Even this comment section bears this out. The Boomers are largely exempt from and largely unconcerned with both of these issues, and even are defensive "Well *I* was able to build a business/career, so shut up! Everything's fine!"
I think the reason for the lack of discourse, is what else is there to add? The progressive talking heads and echo chamber won't touch or acknowledge it, and any white guy 55 or younger that's worked in any corporate environment the past two decades reads it, shrugs his shoulders and says "yep". It's not new info to any of us.
Agreed; I think the discussion is less about substance but about impact. Scott Galloway has been quietly discussing the fact that young men are NOT alright, and coming close to admitting why. And this week, even the NYT has been discussing the article:
It is both ABSOLUTE earnings and RELATIVE earnings
A woman who makes $35k wants a man who makes $75k so her children won't live in poverty. A woman who makes $75k wants a man who earns $150k because she doesn't want to marry "down."
Between DEI and H-1B, women have been elevated and young men have been crushed, leaving the average woman with far fewer men out-earning her than would have otherwise been the case.
That, and women are better equipped to play in the cat box that is modern corporate America. I work with at least two women who were both single AND homeowners in their mid-20s, largely because as women, they curried favor with The System more easily than men.
Poor people don't marry, and don't stay married. This Sunday we will likely discuss the "American castes" study; the disparities in marriage are astounding across classes.
I think we are all smart enough to realize multiple variables are in play but that there can be a relationship between relative incomes in a couple and likely long-term success.
"Reviewing historical data from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, they examined outcomes at age 45 for women born between 1930 and 1980. Marriage rates remained remarkably stable among college-educated women, holding above 70%, but dropped sharply among those without degrees – from 78.7% to 52.4%.".
This data is older than I am. Anecdotally, non college women have married 2 to 1 over the college women in my circle. Then again I do live in the south. I'd love to see current data.
Similar to a friend of mine but (s)he has a '68 Polara instead of a yacht. Sometimes my wife asks me how much she needs to make before I agree to be a "house-husband." That number goes up every time.
Yes. His social media is filled with Charlie Kirk style college interactions. Plenty of evidence out there for someone interested in learning about him to make up their mind.
Any sane Republican could beat her. It didn't have to be Jim Tressel. It could have been any man who could attend a debate without smirking like he was about to conquer a foreign country.
And then everybody is surprised that they are becoming enthusiastic about the small moustache brigade. A disaster in the making that could easily have been averted.
Scott Galloway is right about pretty much everything these days to my mind (young men, healthcare, the fake stock market, boomers, AI, etc). And I think many folks around here who would normally disagree with me (progressive taxes and policies) would find themselves on the same side as Galloway on larger number of subjects than they might expect.
Scott Galloway correctly points out that it isn't against *your generation*, or even the majority of *your generation*: only the 24% who aren't women, "of color," or LGBT++:
People trying to minimize this, or like the dude in the wsj video, say we just need to discriminate differently to ensure we have the 'right' kind of diversity, I think really reinforce the impression of most core millennials I know that meritocracy is dead. You have the choice of adopting racial tribalism or continuing to get fucked by a system that steals from you and then uses your own money to stack the deck against you.
Go check some twitter discussions on this and that sentiment tends come out as "this is a fundamental betrayal of a generation of citizens in this country, perhaps we should look to the medieval past for a suitable punishment for those responsible, and maybe we should do some shit that clarifies to people that this behavior is unwelcome in our country going forward". Or words to that effect
Unclear if Scott Galloway is a dual citizen, but as one can see from this video, he’s very clearly a “dual citizen of the heart.”
We don’t need him. Deport to his choice of Scotland or Israel given his parentage.
(Also in this video he’s speaking to a diverse bunch of business executives; enemy territory for sure—you have to laugh when eg Sherman calls business people (any business people) “right wing.” Scott’s probably as “right wing” as establishment businessmen come and he’s unqualifiedly an advocate for the idea that DEI has done more good than harm.)
It comes down to those in favor of the meritocracy vs. the clinically insane people in positions of power in corporations and in government. It will be a struggle, but we must marginalize the insane people.
There are too many thirdworlders. Israelis included.
Genetically, about 90% of the world follows a 5-rule system for hiring:
1. Nepotism
2. Nepotism
3. Nepotism
4. Nepotism
5. If every single maximally distant relative is employed, then “meritocracy” for whatever white or East Asian applies.
Only almost incomprehensibly naive white people do not use this system.
This is why long term America is destined for the crapper. Fixing would require deporting ethnonarcissists who are now paper “citizens”—think of Vivek who can’t just shush his own visceral antiwhite hatred for a minute while running for governor of one of the whiter states!
(Doubly funny in his case as Scam-merica let him scam our financial system for tens of millions—there isn’t anything we could give this guy to buy him off… and he’s nowhere near the worst of the breed!)
My dad could teach college-level courses on the American Revolution from memory, because he's a passionate historian and a voracious reader who's been studying the matter since the mid-50s. Probably owns 1,500 books on the subject.
BUT he's also a former Marine who hates communists, so he couldn't get a job on a university faculty ANYWHERE back when it would've made a difference in our lives.
There were boomers that were screwed by affirmative action. My born in '52 dad has talked about getting rejected from jobs explicitly because he's white. That's how he ended up selling shop machinery for his father, selling men's clothing, and eventually selling Buicks. None of those were excluding white guys. Still, it has to be worse now.
The owners (husband and wife team plus whatever silent partners were involved) of one of the assisted living facility chain locations the spouse and I managed, they were Boomers that literally stayed in the game until the husband just stopped functioning entirely (ironically from dementia, this guy was actually driving the wife around in a Macan GTS up until a year ago while he was zoned out of his mind, she walked as if she was already in memory care), and the wife was the real terror of the pair, absolutely horrifying to listen to during Zoom/Team meetings, it was as if state and federal laws were things that existed only for other people, and she repeatedly threw temper tantrums if someone dared tell her that something was illegal/wouldn't work because of impossible logistical problems.
We've been running into this everywhere, regardless of the business (although the medical industry is a great place for these people to hide, especially the Boomer girlbosses), retirement or dying doesn't register to these people as something that happens to them, they're the same disgusting sociopathic/psychopathic people all the way until they drop, the entire outside world exists only to service them.
Why should he? Has the young generation been so coddled that they don't understand people are going to self preserve. Just wait 40 years. Heck, 20 years.
on the one hand some of these guys were in favour of "giving someone else a chance" and on the other hand they were doing everything they could to keep their job
not curbstomping young white dudes at every opportunity isnt coddling them
Has the young generation been so coddled that they don't understand people are going to self preserve.
Yeah, but those people weren't the victims of self-preservation above them. Every Boomer bio starts off something like, "In 1973, three years out of Rumpelstilskin Community College, Bob was given a chance to run Boeing."
Yeah, it's either "I was simply in possession of a pulse and above-room-temp status and was somehow promoted to God-Emperor...and pulled the ladder up after me!" or "I burned through every family connection possible by stealing from them, gaslighting them, or just destroying them emotionally to keep my drinking and drug habit going, and now I'm a parasite upon the system in my 60's and 70's!"
The last couple of paragraphs where he blames himself for not settling or not working harder vs his liberal world view that sold him a bill of goods and f’d him over is really lame.
After seeing a few hundred or thousand of these folks on LinkedIn and other places, all with the same story, it's like they're midwits who are educated waaaay beyond their intelligence level and grasp even the most simple of patterns, and are always on the outside intellectually, looking in.
The laughable, Catch-22 part of it all is that I've been blocked from employment by these same people for years, but when it happens to them?
It was a blessing for you, Scott, in the same way that being a hard-head and not going to college in 1981 when I had a scholarship lined up was good for me in the end.
You have your own business, you're living the American dream. You're much, much better insulated from the vagaries and whims of corporate culture.
Consider our friend Jack, and his "colorful" employment history. It makes for good stories -- but it isn't a reality that you or I (or one presumes, Jack) would choose as a way to move through life. Running your own thing is the last chance to be free in this nation, and I'd never have done it had I gone to school, and you'd never have done It if you'd had a fair shake like the college boys of my generation did.
Count your blessings. You coulda' been one of them.
Here's the supreme irony: any time *anyone* makes an accusation of any sort of system-wide problem, be it racism or sexism or discrimination, someone always makes a nasty comment about "others made it, you just didn't try hard enough."
"There's no discrimination against Black people! Magic Johnson is rich!"
So this fellow, after detailing a system that ruthlessly eliminates all but the 10% of Millennial white men that the girlbosses squirm in their seats over, blames himself for not being one of the ten percent.
Listen, I know, ahem, a convicted violent felon who has made millions of dollars in Corporate America and often wears a $9,000 cashmere Brioni overcoat with a Turnbull&Asser bespoke shirt. But this, ahem, fellow is not stupid enough to claim that his personal history doesn't mean it's almost impossible for convicted violent felons to rise above the poverty line.
I've read excerpts from it (quoted in other pieces) and don't want to read it because 1) I know more or less that it is going on and has gone on and 2) I don't want nor need any kindling on the emotional fire. I live this reality and have been increasingly baffled and frustrated by all of it. Many a prayer--half of them very, very frustrated--over this. But then, I've known something was off with my section of my (Millennial) generation for well over a decade. We received the trailing end of "work hard, go to college, get established in a career, succeed" line from our boomer parents et al. We got a recession, we got all this other junk, and for those of us that needed maybe a touch more in our favor with the opposite sex, instead we got the height of the feminism indoctrination. After putting myself through an extremely difficult major, I got out in 2010, was finally able to find a job, and started plugging away. The career path was on course enough, and while cracks were forming in the professional/hiring world (I was looking for other work), it was 2020 that really nuked things and exposed so much of the world for the farce that it was and increasingly is. So this article is essentially telling me I [freaking] knew it[!].
There are days or moments, because of this, where I am putting weights on the cast iron door that sits above the cauldron of anger so that it doesn't over-pressurize. There are other days where I am at peace with my reality, and that is greatly aided by my desire to not be ruled by emotion and my submission to a higher power and authority (Christ). It does not invalidate what I feel though.
The solution(s) I and others propose to this are not enjoyable. They are very uncomfortable. The questions are very uncomfortable. The conversations are very uncomfortable. I can't have them with my conservative boomer dad. I can't have them with my siblings (all younger). Reflexive recoiling and shutting down. I also don't want to with two of those siblings because I want to spare them the burden and harm from ever having to think that heavily of the situation, as a protection. My dad read it and was like, yeah, the best option is to make the best of it and not be victims. No time to internalize the written manifestation of a long-held theory now revealed as reality, no time to mourn or grieve those implications or the lost prime years of income, nor the massive mental and emotional toll that such a reality has taken on our oft-linked (as men) value and societal self-worth. Of course, we are not the only generation to experience setbacks of any sort; I am not whining. I am giving voice and validation to what I, and what people in the past have thought and felt. Past generations have had it plenty bad, but have been brow-beaten into not externalizing it because it wasn't "manly."
Take this in. Sit with it. Process it. Commit or recommit to our values and convictions. Determine a possible course or courses of action. Then we move forward, together.
I'm on the tail end of my career, rather than in the middle of it. Like you, I committed my ways to the LORD at a young age. My trajectory in living a life of faith in the modern world has been marked by more "over" and "mis" steps than by disobedience or a lack of faith, and yet... I am decidedly human. Part of being a human male is to desire to work and produce and provide. There is a social standing derived from vocation that cannot be overstated.
I've made money over the years -- what I think of as a lot of money, but what others think of as "jerb money". I'm happy that I was able to physically work for it, rather than obtain it through trading or symbol manipulation or investment. But I know (like REALLY KNOW) that every nice thing I have, every "normal" thing I enjoy, is not a birthright or the result of my efforts -- it's a blessing. I've lived in the 3rd world, and I know that people all over this blue ball work from the time they are born until the time they die. They arrive empty handed and they go back to dust the same way. It is the way of man.
And yet, my generation (I was born in '63, so I'm still technically a boomer) has upended every working model they ever found: the nuclear family, the extended family, how to raise children, what it means to produce things, what "work" means, etc. We have robbed (literally) from future generations to pay for the things we wanted, or imagined we wanted now.
We've imported slave labor to take care of our domestic and menial chores -- first nannies, then landscapers, then farm and construction workers, etc. They were "doing the jobs Americans (meaning Boomers) don't want". It didn't blow up on most of us, so we kept at it -- bringing in people from Asia and the Asian subcontinent because "not enough Americans are engineers or STEM grads". We traded freely with everybody (even our enemies), because "free trade is good trade". We rammed "strength through diversity" down everybody's throats, but made sure there was no diversity of thought tolerated in the classroom or shop floor or in the "open plan office".
The net/net of this is that Boomers consistently enjoyed ALL of the benefits of cheap labor, cheap goods, cheap trade, cheap housing, etc., all while pulling up the ladder behind them for a generation of adolescent males trying hard to be men.
To be sure, the misogyny, bigotry, sense of entitlement, etc. that marked my Dad's generation was generally eradicated from the workplace, and this is a good thing. But the pendulum long ago swung past the center-mark and sliced neatly through a lot of the slender threads that make society work. Men have provided for and protected women and children since the dawn of humanity -- it's how God made us. When material sustenance flows backwards, through the hands of women to men, it infantilizes them -- until they sit on the couch and game all day and night, detached from reality and responsibility, frozen in amber at 13.
I have no idea how it worked out this way, but my own family looks more like my grandfathers' in some ways than my own parents'. My wife never worked outside the home. There were plenty of moments of sheer terror and resentment that everything seemed to depend on me. But in the end, everything very much depended on God, and he is altogether dependable.
I'm so sorry that you can't talk to anybody about this -- that your dad can only offer, "suck it up" as a platitude, but in some ways he's right. He doesn't know what to tell you to do, because you are living a reality he never did. There really ISN'T anything to do except to bear the burden that's been laid on your shoulders by... well, everybody. My only advice is to keep your head up, looking for opportunity to take reasonable risk, because that's what the parable of the talents is really speaking to -- taking risks. When you have less than you should, risking is hard, but the day my life changed was the day I stepped off the "30 and out" treadmill of being a worker bee in a skilled trade hive, and hung out my own shingle.
I overpaid for everything -- bought my way out of a "not to compete" with 2 years of profit -- and borrowed more money than I had needed to buy the home I was living in. But that day was the day everything changed for me professionally. I was no longer somebody's "boy", I was my own man. I'm not sure if your skill has that opportunity or not, but being beholden to nobody else is the place I'd try to get if I were you.
... and God is with you. Commit all of this to Him: build whatever rainy day fund is possible, and then strike when the opportunity presents itself. The deck is absolutely stacked against you, but the world shall not overcome you.
Thank you, brother, for your very thoughtful reply! Those here on this Substack, two friends, and a few select websites that I frequent are what keeps me here, engaged with ideas and events that I agree with, as well as one that challenge me and ones that I may entirely disagree with. So I thank you all for your support and for such a high quality discussion.
God has blessed me greatly, and watched over me, especially during some very key times in my life thus far (and even now). It is staggering. I look at what others around have or don't have, what others around the world have and don't have, and it's just...I am stupendously wealthy. In good family, in being able-bodied, in having a roof, money for food, a car to commute in that I actually chose, even just a single bike or tool is considerable. Ultimately, if we are Christians, we believe we are sons and daughters of God, which is a worth, value, and status that cannot be revoked. Everything else is gravy.
For a lot of us, either with drive or having been gifted and progressed in our careers and abilities, when we encounter scenarios or times that deny us of that ability to do what we do best, we can get bent out of shape. The thoroughbred REALLY wants to run and to race, but goes a bit crazy when he or she is stuck giving pony rides in a tiny fenced-in circle. My dad and one of my brothers are self-employed, and I've heard the encouragement to do so many times, and it is not unwarranted! Making that jump from (happy) contributor in a company to my own boss is something I've only dabbled with. If a system and culture are good, and the product and ethos are solid, I will gladly invest and push things along. That is my base programming, as an individual contributor.
I do have a couple of mental hang-ups that keep me from fully transitioning to independent work. Some are difficult to articulate, while others are easier, like 1) risk 2) having a path/idea well enough figured out to give it a go (so, #1) and 3) having the option (in my head, real or imagined) to not have to strike out on my own. Present factors that should aid this entrepreneurial pursuit are enough of a financial footing to not need bailing out in two months, various skills and abilities with the desire for excellence, support of family, and enough "screw this!" internal motivation to make it work should I reach the point of needing it. Restriction #2 is more or less the lynchpin. I want a *good* idea and product to make and sell. No trinkets, no quick buck stuff; I want long range, durable, noble, essentially a number of the qualities of God that we also see in his creation. I have explored a few ideas, and the legs aren't there (too niche) or I need to revisit them after finding a different production solution. I have that, and I'm off to the races.
I am thankful things have worked out well for you, truly, through hard work, good work, prudence, and risk-taking. The older I get, the more I see commonality in the mindsets of those who are self-employed, and in that way it is reassuring that such a mind and drive are one of the many personality types God has created among us humans, and it doesn't mean my brain is broken, it's just different. Such a mindset will be something I will need to adapt to and learn if I am to do it fully and well. The last few years have been "shaping" (aka character building) in some massively-important ways--again, some hard to put to words--and I feel it building towards something. To loop it back to cars, I do not feel I am 'on cam' yet, but that time is coming and man do I want to be there.
I believe you are going to find what you were born to do, friend. Maybe you're already there -- but I believe that whatever it is, you're going to find success beyond what you envision right now. Godspeed, brother.
I was going to bring it up, but I don't know what to say other than: he is dead right, but the chattering-class media is fake and lame and grown men shouldn't be trying to join it anyway.
I'd go a couple of steps further backward and hit up various media types like Fred Allen from the later days of radio (he didn't make it too far when TV came out, he was possibly the very first TV celebrity to actually have a face for radio).
If you're trying to overpower someone with astounding yet insulting prose and also confuse the hell out of them at the same time, start readin' the written works of folks from the 1920's and 1930's (Arthur Weigall talked soooo much shit about the Egyptians and Germans in "The Glory of the Pharoahs", published 1923), or better yet, focus on proper British humor/insults (the Goon Squad is a great start, or even Terry Pratchett), they have at least a thousand more years of misery versus Americans in which they honed their literary and language craft, these people know how to freaking insult and overpower with the written word.
Don't bother going as far back as Twain, he comes across as someone who's merely half-assing his way through insulting various people and cultures.
"but the chattering-class media is fake and lame and grown men shouldn't be trying to join it anyway."
(Displays half-confused, half-disgusted countenance in regards to why anyone was losing any sleep about being excluded from those types of institutional antiques, I figured out I wasn't wanted fairly early and thus didn't blow an education on trying to join a closed club)
The question is: how deeply has this DEI/"get Whitey" thinking infected non-media professions? Have young white males been blacklisted in...oh, let's say...engineering?
My son graduates in six months. We're about to find out. I pray daily he finds good work immediately. That might be just what it takes to de-radicalize me. Because ever since the Covidiocy, man, am I angry.
My son is 35, white, smart, even-keeled in a way his dad isn't.
He had a tough time breaking in -- but once through the door, has excelled. He's got girl-bosses for sure, but don't underestimate your son's ability to navigate the "new normal" in ways that you and I cannot.
Things that lock me up with anger roll off his back, because he's so used to needing to be better than his peers, that it's just part of who he is. And during the next "correction", it will still be merit that keeps a job in a big company, no matter how much nonsense the big company HR department has been spewing.
Engineering, accounting, and finance (and OBVIOUSLY, the skilled trades) are the last best hopes for competent young men to rise above the noise.
In the same way that I've known a few Gen X women who used their sex appeal to become executives, the Gen Z male executive will be someone whom women want to fuck.
Yes, it has. Men can call each other out for stupid behavior that you have to tiptoe around with women or God forbid non white women. And old white simps will go to the mat for them.
"And old white simps will go to the mat for them."
Quoted for truth. This is one of the reasons young men have, with justification, wanted to kill old men since the dawn of time. It's why Seeking Arrangement has turned a whole generation of young women from wives to whores for the elderly.
"The question is: how deeply has this DEI/"get Whitey" thinking infected non-media professions? Have young white males been blacklisted in...oh, let's say...engineering?"
Don't go into the medical field, they'll be trampled unless they're batting for the other team and perpetually trying to out-girl the girls.
My brief foray into the world of banking revealed the same thing (something of a unintentional comedy story with Wells Fargo), Men Not Allowed...unless you're a non-threatening mental eunuch, I called out my psycho girlboss department manager for the crap she was allowing, and I sat at her desk and pointed out how much of a failure she was as a human being while security took their sweet time to get to her office to escort me out, and then when the guards saw and heard what I was doing, they took their sweet ass time getting me out of her office because they hated her just as much as I did.
I was laughing as was escorted out and even high-fived two of the guards as I left, especially after they found out why I was fired: upon hearing one of the females cackling happily about another woman suddenly finding out that her house had just burned down, I asked another employee, "is she drunk or something? That other lady just lost her house and she's laughing about it?"
That's why I was fired. The cackler was never pulled into the office, nor was the batting-for-the-other-team, male lower-level supervisor who was bragging rather loudly about how he was painfully ravaged by another man during a romantic weekend getaway, in earshot of other employees who were on phones with customers, all just about 15 minutes before my incident happened.
I should note that my direct supervisor dressed a bit like a slut, wearing mini-skirts 24-7 (they were almost a shirt), and actually had three arrow tattoos on the inside of both thighs (among other arrows), six arrows in all pointing directly to her female nether regions, as if the men she dated weren't too brilliant on where to put things in a hurry.
But hey, only the best and brightest are hired for Wells Fargo, right?
There is one person in the article who realizes that after a few years working as a journalist. He says something like, "I'm not a particularly manly man but I realized I was the most masculine person around here and didn't fit in."
Honestly, that's how I always felt in automotive journalism. My thoughts were something like "I read poetry and philosophy for a decade, I help stray animals, I work white collar jobs. Why am I the MOST TOXIC MASCULINE MAN in autowriting?"
A good write up, but I don't like the overly broad strokes. I'm a Millennial "technically" and I have had a far different experience than millennials 5 years or even 10 years younger than me. Talking about folks in the Gen-x or millennial category is a bit reductive.
The way this is written one would think I hit the Millennial jackpot then. Granted, I'm not in a journalism field, but I saw that in the mid twenty-teens the was a huge push for diversity in engineering and sciences. It's more outcome driven and not in the spotlight like writers and media types are.
"He blamed the older generation of white men who pulled up the ladder behind them. And he was right to"
Wrong. The very cohorts of this writer forced, via social and economic pressures, for this GenX white dude to roll up the ladder. Does the genX dude care he's white? No. Does he care about his paycheck and what the studios are directing? Absolutely. And where does it come from? This writers very peers whining about diversity.
Scrolled to the comments and saw your first one about the respray. Immediately my mind went to “some non-bidder is going to cry about Glasurite.” It was quite literally the next comment.
That’s a good looking car, I hope you get all of the money for it.
Don’t waste your time. You’ve already been very responsive to the real questions and supplied good answers. You are already doing the best thing any seller can do.
On the car I bought on BaT, there was a bidder who upped the price out of the blue, so I looked up his BaT history. This jerk bid on the car I ended up winning, and his bid was his 50th standalone bid on BaT. He never stayed around to bid again a second time on any of the 50 cars he bid on, nor did he ever win an auction. All I can guess is that he had psychological problems. Ignore the trolls.
You don't want to be argumentative with any of the commenters. They'll band together to sink your auction. Just try to stay positive and keep pushing info and photos out throughout the week.
What is fair market value? 911s can be astronomically expensive or relatively inexpensive for no obvious reason to those of us who don’t know all the fine details that make one more special than another.
Looks like it could be bought and driven for years? Seems like a good car to buy if you want to actually put miles on it.
Completely right Scott! I don’t think this one has any special provenance. If someone who knows how much better these are modified wants its, maybe 85, if it’s all the closer-to-stock=closer-to-godliness people, maybe 65. Having recently realized that I’m maybe 30-40 into this, on top of purchase, I’m hoping for a bidding war! The whole point of selling is to get $$.
A mid 80s, Guards Red whale tail has been on my bucket list for a long time. Seems like a super nice example that’ll be far more attainable than a 930 to most interested parties. Hopefully it does very well for you.
That’s a really nice car, excellent mods. What a 911 is supposed to be. Shall we start a pool as to what day some jerkoff asks for how many range 2 counts from the DME overrev report?
Hat tip to the Alaska plates, no one has figured that out yet, they all head to Montana….
Since this is a CAR-oriented stack not a TRUCK-oriented stack,
The obvious big news of the week is Porsche throwing in the towel on Macan and mid-engined/718 EVs. It's now hurry up and find a way to build new substructures to carry the fab 4.0 liter 6 on the 718's. I imagine it will be easier on the Macan. The math must have really not added up.
Imagine that, even us pussy Porsche Boxster/Cayman sports car guys didn't want an EV. I can't speak for anyone who wants an EV Macan and barely any who wated an ICE Macan, but that's a diff story.
I know it's the dumbest thing since the "Frasier" reboot, but I'm madly in love with Boxsters and Caymans (the 'S' variety, gots to have at least one extra letter on the back, and it's more the Cayman versus the Boxster), but I don't fit in the 986 cars (left shoulder is into the rollbar mount), have no business buying a 987, and the wife loves the Macan.
I don't think I'll ever have either in the driveway.
Unless you're really fat, you can fit fine even at 6:4 or 5 in a 987 Cayman. Just don't go for the fixed bucket seats, which are expensive as hell and impossible to find.
My head's in the roof a bit with the 987 Caymans. It's workable, I just have to be able to justify that kind of purchase, which at this point, I can't.
Somehow the 987 Caymans (and Boxsters for that matter) had this reputation of being hideous. I've always thought they were cool looking and never understood the knock against them. But then again, I used to have a 986 Boxster S, so anything 987 was quite an upgrade...
The Cayman was the last independent Porsche design before they got in with VW. The 987 was the only one of the mids that had a bespoke interior, the 986 shared with the 996, the 981/718 essentially got the corporate interior of the 997 era.
I don't know of anyone who thinks the 987 Cayman is hideous. The roofline and hips are gorgeous and have been widely praised. If you look at the stampings aside from the doors and hood shared with the 997, every single body panel is intricate compound curves.
I knew that Porsche would have to backtrack on its EV dreams (as did anyone else whose paycheck didn't depend on carbon cronyism or virtuous vanity). Let's just hope that it doesn't kill the company. I'd love to see the t-hybrid in a Cayman.
They would have to admit they screwed up and that platform was already 10 years old. The ostensible reason for getting rid of it in the first place was it couldn't meet the EUs software security directives. They stopped selling them in the EU a year or more ago. That was always a lie of course, but they were hell bent on EVs to kowtow to Brussels and VW. It will be easier to create a new substructure that replaces the battery pack and combine it with the current 911 screens and telemetry crap than to go back to the old chassis that had NO development work on it to speak of for years.
"Imagine that, even us pussy Porsche Boxster/Cayman sports car guys didn't want an EV."
Nobody ever thought they did. The purpose was to further elevate the 911, because the mooks at Porsche think they have 80% of Ferrari's brand equity and value instead of the 25% they actually have.
I had Dave Engelmann, who was running Porsche PR at the time, publicly tell me that people like me didn't mean enough to Porsche for the company to listen to our opinion. At the time I had an 18 month old Boxster S 550 and a 7 year old 911.
"I had Dave Engelmann, who was running Porsche PR at the time, publicly tell me that people like me didn't mean enough to Porsche for the company to listen to our opinion. At the time I had an 18 month old Boxster S 550 and a 7 year old 911."
Yeah, that's the other side of Porsche I'm not too crazy about: No matter what I do, I'll be viewed as if I'm Cousin Eddie standing in the Porsche dealer lot, looking for a place to clean out my shitter. To that end, I'll just hang on to my white trash 5th gen Camaro and drive that until something typically GM-related happens to the car.
You mean like my '22 Colorado, with less than 35,000 miles at this point, getting a fist through the touchscreen because it kept making unauthorized phone calls to random numbers in my Call History queue?
This is the huge problem with the world today, we have so many more rich people living now, that these companies have zero incentive to serve the working class.
I don't think so, I think the EV Boxster was supposed to elevate the Boxster by differentiating the power train from the 911. They screwed the pooch on separating the mid engined cars in 2017 using turbo 4s, which backfired. Buyers thought the 4cyl was downscale and Subie-like, never mind the engine was terrific (I had one). So they had buyers coming in who (1) liked sports cars and driving them quickly, who (2) made the rich dentist who wanted a "sports car" and got a 911 look dumb, and (3) drove the brand in the opposite direction than they intended.
By 2021 they admitted they were lying about the 4 cylinder in the first place (emissions, packaging issues) and lopped the turbo off the 3.0 liter in the Carrera, bored it out to 4 liters and magically made it fit the 718. Now they had an engine that the 911 didn't have, a NA 6 cylinder that they later cranked up to almost 500 HP for the GT4 RS and Spyder RS, both of which got into 911 price territory. Mind you, these were cars basically designed by the end of 2016 with the 981 GT4. They let the Boxster GTS and Cayman GTS stick around until last month at least partially by shamelessly raising prices into the $130,000s when optioned "right."
The EV Boxster would have pitched the "brand" at the saddo who wanted to be seen in a Tesla without associating with Elon, AND who wouldn't buy a 911 with a nasty ICE anyways. When they planned it EVs were seen as goosing the "brand" , now it's the other way. Hence the 180° turnaround.
Yeah, I can see that, but I also know that there are insane people at Porsche who think the 911 can eventually sell for 296 GTB money, and that therefore the Cayman will sell for 911 money, and so on.
Anyone who drives the current Z for 50 miles will want to buy one.
It is exactly what the 280ZX Turbo was: faster than 95% of the traffic around you with a great ride and plenty of features. The people who gripe about it being an old platform are demented. Nobody can name a single good thing about "new platforms" since 2015.
That “old platform” line is just a recurring tiresome theme in car reviews that is then repeated online ad nauseum. I just ignore it.
I finally saw a Z here in Hooterville. I think they’re great. How come Nissan can integrate a screen tastefully into the dash and no other car company can?
I just happened to see an original 240Z a few months ago at my local Publix. I forgot just how small that car was. But wow are they beautiful! This one was a beater that one of the kids working at Publix was driving, but what a looker.
"Give me a Nissan Z instead. I almost never see them but I notice them when I do. I don’t notice 911’s anymore."
I picked up a 2005 G35 Sport couple three years ago for this exact purpose, it was a bit of a go-kart like many 911's and Boxsters that I had driven, but for whatever stupid reason, I didn't really notice until after I had driven the thing a while that I was entirely too large for the freaking car (left shoulder is jammed into the door panel, I'm skeletally too wide for the seat), and so it's the wife's toy now, and she's having a blast in the thing.
I'm still eyeballing 370Z's just in case they've magically widened the things inside, but the actual dimensional numbers aren't looking good, especially when even my cranium is the size of a terrifyingly-overinflated basketball.
This will go on BAT early next year. Presently on consignment with the local Lotus dealer and Indy shop that knows it well. 39,000 miles, carbon fiber buckets, 6sp, Peridot Green, the perfect Cayman R trifecta.
Avoidable Contact note, the first time I met Jack was at Grattan, a Michigan track. The organizer pulled some favors and got the state troopers to look the other way, this was May,
2020. We got together for a couple days of get on the track and go.
Jack told me I had very good taste in cars, and that he could find me a couple of seconds. This is that car folks.
Would I be out of line asking the group in this thread for any music teaching app / website suggestions? Christmas is coming and I was thinking it could be fun to have an indoor activity where we (myself and two kids) all try to learn an instrument.
Between Piano and Guitar. Piano might be easier for the kids, although I think my son might be more excited about guitar. They love Doulingo (kid's focused app that makes it fun to learn languages). Been trying to find something similar for music. I stumbled across SimplyPiano; was considering it.
My wife has a... 5 year? long unbroken duolingo streak. Used to be all Spanish, but she's started Italian a few months before our honeymoon there, and lately she's also been doing the math and music courses (i'm not sure why she does the music lessons because she's been playing alto sax for 15 years)
Check out Rocksmith. Like Guitar Hero but with a real guitar. It’s pretty fun, they have a selection of Rock songs you can play. I can’t say whether it’s as effective as taking guitar lessons (surely not) but it is fun!
I can’t speak to piano, but for guitar, best would be 1:1 lessons with a teacher either in person or via Zoom. Zoom is actually kinda cool in you can record and watch them later with something like snag it. YT videos is next. The thing about an app is you don’t get good feedback on technique and mechanics, so if you learn bad habits, you have to work to undo later vs continuing to progress. Hope this helps!
I had a piano app that I loved - but never got to use it after the arrival of kid 2. I think it’s called SimplyPiano . Somewhat expensive yet excellent !
"Would I be out of line asking the group in this thread for any music teaching app / website suggestions?"
Yes.
How dare you ask for help with something that isn't directly related to the topics of this particular submission, AND you're asking for this help RIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS?
You terrorist bastard.
Me personally, while I don't have any "site" selections, I do have two ideas:
1. Buy gingerbread house kits for everyone in the household, they're probably on sale right now anyway.
Also see if you can hit up some thrift stores for random trophies, it doesn't matter what they're for, the more random the better, with the general idea being, hold a competition on Christmas Eve and see who can build the ugliest gingerbread house, with bonus points being awarded for "Least Likely To Be Eaten By Anyone Who Still Has Functioning Eyes" and "Most Likely To Collapse And Kill Everyone Inside If This Were A Real House", literally pencil something on paper slips and tape them to the trophies.
Also allow for the addition of exactly one random thing to include in the instruction that isn't included in the kit.
2. Snap up some toy pianos, something with enough keys to do "Jingle Bells" a decent amount of justice, and, you included, each of you write a butchery of Jingle Bells akin to "Batman Smells", but also give yourselves one random three-syllable word (engineering terms would work) to try to rhyme against and play it after the gingerbread house thing.
I mention these pianos not because they're fun to do terrible renditions of any sort of serious work on, they are, however, a fairly solid thing to start out with, depending on how many keys they have. They're also usually pretty cheap.
Hah! Sorry for the late reply - just seeing this now! I really dig the gingerbread ideas. I am going to pick some up. Kids (and I) are off between Christmas and the New Year - and it's cold in New England, so trying to find things to enjoy indoors.
Well, in that case, there's always the good old traditional winter not-out-of-doors pastimes of indoor skeet shooting and flying model rockets ("F" engines and above)...that way, the children learn all about indoor gun safety and altitude tracking all from the safety of being inside the home.
I'm just glad to have been of some help, and Merry Christmas to you, sir.
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The "Christian" part is important to emphasize. He appears to bear no ill will towards people of other races. He simply doesn't want them in America, the same way most Chinese or Japanese or Nigerians don't want more foreigners in their country.
I never fail to chuckle when I see him end something with "Christ Is King". Unfortunately we now live in a world where at least 45% of Americans read "Christ Is King" as "Fuck You, Bitch," which is, I think, how Torba means it.
"The "Christian" part is important to emphasize. He appears to bear no ill will towards people of other races. He simply doesn't want them in America, the same way most Chinese or Japanese or Nigerians don't want more foreigners in their country."
responding to this becuase of how very true it is and how most people have no idea what people mean by it
telling a group of people to be your best and most successful selves in your own country isnt hateful
My father's family has been in this country since the 1840s. Does that give me standing to discuss American identity? I do like hot dogs, apple pie, baseball, and Detroit style coneys.
And 1840 was long before United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923) and a full century before Luce–Celler (1946), which increased the annual quota of Indian immigration from ZERO to 100/year (which was considered a significant change).
I don't see the Jewish community benefitting from mass migration of Muslims or Indians:
Two shooters. The father, Indian immigrant. The son was born in Australia (so Indian heritage but not an immigrant).
And the guy who tackled one of them while unarmed was apparently a Syrian Muslim.
And the Australian cop who shot them, killing the father, apparently did so from 40 meters away with a handgun, which is a hell of a shot when under stress...props to him....
I’m sorry, that does not meet MY elevated standards with regard to Heritage American identity.
I am the direct descendant of a signatory of the Declaration of Independence.
Therefore, unless any of you have inherited similar credentials, you must defer to my point of view, which is that Vivek is correct and that we don’t need DEI for white people who were born in America.
My family arrived in Charleston around 1690, but unfortunately were not available to sign the Declaration. They did manage to make a lot of money and have a county named after us in Tennessee. We lost it all after the War of Northern Aggression and became poor white trash until my father became the first to attend college after the fall. I am Heritage American and am damn proud of it.
9th Great Grandfather Isaac Willey landed in Boston circa 1630 and in 1645 settled New London, CT with John Winthrop Jr.
Just before my GTI reached it's untimely end I had left the gravesite of his descendant, Absalom Willey, my 3rd G Grandfather. His Grandfather, also named Absalom, was with Washington crossing the Delaware Christmas 1776.
Also part of the family is Waitman Willey, one of the founders of West Virginia. My own personal opinion though is WV would have been better off left part of Virginia so I consider him the Black Sheep.
I checked with my wife, who is a direct descendant of one of the signers of the VT constitution (pre-dating the US constitution) and she disagrees with your point of view. Does that count?
My tenth great-grandfather was on the Mayflower. Another came in 1628 and founded Lynn, Mass. Which all means absolutely nothing other than an interesting fact
Both sides of my family have been Americans for at least three generations. My mom's grandfather brought his family to the New World in the late 1800s and forbade then from ever speaking German again, as they were Americans now. My dad's folk showed up sometime between the War of 1812 and the annexation of Texas, as Ireland had become too something-or-other for them. Poor, I guess.
Sorry, hills of north Jersey. As in, I lived two miles from Action Park till I was 10.
Which actually goes a long way toward explaining why I am the way I am. That whole area was full of high-powered microwave towers and leaded water and radon and at least one abandoned quarry where they wanted to dump all that radioactive dirt.
My grandmother was born in Southwest Washington State in 1901 in a German community and didn’t learn English until she went to school. There were a lot of German speakers and cultural societies in Southwest Washington until around 1914
"My mom's grandfather brought his family to the New World in the late 1800s and forbade then from ever speaking German again, as they were Americans now."
My mom and her side of the family are from Estonia, so from her side of things, I'm her firstborn American offspring.
And yes, I didn't learn but maybe two or three words in Estonian the entire time.
And also yes, I wasn't too terribly impressed with my grandmother's side of the family in Estonia (freaking financial parasites), so after a point, I stopped caring.
I have established above that my Heritage American bona fides are not in question. Unless you are ALSO a direct descendant of one of Founding Fathers - like me - you must defer to my superior perspective on this subject.
My own lineage being entirely indecipherable beyond two or three generations, what if I went to a public university named after one of the signatories to the Declaration of Independence. Does that count?
None of them, nor did I so claim. Simply that my family has been here since the 1600s. One of my ancestors fought under Washington in the revolutionary war.
I shall use this perch of similar moral superiority to declare that non Anglo immigration was a mistake.
Benedict Arnold's Heritage American bona fides were also not in question, and he sold out this country like the self-centered son-of-a-bitch he was. Maybe I'm making your point for you here; I'm not sure. I'll just say that it's frankly risible for you of all people to pretend you're an authority on all things American.
The problem with you using the term "nabob" is that you're the only one of those here. Nabobs, to the best of my knowledge, are persons with a shitload of money and fuck-all else to justify their existence, which describes you down to a T.
He eventually recovered, but spent many years after his death walking around like the one guy in that one Bug Bunny cartoon, repeating the name "Hansel?" several times before walking off the cartoon, stage right.
Certainly says something that in the current Trump admin made up of exclusively con-men and grifters, he somehow couldn’t manage to stick around in any real capacity.
"Certainly says something that in the current Trump admin made up of exclusively con-men and grifters, he somehow couldn’t manage to stick around in any real capacity."
"Sorry, but we have actual standards around these here parts of the White House!"
You, sir, are my favorite Snow Mexican of all time, eclipsing such eminences as Gordon Lightfoot, 80% of The Band, and a significant proportion of the Guess Who.
How has this guy even gotten to the point where he was a potential candidate for president and now running for Governor of Ohio? Even leaving aside my read of his vibe, his track record just says out loud that he's shady sales dude.
I think everyone assumed that Jim Tressel would allow himself to be crowned Governor For Life; when he declined, it became a battle of the third-tier grifters.
It's astounding that Tressel wouldn't take the job. We wouldn't even need the formality of an election.
I'd have moved back to Ohio if Jim Tressel became governor.
No, actually I'd hope that someone on his staff would come up here to be a successful governor, much like how Mark Dantonio came to MSU and coached them into the playoff that one year and beat scUM on the regular.
Regarding "his people," Vivek was slated to be the keynote speaker at the ITServe convention, but pulled out at the last minute. Aside from whether ITServe violates RICO and FARA, notice anything about its the leadership? This is what Vivek's "meritocracy" looks like:
Fun fact, Vivek and Pete Buttigieg were both on camera organically asking questions on the same msnbc 2004 Hardball college tour, what are the odds of THAT! The mind wobbles…
Vivek Ramaswamy’s developed a weird yuletide tradition. Every Christmas, it seems, he mounts his sleigh and slides down your feed — not to deliver gifts, but to tell you what counts as an American. A year ago at this time, it was “anyone smart enough to take a job from a middle class earner.” That take alone sufficed to drum him out of Trumpworld within a month — but he’s undeterred. A year later — just in time to lose us another governorship — in an op-ed for the New York Times , he’s back with an even broader definition: "Anybody who likes America or American-sounding stuff.'
Unpopular opinion: divided government is far more effective than supermajority rule
Take West Virginia. Our legislature is almost completely Republican (two Dems in the State Senate, one of whom votes with the GOP about 80% of the time). Our governor is Republican. There isn’t a Democrat in statewide office.
And it’s a quagmire. Completely dysfunctional. The Republicans have divided themselves into camps of 1) traditional, jobs-and-tax-reform Republicans and 2) people who believe public schools should be abolished, abortion outlawed with no exceptions, etc. The latter camp, which preponderates, refuses to even engage on real issues, preferring red meat bills that are, ahem, full of sound and fury, accomplishing nothing. Usually they include some new way to sue or otherwise torment businesses (the personal injury lawyers have found easy marks among many gullible legislators). The GOP governor needs both sides’ support, and won’t pick a lane. Problems mount, nothing ever really gets done.
A Democrat governor basically solves this. The republicans would be unable to pass the red meat through the Gov’s desk (they could override a veto, but in a part-time legislature that’s a tough ask, when most bills are signed after lawmakers leave town). So they’d be forced to focus on things like job growth, economic development, school funding, foster care, etc.
It works in Kentucky, at least from an economic growth/capital investment standpoint. Whatever your thoughts on Beshear, you have to admit that they are one of the few primary beneficiaries of the American manufacturing growth this year.
All this to say, Acton is your best shot. Vivek would distract the legislature with red meat while plundering the state. Casey just seems like a hack. Acton sucks, but she won’t have much real power and the legislature will have to focus on actually achievable, real goals.
The weird thing is, it’s the blue cities in red states experiencing all the growth. Even in WV, the only areas experiencing any growth are blue ones. I lived in one (Morgantown) for the past four years. It’s run by a bunch of goofy progressives, and not terribly well, but businesses are moving in so fast they’re literally running out of land (and having to build wonky access roads to develop previously inaccessible land).
Seems to be what's happening in Nashville - downtown offices filled with younger millennials, all the actual decision makers moving to Williamson county...
I personally don't have many complaints from Michigan. But, we're having yet ANOTHER gas tax increase AND a HUGE weed tax hike AND "Consumers" Energy is hiking natural gas up 10% AND the AI tech lizards want our water and land reeeeeeaaaalllll bad. But, I can own basically any firearm I want, basically any car I want, and our real estate market hasn't *entirely* exploded... Yet
Seattle elected its own Mamdani. She’s talking about city run grocery stores. She’s a democratic socialist in her 40’s, from NY. Her parents are University profs in NY. They sent her 3k a month for childcare, even though her and her partner have no jobs.
Nearly 100 years of one family holding a seat in the House of Representatives is completely insane. The current Dingell ought to be primaried out of her seat and close down the family politics business for good.
One of the bright spots was during the 2020 summer of love. Police Chief James Craig kept the protesters from turning into rioters, then he saddled up and prepared a run for governor and likely would have won... except that, somehow, someone found some "irregularities" in the list of signatures compiled in the petitions for his campaign and we're still stuck with Himmler.
The funny part is: the best example of one party rule gone awry is…..West Virginia
We had Democrat majorities until 2015. In the 1990s, there was 1 Republican in the Senate (Donna Boley, who is 90 and still there). Democrat supermajorities absolutely killed the state; a business couldn’t glance at us without getting sued, we spent money in an outrageous fashion, and we were dead broke. They absolutely wrecked the state. Republicans fixed a lot from 2015-2020, and now we’re back to square one.
It must depend on how much power the governor has, both constitutionally and electorally. A dem governor of Ohio would obviously have more electoral power than one in WV based on the partisan margins.
I think it also matters where the cross-partisan governor comes from. Long-time state rep/senator? Probably fine since he'll just cut deals with his former colleagues. A former administrator like Acton? Run. Her closest confidants will be activists running free, like inmates running the asylum. (Whether Republicans can commit themselves to being anything other than wardens of the asylum is a story for another day)
"Unpopular opinion: divided government is far more effective than supermajority rule"
As someone who has noted that we have 2 parties: the party of tax and spend, and the party of cut taxes and spend, I agree. The only time we seem to have decreasing national deficits over time is when the Democratic President is constrained by Republican Senate and House.
“The U.S. budget deficit shrank by $41 billion to $1.775 trillion in the 2025 fiscal year as an increase in revenue from President Donald Trump's tariffs and cuts to education spending helped offset higher outlays on healthcare and retirement programs and interest on the debt, the Treasury Department said on Thursday.”
I’ll give your comment a hearty Fuck No. Acton is a million times worse than Vivek for one simple reason: she wants the power to lord over us and make decisions for us. Vivek may be a slimy businessman, but he doesn’t want to nanny state us. And, just maybe, we get an actual effective Doge to cut down the sow of Ohio government. Sorry, but any clear thinking Ohioan voting for Acton is voting to send themselves to a concentration camp if she can find an excuse to build them.
How many hours have you spent rowing through the internet sewer looking for ideas that match what you want to think when you could have simply watched the many videos of Vivek engaging with local Ohioans? His social media is littered with his discussions. I can’t imagine trying so hard to believe in such bullshit. Get off-line and try the real world for a change.
That is a lot of ad hominem attacks on me without providing ANY evidence against my claims (which mostly come from his own mouth): true to form Rajesh.
Of course he pretends to talk to "local Ohioans," and some, particularly the aged, are easily hoodwinked.
You want him to criticize his ethnicity? To prove what?
Business people like H1B visas. Shocker.
None of that matters to me because I care about individual liberty first. I think Trump is a terrible person yet I voted for him for the same reason.
I recall a bit about your circumstances, so I’ll assume you feel like you were cheated out of something because some undeserving person got it instead. Sorry man, if that is the case. Time to get over it and make something happen.
He doesn't have to criticize his ethnicity. But Indians are waging war against Americans, and in that context, just like a Japanese candidate in WWII or an Arab candidate in 2002, in order to be fit for office, he would need to make clear that he is only loyal to America, but he, on almost a weekly basis, shows that his loyalty is to Indians at the expense of Americans (including his association with ITServe) and his utter contempt for Americans and American culture.
"Get over it WHILE I SUPPORT THE COMPLETE TAKEOVER OF THE POLITICAL SYSTEM BY A CARTEL WHO WILL EXPONENTIALLY EXACERBATE THE PROBLEM" is not a reasonable position. This isn't personal; it's a population-scale issue:
my dad--you can't find a stronger constitutionalist american and he immigrated at age 30 in 1923--humorously said decades ago that the mafia could run america more freely--all they'd want is a big cut of your money and you could do whatever the heck you wanted
What an effing grifter. No Democrats, not even Chuck Schumer, are particularly pro Israel except for maybe Fetterman. They're terrified of their hard left flank who think that the biggest victims of the Bondi Beach attack are Muslims.
Almost 30 years ago I played hide the sausage with a jewish girl from a family of self-important academic leftists. They voted for every stupid thing coming down the pike, especially if it was against their interests. Proudly. And they would argue loudly with other Jews they encountered if they went to temple or kept holy days because, you know, fuck all that. Be a Soviet, or whatever, as long as you're a cowardly nihilist with soft hands.
Naturally, I have reconnected with them and have been harassi- er, reminding them that their self-loating and stupidity founded entirely on a lack of being useful to the society around them and living in a glass menagerie inside an ivory tower has helped bring this about.
Man, they fucking hate me for reminding them of that. I've been working a laugh react like a lumberjack works a sharp axe. The best part is when they other Jews chime in to defend them and then they start bickering amongst one another.
Leftists are the worst, but also good entertainment online and in meatspace.
I'm not Jewish and won't pretend like I have any authority to speak for, well, anyone, but I'd wager it has a lot to do with the flagrant corruption and war crimes the government of Israel participates in.
Hard to have a lot of sympathy when for years social media feeds were full of IDF soldiers smiling at the horror they created alongside images of literal children bombed into confetti.
I find it difficult to sympathize with the Muslims who want every Israeli dead, for no better reason than that the Israelis are Jews, when the Israelis defeat them time and again.
Never forget the Israelis are fighting an enemy that wants them all dead and believes it has divine mandate to do it by any means necessary.
Yup it’s pretty fucked any way you look at it. Not here to defend Hamas. But also not gonna sit back and say that wantonly murdering tens of thousands of people is good and cool either.
Also to “both sides” an argument that I am impossibly undereducated on, but current zeitgeist makes it so that your last paragraph could also apply to how Israel’s hardliners view Gazans.
The Muslims started the fight with the Israelis. When you mix your military assets in with your civilians and then go pick a fight with neighbors that just want to be left alone and don't fuck around, you don't get to complain when you lose a hospital or a shopping mall to an airstrike.
Muslims playing the world's annoying little brother.
Let me give you an awful alternative to which, AHEM, I do not subscribe:
Jews can't victim-game their way to effective super-citizen status in the United States if they always have Israel as an obvious alternative. You can't be a victim if you have a whole country of your own. So Diaspora Jews undermine Israel to better utilize victimhood in their European and North American host countries.
Would you say the same about Europe Firsters? How many members of Congress advocate pulling out of NATO? The amount of blood and treasure Americans have spent defending Europe over the past 110 years (or Taiwan and Japan for the matter) dwarf whatever aid has been sent to Israel.
Almost all aid to Israel, about 85%, is obligated to be spent on U.S. military hardware. Additionally, the dollar value of Israeli military tech research that is obligated to be shared with the U.S. is about 2.5 times the military aid we send them.
Why are people who support the trillions in military aid we’ve given to Europe not called Europe Firsters? Why is that relationship a given?
Israel gets aid because enough politicians have been persuaded that it is either in America’s best interests or their own personal political interests to do so. Like any other issue in American politics. If you’re going to complain about AIPAC, that puts you on the side of Hillary Clinton in the Citizens United case. Jewish Americans and their allies have the right to make political contributions, even in advocacy for friendly foreign nations, just as have European Americans done for over a century, resulting in the deaths of over 350,000 American servicemembers.
Of course, opponents of aid to Europe can’t rely on centuries old tropes about dual loyalty and perfidious cabals pulling strings.
We get 1000x the benefit of aid from Israel as we do for European aid. We get nothing from Europe, except for a Christian heritage, a common history, the Magna Carta, and English Common Law, so nothing in the last 100 years, and precious few in 250. We've received absolutely nothing but a good vacation destination, expensive watches, and sports cars for the entirety of my life. We've paid for all of those as well.
Europe has used our money to fund their social system, then returned the favor by lecturing us on... well, everything. I;m not sure GB even has freedom of speech anymore, and every Western European nation has sided with terrorists in the UN for years. they're a parody of liberal democracies.
Israel has done our dirty work in the ME for 80 years. They've made our weapons systems better, and given us Waze (which alone entitles them to whatever we give them).
... to say nothing of the moral imperative of being the only place in the entire world right now where we're on the right side of history. Everywhere else we're chumming with enemies, and cavorting with despots. Israel is free and strong, and a good ally. Giving money to them is like giving it to ourselves (they buy our military hardware with our aid).
Remember when they were talking about base closures in Europe. Germany screamed bloody murder at prospect of losing the multiplier effect on the local economies near the bases.
Well, Ronnie, I'm With Her on this one, at least as far as members of Congress go. I'd like to see foreign aid shut the hell off, permanently, tomorrow. We're trillions of dollars in the hole as a nation; we need to put on our own oxygen mask first.
I'm not an Israel-hater; in fact, I rather admire the balls on them, and I'm in favor of supporting them militarily in times of crisis. I just think they ought to pay their own fuckin' meal-ticket like everybody else.
"Why are people who support the trillions in military aid we’ve given to Europe not called Europe Firsters? Why is that relationship a given?"
assuming it really is trillions in military aid (gotta account for decades of aid total for that kind of number i presume) then the argument becomes easier than supporting isreal becuase they actually act like allies and trading partners. this doesnt mean im in favour of shoveling absurd amounts of money out of america
"Israel gets aid because enough politicians have been persuaded that it is either in America’s best interests or their own personal political interests to do so."
uh. not keen on the wording here. pretty sus. does europe need to coerce american politicians to the same degree too or does europe provide some tangible benefit?
"that puts you on the side of Hillary Clinton"
an evil dog faced clock is right sometimes or however the saying goes
"opponents of aid to Europe can’t rely on centuries old tropes about dual loyalty and perfidious cabals pulling strings"
probably becuase they dont have those kinds of problems. when was the last time a german (or other european country) dual citizen got into the senate and argued for policy in favour of germany?
anyway america isnt the worlds police or purse so cut the aid etc.
Since you brought it up, there was a pretty active pro-Nazi German bund in the U.S. in the 1930s.
The dual-citizen thing is simply a lie. There are no dual citizens in Congress. The lie is based on the fact that Jews can get instant Israeli citizenship, should they move there, so Jew haters take that and spin it into the lie that every Jew in Congress is a dual citizen. Hell, they even list Gentile politicians with Germanic, not Yiddish names. My brother moved to Israel and is an Israeli citizen. He does keep an American passport because he'd be stupid not to, but he doesn't absentee vote in elections here.
It reminds me of something I saw in a YouTube chat today, where someone claimed that Jews have special access to mortgages and other loans as if Gentiles were somehow being discriminated against. There's something called Free Loan Associations that were founded 100 years ago to provide emergency loans. They are charitable organizations, funded privately. I can't walk into a bank and get a better interest rate because I'm circumcised. I can, however, apply to the local Hebrew Free Loan Association for an emergency car loan so I can get to work, which would likely have to be guaranteed by a co-signer. Jew haters take a wholesome charity and turn it into a conspiracy. If a religiously based private charitable organization offers starter mortgages for young families, it's not a conspiracy.
I thought Headset Casey using "Israel-first" in a derogatory way was just his jealousy that Israel bombed all of Iran's air defense and nuclear facilities before he could be the USAF B-2 pilot following it up with a bunker buster bomb.
Always amusing to see a crown vic with vaguely euro plates on a [insert city] cobble street. Can't tell if the other is supposed to be a VW Bora/Opel Astra hybrid, and I mean that in looks, not powertrain. The main mystery is what is on the roof of the crown vic. Angry cat? Snorkel? We'll never know.
The 'Supremacy' poster/sticker/whatever is *perfect* .
So then, good news from FoMoCo, they can sell all the light & medium duty trucks they can build so forget EVs .
About this "MAID" thing ~ I understand wanting to die but cannot one just buy sufficient dope to get high and never wake up again ? .
Chronic pain is a real thing .
Try putting a medium size pebble in your shoe, one that makes you limp to walk at all, then keep it there for two days, you'll begin to have a -fraction- of the misery many deal with 24/7 .
Pretty neat to have found the earliest Corvette, being me, I'd prefer it with the Slip 'N Slide Powerglide and the 235 with side draught carbys .
It's a _Sports_Car_, not a Race Car .
Happily I still run into 1950's vintage Corvettes in survivor condition being driven and enjoyed the way Duntov (? SP ?) intended .
i still have no idea why a 3 speed manual was never offered (i do have a slight idea) given that they absolutely had one and even if the ratios werent ideal it could still have been made to work
I believe that 1981 was the last year a Corvette had a 3 speed manual transmission that was offered, which is kind of crazy. I thought they were all 4 speeds by that point.
Well this is a rabbit hole to go down. At least on the C2 the 3 speed manual was floor mounted. Since the C3 had much of the C2 carried over underneath, I’ll guess that it was also floor mounted in 68 and 69. Maybe because of the torquey motors some buyers thought that the 3 speed was adequate.
I also can’t recall a Corvette with a shifter on the column for an automatic or a manual. Even the original 2 speed Powerglides were floor mounted.
I'm not settled in my mind yet about the assisted dying thing, but then maybe those who need / want to end it all cannot / don't understand how to go get dope illicit or otherwise .
I am on the list for the hardcover, signed would be very cool, after Christmas is good!
Canada and their special health care is evil in the extreme, they import all of the third world and crap all over their own citizens, that should be considered a high crime!
I think the corvette should be sorted out properly and sold to the corvette museum, what a great story.
the mass immigration is becuase of the century initialtive which is a (company? task force? group?) who desires canada to have 100 million people residing inside it by 2100
why 100 million? why 2100? who knows but theyre on track to importing more than a million (almost entirely third worlders) a year. all this to increase gdp or something.
I believe Mr. Carney has pretty much shelved that policy. Last quarter, Canada’s population decreased (by 76K), the first time that’s happened since COVID.
"I’ll be printing a limited (heh) number of hardbacks at well, signing them as you like"
if this means youll write something clever/wise/absurd in it you can count me in already
"Is Casey serious about his anti-H1B, America First approach?"
i highly doubt hes the actual america first guy he pretends to be. he does not come across as being anywhere near focused or driven enough for the cause
"knock on doors for the Democratic candidate"
the candidates really have you stuck between a rock and a brown place
"If I had terminal access, I could keep you all posted on this"
i was curious about them until i found out it was 30k or something to use
"Canada can’t provide her the surgery. In fact, they can’t even get her in to see an endocrinologist, something that is usually a 90-day hassle at most for Americans"
our heathcare is godawful and everyone is worse off for it. a billion dollars for a raft of random brown people instead of caring for our own. between fucking us over at every opportunity and unending mass immigration it really does look like a kind of ethnic cleansing. evil in all caps
"Will Millennials have any interest in keeping and preserving 1953 Corvettes?"
more millenials will gain an interest in old cars once boomers stop thinking their shitboxes are worth 45k barely running. they have no real right to complain about the state of affairs.
i had an idea for an early 50s corvette "zr1" that would be based on contemporary tech and tests chevrolet did at the time but damn a c1 is still crazy money
After 16 years of producing over 225 custom retro Corvettes, Classic Reflection Coachworks (CRC) has closed its Lakewood, Washington plant and will no longer produce their 50 and 60’s models
i suppose i should have specified that i wanted it to be period correct to the early 50s having things like a mccullough supercharger and magnesium halibrands
Fellow Ohioan here. Only thing the GOP-dominated state legislature has done that was worthwhile was eliminating the front license plate a few years back.
"In fact, they can’t even get her in to see an endocrinologist, something that is usually a 90-day hassle at most for Americans."
Americans *with insurance*. The rich and upper-middle class are fine, the Medicaid crowd struggles with having enough access to get an appointment within 90 days but at least they aren't delving into their meager savings...so as usual, it's the working poor who get screwed.
I just saw Taibbi posting about it on his stack.
Yes, another important article; sadly overshadowed by Vivek's antics. Pairs well with https://www.compactmag.com/article/no-there-arent-good-h-1b-visas/
Even this comment section bears this out. The Boomers are largely exempt from and largely unconcerned with both of these issues, and even are defensive "Well *I* was able to build a business/career, so shut up! Everything's fine!"
god they just never learn huh
horse and water and drinking and all that
I think the reason for the lack of discourse, is what else is there to add? The progressive talking heads and echo chamber won't touch or acknowledge it, and any white guy 55 or younger that's worked in any corporate environment the past two decades reads it, shrugs his shoulders and says "yep". It's not new info to any of us.
Agreed; I think the discussion is less about substance but about impact. Scott Galloway has been quietly discussing the fact that young men are NOT alright, and coming close to admitting why. And this week, even the NYT has been discussing the article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/16/opinion/young-white-men-discrimination.html
"Turns out girls dont really like guys they out earn."
And yet women without college degrees are married at lower rates than women with college degrees....
https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2025/02/struggling-men-hurt-noncollege-womens-marriage-prospects
everyone talks about dollar inflation and house inflation but nobody has the guts to discuss the real insidious threat
woman inflation
It is both ABSOLUTE earnings and RELATIVE earnings
A woman who makes $35k wants a man who makes $75k so her children won't live in poverty. A woman who makes $75k wants a man who earns $150k because she doesn't want to marry "down."
Between DEI and H-1B, women have been elevated and young men have been crushed, leaving the average woman with far fewer men out-earning her than would have otherwise been the case.
That, and women are better equipped to play in the cat box that is modern corporate America. I work with at least two women who were both single AND homeowners in their mid-20s, largely because as women, they curried favor with The System more easily than men.
Poor people don't marry, and don't stay married. This Sunday we will likely discuss the "American castes" study; the disparities in marriage are astounding across classes.
That's the myth of America, isn't it? That we area classless society?
I often look at policies that are considered racist and certainly some are, but mostly they're actually classist.
This must be poor people in the cities don't marry and stay married. I'd love to see a case study of poor people and marriage in the rural deep south.
I think we are all smart enough to realize multiple variables are in play but that there can be a relationship between relative incomes in a couple and likely long-term success.
"Reviewing historical data from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, they examined outcomes at age 45 for women born between 1930 and 1980. Marriage rates remained remarkably stable among college-educated women, holding above 70%, but dropped sharply among those without degrees – from 78.7% to 52.4%.".
This data is older than I am. Anecdotally, non college women have married 2 to 1 over the college women in my circle. Then again I do live in the south. I'd love to see current data.
"outcomes at age 45 for women born between 1930 and 1980"
Uh, 1980+45 is 2025...that *is* current data. :)
"Turns out girls dont really like guys they out earn."
My wife doesn't seem to mind!
Similar to a friend of mine but (s)he has a '68 Polara instead of a yacht. Sometimes my wife asks me how much she needs to make before I agree to be a "house-husband." That number goes up every time.
All you Amy Acton fan-girls should think about how much she cares about young white men.
does vivek?
not advocating for either
Yes. His social media is filled with Charlie Kirk style college interactions. Plenty of evidence out there for someone interested in learning about him to make up their mind.
He just exploits Charlie Kirk's memory. Vivek would love for EVERY SINGLE JOB to be taken by a fellow Hindu Indian.
EDIT: fixed typo
"Greetings fellow whites "
Pre-presisential run Vivek was so much better. I'm still not a huge fan.
If I'm living in Ohio, I'm penciling in "Turd Sandwich".
Richard Petty. Or Optimus Prime.
At this point, I might write in "panhandler on East 4th".
Don't blame me, I voted for Opus.
To hell with "Lockdown" Amy Achtung. The bitches love her, though, so she's going to win.
Any sane Republican could beat her. It didn't have to be Jim Tressel. It could have been any man who could attend a debate without smirking like he was about to conquer a foreign country.
We have to be less than 10 years from a LeBron governorship, no? He'll do it remotely from Brentwood.
"smirking like he was about to conquer a foreign country"
🎯
And then everybody is surprised that they are becoming enthusiastic about the small moustache brigade. A disaster in the making that could easily have been averted.
weimar solutions and problems etc
When the system stops working for people, they're going to stop working for it. Then start working against it
Scott Galloway is right about pretty much everything these days to my mind (young men, healthcare, the fake stock market, boomers, AI, etc). And I think many folks around here who would normally disagree with me (progressive taxes and policies) would find themselves on the same side as Galloway on larger number of subjects than they might expect.
You know he is hitting the mark because people are starting to write really angry stuff about him.
I've read that, and a couple of accompanying rebuttals.
My favorite blurb out of the whole piece here, though?
"Back in 2016, Brown had pledged to double faculty diversity within six years."
Hmm. Literally browning the faculty.
Beyond that, however, one other recurring theme stands out: The Boomers get to keep their jobs.
its progressively worse but thats about the only kind of progress
Scott Galloway correctly points out that it isn't against *your generation*, or even the majority of *your generation*: only the 24% who aren't women, "of color," or LGBT++:
https://www.wsj.com/video/scott-galloway-sees-issues-with-dei/3B1C6C28-00A0-4DE5-9203-F0B14056655B
Responses like this are why most of the twitter discussion I've seen of the article features people calling for war crimes
Can you clarify?
People trying to minimize this, or like the dude in the wsj video, say we just need to discriminate differently to ensure we have the 'right' kind of diversity, I think really reinforce the impression of most core millennials I know that meritocracy is dead. You have the choice of adopting racial tribalism or continuing to get fucked by a system that steals from you and then uses your own money to stack the deck against you.
Go check some twitter discussions on this and that sentiment tends come out as "this is a fundamental betrayal of a generation of citizens in this country, perhaps we should look to the medieval past for a suitable punishment for those responsible, and maybe we should do some shit that clarifies to people that this behavior is unwelcome in our country going forward". Or words to that effect
based
Only if we get cool serb-style propaganda videos
Unclear if Scott Galloway is a dual citizen, but as one can see from this video, he’s very clearly a “dual citizen of the heart.”
We don’t need him. Deport to his choice of Scotland or Israel given his parentage.
(Also in this video he’s speaking to a diverse bunch of business executives; enemy territory for sure—you have to laugh when eg Sherman calls business people (any business people) “right wing.” Scott’s probably as “right wing” as establishment businessmen come and he’s unqualifiedly an advocate for the idea that DEI has done more good than harm.)
Progress towards the country unraveling
It comes down to those in favor of the meritocracy vs. the clinically insane people in positions of power in corporations and in government. It will be a struggle, but we must marginalize the insane people.
Kinda hard to bring back at this point
At some point you'd think people would get fed up with incompetence.
who among us has ever had a pleasant experience with a call center
itll take far longer than it should for people to realize it can and should be fixed
There are too many thirdworlders. Israelis included.
Genetically, about 90% of the world follows a 5-rule system for hiring:
1. Nepotism
2. Nepotism
3. Nepotism
4. Nepotism
5. If every single maximally distant relative is employed, then “meritocracy” for whatever white or East Asian applies.
Only almost incomprehensibly naive white people do not use this system.
This is why long term America is destined for the crapper. Fixing would require deporting ethnonarcissists who are now paper “citizens”—think of Vivek who can’t just shush his own visceral antiwhite hatred for a minute while running for governor of one of the whiter states!
(Doubly funny in his case as Scam-merica let him scam our financial system for tens of millions—there isn’t anything we could give this guy to buy him off… and he’s nowhere near the worst of the breed!)
yup
"we need fewer white guys but im not going to retire or quit"
fucking cowards
My father is a boomer and he was in line for a professorship the year that affirmative action was passed... You can guess what happened next.
My dad could teach college-level courses on the American Revolution from memory, because he's a passionate historian and a voracious reader who's been studying the matter since the mid-50s. Probably owns 1,500 books on the subject.
BUT he's also a former Marine who hates communists, so he couldn't get a job on a university faculty ANYWHERE back when it would've made a difference in our lives.
There were boomers that were screwed by affirmative action. My born in '52 dad has talked about getting rejected from jobs explicitly because he's white. That's how he ended up selling shop machinery for his father, selling men's clothing, and eventually selling Buicks. None of those were excluding white guys. Still, it has to be worse now.
Similarly, a fair number of late Boomer and early X kids had their futures significantly derailed by busing.
The owners (husband and wife team plus whatever silent partners were involved) of one of the assisted living facility chain locations the spouse and I managed, they were Boomers that literally stayed in the game until the husband just stopped functioning entirely (ironically from dementia, this guy was actually driving the wife around in a Macan GTS up until a year ago while he was zoned out of his mind, she walked as if she was already in memory care), and the wife was the real terror of the pair, absolutely horrifying to listen to during Zoom/Team meetings, it was as if state and federal laws were things that existed only for other people, and she repeatedly threw temper tantrums if someone dared tell her that something was illegal/wouldn't work because of impossible logistical problems.
We've been running into this everywhere, regardless of the business (although the medical industry is a great place for these people to hide, especially the Boomer girlbosses), retirement or dying doesn't register to these people as something that happens to them, they're the same disgusting sociopathic/psychopathic people all the way until they drop, the entire outside world exists only to service them.
Why should he? Has the young generation been so coddled that they don't understand people are going to self preserve. Just wait 40 years. Heck, 20 years.
on the one hand some of these guys were in favour of "giving someone else a chance" and on the other hand they were doing everything they could to keep their job
not curbstomping young white dudes at every opportunity isnt coddling them
Has the young generation been so coddled that they don't understand people are going to self preserve.
Yeah, but those people weren't the victims of self-preservation above them. Every Boomer bio starts off something like, "In 1973, three years out of Rumpelstilskin Community College, Bob was given a chance to run Boeing."
Yeah, it's either "I was simply in possession of a pulse and above-room-temp status and was somehow promoted to God-Emperor...and pulled the ladder up after me!" or "I burned through every family connection possible by stealing from them, gaslighting them, or just destroying them emotionally to keep my drinking and drug habit going, and now I'm a parasite upon the system in my 60's and 70's!"
If you ever get to that age, will you be a coward?
big if
ill say that i wont be a coward like they were but someone can come along and say that i will be
nobody will know for certain until i actually do reach that age however
The last couple of paragraphs where he blames himself for not settling or not working harder vs his liberal world view that sold him a bill of goods and f’d him over is really lame.
hes so close yet so far from getting it
Feels like the same kind of person that thanks their former employer on Linked In for laying them off.
I feel compelled to include:
https://www.avoidablecontact.com/p/sunday-night-open-thread-why-theyre
Seeing that is what makes the article so powerful.
After seeing a few hundred or thousand of these folks on LinkedIn and other places, all with the same story, it's like they're midwits who are educated waaaay beyond their intelligence level and grasp even the most simple of patterns, and are always on the outside intellectually, looking in.
The laughable, Catch-22 part of it all is that I've been blocked from employment by these same people for years, but when it happens to them?
"I don't understand!"
It was a blessing for you, Scott, in the same way that being a hard-head and not going to college in 1981 when I had a scholarship lined up was good for me in the end.
You have your own business, you're living the American dream. You're much, much better insulated from the vagaries and whims of corporate culture.
Consider our friend Jack, and his "colorful" employment history. It makes for good stories -- but it isn't a reality that you or I (or one presumes, Jack) would choose as a way to move through life. Running your own thing is the last chance to be free in this nation, and I'd never have done it had I gone to school, and you'd never have done It if you'd had a fair shake like the college boys of my generation did.
Count your blessings. You coulda' been one of them.
Here's the supreme irony: any time *anyone* makes an accusation of any sort of system-wide problem, be it racism or sexism or discrimination, someone always makes a nasty comment about "others made it, you just didn't try hard enough."
"There's no discrimination against Black people! Magic Johnson is rich!"
So this fellow, after detailing a system that ruthlessly eliminates all but the 10% of Millennial white men that the girlbosses squirm in their seats over, blames himself for not being one of the ten percent.
Listen, I know, ahem, a convicted violent felon who has made millions of dollars in Corporate America and often wears a $9,000 cashmere Brioni overcoat with a Turnbull&Asser bespoke shirt. But this, ahem, fellow is not stupid enough to claim that his personal history doesn't mean it's almost impossible for convicted violent felons to rise above the poverty line.
allegedly there was a brother bark but ive never seen both of them in the same room together
It’d be nice to see them both at the next First Principles.
There needs to be discussion on this. It's a wild read
strong agree
I read it. It made me mad.
I've read excerpts from it (quoted in other pieces) and don't want to read it because 1) I know more or less that it is going on and has gone on and 2) I don't want nor need any kindling on the emotional fire. I live this reality and have been increasingly baffled and frustrated by all of it. Many a prayer--half of them very, very frustrated--over this. But then, I've known something was off with my section of my (Millennial) generation for well over a decade. We received the trailing end of "work hard, go to college, get established in a career, succeed" line from our boomer parents et al. We got a recession, we got all this other junk, and for those of us that needed maybe a touch more in our favor with the opposite sex, instead we got the height of the feminism indoctrination. After putting myself through an extremely difficult major, I got out in 2010, was finally able to find a job, and started plugging away. The career path was on course enough, and while cracks were forming in the professional/hiring world (I was looking for other work), it was 2020 that really nuked things and exposed so much of the world for the farce that it was and increasingly is. So this article is essentially telling me I [freaking] knew it[!].
There are days or moments, because of this, where I am putting weights on the cast iron door that sits above the cauldron of anger so that it doesn't over-pressurize. There are other days where I am at peace with my reality, and that is greatly aided by my desire to not be ruled by emotion and my submission to a higher power and authority (Christ). It does not invalidate what I feel though.
The solution(s) I and others propose to this are not enjoyable. They are very uncomfortable. The questions are very uncomfortable. The conversations are very uncomfortable. I can't have them with my conservative boomer dad. I can't have them with my siblings (all younger). Reflexive recoiling and shutting down. I also don't want to with two of those siblings because I want to spare them the burden and harm from ever having to think that heavily of the situation, as a protection. My dad read it and was like, yeah, the best option is to make the best of it and not be victims. No time to internalize the written manifestation of a long-held theory now revealed as reality, no time to mourn or grieve those implications or the lost prime years of income, nor the massive mental and emotional toll that such a reality has taken on our oft-linked (as men) value and societal self-worth. Of course, we are not the only generation to experience setbacks of any sort; I am not whining. I am giving voice and validation to what I, and what people in the past have thought and felt. Past generations have had it plenty bad, but have been brow-beaten into not externalizing it because it wasn't "manly."
Take this in. Sit with it. Process it. Commit or recommit to our values and convictions. Determine a possible course or courses of action. Then we move forward, together.
I'm on the tail end of my career, rather than in the middle of it. Like you, I committed my ways to the LORD at a young age. My trajectory in living a life of faith in the modern world has been marked by more "over" and "mis" steps than by disobedience or a lack of faith, and yet... I am decidedly human. Part of being a human male is to desire to work and produce and provide. There is a social standing derived from vocation that cannot be overstated.
I've made money over the years -- what I think of as a lot of money, but what others think of as "jerb money". I'm happy that I was able to physically work for it, rather than obtain it through trading or symbol manipulation or investment. But I know (like REALLY KNOW) that every nice thing I have, every "normal" thing I enjoy, is not a birthright or the result of my efforts -- it's a blessing. I've lived in the 3rd world, and I know that people all over this blue ball work from the time they are born until the time they die. They arrive empty handed and they go back to dust the same way. It is the way of man.
And yet, my generation (I was born in '63, so I'm still technically a boomer) has upended every working model they ever found: the nuclear family, the extended family, how to raise children, what it means to produce things, what "work" means, etc. We have robbed (literally) from future generations to pay for the things we wanted, or imagined we wanted now.
We've imported slave labor to take care of our domestic and menial chores -- first nannies, then landscapers, then farm and construction workers, etc. They were "doing the jobs Americans (meaning Boomers) don't want". It didn't blow up on most of us, so we kept at it -- bringing in people from Asia and the Asian subcontinent because "not enough Americans are engineers or STEM grads". We traded freely with everybody (even our enemies), because "free trade is good trade". We rammed "strength through diversity" down everybody's throats, but made sure there was no diversity of thought tolerated in the classroom or shop floor or in the "open plan office".
The net/net of this is that Boomers consistently enjoyed ALL of the benefits of cheap labor, cheap goods, cheap trade, cheap housing, etc., all while pulling up the ladder behind them for a generation of adolescent males trying hard to be men.
To be sure, the misogyny, bigotry, sense of entitlement, etc. that marked my Dad's generation was generally eradicated from the workplace, and this is a good thing. But the pendulum long ago swung past the center-mark and sliced neatly through a lot of the slender threads that make society work. Men have provided for and protected women and children since the dawn of humanity -- it's how God made us. When material sustenance flows backwards, through the hands of women to men, it infantilizes them -- until they sit on the couch and game all day and night, detached from reality and responsibility, frozen in amber at 13.
I have no idea how it worked out this way, but my own family looks more like my grandfathers' in some ways than my own parents'. My wife never worked outside the home. There were plenty of moments of sheer terror and resentment that everything seemed to depend on me. But in the end, everything very much depended on God, and he is altogether dependable.
I'm so sorry that you can't talk to anybody about this -- that your dad can only offer, "suck it up" as a platitude, but in some ways he's right. He doesn't know what to tell you to do, because you are living a reality he never did. There really ISN'T anything to do except to bear the burden that's been laid on your shoulders by... well, everybody. My only advice is to keep your head up, looking for opportunity to take reasonable risk, because that's what the parable of the talents is really speaking to -- taking risks. When you have less than you should, risking is hard, but the day my life changed was the day I stepped off the "30 and out" treadmill of being a worker bee in a skilled trade hive, and hung out my own shingle.
I overpaid for everything -- bought my way out of a "not to compete" with 2 years of profit -- and borrowed more money than I had needed to buy the home I was living in. But that day was the day everything changed for me professionally. I was no longer somebody's "boy", I was my own man. I'm not sure if your skill has that opportunity or not, but being beholden to nobody else is the place I'd try to get if I were you.
... and God is with you. Commit all of this to Him: build whatever rainy day fund is possible, and then strike when the opportunity presents itself. The deck is absolutely stacked against you, but the world shall not overcome you.
God bless you, brother.
very wise words
thank you for posting them
Thank you, brother, for your very thoughtful reply! Those here on this Substack, two friends, and a few select websites that I frequent are what keeps me here, engaged with ideas and events that I agree with, as well as one that challenge me and ones that I may entirely disagree with. So I thank you all for your support and for such a high quality discussion.
God has blessed me greatly, and watched over me, especially during some very key times in my life thus far (and even now). It is staggering. I look at what others around have or don't have, what others around the world have and don't have, and it's just...I am stupendously wealthy. In good family, in being able-bodied, in having a roof, money for food, a car to commute in that I actually chose, even just a single bike or tool is considerable. Ultimately, if we are Christians, we believe we are sons and daughters of God, which is a worth, value, and status that cannot be revoked. Everything else is gravy.
For a lot of us, either with drive or having been gifted and progressed in our careers and abilities, when we encounter scenarios or times that deny us of that ability to do what we do best, we can get bent out of shape. The thoroughbred REALLY wants to run and to race, but goes a bit crazy when he or she is stuck giving pony rides in a tiny fenced-in circle. My dad and one of my brothers are self-employed, and I've heard the encouragement to do so many times, and it is not unwarranted! Making that jump from (happy) contributor in a company to my own boss is something I've only dabbled with. If a system and culture are good, and the product and ethos are solid, I will gladly invest and push things along. That is my base programming, as an individual contributor.
I do have a couple of mental hang-ups that keep me from fully transitioning to independent work. Some are difficult to articulate, while others are easier, like 1) risk 2) having a path/idea well enough figured out to give it a go (so, #1) and 3) having the option (in my head, real or imagined) to not have to strike out on my own. Present factors that should aid this entrepreneurial pursuit are enough of a financial footing to not need bailing out in two months, various skills and abilities with the desire for excellence, support of family, and enough "screw this!" internal motivation to make it work should I reach the point of needing it. Restriction #2 is more or less the lynchpin. I want a *good* idea and product to make and sell. No trinkets, no quick buck stuff; I want long range, durable, noble, essentially a number of the qualities of God that we also see in his creation. I have explored a few ideas, and the legs aren't there (too niche) or I need to revisit them after finding a different production solution. I have that, and I'm off to the races.
I am thankful things have worked out well for you, truly, through hard work, good work, prudence, and risk-taking. The older I get, the more I see commonality in the mindsets of those who are self-employed, and in that way it is reassuring that such a mind and drive are one of the many personality types God has created among us humans, and it doesn't mean my brain is broken, it's just different. Such a mindset will be something I will need to adapt to and learn if I am to do it fully and well. The last few years have been "shaping" (aka character building) in some massively-important ways--again, some hard to put to words--and I feel it building towards something. To loop it back to cars, I do not feel I am 'on cam' yet, but that time is coming and man do I want to be there.
I believe you are going to find what you were born to do, friend. Maybe you're already there -- but I believe that whatever it is, you're going to find success beyond what you envision right now. Godspeed, brother.
I was going to bring it up, but I don't know what to say other than: he is dead right, but the chattering-class media is fake and lame and grown men shouldn't be trying to join it anyway.
felt that in my soul
I'd go a couple of steps further backward and hit up various media types like Fred Allen from the later days of radio (he didn't make it too far when TV came out, he was possibly the very first TV celebrity to actually have a face for radio).
If you're trying to overpower someone with astounding yet insulting prose and also confuse the hell out of them at the same time, start readin' the written works of folks from the 1920's and 1930's (Arthur Weigall talked soooo much shit about the Egyptians and Germans in "The Glory of the Pharoahs", published 1923), or better yet, focus on proper British humor/insults (the Goon Squad is a great start, or even Terry Pratchett), they have at least a thousand more years of misery versus Americans in which they honed their literary and language craft, these people know how to freaking insult and overpower with the written word.
Don't bother going as far back as Twain, he comes across as someone who's merely half-assing his way through insulting various people and cultures.
Re: Sam Clemens:
100%
"but the chattering-class media is fake and lame and grown men shouldn't be trying to join it anyway."
(Displays half-confused, half-disgusted countenance in regards to why anyone was losing any sleep about being excluded from those types of institutional antiques, I figured out I wasn't wanted fairly early and thus didn't blow an education on trying to join a closed club)
The question is: how deeply has this DEI/"get Whitey" thinking infected non-media professions? Have young white males been blacklisted in...oh, let's say...engineering?
My son graduates in six months. We're about to find out. I pray daily he finds good work immediately. That might be just what it takes to de-radicalize me. Because ever since the Covidiocy, man, am I angry.
My son is 35, white, smart, even-keeled in a way his dad isn't.
He had a tough time breaking in -- but once through the door, has excelled. He's got girl-bosses for sure, but don't underestimate your son's ability to navigate the "new normal" in ways that you and I cannot.
Things that lock me up with anger roll off his back, because he's so used to needing to be better than his peers, that it's just part of who he is. And during the next "correction", it will still be merit that keeps a job in a big company, no matter how much nonsense the big company HR department has been spewing.
Engineering, accounting, and finance (and OBVIOUSLY, the skilled trades) are the last best hopes for competent young men to rise above the noise.
In the same way that I've known a few Gen X women who used their sex appeal to become executives, the Gen Z male executive will be someone whom women want to fuck.
You may be right. I'd have been SOL had I been born into that reality. Just flatly SOL.
I would say that understanding women has put an extra half million dollars into my pocket over the years. Of course, I've spent it all and then some.
Yes, it has. Men can call each other out for stupid behavior that you have to tiptoe around with women or God forbid non white women. And old white simps will go to the mat for them.
"And old white simps will go to the mat for them."
Quoted for truth. This is one of the reasons young men have, with justification, wanted to kill old men since the dawn of time. It's why Seeking Arrangement has turned a whole generation of young women from wives to whores for the elderly.
"The question is: how deeply has this DEI/"get Whitey" thinking infected non-media professions? Have young white males been blacklisted in...oh, let's say...engineering?"
Don't go into the medical field, they'll be trampled unless they're batting for the other team and perpetually trying to out-girl the girls.
My brief foray into the world of banking revealed the same thing (something of a unintentional comedy story with Wells Fargo), Men Not Allowed...unless you're a non-threatening mental eunuch, I called out my psycho girlboss department manager for the crap she was allowing, and I sat at her desk and pointed out how much of a failure she was as a human being while security took their sweet time to get to her office to escort me out, and then when the guards saw and heard what I was doing, they took their sweet ass time getting me out of her office because they hated her just as much as I did.
I was laughing as was escorted out and even high-fived two of the guards as I left, especially after they found out why I was fired: upon hearing one of the females cackling happily about another woman suddenly finding out that her house had just burned down, I asked another employee, "is she drunk or something? That other lady just lost her house and she's laughing about it?"
That's why I was fired. The cackler was never pulled into the office, nor was the batting-for-the-other-team, male lower-level supervisor who was bragging rather loudly about how he was painfully ravaged by another man during a romantic weekend getaway, in earshot of other employees who were on phones with customers, all just about 15 minutes before my incident happened.
I should note that my direct supervisor dressed a bit like a slut, wearing mini-skirts 24-7 (they were almost a shirt), and actually had three arrow tattoos on the inside of both thighs (among other arrows), six arrows in all pointing directly to her female nether regions, as if the men she dated weren't too brilliant on where to put things in a hurry.
But hey, only the best and brightest are hired for Wells Fargo, right?
There is one person in the article who realizes that after a few years working as a journalist. He says something like, "I'm not a particularly manly man but I realized I was the most masculine person around here and didn't fit in."
Honestly, that's how I always felt in automotive journalism. My thoughts were something like "I read poetry and philosophy for a decade, I help stray animals, I work white collar jobs. Why am I the MOST TOXIC MASCULINE MAN in autowriting?"
A good write up, but I don't like the overly broad strokes. I'm a Millennial "technically" and I have had a far different experience than millennials 5 years or even 10 years younger than me. Talking about folks in the Gen-x or millennial category is a bit reductive.
The way this is written one would think I hit the Millennial jackpot then. Granted, I'm not in a journalism field, but I saw that in the mid twenty-teens the was a huge push for diversity in engineering and sciences. It's more outcome driven and not in the spotlight like writers and media types are.
I hate to reply again to this:
"He blamed the older generation of white men who pulled up the ladder behind them. And he was right to"
Wrong. The very cohorts of this writer forced, via social and economic pressures, for this GenX white dude to roll up the ladder. Does the genX dude care he's white? No. Does he care about his paycheck and what the studios are directing? Absolutely. And where does it come from? This writers very peers whining about diversity.
Shameless plug; we talked about this a few weeks ago and it's now on BAT: https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1984-porsche-911-carrera-coupe-74/
I saw my first Singer last summer and sir, that Singer ain't got nothing on your car.
You flatter me
Scrolled to the comments and saw your first one about the respray. Immediately my mind went to “some non-bidder is going to cry about Glasurite.” It was quite literally the next comment.
That’s a good looking car, I hope you get all of the money for it.
I really wanted to ask him if he was going to bid
Don’t waste your time. You’ve already been very responsive to the real questions and supplied good answers. You are already doing the best thing any seller can do.
On the car I bought on BaT, there was a bidder who upped the price out of the blue, so I looked up his BaT history. This jerk bid on the car I ended up winning, and his bid was his 50th standalone bid on BaT. He never stayed around to bid again a second time on any of the 50 cars he bid on, nor did he ever win an auction. All I can guess is that he had psychological problems. Ignore the trolls.
You don't want to be argumentative with any of the commenters. They'll band together to sink your auction. Just try to stay positive and keep pushing info and photos out throughout the week.
Of course, thanks for the tip! I’m going to go weigh it after breakfast and post that. I lost my last scale receipt.
Your response is solid.
You could also create multiple user accounts and have them be the argumentative types.
ah the cia tactic
very nice
its so peak
hope it makes you rich
Ehh I doubt it. I'll settle for fair market value.
What is fair market value? 911s can be astronomically expensive or relatively inexpensive for no obvious reason to those of us who don’t know all the fine details that make one more special than another.
Looks like it could be bought and driven for years? Seems like a good car to buy if you want to actually put miles on it.
Completely right Scott! I don’t think this one has any special provenance. If someone who knows how much better these are modified wants its, maybe 85, if it’s all the closer-to-stock=closer-to-godliness people, maybe 65. Having recently realized that I’m maybe 30-40 into this, on top of purchase, I’m hoping for a bidding war! The whole point of selling is to get $$.
A mid 80s, Guards Red whale tail has been on my bucket list for a long time. Seems like a super nice example that’ll be far more attainable than a 930 to most interested parties. Hopefully it does very well for you.
Buy it and I'll ship it for free.
I’m up to 8 right now with the daily (eek!). I’d need to thin the collection…which I probably should anyhow. Tempting car for sure.
I might be as bad as Jack but at least he has a barn.
I'll bet he lets you park some in his.
I’m sure he would haha
She’s gorgeous. Interesting history including Hawaii and Alaska. I’m no expert on the mechanicals and couldn’t care less; I’m in love with her….
(Pleasant sigh)
That’s a really nice car, excellent mods. What a 911 is supposed to be. Shall we start a pool as to what day some jerkoff asks for how many range 2 counts from the DME overrev report?
Hat tip to the Alaska plates, no one has figured that out yet, they all head to Montana….
That's very nice!
Since this is a CAR-oriented stack not a TRUCK-oriented stack,
The obvious big news of the week is Porsche throwing in the towel on Macan and mid-engined/718 EVs. It's now hurry up and find a way to build new substructures to carry the fab 4.0 liter 6 on the 718's. I imagine it will be easier on the Macan. The math must have really not added up.
Imagine that, even us pussy Porsche Boxster/Cayman sports car guys didn't want an EV. I can't speak for anyone who wants an EV Macan and barely any who wated an ICE Macan, but that's a diff story.
I know it's the dumbest thing since the "Frasier" reboot, but I'm madly in love with Boxsters and Caymans (the 'S' variety, gots to have at least one extra letter on the back, and it's more the Cayman versus the Boxster), but I don't fit in the 986 cars (left shoulder is into the rollbar mount), have no business buying a 987, and the wife loves the Macan.
I don't think I'll ever have either in the driveway.
987 prices are rising.
Unless you're really fat, you can fit fine even at 6:4 or 5 in a 987 Cayman. Just don't go for the fixed bucket seats, which are expensive as hell and impossible to find.
My head's in the roof a bit with the 987 Caymans. It's workable, I just have to be able to justify that kind of purchase, which at this point, I can't.
Somehow the 987 Caymans (and Boxsters for that matter) had this reputation of being hideous. I've always thought they were cool looking and never understood the knock against them. But then again, I used to have a 986 Boxster S, so anything 987 was quite an upgrade...
The Cayman was the last independent Porsche design before they got in with VW. The 987 was the only one of the mids that had a bespoke interior, the 986 shared with the 996, the 981/718 essentially got the corporate interior of the 997 era.
I don't know of anyone who thinks the 987 Cayman is hideous. The roofline and hips are gorgeous and have been widely praised. If you look at the stampings aside from the doors and hood shared with the 997, every single body panel is intricate compound curves.
I suspect that the "hideous" tag came from...911 owners.
I'm guessing you're right.
If you ever listen to some of these Hagerty podcasts like Jason and Derek's, they love to trash on the 987's looks. I've never understood it.
"Egad! My father was killed once by a 987, but he eventually recovered! Stay away!"
I knew that Porsche would have to backtrack on its EV dreams (as did anyone else whose paycheck didn't depend on carbon cronyism or virtuous vanity). Let's just hope that it doesn't kill the company. I'd love to see the t-hybrid in a Cayman.
It’s crazy that they want to turn the EV platform into an ICE platform instead of keeping and/or improving the current ICE platform.
They would have to admit they screwed up and that platform was already 10 years old. The ostensible reason for getting rid of it in the first place was it couldn't meet the EUs software security directives. They stopped selling them in the EU a year or more ago. That was always a lie of course, but they were hell bent on EVs to kowtow to Brussels and VW. It will be easier to create a new substructure that replaces the battery pack and combine it with the current 911 screens and telemetry crap than to go back to the old chassis that had NO development work on it to speak of for years.
"Imagine that, even us pussy Porsche Boxster/Cayman sports car guys didn't want an EV."
Nobody ever thought they did. The purpose was to further elevate the 911, because the mooks at Porsche think they have 80% of Ferrari's brand equity and value instead of the 25% they actually have.
I had Dave Engelmann, who was running Porsche PR at the time, publicly tell me that people like me didn't mean enough to Porsche for the company to listen to our opinion. At the time I had an 18 month old Boxster S 550 and a 7 year old 911.
"I had Dave Engelmann, who was running Porsche PR at the time, publicly tell me that people like me didn't mean enough to Porsche for the company to listen to our opinion. At the time I had an 18 month old Boxster S 550 and a 7 year old 911."
Yeah, that's the other side of Porsche I'm not too crazy about: No matter what I do, I'll be viewed as if I'm Cousin Eddie standing in the Porsche dealer lot, looking for a place to clean out my shitter. To that end, I'll just hang on to my white trash 5th gen Camaro and drive that until something typically GM-related happens to the car.
You mean like my '22 Colorado, with less than 35,000 miles at this point, getting a fist through the touchscreen because it kept making unauthorized phone calls to random numbers in my Call History queue?
(Points in that direction like Bruce Willis in the movie "Bonfire of the Vanities")
This is the huge problem with the world today, we have so many more rich people living now, that these companies have zero incentive to serve the working class.
There is a butt for every $300,000 seat plus 50%.
Why build cars for the unwashed masses?
The “K” shaped economy is here.
From "K cars" to "K-shaped economy" :(
I don't think so, I think the EV Boxster was supposed to elevate the Boxster by differentiating the power train from the 911. They screwed the pooch on separating the mid engined cars in 2017 using turbo 4s, which backfired. Buyers thought the 4cyl was downscale and Subie-like, never mind the engine was terrific (I had one). So they had buyers coming in who (1) liked sports cars and driving them quickly, who (2) made the rich dentist who wanted a "sports car" and got a 911 look dumb, and (3) drove the brand in the opposite direction than they intended.
By 2021 they admitted they were lying about the 4 cylinder in the first place (emissions, packaging issues) and lopped the turbo off the 3.0 liter in the Carrera, bored it out to 4 liters and magically made it fit the 718. Now they had an engine that the 911 didn't have, a NA 6 cylinder that they later cranked up to almost 500 HP for the GT4 RS and Spyder RS, both of which got into 911 price territory. Mind you, these were cars basically designed by the end of 2016 with the 981 GT4. They let the Boxster GTS and Cayman GTS stick around until last month at least partially by shamelessly raising prices into the $130,000s when optioned "right."
The EV Boxster would have pitched the "brand" at the saddo who wanted to be seen in a Tesla without associating with Elon, AND who wouldn't buy a 911 with a nasty ICE anyways. When they planned it EVs were seen as goosing the "brand" , now it's the other way. Hence the 180° turnaround.
Yeah, I can see that, but I also know that there are insane people at Porsche who think the 911 can eventually sell for 296 GTB money, and that therefore the Cayman will sell for 911 money, and so on.
Give me a Nissan Z instead. I almost never see them but I notice them when I do. I don’t notice 911’s anymore.
Too bad Nissan doesn’t offer a bunch of colors for the Z like the 911 has.
Anyone who drives the current Z for 50 miles will want to buy one.
It is exactly what the 280ZX Turbo was: faster than 95% of the traffic around you with a great ride and plenty of features. The people who gripe about it being an old platform are demented. Nobody can name a single good thing about "new platforms" since 2015.
That “old platform” line is just a recurring tiresome theme in car reviews that is then repeated online ad nauseum. I just ignore it.
I finally saw a Z here in Hooterville. I think they’re great. How come Nissan can integrate a screen tastefully into the dash and no other car company can?
I just happened to see an original 240Z a few months ago at my local Publix. I forgot just how small that car was. But wow are they beautiful! This one was a beater that one of the kids working at Publix was driving, but what a looker.
OLD PLATFORMS:
Jaguar XJ
Mini
Porsche 901
Range Rover
Saab 99/900
Volvo 200
VW Type 1
Chevrolet Rounded Line ("Square Body")
Chrysler LA/LC
Ford Panther
Ford Falcon
What's not to like?
"Give me a Nissan Z instead. I almost never see them but I notice them when I do. I don’t notice 911’s anymore."
I picked up a 2005 G35 Sport couple three years ago for this exact purpose, it was a bit of a go-kart like many 911's and Boxsters that I had driven, but for whatever stupid reason, I didn't really notice until after I had driven the thing a while that I was entirely too large for the freaking car (left shoulder is jammed into the door panel, I'm skeletally too wide for the seat), and so it's the wife's toy now, and she's having a blast in the thing.
I'm still eyeballing 370Z's just in case they've magically widened the things inside, but the actual dimensional numbers aren't looking good, especially when even my cranium is the size of a terrifyingly-overinflated basketball.
That G35 is a nice clean design. I always liked those.
Every Macan EV I've seen on the lot is something like $130k. Who is going to pay that for a compact crossover?
Rich Californians?
Maybe for their daughters.
Shameless plug number 2:
https://auto-europe-sales.ebizautos.com/details-2012-porsche-cayman-well_maintained_and_optioned_cayman_r_-used-wp0ab2a88cu792183.html
This will go on BAT early next year. Presently on consignment with the local Lotus dealer and Indy shop that knows it well. 39,000 miles, carbon fiber buckets, 6sp, Peridot Green, the perfect Cayman R trifecta.
Avoidable Contact note, the first time I met Jack was at Grattan, a Michigan track. The organizer pulled some favors and got the state troopers to look the other way, this was May,
2020. We got together for a couple days of get on the track and go.
Jack told me I had very good taste in cars, and that he could find me a couple of seconds. This is that car folks.
C R I S P
lawd it looks good
Ooooh, pretty.
Gawd Damn!
Would I be out of line asking the group in this thread for any music teaching app / website suggestions? Christmas is coming and I was thinking it could be fun to have an indoor activity where we (myself and two kids) all try to learn an instrument.
Going to pin this, although we are late in the timeline. I don't know a good app or site to recommend, honestly.
Have you looked into Rick Beato's materials?
Worst case, his interviews are fascinating.
What instrument are you thinking?
Between Piano and Guitar. Piano might be easier for the kids, although I think my son might be more excited about guitar. They love Doulingo (kid's focused app that makes it fun to learn languages). Been trying to find something similar for music. I stumbled across SimplyPiano; was considering it.
My wife has a... 5 year? long unbroken duolingo streak. Used to be all Spanish, but she's started Italian a few months before our honeymoon there, and lately she's also been doing the math and music courses (i'm not sure why she does the music lessons because she's been playing alto sax for 15 years)
Check out Rocksmith. Like Guitar Hero but with a real guitar. It’s pretty fun, they have a selection of Rock songs you can play. I can’t say whether it’s as effective as taking guitar lessons (surely not) but it is fun!
I can’t speak to piano, but for guitar, best would be 1:1 lessons with a teacher either in person or via Zoom. Zoom is actually kinda cool in you can record and watch them later with something like snag it. YT videos is next. The thing about an app is you don’t get good feedback on technique and mechanics, so if you learn bad habits, you have to work to undo later vs continuing to progress. Hope this helps!
I had a piano app that I loved - but never got to use it after the arrival of kid 2. I think it’s called SimplyPiano . Somewhat expensive yet excellent !
"Would I be out of line asking the group in this thread for any music teaching app / website suggestions?"
Yes.
How dare you ask for help with something that isn't directly related to the topics of this particular submission, AND you're asking for this help RIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS?
You terrorist bastard.
Me personally, while I don't have any "site" selections, I do have two ideas:
1. Buy gingerbread house kits for everyone in the household, they're probably on sale right now anyway.
Also see if you can hit up some thrift stores for random trophies, it doesn't matter what they're for, the more random the better, with the general idea being, hold a competition on Christmas Eve and see who can build the ugliest gingerbread house, with bonus points being awarded for "Least Likely To Be Eaten By Anyone Who Still Has Functioning Eyes" and "Most Likely To Collapse And Kill Everyone Inside If This Were A Real House", literally pencil something on paper slips and tape them to the trophies.
Also allow for the addition of exactly one random thing to include in the instruction that isn't included in the kit.
2. Snap up some toy pianos, something with enough keys to do "Jingle Bells" a decent amount of justice, and, you included, each of you write a butchery of Jingle Bells akin to "Batman Smells", but also give yourselves one random three-syllable word (engineering terms would work) to try to rhyme against and play it after the gingerbread house thing.
I mention these pianos not because they're fun to do terrible renditions of any sort of serious work on, they are, however, a fairly solid thing to start out with, depending on how many keys they have. They're also usually pretty cheap.
Hah! Sorry for the late reply - just seeing this now! I really dig the gingerbread ideas. I am going to pick some up. Kids (and I) are off between Christmas and the New Year - and it's cold in New England, so trying to find things to enjoy indoors.
"trying to find things to enjoy indoors."
Well, in that case, there's always the good old traditional winter not-out-of-doors pastimes of indoor skeet shooting and flying model rockets ("F" engines and above)...that way, the children learn all about indoor gun safety and altitude tracking all from the safety of being inside the home.
I'm just glad to have been of some help, and Merry Christmas to you, sir.
The Kindle Edition of Cat Tales is now available here:
https://amzn.to/3ME7JVE
For the next 90 days, it's free to read via Kindle Unlimited.
The paperback edition is also out, but it has a few minor errors in it that will be corrected within the next 48 hours. If you want to have the equivalent of the Billy Ripken "F*** Face" baseball card, you can get it before Christmas using this link:
https://amzn.to/48YqM4k
Everyone else: I'll be emailing when the final form of the paperback is out.
Did you self publish?
If so, what software did you use?
Vivek pulled a stereotypical "allow me to explain your country's identity to you and how it includes me" in today's New York Times. An important response: https://news.gab.com/2025/12/vivek-ramaswamy-is-wrong-about-everything/
Sir, do you identify as a Heritage American?
I sure do. It's like a heritage turkey or a heritage grain, except cute chicks don't gloat over me at the farmer's market.
That may be my first brush with Andrew Torba. He seems to be quite comfortable leaning on the racism fence.
Torba is an unapologetic Christian nationalist.
The "Christian" part is important to emphasize. He appears to bear no ill will towards people of other races. He simply doesn't want them in America, the same way most Chinese or Japanese or Nigerians don't want more foreigners in their country.
I never fail to chuckle when I see him end something with "Christ Is King". Unfortunately we now live in a world where at least 45% of Americans read "Christ Is King" as "Fuck You, Bitch," which is, I think, how Torba means it.
"The "Christian" part is important to emphasize. He appears to bear no ill will towards people of other races. He simply doesn't want them in America, the same way most Chinese or Japanese or Nigerians don't want more foreigners in their country."
responding to this becuase of how very true it is and how most people have no idea what people mean by it
telling a group of people to be your best and most successful selves in your own country isnt hateful
And that's pretty much what it means. It's entirely antithetical to what you think it might mean on its face.
My father's family has been in this country since the 1840s. Does that give me standing to discuss American identity? I do like hot dogs, apple pie, baseball, and Detroit style coneys.
From my perspective, certainly!
And 1840 was long before United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923) and a full century before Luce–Celler (1946), which increased the annual quota of Indian immigration from ZERO to 100/year (which was considered a significant change).
I don't see the Jewish community benefitting from mass migration of Muslims or Indians:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyvxke3wgko
"Bondi Beach gunman originally from India, police say"
very annoying how a muslim can gun down a jew in the latest salvo of a millennia old semetic feud and somehow the white guy gets the punishment
But they still don't know the attackers' motives!
"I don't see the Jewish community benefitting from mass migration of Muslims or Indians:"
Bondi Beach gunman was stopped by an unarmed Muslim, actually...so....
and if there werent any muslims there at all there wouldnt even be a shooting
Correct, because Australia isn't a US school!
The shooter was an Indian Muslim
Two shooters. The father, Indian immigrant. The son was born in Australia (so Indian heritage but not an immigrant).
And the guy who tackled one of them while unarmed was apparently a Syrian Muslim.
And the Australian cop who shot them, killing the father, apparently did so from 40 meters away with a handgun, which is a hell of a shot when under stress...props to him....
I read he was a Christian Maronite.
Probably early reporting--Guardian, Al-jazeera, CBS, and Fox call him a Muslim; CNN doesn't seem to mention his religion either way.
coptic?
[Future readers: discussion continued at]: https://www.avoidablecontact.com/p/sunday-ot-american-castes-waymo-safe/comment/191124646
Ronnie, which Coney? And briefly, what are the differences between the two, found next door to one another?
now youre asking the good questions
I couldn't tell you, neither is kosher. Some friends of mine ran a kosher coney place for a while.
Lafayette gets more disgusting inspection reports leading to closures. American is bigger, probably not as good but less likely to make you ill.
2 coneys +fries is a good meal once a year.
DULYS!
I try to make it there every time I'm in town.
Drop me a line next time!
I’m sorry, that does not meet MY elevated standards with regard to Heritage American identity.
I am the direct descendant of a signatory of the Declaration of Independence.
Therefore, unless any of you have inherited similar credentials, you must defer to my point of view, which is that Vivek is correct and that we don’t need DEI for white people who were born in America.
not even one of the original settlers from the mayflower?
im calling ice on you
Well my fore-bearers WERE on the Mayflower, so I trump Sherman.
Did they sign the Declaration of Independence?
Were they just “in” what became America or did they actually create value?
My family arrived in Charleston around 1690, but unfortunately were not available to sign the Declaration. They did manage to make a lot of money and have a county named after us in Tennessee. We lost it all after the War of Northern Aggression and became poor white trash until my father became the first to attend college after the fall. I am Heritage American and am damn proud of it.
sorry to hear that
You’re Siberian-Canadian? Like a walk across the Bering land bridge Canadian?
If so, good genes! Congrats!
While that’s admirable, it does not meet my standards. I’m sorry.
You must be the most “Heritagest” American imaginable to commentate with authority on this topic. Like me.
Perhaps anyone who is not part of the blood and soil of the founding fathers should just fuck off back to wherever they came from?
i guess we both agree with lincoln on remigration then
Time to make common cause with our Native American friends!
Unfortunately, since you turned your back on your own people and don’t own a pickup, your heritage card has been revoked.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
The family of my oldest friend was once wealthy and owned several thousand acres throughout western Pennsylvania. Until the Great Depression hit.
They were wiped out and gradually sold off the land to stay afloat, the last few acres going on the market upon the death of my friend's grandmother.
She didn't trust banks. When they were cleaning out her house, they found about a quarter-million in cash in an old dryer in the basement.
Some of the bills dated back to 1930.
9th Great Grandfather Isaac Willey landed in Boston circa 1630 and in 1645 settled New London, CT with John Winthrop Jr.
Just before my GTI reached it's untimely end I had left the gravesite of his descendant, Absalom Willey, my 3rd G Grandfather. His Grandfather, also named Absalom, was with Washington crossing the Delaware Christmas 1776.
Also part of the family is Waitman Willey, one of the founders of West Virginia. My own personal opinion though is WV would have been better off left part of Virginia so I consider him the Black Sheep.
I checked with my wife, who is a direct descendant of one of the signers of the VT constitution (pre-dating the US constitution) and she disagrees with your point of view. Does that count?
It's fun watching Sherman rediscover and implement the fallacy of the beard in real time, please say nothing.
My tenth great-grandfather was on the Mayflower. Another came in 1628 and founded Lynn, Mass. Which all means absolutely nothing other than an interesting fact
You + Me means Sherman has to buy us cigars.
Lynn, Lynn, city of sin...
I'm going to need to see the 23 and Me report before I can trust your claims as fact.
It's going to contain 11% dog DNA.
One of his great-grandmothers would have been a popular content creator.
I'm third-generation Native American myself.
Both sides of my family have been Americans for at least three generations. My mom's grandfather brought his family to the New World in the late 1800s and forbade then from ever speaking German again, as they were Americans now. My dad's folk showed up sometime between the War of 1812 and the annexation of Texas, as Ireland had become too something-or-other for them. Poor, I guess.
I was born in Jersey. How ya fuckin' doin'?
"I was born in Jersey"
so youre actually italian is what youre saying
Sorry, hills of north Jersey. As in, I lived two miles from Action Park till I was 10.
Which actually goes a long way toward explaining why I am the way I am. That whole area was full of high-powered microwave towers and leaded water and radon and at least one abandoned quarry where they wanted to dump all that radioactive dirt.
wait is that the same action park that injured a shitload of kids?
Lmao😂
My grandmother was born in Southwest Washington State in 1901 in a German community and didn’t learn English until she went to school. There were a lot of German speakers and cultural societies in Southwest Washington until around 1914
"My mom's grandfather brought his family to the New World in the late 1800s and forbade then from ever speaking German again, as they were Americans now."
My mom and her side of the family are from Estonia, so from her side of things, I'm her firstborn American offspring.
And yes, I didn't learn but maybe two or three words in Estonian the entire time.
And also yes, I wasn't too terribly impressed with my grandmother's side of the family in Estonia (freaking financial parasites), so after a point, I stopped caring.
"My father's family has been in this country since the 1840s. Does that give me standing to discuss American identity?"
No.
If your family had been in this country since the 1839's, however, yes, you'd be welcomed with open arms to discuss American identity.
And what the hell are you implying by that comment?
sherman is accusing him of being indian
or something
I have established above that my Heritage American bona fides are not in question. Unless you are ALSO a direct descendant of one of Founding Fathers - like me - you must defer to my superior perspective on this subject.
My own lineage being entirely indecipherable beyond two or three generations, what if I went to a public university named after one of the signatories to the Declaration of Independence. Does that count?
On the premises.
I bet they'd be ashamed.
You're not the only one here who can trace their family's presence here to before the revolution.
Of which Founding Father are you a direct descendant?
None of them, nor did I so claim. Simply that my family has been here since the 1600s. One of my ancestors fought under Washington in the revolutionary war.
I shall use this perch of similar moral superiority to declare that non Anglo immigration was a mistake.
Benedict Arnold's Heritage American bona fides were also not in question, and he sold out this country like the self-centered son-of-a-bitch he was. Maybe I'm making your point for you here; I'm not sure. I'll just say that it's frankly risible for you of all people to pretend you're an authority on all things American.
Based on the beliefs of this group - Heritage = GOOD, Other = BAD - I am the authority.
And yet the nattering nabobs purport to argue with me regarding Heritage America.
The problem with you using the term "nabob" is that you're the only one of those here. Nabobs, to the best of my knowledge, are persons with a shitload of money and fuck-all else to justify their existence, which describes you down to a T.
My father was killed once by a nabob.
He eventually recovered, but spent many years after his death walking around like the one guy in that one Bug Bunny cartoon, repeating the name "Hansel?" several times before walking off the cartoon, stage right.
i dont but vivek is still a retard
Certainly says something that in the current Trump admin made up of exclusively con-men and grifters, he somehow couldn’t manage to stick around in any real capacity.
not everyone is cut out for the big leagues
He is just too virtuous. Too smart.
He will be President one day.
The first president to know 75% of the words to “Lose Yourself”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaGb5ooswYA
imagine how much more interesting presidential debates would be if there was a battle rap portion
"He will be President one day."
I'm hoping it will be President of a local chapter of Daughters of the American Revolution.
Under Vivek, the membership will look like the membership of "ITServe".
"Certainly says something that in the current Trump admin made up of exclusively con-men and grifters, he somehow couldn’t manage to stick around in any real capacity."
"Sorry, but we have actual standards around these here parts of the White House!"
Worse
You, sir, are my favorite Snow Mexican of all time, eclipsing such eminences as Gordon Lightfoot, 80% of The Band, and a significant proportion of the Guess Who.
thanks heaps
consider me deeply flattered to be compared to such luminaries
I like him more now that I know this new and delightful nickname!
I’ll also rank you ahead of them but slightly behind Ferguson Jenkins. ;-)
dont know who that is but i appreciate the comment nonetheless
And Nickelback, of course, is at the very bottom! In the basement, even!
nickelback is great shut the fuck up
How has this guy even gotten to the point where he was a potential candidate for president and now running for Governor of Ohio? Even leaving aside my read of his vibe, his track record just says out loud that he's shady sales dude.
Probably kickstarted his campaigns by self-funding.
I think everyone assumed that Jim Tressel would allow himself to be crowned Governor For Life; when he declined, it became a battle of the third-tier grifters.
It's astounding that Tressel wouldn't take the job. We wouldn't even need the formality of an election.
I'd have moved back to Ohio if Jim Tressel became governor.
No, actually I'd hope that someone on his staff would come up here to be a successful governor, much like how Mark Dantonio came to MSU and coached them into the playoff that one year and beat scUM on the regular.
It speaks volumes that Jim Tressel - who thrived in the world of NCAA football - looked at politics and said "No thanks, that's too corrupt."
It's a shame. Everyone knows the great things he accomplished at Ohio State, but he also did great things as president of Youngstown State.
Hell, he was the man who took the rap for "Tattoogate"!
Although from what my OSU football player acquaintances say, John Cooper was the worst in that regard.
I really don't think he was corrupt in any way. Nothing his players did was really that bad. Just like the Reggie Bush stuff.
Good God, Buckeye Nation would have made it the biggest landslide in history!
Regarding "his people," Vivek was slated to be the keynote speaker at the ITServe convention, but pulled out at the last minute. Aside from whether ITServe violates RICO and FARA, notice anything about its the leadership? This is what Vivek's "meritocracy" looks like:
https://itserve.org/leadership-2025/
They charge a thousand bucks to be a member... it's a meta-parasite, like the wasps inside the fleas.
Fun fact, Vivek and Pete Buttigieg were both on camera organically asking questions on the same msnbc 2004 Hardball college tour, what are the odds of THAT! The mind wobbles…
https://xcancel.com/AuronMacintyre/status/2001460726733414895#m
Auron MacIntyre @AuronMacintyre
It’s not really Christmas until Vivek tells you that you aren’t an American but most of India is
https://xcancel.com/AgitpropMaster/status/2001482713275171209#m
Tuor Eladar @AgitpropMaster
It’s like the exact opposite of a yearly scheduled airing of “It’s a Wonderful Life”
A "Merry Rejoinder":
https://www.afpost.news/editorials/Vivek-Steals-Christmas
Vivek Ramaswamy’s developed a weird yuletide tradition. Every Christmas, it seems, he mounts his sleigh and slides down your feed — not to deliver gifts, but to tell you what counts as an American. A year ago at this time, it was “anyone smart enough to take a job from a middle class earner.” That take alone sufficed to drum him out of Trumpworld within a month — but he’s undeterred. A year later — just in time to lose us another governorship — in an op-ed for the New York Times , he’s back with an even broader definition: "Anybody who likes America or American-sounding stuff.'
Re: Amy Acton, Vivek, Casey
Unpopular opinion: divided government is far more effective than supermajority rule
Take West Virginia. Our legislature is almost completely Republican (two Dems in the State Senate, one of whom votes with the GOP about 80% of the time). Our governor is Republican. There isn’t a Democrat in statewide office.
And it’s a quagmire. Completely dysfunctional. The Republicans have divided themselves into camps of 1) traditional, jobs-and-tax-reform Republicans and 2) people who believe public schools should be abolished, abortion outlawed with no exceptions, etc. The latter camp, which preponderates, refuses to even engage on real issues, preferring red meat bills that are, ahem, full of sound and fury, accomplishing nothing. Usually they include some new way to sue or otherwise torment businesses (the personal injury lawyers have found easy marks among many gullible legislators). The GOP governor needs both sides’ support, and won’t pick a lane. Problems mount, nothing ever really gets done.
A Democrat governor basically solves this. The republicans would be unable to pass the red meat through the Gov’s desk (they could override a veto, but in a part-time legislature that’s a tough ask, when most bills are signed after lawmakers leave town). So they’d be forced to focus on things like job growth, economic development, school funding, foster care, etc.
It works in Kentucky, at least from an economic growth/capital investment standpoint. Whatever your thoughts on Beshear, you have to admit that they are one of the few primary beneficiaries of the American manufacturing growth this year.
All this to say, Acton is your best shot. Vivek would distract the legislature with red meat while plundering the state. Casey just seems like a hack. Acton sucks, but she won’t have much real power and the legislature will have to focus on actually achievable, real goals.
On the other hand, things are going pretty well here in Tennessee by keeping the democrats corralled into Nashville and Memphis local governments.
Doesn't do much good if you don't wall 'em up in there.
Fair. We’ve got Musk digging a tunnel. Wish he’d start a 3D wall printing company.
The weird thing is, it’s the blue cities in red states experiencing all the growth. Even in WV, the only areas experiencing any growth are blue ones. I lived in one (Morgantown) for the past four years. It’s run by a bunch of goofy progressives, and not terribly well, but businesses are moving in so fast they’re literally running out of land (and having to build wonky access roads to develop previously inaccessible land).
Guessing it’s maybe because the red state government sets the business climate and the blue city sets the cultural one which they see as desirable?
Seems to be what's happening in Nashville - downtown offices filled with younger millennials, all the actual decision makers moving to Williamson county...
I agree; one party states often seem to be poorly governed.
(Oregon enters the chat)
... joined by Hellinois.
Sounds like a AA team.
Alcoholics Anonymous has a baseball team?
And NY.
Let's hear from Michigan. Michigan or Minnesota.
I personally don't have many complaints from Michigan. But, we're having yet ANOTHER gas tax increase AND a HUGE weed tax hike AND "Consumers" Energy is hiking natural gas up 10% AND the AI tech lizards want our water and land reeeeeeaaaalllll bad. But, I can own basically any firearm I want, basically any car I want, and our real estate market hasn't *entirely* exploded... Yet
Washington State. We haven’t had a republican governor since 1980.
Detroit: Ruled by Democrats since 1962!
Seattle elected its own Mamdani. She’s talking about city run grocery stores. She’s a democratic socialist in her 40’s, from NY. Her parents are University profs in NY. They sent her 3k a month for childcare, even though her and her partner have no jobs.
This comes to mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VfYH-ThXyI
Is she going to propose (like has been done before) to completely close I-5 thru downtown?
And represented in Congress by a Dingell since 1933!
Nearly 100 years of one family holding a seat in the House of Representatives is completely insane. The current Dingell ought to be primaried out of her seat and close down the family politics business for good.
One of the bright spots was during the 2020 summer of love. Police Chief James Craig kept the protesters from turning into rioters, then he saddled up and prepared a run for governor and likely would have won... except that, somehow, someone found some "irregularities" in the list of signatures compiled in the petitions for his campaign and we're still stuck with Himmler.
The funny part is: the best example of one party rule gone awry is…..West Virginia
We had Democrat majorities until 2015. In the 1990s, there was 1 Republican in the Senate (Donna Boley, who is 90 and still there). Democrat supermajorities absolutely killed the state; a business couldn’t glance at us without getting sued, we spent money in an outrageous fashion, and we were dead broke. They absolutely wrecked the state. Republicans fixed a lot from 2015-2020, and now we’re back to square one.
It must depend on how much power the governor has, both constitutionally and electorally. A dem governor of Ohio would obviously have more electoral power than one in WV based on the partisan margins.
I think it also matters where the cross-partisan governor comes from. Long-time state rep/senator? Probably fine since he'll just cut deals with his former colleagues. A former administrator like Acton? Run. Her closest confidants will be activists running free, like inmates running the asylum. (Whether Republicans can commit themselves to being anything other than wardens of the asylum is a story for another day)
The former Senator deal works well in Kansas, seemingly
"Unpopular opinion: divided government is far more effective than supermajority rule"
As someone who has noted that we have 2 parties: the party of tax and spend, and the party of cut taxes and spend, I agree. The only time we seem to have decreasing national deficits over time is when the Democratic President is constrained by Republican Senate and House.
On the other hand :
“The U.S. budget deficit shrank by $41 billion to $1.775 trillion in the 2025 fiscal year as an increase in revenue from President Donald Trump's tariffs and cuts to education spending helped offset higher outlays on healthcare and retirement programs and interest on the debt, the Treasury Department said on Thursday.”
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-budget-deficit-falls-41-billion-1775-trillion-fiscal-2025-2025-10-16/
Great!
Now our elected representatives just need to cut another $1,734 billion in 2026 to get to zero (non-deficit spending).
And then we can start paying off the $38 trillion debt.
Smh.
A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking about real money....
Ask Ford!
I’ll give your comment a hearty Fuck No. Acton is a million times worse than Vivek for one simple reason: she wants the power to lord over us and make decisions for us. Vivek may be a slimy businessman, but he doesn’t want to nanny state us. And, just maybe, we get an actual effective Doge to cut down the sow of Ohio government. Sorry, but any clear thinking Ohioan voting for Acton is voting to send themselves to a concentration camp if she can find an excuse to build them.
Amy is awful, but Vivek wants you UNEMPLOYED
https://xcancel.com/Aethelleas/status/2001132801442373996
And MARTYRED:
https://globalchristianrelief.org/resources/countries/india/
https://www.timesnownews.com/world/us/us-news/vivek-ramaswamy-hails-great-leader-pm-narendra-modi-says-he-restored-lost-indian-pride-exclusive-article-113669888
How many hours have you spent rowing through the internet sewer looking for ideas that match what you want to think when you could have simply watched the many videos of Vivek engaging with local Ohioans? His social media is littered with his discussions. I can’t imagine trying so hard to believe in such bullshit. Get off-line and try the real world for a change.
That is a lot of ad hominem attacks on me without providing ANY evidence against my claims (which mostly come from his own mouth): true to form Rajesh.
Of course he pretends to talk to "local Ohioans," and some, particularly the aged, are easily hoodwinked.
But I have provided ample evidence from HIS OWN tweets, NYT editorials, and campaign videos about his support for replacing Americans with H-1Bs (which came into focus an entire year ago https://www.newsweek.com/vivek-ramaswamy-h1b-visa-fallout-breaks-social-media-silence-2016523).
Show me ONE time where Vivek criticizes India or Hinduism or ITServe or H-1B visas.
You want him to criticize his ethnicity? To prove what?
Business people like H1B visas. Shocker.
None of that matters to me because I care about individual liberty first. I think Trump is a terrible person yet I voted for him for the same reason.
I recall a bit about your circumstances, so I’ll assume you feel like you were cheated out of something because some undeserving person got it instead. Sorry man, if that is the case. Time to get over it and make something happen.
He doesn't have to criticize his ethnicity. But Indians are waging war against Americans, and in that context, just like a Japanese candidate in WWII or an Arab candidate in 2002, in order to be fit for office, he would need to make clear that he is only loyal to America, but he, on almost a weekly basis, shows that his loyalty is to Indians at the expense of Americans (including his association with ITServe) and his utter contempt for Americans and American culture.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/12/david-brooks-ramaswamy/681188/
"Business people": he's not a business person, he's a fraud:
https://www.newsweek.com/vivek-ramaswamy-fraud-always-has-been-opinion-1823853
"Get over it WHILE I SUPPORT THE COMPLETE TAKEOVER OF THE POLITICAL SYSTEM BY A CARTEL WHO WILL EXPONENTIALLY EXACERBATE THE PROBLEM" is not a reasonable position. This isn't personal; it's a population-scale issue:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/13/style/h1b-visa-young-conservatives-maga.html [inaccurate, but a mainstream publication]
https://www.compactmag.com/article/the-lost-generation/
Are you doing this for reals? Just curious. Most anyone else just talking shit in here sort of leans towards being funny at some point.
my dad--you can't find a stronger constitutionalist american and he immigrated at age 30 in 1923--humorously said decades ago that the mafia could run america more freely--all they'd want is a big cut of your money and you could do whatever the heck you wanted
Well, Vegas was waaay better when it was run by the mob.
"Israel-first".
What an effing grifter. No Democrats, not even Chuck Schumer, are particularly pro Israel except for maybe Fetterman. They're terrified of their hard left flank who think that the biggest victims of the Bondi Beach attack are Muslims.
Short of volunteering for the IDF, idk how much more Pro Israel the likes of Schumer, Jeffries, and Richie Torres or whatever could possibly be.
I will NEVER understand why American Jews don't have their Israeli brethren's backs.
You'd be sOO cute with short hair!
And themselves. Literally hate. Not figurative.
Almost 30 years ago I played hide the sausage with a jewish girl from a family of self-important academic leftists. They voted for every stupid thing coming down the pike, especially if it was against their interests. Proudly. And they would argue loudly with other Jews they encountered if they went to temple or kept holy days because, you know, fuck all that. Be a Soviet, or whatever, as long as you're a cowardly nihilist with soft hands.
Naturally, I have reconnected with them and have been harassi- er, reminding them that their self-loating and stupidity founded entirely on a lack of being useful to the society around them and living in a glass menagerie inside an ivory tower has helped bring this about.
Man, they fucking hate me for reminding them of that. I've been working a laugh react like a lumberjack works a sharp axe. The best part is when they other Jews chime in to defend them and then they start bickering amongst one another.
Leftists are the worst, but also good entertainment online and in meatspace.
maybe its like african blacks and american blacks
I'm not Jewish and won't pretend like I have any authority to speak for, well, anyone, but I'd wager it has a lot to do with the flagrant corruption and war crimes the government of Israel participates in.
Hard to have a lot of sympathy when for years social media feeds were full of IDF soldiers smiling at the horror they created alongside images of literal children bombed into confetti.
I find it difficult to sympathize with the Muslims who want every Israeli dead, for no better reason than that the Israelis are Jews, when the Israelis defeat them time and again.
Never forget the Israelis are fighting an enemy that wants them all dead and believes it has divine mandate to do it by any means necessary.
Yup it’s pretty fucked any way you look at it. Not here to defend Hamas. But also not gonna sit back and say that wantonly murdering tens of thousands of people is good and cool either.
Also to “both sides” an argument that I am impossibly undereducated on, but current zeitgeist makes it so that your last paragraph could also apply to how Israel’s hardliners view Gazans.
The Muslims started the fight with the Israelis. When you mix your military assets in with your civilians and then go pick a fight with neighbors that just want to be left alone and don't fuck around, you don't get to complain when you lose a hospital or a shopping mall to an airstrike.
Muslims playing the world's annoying little brother.
Let me give you an awful alternative to which, AHEM, I do not subscribe:
Jews can't victim-game their way to effective super-citizen status in the United States if they always have Israel as an obvious alternative. You can't be a victim if you have a whole country of your own. So Diaspora Jews undermine Israel to better utilize victimhood in their European and North American host countries.
Not saying I believe that, but I've heard it.
Occam's Katana, that.
your right its not the democrats
its everyone in the govt (aside from like 4 people but whatever)
Would you say the same about Europe Firsters? How many members of Congress advocate pulling out of NATO? The amount of blood and treasure Americans have spent defending Europe over the past 110 years (or Taiwan and Japan for the matter) dwarf whatever aid has been sent to Israel.
Almost all aid to Israel, about 85%, is obligated to be spent on U.S. military hardware. Additionally, the dollar value of Israeli military tech research that is obligated to be shared with the U.S. is about 2.5 times the military aid we send them.
Massie introduced a bill to the latter. The MIC lobby will never allow it, but still.
NATO has no reason to exist. There is no longer a Soviet system. There is just Russia, which is an economic kitten.
I disagree on the last point. They have land, resources, a strategic location with ascendant allies and serious men in charge.
"Would you say the same about Europe Firsters?"
not sure what specifically youre asking about here
"Almost all aid to Israel"
but why on earth are they even getting aid in the first place?
Why are people who support the trillions in military aid we’ve given to Europe not called Europe Firsters? Why is that relationship a given?
Israel gets aid because enough politicians have been persuaded that it is either in America’s best interests or their own personal political interests to do so. Like any other issue in American politics. If you’re going to complain about AIPAC, that puts you on the side of Hillary Clinton in the Citizens United case. Jewish Americans and their allies have the right to make political contributions, even in advocacy for friendly foreign nations, just as have European Americans done for over a century, resulting in the deaths of over 350,000 American servicemembers.
Of course, opponents of aid to Europe can’t rely on centuries old tropes about dual loyalty and perfidious cabals pulling strings.
My Ven diagram doesn't have much overlap at all.
We get 1000x the benefit of aid from Israel as we do for European aid. We get nothing from Europe, except for a Christian heritage, a common history, the Magna Carta, and English Common Law, so nothing in the last 100 years, and precious few in 250. We've received absolutely nothing but a good vacation destination, expensive watches, and sports cars for the entirety of my life. We've paid for all of those as well.
Europe has used our money to fund their social system, then returned the favor by lecturing us on... well, everything. I;m not sure GB even has freedom of speech anymore, and every Western European nation has sided with terrorists in the UN for years. they're a parody of liberal democracies.
Israel has done our dirty work in the ME for 80 years. They've made our weapons systems better, and given us Waze (which alone entitles them to whatever we give them).
... to say nothing of the moral imperative of being the only place in the entire world right now where we're on the right side of history. Everywhere else we're chumming with enemies, and cavorting with despots. Israel is free and strong, and a good ally. Giving money to them is like giving it to ourselves (they buy our military hardware with our aid).
Remember when they were talking about base closures in Europe. Germany screamed bloody murder at prospect of losing the multiplier effect on the local economies near the bases.
Cut it all off. Every dime.
Well, Ronnie, I'm With Her on this one, at least as far as members of Congress go. I'd like to see foreign aid shut the hell off, permanently, tomorrow. We're trillions of dollars in the hole as a nation; we need to put on our own oxygen mask first.
I'm not an Israel-hater; in fact, I rather admire the balls on them, and I'm in favor of supporting them militarily in times of crisis. I just think they ought to pay their own fuckin' meal-ticket like everybody else.
"Why are people who support the trillions in military aid we’ve given to Europe not called Europe Firsters? Why is that relationship a given?"
assuming it really is trillions in military aid (gotta account for decades of aid total for that kind of number i presume) then the argument becomes easier than supporting isreal becuase they actually act like allies and trading partners. this doesnt mean im in favour of shoveling absurd amounts of money out of america
"Israel gets aid because enough politicians have been persuaded that it is either in America’s best interests or their own personal political interests to do so."
uh. not keen on the wording here. pretty sus. does europe need to coerce american politicians to the same degree too or does europe provide some tangible benefit?
"that puts you on the side of Hillary Clinton"
an evil dog faced clock is right sometimes or however the saying goes
"opponents of aid to Europe can’t rely on centuries old tropes about dual loyalty and perfidious cabals pulling strings"
probably becuase they dont have those kinds of problems. when was the last time a german (or other european country) dual citizen got into the senate and argued for policy in favour of germany?
anyway america isnt the worlds police or purse so cut the aid etc.
Since you brought it up, there was a pretty active pro-Nazi German bund in the U.S. in the 1930s.
The dual-citizen thing is simply a lie. There are no dual citizens in Congress. The lie is based on the fact that Jews can get instant Israeli citizenship, should they move there, so Jew haters take that and spin it into the lie that every Jew in Congress is a dual citizen. Hell, they even list Gentile politicians with Germanic, not Yiddish names. My brother moved to Israel and is an Israeli citizen. He does keep an American passport because he'd be stupid not to, but he doesn't absentee vote in elections here.
It reminds me of something I saw in a YouTube chat today, where someone claimed that Jews have special access to mortgages and other loans as if Gentiles were somehow being discriminated against. There's something called Free Loan Associations that were founded 100 years ago to provide emergency loans. They are charitable organizations, funded privately. I can't walk into a bank and get a better interest rate because I'm circumcised. I can, however, apply to the local Hebrew Free Loan Association for an emergency car loan so I can get to work, which would likely have to be guaranteed by a co-signer. Jew haters take a wholesome charity and turn it into a conspiracy. If a religiously based private charitable organization offers starter mortgages for young families, it's not a conspiracy.
NATO was to keep the Germans down, the Americans in, and the Russians out. No longer necessary or even desirable in my opinion.
It is so they will buy overpriced American military equipment. The money does not leave the US.
so several billion taxpayer dollars goes from the govt to the military industrial complex and isreal gets weapons for free
really odd way to go about it and im not a fan
I thought Headset Casey using "Israel-first" in a derogatory way was just his jealousy that Israel bombed all of Iran's air defense and nuclear facilities before he could be the USAF B-2 pilot following it up with a bunker buster bomb.
if he really was america first he wouldnt have wanted to get involved in the middle east to begin with
Always amusing to see a crown vic with vaguely euro plates on a [insert city] cobble street. Can't tell if the other is supposed to be a VW Bora/Opel Astra hybrid, and I mean that in looks, not powertrain. The main mystery is what is on the roof of the crown vic. Angry cat? Snorkel? We'll never know.
You'd think that my "Gemini PRO" membership would entitle me to more!
"The lifesaving surgery is available in the States, but Canada has a different solution for her: free death."
Methinks the British and their descendants did not realize that "A Modest Proposal" was intended to be satire.
Same problem they had with Orwell.
The 'Supremacy' poster/sticker/whatever is *perfect* .
So then, good news from FoMoCo, they can sell all the light & medium duty trucks they can build so forget EVs .
About this "MAID" thing ~ I understand wanting to die but cannot one just buy sufficient dope to get high and never wake up again ? .
Chronic pain is a real thing .
Try putting a medium size pebble in your shoe, one that makes you limp to walk at all, then keep it there for two days, you'll begin to have a -fraction- of the misery many deal with 24/7 .
Pretty neat to have found the earliest Corvette, being me, I'd prefer it with the Slip 'N Slide Powerglide and the 235 with side draught carbys .
It's a _Sports_Car_, not a Race Car .
Happily I still run into 1950's vintage Corvettes in survivor condition being driven and enjoyed the way Duntov (? SP ?) intended .
-Nate
"I'd prefer it with the Slip 'N Slide Powerglide"
i still have no idea why a 3 speed manual was never offered (i do have a slight idea) given that they absolutely had one and even if the ratios werent ideal it could still have been made to work
I believe that 1981 was the last year a Corvette had a 3 speed manual transmission that was offered, which is kind of crazy. I thought they were all 4 speeds by that point.
1981? surely thats a misprint theres no way
im not calling you a liar i just find it nearly impossible to believe. i guess that might have been a muncie three speed?
Correction, 1969 was the last year, so the C3 Corvette.
Years ago I once saw a 3 speed C2 manual for sale and thought it was a misprint, but no, the 3 speed was available.
And that would have been a three on the tree.
My guess is they only got rid of it because they had to do a safety steering column in the Eighties.
Well this is a rabbit hole to go down. At least on the C2 the 3 speed manual was floor mounted. Since the C3 had much of the C2 carried over underneath, I’ll guess that it was also floor mounted in 68 and 69. Maybe because of the torquey motors some buyers thought that the 3 speed was adequate.
I also can’t recall a Corvette with a shifter on the column for an automatic or a manual. Even the original 2 speed Powerglides were floor mounted.
Agree with what you say about maid, and about the c1
Yeah ;
I'm not settled in my mind yet about the assisted dying thing, but then maybe those who need / want to end it all cannot / don't understand how to go get dope illicit or otherwise .
-Nate
I am on the list for the hardcover, signed would be very cool, after Christmas is good!
Canada and their special health care is evil in the extreme, they import all of the third world and crap all over their own citizens, that should be considered a high crime!
I think the corvette should be sorted out properly and sold to the corvette museum, what a great story.
the mass immigration is becuase of the century initialtive which is a (company? task force? group?) who desires canada to have 100 million people residing inside it by 2100
why 100 million? why 2100? who knows but theyre on track to importing more than a million (almost entirely third worlders) a year. all this to increase gdp or something.
https://www.centuryinitiative.ca/
transparently evil
That is a form of corporate cronyism, a way to create a slave state, seems totally insane.
and by the way this is all happening with nearly zero improvement to any of our public services so theres a massive strain on everything
White replacement theory, they don’t care about 100 million, they want cheap labor.
bingo on both
literal population erasure but nobody cares
There was a headline in the Financial Post that read “How did Canada’s young people become its unhappiest generation?”
A response on X said: “Because they have to compete with the poorest people on Earth for jobs and the richest people on Earth for housing.”
Kind of says it all.
Human capital to increase “shareholder value”
gdp must go up at any cost even if it stops meaning anything at all
GDP up! GDP per capita DOWN!
*slams table*
LINE GO UP LINE GO UP LINE GO UP
I believe Mr. Carney has pretty much shelved that policy. Last quarter, Canada’s population decreased (by 76K), the first time that’s happened since COVID.
"I’ll be printing a limited (heh) number of hardbacks at well, signing them as you like"
if this means youll write something clever/wise/absurd in it you can count me in already
"Is Casey serious about his anti-H1B, America First approach?"
i highly doubt hes the actual america first guy he pretends to be. he does not come across as being anywhere near focused or driven enough for the cause
"knock on doors for the Democratic candidate"
the candidates really have you stuck between a rock and a brown place
"If I had terminal access, I could keep you all posted on this"
i was curious about them until i found out it was 30k or something to use
"Canada can’t provide her the surgery. In fact, they can’t even get her in to see an endocrinologist, something that is usually a 90-day hassle at most for Americans"
our heathcare is godawful and everyone is worse off for it. a billion dollars for a raft of random brown people instead of caring for our own. between fucking us over at every opportunity and unending mass immigration it really does look like a kind of ethnic cleansing. evil in all caps
"Will Millennials have any interest in keeping and preserving 1953 Corvettes?"
more millenials will gain an interest in old cars once boomers stop thinking their shitboxes are worth 45k barely running. they have no real right to complain about the state of affairs.
i had an idea for an early 50s corvette "zr1" that would be based on contemporary tech and tests chevrolet did at the time but damn a c1 is still crazy money
here you go: https://www.crcoachworks.com/
I thought that was https://cwcoach.com/ for a second. Which would probably align with the demo for a C1 as well.
Okay that's funny!
https://cwcoach.com/povcwc/view.php?ccode=550288&noreturnbuttons=1#
This one has Klockau's name all over it.
From the link ☹️:
After 16 years of producing over 225 custom retro Corvettes, Classic Reflection Coachworks (CRC) has closed its Lakewood, Washington plant and will no longer produce their 50 and 60’s models
good lord
i suppose i should have specified that i wanted it to be period correct to the early 50s having things like a mccullough supercharger and magnesium halibrands
well that's cooler. Those old bodies on new cars never look right.
its always the proportions
like those modern superbirds based on modern challengers they just look fat and horrid
Paging Abimelec…
Fellow Ohioan here. Only thing the GOP-dominated state legislature has done that was worthwhile was eliminating the front license plate a few years back.
I'd take that!
That was one of the best things about moving from Illinois to NC! No front plate ever again.
Doing nothing is better than doing damaging things. I’ll err on the side of doing nothing.
"In fact, they can’t even get her in to see an endocrinologist, something that is usually a 90-day hassle at most for Americans."
Americans *with insurance*. The rich and upper-middle class are fine, the Medicaid crowd struggles with having enough access to get an appointment within 90 days but at least they aren't delving into their meager savings...so as usual, it's the working poor who get screwed.
Awkwardly, the Heritage Foundation lists Canada as being a dozen places ahead of us on their latest Index of Economic Freedom.
https://www.heritage.org/index/pages/report
And Sweden is 2 places ahead of them...possibly why they have more billionaires per capita than we do.
Sweden also leads on grenade attacks. And rapes. So there’s that.
really makes you wonder how that happened
The craziest part is that they have not tried to fix it. And it is fixable.
over here sometimes you just die waiting to see someone
or your symptoms get far worse becuase your appointment is 18 months away
ive been fortunate enough to have never needed to see the inside of a hospital
Keep that string going as long as you possibly can....
I'm pretty convinced that there are no really good answers to the provision of healthcare, only bad ones and worse ones.
Same as "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others."
thats the game plan
i think socialized medicine can work but only if its not abused by third worlders and grifters
theres such an insane amount of bloat in the system that it boggles the mind
Bloat: our "non-profit" healthcare system laid off a percentage of its workforce a few days before announcing a $50 million private jet lease.
https://www.wtae.com/article/upmc-jet-florida/62283165
sensational
put their nuts in a vise
Thomas Sowell: “There are no solutions, only trade offs.”