Thaddeus Kosciuszko

I have to admit, that would indeed take a lot of guts to pull that one off.

"That's right, absolutely no recurring fees, just a lifetime of productivity!" Well, at least until the first automatic update, anyway, when you have to spend a day changing back all the settings they messed up.

I would suggest finding the things that you can control and influence. Anything else, spend the minimal amount of energy dealing with those items, and where you can let other people run those shows. That will leave at least some things in which you can find job satisfaction, and minimize your frustration with what you can't change. Some of those things may be outside your 'official' job description. So what? If they are things you like doing, you do them well, and everybody is happy to let you have at it, then go to it. Gain the influence and control over the stuff you really like to do. At the very worst, if people come to you with their chickensh!+ stuff, you can claim you are too busy (working on the stuff you like to do) and their crap will have to get in line with all the other priorities.

The solution to the problem is not to restrict or take away rights from the majority of law-abiding people. A law-abiding person will follow the law whether he has a 10 round magazine or a 1,000 round magazine, a single shot 22 or a cannon. The solution is to deal with the small minority of people who break the law(s), and to convince the people who would think they will get away with breaking the law that it's not worth the chance anymore. As part of a discussion regarding 'gun rights' I would suggest taking the time to gain an understanding of the reasons why the Second Amendment was placed in the Constitution. Understanding those reasons provides one with a platform and a basis for reasoned, meaningful, and respectful discussion.

Cool about the roll back! To me, sites like this should be prime candidates for redevelopment into hydropower plants. Maybe there's not a lot of power there, but there's certainly some otherwise the mill/factory would never have been built there. I'd like to see pre-designed 'plop and drop' hydropower units that could be retrofit into old factories like this with a minimum of development and a minimum of expense. A water power analysis would be straight forward - the data is readily available. Find the water power available, look on the chart for the packaged unit that best matches, and away you go. It would provide some sort of revenue stream for preventing the property from falling into a derelict state, and would promote redevelopment by providing inexpensive power to tenants, along with all the attendant attraction afforded to power sources generated by renewable means. I seem plenty of sites around NY where small hydro plants could contribute to the total generation production. But that's unlikely to happen with the trend to tear down old dams to return waterways to their 'natural' state, and the permitting requirements for building such a power plant.

On the bright side, since you only feel like you're going to die, there will be no arguments over who gets your stuff.

And if you go inside the gas station, you can get a corn dog on a stick too!

You'd be right. In many of the 'wild' west towns and mining camps, there was no official 'government'. People streamed out west, set up towns and camps, and started living their lives long before statehood or even territory status. The people held meetings and wrote their own rules, constitutions and by-laws. Everybody in the community knew the laws, and knew justice was swift. If a crime was committed, the culprit was quickly found in the small community. Trials were often held the next day and only lasted a couple of hours, particularly in mining towns. People who agreed to serve on the juries were giving up valuable prospecting time, so there wasn't any fooling around. Miners would leave pans of gold in their tents, and nobody would touch them because they all knew the odds of getting caught were high, and the punishments were swift and severe. Early western towns and mining camps were generally crime free until courts, lawyers, lawmen, and government regulations and processes took over what the people had established.

Hopefully he has a lot of wealthy clients, otherwise he's going to lose his shirt.

She looks like she's intelligent, too.

It's one of the downsides of living in the Northeast, where mills arose at many locations where waterpower was available. Successful mills grew to the extent waterpower would allow, then steam replaced waterpower, which allowed factories to replace mills. Once electricity and motors replace steam power and belt-and-pulley systems, factory growth was limited only by what the utility could provide. Across NY there are many waterfalls that have dams built on top, and most of the water is diverted to produce hydropower. In many places, too, the factory site is abandoned, but the dam still remains. At that factory site you can see why the factory might have been placed there - a dive into local history would confirm the theory. The short blue line is a small stream that shows up on Google maps. I suspect this was the initial reason for locating a mill there. Circled in the upper right it looks like there's a dam on the river, and the longer blue line parallels a gap in the trees which was/still is probably the millrace for the factory when it was water powered. In the picture below it looks like the factory was expanded over time, with buildings tacked on to those originally there. That's typical of a factory site progressing from water to steam to electric power.

Interesting to think if a gas station tried that now. I think most people would say 'Forget it! I haven't got time for all that!' Then again, maybe most of them would just sit there playing games or checking Facebook on their phones while the attendant checked the tires, radiators, and fluids.

Thanks. I kinda thought there was more to the story than what was on the surface in the article. If the owner can't pay the taxes, then the city doesn't have to pay fair value for taking it by eminent domain - they can just take it for back taxes.

It might make for a bad day for a punk who felt lucky.

I'm sure if they go to redevelop the Heartland Park they won't find any substances considered contaminants or remnants of spilled oil or gasoline or chemicals or anything like that. It would be a pity if the owners of the property didn't pay the taxes, the town foreclosed and took possession, and then had to fund the clean up of the place before they could sell it, after they had assessed it at $10 million.

I thought this a very interesting read:

Yeah! That's what I said! Umquas!

Actually no. It says "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." You are correct that 'well-regulated' meant and still means well-trained, but those words refer directly to a militia. One could propose that a 'militia' is composed of people or 'of the people' and there is merit in that line of thought. But there is nothing in the Constitution that requires a person to be well-regulated or well-trained in order to for a person to keep and bear arms. It's not a right granted by the government; it's an inherent right, same as the other inherent rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights.

I though umquas were a small fruit, and not dairy stuff...

How many? Seven less than the total number I applications I sent out.

I suspect the plane disappeared because it was operated by a fly-by-night organization.