Goredho

Yeah, that's no bueno. I have played my brothers deco a lot and twisted lots of knobs and never heard any rice krispies like that.

I really love my brother's Deco, may need to see about getting one of those. I wish it had stereo in as well as out.

Continuing my love affair with the UAFX amp in a box pedals, this arrived today. Mimics a 1992 Mesa boogie dual rectifier. Will post more after I get to play it.

Gunsmokeshow

They don't like what they see in the mirror.

Now we just need Alex Jones as director of the CIA!

So 75% of it is that your dog is a sexy bitch? Impressive!

Yeah, I grew up 5 minutes away from Mexico, and it always struck me how different life was there. I was born into a privileged family. We had far more than most and never were concerned with money. Then I would go to Mexico and see all the shanty towns on the hills, and kids trying to sell you chicles to help their family, the prostitutes in boys town trying to survive selling what they had to sell. And I was taken aback by how much lower their standard of living was compared to mine, and that the only real difference between them and I was that they were born 5 minutes south beyond an imaginary line drawn on a drying riverbed. And then I would pass all that by and get to my real destination. The house of the wealthy, politically connected family that was the ruling class in Mexico. I was friend with their son who was sent to private school in the U.S. to be educated. I was taken aback again by how much higher their standard of living was compared to mine. The thousands of acres, the mission-style mansion, the landing strip and private plane in the backyard. It was disconcertingly difficult to try and not be taken aback by the extravagance. I think we are on a similar road in the United States, just behind the curve.

I had a bad dream before the election. In my dream, the election aftermath (it was a "stolen" Trump loss) was used to engineer a crash of the US economy/dollar and a huge gain in bitcoin. It shook me up enough that I went ahead and signed up on coinbase and bought an emergency fund worth of bitcoin. Well, none of my dream happened (thankfully), but my crypto buy is up 21% in roughly 2 weeks. I think I am going to keep it going with a target to get to 4 months of living expenses in crypto just in case. If its still growing beyond that, I'll re-evaluate whether to let it ride or start pulling some gains out. I have a feeling there are a lot of people like me driving what is happening. People who aren't mentally or fiscally going all in on crypto, but who see pro-crypto forces coming into power, some significant economic turbulence ahead and who want a place other than cash or stocks to park some emergency reserves into.

Yeah, this is a symptom of being left alone to wander the intardnet without guidance/controls. Porn is just one of the hawkers vying for young men's attention in their hours spent online.

Haven't personally seen that as a big issue with the youngins I drew my observations from, but I don't doubt that isn't a major issue for many.

I mean, voters made it clear that they weren't buying any of the warnings about the dangers of a vote for Trump. Its all hypothetical fear mongering to win an election... until it isn't. The shit being warned about is going to have to be made manifest before it moves the needle with a critical mass of people. That doesn't mean those fears are guaranteed to happen or that anyone should take joy from it if they do, but it is the reality of where we are at. Its all up to Trump and his party now. Are you who you say you are, or who the democrats said you are? I don't need anyone's expectant opinion on that. We are all going to know pretty quickly.

Yep, we're dismantling a system all of us were born into. I don't think any of us has direct firsthand experience with the alternative to government providing a baseline of education, some sort of a social safety net and protections for marginalized people. There's not much to be done at this point except to A) prepare to take care of you and yours B) help out elsewhere where you are able and C) allow downstream pain to emphasize the need so that maybe people come back around to seeing the benefit of these institutions.

So very related to the dismantling of the department of education are the policies that the TEA enacted affecting special ed throughout Texas in the aughts. Details here, but tl;dr Texas arbitrarily capped special ed services at 8.5% in violation of federal law which led to a great number of kids with needs getting nothing. Texas eventually was sued by the Dept of Education to remove this cap. The Dept of Education won and Texas was forced to revoke the cap and return it to being completely needs based. If the Department of Education goes away or is made toothless, well, its gonna suck for any kids in need of special ed services. As for anyone with a kid with an IEP that voted for it...

So I haven't fully read this thread, I am just going to share what I see happening in my nieces, nephews, my own kids and those in their social circles. Not everything I mention is a super powerful force, but it is part of what I see funneling young men to dark places. 1. There is a tremendous swell of positive mainstream content featuring empowered young girls/women. Barbi shows an empowered woman navigating a less than perfect world, etc... 2. There is somewhat of a vacuum of positive mainstream content featuring young boys/men being good and navigating the world around them. Even something like Deadpool vs Wolverine that likely appeals to young men more than young women, A) not exactly a model of behavior and B) not applicable to the modern world a young man lives in. 3. Most families have both parents working with kids of all genders spending more time alone and more often than not, that time is spent online 4. Pandemic isolation became a multiplier to the above context and drove more kids to be even more engaged online 5. These kids basically are free to allow their mind able to wander an online world without supervision. Its the psychological equivalent of dropping your kids off at the edge of Hong Kong and telling them to be home by supper. 6. For boys, that online world is full of bad actors who are willing to fill the vacuum of parenting and mainstream content shaping to influence how boys and young/men think 7. Young boys/men who are tolerant and respectful as individuals are being lumped in with all the young boys/men who are not and treated as part of a homogenous "Patriarchy". They feel dammed if they do and dammed if they don't and it reinforces the bullshit getting injected into their heads online. At that point, the young men are left to wonder -- is it really bullshit? Basically, a lot of young men are being abandoned into a confusing vacuum. And as they try to make sense of it, people who are looking at either making a buck, countering the feminist movement or both are happy to step in to fill the void of parenting and mainstream reinforcement to give those young men an ethos and purpose.

You get rep for this statement alone.

Yep, you and yours are free to view it that way and make that choice. Others mileage may vary.

You are missing the point. A young lady has been made to live in fear when she was targeted as someone powerless to protect herself if push came to shove. Well, she does not have to accept that position of powerlessness, and her dad/husband/boyfriend can’t be with her 100% of the time.

You should help her become comfortable with a gun and to get her concealed carry license. Not that she would have been justified in using it in this case, but because it will give her some peace of mind that she can protect herself if someone like that wants to get serious. It’s without a doubt the American way. These jackasses like you describe want to make everyone else uncomfortable. So people like your step daughter are beset with fear and either retreat to the kitchen to quiver or flee the area so it becomes more of a MAGA monoculture. Her being capable of defending herself will go a long way to allowing her to exist with peace of mind in the world she has found herself in.

I am guessing the logic was that there were ~25% of Republican primary voters who didn’t want Trump and voted for Nikki Haley and they were hoping to sway a significant number of them to carry that over to a vote against Trump in the general election. It obviously didn’t work.

But we said they could eat cake! I don't understand?

You are probably both better and worse off for that.

These are the two Reverends I still have. A short scale Dub King bass and a Charger 290 that is hot hot hot. Great instruments for the money or otherwise. Their guitars tend to have a “bass contour knob” that is a bass cut to go with the treble knob and makes them pretty versatile. I can make the P90s sound like a Tele with it.