Hammersmith

I realize you guys are just using it for a joke, but there's a lot of misunderstanding about straws and Oregon(Eugene in particular). There's no ban on them. You still get them everywhere. Every fast food joint, every coffee shop, every place you'd normally get one. The difference is you ask for one instead of getting one automatically. And after a couple months of the law in place, most places are back to almost automatic. They prep the straw with the drink and then ask if you want one. If you say yes, they hand you the combo straw/drink; if you say no, they put the straw back and just hand you the drink. But it doesn't change your daily life one little bit. The ban on plastic bags, on the other hand, is a very real thing. You don't see those anywhere anymore. When I got out here a couple years ago, restaurants were still able to use them, but that loophole got closed in the last year. Now everything is paper bags. It's not really that big a deal once you switch over to reusable grocery bags. Unless you forget them at home and don't realize until you're at the store. That's annoying. Then you have to choose whether to go home and get them or pay ten cents a bag for a paper bag with no handles. The only other two negatives I can think of are not having an unlimited supply of free small garbage bags, and that some paper restaurant bags can be an adventure: the glue used for the handles can sometimes fail from the heat and moisture of the food.

The problem I have with the quote is how can you know for certain which voters voted for which race on a particular ballot? You can make assumptions based on vote totals, but they're just assumptions. You just can't know for certain unless they keep track of every ballot individually. You can guess that someone who voted R for senate voted R for president, but it's just a guess. I know I've voted split ballot more than once. I did take a quick look around a few different states to see if the difference in total votes for the presidential race versus the various senate races were similar to Georgia's, and I found that Georgia was right in line with the others I checked. It was only a quick look at nine states, but I found that between 0.9% and 2.3% of those that voted for president did not vote for their state's senate race.* In Georgia, 0.9% that voted for president did not vote in their regular senate race and 1.7% did not vote in their special election senate race. For comparison, 1.7% North Dakotans voted for president but did not vote for the state's congressional race. *Although even this is an assumption. There are four combinations of voting: Pres/Sen, Pres/NoSen, NoPres/Sen, NoPres/NoSen. I'm assuming that NoPres/Sen either doesn't exist or is so small as to not affect anything. It's a logical assumption(who votes for the senate race and does NOT vote for president?), but that doesn't mean it's a correct assumption.

Elections are a states process and each one has it's own laws to follow. In the case of some, the law says they can't start counting mail ballots until the final deadline to receive them has passed. So if ballots have to be postmarked by election day but can be received up to a week later, the counting can't start until that week has passed. I know Alaska has said they weren't going to start counting until then, but I don't know if it was by choice or by law. I know from a NY resident that the reason they haven't started there is because it's the law.

Sorry, false. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1998-trump-people-quote/ If it sounds too good to be true, it is. Unless it's that press conference in front of the landscaping place and next to the sex shop. That one was actually true.

Not disagreeing that Sanford has way more capability to donate compared to Altru, but hasn't UND received the same amount of money from Altru for athletic capital projects as NDSU has received from Sanford? I thought Altru donated $10M for the HPC and Sanford donated the same amount for the SHAC. I don't think Sanford has donated to any other NDSU athletic projects. That being said, I think NDSU has benefited from a better sports medicine partnership with Sanford compared to UND and Altru, but as far as raw money, I think it's been equal to this point.

It only covers the main campaign season, and it only applies to political letters. Candidates and political campaigns were using letter-writing campaigns in lieu of buying ad space. FCC has been doing this for two full years, and there hasn't exactly been much hue and cry about it thus far. Once the election is over, political letters will again be printed free of charge until the next election season. As they say in the article, the use of letter-writing campaigns by political camps has forced newspapers into one of three choices: 1. Continue to print every letter free of charge, adding pages to the paper if necessary. This will mean additional costs to the newspapers and result in opinion pages with dozens of letters, all saying the same things. 2. Select which letters to print. This creates major ethical issues and leads to questions about impartiality and bias. (Do you print equal numbers of letters on both sides? Do you print letters in proportion to the numbers you receive? How do you balance all the races, both individual and measures?) 3. Charge a fee for political letters; print all that are willing to pay. The payment is there to offset printing costs. Hopefully this keeps the repeats down, and encourages the main campaigns to use ads instead of letters, keeping the letters space open for individuals. I'm good with their decision. Actually, I'd like them to charge much more and then give a cut to those of us reading the page for having to deal with the crazy. The letters page is mostly populated by looney tunes(and not the funny cartoon ones).

There are a couple different ways we can do it depending on a few factors. The big factors will be how long the immunity lasts, what immunity percentage is needed for C19 herd immunity, and how much we really want this thing gone versus just containing it. If the immunity from the vaccine typically lasts decades, then we add it to childhood vaccinations plus a booster shot every so often. If it only lasts a few years, maybe we just start giving it regularly to vulnerable populations and anyone else who wants it, just like the flu shot. If it's only a year or so, maybe we just include it in the flu shot(which is already a mix of four different vaccines). If the immunity lasts for a few years or more and we really want this thing gone, we go for a global distribution of the vaccine for free and keep it up for several years. We do a good enough job, and the virus is gone for good. A lot will depend on how things happen after we get out of this pandemic. There have been other coronaviruses that we were very worried about, but they never came back after the first go around. As much as I hope C19 will do the same, I kinda doubt it will; it's just so much more communicative than those others. But if we get a vaccine that's even partially effective, we should be able to break the transmission chain. Widespread vaccination plus a few additional months of masks and social distancing should drop the transmission rate hard enough so that contact tracing, spot testing, and limited quarantining can finish stamping it out. Then we just get together with other countries and make the C19 vaccination part of the visa process. That should take care of 99.9% of the problem. And then we reevaluate every five years or so. If we go 10 years without a C19 outbreak, drop the vaccine requirement. But even if we never make it to a 100% solution, that doesn't mean it's a failure. We don't need perfect; good enough will do just fine. And if a vaccine can get the transmission rate down low enough for the other techniques to finish the job, that's definitely good enough.

Dude, he's right. Nothing in the article you posted supports what you're arguing. Either you don't completely understand herd immunity, or you don't understand the article. The concept of herd immunity is based on stopping people from being transmitters of the disease. If you have enough of those people in the wild, then the disease cannot progress enough and eventually outbreaks fizzle out. But the article wasn't talking about that. The article was talking about the different levels of immune system response to C19 and how that response might be connected to exposure to other coronaviruses. The big thing from that article for the purposes of our discussion is that exposure to other coronaviruses DOES NOT give you immunity to C19 and it DOES NOT prevent you from being contagious. All it does is lessen the severity of the illness. So if previous exposure to other coronaviruses does not give you complete immunity from C19 or prevent you from passing it on, how can it say anything about herd immunity?

There won't be 3 FBS teams to play pretty soon. The MAC just called things off a few hours ago. They won't be the last. The chances of any college football this fall just got up from next to Slim and started walking towards None.

St Thomas waiver approved. https://news.stthomas.edu/july-15-2020-press-release/ Summit, Pioneer(FB), WCHA(WIH) all lined up. Men's hockey TBD.

Yes, Hardee's and Carl's Jr are the same company. They merged at some point many years ago and they decided to keep both brands operating. Carl's Jr is mostly confined to the western states, while Hardee's is used in the midwest and south with some penetration to the east. I'd say they share about 80% of the same menu. Hardee's has some more "traditional" menu items like the hot ham 'n cheese and a larger breakfast menu, while Carl's Jr goes a little "edgier"(for lack of a better term) with menu items like tacos/burritos, fried zucchini, and more chicken options. They used to share marketing, but the Carl's Jr ads got a little too racy for the midwestern market. Now that I'm living out in Oregon, I've had to learn how to make my own hot hams. They were a staple for me growing up in a ND town that only had Hardee's and DQ as fast food options, and I get nostalgic for them every few months. But I've come to learn they're easy to make. You need fairly cheap processed deli ham(the kind in plastic containers, not from the deli case), some cheap white american singles, and some sesame seed buns(if you're like me and remember the old buns and not the newer buttered buns). The construction is supposed to be 8 thin slices of ham, 1 slice of cheese, 8 slices of ham, 1 slice of cheese, then microwave the whole thing for 45-120 seconds depending on your microwave. Wait about 30-60 seconds and eat. Try to use a better ham, a better cheese, or a better way of cooking and they're just not the same. I know, I've tried.

Eddie Bauer evicted from Columbia Mall. What's Cooking has also closed in the food court, leaving only El Gordito for food in the mall. Victoria's Secret and Pink also closed this week. https://www.grandforksherald.com/business/6545811-Clothing-store-Eddie-Bauer-evicted-from-Columbia-Mall

Doubtful in the near to mid term; anything is possible in the long term(10 years+). Too many costs to jump into scholarship football this decade. They have to likely double or more the personnel in their athletic dept, big increase in travel costs, adding scholarships to all the other sports, they have to build several new facilities, and they have to commit to and achieve good hockey before they can think about going scholarship in football. If their donors really open their pockets, maybe start talking about scholarship football in about 10 years. If they don't, then the Pioneer indefinitely.

I wouldn't be surprised if the waiver will be handled by a different committee or department. The one that just met is concerned with bigger picture things, while the department that grants the waiver will be one that looks at nuts and bolts. But that's just a guess.

No, they basically said UST is in. The committee decided that a formal process(which needs to be written up and voted on) is better than dealing with waivers on a case by case basis. However, they don't want UST to have to wait for all that since they were the one that started all this, so they'll approve a waiver in this case as soon as it's submitted. IOW, "send something in so we can rubber stamp it, then go ahead and use the DII to DI process." It's basically the best news UST could have hoped for.

ESPN+ for the regular season(MVFC has a contract with ESPN+). Playoffs get a little more erratic as that's a contract with the NCAA. Those are normally a mix of ESPN3 and the main channels. Bison games used to be mostly on ESPN3 a few years ago, but that changed as ESPN+ started growing into what it is today. I expect ESPN will continue to shift content to ESPN+ and mostly phase out ESPN3. It served its purpose as a bridge to full streaming.

No. You have Hulu plus Hulu Live TV. ESPN+ doesn't come with either of those. The only bundle with Hulu and ESPN+ is the $12.99 version that also includes Disney+. But that version doesn't include Hulu Live TV, just the base Hulu.

Nice to see Wenger Corp getting in on the athletic action. Historically a music equipment manufacturer in Owatonna, MN(chairs, stands, shells, lockers, storage systems), they started diversifying into marching band support equipment, which led into athletic support equipment since the needs overlap so much.

If they can find a head coach. Rueful LOL. According to someone in the tweet comments, LIU was looking at a total of $150k for the entire coaching staff.

And Florida Tech just dropped football, so that's another kick to the balls. (Just kidding. FIT is a small DII tech/engineering school that wants to be in the same mold as RPI or RIT. A DI move from them is highly, highly unlikely.)

Got my guess in just in time. Official tweet dropped at 10:30am CST confirming it's a deal with Under Armor.

As I'm writing this on the morning of the 11th, the news hasn't been released yet, but I'm at about 90% certain all it is is that they signed a deal with Under Armor. All the certainty came from the initial tweet several days ago(and I'm not the first to guess UA by a long shot). The text of the teaser video was the following: PROTECT THIS WE WILL I WILL THE ONLY WAY A NEW BEGINNING COMING SOON 5/11/20 Protect=Armor. "I Will" is Under Armor's company motto. "The Only Way Is Through" is a phrase from UA's 2020 ad campaign. Seems pretty conclusive to me, but we'll see in a few hours.

Supposedly a mutual decision. Supposition could be that DR didn't think Cam developed enough and wanted to free up a scholarship, and Cam wanted playing time and realized he wasn't going to get at NDSU next year. I don't follow basketball enough to have an informed opinion, and it seems like the opinions of other NDSU basketball fans are all over the place. Some think Cam was useless; some think his leaving is horrible for the team. I see three scenarios, but unfortunately there's not enough info out there to figure out which it will be. First, the Summit might have gotten quiet word that the NCAA is going to hold off on allowing St Thomas to move to DI for at least a year or more, and the conference still wants to go to 10 quickly. They figure they might as well grab Augie and then deal with St Thomas later. By that time, maybe WIU will drop out or a 12th candidate will come along to keep things even. The second and third scenarios both think the site visit and vote are just the conference going through the motions and the decision has already been made. Either the conference doesn't want Augie, in which case the visit is just to appease Sanford/Krabbenhoft. On the flip side, maybe Sanford/Krabbenhoft has put enough pressure on the conference to force them to accept Augie and this vote is just a formality in the opposite direction. Writing this out made me think of a 4th possibility. Maybe WIU has let the Summit know that they might not be around in a few years and that they should just go ahead and take both Augie and St Thomas to get to 10. But without more info(that we're not going to get), we just can't make an informed guess.

The part about the transfer waiver is true right now, but might not be true in a few days. It's been widely expected that DI is about to change the transfer rules to allow a one-time exemption in all sports, including men's basketball. It was supposed to be voted on this week during the big April meetings, but COVID issues may push that back to the June meeting. Some agenda items have already been pushed back(St Thomas and the DIII to DI process), but I haven't heard about this issue. Also want to reinforce part of what you're saying and correct another part because people often get them confused. A medical redshirt waiver is not the same as a five year clock extension waiver. Because Moody was injured early in the season, but after he competed, he needed to apply for a waiver so that this last season doesn't count against his four years of competition. That waiver is applied for right away and it sounds like he received it. The five year clock extention waiver is applied for only after five years. For that waiver, the student-athlete needs to show that they lost TWO seasons due to circumstances beyond their control. On paper, Moody does not qualify for that right now(he's only lost one season for reasons beyond his control). But if he were to be injured again, the waiver he just received could be used to apply for the other waiver.

Pretty sure it has been. I remember reading stories about Augie formally applying. Feels like a year ago, but that's just because of COVID making time feel weird. However those stories had a very different feel because those reporters actually talked to some of the players and got a negative vibe from the Summit over Augie's chances. I think Augie's formal application was included in stories from the Argus and Forum in late Feb or early March, but the headlines were about Augie having an uphill battle to fight to convince the Summit presidents to accept them. I don't have subscriptions to either so I can't confirm, but I'm sure links to the stories are further up in this thread. edit: Yep, there's a link a couple pages back to a Forum story published March 6. I know the Argus published a story that day or the day before.