At my dmv they have weird little things you put your head in that didn't work for me properly the last time I was there. I was seeing double the whole time which was super disorienting. I still passed, barely. Went to the eye doctor, better than 20/20 vision, fuck that machine. He suspects I was just too close or too far from it. He also mentioned the technique they use to make things "appear" distant doesn't work for some people. So possibly me.
Just out of curiosity: you do have a health check up before you get a drivers licence right? Right?
No. You just have to read an eye chart at the DMV.
A standard eye chart.
As in, one that is easily memorized by the very people for whom the test is designed...
I need a new facepalm.jpg, I'm sad to say that your country has been on the fail side a bit more than ususal lately. Even taking all the fail with a huge grain of salt (because fail is always over exposed) I'd have some sort of contingency plan in place for moving out by the mid twenties / early thirties.
My paranoid side is going "It's only a matter of time until they start this shit ON U.S. SOIL FUCK." The rest of me is occupied with shouting down my paranoid side.
My paranoid side is going "It's only a matter of time until they start this shit ON U.S. SOIL FUCK." The rest of me is occupied with shouting down my paranoid side.
Reading over this whitepaper, the non-paranoid side is right. It's basically a legal justification to smooth over between the laws of war, and US law. Unless you suddenly decided to join AQ and move to an active warzone, I'd say you're pretty safe.
My paranoid side is going "It's only a matter of time until they start this shit ON U.S. SOIL FUCK." The rest of me is occupied with shouting down my paranoid side.
Reading over this whitepaper, the non-paranoid side is right. It's basically a legal justification to smooth over between the laws of war, and US law. Unless you suddenly decided to join AQ and move to an active warzone, I'd say you're pretty safe.
Yeah, I just skimmed the paper myself and came to the same conclusion. Basically, it's essentially the same thing that would've happened should a US citizen have fled the country to go fight with the Nazis in WW2 and became Hitler's right hand man.
Yeah, I just skimmed the paper myself and came to the same conclusion. Basically, it's essentially the same thing that would've happened should a US citizen have fled the country to go fight with the Nazis in WW2 and became Hitler's right hand man.
Pretty much. It seems that - if reddit, twitter, and various news articles are any indication - there is literally a handful of people who have even heard of the Laws of War, let alone what they mean and how they work.
The USPS will announce later today that it is ending Saturday deliveries as of August.
Won't really affect me personally, but the reason why they have to do this is utter BS. It was a basically "break the USPS, bust up the postal workers' union" move from the Bush II administration.
I thought the problem USPS faces is that of their underfunded pension? Weren't they forced to contribute billions of dollars into the pension whether they have the money or not?
I thought the problem USPS faces is that of their underfunded pension? Weren't they forced to contribute billions of dollars into the pension whether they have the money or not?
That's exactly it. Basically, the USPS was forced to pre-fund their pension by something like 75-100 years in advance, when just about every other organization with a pension only needs to pre-fund by about 30 years in advance. The only reason to do this insane pre-funding requirement is basically to try to screw it over.
I was more under the impression the USPS was having problems was that their business model was developed when lots of people sent personal mail and overall volume was higher. With the internet and email, and now E-billing they have lost even more volume. Now most of the things they deliver is junk mail and Netflix. Just as with any company that does not adept to a changing market they are having to make drastic changes to avoid going under. They painted themselves into more of a corner with the Forever stamp. Now even if they raised their rates they will have to wait for people to burn up their backlog of forever stamps before seeing the income stream. Personally due to not having a need to send mail often, I have 10 years worth of forever stamps from 1 Costco pack.
As far as the pension goes, yes 75 years is excessive. But I don't think that is the one thing that has led to their problems, after all they were able to make their payments for 5 years. Personally I think they should have ended Saturday deliveries years ago, with the falling demand for mail a forward thinking organization would have tried to adept. What I see is another long standing organization that decided to not change with technology, and now they are in trouble.
It's not a perfect business, but the pension issue is like shooting holes in your own boat. It is being set up to fail, even if it does do the best possible things.
To be fair, there is still a decent market available to the USPS. Parcel delivery is a big thing (and one that will not be changing). As things shifted more to the internet, more and more people are purchasing physical good online that need to be shipped. I still prefer shipping by USPS over UPS or FedEx or anyone else because they tend to be just as fast and significantly cheaper. Next day mail from USPS is about $15 or so, vs $50 from FedEx. Their size-based flat rate parcel shipping is also a pretty good deal. Yeah, old fashioned sending a letter by post is going by the wayside due to email and such, but even so there will be the odd occasion when you want to send something physical -- such as fancy invitations with keepsake value, greeting cards, and so on.
The point of the USPS is to guarantee reasonably priced delivery of letters and packages to any address (within reason) in the United States, and to interact with foreign postal systems for the same worldwide.
The point of the USPS is not to run as a profitable business.
Without a USPS, the only people harmed are all the people living in rural areas where private services would either deny or charge a premium for delivery.
If I had my druthers, we'd amend the constitution to make the new equivalent of the USPS's mandate to:
1. Provide letter and parcel shipping at statutory rates to the entirety of the United States (again, within reason).
2. Provide Internet access at statutory to the entirety of the United States (again, within reason)
3. Provide access to government information services through standardized means to the entirety of the united states (again, within reason).
The original USPS served to ensure that communication would flow freely and easily across our far-flung nation. Its mandate needs to update with the times. It will almost certainly cost more than it produces in revenue. So do roads.
The original USPS served to ensure that communication would flow freely and easily across our far-flung nation. Its mandate needs to update with the times. It will almost certainly cost more than it produces in revenue. So do roads.
It's interesting to note that while the USPS stayed with only handling letter and parcel delivery during its entire history, many other countries' postal services branched out to handle telegraphs and telephones when those technologies appeared as serving as a general "communication provider." This hasn't quite worked out in all cases as many of them eventually privatized telecoms while keeping their postal role. The example of this I'm most familiar with is the old French PTT, which was split back in 1991 to La Poste (literally, "the mail") for mail delivery and the private France Telecom for telecom, including cell as they own the Orange brand. Interestingly enough, you can get an @laposte.net email address as well, though I'm not sure how much it charges, if anything, for the service.
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As in, one that is easily memorized by the very people for whom the test is designed...
Did I mention that it is really nice in Helsinki?
As far as the pension goes, yes 75 years is excessive. But I don't think that is the one thing that has led to their problems, after all they were able to make their payments for 5 years. Personally I think they should have ended Saturday deliveries years ago, with the falling demand for mail a forward thinking organization would have tried to adept. What I see is another long standing organization that decided to not change with technology, and now they are in trouble.
The point of the USPS is not to run as a profitable business.
Without a USPS, the only people harmed are all the people living in rural areas where private services would either deny or charge a premium for delivery.
If I had my druthers, we'd amend the constitution to make the new equivalent of the USPS's mandate to:
1. Provide letter and parcel shipping at statutory rates to the entirety of the United States (again, within reason).
2. Provide Internet access at statutory to the entirety of the United States (again, within reason)
3. Provide access to government information services through standardized means to the entirety of the united states (again, within reason).
The original USPS served to ensure that communication would flow freely and easily across our far-flung nation. Its mandate needs to update with the times. It will almost certainly cost more than it produces in revenue. So do roads.