Ah I've always associated Snowbirds with old retired folk but I guess we can be ones too these days with remote work :pokerface:

I took "South Texas" to mean right up against the Mexican border I thought you were taking on a new career as a coyote smuggling Latinos across the Rio Grande. Enjoy, San Antonio was my favorite city in Texas, plus you can always drive to Austin if you wanna visit California :D

We're driving to Houston at the end of the month to see Usher, staying there for a few days too, so we'll likely check out dirty ass Galveston too. Going to a Spurs game in December when they play the Lakers.

The people down here are fat as FUCK, both us of have been feeling sluggish from eating all the oily bullshit. I've start to cook more at the condo as a result, also joined a wicked bodybuilding gym down the street from my place which has been my heaven so far. There's a river bike trail nearby (we both brought our bikes down) so I've been riding about 45KMs 3 times a week for cardio on that thing. It's funny though, you RARELY see someone riding a bike down here, and if you do it's sure as hell not physical, these fat asses ride rented e-bikes for their outdoor "cardio".

One thing I have to say about Texas, or any of these Republican states. We whine about stupid shit in Vancouver, but jesus we have it good in BC when it comes to public land access and infrastructure.

Last weekend we tried visiting one of the few lakes in this region (Canyon Lake), what a joke of a day. We drove an hour there only to find there's pretty much no public access to the lake, everything is private land for the most part. If you do find a park with lake or river access, you're paying $20 USD to enter. So I'm walking around in 30 degree heat pissed off as hell. We try to salvage the day by driving to a small park by the Guadalupe River, we park, walk over to the river and are met by a vomit inducing smell of eggy farts. I looked at that dirty water, thought about Charles Barkley, and decided no fucking way was I going in that shit.

Upon researching later, apparently that's all quite common here in Texas -- Dirty rivers with brain eating amoeba, high hydrogen sulfide levels in the lakes, all as a result of deregulation and lack of government oversight. It's been quite eye opening, going back to Trump, makes me laugh when Canadian Trumper buddies who enjoy the outdoors, meanwhile are out espousing the virtues of deregulation and conservative governance.

These Republican bastards have been running Texas since day one, and look at what they've created, a fucking wasteland, would you want that in BC? Our government has problems, but thank god we live in a country and province that still values the environment, public access and protection to the beauty that's there.

RFK baby let’s go, no more vaccines no more childhood autism!

Have you gone up to Barton Springs in Austin? I went it was too cold (for Texans) but it seemed pretty nice. Maybe not what you're looking for as it's basically a city park but still nice. Anyways yeah it's a nice respite from the rest of "red-Texas", everyone there is a young, hot and white or Asian tech or tech-adjacent bro/sis.

I'm not really expecting much change to personal safety when going down there, but I am concerned about the effect of gutting things like the EPA and FDA. You can't really avoid breathing, drinking, and eating.

https://i.imgur.com/cXiZkn0.png

Oh cool, I think I'll apply to work for Elon

https://i.imgur.com/g2RARYV.png

Oh I have to pay him first! Only slightly corrupted.

Nice filter though, ensuring they only get applications from people with an IQ under 70 who pay for a blue checkmark. They should also have to apply from their Cyber Truck.

Just because successful people act unconcerned doesn’t mean tariffs don’t have an impact.

Elon is the biggest grifter known to man. He’s been on the government’s dime since Obama gave him a $500m interest free loan. And let’s not forget all the taxpayer money funding SpaceX and the tax breaks on his EVs. Fuck this guy.

There’s enough terrible shit locally that directly effects me, if the cost of some items I may or may not buy go up because of tariffs, so be it. It’s out of my control, what can I do. No point in wasting energy

You seem to care a lot about what Israel does

Do you think things in Gaza will improve with Trump? Do you think Biden wasn't trying to reign them in?

I just like the irony of the situation. we’ve allowed genocide enabling Israel, our sweet, sweet, useful, ally.

Do you think there was anything they could do about it? Do you think they didn't try? Do you think Trump will do better?

Come on give me more than the same meme response you always do. Let's have a discussion here. What do you think?

It’s the same thing I’ve always said. There are Jewish people with power and influence directly involved in the govt. whether it be either Democrats or Republicans or Trudeau or PP. I can guarantee you they feel internal pressure to not condemn the attacks which is brutal. The states obviously had the geopolitical aspects but let’s face it, deep down the states probably didn’t mind to let a situation play out that’s likely favourable for them and doesn’t make THEM look bad.

Again I don’t REALLY care deep down it’s absolutely terrible and I’d think I understand more about it than your average person but I’d prefer not to dwell on the horrible details

Palestine and its people as a nation are doneeeeeee, you think Ukraine is bad this is like being sent back to the literal Stone Age. People don’t deserve this especially kids and western nations if not enabled it, turned a blind eye long enough to destroy a nation

What do you think the US can do, besides sanctioning Israelis known for terrorism and withholding promised weapons, and things along those lines? Should they take over their government?

Condemn it lol like I said like they can’t even say like.. morally we cannot continue to support this. They allow it to happen willingly.

So you think they support it? Do you think they're not doing anything at all? Do you think they are sending them the same amount of weaponry as usual?

They might actually be sending them more tbh.
It's in the US best interest in a way. They are just using Israel to fight a proxy war against Iran and hezbollah in Lebanon, but they absolutely are enabling a genocide.
I think Biden as a person wanted to use influence and friendliness to get Israel to ceasefire, but I think the Biden administration was happy to enrich themselves via Lockheed Martin stocks. Republicans will be even worse. Blood is nothing compared to money.

They are withholding bigger ones. There's people trying to get more done. It will be interesting to see what they can do by next year, and what will be reversed

@mikemhg have you tried franklin’s bbq in austin? God Bless America with those briskets

There is this group called "Arab Americans for Trump" based in Dearborn, Michigan. The founder is a former long time Democrat, and his group helped Trump to win Arab American support, winning Michigan, which is a swing state.

According to the founder, they supported Trump because they were disillusioned by the injustice that the Democrats have shown towards Arabs. They felt their pleads have been ignored. But Trump took the time to "listen to their concerns", and "showed respect to the (Arab) community." And he felt Trump would take the Arab community's concerns to his heart.

I understand the disillusionment from the Biden administration, but to think that Trump would actually support the Arab nations in any way and keep Israel in check... My goodness... I have no words to describe how naive they are, and I wonder what they'd think when Trump encourages and enables Israel to wreck even more havoc in the ME...

Sounds about as logical as Queers for Palestine

These stupid fucks thought the guy that literally enacted a "muslim ban" thought that he was going to act in their best interest, and voted for him.

The stupidest of stupid fucks.

Almost sounds like Trump will be setting up a landslide victory for the Dems in the next cycle if he gets anything done.

So many of these groups are full of ppl who are like "this won't affect me" or "this doesn't apply to me". They'll be in for a rude awakening.

I am not nearly as optimistic as you are. Judging by the number of people in my social media feed that thinks the trifecta appointments of Gabbard, Gaetz, and RFK do not present any problems, I am very pessimistic about the US' future outlooks.

FailFish