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Brisketexan

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Everything posted by Brisketexan

  1. America, 2025.... Not obscene, and must be permitted and protected at all costs: characterizing brown people as vermin, claiming they are "poisoning the blood of our country," saying they should be exterminated, etc. Arresting and imprisoning someone for writing an op-ed. Shit like that. Obscene, and must be banned: pictures of tits. Yeah....we're a shithole country.
  2. I mean....a full 1/3 of what the US imported from Syria was antiquities...likely looted. So, fuck it.
  3. As a follow up....last year, the US did $12.7 million in trade with Syria. That is functionally.....zero. Any increase in trade with the US would help stabilize Syria. I mean, we won't DO that, because in idiot world, trade is only good if they are buying things from us, not vice-versa.
  4. "Tuesday." We call that "Tuesday."
  5. Actually.....broken clock can be right twice a day. There are some very good arguments for dropping sanctions against Syria once the Assad regime fell. If the world wants to give the new regime a chance to succeed, and to offer it a carrot and incentive to be a good actor, dropping sanctions is a good way to do it. In fact, keeping sanctions on Syria now that they've shaken off the shitty regime that was the reason Syria was sanctioned, would be unfair and arguably counter-productive. Now, did Trump reach that conclusion for that reason? Fucking OF COURSE NOT. But it's still what plenty of decent, objective international strategists would have advised and proposed.
  6. Only in the movie, though. However, I didn't know you dated her after your divorce....you both seemed to have moved on, though, which is good.
  7. Counterpoint: She afrikaan do whatever she wants, man.
  8. Unquestionably. We can't design ANY element of ANY system that won't have outsized advantages/disadvantages for some subsets. The virtue of agrarian society sucked for the disabled. The virtues of our new information economy suck for those with a below-median IQ. I'm really smart, and process information well and quickly....and also have lousy vision, and was never, ever going to be the most athletic/strongest man around. In early agrarian societies, I would have been far from a "top performer." Today, that same mix of attributes puts me in the top performer category. A society that prized warriors and strong laborers would not be a great society for Brisket, or anyone physically disabled. A society that prizes intellectual skills is much better for us....and is worse for Steve Strongman. And my bigger point is that we shouldn't make broad value judgments, like "strong manual laborers are better" or "high-IQ people are better," or "fully abled [or disabled] people are better." A high-functioning society has a place and mechanism for ALL of those people to live a relatively secure, dignified life.
  9. Bozo, seen here as I WISH he actually looked:
  10. The first sentence is key. To the extent manufacturing is "coming back" to America, it's not going to bring many unskilled jobs with it. You don't get a good job at the chip fab with an 8th grade education. And the second sentence is the much bigger picture. Historically, all human societies have had plenty of work for "unskilled" type people. And I mean, actual work. First, societies were largely agrarian, and much of farm labor (as that labor existed in the pre-large scale mechanized farming era) could be done by unskilled/uneducated folks. You don't need a high IQ and fancy learning to plow fields, thresh grain, gather eggs, etc. Sure, you didn't make much or have much, but it was a living. Then, as societies transitioned to early industrial, it was similar -- most manufacturing jobs didn't require high intelligence or lots of training. The US is no longer an agrarian society. It is also no longer an unskilled labor-heavy manufacturing society. Those ships have SAILED, and they aren't EVER coming back. That's true for most such societies (western Europe, Canada, Japan, South Korea, etc. etc.). So the question is, now that many countries have economically moved beyond having lots of jobs for unskilled types....what do we do with our unskilled types? Yes, there will always be a real number of such jobs (putting on a roof in the summer sun, cleaning out stalls at the dairy farm, all that stuff), but not nearly as many jobs as there are unskilled people to fill them. And, we can't just tell that guy with a 100 IQ (or lower -- remember, 100 is the MEDIAN IQ - half of people are below that, as a matter of statistics) "learn to code! Or be a stockbroker! Get a degree in engineering!" He's not cut out for those things. He will fail. Just like if you'd told Brisket "if you want to make millions, learn to play football like VY!" It wasn't ever going to happen -- I don't have the tools in me. So, what does that guy do? What do economically advanced societies do with the 50% of their population with an IQ of 100 or below? We haven't even come close to working up a well thought-out answer to that question. And until we do, we're flailing, faking it, and getting it very wrong.
  11. Let me re-write that headline in accurate terms: Legislators who are owned by and do bidding of oligarchs pass law forbidding regulation of main financial activity of said oligarchs. This is straight-up bought-and-paid-for legislation, delivered to please their paymasters. But, you know, we've definitely "drained the swamp."
  12. Would smash. Then and now. Honestly, stuff like that was one of the first things I learned to cook when I started cooking at around age 14. Mom had a mid-life crisis then, and kinda stopped cooking. Coincidentally, I was 14, so that was when I was consuming food like there was no tomorrow. One of the first things I learned to cook for myself was a pot of white rice. Soon after, I started coming up with ways to jazz it up. Started simple -- ground beef, browned and then onions sauteed in the fat in the pan. Add various seasonings (Cavender's, maybe chili powder and similar spices), then add appropriate cheese (parmesan, or sharp cheddar, depending on the theme). Big pot o food is what I ended up with, and that was mi-t-fine for 14 yr old Brisket.
  13. Huh, he told me “prostate, digital”….but I think he was just bragging.
  14. Hey, fellow Gen Xers…just a reminder, we’re the fucked generation. For us, it only gets worse. https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2025/05/08/why-gen-x-is-the-real-loser-generation
  15. No, it wasn’t. Trust me, I know Japanese hippo porn. Wait, I mean…umm…hey, look over there, is that Earl Campbell?
  16. Swimming in actual shit seems to really capture the 2025 zeitgeist, so I applaud him for living into it so perfectly.
  17. Sounds like Qatar learned some lessons from the first Trump term. "Give him a free jet, he'll STFU and be our bitch."
  18. "Mike Lee, seen here demonstrating the average penis size of a Republican male voter, noting that porn really upsets them because it often 'contains unrealistic depictions of penis size, often larger than 4 inches,' urges for its ban to save GQPers from hurt fee-fees."
  19. I don't see either one of those things happening. I'm an attorney, and I'm pretty sure I have a pretty well-settled reputation around here for reporting that things are very much NOT fine. And part of my lament, for that entire time, has been that the "not fine" is due in large part to the fact that lawyers, with pens and paper, are ill-equipped to even slow down a society dead-set on ditching the rule of law. We can file the best cases, motions, and briefs, we can get all the writs and judgments you want....at the end of the day, they are LITERALLY just words and ideas. When a society has opted OUT of words and ideas, and INTO brute force, then what the fuck? You think all the lawyers in the world standing in front of the mob, saying "but I have a writ!", will make 1 billionth of a shit? Lawyers are indeed becoming irrelevant. Because that's how society wants it. And if that's what society wants, no amount of lawyering will make a difference. That is very, very, very bad. Society shouldn't choose that, because the alternative is horrible, violent, unpredictable, and is inevitably completely coopted by those with the most power at the expense of everyone else. But that message falls on deaf ears. It doesn't matter if we follow that message with "Respectfully Submitted, Brisketexan, Bar Card # 12345" or not.
  20. She's Ukrainian. There's a fair chance that below where the photo cuts off, she's carrying a fucking combat rifle. Which is hot.
  21. Dude....we're talking about a guy who blames ALL of post-pandemic supply chain-related inflation (ALL OF IT) on Biden, even though the US actually did BETTER, inflation-wise, than almost all of our peer nations. Fuck. That. Shit. He blames everyone else for everything, and takes credit for everything good that ever happened. Nope, apply the same fucking rules to him.
  22. Depends. Are you one of the handful of people who have made hundreds of millions/billions from Trump memecoins and insider stock trading? If so, fuck yeah, we're fucking AMAZING. If you're not one of those 100 or so people....get fucked, peasant, you don't matter anyway.
  23. Bozo is both not wrong.....and wildly wrong. Lemme esplain...wait, there is too much...lemme sum up. Yes, the legal profession is in an ethical crisis. That is because the legal profession is a REFLECTION of society, not aside and apart from it. Its crisis is society's crisis. People ignore the one thing that every "slimy, unethical" lawyer has: a client. Lawyers go as society goes, in large part. That means I'm not holding lawyers up as anything particularly exalted. They don't deserve it, they really aren't much better or worse than society as a whole. SOCIETY is in an ethical crisis, because we've abandoned any notion of a common set of rules that should apply to all (in groups who the law protects, but does not bind, vs. out groups who the law binds, but does not protect). ALSO, this matches up perfectly with the alarm bells Brisket has been ringing for a decade-plus: the Rule of Law is a tissue-paper-thin veneer. It is only a set of gentlemen's agreements, that society across-the-board will agree to a set of objective standards. Once a material segment of society opts out of those standards, and has the collective power to do so (and it's a shockingly small percentage. Like, think 10%, so long as it's the right (white) 10%), then it's over. I can go down to the courthouse and argue what the law IS, and be dead-right....and if either 1) a shameless political appointee says "sure, but see, the law doesn't apply to people named 'Trump,'" or hell, maybe I even get the judgment, but the other side simply ignores it and says "come and make us follow it," and that other side has armed troops/ICE/etc. at its disposal....it's over. It doesn't matter how many suits I file, how many show-cause proceedings I initiate, etc....it's over. Finally, even presuming that lawyers ARE truly essential, be really, really, really fucking careful of setting standards that amount to "action that undermines the Rule of Law" as being subject to sanction by ANY body that can be manipulated and controlled by political forces. Because legal positions like "black people should be treated equally, per the 14the amendment," and "interracial marriage should be legal, per the Constitution" are positions that absolutely undermine and go against society, the long-standing social order, the long-understood interpretation of the Constitution, and the very fabric of our Republic (all arguments used against lawyers asserting those exact positions). Building a system that makes it easy to sanction lawyers for "acting against the Rule of Law" is tailor-made for a system run by a despot who says "I AM THE RULE OF LAW, and therefore, any action against what I decree is an act against the Rule of Law" - I'm not making that up, this admin is literally saying that shit right now. I take legal positions that are/would be opposed by Trumpists. If you want to set up a system where I risk losing my license, being imprisoned, etc. for doing so, then the nebulous vision you propose would do just that. This admin is not shy about going after attorneys for the "against the Rule of Law" action of taking a position contrary to the admin's preferences - they've already done it, repeatedly. I cannot envision any further mechanisms for legal accountability that would not promptly be taken over and used by the admin to go after their legal enemies. Be careful about the "accountability" you wish for. In a world with no objective legal realities (the one we live in now), you've just handed the fascists all the tools they need to complete their coup de grace.
  24. One of the boy’s Ukrainian friends is raising funds: https://revolut.me/oleksam5v0?fbclid=PAQ0xDSwKPKWxleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABp2WStgPeNTBDz6F0kmKKTGvO0KYkbKiE4f-QwFyv-wedCYCBPMBIgWzIZI44_aem_Gkv0CrA9FFOhbZsTnSWGSA If’n any of y’all are interested.
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