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Brisketexan

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Posts posted by Brisketexan

  1. 1 hour ago, troph said:

    Because of the gravy ? 

    Trust me.  In this life, when pondering all of the truly great questions, it all comes back to gravy.

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  2. 1 hour ago, MillerEP said:

    And it looks like it’s finally over officially. A 30-year war in the making went out not with a bang but a whimper. Russia wasn’t there to play their mind games/both sides. The 2020 conflict and subsequent blockade reduced the separatists from any meaningful way of mounting a military response so they had to capitulate.
     

     

     

     

     

    An interesting (and mostly foolish) chapter in history.  That said, the boy is big into vexillology, so when we visited Armenia, he also picked up a small flag of the "breakaway Atrsakh Republic" (they were available at many kiosks in Yerevan).

    255px-Flag_of_Artsakh.svg.png

    So, there's a piece of history now.

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  3. Some good discussion these last few posts.  And yeah, I would think that the changes in how we work has a good bit to do with it.  As does the phenomenon of women entering the workforce.  And a dozen other things that are the biggest factors.

    Would I have enjoyed being in a bowling league?  I'm 100% sure I would have.  Something competitive, laughing with your friends and giving them shit, cheeseburgers and cold beer?  What's not to love?  But my CAREER is one that precludes a regular commitment.  "Sorry, judge/client/law partner, I can't make that out-of-town hearing next week because Tuesday is my league night."  That was never going to happen.

    What's sad to me is that I think that most of us KNOW that something is wrong, something very important is missing.  But we don't have any idea how to meaningfully address it.  We are, at our foundation, a sad and lonely society.  All of this "prosperity" and wealth, and we are actually pretty damned poor.  What we THINK OF and idolize as success, social standing, etc., is often fake or contrived.

    Happiness isn't a curated selection of photos of perfectly plated food at a glitzy restaurant with beautiful people.  Happiness is a backyard BBQ cooking cheap meat from the neighborhood grocery, standing around the pit and drinking beers and telling embellished stories about how awesome you are as your buddies call you on your bullshit, the kids running around and getting muddy in the yard.  You are connected with those closest to you.  And you're also connected to the neighbors from a block over who showed up and brought some kickass chocolate chip cookies, and that fucker is a lot better than you at cornhole so you better up your game, but the thing is, he's cool about it, which makes it even more annoying.

    We're not just lonely.  We're unhappy.  We've forgotten how to be happy, and yeah, those things are unquestionably connected.  In frustration, fear, and anger, we've thus become even MORE isolated, angry, and mean.  Which is further disincentive to building community.  Putting us in a death spiral.  Other than doing a few things on a micro level (getting to know your neighbors better, saying "yes" to social invitations), it seems like a Mt. Everest that we have no chance of summiting.  Maybe we can climb up a few feet, but shit.

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  4. I've never flown Spirit but my impression from the departure lounge is that it's like the Galveston Wal-Mart, but airborne. 

    That fucking Wal-Mart. Years ago, picked up some donuts there to have the next morning for breakfast before fishing. They were inedible. How do you fuck up a glazed donut?
    Also, team SWA. My domestic flights are 1) Texas and NM, and 2) California each summer for vacation. SWA offers regular cheap nonstops to all of those destinations, I have lots of points (used to have A-list status, but haven’t flown as much since the pandemic), so I get free flights. Discount airlines have their place.
  5. Everyone who is shocked, SHOCKED, I SAY, by this development, raise your fucking hand.  

    Yeah, I see nothing but hands down.  Except among the gullible MAGATs/Qanon types, who continue to mainline runny bullshit and insist it's the fucking nectar of the gods.  The stupidity and gullibility of this crowd is at limitless as the universe itself.

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  6. 45 minutes ago, royiv said:

    He's someone who has posted disgusting, hateful things about marginalized members of our society on this board. I'm sure his church community is full of people who share his disgusting viewpoints. Take whatever he says with a gigantic grain of salt.

    38 minutes ago, Snake Diggity said:

    Did you ever think that the church you’re defending is just an “idealized version of yourself”?  Of course people who hate gays and browns and poors are gonna defend the hateful churches and tell people who stand up to them that they’re “disagreeing with god”.  

    Anne Lamott summed it up quite well:

    “You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”

    I've seen this shit from the inside.  So has my wife.  So have my kids.  We are far, far, far from alone.  It's done its damage.  When the people who wave The Cross the highest and loudest, as both a sword and a shield, are also those LITERALLY CHEERING when someone mentions shooting brown people crossing the river, then the fucking cross is hot garbage.  Anyone with even a child's grasp on the message of the Gospels knows those two things are 100% incompatible (as just one example.  The spit-flinging demonization of gay people is another, and it's particularly offensive to people like my kids, who love and are protective of their gay peers.  When "the church" comes for their friends, my kids and those like them have their friends' backs.)

    Is a group more focused on emphasizing kindness?  Or is it fucking mean?  It's not a lot more complicated than that.  Many of our institutions -- which, to get back to the topic here, have long been a focal point of community and social engagement -- are openly fucking mean.  And proud of it.  And they become self-selecting for that; as people who don't like being around mean bullshit leave, all that's left are the people who LIKE engaging in mean bullshit, making the institution even LESS attractive, socially.

    If we want to be less lonely, then we need to be less fucking exclusive.  Why don't Americans have as many friends as they used to?  Because a shitload of Americans are fucking dicks, and most people don't want to hang around with fucking dicks.

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  7. 6 minutes ago, Degenerate Gardner said:

    Very much the same for my kids. While they appreciate the value in caring church communities, both are too alienated by all the wolves in sheeps’ clothing to voluntarily attend church anymore. 

    Which is really, really fucking sad.  Because I'll say this -- in terms of understanding the core truths of the Gospel and living it, my son is 10X the Christian I've ever been.  He just wants nothing to do with American "Christianity" because it has little to do with being a practicing Christian.

    And because of that, he loses out on SO much natural, built-in community that has not been replaced in our society (and probably can't be replaced).  When we make our institutions -- natural building blocks of community - so toxic/dysfunctional as to drive people away, well then....we lose our sense of community.

    We are a deeply wounded society.  Almost all of those wounds are self-inflicted, and it's a spiral of ever-increasing harm.

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  8. Just now, David Dennison said:

    What do you suggest for the growing number of non-believers?

     

    Who cares?  They are evil anti-americans who are going to hell.

    That's the message of vocal American Christianity.  There's no room for love of your fellow man who happens to be a non-believer.  Nope.  He's an evil heretic, to be fought against at every turn.

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  9. 7 minutes ago, Frank Drebin said:

    There are all sorts of churches.  Find one that fits. Today there are a lot more that fit your politics and beliefs than there were 30 or 50 years ago.

     

    Sure there are.  Like I said, our particular denomination (well, at least our congregation) is pretty focused on the loving part of the Gospels, not the judging part of the Gospels (of course, those branches of denominations are also being attacked in schisms, being tossed out as "apostate" (because they don't hate the gayz enough to satisfy the dogmatists), etc.).  But the thing is, even to the extent that these churches exist, love and kindness happen behind the scenes, in day-to-day work.  Damned near invisible.  Cruelty, hate, and division?  Those happen in neon lights, right in front of the media, on the floor of the legislatures, etc. etc.  And they cause real harm, and real pain, to people my children and I love and care about.

    You can argue against it, but the cause-and-effect is clear as day.  I'm not pointing out a novel observation here.  There have been alarm bells ringing on this front for a generation.  Now, those chickens are coming home to roost.  

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  10. 50 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

    The Venn diagram overlap between “people who think black kids should conform for the greater good by cutting their hair in a way that is acceptable to me” and “people who refused to wear a ‘face diaper’ or get the ‘death jab’” is a circle. 

    100% this.  It's a perfect example of institutional racism and unconscious white supremacy.

    White people in power: Hey black people, you should conform to OUR (white people's) idea of what society should be, for, you know, "the common good."

    And also...

    White people in power: Don't force us to even acknowledge your values!  Our freedom trumps everything, you can't make me do ANYTHING for "the common good!"

    The fucking cognitive dissonance is exactly what white supremacy is.  White people get to assert their freedom in every circumstance, the common good be damned...but everyone else needs to bow to the existing (white-controlled) social order, and THEIR exercise of freedom is wrong, selfish, and harmful.

    But nevermind, delete my post, because that's just woke-ism, and it's all a lie, and it might make those white leaders feel bad about themselves.

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  11.  
    I don't give a shit if Turtle shows up in an old man onesie. I couldn't possibly care less about the dress code. Decorum my ass. That died a long time ago. 

    Dick Cheney Could Not Be Prouder of That Time He Told Pat Leahy to “Go Fuck Himself” on the Senate Floor


    This. If elected to the senate, I’d show up in a loin cloth, with “Fuck You” painted on my chest, and I’d proceed to shit on the desk of every other Senator.
    A plan that would improve the decorum and dignity of the current senate by at least 50%.
    You don’t wanna hear my plan if elected to the House. It involves shit that would make a German porn star blush.
  12. 10 hours ago, DigglerontheHoof said:

    yep, along w/ the "he's scared", "we got him", and countless other examples.  I'll believe this piece of shit gets his comeuppance when (and IF) it happens.  

    This.

    Trump could fucking sit there, point to Georgia statutes and the US Code, by specific section, say "I violated this one by [describing guilty conduct in detail] and that one by [describing guilty conduct in detail], because I'm a criminal who likes committing crimes, and I look forward to doing so again many times," and IT WOULDN'T FUCKING MATTER. It would fucking GAIN him votes.

    And I'll believe he's convicted of a crime when he's in an orange jumpsuit and bars clang shut behind him.  Not a millisecond before.

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  13. 12 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

    image.png.20c043c41ed5584f6e24e7200f8c3428.png

    No idea who this guy is, but I can guarantee that he's suspect.  

    ben-affleck-good-will-hunting.gif

    He's one of those "EVERYTHING IS CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING!" guys.

    Which means there is a near 100% chance that he has molested a kid, per the rules of "all accusations from these nutbars are confessions."

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