Politicians constantly talk about stopping the illegal immigrants that are coming from Mexico, but putting a wall has never and will never be a solution since the reason why so many displaced keep coming across the border is mostly to escape the crime, corruption, inequality, and violence of they have to live in their home...
That doesn’t stop the cartels, not by a long shot. Ending prohibition in the US didn’t eliminate the organized crime families in the US, it just moved them to different areas of corruption. If it’s not alcohol, it’s drugs. If it’s not drugs, then it’s gambling, tax evasion, prostitution, loan sharking, organized theft, and so on and so forth. And without correcting the underlying issues driving alcoholism and drug addiction in the US–particularly poverty–complete decriminalization would lead to huge problems. Has led to huge problems in some cities.
While decriminalizing drugs would help to a degree, you need to correct the underlying problems that have allowed cartels to amass so much power in the first place, like weak governments, lack of opportunities, and high rates of poverty.
I like huntin’, fishin’, farmin’, shootin’ the revenuers that try to bust my still and steal my 'shine, and I stand in solidarity with my fellow workers against the evils of capitalism.
Is that sufficiently redneck?
(I don’t actually like fishing; I think it’s boring, and I don’t like fish very much.)
China is socially conservative–and deeply authoritarian–but economically is officially communist (although not so much in practice, given that they have billionaires).
Gonna be straight, the hand guard doesn’t scream MAGA, but it’s kinda borderline fudd-y. :P A carbon fiber M-LOK hand guard and a low-profile gas block would be better, unless you’re reeeeaaaaaalllllly attached to that A2 front sight post.
I still prefer the 30 round magazines, since they’re cheap, easy to find, and are better for making it through high round count matches without lots of reloads. :)
As an aside to all of that, when I talk to younger people at matches–I’m probably about your age, maybe a little older–many of them are in favor of things Dems say that they’re in favor of (except gun control). I think that’s one of the sticking points for a lot of the younger rednecks in rural parts of the country.
Apolopgies for this wall; I’m literally autistic, and guns have been one of my particular areas of interest for, um, 40-odd years.
That style of hand guard, AFAIK, doesn’t accept M-LOK or keymod accessories. I can’t be sure though; what you’d be looking for is something like this -> aeroprecisionusa.com/ar15-atlas-s-one-m-lok-handg… The slots are what the M-LOK mounts go into. (Aero Precision is kinda pricey, IMO.) The added benefit is that it floats your barrel; it’s only connected to the upper receiver, and not the barrel, so you can get slightly better accuracy out of it.
You can get the metal parts of the rifle cerakoted white, if that’s of interest to you.
You can get a gas block that fits under your hand guard. That allows your hand guard can go all the way to the end of your barrel which gives you more options for mounting accessories and hand positioning. Gas blocks come in a variety of styles, but a fixed and pinned (e.g., held on with a roll pin) block will work for almost everyone. An adjustable gas block may be better for people that are running silencers, since that affects gas pressure in the system, but I have no direct experience with them since silencers are $$$. If you replace the hand guard with an M-LOK hand guard, you’ll need to replace the front sight with a low profile gas block.
I’m personally not a fan of iron sights because my eyes suck. I use an LPVO and a canted red dot, and that’s worked very well for me. I can reliably hit targets out to 340y (or, that’s the longest I’ve shot to, and that was at a match), and there’s no way in hell I’d be able to to that with irons.
FWIW, AR-15s are basically like Legos for adults; they’re almost infinitely modular, and most parts work just fine with other parts as long as they’re from reputable manufacturers.
I don’t know about Olight adapters specifically, but I’ve seen LEP heads for Surefire bodies. IIRC the Blazer LEP Z-Bolt is good to at least 300y, and it’s bright. There’s very little spill; it’s very, very focused. I’ve shot out to 150y with a Streamlight ProTAC; it’s not great at that distance, but it works. It’s got a lot of spill and decent throw, so you still have peripheral sight.
Depending on what you’re doing, you absolutely want Festool on a job site. A Rotex sander is fantastic for doing the edges when you’re refinishing hardwood floors, for instance. (Goddamn incompatible sanding discs though… You have to buy the Festool discs if you want the dust management.) For some jobs, there really aren’t any viable alternatives to Festool; no one else makes a domino joiner, which is somewhere between a plate joiner and a mortise and tenon joint. (You can get close by using a precision doweling jig, but the domino joiner is fast. Mortise and tenons are fantastic joints, but a mortising machine isn’t terribly portable, and cutting one by hand is far, far more skill than I have.)
A domino joiner on a job site would be good for things like putting together pieces or a banister (railing) where you needed both the strength or something like a doweled joint as well as the alignment capability of a biscuit joiner. It’s going to add strength to any kind of mitered joint that would be glued/where you don’t want to see nails. Most of the uses are going to be in cabinetry or furniture rather than in general carpentry and contracting, but it definitely has a few very specialized uses on a job site.
I am not a contractor, but I did it for a very brief period of time (until the business owner stiffed me of about a thousand in pay, and I realized it wasn’t a good side gig).
I honestly can’t see a way that doesn’t result in some visible something (although maybe not visible in a photo). You could throw money at it and get custom tiles made, but you’d have to have your measurements and tiling technique perfected to make that work.
There are some relationships where that’s part of the T&Cs, and what both people want. I’m not into a lifestyle D/s kinda thing, but that’s what some people want, because they don’t want to be “responsible” for making life choices. I’m not convinced it’s healthy, but it’s still their choice.
It’s unlikely to happen without some kind of apocalyptic event. Communist societies works very, very well on a small scale; you can have communes with maybe as many as a few hundred people, because everyone is connected to everyone else. That all falls apart when you start talking about anything bigger. Capitalist societies don’t seem to need that direct relationship in order to function.
I think that the best we can hope for is some kind of reform that blends parts of capitalism with socialism, and sharply constrains that rights of the capitalist class.
I don’t think that we’ll even get that though; I think we’ll get Cyberpunk 2077.
The pit bull groups of dogs, as breeds, are not the nanny-dogs that people claim they were. They are mastiffs; they were intended to guard, and were used for hunting and war. You can train the shit out of them, and they can still revert to breed characteristics.
A study in the US concluded that greater than 60% of all fatal dog attacks in the US were from pit bulls or Rottweilers, but those two groups don’t make up nearly 60% of all dogs in the US. These simply aren’t breeds that should be left alone with children.
Thank you for your more informed numbers! I had no idea that a basic city bus was half a million dollars; that seems outrageous, but it also seems outrageous that an F-150 can easily cost $80k.
It’s a pity that it’s so damn expensive to run light rail in established cities; it seems to make a lot more sense in the long run, but those numbers are really hard to swallow in the short run.
That’s the idea. The really big ones get pretty expensive though; a 30# fire extinguisher starts at around $500, and can get up to about $1500. But that size gets you about 20-30 seconds of continuous use, which is enough for a pretty big house fire.
I assume that you aren’t doing more because almost all of the people bitching about the Dems only aligning with 95% of their views and therefore don’t vote for the Dems because they’re just as bad are accelerationists; they just want to make the system function even less well than it already does so that the whole things crashes and burns. Or, worse, in the case of someone like Jill Stein, are actively working against the interests of the country. Best case scenario? They’re speaking to an in-group to harden people in a position so that they’re less likely to engage with political opponents.
If you really, truly want things to change, you gotta do that shit on a 1:1 basis, in person. If you’re serious about changing people and fixing shit, I’d suggest looking at techniques of street epistemology and reading David McRaney’s “How Minds Change”.
You can. But you need to engage them one on one, and you need to find out what’s important to them, what frustrates them, and why. And then build on that. It takes empathy, and not faked empathy. It’s not a short conversation, like asking someone to donate to Greenpeace on a sidewalk in Brooklyn. It’s deep canvassing.
For the most part, people change based on relationships, not raw information. In general, you can’t counter a belief simply by presenting overwhelming information. (This is one of the only areas where Trump is a savant; he’s actively fostered a parasocial relationship with his cultists. They believe that they have a strong social relationship with him, so they’re inoculated against information that’s critical or negative of Trump.) What this means is that ideas can be contagious, and can spread through relationships. If you are able to use you relationship with your parents to help them understand why e.g. Trump is terrible for the country, then they can, in turn, spread that to their friends.
While I appreciate your desire to abolish capitalism, in the case of fascism, it’s not money, but power that’s at play. Even if you eliminated all profit motive, people would still shill for Trump because they think that they can get some kind of benefit that isn’t necessarily monetary.
Instead of complaining, get active at a local level. Start doing shit, instead of complaining that other people should do shit. Be a local activist. Run for office. Work in person to persuade people. Get backing. Shake hands, kiss babies, meet people. And then? Vote for the best choices that you have.
If you want shit to change, you can’t complain on-line, you have to get off your ass and do something.
When I look at Dr. Steven Hassan’s BITE model for high-demand religions, the Mormon church ticks most of the boxes to some degree. Take behavior control: “4.Control types of clothing and hairstyles”. Okay, you don’t have to wear only white, and a specific model of white sneakers. But you are expected to wear opaque clothing that covers temple garments completely, and wear clothing that is free of an ‘offensive’ imagery or text. Beards and long hair are strongly socially discouraged, and will get you kicked out of BYU, as will visible tattoos and piercings. When you skip to “4. Regulate diet – food and drink, hunger and/or fasting”, well there’s the word of wisdom, and fast Sundays. And it just kinds goes on and on. They don’t do some of the things (murder, rape, etc.), but they do a lot of them to some degree.
At a minimum, it’s an unhealthy degree of authoritarian control.
I was raised Mormon. Mormonism is somewhat unique in that it claims to have a modern prophet and leadership that are directly led by god, and it strongly encourages members to pray to god and ask god for confirmation that this is true. Mormons are also taught that god would not allow their prophet to lead them astray, and that your local leaders are also inspired by god in what they do in their official capacity.
I was a missionary when shit started to break. I had a nervous breakdown; I am on the autism spectrum (although that diagnosis wasn’t available at that time; it was almost 30 years ago, back in DSM-III), and being a missionary was a lot too much for me for many, many reasons. I became suicidal. My leaders–again, people who were supposed to be called by god and led through inspiration from god–insisted that I must be acting in some sinful way, and that it was sin that had led to me being suicidal. They encouraged me to read my scriptures and pray more–as if I wasn’t already doing that a lot as a missionary–and to repent of my sins (whatever they were, because I sure as fuck didn’t know). If I was not sinning in some way, then Satan never could have taken hold in my heart, and Satan was obviously what was causing me to be suicidal. Obviously these commandments did not help, because I wasn’t doing anything ‘wrong’ in the first place.
But that leads to a problem: I believed that these people were called by god, and acting under god’s instructions, because I had received a spiritual witness. However, it was clear that they were wrong; I was not acting in a sinful manner (certainly less so than other missionaries!), and I had nothing to repent of. So these things are clearly contradictory: if I have received a spiritual confirmation from god that these men are led by him, then what they are saying must be from god and therefore true. But I know my own actions, and I know that I haven’t done anything that is sinful under any remotely normal definition of sin. Therefore, the feelings that I believed were spiritual confirmation must not have been spiritual confirmation at all.
Once you realize that feelings can not be a reliable way of knowing if something is actually true or not (or True, for that matter), then all of it falls apart. You realize that ‘answers’ to prayers are just feelings, not communication from the divine. The bible is suddenly a book of myths. Miracles dissolve like fog in the sun. When you look at religion–not just Mormonism, but all religion, and you compare it against things that can be verified empirically, none of the claims stand up.
Even though the foundations of my faith cracked while I was a missionary, I was unable to accept the meaning for several years, because Mormonism is a cult, and it’s very hard to escape even when you know it’s garbage.
The Appalachian foothills in Kentucky are pretty geologically dead; there aren’t any fault lines anywhere close by. It’s about as safe as any cave network can be.
I do recommend going to that are and taking some tours, especially in the middle of summer where you can see the inversion layer where the air goes from being 95F to 60F. Even the fully-accessible tours that don’t go through any tight spaces are pretty cool.
This depends on how cold, and how physical the labor is. The more physical the labor is, the less you’re going to want to wear (in general), because movement and exercise is going to keep you warm.
But, here’s a basic guideline.
First, no cotton. Full stop. Cotton will absorb mater, and then loses it’s ability to keep you warm. Jeans are an absolute non-starter in really cold weather. Leather is okay, but absolutely must be oiled and sealed against water (I’ve been experimenting with a beeswax and neatsfoot oil combination that seems to penetrate pretty well when applied with heat, but that’s more work than most people want to do).
Second, layers. Generally speaking, you want a wicking layer right next to your skin, insulation layer(s), and a waterproof/windproof shell layer over everything. Polypropylene long underwear is the normal technical choice for a wicking layer, and you can get polypro sock liners and glove liners as well. Wool should be your go-to choice for insulation layers; it has the fairly unique property of keeping you warm even when it gets wet, particularly because it’s really hard to get wool ‘wet’ (because wool is hydrophobic). Gore-Tex is gold-standard shell material; it gives you some level of breathability (e.g., allows sweat to evaporate out) while preventing water from getting in and keeping the wind out. With a good shell, you should be able to open vents to cool yourself down if you get too warm (and definitely cool yourself down well before you start feeling sweaty!) Goose down is great at keeping you warm, but does lose it’s loft–and insulating properties–when it gets wet. Depending on what you’re doing, you may want abrasion-resistant panels on your shell layers, as Gore-Tex isn’t as durable as, e.g. 1000D nylon pack cloth.
For boots, the US military ‘Mickey Mouse’ boots are pretty great. They’re several layers of rubber sheet, with wool felt insulation. You want to get them sized up a little so that you can get a liner sock and full cushion wool hiking socks in. All leather ankle-height hiking boots (Sorrel used to be one of the top choices, I’m not so sure any more) with lots of oil/wax based sealants and gaiters is another good choice.
As far as hands go, the same basic principles apply; a lightweight liner, a heavier insulation, and a shell layer. Generally speaking, you want mittens rather than gloves. If you must have gloves, then shooting gloves or lobster claw gloves are better than gloves that separate all of the fingers.
You’ll also want a good scarf–again, wool–and a long hat or balaclava, covered by the hood of your shell layer. The downside to a balaclava over a hat is that if it’s cold enough, your breath will freeze in the balaclava, leaving you with icicles hanging on your face.
This is what I’ve worn when I’ve done multi-day camping trips in the mountains in -20F weather. I’ve made mistakes–like choosing boots with different insulation, which kept my feet wet for three days straight–and the mistakes were painful. Poor footwear choices when bicycling at -20F has meant that I’ve had frostbite in my feet–not severe, thankfully, but incredibly painful as they thawed out.
EDIT As a final note - avoid anything that’s really constricting. Your wicking layer should be against your skin, but not tight. Anything that restrict blood flow is going to be a risk to developing frostbite. Shoes that are comfortable without heavy socks are going to be too tight with them. Depending on what you’re doing, you may need to make compromises. For instance, if you’re doing roofing, you’re probably going to have to get cotton, because that’s what Carhartt is available in, and you probably don’t want to be wearing $500 Gore-Tex shell pants for that.
What can the US do to help Mexico finally stop the cartels?
Politicians constantly talk about stopping the illegal immigrants that are coming from Mexico, but putting a wall has never and will never be a solution since the reason why so many displaced keep coming across the border is mostly to escape the crime, corruption, inequality, and violence of they have to live in their home...
They’re the same (lemmy.world)
The four houses dads belong to. (lemmy.world)
Just fuck my shit up (lemmy.today)
Contractor: how do you want the bathroom done?...
Healthy relationships don't control the clothes their spouse wears (lemmy.world)
When/how do you think capitalism will be defeated?
Sophie's choice 70s edition (lemmy.world)
Funds (lemmy.zip)
Do You Have a Fire Extinguisher in Your Home and is it Still Pressurized?
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/cb850349-4d78-417a-b3e7-3a0d23f7e864.jpeg
Remember, if Fascism wins it is YOUR FAULT. (slrpnk.net)
Former religious lemmings, what made you quit religion or stop being a believer?
Mostly trying to relate.
Why do it (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
Free sex... (party)*… Become poor dog (lemmy.world)
Those of you who work 8+ hours outside in the cold regularly, how do you dress for the job?
What tricks do you have to keep warm?