TIL: The belief in the American dream started a nosedive at the same time Trump signed his 2017 tax cut that favored the rich.
Camus' greatest rock pusher. Currently doing design work on high tech labs & manufacturing facilities. Interested in anything and everything. He/Him/They
622 followers 1,338 following 2,913 posts
view profile on Bluesky
TIL: The belief in the American dream started a nosedive at the same time Trump signed his 2017 tax cut that favored the rich.
Critical PSA
Trying to think of the most recent entrant in this genre and cant think of anything more recent than 2008's Marley & Me
I mean, especially if he wasn't the 50th Vote, I'd take a Manchin over a Lieberman 6 days a week and twice in Sunday.
Currently chanting "Gomers go to ground." over and over, like the Nembutsu, in an attempt to will it into reality
Literally bought a bottle just an hour or so ago so if we are blessed I wouldnt be caught unprepared
Ideally, while also being forced to lie in a pool of his own piss for hours, á la Stalin.
A shocking number of people I've encountered online do not grasp that being in the minority in government means you cant do much.
Hell yeah, read theory people...
The last project I worked on directly under their management (building a new taxiway for an Air National Guard Unit). I remember that in addition to the normal QA/QC stuff, they required us to procure a third-party geologist who did reports on the microscopic crystalline structure of the concrete
Yeah, there are layers of departments and people and associated lore of how everything works, but in general, fast emergency repair work is the exception, not the rule.
Depends, Id say they try to pick good twice, which is why a typical Corps project timeline is measured in decades and their standard project specifications are (and I just double-checked this for accuracy) 22,073 pages long.
Having worked for and alongside the USACE I have mixed feelings on this. If you think current local building codes and requirements are onerous, wait until you start digging into Corps project specifications.
In keeping with a federalism tradition , I think a lot of State Trooper organizations could be reorganized into more of a Gendarme roll, they already have better training than most local PDs and wide enough jurisdiction to be easily surged into locations when needed under the authority of a Governor
Yes if you bow your head solemnly and say there is no difference between the Kuomintang and doing the literal rape of Nanking you to get to sound very smart and get laid in college. Good job. Bravo
State Troopers are generally more professional, and I maintain a big part of the reason beyond the added training is that they mostly still wear the Barney Fife outfits, with an added touch of a silly color. E.g. the purple tie and piping on NYS Troopers
Two-tone high-visibility with retro-reflective tape. Seriously: just add the words Police to the front and back of this outfit.
Which is a year after Louis Lassen in Connecticut claimed to have invented the hamburger in 1900. Also notably early hamburgers used sandwich bread, not rolls. A tradition that is still done at Louis' Lunch and a few other old-fashioned diners.
My genuine surprise when it wasn't hyperbole.
None of this is particularly relevant to the thread, just pointing out that we actually dont know exactly how the hamburger came to be, which is kinda fascinating.
So you have a distinction between hamburgers and hamburg steaks around the time the former was likely created, and the oldest surviving recipes or descriptions of hamburgers make no mention of Hamburg steaks, but rather beef trimmings.
Again, there is not a particularly clear consensus. Two separate claims of origin both point to the dishes' popularity with German sailors as the reason for the name. The issue with the Hamburg steak theory is that Hamburg steak sandwiches did exist alongside hamburgers in the early 20th century.
The hamburger actually has a bit of controversy around who invented it & how the name came to be, though it doesnt appear to have come from Hamburg, and at least the US Library of Congress recognizes Danish Immigrant Louis Lassen as the likely inventor.
Specialization, same reason they're not being ordered from Korea, Japan, or China despite those countries all having much more developed shipyards than either the US or Netherlands. US shipyards do large tugs, ferries, work ships, and handymax cargo ships for Carribean services.
Ugh, a minor complaint compared to what others are going through, but less than a week into the current parcel shipping madness due to tariffs, and Im already encountering issues with stuff I need to order being out of stock or unavailable. Welcome to Trump's America.
Wut?
Post a random picture or else everything will go bad in September.
managed to release our cvicu patient early after a podcaster fixed him with a colloidal silver enema. home early 🙏
Im sorry, but people getting upset about the senior Senator from New York posting footage of himself at the NY State Fair is a serious level of wrong rock in my mind.
It's the New York State fair, the yogurt industry is huge is Upstate NY agriculture (home of Chobani and several other brands)
Real FDR at Yalta/clearly on death's door vibes.
There are some ballistic wound studies the US Army has performed that point to both 7.62 NATO and 7.62x39 are less lethal on unarmored targets than 5.56 NATO and a number of other smaller calibers due to overpenetration and lack of yaw.
People are often surprised to learn that Lee was an officer who never made it past colonel. The purported promotion to general was awarded by a treasonous cabal calling itself the "confederate states of america" which was put down by force by the Union army, which also had superior generals.
I dont think anyone but me has actually seen the movie (in the US atleast), but "Cutterhead" actually got a surprising amount of stuff right about tunneling/underground construction.
Very true. Clearly went off half cocked
Ruin a book by adding Tom Clancy's to the title Tom Clancy's What to Expect When You're Expecting
I really want them to find a way to make quantum computing workable, just so I never have to hear the words blockchain or crypto again.
They could have, as could any of the other numerous organizations and comittees that notionally make up the party. My suspicion is that no electeds (or at least not enough) felt like participating, so it fizzled since the DNC doesn't really have any tools beyond "ask nicely" to herd members.
Its more a case of how toothless the DNC is as an organization. The DNC isnt "The Democrats" and there isnt really anything they can get elected members to do if said elected dont feel like it one way or another. (Equally applies to the RNC, but seems like they have better web design atleast)
They had just finished nearly 20 years under Greenspan, where they just had to be a warm body in the chair and do whatever the self-appointed Oracle demanded. They were out of practice when it came to critical thinking in 2008.
Tonight one of the CDC’s top public health leaders, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, has resigned from his post. Below is his full resignation letter. You should read every word. This is a truly scary moment for public health in America. 1/2
They did praise the US (and UK, and Brazil) but the Nazis really leaned on their colonial anthropology work, & historic antisemitism in designing their policies. Also, Germany didnt exactly sell their policies to the public they were established by dictatorial decree & justified by the enabling acts
Tom Clancy's Critique of Pure Reason
Tom Clancy's Little Women
Installing a PAL locks on all deli slicers.
Checking my rad counter (rolls and deli meat)
This is not to remotely excuse the actions of the US government & eugenicists, who were absolutely carrying out crimes against humanity. It's just that they were far from the only ones doing it at the time, and the US laws were not uniquely American in origin.
Yes, the US instituted sterilization laws in some states before the Nazis did, but advocating for similar laws was part of the global eugenics movement even before the US enacted any. The basis for the German laws was founded on their own former imperial actions and particular strains of research
We currently try to control fissile materials in the world, but the real arms control experts need to start worrying about sizzle materials
the absolute weapon
A sufficiently motivated individual will almost always find a way around this stuff, but im also a believer if you can add a couple of steps of impediments along the way, you can stop most people before they fall too far down the rabbit hole.
I gave this a like, but I want you to know I actually hate you for burdening me with this knowledge. I want my innocence back, damn it.
American Eugenics, in the past and the vestiges in the present are and were terrible crimes against humanity. But sterilization laws and ideas were not unique to the US, and while the Nazis found common ground with their US counterparts, they had their own crimes & theories to work from.
In particular German actions in German South-West Africa against the Herero people. Which including taking skulls from concentration camp victims in modern day Namibia and sending them to Kaiser Wilhem Institute of Anthropology, where they were studied by the likes of none other than Verschuer.
This idea largely comes from the fact that in the late 1930's Otmar Verschuer, a mentor of Mengele & prominent Nazis eugenicist was given an honorary membership in the American Eugenitics Society. However, the vast bulk of German eugenics research was based on work from the German Colonial Empire
Me to the DHS comms staffers after they get done explaining to me why this meme is totally "based"
Even with the treatment of black people, the German Empire had a formal apartheid system in place in its African colonies. The Nazis admired the Jim Crow system, but were very much doing their own thing, and needed no pointers or ideas from others.
Again, not really. The Germans had previously had laws and institutional systems for the repression and persecution of Jews. Even the infamous yellow star of David the Nazis forced Jews to wear has a historical lineage that goes back to the 13th century in Europe.
The Third Reich got their segregationist ideas from centuries of deeply rooted antisemitism in German & European culture. Some Nazis wrote favorably of the US's Jim Crow laws, but they needed no help in finding inspiration for ways to persecute, discriminate, and segregate people.
Ok, but again, how often are you building a greenfield school campus vs simply putting an addition or renovating the existing structure? Everywhere I've lived at least, that is the norm. Again, using my old high-school, town population doubled since it was built, they just put additional wings on it
Oh, I hear you, Trump's apparent obsession with Greenland is infuriating, and frankly confusing, since there is really nothing to gain strategically that we dont already have just from operating out of Thule and otherwise minding our own damn business. I hope your day goes better otherwise.
I dont think any country should be free from good faith criticism around such issues. The US certainly isnt above criticism for any number of recent/ongoing activities towards indigenous communities. But, I 100% get the concern that Trump & Co will use this entirely in bad faith & self-serving ends
People are saying...
Undermining the Fed to get lower rates now is like ripping the batteries out of your smoke alarm because it’s beeping. It’s quiet for a bit. Then your house burns down. Credibility anchors expectations; expectations anchor inflation.
Trump and company represent the pure selfish id. They create a permission structure for people to be their worst, most selfish, selves, and think life is a zero-sum game, where improving things for others can only come at a loss to yourself. We simply must crush this line of thinking in public life.
I dont know how we will do it, but we need to bring back the ideas of civic virtue. The idea that you're supposed to give a shit about your fellow man and want to actually improve your community, not for personal gain, but because it's the right thing to do.
Truman was truly our greatest Hater president. I dont think I've ever read a Truman quote where he wasnt hating on someone. Farmers, Oppenheimer, MacArthur, The Chicago Tribune, you name it.
Having a bunch of junior enlisted soldiers walk around picking up litter on the National Mall in high vis vests is like the platonic ideal of Army life.
When I lived in Albany NY I sometimes joked that people should do a land acknowledgement for the Dutch b/c 1. Albany still plays up its Dutch roots to this day. 2. When the Dutch founded Ft. Orange, the area was right on the contested border of the Haudenosaunee Mohawk and Algonquinian Mohicans
The speed of appointments is basically the one legislative thing the Senate Minority these days has almost no power to impede because you only need a simple majority to invoke cloture and rules block most dilatory motions. If Dems universally opposed every nominee, that graph would look the same.
An enterprising individual in DC needs to go over there while theyre doing this crap and just start playing the tuba
Enlightened: this was all a long con to wear the Chiefs out and finally give Allen and the Bills a SB ring.
But think of all the exposure you get with that attribution, isnt that just as good as, nay, better than, getting paid for your work?
He's French, so Cote 304 and Le Mort Homme at Verdun are probably more appropriate
Was he possessed by the ghost of Jünger or something?
From my, admittedly ground level view, it's genuinely impressive how thoroughly the Trump admin policy has killed off new plant and equipment CAPEX investment in the US. Most of the big stuff still going on is running off the last of the money from the IRA & CHIPS Act funds to be released
Me looking at my company's current backlog of work for CAPEX projects, and the general state of the request for proposals pipeline...
always interesting to me that these people to reach to european reactionaries for resources to think about the united states. almost as if they are trying impose ideas foreign to our political traditions
Their love of roasting each other is only matched by their love of predatory car loans on base model Ford mustangs.
My spouse had a patient intake a little while ago for attempted suicide and said patient apparently used ChatGPT to compose their suicide note.
I mean, Jacobin's main complaint seems to be that Trump isnt going far enough, and that D's are being a bunch of hypocrites because there is actually zero difference between Trump shaking down Intel and TARP.
"Sir, this is for a Fed Survey, LinkedIn grindset posts get submitted down the hall on the left."
The leopard eating my face was unfortunate, but we really needed it to eat those other people's faces as well.
Fair enough
Yeah, an alarmingly large portion of of Nazis GDP was just "stuff we stole from the Jews and other undesirables"
Doesn't that make Harvard the worst, then?
OK, but GWB is like 90% of the reason why that statement is true, and he also went to Harvard for his MBA.
Oof. Best of luck to you in the coming days.
Sounds pretty close to my spouse's situation, and they're just a random person who likes buying cute custom jewelery and shit, cant imagine how actual small businesses dependent on parcel shipments are feeling.
** pay fees**
Pretty sure it's cbp, and FedEx at least has it so the recipient only has to pay feds when taking delivery at destination, so they presumably have some agreement. (Id ask some of my coworkers on the procurement side of things what they know, but they mostly just cry to themselves these days.)