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Comment Re: Universal Service Taxes (Score 1) 146

Tell me about that service guarantee when the power goes out - how does the electric company make it up to you?

The issue is the community buys its electricity from one company that in turn buys its electricity from another company - it that 'other company' that is reducing available electricity, and the first company is working to find a new source of electricity, which is apparently a paperwork issue, nothing more.

Comment Re: Reverting to third-world status (Score 1) 146

So residential electricity consumers in the USA are finding out what it's like to live in a third-world country without proper electricity infrastructure.

Drama Much?

Do people in third-world countries get 12 month notice of a reduction in the amount of electricity available to them? These folks will have reliable electricity, it will just not be as much as they currently have.

In a free market another private, for profit, electric company would add generation capacity to the residential grid and meet the needs of the community, but this is not a free market.

If half the homes add solar panels, the issue is solved. It would be pretty simple for the state, as a cost added to the incentives to bring in the AI Datacenter, deeply subsidized the residential solar panel deployments in this community.

Comment Re: Lack of accountability (Score 0, Troll) 132

They are paid a pittance by the district and treated like glorified babysitters by the parents.

I'd like to see some numbers here - please explain this "pittance" teachers are paid...

To become a teacher in most states (all I'm familiar with, my I have not looked into all) require little more than a BA degree to become a teacher.

Once hired, if the teacher can hold on to their job for two years in a union school district, they get "tenure", among other things, it is effectively job security for the rest of their lives.

Teachers have, typically, fairly generous health care benefits, as won though historical contract negotiations and labor disputes.

Teachers are off every school holiday (by definition), and yes, some take their work home and finish up grading papers at home, but if they tried a bit harder they could likely get most of that done if they stuck around school for an hour or less - they likely choose to go home and meet their kids coming home from their school.

Union teachers (not all teachers) are paid fairly competitively for the jobs they do, and typically know in advance their next three to five years annual salary increases due to labor contracts - that something few Americans have.

At retirement, teacher pensions are very generous and include continuation of their (previous) employer health care coverage for life.

If you really want to argue teachers are paid a "pittance" I really need you to show me your evidence.

If teachers are buying classroom supplies because the district won't, that's on the parents (AKA the taxpayers) who should step up and cover the expenses.

The next time a teacher says they are under paid, ask them what their salary is, if they won't tell you their salary, they aren't underpaid, they just want more.

If you want to claim teachers are underpaid, make sure you take a good look at their union contract first - see if they really are underpaid, their salaries are public record.

Comment Re: No (Score 0) 132

I've noticed that modern parents have become far too lenient and overprotective with their children, to the extent that teachers are being assaulted because they require children to actually learn something.

Parents don't care about their children's education - they think their high property taxes remove the need for parents to become involved in their child's education ("That's what we are paying the teachers for, right?").

And the teachers, unshackled from the dreaded "Teaching to the test" regime have decided that their jobs are to be an ally for their students, to expose them to unconventional ideas (Drag Queen Story Hour? I remember when parents used to read stories to their kid's classes, not men dressed as Vegas Chorus Line dancers).

A few years ago 13 Baltimore High Schools had NO STUDENTS reading or doing math at grade level - NONE. You know what that means? That means the class valedictorian wasn't reading or doing math at the 12th grade level. Let that sink in. Their parents think they are a genius, when they aren't even working at grade level... Think that child might go to college? Of course! Will they succeed? Likely not, but they'll have some hefty student loans for classes they never should have taken.

You want parents to care? Start holding back under-performing students, end social promotion.

You want teachers to care? End tenure. Institutions like NYC public school's famous "rubber rooms" only serve to drain resources from the classroom and allows teachers in the classroom to backslide into not teaching, instead babysitting their students because "why not?" They (effectively) can't fire me?

There's lots of other things that can be done, for example let parents take some school funding and put their kids in charter schools, get their kids away from failing public schools. No one's future should be determined by their zip code!

Comment Are you serious? (Score 3, Insightful) 146

That dynamic â" small residential customers losing out to massive industrial electricity buyers â" is exactly what's driving the broader shift to distributed solar and storage.

What?

You are acting like this is a common occurrence happening all across the country - it isn't. This article is the first such case , and since it takes effect in one year, it isn't "...driving the broader shift to distributed solar and storage". Tax incentives, rising utility prices, and concerns about the environment are what has been driving folks to invest in alternative energy sources like residential solar panels.

Comment Re:Something is fishy (Score 0) 55

A week ago they told everyone that they weren't going to ship and that they were keeping the money. Now they're telling everyone they shipped.

Wow, you got it so wrong in those 2 sentences!

"A week ago they told everyone that they weren't going to ship and that they were keeping the money."

No, they said that a $100 preorder was not a guaranteed order, and they didn't say they were "keeping the money." It becomes an order when they pay the remaining $400 - it's really a very simple concept, I'm surprised you don't understand it.

"Now they're telling everyone they shipped."

No, now they are telling everyone they are starting to ship, present tense, not past tense, over the next several weeks.

Comment Re: Used to be illegal to release medical info the (Score 1) 29

I think you're being a bit aggressive in your HIPPA explaination.

They aren't sharing specific, identity-revealing medical information about anyone.

Knowing that a user visited a website for pregnant, low-income DACA participants doesn't confirm the user is pregnant, low-income, or enrolled in DACA.

It's like saying by observing someone walk into an abortion clinic that violates HIPPA because now I know they are pregnant. I can prove no such thing from that visit - they could work at the clinic, they could be going in with someone that is pregnant, or they could be going to the clinic for any of the plethora of non-abortion related treatments and tests.

To violate HIPPA you need to have sufficient identity information to identify an individual and reveal their personal medical info. That's simplified, but knowing a person looked for information on a website doesn't *prove* anything.

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