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On its face, I doubt it, but if you have literature from Habanos or the like please advise!

Are tax refunds higher in 2024?

The IRS on Friday said that the typical tax refund is about 2.1% higher than a year ago. That means the average taxpayer through February 16 has received about $3,207 from the tax agency, compared with $3,140 at the same time a year earlier.

~CBS News

The article I read was slightly different through March 1st ending date.

I don’t play or really follow golf but knew the Masters Champion got to pick the dinner menu. What I didn’t know was that the Champion also PAID for the dinner! But I guess it’s only right. Can’t expect an expen$ive dinner to be paid by someone else.

This is good sportsmanship and gentlemanly. The only reason I know about this tradition:

https://www.sportscasting.com/a-look-back-on-fuzzy-zoellers-incredibly-racist-comments-about-tiger-woods-at-the-1997-masters/

Spotted in the Horicon Marsh (about an hour south of Green Bay) five flamingos.
The guess is they got caught up in a storm which took them much further north than normal.

Learned that from a Birder I gave a ride to yesterday.

I remember that. I was a big fan of Tiger, like everyone was when he was kicking ass. I didn't think it was "racist". That word gets thrown around like a baseball in a triple play. Remember when The Jefferson's was on TV? The comments they'd throw back and forth? That sheit was funny... and nobody got their feelings hurt.

It was stereotypes... and they're not wrong. It's certainly not racist to point out stereotypes. Maybe not on live TV at a golf event... save it for the sitcoms.

Spotted in the Horicon Marsh (about an hour south of Green Bay) five flamingos.
The guess is they got caught up in a storm which took them much further north than normal.

Learned that from a Birder I gave a ride to yesterday.

I love root beer. I never would have guessed that it contains wintergreen... that's a new one for me.

Root beer's main flavor is actually wintergreen.
Now that I've told you, you'll smell and taste it.

Mountain Dew contains orange juice.
Says it in the ingredients too.

Root beer's main flavor is actually wintergreen.
Now that I've told you, you'll smell and taste it.

Mountain Dew contains orange juice.
Says it in the ingredients too.

Root beer, like the one we know and love today, was first commercially sold as an extract in the 1880s. You would buy the root beer extract (which was primarily made from sassafras), then mix it at home with water, sugar, and yeast. People loved it so much that the company behind the extract, Charles E. Hires Company, began selling root beer in bottles in 1893.

After a few years, more root beer manufacturers started popping up around the U.S., like Barq's, A & W, Dad's, and Mug Root Beer. All the root beers were basically made up of the same ingredients: either sassafras or sarsaparilla, licorice root, ginger, mint, cinnamon, and vanilla.

Root beer experienced a real boom during Prohibition when Americans couldn't buy real beer, so they turned to root beer as an alternative.

The ingredients in root beer pretty much stayed the same until 1976 when the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned the use of sassafras in food. The FDA discovered that the chemical found in sassafras, called safrole, caused cancer in rats — so sassafras is now considered carcinogenic.

That meant root beer manufacturers had to find a new main ingredient for their sodas: enter wintergreen. The wintergreen leaf was always an ingredient in root beer, but with sassafras gone, it took the front seat as the main flavor.

I'll be dammed, no wonder root beer no longer tastes very good.

Why Do Some People Think Root Beer Tastes Like Mouthwash?

https://www.allrecipes.com/article/why-does-root-beer-taste-like-mouthwash/

There are more payday loan stores in the USA than McDonalds or Starbucks.

Even more in towns with a military base nearby. IMO, payday and check loan places make loan sharks look good.

You can buy a 55 gallon drum and a 275 gallon tank of lube on Amazon.
The 55 gal. drum is about $1000. Several of us azzhats at the local shpo are thinking of pitching in to send one to our lawyer buddy.

Couple things:

Found this plant, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podophyllum_peltatum, the "May Apple" growing near my creek on the eastern edge of our yard.

I picked 5 or 6 of them for my wife (she likes wild flowers) and she identified them. The native Americans used it "as a an emetic (induce vomiting), cathartic (make you ****),[18] and antihelmintic (dewormer) agent." We have a lot of them around that section, near the creek.

Found this tree growing along the northeast part of our property, tiny Sassafras trees: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sassafras

Sassafras trees that are so tiny they look like small plants. Much smaller than the smallest sapling.

I'm going to dig up one of the bigger ones, and put it in a pot. Sometime this summer or early fall I'm going to plant it in the center of our yard, hopefully.

The rest of them will get the brushcutter treatment this week, along with the weeds.

So they grow a horizontal root system with smaller sassafras trees popping up here and there? Not just one vertical stem?