Twenty 49

If you want to be safe, follow the extension service recommendations for your state.

The federal appellate court for LA, TX and MS addressed this a few years ago.

In United States v. William E. Holdman (2023), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed that to claim the "normal agricultural operation" safe harbor under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA), a landowner or hunter must strictly follow the official, specific recommendations of that exact state’s Cooperative Extension Service, rather than generalized regional or neighboring state guidelines.

Holdman, a Louisiana deer farm owner, top-sowed winter wheat on a disced field in August/September without covering the seed with soil, broadcasting it at a heavy rate to attract doves near an artificial power line hide.State wildlife agents established that his practices directly violated the Louisiana State Extension Service guidelines, which required wheat seeds to be covered with approximately an inch of soil, planted at a lighter rate per acre, and timed differently.

From the decision: Dr. Reed, who authored or co-authored all three pamphlets, testified that Holdman failed to follow the recommended guidelines for normal agricultural procedures in these ways: (1) he scattered the winter wheat seed prior to the recommended date of September 1, (2) he left the seed uncovered rather than using one inch of soil cover, and (3) he distributed the seed too densely, 120 pounds of seed per acre rather than the recommended 80 pounds of seed per acre. After reviewing images of the area, including the artificial power line and brush hide, Dr. Reed opined that Holdman's field was not in line with Louisiana's Cooperative Extension Service guidelines for a wheat field and, therefore, fell outside the MBTA regulations' definition of a “normal agricultural operation.”

Here is the decision if you was to read the whole thing. LINK

How’d you like to be the guy who swung the tomahawk for this?

George Rogers Clark was trying to take a fort held by the British during the Revolution.

During a truce in the siege, a returning war party of Native Americans allied with the British unknowingly walked into the town and were captured by Clark’s men.

The Execution: Clark had four of the captives tomahawked (hatchet-killed) in plain sight of the fort's walls, after which their bodies were scalped and thrown into the river. (a book i read said it was six, hands tied, and had their brains bashed in with a war club).

Clark used this brutal act as psychological warfare. He wanted to show the British garrison that no relief was coming and that any resistance would result in no mercy. He also intended to demonstrate to local Native American tribes that the British could not protect them.

Demoralized by the aggressive tactics, the illusion of a much larger American force, and dwindling options, Lieutenant Governor Henry Hamilton surrendered Fort Sackville on February 25, 1779

Verizon cell phone?

Consider a Verizon Visa with Synchrony Bank

$10 a month off each line with autopay/paperless ($5 per line on some plans)
4% cashback for grocery, gas, dining, takeout, Verizon purchases
1% on everything else
Can apply the cashback to your phone bill
No annual fee

We also got $150 bonus for charging like $1,500 in the first 90 days. Not sure if that is always offered.

I charge everything I can to a cashback or miles-earning credit card or (with utilities and insurance) have it auto-drafted from my checking account.

One of my best quality of life moves lately was to have each credit card set to auto-pay the balance in full each due date. Before that, I used my checking account billpay feature to manually pay each one as they came due. Now I don't even have to fool with that. I barely pay attention to any of it other than peruse the credit card bills to make sure no suspicious charges appear.

First ever double post. Not sure what happened, but it spun a while before loading.

From the Federal Reserve:

Is it legal for a business in the United States to refuse cash as a form of payment?

There is no federal statute mandating that a private business, a person, or an organization must accept currency or coins as payment for goods or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether to accept cash unless there is a state law that says otherwise.

Section 31 U.S.C. 5103, entitled "Legal tender," states: "United States coins and currency [including Federal Reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal Reserve Banks and national banks] are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues." This statute means that all U.S. money as identified above is a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor.

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Highlights of ChatGTP's long answer:

There are relatively few reported appellate decisions squarely addressing the question because, under federal law, the issue is generally considered straightforward: there is no federal requirement that a private business accept cash for a contemporaneous sale of goods or services.

The "debt" question:

The harder issue is whether a business must accept cash after a debt already exists—for example:

restaurant where you pay after eating,
repair shop after work is completed,
medical bill,
loan payment.

Here, there is more legal debate, but even then there is no broad federal appellate rule holding that every creditor must always accept cash. The legal tender statute makes cash a valid tender of payment, but the consequences of refusing that tender depend on contract law and state law. Some jurisdictions treat a proper tender of legal tender as stopping interest or certain penalties without extinguishing the underlying obligation.

State laws can be different:

Several states and municipalities have enacted statutes requiring many retail businesses to accept cash. For example, Massachusetts has long had such a law, and New Jersey, Rhode Island, and some cities (such as New York City and Philadelphia) have enacted similar requirements. Those laws are based on state or local legislation—not on the federal legal tender statute.

Bottom line:

As a matter of federal law, there is no reported Supreme Court decision or leading federal appellate case holding that a business must accept paper currency for an ordinary retail sale. The prevailing legal rule comes from the interpretation of 31 U.S.C. § 5103: a private business generally may refuse cash for a sale unless state or local law requires otherwise.

It’s been about 5 years since I went through a drive-thru. May have to find an excuse to go test some funny names.

quote:

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If you're using a VPN, that could be the cause.

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I asked Gemini, and it gave three steps to correcting the language issue, with the final one being a two-parter. Part 1, turn off your VPN and try it.

Part 2, Google Account Preferred Language: Open Safari on your iPad, go to myaccount.google.com/language, log in, and verify that English (United States) is listed under Preferred Language and that foreign languages aren't listed under Automatically added languages.

The first two steps were ones OP has probably already tried:

Step 1: Set Your Preferred Languages in the App

Step 2: Reset the Audio Track on a Regular Video: If YouTube gets "stuck" auto-playing foreign audio tracks on Shorts (where the audio track selector isn't visible), resetting it on a standard long-form video clears the app's cached preference:

Open any standard long-form YouTube video (not a Short).Tap the video player to bring up the controls, then tap the Settings gear icon in the top right of the video player. Tap Audio track. Switch it to English or Original. Force close the YouTube app (swipe up from the bottom of your iPad screen) and reopen it.

Hope some of this helps.

There's also the good old forced restart of the iPad. Restart can cure a lot of stuff.

I was on a plane recently where we were delayed because the first officer's radio would not work. They installed a new radio. They announced that did not work, so they would try a full restart of the plane. Killed it, let it sit about 8 minutes, and fired it back up. That fixed it. Restart for the win.

I was talking to a farmer recently. He said a neighbor bought a new cotton picker last year. Million bucks.

I just searched for how much a new John Deere costs. Gemini said: A brand new John Deere cotton picker (the flagship CP770 Model) costs approximately $1.3 million USD or more depending on dealer configuration and options. Low-hour recent models (2023–2024) typically resell in the $725,000 to $960,000 range.

I enjoyed watching the 25 minute highlights package on YouTube each day.

Sepp scared the hell out of me on that ledge. By the way, the net didn’t save him. Bob Roll pointed out, and it was shown on replay, that he never touched the netting. He caught himself on the ledge before he got that far, but damn.