Been losing power all day due to the weather.
We technically won Grenada, which proves the rule because if you have to invade fucking Grenada just to get a win you suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck
The power, water, sewer, probably others I'm forgetting right now, infrastructure in America is dogshit. It's beyond like "Oh, dump $1T into it, repair everything, we'll be fine!" It's at (and has been for a while I'd say) catastrophic "Stop everything, rebuild everything over the next 10 years. Price tag=infinity."
Of course the right wing basically refuses to acknowledge this (outside their own districts of course). The lighter right wing (democrats, average liberals) pay it lip service periodically, but their solutions are "dump trillions into private businesses who will repair/replace everything!"
leans into mic "Wrong."
The only thing that will actually fix the major stuff that I listed (and beyond that things like roads (ideally rail... but we can't even get commitments for roads. Rail? "Lol. Lmao even" is the only response to expect there atm) and other critical infrastructure that is less required for living the way water and power are but nonetheless are required for modern society and are also in total catastrophic collapse) is... no, no don't say it...
A publicly-funded, publicly-owned, publicly-run by government employees made untouchable to future administrations/congresses, unionized, and paid above whatever the "market price" is for construction work in the same field. It needs to be like the CCC (I think it was called) from the New Deal era on steroids. It needs to have authority beyond even what congress and the president have. I'm talking like the engineers decide amongst themselves (no congressional input, btw) that some NIMBY neighborhood is the most optimal route for the new rail and solar electric station... those fuckers are gone in 12 months. No endless appeals. Give them the "everyone else" treatment not the current special rich guy in Cali who holds up the state railroad because of whatever BS reason treatment.
I fully expect, understand, and also fear the total chaos required for full infrastructure rebuilding... but the facts are facts. It has to be done. Some shit will be demolished; it will suck for everyone. But what else do people want?
All the old copper and iron in the ground will continue to disintegrate into nothing so your literal shit is running down your sewer line but never makes it to the sewer main, it just sort of seeps into the ground? Because that's what happens eventually... then your line backs up and doesn't work. Shit is flooding your house and town. Water lines crumble and leak into the ground wasting fresh water, costing whatever horrific amount in emergency repairs, and stopping water service for maybe days to a week or more depending on specifics of the leak.
Like you can have a controlled rebuild of water lines, etc. now or your shit (literally with sewers) explodes years down the line randomly. It is quite literally an either/or situation because in the infinite timeline, your infrastructure will fail. It doesn't matter how much people cope. We're coasting off huge infrastructure buildout in the 1950-60s and some after that, but the amount of stuff that is 50, 60, 70 years old is insane. The iron that was used in many household sewer lines was rated with an expected lifetime of 50 years in many cases. Maybe more, maybe less, but about 50 years before it rusts too far and develops holes from normal use.
None of this shit is even near happening btw. It's actually getting insanely worse in the last two decades because the publicly owned utilities have been bought out from (often unaware or non-property owners aka "your opinion doesn't count") under residents.
In my hellscape of PA the formerly-public township water authorities (whatever they call themselves, it depends where) were facing the reality I was talking about, crumbling copper piping and such. Then because of a mix of rightoid-brained propagandized morons + motivated, aka probably bribed, local and state legislators they said basically "pfft! We can't afford to replace all this copper, etc.!" Private companies were standing right there to happily buy up these public utilities with vague promises of "Yes, we will have to raise water prices a little, but we will repair/replace all the infrastructure!"
How much of that has happened? Take a guess... about as much as the ISPs built the state-wide fiber network circa year 2000 (somewhere in there) when they got billions to do so. They built it to a couple cities then said "more money, please!," got that money, and eventually concluded "This is impossible due to geography. Yes, we will be keeping these billions of dollars though." Obviously it's not impossible if Japan, Korea, other countries around the world can do it. They just chose to steal the money and no one has done anything for 20 years. Same shit these water companies are clearly doing now.
My water lines have not been replaced, nor is there even a long term plan for them to do so. Like "by 2030 we will redo the entire township." Nothing. Zero commitment from them. But they own it all now! And the price for water oddly keeps going up with no added value! (Water should be free anyway and subsidized by taxes from businesses and the wealthy. Not a per household per gallon rate. Pretty moronic way to distribute water if your goal is to provide water and not just make profit (hmmmmm)).
The best part of all of that is the really yummy present that's in everything built in that time. My friend and yours, asbestos. Not only do you have to destroy and rebuild but you also have to do so in a way that doesn't poison everyone for decades
Asbestos, lead, all kinds of crazy carcinogens from the past (and present!). That just further strengthens the argument that the workers who undertake this gargantuan task must be unionized with fellow workers leading it. When it's you breathing in flakes of fiberglass and aerosolized rat shit, suddenly mandating the usage (or at the absolute least: availability) of properly fitted respirators suddenly becomes an actual issue of importance not just rhetorical statement to gain popularity.
How the hell is burgerland even a superpower?
Now I kind of wish that the
stayed as the final boss of western CHUDDery, at least for the most part they had SOME infrastructure.Lucky geographic positioning during WWII + absorbing the British empire post war
Unless you meant like "How" in the sense of "by what definition" in which case I'd say that being a superpower doesn't really require the domestic situation to be good. Just that your military and influence is dominant in places across the globe
The US is sinking like that Titan submersible... pressure is building, seams are creaking, implosion seems inevitable and imminent. And we're even being piloted to our doom by a narcissistic billionaire. (I should probably save this analogy. Pretty good one)
Like you can have a controlled rebuild of water lines, etc. now or your shit (literally with sewers) explodes years down the line randomly.
if we organize and redo a whole street at a time, we only have to dig it up once. that doesn't make the paving company very much money, now does it? and who wants a nice smooth street instead of a gritty uneven patchwork of constant repairs
I had the same thought like 20 years ago when we invaded Iraq. Where's the victory gardens? Where's the ration cards? Where is the nation at war?
And then I'm in line at the grocery store and some loudmouth dipshit is complaining about the cost of gas while our military is blowing up one of the places that manufactures gallons of gas.
feeling a lot of contempt for the numerous fools I encounter who "watch" the "news" or read garbage weekly rags and then repeat shit just so they can feel like they sound smart while being squarely in the middle of the mainstream. no courage, no thinking, just rote phrases you've heard fifty times before. brain as smooth and impenetrable as a bowling ball with no finger holes
To. Be. Fair. In burgerland we spend way more on weapons than on weather prep.
If we could solve snow by shooting it this wouldn't be an issue. So maybe blame mother nature, yeah?
We actually do that. Back when there was snow in the olden days ski patrols and public safety orgs would use old artillery cannons with special charges to cause controlled avalanches in high risk areas.
Considering the Abrams in Ukraine, "best tanks" deserves an asterisk.
The Abrams might have been the best tank, for defending Western Europe in the '80s against a Soviet incursion into the Fulda Gap. But warfare has changed in the last 40 years.
They want to take on China and Russia when they have had their asses handed to them by rice farmers and goat herders. Like every other bully, the USA will never fight anyone who can actually defend themselves.
That is about as realistic as them paying down their trillions $$ in debt.
My neighbor is literally snow blowing his yard grass, my brother in Christ, why?
EVERYBODY NEEDS TO SEE AND APPRECIATE MY MONOCULTURE YARD SO THEY KNOW WHAT KIND OF MAN I AMMy neighbor spent the dry as fuck summer mowing his lawn religiously. Bro it's dead. It's brown and dry and hasn't grown since early June. Nope gas up the mower and get to work mowing the dirt
There's a guy near where I live who literally just had a dirt yard. No dead grass, or just starting to grow; just dusty dirt. Which they mowed consistently, causing the air in the whole neighborhood to be just dust. It was nice when it rained because the dust would settle and they wouldn't mow it until it was dusty again.
I guess people just have "mow" as a command in the brain somehow. Is it like the only way they can imagine being outside??
are you trying to say there's snow on the ground and he's blowing it? or he mowed the lawn, didn't collect the clippings, and is blowing the clippings? Or is there nothing on the ground whatsoever and he's just running the snowblower? Does "snow blowing grass" refer to a sex move?
all of these are plausible situations
He's blowing the snow off his yard, that he doesn't use for anything.
that's not rock-bottom for uselessness, but still pretty useless!
We had a bridge in my town get shut down last year to both vehicle AND pedestrian traffic because it's so structurally unsound. Aaaand it's been sitting there closed ever since. Double whammy: it had some of the best pedestrian and bike infrastructure in town.
I often repeat exactly this sentiment but history should be a lesson. The US was also coming from the '29 crash and all the economic crisis of that era before WW2.
Everyone and their mother already discussed WW2 parallels and history repeating itself at least a few times in their life I'm sure.
I don't even believe the US can rally the same level of government control now as it did back then, the political control that was key to controlling the economy and therefore having a competent industrial/investment focus towards the war effort seems unthinkable now.
At the same time, China already gaslit themselves into thinking they're on a major economic crisis. A scenario where China just does Pelosi 2.0 and concedes Taiwan for the next few decades is definitely possible.
Remember a war requires both sides willingness to fight. The US can certainly get victories by forcing China into increasingly desperate slippery slopes("red lines") they're not actually willing to enforce.
