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Brisketexan

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Posts posted by Brisketexan

  1. 11 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:


    I had a front row seat to how the Austin one came together. That was students from across the district. A bunch of kids under 18 put an orderly event together with 8K high school kids in physical attendance and nothing bad happened. Pretty impressive actually.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

    Well, you mean "a bunch of kids under 18 and George Soros," right?  

    That's one of many things that baffles me...if a movement on the right springs up, it's clearly organic and reflects the will of the people.  If anything left of the far right springs up, well, it's all fake, created by George Soros.  There are, apparently, ZERO beliefs or movement left of Donald Trump that are actually organic or believed in or motivated by anyone EXCEPT George Soros.  What a fucking worldview.  "If it's a movement that agrees with me, it's clearly thoughtful and natural; if it's a movement that disagrees with me, it's all orchestrated by a shadowy evil guy in Hungary."  It must be quite easy to move through the world thinking that nobody ACTUALLY disagrees with you -- they were just manipulated by this one evil "globalist" guy.

  2. Just now, deadshank said:

    Meh. Too simplistic.  

    yes....but not by much.  Read the article Bolverk posted above -- https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/existential-anxiety-not-poverty-motivates-trump-support/558674/?utm_source=atlfb

    Angry white folks freaking out about not being able to stay the dominant culture forever.  That's the gist of it.  Take that away, and all that remains of Trumpism would be a few whispy strands of terrible hair.

  3. 5 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

    Hopefully we get fracturing of political parties so we can form a new type of government that isn't two-party dominated. Trumpists vs. money-conservatives, Lib-dems vs. socialists, etc...

     

    4 minutes ago, deadshank said:

    I, I, uh, I, uh, wow.  I find myself agreeing with you.  I'm off to have a drink or 20.

     

    1 minute ago, Anastasis said:

    Same here.  Some form of proportional representation system.  I'm willing to try it. Will never happen though without a seismic shift in the two party power grip.  

    Sure.  I love it.  Wish in one hand, shit in the other, see how that goes for you.

    We're well beyond any fantasy solutions.  The only positive path forward for this republic is going to be messy as fuck, and probably not work anyway.  It involves crushing Trumpism as a movement from every possible angle.  Think that'll happen?  Yeah, me neither.

  4. Just now, Brothahorn said:

    You're forgetting about the Hunt's Bros. Pizza, on the other side of the gas station.

    An omission for which I should be ashamed.

    Because Hunt Bros is VASTLY superior to Subway.

    If you're REALLY lucky, it's also one of those gas stations with a deep fryer and a varied menu of fried stuff in a glass case for your dining pleasure.

  5. 6 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

    And if it doesn't, that's OK. The United States of America was never going to last forever as a going concern.

    Except we're left with the question of "what fills the void?"

    If we ended up like the UK after its empire faded, I'd be fine.  That's not what we're on track for.  We're on track for becoming a mob of morons whipped into frenzy by varying types of demagogues and oligarchs.  Oh, with a huge, powerful military that can project its power to every corner of the globe in minutes.  That seems like it will work out well for, oh, everyone on the planet.

  6. 7 minutes ago, Rip76 said:

    No way...

    A bunch of 10-11 year old kids put it all together.

    10-11?  Nope.

    16?

    Yep.

    Quote

    The National School Walkout was started by Lane Murdoch, a 16-year-old who grew up just 20 miles from Sandy Hook Elementary School – where 20 students were killed in a mass shooting in 2012.

    The movement began as a Change.org petition following the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. More than 250,000 people have signed the petition, and there are over 2,000 protests registered.

     

  7. 12 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

    You have to give me a time frame here.  I think we might be fucked for a generation but it’s impossible for me to see past that.  Trumpism in some form or another will be noticeable for the next 20 + years in our culture.  

    I think many Americans feel they have have a duty to mitigate/contain the consequences.  How swift and effective we can be on minimizing the damage remains to be seen but I’m hopeful we can avoid an apocalyptic catastrophe.

    I think your answer is as accurate as we can be.

    I think we're fucked for a generation+.  I don't think there's any way to see beyond that horizon.  And what's worse....I don't see how a pluralistic society (which we are, and will remain) can survive ingesting 20+ years of a poison like Trumpism and survive.

  8. Not sure about best, but definitely some favorites.

    Saw Don Williams twice at the Paramount.  Intimate crowd, singing along to every damned song, with the smooth as honey-voiced Don leading.  Beautiful moment after beautiful moment, just getting comfortable with some of the best songs ever.  Just a great evening, both times.  It was a lot like this:

     

    Also saw U2 on the Joshua Tree tour in 1987 in Houston.  I honestly didn't realize at the time what a fantastic album, and fantastic show they put on.  But I enjoyed the hell out of it.

    Thirty years later, they do another Joshua Tree tour.  My wife loves U2, has never seen them.  So I buy us tickets to go see them at the Rose Bowl in L.A.  It was a great show, and it hit me like a ton of bricks what a FANTASTIC album it was.  But the best moment was at the end.  They decided to toss in one more song...

     

    The SECOND that the opening riff started, my wife started jumping up and down, grinning from ear to ear like a teenage girl.  She was pure happiness and exuberance.  She was, in an instant, the joy that I fell in love with thirty years ago.  That moment, and that song, was unquestionably my favorite moment of any concert*.  Just pure happiness, in the moment, jumping and singing along to a song we'd been singing in our cars with our friends since we were 15.  I'll never hear "I Will Follow" again without breaking into a huge smile.

     

    * Okay, so maybe when Billy Joel started singing Scenes from an Italian Restaurant at the Erwin Center in 1990, and I turned to her in our front-row seats (was driving by the EC when wrist bands were announced, screeched to a halt and got band #2), and kissed her for the first time.  That was pretty damned awesome, too.

     

  9. 24 minutes ago, Pescado_Rojo said:

    The country basket is gross. The last two times I"ve eaten them they've made me sick. Burgers, fries, tacos, blizzards. The chicken strip baskets are usually good, too. If given a choice, I'll stick to Chicken Express / Golden Chick 99 times out of 100.

    I confess to not having a country basket in....years.  In the last 10 years, probably limited to burger, fries, tacos, and dip cones (and I USED to get a chocolate malt there, but they QUIT CARRYING FUCKING MALT.  WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK???).

  10. 7 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

    Brisket fatalism turned up to eleven today

    It's just math.

    Show me how my math is wrong, and I'll be thrilled.

    Otherwise, scotch, comfy chair, deck of Titanic.  On the bright side, there's plenty of ice that crumbled onto the deck, so we've got that going for us.

  11. 6 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

    Bark at the GOP all you want but the problems don’t go away with the downfall of the Republican Party.

    This.

    The Trumpkins are here, they exist.  And they aren't going away.

    Build a hypothetical "new GOP" WITHOUT the Trumpkins.  You know, a "new GOP" that will actually have the numbers to win political races.  You can't do it.  1) You can't build a new GOP without the Trumpkins.  And 2) the Trumpkins are never going to accept being put back into their cave/dark corner.  Those two facts mean that the GOP is now the TrumpOP, and will be for the foreseeable future.

  12. 7 minutes ago, bolverk said:

    In other words, it’s now pretty clear that many Trump supporters feel threatened, frustrated, and marginalized—not on an economic, but on an existential level. Now what?

    Now....it all turns to shit.

    Can whites and minorities get along in this country?  I think the answer is "as long as whites are completely comfortable with their prospects of maintaining total economic and cultural dominance, MAYBE.  But once white folks let fear of losing complete power control their thinking?  Not a chance in hell."

    The dominant culture reached a point of magnanimity and decency in recent past decades because it had the luxury/could afford to do so.  And minorities saw their lot improve, significantly.  But now....the dominant culture fears that it won't maintain dominance.  And it's responding with a hale and hearty "fuck all the rest of y'all."  And it still has the numbers and power to do so.

    It's going to get a LOT worse.  Note that I don't say "worse before it gets better."  It's just going to get worse.  There is no "better" on the horizon.

    • Like 1
  13. 8 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

    [certified Surly response]  It's piss.  [/certified Surly response]

    8 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

    I am not celebrating anything, in terms of the trajectory of our culture and our politics. Its not completely clear to me where we disagree on the big picture. You say that Trump has taken over the GOP, it's the party of Trumpkins, and as such represents a threat to the Republic. I say that the GOP has a cancer, and they brought this shit on themselves through their own failures, and will be a crippled political party for the foreseeable future. Good riddance, fuck the GOP. Then you start telling me about Czars and the Shah and why we should not challenge the status quo. I know that you don't think I am hysterical enough about Trump for your liking, but other than that I am not sure that we are too far apart. You just seem unwilling to commit to fact that the GOP is going to die and will be replaced by a new political coalition, whether it carries the GOP label or not. Maybe I am wrong, and if I am I am sure that you will regale us again with another metaphor involving your bloodied genitals.  I might suggest a bloody vagina next time though. 

    You think that the GOP is going to die and be replaced by some new political coalition.  You are bad at math.  There can be no right-of-center coalition in this country WITHOUT the Trumpkins.  They are too big a group for any other outcome.  And now, instead of them being a marginalized part of the coalition (look, every party, every family, every everything, has an embarrassing family member/group that they hide in the corner and are just cordial to on holidays and such), they are the DOMINANT force in the coalition.  And they don't listen to logic.  They don't listen to reason.  They will never fade back into the corner.

    The outcome is that the GOP is the Trumpkin party.  It's not going to die.  It's going to survive.  And in response, the Dems are going to push back too hard the other direction.  You'll have your choice of a chunky shit sandwich, or a runny shit sandwich, but make no mistake -- once one of the major parties decided to go full-on shit sandwich, it is our destiny to be served shit sandwiches 24/7.

  14. still, how do you fuck up iced tea? that's unforgivable. 
    and you're damn right i judge restaurants by their availability of quality citrus for that iced tea. don't give me a fucking lemon juice package. chipotle is on my shit list for taking the citrus behind the counter. given a choice between sonic and DQ, i'm going with sonic, because their tea game is stronger.

    I agree on the importance of tea.

    McDonald’s tea, for $1 any size, is worth a try. Hell, I don’t order food, just grab a tea there.

    I don’t put stuff in my tea, so don’t care about the other stuff.
  15. i can't even remember the last time i was in a DQ. i'm fairly certain the last thing i had there was a wholly unsatisfying steak finger meal. soggy and disgusting, and the tea tasted three days old.

    When done right, the steak fingers are solid. And if you don’t like their tacos and a dip cone, you’re a terrorist who hates America.
    • Like 2
  16. I hit up LJS about once every 12-14 years.

    I hit it slightly more often, but not a lot more.

    Cracked up when I hit the LJS I’m Brownwood on my way to a hearing the next day. In line on front of me we’re three dudes in full-on boots, spurs, hats, the whole nine yards. And they were for real, because Brownwood. Had a hankering for the fish and chicken combo, I guess.
  17. Much of it is cultural. I've done business in China for many years and had always been astounded by their lack of "entrepreneurial spirit". One evening, I was out with some Chinese colleagues drinking way too much Baijiu and asked why. "Simple", I was informed. "The tallest nail is the one that gets hammered down".  They want to make enough money to be happy, but not enough money to get noticed by the government. Too successful & the government takes over your business or restricts what you can do. Why invest in that?
     

    That culture predates the communists.

    Collective cultures like China’s have many advantages. Innovation is not among them.

    Individualist cultures like ours have many drawbacks. But they are ripe for innovators. I actually read a good piece recently about how the best innovation and invention occurs when creative types can work alone (as opposed to in a group).
    • Like 2
  18. Chicken Express is the tits.  Also, is DQ slowly dying like Sears?

    Chicken express has fried gizzards and gravy. I’m a fan.

    What’s sad is that a lot of those shitty little towns still have ONE restaurant: a Subway inside a gas station. Those are the most depressing fucking “restaurants” on the planet. Seriously, a gruel bar inside an orphanage would be a happier place.
    • Like 3
  19. Fundamental changes to address special interests and money is a fucking must. Maybe term limits need to happen too.

    You think Trumpism is getting us CLOSER to that?

    Man, if so, take that comedy on the road, you’re a funny man.
  20. Interesting that you picked the overthrow of autocratic authoritarians for both of your examples of when you should not challenge the status quo. Maybe you should have picked another one to round it out.  Someone like King George maybe.  Bunch of dumbasses, doing crazy shit to challenge the status quo without their viable replacement plan all mapped out and shit. 
    We need a major restructuring of our political alignments in this country. I actually think that we agree to a very large extent on our trajectory and where we are going as a country.  The status quo ends in a tightening political death spiral.  The GOP will not be saved, it is infected with cancer. But I do agree that we need to be thinking about what comes next. And it's more than just realignment of political coalitions. We have to make some fundamental changes to address money and special interests in politics.  I don't know all the answers, and that is ok. 

    We need a change.

    Maybe - just maybe - shooting ourselves in the fucking dick isn’t a good change.

    And watching fucksticks like you celebrating the bloody stump where our dick used to be, well, that’s just swell.

    But hey, we DEFINITELY need to burn down the order that gave us 75 years of unprecedented peace and prosperity globally. Yay, bloody dick stumps!
  21. 5 minutes ago, deft said:

    Can’t tell the mexia joke anymore. Dairy Queen has been closed there for over a decade.

    FUCK.  That's one of my go-to jokes.

    But....the OLD DQ in Mexia got turned into an italian restaurant by a Croatian (I think) guy.  Really good, and really affordable.

  22. 43 minutes ago, TornACL said:

    Wait....someone posted a queso recipe that required cheese to be CUT a certain way? Do you understand the process of how melting works?

    I'm sure some queso-nerd will totally pwn me, but I have generally found that the crazy complicated queso recipes are no better (and oftentimes worse) than the basics with some slight twists/additional flavors.

    I am not going to go out and collect a vial of free range milk-cow tears just to make fucking queso.

    But the free-range, hand-curated milk cow tears give it a great, artisanal mouth-feel.

    • Like 1
    • Haha 1
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