The older I get the more I think we've forgotten how to make products that do their jobs well.

I fired my smart bulbs for being too clever at stupid tricks and bad at being lightbulbs.

For my birthday his year my mother bought me hands free soap dispensers that charge with USB and do the "will it or won't it" hand dance, and now I have to bring them out and hide my trusty unpowered pumps when she comes over. I could be mean, but she's coming up on 80. I'll play the game to make her happy.

My washer, dryer, and stove have apps. I've never installed or used them, so at least they are not mandatory. But now these same companies can't make a compressor worth a shit. They'd rather spend the money figuring out how to make a fridge advertise at you.

Throw Sonos on that dumpster fire. Too clever by a wide margin, and just shitty at making speakers.

Dude they're all bad with money, only one camp increases spending while cutting revenue while crying the loudest about the deficit. Hypocritical isn't a strong enough word for it. Do something, like what, you've tried spending more paying less and crying about it, there's literally nothing else in the Republican playbook. What else can you try? Take candy from a baby, buy a new boat with the "savings"?

Military spending is half our discretionary spending, and discretionary spending is exactly the first place to cut. You may have too much house, a big dumb truck payment, too much credit card interest, and hate your property taxes, but if half your discretionary budget is eating out? Oh BOY. I'm going to channel Dave Ramsey - stop eating hamberders you fat dumb fucking moron. Pick up some overtime, it sucks but you put yourself in this position. Pay off your most expensive debt. It's common sense. What's a Democrat do, trade the truck in for an SUV. Ok. Practical, but stupid. What's a Republican do, cut their hours, buy F1 tickets, starve the dog, blame the bank, their boss, and the dog.

Now how in the hell does Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare keep people in poverty, because those are 80% of entitlement spending. When healthcare costs drain your retirement, what is your plan B, what's the backstop? How does fucking you over help ME? I mean that's not seriously a question _I_ ask, because I literally do not see how hanging you out to dry helps me, because SOMEONE is going to pay for your ER visit and put you up in a old folks home, and we're not pulling an Old Yeller on you.

because it's discretionary, thank God, and why does this all feel like talking an elderly parent out of a time share.

He's cleaning it up like the reflecting pool, lol. You're just repeating GAO numbers we already knew about, what's being done about it? All his new found fraud numbers come from the GAO and look exactly like the GAO improper payments numbers last year and the year before going all the way back to his first term, the only thing different is hand waving documentation errors into the same bucket as fraud, neither of which have had any meaningful changes, but they, Trump and Kennedy have probably managed to cut off spending for stuff they simply don't like, I'd believe that, because that's the only quick and easy thing they can do. I'd believe in 2027 you will have conveniently forgot all of this and will not bother looking at the new GAO numbers or in following years which will be the fucking same because the scale of the problem, of just documentation errors alone, is way more complex than hand wavy political bullshit. Yes, we should balance the budget, but it will involve paying for things, so we won't, we'll argue over who left the lights on more and pick fights with our neighbors instead.

Seems like the phrase "the greatest country on earth" has largely been retired. The only people using it are folks distasteful enough that the rest of the populace feels shame when they hear it.

I maintain this state of being is what happens when you spend a century shouting at every child that exceptionalism and toxic individuality is their birthright.

No, it means you're going to wait longer and pay more for work that depended on undocumented workers. Which means you will buy less. I think you really do not understand that the availability of affordable labor creates whole markets for things that wouldn't otherwise exist.

For example, if you remove all the highschool kids from an town, it does not mean lawn care professionals claw back jobs and higher pay for mowing lawns over the summer, it means a bunch of consumers exit the market for lawn mowing entirely because they were already not going to pay Professional Lawn Care and Plumbing Co, BEFORE the sudden lose of a bunch of workers.

You're literally fucking with an end of the economy that has no replacement. It's the same reason killing the used car market doesn't lead to more new car sales the way you'd want. I don't want anyone, immigrants or young people, or elderly, anyone, to be exploited or abused, period. We do not have too many workers in this country, that is fucking ridiculous.

And then housing, OMfG seriously, do you have any fucking idea the scale of what you're talking about? We're still just crawling back to not even pre-pandemic levels.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/se...

Why do I have to look shit up for you people.

I thought _every_ convertible did that, because the windows seal with the roof of the car. An old Ford Mustang is definitely not high tech.

I've driven one on a dead alternator and dying battery, you just push the door open, the glass is pressed into a soft rubber seal and pops out a little less than gracefully. Obviously the dead battery and alternator are the bigger concern because you're not going anywhere.

Who complains about window motors on a convertible ffs?

What you have there is a really good argument for seeding your commercial shipping industry with reserve naval officers in case of widespread war which requires commercial fleets to aide the war effort. Or natural disasters, etc.

THAT is strategic as fuck, badass, and in absolutely no way justifies the existence of any of the other service academies. All of the other ones are vestigial limbs. It's like if some of us had tails. Would I cut it off, hell no. Is it good for something, sure I mean we all need good balance. Would you be looking for reasons to make more tails? If we were doing this all from scratch do you need one?

The United States Marine Corps has a better leg to stand on for getting its own service academy, and I'll straight up call that retarded and gay right now. It somehow, magically, manages to retain culture and traditions without some special clubby school for a fraction of the officers. WOW! But hey man if you came through Annapolis, good for you bud, I have friends that swing that way, nothing but love for y'all seriously.

There is absolutely no reason to create a new service academy other than some dumb legacy building bullshit. It does not fit your merchant marine example, because what in the hell do you even need a bunch of reserve space force officers for, at fucking all, and you're not going to tap them to run space oil tankers for the war or pickup refugees from the Moon.

So what in the hell is it for then, a four year STEM focused BS, steeped in the traditions and values of ... the space force? Do you fucking need that right now, I mean ever? What is it exactly that you get out of this that you don't from Texas A&M ROTC graduates for example.

When you say people are poisoning the blood of our country it does sort of color you a shade of evil that it's hard to come back from by doing things like questioning our constitution's plain text birthright citizenship guarantee, calling people animals, garbage, and making up stories about them eating cats and dogs for literally no reason other than bigotry and hatred.

Then going from barking about the debt and foreign intervention to ... more debt and foreign intervention, trying to build himself monuments. Why should I take him at his word?

He is legit the most fucked up president we have ever had, so everything looks like TDS. Maybe if you made a good faith effort to balance the budget or actually lower federal spending.. instead of creating another fucking service academy?? For the weird branch of the military he created ... which is still mostly civilians.

Their track record is terrible and it's owned by a cult. ... but you'd probably call that a bonus huh.

Then why are we paying more for everything? Debt is at a new high, the cost of debt is higher, groceries are high, gas is high. When was the last time you took your family out for lunch? How could removing workers even help the economy? I don't think this was thought through all the way.

Not to mention you're on the hook for developing all of the production which doesn't happen overnight.

What idiot told you majority means all? 55/45 is a majority, dumbass.

Rentals follow housing prices which are moving because of lower demand and higher mortgage rates.

That's why it's playing out over the whole country. Dumbass.

I agree with you... in the abstract. But this is emergency services 911. The definition of "adequately" should not be the common baseline.

Get a month at a time, don't overlap services. $20-ish a month for vast content. Good deal no matter how you look at it. TV has never been cheaper, except for OTA, and then it's ad-supported.

"The city is still investigating whether the update was adequately tested..."

"No."

Hopefully I just saved the city a bunch of money.