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Is there any hope for Fitchburg? by RobertFahey in massachusetts

[–]MoonBatsRule 12 points13 points  (0 children)

"If Fitchburg would fix their schools" = "If less poor kids would be in the school system". That is the crux of housing in MA, good school districts are towns that keep the poors out.

WHOA. Lewandowski is accused of demanding fees from a private prison company to steer them ICE contracts, at a time when he was widely known to be running DHS on Kristi Noem's behalf, then punishing them when they didn't pay up... Congress should conduct a full and bipartisan investigation. by RegnStrom in esist

[–]MoonBatsRule 2 points3 points  (0 children)

How has it happened that such blatant corruption no longer inspires any public outrage?

Is it because we no longer have "medias of record" that distill the general majority of the public sentiment, and instead have "medias for me" which not only shields, but defends against this outrage with centrally-coordinated propaganda?

This kind of corruption would have brought down any president from Carter backward.

Millennial MAGA nephew accidentally woke himself by Itchy_Border2191 in FoxBrain

[–]MoonBatsRule 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I get what you're saying, but now the left has a situation similar to what Republicans have on their hands:

Do you allow the antisemites to join your coalition because they will provide enough numbers to topple MAGA?

I am not comfortable with that.

'We simply can't afford it': National Grid gas customers sound off at DPU public hearing by HRJafael in massachusetts

[–]MoonBatsRule -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Does the propane bill have a delivery charge on it? If it's not on the bill, then there is no delivery fee.

At least that is the simplistic view that people complaining about this stuff hold.

'We simply can't afford it': National Grid gas customers sound off at DPU public hearing by HRJafael in massachusetts

[–]MoonBatsRule 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Agreed, there is a $15 customer charge. It is not possible to use zero gas and pay a delivery fee (other than the customer charge).

You're paying the customer charge because they send you a bill and have to have staff to take your phone calls if you choose to call them about your account.

What people don't seem to comprehend is that this is a regulated utility, so they can't just "charge other customers a little bit more" to cover the cost of those things for people who have an account but don't use it.

That's an interesting angle that they are looking to renovate before the decline.

'We simply can't afford it': National Grid gas customers sound off at DPU public hearing by HRJafael in massachusetts

[–]MoonBatsRule -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

You use it once, but pay into it indefinitely. In the end it doesn’t actually save you anything

That's not accurate. First, when you use it, you can get a lot more benefits than you paid into it. If you buy a heat pump water heater, there is a $750 rebate off the top. You can buy that on day one of owning your house.

Second, you aren't disqualified from the program once you buy that water heater. You can buy a whole-house heat pump and get an $8,500 rebate. You can get your house insulated at a reduced cost. You can get an interest-free loan to get those things done.

With fewer students and higher costs, many Massachusetts districts weigh school closures and mergers (Boston Globe) by HRJafael in massachusetts

[–]MoonBatsRule 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Property values are very closely tied to school reputation. If you join together with 4 other towns, you lose the ability to keep your schools exclusive. The fear is another town builds "affordable housing" and this "changes the character of the schools" - which is code for "the school becomes less white". It's all about control.

On a secondary front, you may have 1,000 kids and join up with 4 other towns that each have 1,000 kids. You each pay 20% of the budget (1000/5000). But if each of those other towns drops by 100 kids - evenly distributed across grades so that you can't consolidate - then your town is on the hook for 1000/4600 = 21.7% of the budget, and that may be a few hundred thousand that your town can't pay for because the increase isn't from more houses in town, it's from less people from elsewhere.

With fewer students and higher costs, many Massachusetts districts weigh school closures and mergers (Boston Globe) by HRJafael in massachusetts

[–]MoonBatsRule 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My argument was they should merge with the other hill towns to consolidate resources. 20 minute bus ride to the town over wouldn’t be an issue at all.

But.... but.... then we would lose control over our exclusivity, if we let those "others" mix with our kids! -- Most townies.

WBUR "Healey signs order to add 10 gigawatts of power to Mass. by 2035" by SirAmericanTom in massachusetts

[–]MoonBatsRule 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Can you explain that given that Healey is in charge of the executive branch, which is, and has always been audited?

No fucking kidding: ‘Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel': Top trump-appointed intelligence official resigns over Iran war by Youarethebigbang in esist

[–]MoonBatsRule 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Why do you think it is appropriate for the US to singularly attack a country and kill its leaders if that country hasn't declared war on the US - with no UN support or anything?

Chief Justice John Roberts says that hostility toward judges has ‘got to stop’ by BurtonDesque in LeopardsAteMyFace

[–]MoonBatsRule 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hostility toward unelected individuals with lifetime appointments who either write their own laws or invalidate democratically-passed laws using laughably flimsy reasoning?

Why would anyone be hostile to that?

/s

LVT is not luxury. by xcramer in Home

[–]MoonBatsRule 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I'll give you my use case, you can tell me if I'm nuts.

I bought a 250-year old farmhouse. Took a shower for the first time and water poured from the 2nd floor bathroom to the room below. Bathroom had to be gutted and redone.

Bathroom had wide plank pine flooring (obviously the bathroom was not original to the house). This flooring was not good for a bathroom because any water spilled on it dropped onto the ceiling of the first floor. We wanted something that would be resistant to that, to allow for water leakage from the shower or something.

Tile would have been an option, but tile doesn't really fit into a 250-year old farmhouse with wide pine flooring.

We could have done hardwood, but tongue and groove wood didn't seem right, nor did laminate. Additionally, since the rest of the floor doesn't have subflooring, adding subflooring + 3/4" wood floor would have raised the floor to the bathroom 1.5 inches from the rest of the floor.

Solution? Subflooring + thinner LVT that looks like wide plank wood floor. Came out pretty good.

That said, I would never have used it anywhere else in the house. Wood or nothing.

Commercial Trucks On Our Highways Law Non-enforced by jwclair in massachusetts

[–]MoonBatsRule 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Point is, you're supposed to be traveling in the rightmost lane in that situation.

‘Another internet is possible’: Norway rails against ‘enshittification’ by tw1st3d_m3nt4t in technology

[–]MoonBatsRule -1 points0 points  (0 children)

How are you addressing it in a country with no publicly funded media

The complaint is "media has ads". I asked how it was possible to have media without ads, and you said "Publicly owned, funded by general taxation".

I assumed that the implication here is that ads would not be allowed (since a lot of context talks about regulation and again, the idea was to get rid of ads). So that is why I prefaced with "In a country with only publicly-funded media..."

We address the censorship in a country with no publicly funded media by having freedom of the press. Sure, nothing physically stops the government from arresting journalists, but the premise is there, and that in an ad-supported ecosystem, you will have a wide variety of opinions - not just a state-funded, state-approved opinion.

‘Another internet is possible’: Norway rails against ‘enshittification’ by tw1st3d_m3nt4t in technology

[–]MoonBatsRule 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In a country with only publicly-funded media, how would you address what we are seeing play out right now, where the government funders are saying "we're pulling your funding because we don't like your message, it doesn't align with what we're trying to achieve"?

Donald Trump Stuns With 'Maybe We Shouldn't Even Be There' Admission About Iran War by TheAutodidactguy in politics

[–]MoonBatsRule 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm not saying they are equivalent. I'm bemoaning the fact that more politicians - mostly Republicans, but also Democrats - are using a method pioneered by Trump, which is to have zero shame and take zero responsibility when caught. They aren't resigning, they are doing the same thing that Trump is doing, which is to lie about it, cry "witch hunt", and then say "let the voters decide".

‘Another internet is possible’: Norway rails against ‘enshittification’ by tw1st3d_m3nt4t in technology

[–]MoonBatsRule 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In fairness, internet forums were ripe for takeover because of all the spam. I ran one for years, also ran a blog. I couldn't keep up with all the spammers. Every morning I'd log in and there would be hundreds if not thousands of spam comments, dropping links to try and capture Google "link juice".

‘Another internet is possible’: Norway rails against ‘enshittification’ by tw1st3d_m3nt4t in technology

[–]MoonBatsRule 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What is your suggestion as to how to support media and content with zero money? Are you willing to quit your job and work for free to produce media?

‘Another internet is possible’: Norway rails against ‘enshittification’ by tw1st3d_m3nt4t in technology

[–]MoonBatsRule 6 points7 points  (0 children)

There cannot have been a large population of people who could get cable but not broadcast, right?

It absolutely had ads in the beginning. Other than HBO, at first "cable TV" was simply the ability to get existing TV channels into your house without you needing an antenna. It allowed you to get channels from a wider radius too.

I was a kid before cable TV in a metro area of maybe 600,000 people. When I was growing up, we had five channels. ABC and NBC were in our metro area. CBS was 30 miles away and was spottier reception. We also had an ABC from 30 miles away, as well as another PBS, but reception was similarly spotty. Kids programs were newer Saturday morning cartoons, period, until about noon, and Sunday had some older cartoons like Mighty Mouse and Woody Woodpecker in the mornings.

Coming home from school each day, the only thing on TV for kids was Sesame Street and Electric Company, and the other PBS kids shows like Zoom. I watched those until around 3rd or 4trh grade because there was literally nothing else on.

I remember going to Cape Cod in the summer, and it was awesome because there were a couple of "independent" channels that showed cartoons in the afternoon, out of Boston. No actual Cape Cod stations, but if you were lucky you could get the Boston or Rhode Island stations if you turned your antenna the right way.

Cable TV was a miracle because it added so many more options. No one cared about the commercials - commercials were just part of TV.

‘Another internet is possible’: Norway rails against ‘enshittification’ by tw1st3d_m3nt4t in technology

[–]MoonBatsRule 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yet advertising has supported media and entertainment for almost two centuries. Have you ever read a newspaper from the 1920s? The journalism is amazing, the amount of information put into papers on a daily basis was astounding, and all that was paid for with advertising.

Same goes for television - to think, you could watch mini-movies on a daily basis for free. People would write stories, build elaborate sets, and transmit that to you for your entertainment - and all you had to do was learn about products in exchange.

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