Random Politics & Religion #00

I think a lot of my concern is that I'm more likely to be the person adhering to the letter of the law, but pissing off the bitchy people who have nothing better to do but get a hare up their *** about my BBQ or noise.

You're making BBQ and didn't invite me over for some???

Yeah, time to make your life hell. The smoke. The smoke! I HAVE CHILDREN. THEIR LUNGS COULD BE IRREVOCABLY DAMAGED. ***.

There's a few BBQ complaints a year, but nothing too bad. I mean, this is Idaho, after all, people are courteous and understanding for the most part. I have a personal rule, irrespective of HOA rules that says if I can hear it or smell it inside my house with the windows closed, it's too much. We're not all crunched together, though, my house is split level on a third of an acre, there's a good 70 feet between my house and the neighbors'.

Good. Darwin at work.

Tell them to get on growing gills.

I must be a great neighbor, everything's spotless, I've never thrown a party in 6 six years, & all my vehicles stay out of the easements & have proper, quiet, exhausts. huh. you should all be more like me.

Looks like you need a neighbor named Dennis. He's quite the menace.

that'll be my son, give him a year or two.

Why not just take the revenge route... if someone does something annoying you just do something equally annoying to them back!

Oh, are we complaining about HOAs? The condos my wife and I live in were built in the mid-70s, and the HOA bylaws haven't been updated since. So there are weird old obsolete rules that no one follows like not having any residents under the age of 13 (it was originally intended to be a retirement community, but that obviously didn't last).

Now, the residents care so little that no one is interested in being on the HOA board. The current members have served their terms and no one wants to replace them. So we've gotten to two impasses:

1) The current board is trying to amend the obsolete rules and regs, but in order to do that, according to the bylaws, they need a vote to pass by quorum. Over the course of the past two years, they have continuously failed to meet the quorum -- not enough residents care enough to vote.

2) Since no one is campaigning to replace the current board, they are forced by default to continue as incumbents. One has already resigned due to "personal reasons," and I can't blame them. As far as I can tell, there is no benefit nor advantage to serving on the board, and the board does not do a good job communicating (anything, really, but especially) what the responsibilities of the board are.

Now, the board's bi-monthly newsletters are getting increasingly passive-aggressive, talking about the apathy of the community to a point that is a little excessive. I would wager half the residents don't even understand why the vitriol is being directed at them, due to the poor communication up to this point. Folks like my wife and me, who at least vote and attend at least one meeting a year, feel unduly singled out for being apathetic.

Cherry on top: our property manager got fed up and quit last month. I hope her replacement is ready for a challenge.

Currently they're seeking (expensive) legal council to try to amend the bylaws to possibly require a reduced quorum and/or some other needed updates. It's a bad situation made worse by red tape, poor communication, and yes, some degree of apathy to which I'm somewhat sympathetic.

The only positive thing the HOA has done for us in five years of living there is fix the plaster of our outside stairs after rain damage -- which was already a mess when we moved in five years ago. But you better believe if the tree on our patio gets too tall, or if we put a potted plant on the stone wall of our property as opposed to the wooden fence, we get a written warning immediately to comply. I get it, but I wish our HOA was as effective and proactive with their other responsibilities.

I'd argue that it's relative inertness (corrosion resistance) and ability to make extremely low-resistance contacts with other gold surfaces are probably of greater value.

Gold is now used in medicine, so there's that for value too.

Considering that copper is a better conductor than gold, basically.

Can't have that copper oxidizing and corrupting that digital signal on our hdmi connections now can we?

If conductivity is the chief concern, you'd use silver before gold or copper. Sure, silver still oxidizes like copper, but it's conductivity even when corroded is on par with gold at about 1/100th the cost.

I served on a board of one for ten years. My fellow board members were over-the-top in all directions. The other residents were as well. I sympathize on both sides. The mailbox thing is pretty absurd, but for every mailbox and every BBQ smoker, there's a guy or gal who stays up partying till 3 am flicking cig butts of her balcony and is a real nuance or follow even the lowest standards of courtesy or decency.

Nah, you don't want to have someone dealing with collecting the fees and collecting from the deadbeats. That's really what the management company is for, they get to be the face of the bad guy..

OK, Dexter.

CA judge. Blocks further release of Planned Parenthood videos.

I guess we'll all just have to settle our outrage in on the Lion killer instead.

Or we can just not care about either.

The whole lion thing has me rather confused. I am very much opposed to trophy hunting of endangered species, but I'm seeing people go nuts over a lion death when insane human atrocities are being committed (especially in the Middle East) that they don't give a crap about. Seriously, if you're going to be outraged at least get your outrage priorities in check.

I stubbed my toe yesterday morning. We should all create a mob action group against table legs.

We should put toes on the table legs so that they can stub them on us.

#equality

That guy paid 50,000 dollars. You can kill a person in Africa for that much !

Here's the thing and bear with me, because I'm not saying this is necessarily right, but it does make sense:

Your average person doesn't feel like they can do much about large-scale problems. They can't convince the PotUS or Congress to authorize military action against scumbag ISIS. They can't directly convince Jihadis or the IRA or shooters in South Carolina. So the outrage builds and the anger over not being able to help people in need just sort of sits in them as the go about their day to day.

For some people, being able to lash out at an injustice directly is an outlet. No, they can't save rape victims or people being murdered by the droves by ISIS or Boko Harem. They can't stop shooters in South Carolina. But they know who this dentist is. They can boycott his business, give him ***via social media. Etc.

They can personally have some degree, however small, of direct impact on making this guy pay for the perceived injustice.

I don't think it's necessarily right. While I don't personally like trophy hunting -- I think it's an outdated pasttime that should be left behind as the relic of needless male posteuring that it is -- I don't think it helps the cause overall to tear down one guy engaging in a 'sport' that thousands of people engage in.

But it does make sense to me.

Now see, this is a cause worth getting behind.

Someone quick, make a kickstarter to fund hover-technology for all furniture and appliances so that my toes are safe.

Unless lions are an endangered species I fail to see the outrage of killing one lion...

They are*, and their only significant predator is...wait for it...humans.

So guess where the blame sits there.


*Edit: depending upon how it's gauged. They're not in as bad of shape as many other species.

Almost

I'm sure before Obama leaves office that he will issue an executive order making lions endangered.

Which would be ***, given Congress just de-listed and nixed protections for various lupine species out west.

***.

I really don't care if lions go extinct. Guess I'm an animal lover !

One species going extinct can have dangerous repercussions on an entire ecosystem.

Speaking of understanding life..