1 hour ago, Zambroski said:

Our imbecile has just authorized National Guard to step up and perform duties to deal with shortages while he simultaneously pushes mandates as healthcare workers flee.

It’s the most amazing time to watch people with sub 100 IQ’s and 2nd grade reasoning skills run things as they kick the “problem can” down the road.

Imagine joining the MN Guard and finding out your duty will be to act as a CNA at a nursing home.  The shitbag will get re-elected too.  The metro will make damn sure of that.  I happen to live in MN and work in WI so I get to deal with the BS handed down by both Walz and Evers.  

Hospital where I work has a 20 bed unit full of patients waiting to be placed in a nursing home.  Little to no nursing home availability due to no NH staff.  As soon as a patient leaves, another one is rolling through the door waiting for placement.  Our busy units have had to provide staff to take care of these 20 patients for months.  The trickle down is that their home units are short staffed and both the main Covid unit and the overflow Covid unit have been full or mostly full (90-95% unvaccinated).  ICU has been 80-95% full on a daily basis as well.  Plus, kitchen, laundry, and housekeeping staff are all short because a lot of people have left.  We're short on RNs, MDs, PAs, NPs, CNAs, you name it.  It's a far different world than when I started way back when.  

4 hours ago, Mainecat said:

Nazis Call for Dead Leftists to be 'Stacked Up Like Cord Wood' Following Rittenhouse Acquittal

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/11/20/2065335/-Nazis-Call-for-Dead-Leftists-to-be-Stacked-Up-Like-Cord-Wood-Following-Rittenhouse-Acquittal 

Nazis Call for Dead Leftists to be 'Stacked Up Like Cord Wood' Following Rittenhouse Acquittal 
by Mark C. Eades 


White supremacists and others on the far right are celebrating the acquittal of Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse, and the tone of their celebrations appears to confirm fears that their new hero’s acquittal will inspire more right-wing violence. Following the acquittal, right-wing social media platform Gab sent out an email encouraging its users to “buy firearms and form Christian militias.” As NPR reports, celebratory online comments by members of the Proud Boys included a call for dead leftists to be “stacked up like cord wood,” further indicating that the Rittenhouse acquittal will be seen as license to carry out similar acts of violence disguised as “self-defense”: 
 

“This might be interpreted across the far right as a type of permission slip to do this kind of thing or to seek out altercations in this way, believing that there is a potential that they won’t face serious consequences for it,” said Jared Holt, a resident fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council. “I worry that that might end up being interpreted by some people as a proof of concept of this idea that you can actually go out and seek a ‘self-defense situation,’ and you’ll be cheered as a hero for it."

“Rittenhouse’s acquittal has already been adopted as a justification for future violence,” observed Alex Newhouse of the Middlebury Institute’s Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism in Newsweek, “Many see it as a blank check to use violence at leftist protests, others see it as a spark in a coming civil or race war.” Newhouse commented further at BuzzFeed: 
 

“The ‘saints’ of the far right include the Charleston, Christchurch, Poway, Pittsburgh, and El Paso shooters… and now they also include Rittenhouse.... They have all rallied around Rittenhouse as a person who walks the walk of revolutionary [and] accelerationist myth; he actually went out onto the streets and took violent action against protesters…. There’s precedent for acquittals like this to be used in inciting to and carrying out further violence.... Already, the far right is using Rittenhouse’s full acquittal as tacit approval of at least vigilante violence—and, in many cases, they’re calling for the expansion of anti-leftist political violence more broadly.”

Meanwhile in Congress, Nazi tourism enthusiast Madison Cawthorn, white supremacist one-man freak show Paul Gosar, and sex-trafficking frat boy Matt Gaetz all want Rittenhouse to come and work for them as a congressional intern, as a reward for killing leftists and getting away with it, and so that he can roam the corridors of the Capitol trying to intimidate liberal congresswomen. Cawthorn also celebrated Rittenhouse’s acquittal by telling his supporters to follow the latter’s example, “be armed,” and “be dangerous.” 

None of this bodes well for America’s near future, as progressive commentators observe with alarm. “Kyle Rittenhouse’s future looks hideously bright,” writes Kali Holloway at The Daily Beast, “What his trial ultimately proved beyond a reasonable doubt is that white supremacy is the only law that truly matters, the one organizing principle of American society that provides grounds for any action taken in its name.” As Ja’han Jones further observes at MSNBC, “Conservatives are encouraging white vigilantes like Rittenhouse to police progressive spaces by all means.” According to MSNBC legal analyst Maya Wiley, “We’re in more danger today than yesterday.” 

Great, reliable, unbiased source there...

https://www.dailykos.com/rules-of-the-road

10 hours ago, CFM said:

Can't make this shit up!

I've still got a few laying around in my toolbox.  Got a tool for them too!

Minneapolis looks like it might keep their police department.

I showed my kids (both 19 year olds) an episode of "In Living Color" and they couldn't believe their eyes!  They hesitantly laughed, but couldn't believe that it used to be on TV!  

3 hours ago, teamgreen02 said:

I'll be shocked if Youngkin doesn't win.  McAuliffe has run a terrible campaign.  His whole "parents shouldn't have a say in what the schools teach their kids" was a position only the liberal elite can relate to.

Minneapolis will  be another Portland or San Francisco before long.  Back in college we used to go all over and have a fun time.  Wife used to work downtown at night.  Now we hardly ever go down there.  Really the only time now is the State Fair or Supercross.

The reason I say that is, look who the the president is.  Most votes EVER by a candidate?!  Doesn't make ANY sense at all.  Therefore, a generally democratic state with a former governor and HUGE Clinton lacky, it wouldn't surprise me if he "miraculously" won.  I don't believe things are on the level.  Hopefully, I'm wrong.

As far as MN goes, I live among the cows and rocks as our esteemed governor so eloquently put it.  He's a jackass but that's an entirely different story.  I have nothing but contempt for the metro and 99% of the decisions they've made for the rest of the state.  Minneapolis PD, from what I understand, hasn't been a necessarily upstanding department, however, lots of things go on in the metro that never make the news and allow many of the do-gooders in this state to live their lives of denial.  My sister-in-law is one of those people so I've seen it firsthand.  I avoid the metro as much as I can.  I used to be a big Twins fan but skipped it this year because I have no desire to 1) contribute $$ to pro (woke) sports teams, and 2) go anywhere downtown for any reason and spend any of my hard earned dollars in that shithole.  Enough of my money already goes there.  Ok, rant over.

4 hours ago, teamgreen02 said:

Election day tomorrow.  Locally it is the Minneapolis mayor, city counsel, and their proposal to replace the police with a department of "public safety" (which I'm sure will pass).

Dems about to get wrecked in Virginia with the governors race.  If Virginia elects a Republican to statewide office, 2022 is going to be a landslide.

I'll be shocked if McAuliffe DOESN'T win...

I'll also be shocked if the metro votes to keep the Minneapolis PD.  Too many people in strategic places that stand to gain from its demise.  They get the government they deserve.

What I find interesting and alarming is that we sit here in this country bitching about Left vs Right, Gay vs Straight, Rich vs Poor, which pronoun to call someone, and raging about which bathroom people are allowed to use, while other major players in the world are moving forward strengthening their strategic and economic positions.  Our economy is in decline while we fight over anything and everything.  It's our own fault.

1 hour ago, ActionfigureJoe said:

You do understand that it's too late for that? 

If these idiots are all we have to choose from, then yes, it is too late.  I would like to think that there is better out there but then again, maybe they're all too smart to take such a shit show of a responsibility.

Let's all be honest here, is this the best we can do?!?!?  They're both shitbags and while one's policies actually helped a lot of people in THIS country, the other's seem to be helping a lot of people from other countries.  Is this all we have to choose from?!

Can't we just agree that we want to help THIS country and the citizens of it?

7 hours ago, Bontz said:

My buddy has a cabin up in the Namakagon area, and we've used Hayward Powersports on more than one occasion when something needs a quick fix.  Honestly, their service department has been fantastic for the number of times we've pulled in there & they got us looked at.  But I also know from a sales perspective, and talking with a few people around there, their clientele is a lot of non locals (Illinois) who just blindly write out a check when buying new sleds.  And they clearly have no issues selling sleds, from what we can see.  It sucks, because I think my buddy would eventually like to make them his primary dealer since he only rides up there ... but when you can't even get a price while discussing snow check programs, that kinda defeats the purpose.   

Hayward Power Sports has been awesome for trailside service.  Easy to deal with and accommodating.  However, like you said, lots of Illinois and Twin Cities people that come in and point, and write a check.  Happens in the summer as well.  New Lund out of the checking account!

Here's what's happening at the hospital in my neck of the woods.  The high census consists of a lot of additional patients with Covid along with the regular population of patients that are septic, have chronic diseases that require hospitalization, traumas, women having babies, sick children, etc.  Surgery has reduced the number of cases being performed due to the lack of open beds.  The ER is crazy busy, every single day, and they've been having to hold patients that should be on a medical floor, for up to 50 hours.  The air medical transport gets called from other facilities to pick up patients and bring them to the main hospital, but doesn't end up bringing them, because there's no room for them.

Staffing is short due to high census.  Just because you have X number of beds, doesn't mean you can staff them day in and day our for a year plus and counting.  Staff aren't necessarily cross-trained to work in multiple departments.  Oncology staff aren't safely able to take care of babies in the NICU because they've never done it, nor would anyone want them to.  The hospital has to be staffed 24/7 so that requires multiple shifts.  Throw in part time people and weekends and it requires A LOT to staff a decent sized hospital.  Additionally, it takes extra staff to do constant observation for suicidal, behavioral, and violent patients.  Staff are floating to other areas, working extra, and doing what they can.

Staff in leadership positions have been working the floors to help out, as they should.  Staff are burned out and working extra constantly along with others that have left to pursue travel positions that pay more.  Some have left healthcare altogether.  A full time worker at 40 hrs/week will work 2080 hrs in a year.  I worked just under 3400 hrs last year.  And I'm far from being the only one.

It's easy to say that staff should be moved around or released from school early, until it comes to them taking care of one of your family or friends.

On 7/8/2021 at 12:03 AM, probill said:

What you are posting about was my biggest fear when I bought my Opti 2 years ago. Great motors when they are running well but if something goes wrong I think you need a dealer who really knows their stuff. That engine seems so complicated with the air compressor and fuel injectors and that three stage fuel pump. I know here in Ontario getting a dealer who really knows something about an Opti is a pretty tall order. Lots of dealers like to talk but when you speak to the mechanic you find out they have hardly ever seen the inside of an Opti much less actually solved an issue with one. I see that Team Marine Service has a few videos out on V6's and they talk about Opti's. Have no idea if they are good or not but they talk a good talk on Youtube. You have thrown a lot of money at that motor already. Hope you find someone that can solve the issues for you. Best of luck getting it fixed quickly.   

Team Marine is a good shop.  I would bet they have quite a bit of experience with Opti's...  

Thanks guys.  There's been a couple of times when I thought he was done, but he bounced back both times.  Just trying to keep him as happy as possible while we still have him.

01MXZ800, my apologies, don't mean to be a downer on your thread.  Congratulations on a beautiful lab pup!!!

This is Finn.  He'll be 11 in a little under a month.  He's dying of cancer and will likely be gone before the weather gets cold.  He's been the best dog I ever could've imagined.

Sorry to hear about your friend...