Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

Discussion in 'SBAF Blogs' started by purr1n, Dec 26, 2018.

  1. Riotvan

    Riotvan Snoofer in the Woofer

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    Dude if i had Russia's relative landmass in Civ5 i'd have won already...
     
  2. leafy

    leafy Facebook Friend

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    Things are changing in Taiwan in recent years. But this would also depends on which party the person belongs to.

    [​IMG]
     
  3. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Well, that's reassuring. I'm too old and perhaps the attitudes of young people are less risk averse. I'm Americanized, live in Texas, and my parents are Taiwanese "rednecks" from the south who speak Hokkien and fought against martial law, so I would have no problem putting myself at risk to kill communists. What telling is that even the KMT and TPP (LOL) tip over 50%. But then again, this goes with the strengthening Taiwanese identity as a result of CCP's speech and behavior.

    What's the party at the bottom? I don't keep tabs on stuff all the time.
     
  4. BenjaminBore

    BenjaminBore Friend

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    Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault:
    The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin
    by John J. Mearsheimer
    https://www.mearsheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Why-the-Ukraine-Crisis-Is.pdf

    Written by this guy in 2014
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mearsheimer

    It's an interesting read. Explaining the disparity in thinking between Russia and the West, Ukraine's long term predicament being a small power wedged between Russia and the EU, and prophesying the inevitability of what has now come to pass.
     
    Last edited: Feb 25, 2022
  5. crenca

    crenca Friend

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    I linked a youtube of him giving this thesis just upstream. Having just come across this guy the day before yesterday, I appreciate his clear questioning of "liberal hegemony". He thinks now that we are coming back around to a "multi-polar" world, with China and Russia resurgent, the west's liberal idealism will have the counterbalance it needs to see/deal with reality. I'm more pessimistic then he is, but I think he is right that USA foreign policy will surely (surely surely....) move off its current fantasy thinking.

    One thing, if I was Japan, or Singapore, or Saudi Arabia, or Australia, or fill_in_the_blank I would not be trusting the US to have your back when push comes to shove, for lots of reasons but not the least is we are not realistic with ourselves and our commitments...
     
  6. BenjaminBore

    BenjaminBore Friend

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    I wouldn't trust anyone to have my back unless I knew that it aligns with their own interests.
     
    Last edited: Feb 25, 2022
  7. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    I’ll have everyone’s back.
     
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  8. leafy

    leafy Facebook Friend

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    I am pretty sure we are around the same age or only few years apart. I used to vote for the pro China party till I myself lived in China for 6 years.

    The last party is a progressive proindepence party, pretty aggressive yet a minority now.
     
  9. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    Home Page:
    FTFY.;)
     
  10. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    upload_2022-2-27_14-27-19.png
     
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    Last edited: Feb 27, 2022
  11. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    Seems the CA DMV don’t wanna pay the VIN look up fee to see that a TX reg was issued on the Jeep….

    ….unless you didn’t flip the CA Title to a TX title when you gotten your TX tags. TX doesn’t require the title to be transferred to obtain TX tags if the vehicle was previously titled from another state. If you still have a CA Title then I would flip it to a TX title. Then again CA DMV may prevent you from getting a CA Paper Title if you own them money.
     
  12. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Yeah. Texas makes it easy. Also, no other state issued collections when I moved to another state. California is just lame. This is just f'ing rude on California's part. I don't even know why they are doing it because California is so flush with money because of COVID. By the way, registration fees on the four year old Jeep is $597. That's highway robbery. No wonder how everyone we liked with young families moved out to Nashville, North Carolina, Texas, Colorado, Utah, etc.

    There's an area in Corpus "around Leopard street" where people live in these OMG crappy houses. (Actually kids and I don't have a problem with that). I tell them: at least poor people here in Texas can live in houses instead of being on the street.

    Many younger Russians I've spoken to not happy and are embarrassed. They tell me the older Russians love Putin, but even now not too sure.
     
  13. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    A lot of the northeastern states like NY do try to collect crap from you if you moved to another state, it's normal when states love their revenue sources.

    I dunno how they do taxes on vehicles in CA, but my coworkers up in Maine really hate their vehicle taxes when they do it based on the MSRP value of the car and not what you actually paid for it. It becomes cheaper as the car gets older but then it stops when the car hits ten years old. At least in states like SC the property tax for the car stops around the ten year mark.
     
  14. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    California is similar, lower reg fees as times goes on. In theory, the four year old Jeep reg fee should have been around $225 (that was another time - the time of the Governator). However, a massive gas and reg tax increased was passed back in 2017 with SB-1. That's when I started to seriously think about moving out. There were a few crucial counties against it, but Governor Brown bought them off by getting everyone to agree to send those counties extra projects. No person I spoke to wanted this tax or either they were unaware. (I think 70% of Californians are registered Democrats and just nod their heads in agreement at everything without studying the issues, because all Republicans are evil Trump supporters). A ballot measure, state proposition, was put forth to kill the taxes, but it failed by a percentage point because of special interests.

    In addition, Proposition 19 passed which killed the continued lower property tax assessment for children who inherited their parent's property ("inheritance tax exclusion"), so that was another nail in the coffin for me thinking about staying in the state. This takeaway was necessary because the other part of Proposition 19 allowed people over 55 to move to a new home or equal or even higher value while keep while keeping their old property tax assessed value. It used to be that whenever anyone bought a new place, they would have to pay the much higher re-assessed value (at purchase price).

    The super irony with Proposition 19? When we consider it via critical race theory (that is authentic CRT per @Soliloqueen's simple and succinct explanation, not "fake-CRT" per Fox News or Texas Governor Abbott paranoia), Prop 19 actually harmed black, brown, and indigenous people the most. An analysis showed that more owners claimed the inheritance tax exclusion in Compton than rich areas of Malibu and Beverly Hills. This makes total sense if you think about it. Also, not having the inheritance tax exclusion would probably make it harder for families who lived in Compton for generations to stay there. Let's go gentrification!

    Anyway, the one-party rule thing pisses me off. They are supposed to be the Democrats, the egalitarian ones, who are supposed to care. And I'm supposed to be the evil anti-statist meritocratic right-wing dickhead right? All I see is Gavin Newsom's old white rich people's club where life is great and benefits abundant when one is already rich, can afford solar panels and Teslas, and like to switch multi-million dollar homes every three to four years. And BTW, the realtors associations loved Prop 19, as did the people of Palo Alto and San Diego (cities of elite rich people).

    P.S. With expected increases in net tax revenue, Prop 19 was also supposed to allocate monies to wildfire response. It hasn't happened with a variety of lame reasons: COVID, blah, blah. Not surprised. They say it will happen by 2025, but we all know everyone will forget about this then.

    In 2016, the good people of LA, wanting to help their homeless brethren, passed proposition HHH for the issue for a $1.2B bond for the creation of 10000 units. This endeavor was supposed to put an end to homelessness in El Lay. Almost eight years later, absolutely nothing has happened yet, although lots of words and photo ops. There's LA Mayor Garcetti in the middle.
    garcetti.jpg
    f**k you Garcetti!

    @rhythmdevils: you see, people really do want to help homeless people and aren't afraid to take a chunk out of their own pockets to pay for it. I know what you are going say next: let's fix the system, the inefficiencies, the bureaucracy. My answer is this: can we storm El Lay City Hall and burn it down to send a message and press the reset button? Sometimes systems need to be burned down for a organism to thrive. This is done all the time in business. Apple became great because visionary Steve Jobs ousted beancounter Scully in a big boardroom fight.

    Now you know why I'd rather not see another $1B bond measure in LA for homeless people, but would rather see $1B go to the Ukraine.
     
    Last edited: Feb 27, 2022
  15. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    @purr1n I'm see more former CA GOP voters in my backyard...keep seeing CA tags daily in the county below Duval/Jax (which people who came from CA stated this area reminded them of the OC back in the 80s). Those new arrivals making FL just another one-party state where people deep inside their hearts love their dose of big government on the GOP side of things. Personally I'm not a fan of it...people here just want SFH homes spread out like LA where FL could be one giant LA. Still tons of undeveloped land here in FL....but out of staters buying them up quick and making me have second thoughts in continue to stay in FL. FL always been a low wage but higher cost of living state....but now the FL wages don't match the NY rental prices we are having in more parts of FL daily.

    Then again...my old father is still here in FL and so is my whole family. Things will change when the sad day that my father pass. Even if I get a house out of the deal....I still don't wanna deal with that crap if I can avoid it (mortgage free house is tempting). I prefer to get out of FL before it gets too crowded.

    I miss the mountains and trees.

    Then again....FL car yearly car reg renewal is cheap, but not the initial vehicle reg cost (looking at $400+ upfront). Then again...once you pay for the high initial vehicle reg cost then the longer you keep the vehicle tag/reg then the cheaper it gets. On my Honda I paid over $400+ back in 2015 for the initial vehicle reg and tag...but I pay $60 on the tag that covers two years on my reg cost. Cheaper in the long run...until we start talking about car insurance since it sucks here.
     
  16. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    I've been driving back and forth to Austin via San Antonio way too much these past few weeks (scouting meet location for us and a Texas audio show). I've come to the conclusion that the urban sprawl thing isn't politics. It's simply the result of success. Parts of Texas remind me a lot of California back in the 70s. Sales tax as 6%. Personal income tax revenue was like $1B in 1970. Today it's $110B. That a x100 fold increase when the CPI ratio from 1970 to today is only x7.5. Plenty of land. Empty lots. Farms and orchards and goats. Nice city centers, other parts of cities shabby. Young population - I've never seen so many "tech bros" congregate in any one place than in Austin. My kids and I were calling people out left and right "tech bro" as we were walking the streets along Congress.

    Seriously, compliance with "tech bro" starterpack below was over 90% with each person, just replace UofM, Cal or GT with UT Austin or Texas A&M; and add North Face vest which was omitted below. (Patagonia is too expensive for young "tech bros" - only the super smart and seasoned engineers can afford them).
    [​IMG]

    Austin is already fucked with respect to traffic. The way they designed the freeways, it's impossible to widen them. There's already way too many people than the city ever expected. The saving grace in Austin is that traffic dies down during non-rush hours. There's not that many people - yet. San Antonio may have a better chance at widening freeways, but some parts are already perma-clogged like in El Lay. Whatever happens, it's going to be fucked because we know more freeways and bigger freeways only works for 18 months before traffic gets fucked again. We don't build up. We build left, right, forward, back, but never up.

    Elon Musk is totally right that California has become a victim of its own success. Well, it's that and also rich weirdos who are totally disconnected from the lives for people who work paycheck to paycheck.

    There's a theme in Texas that Californians shouldn't bring their politics with them - which is bullshit because Californian immigrants are more conservative than the average Texan. However, it echos California sentiments during the time I was in my late teens and early twenties, when California was still an exciting place on rapidly upwards trajectory: Welcome to California, Now Go Home.

    [​IMG]

    Note: it was Amelio, not Scully. Too long ago. Scully won to kick out jobs the first time around.
     
    Last edited: Feb 28, 2022
  17. Metro

    Metro Friend

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    Something like this also happens at the end of a lease in California. After turning in the car, the manufacturer may have it auctioned off, and a used car dealer may buy it and put it up for sale. Eventually (may be months later) a new buyer finally takes ownership and registers the car. Meanwhile the DMV has been sending out overdue notices to the original lessee. If the new owner is in California, then the DMV knows to transfer the registration, but I imagine that if the new owner is out of state the same thing might happen as Merv and the DMV keeps sending out overdue notices.

    At the end of my last lease, the dealer told me I should submit a Notice of Transfer and Release of Liability to the DMV (I hadn't heard about this previously).
    https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehic...ice-of-transfer-and-release-of-liability-nrl/
    I did, and this time I didn't receive any overdue notices. I see that this same form should also be submitted if you move out of state. I guess you basically tell them that the new owner is The Merv in Texas.
    https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/drive...top receiving renewal-,notices,-for a vehicle
     
  18. ColtMrFire

    ColtMrFire Writes better fan fics than you

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    Holy shit, this. It's like a running meme at this point. One of my last roommates was a tech guy from India and there are a bunch of Indian tech guys here who have been indoctrinated. It's kind of sad to watch.

    Yup, and it's why when I finally buy a house it's not going to be here. I may have considered moving back to LA like five years ago, but now not a chance in hell.
     
  19. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    So I was talking to my dad a few days ago and he mentioned that COVID was going nuts. I was like wut?

    Check this out.
    upload_2022-5-12_9-23-25.png

    Looks like Taiwan has finally decided to "let it rip" while Communist China has doubled down on zero-COVID or what they are now calling "dynamic zero". I love Orwellian doublespeak, don't you?

    Obviously some concerns because "let it rip" means that people, particularly vulnerable people, old people, WILL DIE. This made worse by the fact that vaccination rates for old people in Taiwan isn't too great. Unlike most Americans, Taiwanese eschew pill popping and taking medications. This is even more true for the older generations there. So basically we got a lot of old people in Taiwan acting like a bunch of Texans.

    Anyway, opening up was inevitable. I've been reading papers from the Taiwanese CDC in the past year or so, concerned on how the heck Taiwan was gonna get out of COVID with its continued zero-COVID policy. Looks like the policy makers wisened up. These kinds of decisions are tough because in a sense, actually in reality, we are playing with lives. Where do we set the position on the safety vs. livelihood slide? The sad thing is that it didn't need to be so political in the USA.
     
  20. DigMe

    DigMe Friend

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    Totally agree. The politicizing of COVID has been one of the biggest tragedies of this century. I think that is how it will go down in history. I’ve heard that HK has had the same issue with many old people avoiding the vax. It seems like some of the zero covid policy maybe kind of set up a bit of a disaster by giving people a false sense of security that they didn’t need to get a vaccine.
     

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