You don’t need belief to measure prices, or wages.

Here, when my ex got 2 months behind, the FLSDU sent me a letter saying they contacted the state department (of the US) to let them know he (the ex) was not allowed to travel out of the country. So I guess that is different from revoking a passport (he didn’t and doesn’t have one). That would have been like $600 in arrears. I don’t think deadbeat parents should be able to leave the country,

The drivers license thing I still think worse and so counterproductive, like WTF. I would never want him to lose that even if deadbeat, too many jobs here require a car.

Not voting SUCKS and voting is a civil right that needs to be protected, you cannot be forced to use a passport as ID when fewer than half of the adults in the US have a passport, that is crazy, it won’t stand.

Being unable to get a job so you get even further in arrears and can’t support yourself either, is worse.

They have been doing that here for decades. It is certainly not a “little -enforced” law.

It’s to keep deadbeat parents from disappearing to another country and makes sense.

What doesn’t make sense is that they will also revoke the drivers license. Which then makes it even less likely the parent will be able to make the child support.

I don’t believe the UFO phenonena are demons but I do think modern people saying they are aliens is exactly as crazy as people of the past saying they are demons. The people of the future will have some other explanation and consider us idiots too.

Like, the past had a whole system and pantheon of angels and demons but have you ever looked at what the alien conspiracy theorists write about aliens? There’s a whole system and pantheon they believe in too.

I have a big family and cannot understand thinking everyone else in the world needs to do the same thing to make me feel ok about it. Like, how insecure do you have to be to need that? Can’t you just do what you want to because it’s your preference without needing it to be the only ‘right’ way? Just because something is good for me doesn’t mean it’s good for everyone, and it’s a good thing, too. I figured the only reason I even can have many is because others have none.

I say this as a person with plenty of years. When the president is so ancient he is shitting himself at meetings, and congresspeople are dying in office - of old age- this has become a gerontocracy of the worst sort. One would hope that as people get older they have more experience, more perspective.

At this point I would very strongly prefer that people younger than me be in office and I’m not even 60 yet. We need people with more stake in the future. 40-60 then out, retire for the sake of the country. Write a book or something.

I agree. It doesn’t help me that people who work in my town can’t live in my town. It doesn’t help me when taxes go up on my house. I have the same house if prices crash lower than we bought. I have the same house if prices go up.

In fact - if prices bottom out and we can keep our jobs, maybe I have a better house because maybe we can afford to do some reno that is too expensive right now because housing is so expensive.

“Didn’t work so hard” WTF? Did Trump work hard? There seems almost no correlation between who works hard and who has money. Some who work hard have money, some don’t. Some who never worked at all have money, some don’t.

I dunno. I bought a Honda new twice. Once showed up on the city bus and negotiated them down to a nothing down & low monthly payment that I could manage for 5 years (I am an accountant and first built a spreadsheet with present value calculations to figure out my target price) car is built to last 20 at least, I paid it off easily enough, then someone ran a stop sign and absolutely smashed it to bits, I took the insurance money as a down payment and got a better car new, same low monthly, paid that off years ago and have been driving it since 2014. This was mostly possible because Honda did a zero or 1% loan both times. Used to buy beaters but this has been so much nicer, and it’s easier on cash flow. I hope I can keep this one for as long as I need a car (mostly use the electric bike now) because it has all the tech I want but none of the tech I don’t want. Like at this point if I won the lottery I still don’t know if I’d want a car of today.

New car at today’s prices, and what they are, I kind of agree with you but used cars at today’s prices seem just as bad of a deal. And it was not always like this. You used to be able to negotiate, they had too much inventory.

Why is she always standing in front of a fan? Does she carry around a wee box fan to blow back her hair?

That’s not even in town, New Tampa is technically part of the city but way north, past parts that are unincorporated and farther than Temple Terrace.

We bought our house a few years ago for nearly 300k, and I was so upset because I thought we were at the top of the bubble then. Like, there is no way a house is worth that, it’s insane. But now a smaller house on our road wants $600k (new coat of paint, as you say) a literal empty lot sold for more than our house cost, and they are building horrifying monstrosities like this, it’s so ugly!

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1808-W-Erna-Dr-Tampa-FL-33603/2052977072_zpid/

I am old enough to remember 2 crashes, one I bought my first house, a shithole but so cheap, and then the bank bailout crash. What goes up comes down, and it always begins with the ‘we will buy your house’ flyers in the mail and people saying real estate always goes up.

I live in Tampa. Houses around me are getting pulled down and replaced with 1-1.75M houses at a frightening pace. This has to be a bubble, nobody who works here could afford the rent or mortgage on that. Taxes alone on a 1.5M house would be 24,000 per year!

I got both together this year and will never do that again. 5 day headache. I have gotten them separately before no problem and will do that again but not both the same day.

I am from here, grew up without air conditioning, in fact even the school didn’t have it until 7th grade. The weather suits me fine, and there’s plenty good about it locally.

Honestly I can pinpoint the hour it went wrong, when Al Gore conceded, though he won. Barely. I always wish I’d landed in the other timeline.

It’s not a new thing exactly, I went to school with kids from NY and Michigan and NJ. What’s new is the ideological idiocy. I’m sure you are glad to be rid of them, but they weren’t doing as much damage up north. It’s like gerrymandering the nation.

I am registered as independent, and vote as progressive as I can.

Also WTF, until 2020, D held an edge in registration. It’s all those fucking conservative northerners who came down here during COVID. Two on my block, plus my boss are in this group. I’ve never been a “fuck off back to where you came from” person, but really, fuck off back to where you came from. May the alligators and hurricanes drive you back up north.

I know it’s not relevant to this, but wow she is turning into the same ghoulish blonde undead looking person as those who tread this path before her. She has aged 10 years in 1 year. The stress of all that lying is showing.

Yeah I rotate everything, usually would put them in the front garden since they are showy, this year in the veg garden because it’s so hot in the summer they give some shade to the rest of the stuff. It’s a mess right now, the butternut squash got attacked so bad I think it has to be removed in a plastic bag. And something is attacking the sprawling watermelon plants too, but those seem to be surviving.

My husband laughed at me for pulling weeds and throwing them in the yard, but they ARE the “lawn”, I don’t care if they grow out there, just want to advantage the flowers and food plants in the defined spaces.

I think sunflower seeds are just so delicious they get eaten by everything. Squirrels, birds, who knows what all. I can get sunflowers, but this patch of about a dozen sunflowers this year came from about 60 seeds.

That headline. First I thought Iranians sunbathe and play with drones at the same time? Then had the unfortunate mental image of Trump sunbathing.