BTW, there's a caveat which some people may not be aware of. If you're on a Medicare Advantage insurance plan, you will NOT be getting the $90 Social Security rebate. People on Medicare Advantage have already surrendered all of their Medicare benefits, both Parts A and B, toward covering the cost of your Medicare Advantage insurance plan.

OCU

I just did a Google inquiry and according to what it reported, the $90 payout will not be taxable since it's considered a 'rebate' against the money that you've already paid for your Medicare Part B insurance. Under federal law, 'rebates' are generally not considered to be 'income'.

OCU

Question: Will the $90 be considered to have been a 'normal' Social Security payment, thus subject to being taxed, which in our case, 85% of it would be? Note that in California, Social Security benefits are not subject to the state's income tax, so if it is considered to be a taxable benefit, it will only be subject to federal income taxes.

OCU

I just checked and a $90 deposit was made to my bank account earlier this morning, and it's listed as 'SSA TREAS 310 - XXSOC SEC'. I checked my wife's account and nothing there for her yet.

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As a nation, do we really need to expend taxpayer money on what many will see as an effort to revise history?

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Can anyone spell 'conflict of interest'...

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Well, this occurred at a rather inopportune time...

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We've never enabled the on-line features of our Bosch refrigerator, and it's doing quite well by itself.

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Just when Trump wants to allow AI to be used without any guardrails...

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Note that in Russia, you can vote online. I wonder what Trump would think about that in terms of being susceptible to voter fraud, but when you consider that, at least in Russia, there's really only one party that you can vote for, who cares how much 'voter fraud' might be taking place?

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They started to broadcast 'Star Trek' my freshman year in engineering school. Our dorm only had one TV room and it would be packed for every episode. After the show, everyone would leave to go study, but a few of us night-owls would come back at midnight as they were playing reruns of the 'Untouchables', in glorious B&W.

OCW

I just read this article and while it was interesting, I didn't understand all that much as the math was over my head (my degree was in Mechanical Engineering). However, I have a granddaughter who's graduating from my alma mater this coming May, majoring in Chemistry and minoring in Math and Physics. Here current GPA is 3.95 and she's applying for graduate school at Johns Hopkins and ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology). I'll see if she's ever heard of this sort of math before.

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Related to all this, my wife and I have given up on this stupid and cynical piece of Red Texas. We aren't leaving the state, this is our home. But we are going somewhere we can still breathe free.

#3 | Posted by Zed at 2026-09-06 09:46 AM

We've always liked the Hill Country, near Johnson City and Fredericksburg, whenever we've driven though that part of Texas.

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Well since this guy has only been charged with a SINGLE felony, as opposed to the original company's CEO, who was charged with TWO felonies, so I guess that's a step in the right direction.

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Note that while I've never been anywhere outside the US for more than a few weeks at a time, I have visited 33 countries, and at least when it came to eating the local cuisine. I always was of the attitude that if the locals were eating or drinking it, that I would do so as well. And in the nearly 50 years and over five million miles that I've traveled internationally, I've never had any problems like food poisoning or even a mildly upset stomach, except perhaps when something was so good that I simply ate or drank too much of it ;-)

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This is not a joke, there actually is a 'Trump Lake' and it's located in the Canadian province of Ontario.

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What kind of virtue signaling BS is this, it was known as Gulf of New Spain, before Mexico existed.

#67 | Posted by oneironaut at 2026-08-31 12:25 AM,/I.

From a Google search:

The Gulf of Mexico first appeared with that name on a European map around 1550.

Early Names and Origins

Before the name became standard, early explorers and mapmakers used different titles for this body of water:

Mar del Norte (Sea of the North) by Spanish explorers

Golpho de la Nueva Espaa (Gulf of New Spain) in 1544

Seno de Mejicano (Mexican Sound) starting around 1541

Europeans named the gulf after Mexico because ships had to cross it to reach that land. The name comes from the indigenous Mexica people.

By the middle of the 1600s, the Encyclop ... dia Britannica notes that the "Gulf of Mexico" became the common and accepted name.

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And note that my wife and I have been to several 'No Kings' rallies and I always wear a T-shirt which says 'It's still the Gulf of Mexico' with a map drawn by the early Spanish explorers which shows that the name was there long before the US was, which is the same situation with Lake Ontario.

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This is just inane...

If someone in Canada goes online and opens Google Maps or Google Earth, it will show 'Lake Ontario'. However, if that request was made from the US, it will show 'Lake America'. But if the request comes from anywhere other than the US or Canada, the lake will be labeled 'Lake Ontario (Lake America)'. Now how foolish is that?

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Not exactly a good time...

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This is the 'fine print' that I'm sure Trump is hoping that the people will never read:

But experts have repeatedly warned that Venezuela's dilapidated oil infrastructure will take years and billions of dollars to repair. A substantial boost in production is not expected to happen quickly.

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"Let's do the Time Warp again"

#3 | Posted by Corky at 2026-08-26 01:26 PM

Speaking of Tim Curry, in May of 1993 my wife and I stayed at a hotel on the River Thames near Windsor, England, the Oakley Court Hotel, which before it was converted to a hotel, was a Gothic-style chateau built by a 19th century industrialist. It had been left in some disrepair for years, but it had been used by several film companies to film dark and scary movies, including the 'Rocky Horror Picture Show'. There was a display of photos and a commentary in the lobby covering the filming of the movie.

"In its 10-page, unsigned opinion, the majority said that it was too soon for courts to consider the states' challenge because the order has not yet been carried out"

#12 | Posted by Danforth at 2026-08-24 10:27 PM

The irony is that the US Postal Service had already issued the order, contingent on the courts decision. So now, the states can proceed with their lawsuits, which could very well win in the various courts, thus assuring that nothing is changed for the midterm elections. Besides, the Court left in place an injunction against the USPS making any changes. So if nothing happens between now and next week, when early voting starts in some states, the Court's opinion will be meaningless since they can not claw back ballots already mailed or votes already cast.

OCU

Here at home in SoCal on my COX network server, my download speed was 266 Mbps and my upload was 11.5 Mbps. I could probably get slightly higher speeds as COX claims that my modem is out-of-date, but they no longer allow you to use any modems other than their own, which they charge for. Since I was grandfathered in using my own modem, I've stuck with it because those speeds are more then adequate, since we don't have fiber in our neighborhood, the difference wouldn't be that much anyway. So until it dies, I'll stick my current, albeit, out-of-date modem.

And yes, I can remember the days of dail-up internet service back when we got our first AOL account.

OCU

OCU not COU