DukeNukeEm

I don't wish bad things would happen to you. I mean other than what just happened, I was rooting for that one. Don't take it personally.

Honestly, it makes sense to think Africa will be the next big thing, but they've always had this penchant for all-of-sudden going nutso and killing everyone/burning down everything in sight. You don't invest in places like that, nobody will insure you.

I honestly prefer drinking a 12 pack of Sunkist, shifting gears and thinking about how much I hate the government all day.

This going to be blunt and you probably aren't going to like it. I dont care about what happens to government workers because of this. I've never had a positive experience with a civilian government employee. They are all totally and utterly worthless, both in the work they're expected to do but also in the small fraction of that expectation that they actually accomplish. Usually this doesn't bother me, I'm not a big stickler for service. I stay polite, finish my business and vow never to return. But I have no choice but to pay for the salaries of government employees. I'm forced to chip into your wages at the barrell of a gun. So yea, f*** you too. You and your incompetent nepotist pals got unceremoniously fired just like so many of the rest of us have. Sucks doesn't it? But you've all been getting fat raises and nice union settlements on the back of our money for so long you should have something in the tank. Working for the government is an oxymoron. It is more like welfare. Taxpayer money goes in, a bunch of nothing happens, and a few million people get paychecks. I hate it, anything that dents it makes me f***ing jubiliant. The great part about this is this shutdown is pretty much permanent as long as long the Republicans control something. We've gone down the rabbit hole, the threshold has been crossed and lines in the sand drawn. There will be no compromising, slowly (like what happened with the military) some things will come back, but for many programs and employees this is the end. We haven't killed the monster yet, but almost accidentally the heroic House Republicans in an attempt to be the worst politicians ever inadvertently did this country a lot of good.

As happy as they should be for ascending past the bronze age in the 21st century, I'm not too impressed with that growth.

At least the worthless public employees get cut off. Do people understand that the National Parks will still exist? Like they aren't going to turn Mt Rainier into a strip mall.

I'm better looking than he is, I know.

Balta, I love it when you mock people for working for a living.

I'm talking about getting back into the center. Out of the way of merging traffic.

Because, and this something I've tried to get through to you, being 70 ft long and taking 3-4x the distance to stop as a car does not lend itself to changing lanes very well. So just because at the moment you're in a two mile stretch with no ramps it doesn't mean in the near future (particulalrly on a 3+ lane highway) there won't be many ramps. I need a ton of room to switch lanes, I need a ton of room to even slow down. So being involved in a dance between the center and right lane is bad. I can't be any more clear. Seriously, that's the best I can do.

Because if you've been driving that long and are not aware of the rudimentary pass on the left concept you in fact have no idea what you're doing. That's a fair assumption.

Greg is pretty much right. At least on the point that Obama would keep. winning no matter how bad of a president he is. He's a celebrity.

The point I'd I'm being told how to I should do my job (condescention) by people who've never stepped foot in a truck while I, who's been in many cars and driven many cars in many places, cannot make any judgments at all on cars. Then being told I'm condescending.

I'm getting a little annoyed hearing that. I've been living in the back of this truck for a month, I haven't been home in a month, I haven't spent more than one consecutive night in the same place in a month. I've spent a combined 5 hours with people I've known from before this job in a month. Its actually been more than that but whatever, on a bad day this s*** is not easy for anyone. Guy who's been driving his whole life died in his cab 4 weeks ago and they just found him. So cut the bulls***, I see the job hunt thread and all the b****ing that goes on in Buster about "WHERE ARE THE JOBS???!??!?", well here's one. I'd be demeaned less if I were some welfare baby working part tine at McDonalds.

Look, I'm not totally into the whole "trucks run the economy" crap, this happens to be the one job available which I have zero threat of being laid off where I can still make a middle class income as a 24 year old. But to compare the importance of trucks to taxi cabs is just stupid. The reason you don't have to slaughter chickens in the morning is because some truck is enabling a farm far away to do it for you. Everything you own, including your house, was put where it is on your behalf by a truck. This isn't me being confrontational or demeaning, its just a goddamn fact. The taxi that gets you home drunk might seem equally important to you, but if you spent one day seeing all that goes into logistics you'd instantly change your tune.

I haven't read a single legitimate response. Its all been some weird attempt to say that I'm trying to play cop, claiming that your friend works for JB Hunt (OK...) and that means you know better or so just a flat out attack on me personally. The most compelling argument I've heard is that the truck is where you want to be and thus it should move, but I've seen how most of you all drive and that applies to everyone on the road. Don't expect everyone else, especially the guy who will almost assuredly kill someone if he screws up, to try moving mountains at the expense of safety to keep you satiafied. Were talking about vehicles that almost universally weigh in the tons traveling at very high speeds carrying fragile little humans. Think about that for a minute, how precarious those physics are. The goal here is not to whip around like you're pretending to be Sebastian Vettel, its not to shave 5 minutes off your commute, its to try and make this controlled form of chaos known as urban highways actually work to where people don't start dying. I'm not trying to enforce anything, I'm just doing my part the best I can. I'm not pretending to be super-trucker, I'm holding the same lane going a very consistent speed. I'm not trying to make you do anything. I just had one piece of advice that could save your life and the lives of those around you. That was it, as dumb as you all are and as much as you're better off taking the train, you don't deserve to die for being bad at driving. Its not a reasonable consequence considering how the slightest mistake can kill you on the highways But that's the reality of the situation, and instead of denying it because they don't want to go "slow" (speed limit, whatever) motorists just keep lining up to die like lambs to the slaughter because they refuse to respect that fact.

Denver today, what a blast! Steep acceleration lanes than end 500 ft after they reach highway grade. Seriously, a case in point as to why I don't hang out there. Not to mention: if you want to blast around at 70 in a 55, which is breaking a law centered around safety, what exactly makes it so wrong for a truck actually doing the speed limit to be in the middle lane? What the f*** world do I live in where if I don't coddle someones lawlessness I'm being reckless? Just turn your licenses in, guys. Save a life, do something good. Over 70% of fatal collisions between truck and car are the car driver's fault and now we get to see why. They expectation you have of an 80k lb monster to be as agile and quick is idiotic. You need off the roads.

In going to assume you at least somewhat enjoy modern.society, so you don't want to ban trucks from the highways. The passengers side blind spot is a reality of our vehicles, trust me nobody likes having it. I do what I can to compensate for it. If I check the passengers side mirror and some little Toyota is flying to my right I can kinda predict where he'll be in 3-5 seconds. If he hasn't passed me yet, and I can't see him in the mirrors anymore I can critically deduce that he's in my blind spot. There are things that make that harder to do. For one, I cannot just stare down my passengers side mirror. I have other things to look at. The other is 4 wheelers are erratic, they'll whip around or start riding my ass so the lane I think ia taken could very well be open, or vice-versa. Nobody perfect, I've lost track of cars before in cities just to have them reappear in a new place I'd never expect. Also, the idea of me just hanging out in the right lane where traffic merges directly into my blind spot before the acceleration lane gets cut off by the shoulder or guardrail makes the problem worse. Do 4 wheelers still merge into the far right lane and into my blind spot? Yes, but its a lot less frequent. That plus the constant slow-down/speed up of the right lane will cook my brakes. Not might, not could... eventually I'll smoke my brakes and that will be very bad. I've noticed that I'm not allowed to Jake in most cities, so that option is out.

It doesn't take long to figure it out. I've cleared 26k miles and gone coast to coast 4 times. I'm by no means all there, but I'm qualified to make these statements. And to S2K, there's nothing in there that says any driver should be dangerous. I didn't say to merge on top of the motherf***ers and put the hammer down, I just said our capacity for consideration of your "need" to get past us is non-existant. We don't care about how fast you get to go, I've got plenty more things to worry about. That said I don't want to kill you or endanger you. If you've got the lane you've got it, if you ignore my turn signal I'm not going to crush you to take that lane (under any circumstances, even if it means I slam into a school bus at 60 MPH because you didn't get over I'm not going to spill my load and wipe out everyone on the road). Just don't put yourself in a position where I cannot see you, because if I think that lane is clear and Ineed to take it I will, and at that point the mistake of you passing me on the right just cost you your life and me my license/job/career/possibly freedom. All that because youre being held up for an extra 30 seconds on your morning commute.

Maybe everyone passing him on the right made it impossible to merge back? I don't know, I wasn't there. All I have is testimony from a 4 wheeler. And that's the problem. You barely know the meaning of "slowed down". Its just more of the same "I know better than these ignorant f***ing truckers do on these roads! They barely know how to drive!". I'm sorry you didn't shave a minute or two off your commute that day, really breaks my heart that you, your BIG TIME Class D license and little s***box didn't feel as entitled to full ownership of those roads as you should. Us truckers, yea I mean we might drive more hours in a day than you will all week, we might be carrying 45,000 lbs of crap for you to buy and sure, the difference 10 MPH makes to your commute 1 MPH makes to our entitre day but we need to understand that 4 wheelers just know better. I'll keep it in mind next time I have to overtake another truck: "Now think, not passing him will cost me $1.50/hr. But if I do pass him some of these 4 wheelers might be 4 minutes, as opposed to 6 minutes, early for the job they hate".

So way back in my 3rd year of college I met this girl and we really got on. Hitting it off, we really worked well together. I was all about her, I struggled to hide it and suppress it but eventually really "went for it" and kinda struck out. Since then we had talked every 6 months or so cause even though it wrecks me every time I just engage her anyways. I'm a glutton for punishment. So my truck breaks down outside the city she moved to out west, and being the dumb ass I am I called her. She of course rushed out and we hung out for a few hours having not seen each other face to face in 3 years. It was great, we picked up like right at this awesome place we were at before. She looked fantastic, she was still smart and I mean, yea, it was all still there. She went on to kinda complain about the relationship she had been in for a year or so now and I had to tell her not to go on about it, and she complied but of course it stuck with me. This girl ain't dumb, she knew what she was saying. Since then all those feelings have just rushed back. I just stew on it for 11 hours by myself driving the truck. And I mean its not like I can sustain anything even if she was on board, I have to be from Burley, ID to Worcester, MA in the next 5 days. And from there who knows. It just sucks, this is the one girl I ever really got beat up over. I can't help but stay in touch with her because she's so stimulating and really is one of a handful of people stands up to my bulls*** but the only one who never judged me for it. It blows, man. And the thing is next time I'm in her neck of the woods I'll call her again. I can't help it.

"The employer mandate is awful" We can tweak that out. Damn Republicans won't let us. "What about the clergy?" A quick fix. Damn Republicans won't let us. "Doesn't this just indenture people to their employer?" Yea, but it like totally doesn't mean to. The intent was not to, but it does. That makes sense on my planet "Isn't it wrong for the government to two private parties into a business transaction?" /crickets The excuses keep mounting for this awful law, occasionally bouyed by some appeal to empathize with the poor but mostly just complaining about Democrats not getting everything they wanted. At some point, and were well past it in regards to this wretched law, you just have to stop claiming you can fix things within the framework of a broken idea and just admit that the idea itself is bad enough to where it needs to be abandoned.

Oh healthcare, its the one issue I flip back and forth on the more I think about it. I just can't seem to nail down what fits within my personal opinions on government. On one hand, I support at least the public option but really more towards an NHS style system. I've said on this forum a million times, governments's only job is to protect our rights to life, liberty and economic freedom from those who would infringe upon those rights either domestically or from abroad. Insurance companies and healthcare providers have crossed this criminal line in the sand where the system they've been in charge of has become so bloated and broken that they're actually violating our right to life (obviously) and our right to economic freedom. The first one should be clear, the second will take a sentence or two to explain. When confronted with the cost of healthcare people do not do a cost/benefit analysis, the value someone puts on their own life is infinite. Insurance companies and providers know this, so they go absolutely apes*** with these prices, its all just arbitrary--the market has no say because people will spend every cent they have if it means saving themselves or a family member. Healthcare happens to be that one thing we all need universally, rename healthcare to the more apt label life care and you get the true meaning: We are all alive, we all need something done to preserve that condition. So is it within the government's purview to provide healthcare? Probably, I mean maybe, I mean... no? The problem is causation, the idea that government should pass laws against the act of our rights being taken away but not the circumstances under which they are taken. Ban murder, not thr instruments of murder. In this case I have a very difficult time figuring out if the current system is actually engaging in act of killing peope or just a cricumstance behind which murder happens. Does that make sense? Also, the government should never pass a law protecting one set of rights by violating another. This gets so muddled in my head I cannot even articulate into the written word without being even more disorganized than I usually am. Either way, Obamacare is an awful law because it empowers rotten institutions with taxpayer money (enough of which they get already via outrageous premiums) and then forces us to buy stuff from them. I can't get over the second one, its just wrong on so many levels and shows that were headed down this brutal path of corporate socialism, were all forced to buy stuff from a set of government protected highly subsidized companies who have zero incentive to compete because they are fool proofed by our money. Then on top of that we are forced to contribute to their profits by law. So we get put in a state of wage slavery where our bills perfectly match our paychecks and the part that gets taken out in taxes is filtered through the state to be handed out in whatever corrupt way they can think of before being brought back to the very people who we are already paying mandated money to. You cannot defend it. I don't care how in the bag you are for Obama because he's you Great Liberal Hope, this law of his is f***ing evil on a vast array of levels and has to be stopped at nearly any cost.

Its not really a perception, its reality. Now the percepion probably fuels it, but generally the more blacks that live in a neighborhood the less the homes there are worth. Like I said, its not as blunt as this guy but follow the wallets and you'll see how whites quietly vote on the issue. I'm not saying its right, but denying it is stupid.

You really should avoid passing in those type of work zones, if we get relegated to the left lane there's usually some hazard that forces it. But yra, if we are stuck in the left lane by design and you need to pass that's a notable exception. I don't know about other drivers but in those situations I check my passenger mirror like crazy just so I can keep tabs on what's going on over there I like the quote "they shouldn't be on the road anyways", this applies to laughably large percentage of 4 wheelers, particularly in cities. The realityof these people is something we have to account for, which is why sometimes if you gesture a truck over or flash your high beams tthey'll ignore you. Enough of these guys have been burned by 4 wheelers so much they've lost faith in all of them.