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Brisketexan

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Everything posted by Brisketexan

  1. It's not about accomplishing anything. Rather, it is 100% about indulging in "oppositional defiance disorder" in its most extreme manifestation. We are at a point that if the government issued a statement "Do not drink a quart of hydrochloric acid, it will kill you," half....or more...of the population would respond "oh yeah? Well FUCK YOU, deep state!" then immediately start looking for black market sources of HCl to start guzzling ASAP. Dumbest. Fucking. Timeline. That's all this is.
  2. I know bitch “I'M THE ONE THAT FUCKING PUT HIS FAT ASS UP THERE LAST WEEK"
  3. Correct. And AE is most of that $2.4 billion, at $1.86 billion. San Antonio, on the other hand, does NOT include CPS's total budget in its city budget (it just includes the transfer made to the city by CPS). So, if you want to do an apples-to-apples comparison (both budgets without the expense side of the electric utility, you're closer to the comparison you cite. There are certainly numerous reasons why the Austin budget on a per capita basis is higher than SA's, but that doesn't account for all of it, by far. That is, the per capita budget delta isn't entirely on city government.....but a good chunk of it IS on them. It's not just that Austin hasn't done a great job at managing its budget though (that's a big part of it). Rather, a big takeaway here is that....drumroll....San Antonio is actually one of the best-run cities in the state, probably by far the best run of the large cities. Seriously, lots of folks should look at how SA does things and say "we should do more of that." Nobody's perfect, of course, but SA does things better than most.
  4. Seems relevant: we have a movement taking power that to some degree opposes every one of these: Some of the greatest achievements in human history…and we want to junk them.
  5. Sorry, this thread is for dumbass shit you see on FB, not awesome shit you see on FB.
  6. I don’t know…does the player post on Surly? Because…res ipsa loquitur and such.
  7. Correct. If you back out the AE chunk of the budget (which is at worst revenue neutral, actually a positive to the budget), that budget number gets a lot smaller. $1.86 billion next year, with $125 million going to the city as a general fund transfer.
  8. Dude. That ship has sailed. It will happen, probably within the next year. Too much info out there from the war in Ukraine.
  9. We are literally going to make polio great again. We live in the dumbest timeline in human history. Imagine achieving the greatest things in the history of human health, saving countless millions from death and disfigurement. For all of human history, all of humanity would have wept for joy at these achievements. And now…we’re going to chuck every one of them into the trash because some insane contagious belief that ACTUALLY….these things are a plot by “them” to accomplish…something. We are committing species suicide by stupidity. Fuck it. Bring back smallpox. Ban chlorine from drinking water treatment. Fuck it all.
  10. Common sense is dead. In the ENTIRE state of NJ, is some sighting an actual drone? Sure. It’s impossible to track down every sighting and verify. Shit, I’ve seen drones around here from time to time, they’re not unusual or necessarily sinister. Is there some massive “outbreak” of drones flying…in the same places where a shitload of regular aircraft fly? Almost certainly not. The odds of there being some sort of NJ “drone crisis”…vs this being a mass hysteria feedback loop…are very very low. Occam’s razor and all that shit. And yes, drones are the next gen threat. We should work on local and federal coordination and preparation. But that doesn’t mean we’re under attack today.
  11. Desired anal leakage is surely a thing, right?
  12. And my daughter literally just sent me this message: “Omg so I went to pick up my ——- prescription and I also needed deodorant and ———. The lady rings me up and is like “hey, do you pay for your prescriptions?” And I’m like “yeah, I do.” She goes “oh! So because this is a lifelong medication, you can actually get that paid for. Next time you go into your GP, ask for a medical exemption card. Fill that out and then you won’t have to pay for it again!” And I’m like “oh thanks, will do!” Thinking that I am about to pay out the nose for two months of medication. She rings me up. “15.62,” she says. I look at her. She looks at me. I look at her. She says “…cash or card?” I say “sorry, fifTEEN? Is that just for the deodorant and ———?” Because idk I live in London, seems reasonable. She’s like “oh no, all together! The medication is £5.47.” I look like a bumbling idiot.” Her med is a real-deal necessary treatment, for a serious condition - not unlike insulin in terms of lifetime need. And it is paid for, and getting it was pretty much effortless. Again, NHS is far from perfect, but goddamn.
  13. Finland does a deal where the amount of your traffic fine is tied to your net worth. Because if you’re poor, a $300 fine can mean you can’t pay rent…but if you’re rich, it’s not any deterrent at all. See this story of a rich Finn popped for €121k traffic fine. https://abcnews.go.com/amp/ABCNews/finnish-businessman-handed-121000-speeding-ticket/story?id=99861907 Gosh, that makes sense. And would never happen here.
  14. This. Even my quite feminist wife and daughter both agree “yeah…if we want to win, we need to run a white dude.” That’s just how it be.
  15. The last round of Trump - when they weren’t NEARLY as powerful - they tried to launch an effort to deport lifetime US citizens like my dad (that is, people born in US border hospitals in the 30s and before, when record keeping wasn’t A+). What gives you the idea they won’t be more emboldened this time?
  16. Not if you include his time over Macho Grande.
  17. Yeah. If anyone wants to know how this goes, check out our own AG, darling of the Religious Right and the "MUH RELIGIOUS LIBERTIES!" crowd (when it comes to the deeply held religious belief of "God commands me to be a total dick to all the people I hate"). You know, the AG who in the past months has sued more churches and religious institutions than our last 10 AGs combined. He just sues them for doing things like feeding the homeless and providing shelter to immigrants (who, by the way, are sent there BY government officials). "Religious Liberty" is but one of the massive lies they've told. They only mean it for THEIR beliefs (you know, the caustic and cruel ones), not any others.
  18. Fuck you, you stupid fucking motherfucker. You had the chance to put a stop to this. You had a fucking DUTY to do so, a duty imposed by the Constitution establishing the Senate as a failsafe, and you actively SABOTAGED it. You don't get to sink the fucking ship and then decry the lack of lifeboats, you craven treasonous lump of shit.
  19. Including Texas. Hell, it may be done during this upcoming legislative session.
  20. Yes, it's different. Because that role serves the function of requiring that the State properly perform its obligation to collect and present evidence and meet its burden of proof. The adversarial system of criminal justice balances the rights of all, regardless of the facts of any particular case. And, MOST IMPORTANTLY, it provides a valid mechanism for obtaining justice against the wrongful actor. Short story: we can convict serial killers. We do, with regularity. We functionally cannot hold health insurers accountable. They are functionally bulletproof.
  21. To the first part....maybe they are evil. Depends on what they actually do. I'll tell you that my career has taken me to a place where a big part of my job satisfaction is that I get up in the morning, can look at myself in the mirror, and be proud of the work I do and who I do it for. A moral compass is important. No profession - including mine - should discard it. Again, imagine that you are an attorney, and someone wants to hire you to help them craft an iron-clad immunity from liability for building death camps intended to exterminate an ethnic minority. You should decline that representation. If you take it on, yes, you are doing evil. And I have yet to say that anyone in this calculus "deserves to die." What I have said, repeatedly, is that we should not be surprised by this turn of events. We have ample historical reference showing us that when a system is created that fucks over people on matters of life and death, and deprives them of any functional peaceful means of redressing their grievances, violence results. Don't mistake "it's inevitable that frustrated and angry people will take matters into their own hands, so if we want to avoid that outcome, maybe we should fix the system to take that impulse/incentive away" with "the victims deserve to die."
  22. “You’re welcome!”
  23. This. This is the model. It works, really, really, really well. Shit, I figured out that was the model when I was a high school age consumer and got utterly fucked by a stereo repair shop (yeah, back in the day when you had stereos you'd get repaired). They fucked me outta $120. It was a small enough amount that even with DTPA laws, it wasn't worth the time or effort to keep fighting it. And I remember bitching to my parents that "even if they get popped one outta ten times, it's still a great profit model for them." Dad knowingly nodded "exactly," and young Brisket suddenly figured out how shit worked. Now, there COULD be ways for members of the public to address such bullshittery....but these outfits have successfully convinced the American people over the past 40 years or so that we desperately need "lawsuit reform" and such, making a huge swath of meritorious claims -- and the chief mechanism for requiring bad actors to change their conduct -- into nonviable claims that never even get off the launchpad. Your state legislator is eating fancy steak dinners and smoking cuban cigars paid for with the premium dollars you paid for coverage (routed through a lobbyist, of course) instead of those dollars being used to pay your claims. The ROI was great -- the insurers spent $X to buy favorable laws, and as a result, saved/profited 10,000X. This is the part of the process where we remind the people that it's not just that the insurers fuck you, it's that you can't do a goddamned thing about it. Any possible path to seeking a redress of grievances has been so obstructed/removed/obliterated that the insurers are now answerable to no one. Except, of course, to the officials we keep voting for who are well-paid to keep that system firmly in place. We should insist on better. We should demand our officials allow for a system that gives human beings a voice and power, and we should refuse to vote for people who aren't on board with that. I ain't holding out much hope for that, are you?
  24. So….decades ago…had a jury trial where opposing counsel and I got rather combative. Often. Every day. He was a real fucker and thought he could bulldoze me. He couldn’t. But…the judge didn’t want us coming to blows in court, so he literally ordered us, on the record, to leave court at the end of the day, walk to the bar across the railroad tracks, and have drinks until we either fought or reached detente. It more or less worked.
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