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flatdawgs

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by flatdawgs

  1. That's certainly an American way to look at things. OTOH, one of the things I thoroughly enjoy every time I'm back in Europe is that isn't the be-all and end-all of life; quite the contrary. In all the time I've spent in Europe (almost every country; southeastern Portugal now my base when I'm over there), I have never once had a single person ask me how much I made or what giant corporations my US city is home to. I spent a good portion of last winter in Scandinavia and I think most people would consider their quality of life higher than that of the vast majority of the US. While you're not incorrect about political turmoil in some of the larger European countries, they are still facing what would be considered fairly normal political stresses. It's countries like Hungary and Türkiye, with some of the former Eastern Bloc nations thrown in, where you find similar issues to here. Not saying it's not necessarily coming, but at least for now in several countries the center-right and center-left parties refuse to form coalitions with the far right.
  2. This. All of this. My Mom knew the end was coming for two years but steadfastly refused to do any preparation whatsoever, including a will or naming an executor, or telling anyone about anything she had/where it was. As her oldest and her caretaker I had the inestimable joy of becoming the estate's administrator and sorting all that out. It took nearly 5 years before the estate was finally closed - and that with a very good estate attorney. The last best gift your parents can give you is to help make your life a little bit easier in the midst of grieving their loss. Talking with them now - as hard a subject as it is - will ease the burden while ensuring their wishes are followed.
  3. pretty sure they're out back, drowning it in a bathtub.
  4. Q for the Surly law dogs (IANAL, although my brother and ex were both attorneys and then judges so I got doused in it frequently lol) - do you think that law schools like UT will continue to seek ABA accreditation regardless of this? It seems many states including my own (WA) require all applicants to the bar to be graduates of an ABA-accredited law school, and in the current climate I don't see them changing that to accommodate other states who apparently for political reasons are removing the ABA accreditation requirement.
  5. Why bother with Nexus if you already have GE? Because I live near the Canadian border and cross it frequently (and fly in/out of Canada overseas occasionally), and with it I get the same bennies on the Canadian side as I do on the US.
  6. And he said it the next night... and then again on the PA system at Husky Stadium Saturday before the Ohio State game (the students went crazy; Julio and Woo were cracking up). Hey, why not this year?
  7. lol yeah, that's the joke I had in mind 😂
  8. Wait - Agent Vatnik was about to blow up a cemetery? Well, I guess that's one way to run up an impressive body count....
  9. A coup primer: it's always the colonels, rarely the generals.
  10. Switched over from GE to Nexus this time and it took 9 damn months to get the interview (despite 10 years of GE). OTOH, they kept GE active so it didn't matter too much, and you keep your KTN.
  11. There's a fun German word for this: teppichfresser. It even has some historical connotations.
  12. This is going to be a vicious fight - and one that we need to have. Here in WA, like Texas, we do not have a state income tax, and even mentioning one is the third rail of state politics. It means that we have a terribly regressive tax system (one of the very few things I dislike about the state). This year the Lege tabled a bill to place a small tax on people with an annual income of over 1 million dollars, almost exactly the state's top 1% of earners threshold. Almost immediately constant radio ads popped up about the state not raising taxes, funded by the usual suspects who would have C-suite people affected by it (Microsoft, T-Mobile, Expedia, Amazon, Alaska Airlines, etc.). Nothing, of course, about the 99% that do not have 7-figure incomes and would not be affected. This fight is going on in a state that has a near-supermajority D legislature, the second-largest economy per capita in the country (after NY), and the fourth highest income required to be 1% (after CT, MA and CA). Even here the Dems are not messaging it well at all, and that speaks to the discussion here and in the NYT's op-ed above. This stuff needs to be hammered home.
  13. Oh yeah, we're a total shithole. I doubt there will be a single Ohio State fan in Husky Stadium this Saturday, which of course is good for our couches, seeing as how we're a couch sanctuary city and all that.
  14. I've been told, right here on this very site, that raising emus is the way to go. Kind, docile, definitely not batshit crazy killing machines.... @Goredho
  15. Hey @PTINS - I just wanted to thank you for sharing the depth of your knowledge in a way that makes sense to O&G laypeople. It really adds to my understanding of what Ukraine is trying to do and why it is (or isn't) effective. Stuff like this continues to make this the best thread on the board and it's much appreciated.
  16. Well, here's how Austria handles that in their constitution: Parents decide their child's confession up to age ten, but by age fourteen, the child has the legal right to choose their own religion, free from parental or external imposition. (and Austria is not, shall we say, a particularly liberal nation)
  17. The von Lettow-Vorbeck saga in East Africa is incredibly fascinating - several books are well worth the read (African Kaiser and The East African Campaign 1914-1918 come to mind). The other African campaigns were short and sharp, and their effects particularly in Namibia (German South West Africa) lasted until the end of apartheid in South Africa. WWII - Ian Toll's Pacific War trilogy is excellent, as is Richard Evans' trilogy on the Third Reich. I enjoy personal histories, particularly from the opposing side, and there are quite a few of those out there as well.
  18. flatdawgs

    Brazil

    That will not end well (and as an aside, Gil, Veloso, and Buarque have to be the three biggest surviving names in modern Brazilian music, and I believe all were exiled during the 1964-85 ditadura militar.) There are many Brazilians with vivid memories of those days and even more with memories and experiences with the Direitas Já movement that ended it. In my experience they take democracy seriously because of it - despite, as in most countries today, there being a large anti-democratic faction (of course I know you know all this, @Hank_Hill - are those the thoughts of your partner's family there as well?)
  19. Very good description (and yes re Duany and Calthorpe). UW was set up the same way - in fact when I was there it was called the College of Architecture and Urban Planning, and we had required coursework in Planning, which I always enjoyed. The "charrette" term as a public meeting thing isn't really used here; interesting that it seems to have started in Portland, but Portland is weird and Oregon is politically the oddest state around. In politics, I think the entire concept is best avoided especially in today's world, where we've been focus grouped to death. It works better where there is a common understanding of rules and social mores, which at the moment no longer seems to be the case.
  20. lol here it's sarcastically called the "Seattle Process" and we need more facilitators like you around. It's stopped many a good idea from becoming reality (and to be fair, also has stopped more than a few bad ones from being forced upon us). In a region founded in large part by people from consensus-based communities (Scandinavia, Japan, New England, layered over an existing tribal-based system also largely based on community decision-making) it makes some sense that it took root here. The major problem is that it takes forever to get anything done and issues are often just kicked down the road. "Charrette" is a common term in architecture, used from day one in school throughout your career to mean a short, intensive skull session/workshop with your design team or with other closely related peers/consultants to stimulate ideas and (hopefully) solve problems on a given project. As you are working from a fairly common shared knowledge base, it can be very effective and useful. While the idea sounds nice brought into the public realm, the mere fact that by definition you are involving laypeople that may have a stake and may be quite intelligent but that do not often have the specific knowledge required to solve problems in a short duration intensive workshop can be problematic (especially when the agency wants everyone to feel their opinions are weighted equally).
  21. Great - y'all can rest everyone for the last series. Right? Right?
  22. Thanks for the recommendation - I'll definitely follow up with that. Colonial history is an interest of mine. Angola was a particular shitshow for decades, as was Mozambique for somewhat different reasons; Guinea-Bissau and Cabo Verde both also to a lesser extent (and Amilcar Cabral is still venerated in both places). São Tomé e Príncipe is fascinating in a very sad way. Salazar's Portugal was poor as hell yet tried to hold on to their vast colonies until the Estado Novo government was overthrown, long after the rest of Europe bailed or were forced out of theirs, and it was the proximate cause of the regime's fall.
  23. Portugal's clerico-fascist (today what would be called christofascist, Catholic flavored) Salazar dictatorship lasted nearly 50 years but was peacefully overthrown in 1974's Carnation Revolution. April 25th is still a big deal there; everyone of all parties wears carnations that day. The difference is that the military had finally had enough, particularly of endless, unwinnable colonial wars, and we are not likely to have the military here.
  24. My congresscritter, yay! She's pretty good on this stuff and doesn't take a lot of shit - that said, you'd be hard-pressed to find a safer seat, which does make it easier. Glad she's doing this. "Shadow Government" is a good definition and one common in parliamentary systems.
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