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Samson's Wig

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Everything posted by Samson's Wig

  1. They serve no benefit whatsoever. They shouldn't be privatized. They shouldn't exist. I don't care where they find jobs. Fast food would be the most similar skillset match, although they would have to step it up to hang.
  2. Wait. Did I miss something? Are they going to get rid of the TSA? I've been waiting patiently for them to come to that conclusion, with it being the only truly worthless division of the federal government, and have been surprised it has flown under the radar while they attack departments that actually serve a purpose. I'm not a fan of what's been going on the last couple of weeks, but if the TSA disappears I might grumble just a tiny bit less.
  3. Some of these folks will have a skillset that will be attractive in the private sector. Many won't. One of the major assets a government employee can carry with them to the private sector is internal knowledge of how the sausage is made, which can benefit a private sector company looking to work with a specific department/agency. If that department is now gutted and operates completely differently, or not at all, that aspect of their value has disappeared. I feel really badly for folks going through this, many of whom have dedicated their lives to a career in government. I have a number of buddies who are NLRB lawyers. Once the board shift is done, most expect to be out of a job. Some of them will land on their feet at private firms with a labor relations group, and there will undoubtedly be plenty of litigation in the coming years as the feds shift heavily to employer-friendly regulations. Still, many of them will be starting from scratch. Looking for a new legal job in a new practice area in your 50s is not a position I envy.
  4. Motion denied. Every major city has its embarrassing burbs full of mouth-breathing morons. That particular one is full of aggies. Sorry, but they're Houston's and no one else's.
  5. Absolutely. Not to mention that critical thinking skills, especially those of the nonlinear kind, are not developed through STEM. That comes from liberal arts. Kids are getting little history, little civics, and almost no critical thinking development. They're getting heaps of STEM thrown at them to the detriment of all else, and they're still not doing well collectively in STEM. This country has never seen a problem it couldn't severely overcorrect for. It's who we are. STEM scores are looking bad relative to other countries? Let's throw out and demonize everything else and only focus on that! Girls are struggling in schools? Let's make them inhospitable to boys! We, as a nation, are incapable of nuance or balance. We're exactly what our stereotype says we are: fat, loud, and dense. One great result of all of this is we've got a couple of generations, so far, whose leaders are those handful of linear-thinking STEM kids who rose to the top. They can't communicate, can't think outside of a straight line, and unironically mistake "disruption" for creative thinking. These are the folks venerated by youth in this country, and it's because we made them this way.
  6. The last thing Trump expected when he started fucking with Mexico was that he would end up having to negotiate with a Jewish president.
  7. I'm fairly sure my wife and kids are real, but I can't wholly discount the possibility of some sort of dissociative fugue state.
  8. Just getting caught up on this thread. For context, I'm married to a Canadian, have lived in Canada, have half-Canadian children, never miss a single Maple Leafs game all season long lest I run afoul of my wife (but also really enjoy it in spite of myself), and hang out with a number of Canadian celebrities regularly thanks to my work and marrying into a well known Canadian family (it's a bit like rubbing elbows with a mattress salesman who is known locally in the metroplex for their commercials on the CW, if that mattress salesman also had some Emmys and Grammys to go along with their Geminis and JUNOs). Holy shit, man. Everyone, at one point or another, talks out of their ass about topics they don't know much about. I know I do. But you, sir, are the Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, Derek Jeter, AROD, and Thurman Munson (combined) of Dunning-Krugering. Congratulations.
  9. My Canadian FIL complains about this just about every time we talk, ane yet he thinks it's weird that anyone cares about college football or basketball in the U.S.
  10. They make for an excellent source of graft if set up properly, i.e. without what most would consider appropriate transparency.
  11. They sure bury the lede in that segment, don't they?
  12. And yet, no question marks to be found.
  13. Solid advice. Thank you, and I'll report back in October after the next trip.
  14. Those of you mentioning how quickly you can get in and out of a Buc-ees, I wonder if it depends on which one you're at. I refuse to stop* at the fucking place for several reasons, but the main one is that I always have to wait in line for a gas pump, then wait in line to take a piss, then wait in line to buy the kids some shitty processed snack food. It takes for-fucking-ever. That defeats the entire point of a highway pit stop. I also find it to be the most depressing place I've ever been outside of touring concentration camps. Loving Buc-ee's is no different than loving Wal-Mart, and you don't see many folks stanning for that shithole. The customer bases look eerily similar, though. The more pumps/bathrooms/square footage one of those hellholes has, the longer it takes to get in and out. It almost makes me believe the bullshit studies that show if you build more roads you just make traffic worse. Almost. * I actually do stop at a Buc-ee's once per year on an annual fishing trip, as I get outvoted by my idiot friends. One is an aggie, and he has infected the other two with stupid. Every damn year we're stuck in that god-forsaken hell hole for twice as long or more than it would take to stop at literally any other gas station to fill up and take a piss. They know I hate it and take much glee from my curmedgeonly attitude while I stand outside and wait on them to fill up on shitty aggie snacks and cheap trinkets for their kids. I never miss smoking more than those days.
  15. I'm sorry you had to go through that. I have a sister who fits the same mold and has ruined my parents' lives. I managed to get away from it and know exactly what you mean about the fog lifting, but they're stuck until the end, it seems. It's ugly and painful. I think what others have been pointing out is that it's been obvious that you went through something like that based on your response to this story, and based on some of the other posts in this thread, I don't think you're alone. Relying on anything released by PR firms or attorneys is never a way to find the truth of any situation. Any of that nonsense is designed to manipulate, including and especially the court filings. No objective truth exists in these situations, not even for the two main players involved, at least no truth that can possibly be determined. If it upsets you, as it seems to have done, I recommend you walk away and avoid any press about this until it blows over. It's not worth dredging up your own shit over what a couple of inconsequential people you don't know are feuding over.
  16. The people upstream must get at least a little chuckle watching the hoity toits downtown have to deal with even a little bit of a drop in the water level. Do Lake Austin next!
  17. So sorry, Brisket. Thank you for sharing with us about your dad. He sounds like an awesome man.
  18. Reynolds is Canadian. Someone wants to subsume Canada. It's not difficult to connect these dots.
  19. I'm reasonably sure it has surpassed baseball as the national pastime.
  20. I too have family, friends, and employees who lost their homes or have been displaced during this mess. It's a tragedy. To be clear, I wasn't arguing for lower density, just pointing out that the only thing that can potentially contain a wildfire like that is fire breaks, and when housing is piled up that becomes nearly impossible unless they're built into development plans.
  21. I don't think those upgrades would have made one lick of difference to the big picture, as you could have had one hundred times the volume of available water, and it wouldn't have meant jack shit in fires like that (although perhaps a few more houses may have been saved). If anything, the only thing that would have helped was lower housing density with planned fire breaks. I'm confident, though, that the LAT wouldn't miss an opportunity to dunk on everyone's favorite boogieman (NIMBYs).
  22. You sound just like an AMWAY salesman.
  23. Has Guadaloopy chimed in on the salute yet?
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