FedPosterman5000

For sure. New Orleans is a privatized nightmare in terms of engineering and construction - cranking out dogshit studies with no correction since the CPRA is just as useless, and everything in the pockets of the local levee districts, glorified chambers of commerce but with the authority to define which communities get levees.

At the end of the day, it’s not about protecting any communities (otherwise you wouldn’t build them below sea level….) but rather about protecting oil infrastructure. Hence you see lots of studies that aren’t fiscally justified go forward with poorly defined benefit-cost analyses, and then hardly hold up to scrutiny, except that the local levee districts then rile up their local slop farmer (e g. Sen. Graves (R)-LA) who leans on the federal government to approve it.

I don’t think there have ever been any consequences to this sort of action? But if there are, we’ll all certainly learn from them…

That could also be due to the ocean and atmosphere being a concern for NOAA, and the navy and air force also having people who study ocean and atmosphere, and the us federal government programs which make it easier for former military to enter civil service.

But yes though, anything the US has done in terms of understanding natural processes is invariably linked to using that knowledge to spread violence globally. US develops research to understand littoral drift and beachhead dynamics? Better believe that’s to support beach invasions. US develops underwater drones capable of surveying bathymetry quickly and cheaply? Better believe that’s not going to be used for good.

But yeah NOAA has a commissioned officer section - which admittedly has really cool boats and planes (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOAA_Commissioned_Officer_Corps), as does the US Public Health Service (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Public_Health_Service_Commissioned_Corps).

Frankly if you can grift money from the military to support climate research and public health you have my full support, but remember the piper gets paid in the end…

So much mixed emotions around not being diagnosed with any mental health conditions in the 90s - sure I didn’t get treatment and developed coping mechanisms that have taken a decade to undo, but at least I only got bullied for being fat (until I learned the value of punching your way out certain situations)

Still from the new Mars Attacks! prequel looks great

Yeah definitely geared to purge whatever vestiges of “central planning” even occur in the US anymore- this is IMO an area they believe can be 1-to-1 replaced by AI - and with how “planning” currently occurs in the government (with enough guardrails to prevent too much introspection of root causes)- they’re not wrong, it will just be the death of any sort of novel thought (or whatever offends the bourgeoisie) applied to planning.

Hey now - don’t forget ableism!!

*This message brought to you by Ableism - ‘You thought things were bad now? It’s actually the best it’s ever been!’ Ableism! Shut up and work!*™️ -*disclaimer - sentence may be applied to most other types of bigotry (in the US)- but the message is the same, ‘get back to work you, ******* ********** *******’

Cheers on the same from clinical depression squad

Booooooooooooo. I didn’t know “Pureflix” existed but now I do. Boooooooooooo

Yeah I hear that. I have no idea what I’m gonna do- I’m almost a “career” employee in the agency I’m at so I may as well stick it out and see if the outlook improves in that time, or see if they fire me - tbh maybe that would be the fun “change of pace” I’ve been craving haha. Good you’ve got something lined up though - the civil engineering world has been wild since 2020, kinda the opposite of the late 2000s- there’s just so much work to do - hope it’s doing something you like and can learn from in the mean time! And most importantly take some time to recover from getting jerked around

Thanks for trying to work for the NRCS - they do good work (imo) but are way underfunded and have a habit of grinding down good engineers. Maybe you’ll get to do their work on contract! I’ve designed a handful of ACEP sites as a consultant - NRCS has produced so many good resources for rural engineering and ecosystem restoration - it’s too bad they’ve gotten fucked up so much by austerity (and the the capitalist desire for converting ag land to development).

By ANY means necessary

Twinks are cute at all ages and should be protected as such