When asking yourself such questions, ask what law(s) might be broken. There are plenty I’m sure, but your PI should know exactly how to stay out of trouble. Unless when, maybe later, it comes out that he was up to shenanigans…

And no, I’m certain no justification is required to contract a PI. Imagine if there was, no one would do the job.

Toad Suck, Arkansas. Got a cool pic at the lock and dam, missed the park and the town itself.

Transylvania, Louisiana. Got a pic of the bat painted on the water tower, but the general store/Post Office was closed, so no souvenirs.

Got one in my redneck suburb. We almost exclusively shop there.

You made me remember! Yes, this was on a HUGE TV, probably 70", and that in a time when those were insanely expensive, had never seen one in a home. It was like the house walls in Fahrenheit 451.

“Come look! The White Clown is talking!”

An LSD party back in college taught me a thing I’ll never forget. There were 3 TVs in the living room and my best friend and I were tripping balls. He pulls me over to where I can see all 3 screens.

He said, “Notice who the number of people watching is directly proportional to the size of the screen?”

Mind. Blown.

Nothing I’ve read has ever explained Trump’s appeal like this article.

https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about

Nothing in there makes a cute soundbite. “They’re racist!”, is far easier than having to digest what the author lays down.

Seriously, read it. It’s important.

Yep, I lay the majority of our political insanity on Fox’s door. Look, we all know they’re the GOP’s propaganda arm, but how many of you have actually watched a good bit?

I was stuck with a week of it during the Snowden revelations. In the space of an entire week, I didn’t hear a single word on what was worldwide news. Stunning, and I still can’t explain it, but it happened. Point being, a lot of the lies are in what they don’t say. Early afternoon of 01/06, not a blip on the website. (Which BTW, is far more sane than the TV version.) I checked the wayback machine and FOx reported nothing until hours after kick off. I presume they prayed it would blow over or at least die down. Imagine the spin control behind the scenes! Hell, even Tucker Carlson pleased with Trump to make a sane statement and cut it off.

After hearing “Obama” thousands of times, over and over and over, I was sick of him! The whole time my friend’s step-mom was screaming at the screen, “The KKK ought to do their got damned JOB!” These people sat in their armchairs 24/7 (never saw them go to their bedroom), smoking weed and watching nothing but Fox. We tried to put on a movie or another show exactly twice and it promptly got switched back.

One time I was stuck with Fox at the doctor’s office, some kind of round-table show going on. A metric showing black people doing better under the Obama administration came up, something about pay I think. One of the hosts slams his fist of the table and shouted, “Obama’s a RACIST!” Constantly listen to crap like that and you are, eventually, getting brainwashed.

Alien replays nicely if you haven’t seen it in awhile and really focus on the experience.

Yeah, I don’t feel this is on the doctors. They’re overrun with work and are just trying to get through it. I was unable to find a single GP in my town that takes both insurance and new patients. My wife can’t find a heart doctor, no one is taking new patients.

An anecdote that illustrates my point:

Went to CVS one Sunday with what I had thought was a mild, post-surgery infection. Turned out it wasn’t, I merely overworked my hand, and was in fact healing up great! This young doctor, having no other patients, sat and shot the shit with me for nearly an hour. I learned so much about my current and past problems. He spoke casually, fielded questions unrelated to my current issue, treated me like an old friend. “The hell made you think kayaking was OK 6-days out of surgery?! Damn, man…” All because he had time to kill. Imagine that. (LOL, he have me antibiotics anyway, knowing I was losing my insurance and would bank them against future need.)

I still have a hard time digesting “gay” as a slur. We simply didn’t use it that way, ever. F@g could go both ways and my gay friends happily slung it at each other. An attempt to take the word back from the haters I guess. At least that word was sometimes used as a real insult.

We’re of an age, and I too try to bring perspective to younger readers. All true, I was there, I saw it.

Solid write up! You’ve changed my opinion. I had thought terms like “octoroon” were merely archaic descriptors, had never thought of the “one drop” angle and what that implied.

Holy shit! There’s even a word for all this!

such terminology is a characteristic of hypodescent, which is the practice within a society of assigning children of mixed unions to the ethnic group which the dominant group perceives as being subordinate

1/64th: Sang-mêlé. My god, that’s a laugh-out-loud racist word if I ever heard one. How far back did they want to go?!

For anyone else finding this interesting, this might be the opening of a rabbit hole:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadroon

That’s a bingo!

And Obama bagged on Romney for it.

“The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back.”

Now I want to see a black Amazon driver dressed as a slave, singing “Swing Low Sweet Chariot”, and getting chewed out over an in-van loudspeaker.

“Yuhsir! Won’t happen again suh!”

Can you imagine the emergency PR meetings?!

My neighbor at camp handed me his silenced .22 loaded with subsonic ammo. All I could hear was the action moving back and forth. So clear, I realized I had heard that exact sound because I have the same gun in a different form!

OTOH, it’s impossible to get a significantly silent supersonic round down to “quiet”, not even close. And none y’all better steal my new band name!

Shame most Americans take the term “silencer” literally. We’ll never see sane legislation. Meanwhile, in Europe, I’m told some ranges mandate suppressors, and at best, you’re considered a douche canoe blasting away without one.

Going to bite the bullet (heh) and get one on my AR when I can afford (and have time to figure out the tiresome paperwork and fees). The noise is stunning and I’d like to be more considerate of my country neighbors.

Can I get a tl;dr? Revenue is meaningless without subtracting costs.

I’d be down for copyright extending 10-years past the creator’s death, 20 at most. This is plenty of time to resolve complex legal affairs, fighting relatives, etc.

“Impossible sir. My doobage is in Johnson’s underwear.”

Love that word.

Never questioned it, but that’s one hell of a long statement. Can anyone string that many sentences together, and so clearly?

I was devouring On Writing yesterday and I could see Stephen King blasting that as bad dialog. Bad as in, unbelievable in a work of fiction.

Filipinos!? Are you sure about that? My wife is from these and is horrified at the mere suggestion of it. She doesn’t talk shit about people doing it, but having it around is a hard NO for her. She’s even leery about me getting mack on medical.

Speaking broadly, Asians have a hard line stance against drugs, figured that was her thing. Maybe she’s just worried about being an immigrant on the wrong side of the law?

And yes, they’re the Mexicans of Asia.