@#1 ... "It's the price you pay to live in paradise," O'Connell said. "If you want to live here with this view, beautiful sunsets, be able to go out on your boat, enjoy what Florida has to offer, you have to be willing to accept that these storms are going to come." ...

My basic question that I ask of those who want to "live in paradise" is...

How many times should the Federal Government bail them out with, among other things, cheap flood insurance.

As I have previously stated, any property insured by Federal flood insurance should be covered so that the property can be rebuilt once.

Anything after that first rebuild, well, the owners should have known better.

More from the article...

... The beachfront units had been gutted, treated and dried out after Hurricane Helene and mounds of sand that had blown in from the beach had been removed. Then, less than two weeks later, Hurricane Milton barreled in and undid all the progress.

"They've got to start the whole process over, cleaning, sanitizing, bringing in drying equipment, getting them all dried and prepped for renovations," lamented Bill O'Connell, a board member at the complex in Venice, about an hour's drive south of Tampa. The second hurricane "brought all the sand back on our property."

Some longtime Floridians have grown accustomed to the annual cycle of storms that can shatter and upend lives in a state known mostly for its balmy weather, sunshine and beaches.

"It's the price you pay to live in paradise," O'Connell said. "If you want to live here with this view, beautiful sunsets, be able to go out on your boat, enjoy what Florida has to offer, you have to be willing to accept that these storms are going to come." ...

fwiw...

James Gang was Joe Walsh before joe walsh became Joe Walsh.

OK, going back to 1971...

@#14 ... Residential subscription costs $120/month, significantly more than a typical fiber or fixed-wireless internet service, which could cost around $40 per month. ...

Local fiber provider here offered me 500mbps (up and down) for $26 per month (for a year), providing I allowing direct withdrawal from my account.

More to the point...

I am current quite concerned that the polling trend that had favored VP Harris seems to have diminished. OK, I'll say, disappeared.

Did her campaign peak too early?

The momentum she had now seems to be gone.

I mean, all it takes is a look at this polling results graph to see that the rise in support that had been received is not there.

@#2 ... "I urge journalists and researchers to dive into FiveThirtyEight ...

The concern I have with that is that FiveThirtyEight is an opinion site.

A statistician that apparently was taken on board by ESPN.

So, an opinion.

Little more.

Just an opinion and, it seems, projections from that opinion, which is based upon polls, .

I mean...

More from the article...

... UN peacekeepers in Lebanon warned Saturday against a "catastrophic" regional conflict as Israeli forces battled Hezbollah and Hamas militants on two fronts, on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.

Israel has faced a fierce diplomatic backlash over incidents in south Lebanon that saw five Blue Helmets injured.

Lebanon's health ministry said Saturday Israeli air strikes on two villages near Beirut killed at least nine people. Official media later reported an Israeli strike targeted a market in Nabatiyeh, an important southern city.

Israel had earlier told residents of south Lebanon not to return home, as its troops fought Hezbollah militants in a war that has killed more than 1,200 people since September 23, and forced more than a million others to flee their homes, Lebanese authorities say.

"For your own protection, do not return to your homes until further notice... Do not go south; anyone who goes south may put his life at risk," Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee posted on X.

Hezbollah said it fired missiles into northern Israel, where air raid sirens sounded and the military said it had intercepted a projectile. ...

OK, the substance of the article aside.

My first, and major concern, is the "real people" appellation in the title.

imo, that is just wrong.

So very wrong.

It is a denigration of those who have opposing views, much as fmr Pres Trump does so often.

@#2

So... long on promises, and short on deliveries?

Much like the presidential candidate Mr Musk is supporting.

Oops...

More from the article...

... Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been making promises about self-driving cars and robotaxis for years, but he's finally showing his cards. Musk has revealed the long-awaited self-driving Tesla taxi, dubbed the Cybercab. It's a compact two-seater with no steering wheel or pedals, operated entirely by Tesla's Full Self-Driving technology. That software is still imperfect on current vehicles, but the company claims the Cybercab will be safer than a human driver.

The vehicle, believed to be based on the canceled Model 2 budget EV, looks like a Model Y that has been slightly smushed lengthwise. The coupe has a large trunk instead of a second row of seating, which is a perplexing choice for public transportation. It has butterfly-style doors that open upward; again, that might not make the most sense for a robotic taxi that's going to be driving around on congested city streets, but it does make for a neat demo.

Musk rode the Cybertaxi around the Warner Bros. Studios lot in Burbank to demonstrate the vehicle. This was clearly a controlled environment, but it won't be much different when the EV launches. The self-driving taxi will only operate in Texas and California at first, which allows Tesla to precisely map roadways. The company also hopes to enable unsupervised Full Self-Driving for Model 3 and Model Y vehicles in those states starting next year. ...

OK, I looked into my tunes accumulation, and I found that I have a 96/24 version of Bridge of Sighs., which is current playing.

The meaning of the song? From what I have learned over the years (decades)...

@#7 ... I'm sure of the venue and its feel because ...

Yeah, I have a similar "feel" for the performances (I am reluctant to call them "concerts" for such an intimate setting) that I attended at Toad's Place.

Ditto for the performances I attended at the Nightshift Cafe (on Rubber Avenue) in Naugatuck, CT back in the day.

Fond memories that bring a smile to my face.

More from the article...

...I'm mostly a nighttime observer, but Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS (C/2023 A3) has turned my schedule upside down. For the past 10 days, I've been up at dawn, peering through the horizon murk for brief views of the comet, then sticking around for an extra hour to see sunup. In that time I've met a whole new group of people -- runners, birders and of course, sunrise-watchers.

From the northern U.S., the comet has primarily been a photographic object too faint to see without binoculars. But those in the southern U.S. and southward, where the comet stands higher and suffers less from atmospheric absorption, have seen a bright, strongly condensed coma and a tail more than 15 long. Observers there simply have to look up, and there it is. Even smartphones suffice for capturing the comet with a favorite twilight scene. ...

@19 ... If it can fog a mirror it can run for president, so say the oligarchy. ...

Got links?

Or is that just your opinion, in a amazingly lame attempt to run cover for fmr Pres Trump?

@#12 ... Going back to my old laptop...

I do have to say, at this point that the Lenovo T-series laptops, once an industry standard for ruggedness, have deteriorated to being ~just another laptop, or worse.~

I can see the cost-reduction in the hardware's user interface.

imo, Lenovo has lost its mojo in the T-series. Big time.

OK, still having issues with copy 'n' paste on this new laptop.

Going back to my old laptop...

Apologies.

@#8 ... It's like a jigsaw puzzle. It's not his fault if nobody is smart enough to figure it out./s ...

Yeah, I see the "/s" there.

That aside, it is just fmr Pres Trump trying to raise himself above other, not by showing his assets, but by degrading his perceived assets that others may have.

My opinion...

[continued]

@#6 ... Gotta make the Master's Rich. ...

So sez Pres Putin?

OK, I have a new laptop here.

There seems to be some copy 'n' paste issues related to the touchpad. Apologies.

#1 should have been...

More from the article...

... The confidential material was part of a more than two-year investigation into TikTok by 14 attorneys general that led to state officials suing the company on Tuesday. The lawsuit alleges that TikTok was designed with the express intention of addicting young people to the app. The states argue the multi-billion-dollar company deceived the public about the risks.

In each of the separate lawsuits state regulators filed, dozens of internal communications, documents and research data were redacted -- blacked-out from public view -- since authorities entered into confidentiality agreements with TikTok.

But in one of the lawsuits, filed by the Kentucky Attorney General's Office, the redactions were faulty.

This was revealed when Kentucky Public Radio copied-and-pasted excerpts of the redacted material, bringing to light some 30 pages of documents that had been kept secret.

After Kentucky Public Radio published excerpts of the redacted material, a state judge sealed the entire complaint following a request from the attorney general's office "to ensure that any settlement documents and related information, confidential commercial and trade secret information, and other protected information was not improperly disseminated," according to an emergency motion to seal the complaint filed on Wednesday by Kentucky officials.

NPR reviewed all the portions of the suit that were redacted, which highlight TikTok executives speaking candidly about a host of dangers for children on the wildly popular video app. The material, mostly summaries of internal studies and communications, show some remedial measures " like time-management tools -- would have a negligible reduction in screen time. The company went ahead and decided to release and tout the features. ...