Scam warning

For some reason that I can't remember back at the end of Sept I paid $1.00 for a 'free trial' of a credit monitoring firm. I discovered that it was even less helpful than the free monitoring of Credit Karma, so didn't do anything to extend the service after the '7 day free trial'. Imagin my shock and awe when a $39.99 charge from them just showed up on my bank account. Evidently, buried somewhere where they assumed you wouldn't see it was the little factoid that if you didn't cancel after the free trial, you would end up paying $40.00 a month for something you can get for free elsewhere. Caveat Emptor! The firm is:

YourScoreAndMore, 866-752-5004, CA

Seth Abramson has some info about White House and DOJ hiding whistleblower info.

Follow link below:


https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1172703173322203136.html

Trump's trade war is about to make it harder for Americans abroad to vote.

You've probably never heard of the UPU, or Universal Postal Union. It is a 145 year old treaty that facilitates the sending of mail across international borders. Trump is now threatening to withdraw from the treaty as part of his trade war with China.

Does China currently get somewhat of a sweetheart deal on shipping rates? Yes. Would it make sense to get some of our allies (do we have any allies left?) onboard to try and get a rate change? Sure. But Trump wants to go it alone and just leave the treaty. Which could be disastrous.

WaPo has a full article/opinion at:

https://beta.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/13/trumps-trade-war-is-about-make-it-harder-americans-abroad-vote/

The article is long and complex and just doesn't lend itself to a 4 paragraph excerpt.

An oldie but a goodie.

Is Hell Exothermic or Endothermic?

The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid-term:
"Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)? Support your answer with a proof."

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle’s Law (gas cools off when it expands and heats up when it is compressed) or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So, we need to know the rate that souls are moving into Hell and the rate they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let’s look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle’s Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand as souls are added. This gives two possibilities.

1) If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

2) Of course, if Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it ? If we accept the postulate given to me by Ms. Therese Banyan during my Freshman year that "It will be a cold night in Hell before I sleep with you," and take into account the fact that I still have not succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then (2) cannot be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic.

The student got the only A.

China Stops Buying US Agricultural Products Entirely

On Tuesday, the Chinese Commerce Ministry announced that China will no longer be buying American agricultural products, a decision with huge, wide-ranging implications. Zippy Duvall, president of the normally conservative-leaning American Farm Bureau, called the decision a “body blow” to American agriculture.

The Chinese decision is a response to two moves from Donald Trump and his administration. The first was a surprise announcement, made by Trump, that the US would begin instituting a 10 percent tariff on about $300 billion worth of Chinese goods. This came following a series of trade negotiations that press officers in the Trump administration described as “productive,” but Trump tweeted that China had reneged on promises to purchase certain American agricultural products (without specifying what those might have been).

Then, on Monday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin formally labeled China as a currency manipulator due to a drop in the value of the yuan. The move is largely symbolic, but also nearly unprecedented, and seen as mostly an open-handed slap in the face to China.

In response, it appears, came the Chinese government’s tactic to halt the purchase of American agricultural goods. China’s targeting of American agriculture has the benefit, in China’s perspective, of being both a large and a political attack. China imports billions of dollars of American agriculture, being the largest importer of American soybeans and a top-three importer of American pork; overall, China is the fourth-largest importer of American agricultural goods. But attacking American agriculture also serves as a de facto attack on Trump, who is perceived to draw support from rural America. This will be yet another insanely heavy burden on American farmers, who have dealt with fallout from the trade war for over a year, in addition to swine flu, floods, droughts, and heat waves.