Meanwhile back at the ranch the Texas Rangers baseball club has elected to play the final two spring training games and Opening Day in front of full houses. I hope MLB puts a stop to this.
Anyway who cares as that area of the state is a suburb of Ardmore Oklahoma. 
In my opinion, sports–from high school through pro–starting back up belongs in the Bad News thread. Poor judgment.
Wow. Such cultural differences between your country and mine - I’ve often said America is the most foreign country I visit, even allowing for the same language. But then I’m always surprised and feel very uncomfortable if I see an armed police officer in the UK (say at the airport, which is just about the only place I encounter one).
This is 100% not true btw. I’m in insurance. In the past 12 months, all around the country, there were fewer people on the road but higher speeds recorded in citations and crashes. By a lot. Certain places the # of citations for people going over 100mph increased tenfold.
Harters, I would take a gander that there are plenty of Americans who also feel like foreigners in the US based on exactly this kind of thing. To me the entire idea of a gun makes no sense whatsoever, and I think the world at large would be a better place if we had none.
I want all people in the US to have to read through the list of Americans killed by gunshot, including the reason they were shot (in modern times, and excluding the military). I want them to have to put a mark beside the ones who deserved to be killed. I think it would show that in most people’s opinion a large majority didn’t deserve it, and that the outcome of access to guns is mainly to hand over the country to criminals and people who can’t control themselves. The rate of “successfully shot in self-defense” is going to be way down the list somewhere, far from “murdered” and closer to “accidental discharge”.
America’s foundational gun law is a total failure, but no one there is allowed to admit that, because of the very widespread idea that a constitution is more important than the people it was written for.
Actually I think you @DavidPF& @jcostiones are all kind of saying the same thing but differently.
You are correct accidents have increased 10 fold, that was a result of fewer people being on the roads etc. However, it’s still people aka “morons” who are driving at those higher speeds and causing the accidents. Bad driving, aggressive driving or flat out speeding is not a symptom of covid, so it can’t be blamed the disease itself, but it is an unintended consequence of the disease that is causing fewer drivers, higher speeds and more accidents. AKA morons!!
Guns do not go off by accident. It takes someone to disengage the safety, point the weapon and pull the trigger.
You would have been very upset at what I saw and have seen. This at a Houston BBQ restaurant before Covid. There were six HPD officers on a Saturday afternoon enjoying good BBQ fully armed and in tactical gear ready to take on the dregs of society and lay their lives on the line.
I went over and thanked them for their service.
I can only imagine the firepower in their cruisers.
It’s unfortunate but we can’t have law enforcement outgunned by criminals.
I apologize if I gave the wrong legal description.
If there’s a federal law saying judges must treat every discharge of a gun as if the registered owner had deliberately taken aim at who/what was actually hit, then I can withdraw my entire comment.
Moderators Hat One
Hey Peeps,
I’m certainly as guilty as the next person (probably more so) of making off topic comments. However I always try to remember the old family gathering adage:
“Never discuss politics or religion”.
We are walking a fine line here about a topic which there are passionate arguments on both sides of, however this is no where near the forum for those discussions.
So I’m going to ask that we refocus the discussion and we cease any further commentary on gun(s) et al.
Thank you for your understanding and as always your participation in HO!!
Regards,
Notjr
Day three from renegade Texas open state.
Everybody is staying masked up.
That’s good to know, that the genpop is smarter than the government. I don’t think that’s always the case.
Interesting. The news is reporting that Texans are not masking up and are crowding bars and restaurants.
But I’ve lived most of my life in Philly. PA has often been described as Philly in the east, Pittsburgh in the west and Alabama in between. In Philly and its collar counties everybody is masked up and I can honestly say I have not witnessed a single mask dispute. Will it last after a year? Who knows.
Houston checking in here. The restaurants have been open at limited capacity for a while and I’ve felt safe.
I don’t go to bars but if I did I wouldn’t go.
Ninety miles west of here in rural Texas most have never masked.
I always mask even though it is no longer mandated.
Fully vaccinated here, and so happy! Thus ends my 15 month (pretty damned strict) QT, and I’m going out for dinner Friday, maybe Saturday too! Sunday, if I should get the urge, haha! Our state is in phase 3, which for us means 50% capacity in all businesses, statewide for now. Hopefully, this is some light at the end of the tunnel. We shall see…
I’ve posted before that curbside pickup (called ‘click-and-collect’ in some parts of the world, and also POBIS (purchase online something in-store)) is the silver lining of COVID. There is hardly anything we need that isn’t available in our small city/large town (it’s a town with pretensions of being a city) by curbside. Even our library does curbside pickup.
In my opinion, curbside pickup is every bit as helpful as a mask in reducing the spread of COVID.
Analysis from a retail organization in the UK that showed up in my news feed this morning indicates an assessment that curbside/click-and-collect is “sticky” and is likely to continue after concerns about the pandemic fade. My experience up and down the US East Coast, in Bermuda, in the BVI, and in Puerto Rico is that curbside is available everywhere although in some places you have to hunt for it. Reporting is that it is available in some places in the UK although @Harters reports not in his village.
Even some of the larger farms that serve our County farmers’ market take orders for pickup at the farmers’ market or at the farm.
Outdoor pickup of produce and farm goods, either at the farm itself or at an outdoor pickup site, has been a staple for us during the pandemic. A couple farms near me are also doing home delivery for the first time.
Because we have had a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) share so much of this time, I haven’t gone to a farmers’ market for more than a year. The farmers’ market nearest me did introduce pre-ordering to avoid wait times and crowding.
All that said, I wish that it were easier/possible for more households to benefit from local food. My way of supplying our household with produce only works for those that can afford to prepay, as local farmers need to cover costs upfront.
Not sure how COVID related this is. The connection is tenuous. I’m thinking more people cooking, more people engaging on social media, and leakage of societal “norms” to the trade.
“Karen” and “Ken” have take a real beating in recent years as avatars for poorly behaved customers. That’s leaked into MSM. What I’m seeing on trade social media is the use of random names you have to figure out from context. Taking a beating this morning: Diane, Sara, and Bob.
I was reminded of this thread today . . . phone calls! It had been all e-mails and texts for years; catching up in person when we got together.
Months in of the pandemic my friends/siblings and I reverted to speaking on the phone. It was like high school all over again (in a good way). We have spent hours on the phone talking. laughing, crying.
