life out of Greece, Spain and Portugal.

Similarly, the damage being done by secrecy of all kinds, particularly to core elements of democracy (see: deep state), might very well outweigh potential damages caused by putting an end to it entirely.

But I'm not there yet. Iceland and, to some degree, Switzerland are showcases that shit can be turned on its head much quicker than anyone thought. Nationalising banks, jailing bankers, referendums about maximum wages and basic incomes... if the Swiss can openly discuss the "1:12" initiative, a disbandment -- or at least a complete restructuring -- of intelligence services is not as impossible as one might think.

Wow, so many of these people are so far out of touch with reality.
It's not a choice to work at Wall Mart - It's a last resort. If people had other options, they wouldn't be there. Few people chose to live in poverty

And Who cares about the cheap prices that Wal Mart is able to give. It's self serving. The largest employer keeps it's employees poor so they have no choice but to shop at their own store, which in turn just gives their wages back to employers. Sure other people reap the benefits of some cheap stuff, but let's stay real. It's cheap because the quality is often lowered to meet the competitive contracts targeted for manufacturers to be able to be Walmart's choice product. Nothing bought at WalMart lasts more than a year or two, you always end up re-buying it. So where is the cheap affordability now?

And while Wall Mart works hard to choke out the competition so they can raise their prices on certain products, their merchandising does the same thing. They only target certain manufacturers and give then the lion's share of the merchandising space on their shelves. Selection at Wal Mart is Slim. They are great at choosing your brands for you. The companies that play ball with WalMart. I have better selection on items at non department stores. Case in point Groceries. They have great prices on certain grocery items, but I don't have any choice on the brands I'm buying. And sooner or later, I'll still need to go to the grocery store, because WalMart just can't give me what I need to stock my kitchen with the basics. My Wall Mart doesn't even sell large bags of sugar.

I'm no expert but everything I've ever heard/read from informed sources (i.e. people who study these things rather than random people on the internet) concurs with exactly you you just said there.

Traffic Jams supposed to act like longitudinal waves that snowball as they go due to people driving too close and needing to overcompensate. i.e. what starts as a few people braking a bit too much becomes 100's of people at a standstill a few miles down the line of traffic.

I think you are entirely correct to suggest that if everyone maintained a healthy distance and steady pace traffic would flow considerably more smoothly and many jams wouldn't even happen in the 1st place.

There are choke points but these need never take up more than a lane if people had some perspective and collective sympathy....

Unfortunately they don't and most (or at least enough) tend to drive like the impatient selfish twats they are. This makes biking gently past all of them in their self inflicted gridlock misery all the more satisfying (wouldn't be the 1st time I've sung the Trololol song while doing so either )

The roads have a capacity.
~15 feet per car.

100 feet of road will fit about 6 or 7 cars, bumper to bumper.
Alternatively, 100 cars will require 1500 feet of distance to fit.

If a driver keeps 30 feet in front of him, at all times, even when stopped in traffic, then that takes the total per-car size up to 45 feet.
100 feet of road now fits 2 cars.
100 cars now require 4500 feet of distance to fit.

The greater the distance kept between cars, the bigger the strain on road capacity, and the farther back the traffic jam will stretch.



Traffic jams in massive commuter areas do not exist because people are driving too close.

They exist because the rate of people entering the highway exceeds the rate of people exiting the highway, for a long enough duration that the highway 'runs out of room' to fit the cars.

You can widen the roads to increase capacity, so the traffic jam doesn't go as far back.
You can increase highway speed limits, so that people can attempt to 'evacuate' the highway faster.

(Travel-capacity in terms of cars-per-second of any given section of road, is 'cars-per-second-per-lane x number-of-lanes'. Increasing either factor will improve travel.)

...But you can't eliminate the jam.

The rate of 'highway exit' is determined by the number of exits, and the capacity of the exit roads to absorb traffic from the highway.

When people exit from a highway, they usually go into local traffic, and are met by a light within 100 feet.
Between the lights, and other cars looking for parking spots, pedestrians, etc, local traffic is a dog.

Highway traffic can't diffuse out of the exits fast enough, and the traffic backs up on the exit ramps, and then backs up onto the highway. Once the traffic backs up onto the highway, exiting traffic consumes a lane for queuing, which forms a choke.


Basically, to avoid a jam, the rate of people entering the highway can not exceed the maximum possible rate of people exiting and diffusing into the destination city.

Because 'everyone goes to work at once', and local traffic is not geared to rapidly absorb exiting traffic, the jams are unavoidable.

Driving with a massive space in front, refusing to fill in the gap, only uses up the highway's buffering capacity more quickly.
That leads to the 'complete' jam happening sooner, where traffic is queued all the way from the destination, all down the highway, and onto the feeder roads miles away, blocking local traffic elsewhere.




IMO, if people really care abut stopping traffic jams, they should put a commuter parking lot at every exit at major commuter areas.

When you exit off of the highway, you would immediately wind your way through a parking lot, and at the other end of the lot you would exit into local traffic.

The parking lot acts as a buffer, allowing the highway exit lane to not get backed up, and prevents the queue from building up onto the highway.

That way the traffic on the highway can travel without chokes.

Although, this would just move the "parking lot" occurring on the highway, into a literal parking lot. You'd still be stuck waiting a while, as the rate of people exiting the parking lot into local traffic would still be limited by the rate at which local traffic can absorb the highway traffic.

Basically, to have literally no waiting, the city streets absorbing exiting highway traffic need the same uninterrupted cumulative bandwidth as the highway.

In the end, if you want to fix highway traffic jams, fix city streets.




You can make the argument that keeping more space in front will make people more comfortable with driving faster, and traffic will move faster.
But, that faster moving traffic will merely more quickly arrive at the same clogged exit, and queue with the same other cars waiting to get onto the local roads.

-scheherazade

A particularly bad day, sorry for my earlier comment.

I think i was trying to make the suggestion that i don't see it as a weapon against depression because if you're depressed - or at least, depressed as i know it - then you can't feel hope. There is no hope, and if you can feel hope for something then you're not depressed. I tear my hear out when i hear people saying something to the effect of "My dog died, i'm depressed!" I want to grab them and shake them and tell them they're SAD about something and oh GOD do i wish it was as simple as feeling sad about something.

Of course, this is only my viewpoint on it and it may be self centred. I can't in all fairness force my own definition on the word depression - it means whatever humans use it to mean, as is the way language works. But i feel like it puts an unfair label onto people feeling utter, raw hopelessness when other people can say that they're depressed because of this particular thing, and how brave they are for carrying on regardless or "beating depression."

If you've ever seen no point in getting out of bed because there is nothing in the world for any price or in any imagined daydream that could make you feel better. Not the power to resurrect a lost one, or the power to make someone fall in love with you, the ability to conjure money, a holodeck with sex capabilities - nothing. If you've ever sat with tears falling from your eyes - not crying though; not breathing differently, not choking your words or furrowing your brow - and you don't know why.... Then i think you have every right to feel contempt for the person who feels sad because of a particular thing that happened to them calling their sadness "depression."

I know what you mean though. I didn't expect to see such good comments about it. It's good to talk!

Let's get a bit more realistic here, shall we?

I like John. He's smart. But he missed the point on government assistance. The guy meant that the wage will be increased through legislation and not merit. I'm sure he also didn't mean that taxpayers are directly on the hook, even though indirectly they will be.

It's easy to narrow this conversation down to Burger King, McDonald's, and the like because they are large corporate entities which pay some employees minimum wage.

But guess what? Tons of other places in the United States pay their employees minimum wage too. The difference is that they are most certainly not large corporate entities and therefore can't mitigate the impact of a rising wage through the diversity of their products or the markets in which they serve. They are Joey's Pizza and Bertha's Plumbing. There is no way in hell they'll be able to pay a federal minimum wage of 15$.

You're right. 15$ an hour won't put a dent on the cost of a Big Mac, but when your septic tank gets destroyed from choking down all those burgers, you'll be sure to get some sticker shock.

I was hoping for a parody tag here...

The concept of using drones as a delivery system was developed to supply people with essential goods in low infrastructure regions of the world. To see it shanghaied into this makes me want to choke a puppy.

Those thin little veggy bags make about as much an impact in the grand scheme of the environmental clusterfuck as a single wild horse fart. Reserve that guilt for an unwanted pregnancy or maybe changing your car's motor oil on a public beach?

Or, you could simply save them all in a box in your closet where they couldn't choke anemone...I know! Melt them into a giant blob on the end of a pole, a quick-crete base, and you've got public art!

So FUCKING hate public service parodies with too-much-too-little-too-late messages, especially when lame rappers take two minutes to scrawl lamer lyrics on a bev-nap at a tittle bar ass-raping a decent tune to remind idiots to remain idiots.

Hacks und posers.

That was really amazing to watch, even before the choke-out. Interesting how their tails are nearly a third leg. They seem like they can support the full weight of the kangaroo for some time even.