Got me a solo pair of pliers last HumpDay :tup:

Woke up early. Turned on Ren and Stimpy :tup:

Happy :leghump: Day everyone!

:driving::driving:

:rock::rock::rock::rock:

kin folk, kin folk:hello::hello::hello::hello:

Good Wednesday Morning All. 91* for a high with 0% chance of rain again. :bowdown: Well, just a few more day to go until the weekend. So we had better get this day rolling!! :happydance: Hope you all have a Great Wednesday. Stay Safe, Stay Positive and Keep Washing Those Hands. :tup:

I fail to see whether a truck driver being vaxed or not should matter in this case, it’s not like they’re breathing all over their loads (:icon17:, that came out sounding funny).

Now, having said that, there are jobs where being vaccinated should be required, for example,health care workers bc they are in close contact with medically vulnerable folks, waiters, bartenders b they deal with lots of people.

I think as far as office workers, it kinda depends on the people density and environment.

In other words, some jobs should require it and some don’t need to, you know using common sense.

Now, I do take issue with the idea hat federal overreach started the civil war. If trying to ban white peoples from owning and abusing and exploiting black folks and their labor is federal overreach, then I don’t really know how we can even have a debate on this. The confederate constitution literally states that as per god intended, they planned to creat the First Nation solely founded on the principles of white supremacy and slavery.

Also, if you want to see how fvcked up a weak central govt looks like, look at the EU. They share a common currency but are still struggling find common cause since it’s made up of many unique countries and cultures. Their Achilles heel is that the EU govt they created isn’t accountable to the EU member state’s people. We don’t have that issue here, our federal govt elected officials are still accountable to us and are elected by us. Yes, it’s not perfect, but a strong federal govt is the only reason we as a nation have reaped such great economic rewards esp post 1945. I think the biggest issue is most Americans are too timid and it goes against our propaganda to just admit we are an empire. And as far as empires go, we are the most kind, generous and benevolent one in the history of mankind.

Nature and politics abhors a vacuum, if we aren’t the biggest and strongest and most economically powerful, then someone else will be and then they will set the rules to the game. It’s a complete fantasy that we can live free from a big govt and be left alone. If it’s not ours, then China or Russia or someone else will be that force controlling ours lives. At least if it’s ours, we get to have a say and we are set up as a representative republic.

Capitalism at work, I see no issue with this, why should a company not pass on some of the preventable health care costs onto their employees who are costing them $$? It’s no different than paying more in premiums bc you are a smoker, you are free to choose to be a smoker, but choices have consequences. That’s fair IMO.

Good morning everyone!:tiphat:Rained like a mofo yesterday and looks like the same for today.:eekdance:Anyway everyone have a great day!:tup:

Re: Civil War/War of Northern Aggression we can save this discussion when we can sit down over an adult beverage or two. :tiphat: Your points are valid and I understand them. It's difficult to look at past history without adding in what we've learned since then.

Re: Nature & politics; I agree. We had a strong nation, which enabled us to do what we did post WWII economically and in the rest of the world. But somewhere between Korea & Vietnam, we got lead astray. We got weak as a nation, post Vietnam, which lead to the November 1979 takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran and 65 American hostages. Then came the Reagan years and an increased respect for the US. National fortunes rise and fall like the tides, but right now we seem to be on the slippery slope to a place we might not be able to recover from. Instead of trying to unite the country, people 'in power' are doing everything they can to divide the nation by race, economic status and wealth. They are trying to cause a Civil War. Common sense is absent in Foggy Bottom and in the corporate board rooms. Common sense says that if you work outside/drive a truck, your exposure to others is very limited, but that level of 'common sense' has been removed. Over exposure to the talking heads on TV and corporate CEOs 'virtue signalling' is killing us as a nation.

/rant

But what do I know, I'm just a dumb jarhead.... :p

I'm a big fan of 'equal treatment under the law'. If United had told employees that their health insurance was going up by $250 in January, and then in January, offered a $250 rebate for getting a shot/quitting smoking/losing weight, then I'd have no issue. This points out another problem with our society, it might have been announced like that, but the media chose to report it as something else or it might even be a made-up story (wouldn't be the first time).

To add another wrinkle, I don't see any company giving people that don't get sick and use the company health insurance plan a 'rebate' on premiums. Hmmmm...











But again, what do I know? I'm just a dumb jarhead... :p

:icon18::icon18::icon18:

I kinda expected that response.. :rofl2::rofl2::rofl2:

:icon08:

:wtf2:

Evening all! :hello:

one more day and another 4 day weekend... have a lot of PTO still yet to take before EOY

And tonight’s featured special “Drums Across the River” :tup:

kin folk, kin folk.. how you doing dude?

whats going on boys and girls? :hello::hello:

Nothing going on…just watching my Mets season go down the drain…lol


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Headed to bed; got a roadcall lined up tomorrow against a motor grader tire on 1pc rim :ugh2:
I’m gonna have to be strong duuude :iagree:

Bank account was emptied last Friday after someone got ahold of my debit card info. Had money set aside for tune, fuel starve solution install, OU weekend, and Texas basketball season tickets. Overdraft protection fuct me good :shakes head:

Finally got my money back today :whew:

:icon17:

damn dude, thats crazy, im sorry to hear that.

Thankfully it was middle of the month and no bills due. Had some funds in PayPal to transfer over to cover expenses. Halted unnecessary spending because I wanted to make sure I could pay off the credit card in case funds were gone for good.

I am blessed but this crap is getting old. I'm on my 3rd debit card, 4th Visa credit card, and 3rd Amex this year already due to compromises. Only one of each was my fault (lost my wallet).

You haven't learned to quit ordering things off of those porn sites.

dude, get yourself an Apple card, the security on those are top notch. I love mine.

Last retune completed. Done with that until next year. Going to bed early tonight.

:eek:

I hope you’ve finally got all this crap behind you. That’s horrible.

It’s a date. :p
I don’t drink so I’ll just have a coke but sounds good to me. :tup:
I will add one thing that some may find controversial re. Civil war: keeping the discussion strictly on states’ rights, I support the north crushing the south and formalizing the fact that federal law/government trumps state law/government, a loose confederation of member states cannot ever become a world power. In order to achieve economic and military etc supremacy, we needed to put that to bed.

I still think we have a strong nation, however, other world powers are catching up quickly. We enjoyed about 3 decades of a head start post wwII as the rest of the world had to rebuild etc and we were the primary source of raw materials and labor for that.

I think when folks say like you did that we are not as great as we used to be it stems from a few factors, some social and some economic.

Let’s look at economic first. If you look at our economy now, we are way bigger and more profitable and powerful than we were vs the 50’s or 60’s. But, the economy has transitioned from a manufacturing based one where there were plenty of good paying blue collar jobs (we have to give some credit to the organized labor unions here) into a more technology and service based economy.

/\ that has resulted in a lot of previous blue collar low to medium skilled jobs disappearing and being replaced with lower paying service sector jobs or higher paying white collar jobs. There are still plenty of high skilled manufacturing jobs out there but those aren’t enough to replace the millions of low and medium skilled jobs that are gone.

Those low and medium skilled jobs most of them will never come back, not bc of immigration or anything else social, but bc of AI and automation and tech advances that help boost a company bottom line.

Bottom line, the above changes have put pressure on the economic classes of people and many working class and middle class folks got squeezed into a lower economic class and some got squeezed up into upper middle class and wealthy class.

A separate discussion can be had where we can talk abou how anyone even someone working a couple part time minimum wage jobs can still retire after 40 years as a millionaire (investing duh). But our education system and our advertising/popular culture creates and encourages financial ignorance and greed w/o the patience to build wealth. //that’s another discussion :tiphat:

Ok, I feel like I missed/glossed over some of the economic stuff in my first part of my rebuttal but it’s good enough for 5am. :icon17:

Edit, I will add one last thought re economic factors in creating angst, the increasing shrinking of the middle and working class has made many folks feel like the American dream we were sold that every generation is a bit better off than the last etc is dying.

Second factor for some feeling we are in decline, social changes:

So what’s the biggest thing that happened between the Korean and Vietnam wars? Well, the 60s happened, and that means we’re talking about the civil rights movement and then in the 70s, the beginning of the gay rights movement. The 90s and 2000s brought the trans rights movement as well.

Oh, and of course women’s liberation movement of the late 60s and 70s.

As the decades have gone on, the number of non Anglo European whites in this country has increased as well.

Now, if you see the stuff I just listed above as bad, then you think we as a nation are in decline and our values and culture are changing for the worse and things were better in the old days.

If, however, you are black, Hispanic (like yours truly), a woman, or LGBTQ, then the country is better now because the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness applies more equally to you now than on the past.

It’s easy to say you support equal rights for everyone when there’s very few that are different than you and you and yours dominate the cultural landscape. You gotta actually put your money where your mouth is when that means your power/popular culture is lessening and now sharing space with others. Aka, we are now truly becoming a multi ethnic and racial etc society— aka less white, less christian, less heterosexual.

The “make America great again” slogan was NEVER about economic return to 50s so called greatness, it was completely about returning to a old American culture from that era that favored straight white, christian men. — those folks get to play in the meritocracy and everyone else fights for the leftover scraps.

The changing of the cultural landscape has only been accelerating over the last 20 years even faster, it’s made many white, conservative leaning Midwest and southern folks feel like their country isn’t theirs anymore, that they don’t count as much anymore. And to be fair, a lot of the unfair privileges this group took for granted at the expense of the other groups I listed above ARE gone now. Now, more and more straight, white, conservative men have to compete in a world that is ACTUALLY more of a true meritocracy vs just amongst each other.

You said we got lead astray and got weak as a nation somewhere between Korean War and Vietnam.

I don’t agree with that at all, I firmly believe that as we increase the number of Americans who can truly have access to the right to life, liberty and the persuit of happiness equally fairly and justly, then we as a nation are better for it.

If you want all Americans to stop being so divided and come together more (as do I), then you have to support equality for all LGBTQ, black, Hispanic, women, non Christians etc so we can finally move past some groups of Americans being second class citizens and we can all focus on figuring out how to make our new economic/technological system work fairly for everyone.

PS- the only people I’ve seen ACTUALLY trying to start a civil war are the mostly white conservative men like the ones who attacked the capitol in an attempted insurrection on Jan 6.

Good Thursday Morning All. 91* for a high with 0% chance of rain again. :bowdown: Hope you all have a Great Thursday. Time to get this Thursday Rolling!! :happydance: Stay Safe, Stay Positive and Keep Washing Those Hands. :tup:

I look at it from a Darwinian POV. Lack of diversity is not good for any evolving system - too much inbreeding (positive feedback for negative traits) happens. More diverse species have a better chance of long-term survival.

It is not necessarily true that more diverse societies have a better chance of long-term survival. Only monarchies, oligarchies, et al, have lasted for more than a few hundreds of years. Even those have eventually crumbled. But maybe a diverse, egalitarian society could do well.

:gtfo2:

Their security measures are no better than any other credit card. Also... Apple sucks :icon17:

Only idiots pay for porn lol

Bingo. In manufacturing here. We see way more of an increase in productivity when we add a new automated welding cell for simple repetitive parts than we do from adding more human welders. Given our location does not allow for easy expansion in number of personnel, the choice is pretty easy on whether to go for more humans or more automation. Considering out ability to maintain customers is also based on the pricing we provide them with, and considering the scale and dollar value for which we are playing, cost wins. End of story.

I'm lucky that what I do is still domestic, considering what payment looks like for persons in say Thailand or Malaysia. Outsourcing is its own monumental problem.

:rofl2::rofl2::rofl2::rofl2::rofl2: