quoththeraven

Paging @Gar1eth, who hasn't been around since mid-November (then again I've been gone since February or so): this year's Maccabeats Hanukkah song is a cover/parody of BTS' Dynamite. Cover: Original: Live performance of original for NPR's Tiny Desk Concert Yes, this is the same group I've been annoying you about for years and no, not planning on stopping anytime soon, not even if they win the Grammy for best duo or group pop performance for Dynamite. (Yes, they were nominated and I fully expect them to be invited to perform it at the Grammys.)

So in other words gig workers get a flat $600 without having to prove income. About the tax returns, they can't use 2019 because a) most of those returns aren't filed yet and b) the filing deadline has already been postponed. I haven't checked but I assume this includes postponing the payment requirement, or at least waiving penalties and interest for failure to pay by April 15th.

I took advantage of a 30 day free trial offer from Acorn because they have Midsomer Murders, which Netflix lost the rights to, but I plan on cancelling before the free trial runs out. So I'm binging the two seasons of Midsomer Murders I hadn't already seen.

Other than maybe spending more time on Twitter than usual, my daily routine is no different. (And honestly I don't really have a routine anymore.) But I have had sleep problems - at first I wasn't feeling sleepy enough early enough, and now getting back to sleep when I wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom is a problem. I practice social distancing most of the time anyway, but I went out twice in the past week: once to replace a charger for my cell phone and tablets, and once to go grocery shopping.

Because we don't need that level of detail.

Lol, "jazz."

Unemployment is supposed to apply to gig workers and the self-employed, yes, although that's a separate issue from the $1200 stimulus checks. As I understand it, people like me who don't have to file tax returns will have to file one to get the $1200 payment, and it will take four months to get a check if the IRS doesn't have direct deposit information on file. I didn't file or have to file in 2018, and the same would be true this year and going forward. Moreover, I've changed bank accounts twice since I last got a refund. Taxing those payments would be contrary to the point of making them. They also shouldn't count for means-tested benefits, either.

I went grocery shopping Sunday morning and they had tape up preventing entry into the produce section directly from the entrance and directing traffic around the adjacent bakery, deli and cheese sections in order to corral everyone checking out into a single line for checkout along one wall far away from the cash registers. There were no explanations, so I thought they were limiting entry (even though no one was monitoring it) until I saw that a line had formed and there was an employee directing people to cashiers. Fortunately by the time I was done there was no line, and it turned out the employee managing the flow of customers was also checking to see if you had more than one item that was being rationed. There was absolutely no toilet paper despite signs limiting purchases (fortunately I'd bought some early in the month and didn't need any) and very little bottled water, but what got me the most was that the 18 pack of large store brand eggs I normally buy for $2 or thereabouts was completely out. I bought the least expensive eggs I saw, which were a dozen store brand brown cage free organic for $2.50. Unsurprisingly, egg purchases were also limited to one per customer along with bread and milk (there were adequate supplies of both, but I use lactose free milk, so I don't know about regular milk). I can already tell I'm going to need more bread, though. The store wasn't crowded, but people weren't always staying the recommended six feet away. (And in some cases it was impossible - the aisles aren't that wide.) If I'm already stopped to get something, please don't stop within six feet of me, for crying out loud!

Parasite won! \o/ And received the most Oscars of any movie this year (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best International Feature). Now if only Bangtan Sonyeondan could get a Grammy nomination...

I believe that was after he'd become exasperated that they weren't listening. And he wasn't the only one with expressed doubts. Furthermore, he was right - it was a fraud, and a fraud in the way he thought was most likely (a Ponzi scheme rather than using front-running, which was the other possibility), its track record as reported in quarterly statements was impossible given market conditions, and the congressional panel he testified before after the arrest didn't treat him as a crank in this regard.

This was the most helpful information in the entire thread. I am a little surprised that there would even be a prison dialysis unit, though. That seems a lot less cost effective than sending him to a nearby hospital outpatient dialysis unit. Or are dialysis machines portable enough and inexpensive enough to rent to be installed in prison infirmaries on an as needed basis?

Sorry, that was confusing. Only the first paragraph was a response to you, more specifically the last sentence. The rest was mostly a response to @BnaC.

Asking for a lawyer would only have postponed the inevitable. Also it was whistleblowing by one or both sons that brought law enforcement to his door. Why yes, I just spent time reading the Wikipedia entry on Madoff and reacquainting myself with what happened, as well as learning some things I didn't know before.

Part of the reason some avoided Madoff's funds was the inability to do due diligence. Their accounting firm was small and they refused to provide documentation of the underlying investments.

I don't know about any investors, but a financial advisor in Boston, Harry Markopolos, went to the SEC starting in 2001 (Madoff was arrested late in 2008) and sounded the alarm about the unrealistically high and consistent rates of return. (Especially that even in down markets the returns hardly ever showed losses of value.) Because Madoff was well-connected and had a good reputation from his sales ability and from having been instrumental in forming NASDAQ and having sat on its Board of Governors and been its chairman, the SEC didn't take the allegations seriously. In addition, his niece, his firm's in-house attorney, dated an SEC supervisor and later married him after he left the SEC.

How are his victims disregarded if he's sent home? I think they're disregarded by having to help pay for his care through their taxes when he bankrupted them! I agree he likely shouldn't be released until it's clear he can't recover and goes into palliative care, but I am no expert in end-stage renal disease. If his life consists of dialysis treatment and not much else, I'm not sure it matters where he is, his quality of life is compromised. If he needs constant nursing attention, what difference does it make, and if the answer is "he shouldn't have comforts because he's in prison," to what extent does that amount to "he should only get minimal treatment because he's in prison and not everything we would otherwise provide if the patient weren't a notorious criminal"? That sounds to me like the treatment of his condition is being manipulated to be part of his punishment, which is what it's not supposed to be. As for the right to the pursuit of happiness, you're confusing a rhetorical flourish from the Declaration of Independence with some sort of right and suggesting that prisoners don't get that. There is no such legally enforceable right (something Jefferson probably realized), but what rights prisoners do have suggest that they are just as entitled to pursue happiness within the circumstances they are in. Other than the terms of their confinement, they aren't meant to suffer more than others, and not even conservative judges are likely to take the view that prisoners who are ill are supposed to suffer more from their illness, or have treatment of their illness manipulated to make them worse off than the average unincarcerated person with the same condition, given the existence of a constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

@bigjoey, did Missouri not have an exception to the age of consent laws for relationships between people close in age (usually up to four years' difference) where one was underage and the other one wasn't? Laws without such exemptions are really kind of dumb.

Those percentages aren't hard and fast numbers, which is why I reported the ranges. It makes sense that as they gather more information that some results might be revised. As you can see, my percentage of Korean heritage is much more definite than my European heritage, which isn't surprising considering how much more homogeneous Korea is than Western Europe.

I stand corrected. The doctors writing in the New England Journal of Medicine shouldn't have assumed she was asymptomatic without checking. That's not a journalistic problem, but it's a scientific problem because they didn't test one of their premises for veracity. Otherwise you are deliberately mischaracterizing what I am saying. I'm not sure how "lack of sick pay and pressure from employers to be at work incentivizes people not to take time off when sick" amounts to "we all just need to get infected with communicable viruses." That's without even getting into whether one's symptoms are from communicable diseases, whether viruses or otherwise. Or are you saying it's reasonable to expect everyone to know off the bat when sometimes not even doctors know?

I was referring to the news report that stirred up unnecessary worry by claiming she was asymptomatic because her colleagues were unaware of her symptoms without checking to see if that was actually true. That's no different from reporting rumors. I don't disagree that people are better off staying home when they're sick, but that doesn't always happen, not because people want to work when ill but because they can't afford not to or their employer insists they be there unless they're in the hospital. Prearranged overseas travel adds another layer of complication. It's great that you tell other people to go home and your boss is okay with it, but to act like that's how it always happens beggars belief. (Or that every boss would allow a subordinate to dictate attendance.)

@keroscenefire and @bigjoey's responses suggest otherwise, although civics education is probably a bigger stretch than practical economics/law. Civics education is something that needs to begin in late elementary school rather than in high school. I remember the days of discussing the Watergate hearings in an honors American history class in which George McGovern narrowly won a straw poll even though we lived in a predominantly Republican area. (I don't know if any of the other teachers conducted straw polks.) Our class was highly engaged, particularly since our teacher let a class member who later became a union organizer talk about the evidence against Nixon prior to the start of class.

Which suggests that it is useful and fills a need. There will always be people who are disengaged and blow it off. That still isn't a reason not to make it available.

Why? I agree with @BnaC's first sentence but none of the rest. Are you suggesting that only people who are not actually guilty are deserving of humane treatment? Treatment shouldn't depend on notoriety. But punishment shouldn't be prolonged to the point where it's become irrelevant because the diagnosis and treatment themselves are a form of prison even for people who are living at home. Furthermore I adhere to a belief system that says all of us are deserving because none of us are. I agree that entry into hospice is an appropriate time to release him. Being in prison is at odds with palliative care. Also I'm surprised I'm the only one interested in him or his family assuming the cost of his treatment, which, hello! is being paid by his victims along with everyone else.

I understood the lawyers to be repeating what his doctor(s) said. In any event, that's really not enough to make a decision to release him on. While I'm no expert, I would expect end-stage renal disease to require dialysis if the prognosis is survival for 18 months. Subject, of course, to correction by people who know. This isn't something I'm going to research on my own.

Would not have happened where I live. My car was totaled Christmas Eve day of 2015 by a woman visiting her family for Christmas and driving her brother's SUV into a one-way street the wrong way, also cutting across the lane I was traveling in opposite to her before she unexpectedly turned left right in front of me. Both insurance companies agreed she was in the wrong and 100% at fault. Yet she didn't receive a ticket. I did for an unregistered vehicle (my bad, I had forgotten to get it done on time, but I only paid the fine and didn't reregister because the car was totaled; I bought a used car of the same make, model and year from a dealership and they took care of the registration) and lack of insurance because I didn't have my insurance card with me. Resolving that took two court appearances and a $35 court fee.