anon6789

Wow, never had heard of the DFL, but now I read the wiki, and that is a pretty cool history…at least before they got a bit more conservative in the post-war period, but still cool!

Two kinds of people typically hunt endangered animals: rich assholes and starving people. A straight ban on hunting these animals does nothing to solve either problem.

We know rich assholes are going to do what they want by whatever means, including exploiting animals and the poor, so I don’t think I need to go into that.

Poor people will hunt endangered animals or take rich people to hunt them because both those paths lead to them and their families eating. They may care about the animals, they may not, but they and their families need food and money to live.

Legalized hunting of endangered game does a lot to solve all these problems. Poor people become legitimate guides. Poachers in places like Tanzania were for a while allowed to be killed legally. Now they aren’t shot for trying to provide food for people and are putting the money into their villages. The people now have economic incentive to protect these animals to protect their new local tourism. Associated services are created to make the destination attractive. Governments see the benefit of monitoring and protecting these species.

It’s not perfect. Anti-poaching measures leads to violence on both sides, just as things like the war on drugs. Things like legalized gambling, drugs, and prostitution help prevent exploitation, keeps participants safer in their activities, and allows monitoring and oversight by regulators. Some will still poach no matter what. But it brings more things to the open and people can work with facts and figures about their local situations.

I don’t like the idea of trophy hunting anymore than I like seeing people participate in other senseless and destructive vices, but we can ensure people do things in ways that are better and safe for all involved.

I do hunt for one deer a year myself. Where I am has a higher number than is sustainable, and with people having less money and time off than ever, the state cannot get all the deer they want to be hunted as things are. It lets me take one animal that gets me through most of the year instead of however many from the store, and I know it’s all natural and never spent a moment in captivity. Hunting is mostly a chore for me, though I do enjoy the time in the woods and spending a few days with my brother.

Pension was definitely the wrong word, I’ll cop to that. It’s an invested fund designed to payout at what I assume should be a relatively stable rate while not depleting itself.

The offset comment was a mildly sarcastic remark about my uncertainty that it would cover expenses to the extent it could fully eliminate taxes on a permanent basis. I just don’t see the motivation (for officials) to lock away large amounts from funds they can spend at will to an account that’s off limits.

The article you linked was very interesting, as this is the first I’d heard of this proposed fund (not from Missouri) and the bit at the end about the Hancock Amendment was intriguing, as it seems the state has a lot of special rules about taxation that could further complicate what this agreement proposes.

Thanks for taking the time to respond civilly. It does highlight the significance of clear and proper wording. I knew what I meant, but I didn’t make it clear to some of you. That’s why I don’t write ballot questions maybe. 😅

Checking a few summaries, I’m not sure how I’m off on this.

A “yes” vote supports creating a permanent public endowment fund managed by the state to generate revenue, and using the earnings to eliminate state-imposed taxes when sufficient to replace them.

The Show-Me Prosperity Investment Fund would receive funds appropriated by the legislature, as well as grants and donations, and the state treasurer would be required to invest it in exchange-traded funds tied to the S&P 500. Under the amendment, no money could be appropriated from the fund until its annual investment earnings are sufficient to replace revenue generated by state taxes. It would require that the money in the fund be used solely to eliminate state taxes, including the individual income tax, the state sales and use tax, the state corporate income tax, and all other state-imposed taxes. After these taxes are eliminated, the amendment would prohibit reenacting them, unless the fund is unable to meet its obligations. (Ballotopedia)

An investment fund to theoretically eliminate state taxes for taxpayers, should the legally allowed 3% withdrawal limit cover it. If that 3% doesn’t cover it, they can institute any legal method to collect the balance. What am I missing?

So, this is the proposal the article claims is the most challenging:

A “yes” vote will amend the Missouri Constitution to establish the “Show-Me Prosperity Fund,” a permanent public endowment fund to support state government with the goal of eliminating state-imposed taxes without impairing the real value of the fund’s principal; prohibit the General Assembly from appropriating or diverting monies from the fund until notification is given by the State Treasurer that the net investment earnings of the fund are sufficient to eliminate state-imposed taxes; cap the total amount of moneys that may be appropriated from the fund in a fiscal year to three percent of the average market value of the fund over the preceding five fiscal years; and prohibit the General Assembly from enacting the eliminated state-imposed taxes, provided, however, that in the event the fund is unable to meet its obligations due to insolvency, revenue shortfall, or program failure, the General Assembly shall retain full authority to appropriate funds from any lawful source and to enact legislation establishing or increasing taxes or other revenues as necessary.

A “no” vote will not amend the Missouri Constitution to establish a permanent public endowment fund to support state government with the goal of eliminating state-imposed taxes.

If passed, this measure will have no immediate impact on taxes but could lead to the elimination of state-imposed taxes if the net investment earnings of the fund become sufficient to support that outcome.

This seems pretty straightforward (basically a pension fund to offset taxes, if I’m reading it correctly), but I could picture maybe 50+% of the population having difficulty exactly grasping what they’re going for.

From what I can tell, there isn’t necessarily a limit on what can be made a ballot initiative, but it makes me feel wonder if there is a certain point where the public should or shouldn’t have a say on specific issues. If the US would enter a significant depression, and this tax program was in place, all of a sudden, Missourians would either get hit by a surprise sales tax or have to pay state tax out of pocket unexpectedly. The people that would have a hard time understanding the text of this ballot question would probably be hot disproportionately harder. I feel enough ballot questions are misleading to begin with (I typically vote against open space preservation in my area because it sounds like it pays wealthy landowners to just hold onto their property rather than sell to developers or to build sports parks for private leagues rather than preserving specific ecosystems of need), but voting on a significant structure of the tax system kinda feels like something that might be better left to experts than the average joe.

I don’t remember if I had a specific point or am just thinking out loud, but I don’t like ballot questions. It feels like the government just passing the responsibility back to us. If they do something that is stupid, they blame the people, and if an initiative is passed, I don’t believe they are compelled to act on it if I remember correctly.

This is my running theory. The value is in the network of cameras to track movement, no? The more data points they can potentially offer someone makes that data more useful/valuable.

Getting together with other like-minded individuals and actually doing something with immediate results like this has been such a huge help for me personally.

Just achieving something, no matter how small, and doing it with others that have a similar vision of what a better future is I feel is such a great mood booster.

I got involved with wild animal rescue 2 years ago, and being around such cool people is awesome, and each life we save is undeniably making our local ecosystem healthier and stronger.

I had never even heard of this before, but it was really fun to watch! I didn’t know I needed a Robocop musical before now! 😆

The letter home to mom and dad and the ED-209 having the same Alex Murphy style flashbacks as he was killed were hilarious, and of course the alley of perpetual sexual assault.

I grew up with a family that liked horror movies, and it was the 80s, so I watched a ton of kid-inappropriate stuff, and I felt the same way.

I still don’t watch the Murphy death scene to this day. I guess I never thought about the “why” of it, but you saying it now, that these guys were just normal people, not monsters or supernatural supernatural beings, and not in a fantasy setting, but a realistic enough place, and were taking so much realistic joy in killing this random guy in the worst way possible was more messed up than anything else I’ve seen.

The other stuff in the movie didn’t bother me, since it was mostly people getting what they deserve, but I also never really liked them throwing their buddy out of the moving car when he was begging them not to and I don’t recall him being all that injured for someone in a movie. I could never enjoy That 70s Show either, and wouldn’t watch it because I just couldn’t think of anything else but Clarence Boddicker when I saw him.

My brother and I both did the homemade laundry detergent for years with good success. We got everything off the shelf at Walmart, but Canada Walmart and Amazon sites make washing soda look much more expensive up there. That and the borax are about $7 each here.

Zote and Fels Naptha soaps worked equally well, but I usually grabbed the FN.

We added baking soda to the mix as well for deodorizing.

Made both liquid and powder versions, and both worked and all the soap dissolved for us in both forms.

This was in old top loader washers. I don’t know if I’d try this in modern front loaders as they seem more specific about what they want to work with due to using so much less water.

For wool, it’s naturally more odor fighting if you let it air out, so you shouldn’t have to wash it as much as cotton or other fibers. I tend to get wool dry cleaned because my wife’s family ran a cleaners, but if you’re going all natural fibers and homemade soap, I’m assuming that answer isn’t helpful for you.

I’d rather the bear than Shoggoths, Elder Things, or possibly a Great Old One!

Those are the first 3 I read (first was GG, second Mort, third ER) because they all seemed recommended starting places. They are all origins of different sets of characters, so there isn’t much back lore for any of those 3, so it gives you a very broad look at life on the Disc.

After finishing those, I knew I’d want to read them all, so then I went and started from the beginning and the rest of the books made much more sense than I think they would skipping about and you’d get light spoilers, seeing maybe some characters being good guys when they weren’t in earlier stories or different groups gaining acceptance due to conflicts being resolved (or not).

I haven’t checked his channel in a while, but I thought they did movie stuff occasionally (it is Cinemassacre after all!) and I thought for a minute they might lean more heavily into that since he seemed to have an equal passion for film as he did video games. I’d watch him just being himself nerding out on movies.

I appreciate when the photographer is forthright with it being an edit if they remove a branch/leaf/blade of grass, especially if they still share the original.

Any post processing is altering the original, and anything AI can do to a photo was done by hand in the past, including adding or removing subjects. I agree with you it doesn’t so much matter the method of alternation, it’s still the person presenting the image that is responsible for its credibility.

I also agree with the article that people uploading data to a crowdsourcing platform that is used by people trying to legitimately track animals to protect them is poisoning the well for people that are trying to do important work. A ton of resource is poorly funded, and having reliable volunteers is priceless. If people start throwing in made up datapoints, that takes a toll on real organisms. But then do you limit who can contribute, potentially excluding crucial photos? It just makes things a mess for everyone if people start becoming dishonest.