Snake Diggity

It’s amazing the % of upper class people who genuinely believe they are upper-middle or even middle class. Similarly, it’s amazing how ignorant conservatives are on the current state of the economy; if you ask them to throw out numbers on unemployment, GDP growth, wage growth, or even current inflation, they’d be WAY off.

I live in SW Austin. Remodeled our master bathroom in March of 2022. Took everything down to the studs. Moved plumbing. Chose moderate materials; didn’t cheap out on anything but everything we chose can be bought at a big box home improvement store and the cabinets were all wood but nothing fancy. Used a solo contractor recommended by a friend. He did a very good job. $40,000. Worth it. Highly highly recommend an oversized shower that has 2 shower heads. Highly recommend fancy bidet. My shower in my bathroom is my favorite place on earth. Remodeled our kitchen (and updated the paint and flooring in the rest of our home; also updated the guest bath) last summer. Turned the formal dining into a butler pantry; highly recommend. Chose the best appliances you can get at Home Depot. Used the same contractor. Pretty sure it was the biggest job he’d ever done. In the end he went over timeline and over budget without telling us and so I paid him $10,000 more than I had to, which I regret. He still did a pretty good job, but we’re not as happy as we were with the master bath job. Total price for all that was $80,000. Between the interior remodel and replacing the exterior siding, I’ve put over $130,000 into my 1800 sf house in the last 3 years. And our garage, enclosed patio, landscaping, detached workshop, driveway, and pool all still could use updating. And our AC is 20+ years old. That shit is such a beating. If I had it to do over again I would have just bought a new build, but they don’t make new homes on the kind of lot/location I’m on. Oh well fuck me I guess.

Austin now has 5 seasons: A mild but erratic winter Dec-Feb A warm spring Mar-Apr A warm summer May An unlivable hellscape Jun-Sep A normal fall Oct-Nov If you could just find somewhere else to live for 4 months out of the year, it’s perfect!

He is literally going for the South Park “I thought this was America” bit. It was only a matter of time.

That’s fucked up

I wonder if more companies might start recruiting kids right out of high school for “degreed” jobs. Pay them 1/3 of what a degree holder makes and train them up. I am a very typical white collared non-professional who has done relatively well, and I have not had a single job since college that I couldn’t have learned without my degree/college education; it may have taken me a little longer to grasp some concepts but I could have done it easily.

That is the most disappointing use of the word ‘cleavages’ I’ve ever read.

I would take Dusty.

If Crane hires Ausmus then the run is officially over.

It is totally possible that all of the following is true: That girl is a conniving foolish money grubbing whore Trevor Bauer is not a criminal Trevor Bauer is an unlikable garbage human being who gets rough with women (in a totally legal way) and deserves all of the public ire he’s received Fuck Trevor Bauer.

I don’t know. Doesn’t seem like much of a stretch to assume that Donald Trump was being racist when he called a black person a word ending in “-aboo”.

A literal cry for help. Fuck yes.

I mostly agree with your first 2 points, but to your 3rd point, I think it’s very debatable that the current version of meritocracy leads to the best outcomes at the top. The idea that re-allocating resources to ensure more equitable opportunities for all would result in poorer outcomes at the top end of performances sounds wrong to me. For one thing, I don’t think the resources people are advocating re-allocating in society are currently being used to achieve the best outcomes, even at the top end. The idea is to produce more elite performers and increase competition at the highest level, not water down the entire system.

?’s for the experts on the board: How much of Putin’s strategy is waiting for the results of the 2024 elections? Reading thru everything, it seems like Russia is proper fucked if Ukraine continues to receive western support. Is Putin holding out hope that Russian-friendly candidates gain control in 2024 and shut off the flow of money and weapons to Ukraine, meaning if Ukraine-friendly candidates gain/win control that Putin will begin to admit defeat and come to the table? My guess from all the numbers posted in this thread is that if Ukraine is going to “win” this war, that they are about 1/3 of the way there. Is that accurate?

If I could make one change in our society, it would be to provide free, quality childcare/education for all starting at age 2 through age 16. That means free quality daycare and dramatically lower student:teacher ratios in public elementary and middle schools. If we did that, it’d take 10-15 years but you’d start to see a whole lot of our societal problems start to recede. Our obesity epidemic, opioid epidemic, crisis of democracy, and even most of our disagreement on how to address climate change can all be traced to a lack of educated citizenry. If I were a politician, I would trade an awful lot to achieve legislation toward that objective. Its not an issue that politicians even really talk about with any substance, but if it were, I would pretty much be a single issue voter.

Not sure why this is a CR topic or even how the thesis is arguable. Of course there’s shades of grey in how much inequality is preventing true merit from shining through and that’s often where CR creeps in. But it is undeniable that we live in a society in which the outcomes of people’s lives are almost entirely determined by how wealthy their parents are.

I got a Management degree from McCombs. Aside from what comes with any degree from McCombs, it has been largely worthless. My intent in choosing that major (at 19) was, in fact, to be “a boss”. At that time they had several sub disciplines to choose from, one was entrepreneurship, one was organizational management, can’t remember the others. I chose entrepreneurship and got very very little out of those courses (although I was a very poor student). To the OP, there’s a big difference between being the owner vs being an exec. If your son wants to be an owner, then he should get technical credentials in whatever field is most closely related to the kind of business he wants to own. That would likely be all he needs, but if he wants general business management expertise then he could add an MBA on top of it. If he wants to be an exec, then Finance is probably the best undergrad degree to get, and he’d be best served adding a JD, MBA, or CPA on top of that; if he wants to be an exec of a company in a certain industry, then again a technical degree related to that field for undergrad would possibly be better than Finance.

“The drama is playing out as Moody’s Investors Service, the only remaining major credit grader to give the US a top rating, warned in late September its confidence in the US is wavering because of concerns about “governance.””

Replacement should be: black woman not running in the primary between age 50 and 75 not a current member of Congress Newsome painted himself a narrow lane for his pick, he better already have the person lined up.

5 years but yeah. Also, Jamie Dimon is a know-nothing douchebag.

Thanks for the recommendation, we did end up fishing that spot halfway down the GISP pier when we went last year. No keepers but good activity on small black drum and sheepshead. We will probably try it again this weekend. I had my wife with me last year and she didn’t really feel like getting very far into the water so we didn’t try wading the shoreline, I might get a chance to do it this time. Thanks for this recommendation. We didn’t get to try that spot last year but plan on trying it when we are down there this weekend.

Rangers would much rather face the Mariners than Astros in the playoffs. They will tank that series. Houston must win tonight and then have to take 2 of 3 in Arizona. Fangraphs says they have 58% chance but it’s probably more like 18%.

If Houston hires a POBO it will be Crane doing the hiring and that person would be Brown’s boss.

She is a freshman so she hasn’t been there thru a winter yet, so maybe she will turn sour on it then. But she grew up in the SeaTac area so I doubt it’ll affect her all that much. I’m sure for somebody from Texas the short days and frequent dreary weather may be a drag (but can’t possibly be more of a drag than the blastfurnace in Texas).

My niece no pics goes there and from all reports it’s amazing. Her dorm room window overlooks the water. Looks pretty fuckin awesome from the pics I’ve seen.