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Brisketexan

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Everything posted by Brisketexan

  1. It's wild that you are 1) that predictable, and 2) that bad at math. Here, take an example. In 2000, you were paid a salary of $50k. The amount of goods you could buy was X. Each year, for the next 5 years, your salary increased by 4%. In 2005, you could still buy X amount of goods (or just a tiny bit more than that)....because of inflation. Of course, in 2000, you ALSO had a kid. The number of people your salary had to provide for increased. But instead of increasing your salary 4% a year starting in 2005, your employer increased it only 1% a year. By 2010, the amount of goods you could buy was LESS than X. AND, the amount of goods you could buy per member of your household had declined significantly. Costs increase, both due to inflation and due to an increasing number of people in the system. Failure to INCREASE spending in a manner that at least KEEPS PACE with those factors means that you can afford LESS in the way of goods and services than before on a per capita basis. Are you really that bad at math, or purposefully disingenuous, or.....the obvious answer...."both?"
  2. The article he cited said exactly what they did -- the slashed the historical annual rate of increase (a measure that functionally keeps pace based on the fact that prices for goods and services typically increase annually, plus the amount of people needing them increases slightly as well): Yes, spending for most every program of every sort -- government, private sector, etc. -- increases year-to-year because of the factors I pointed out. If the increases do not keep pace with those factors, then the real dollars available on a per patient basis are, functionally....cut.
  3. It's almost like not-fully-formed adolescent brains, which are quite susceptible to being totally broken, should perhaps not have super-easy access to firearms.
  4. It's perhaps the greatest universal constant. The Law of Gravity looks at that rule and says "shit, I'm a piker in comparison."
  5. I presume it starts with either “I’m black,” or “I’m a dog.”
  6. My BIL went to med school at UTMB. They had an easy screening question for when the crackpots came in: "oh....does your hair hurt?" When they got the inevitable "yes, it does!", they knew that they could shuffle that one off to the crazy pile. That article is CLASSIC mass hysteria shit. "A rash of people are reporting that the mysterious aircraft are making them have to pee when they wake up in the morning!" Fucking post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, on a mass level.
  7. So much this. The goal of a for-profit enterprise: deliver the least possible amount of goods/services (that is, at the lowest cost) for the highest possible revenue. The perfect model is to provide nothing, in exchange for lots of money. If you can sell one egg for 50 cents, it's even better if you can sell one egg for $1, or $5, or even $10. The only purpose of a for-profit enterprise is to make money/deliver shareholder value. Delivering goods/services is just the incidental way that the enterprise achieves that goal. The goal of a government service agency: to provide the service. That's it. Sure, in doing so, it should do so with costs in mind, but that's not the GOAL. So, to translate: The goal of TSA: to prevent security threats from making it onto a plane. The goal of Elon Musk's XSecurity: to make lots of money. If one of our agencies is not doing a great job (and TSA is one of those agencies), then we should demand that our elected officials exercise sharper oversight, enforce standards and accountability, and make the enterprise run better. That's literally the fucking job we elected them to do. But INSTEAD of that....they are going to 1) hand the job over to their crony, who 2) will line their pockets and/or ensure that they don't face any primary or other election challengers, and 3) will not give a fraction of a fuck about how well the job is being done. Some things should not be "run like a business" because they AREN'T A FUCKING BUSINESS.
  8. The problem with this take is the following fact: 100% of people who back-in park say "I'm super-good at it, I can get it done in an instant," but 99% of them are dead-fucking wrong. Signed, someone who regularly gets stuck in a parking lot waiting while someone takes 20 minutes to execute their 300-point back-in parking maneuver and blocks the whole fucking lane. I don't know when this became such a thing, but it's fucking maddening, because for all the "it's safer and faster" bullshit I hear....I must have the worst luck on earth to always get stuck behind the guy who just can't seem to pull it off without adjusting his angle 5,734 times.
  9. Do you even 1970s-early 80s Taco Bell, bro? And I say this as someone who fucking hates black olives. They taste like pointless dirt. But some people dig 'em, and they are the international symbol for cheap california mex food.
  10. And just like that, "derriere dessert" will enter the Surly lexicon.
  11. You just insulted Chamberlain. That was a heavy lift, but you managed to do it. Neville had much more admirable intent and awareness of what was actually happening.
  12. For every one of these, finish the sentence with "and replace it with a 'private sector' product/service provided by Elon Musk at a greater cost, thus continuing to funnel billions of taxpayer dollars into Elon's pockets." None of these people actually want to eliminate any of these major government functions. They just want their patrons/oligarchs to profit from them.
  13. No. You won't. You think that you don't have a history on this site that people remember. We do. Biden or a Dem does it: Anastasis is all up in arms, with cryptic question/criticisms of every act. Trump does it: a passing reference to "I didn't vote for Trump," and that's pretty much it. Just fucking get it over with. Declare your allegiance, admit that you'll give Trump a functional pass no matter what he does, and quit lying to us and to yourself to the extent that you think you're being clever. You're not.
  14. That burrito concoction is MAGNIFICENT.
  15. He may. But your deep concern about multiple such issues with respect to Biden.....but the complete and total free pass you give to Trump (particularly when he's WORSE on those issues than Biden) renders some pretty solid body blows to your credibility. You are among the Trumpiest "I don't support Trump and think he's a clown" types around. "I don't support Trump and think he's a clown....except I somehow find a way to come down on Trump's side of any issue 90% of the time, even when I've otherwise supported a position at odds with Trump's" is something to watch.
  16. But the multiple bus rides and having to go through security again doesn’t. Not a fan of transferring at LHR.
  17. When my old man listened to me talking a out borrowing the neighbor’s extension ladder to patch a piece of siding up at our very high roof line: “how much are you worth to your family alive? How much do you bill by the hour? You dumbass, pay someone to do that dangerous shit.” The old man can bring the wisdom sometimes. I don’t work on anything I can’t reach with a six foot folding ladder now.
  18. Just remember, the blood of school kids should now be referred to as "freedom fluid."
  19. Boy, you just skipped RIGHT over the non-consensual anal probing, didn't ya? Don't think we don't see what you're doing.
  20. This. If the majority of Americans don't give a shit about a majority of Americans/actively want to inflict pain on other people/are too fucking stupid to see obvious lies to them for what they are.....why should anyone else waste .000000000000000000001% of a fuck caring about them?
  21. Don't ask me. If it flies, and you're looking for somebody to miss the hell out of a shot at it....I'm your guy.
  22. Sydney gets it. Trump could implement tariffs that plainly and directly bankrupt 50% of Americans, and this will be the messaging:
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