I doubt there would be any companies that own the refineries that would stay in TX at the risk of losing all the business they do in the rest of the US. TX would be a dystopian nightmare to live in if they did leave the US. No national company is going to stay, all the military bases and defense industry would be gone, no products will be delivered from other states for as long as it would take to figure out passports and immigration back into the US, the airports would no longer have FAA oversight, and a million of other small things that get taken for granted in everyday life would be gone. Companies that are US based have a responsibility to work in their shareholders interest and I can't see any rational shareholders wanting to leave the entire US market for the shithole TX market.

Edit: I replied to the wrong comment but it kind of fits so I'll leave it.

The problem is the GOP voters are idiots. Low - No information voters whose entire political education is based on cherry picked and planned sound bites. Most don't know they are voting for the end of the US or fascism but they sure as hell know they are voting to "insert fear mongering sound bite". They eat this stuff up since it hurts someone else. No other political party in the US capitalizes on keeping idiots entertained.

I never said anything about condoning criminality. I said valuing property higher than life isn't right. I said this in another post a few days ago but I'll say it again. I live in a high crime area and I am sick and tired of people stealing from not only me but my neighbors and from businesses that support the community's needs. That doesn't change the fact I think it's morally repugnant to want to kill someone for property theft.

If we invested more in community building and opportunities along with courts and police departments upholding the law we would have less of these types of crimes. Where I live the police stopped policing because they got mad after several officers were charged with the murder of a kid they arrested. In my eyes that makes them the same as the people stealing from the community. The courts here rarely convict juveniles so the kids know they can get away with just about anything.

While I say I live in a high crime area I also know that overall in the US crime rates have been declining over the years especially violent crime rates.

Wikipedia Crime stats

Your comment is on the nose.

I have had many arguments with people over the fact you shouldn't want to shoot someone over property. I'm a gun owner but I don't carry a gun and I don't believe a life is worth less than property. The amount of people I know who carry a gun and have said they would shot someone for stealing is incredibly high and troubling.

I don't know if it is a direct result of the daily dehumanization of ethnic groups and criminals we are bombarded with all day long everyday or if it is much more complex but there is a real problem in the US when large groups of people don't value other people's lives.

It's fascinating how some of that generation have turned out. My parents are in their mid 70's and are on an edibles kick right now since they "are to old to be smoking". Their neighbor is the same age and has bought into the whole war on drugs and just about every other bit of propaganda authoritarians have put out in the last 50 years. The neighbor is a good source of daily excitement and stories that my parents like to tell us when we see them.

While I agree with your position that this is a result of all the bad policies of the past I think you are missing the other side of the equation where people who live in crime ridden areas and don't steal from stores or their neighbors lose food access and access to items they need to live when stores pull out of the worst areas. People steal in all areas not just 'poor' areas but poor areas are hit the hardest when it is no longer possible to buy food within 5 - 10 miles or to go to a shopping center and buy clothes or whatever else you need to function in society.

I live in one of the top 5 "worst" cities in the country and I am tired of having my stuff stolen. In the last month I have had a car stolen, a bicycle stolen, and several people climb over my 6' fence in the middle of the night to see what they can steal from my yard. This is just in the last month. The last 10 years have been an ongoing cycle of thefts, murders, muggings, and assaults. I don't know where you're from or what your situation is but I hope it is someplace better where you don't have to worry about these things and it's a place where you can go to the store and not worry about someone robbing the store while you are in it.

Also that guy didn't steal food. He tried to steal a 30 gallon trash can full of cigarettes that he filled up by walking behind the counter and emptied out the display rack.

I feel like you have an idealistic outlook on people in general. I used to also and still do to a point but at some point you have to acknowledge the fact that there are times and people that do not deserve to be shared in that outlook.

It's complete shit right now. 5 or more years ago I could quickly find an answer to a very technical question with no problem. Now it is useless for anything. Just today I was looking for a shop near me that can perform a front end alignment on my RV, I searched for "Tractor Trailer front end alignment near me". The entire first page is either tire shops that do not offer front end alignments, car tire shops that don't even sell the correct size tires I would need for a tractor trailer, or shops 2000 miles away in various directions. It's horrible and I think it would be faster to look in the yellow pages for what I need in this case. I never found a shop using google.

Also today I was searching for the tires I need in the shopping tab there were ads for tires that google had labeled as wal-mart but when I would click the link it would take me to a Chinese scam site.

The world would be a better place without these assholes slithering around. They are like sewer rats wading in shit just under our feet waiting for an opportunity to invade our homes to spread their filth and disease. I am astounded everyday how a few extremists manage to sway and influence a decent portion of normal people to the brink of committing atrocities. This is a world wide problem and not just US centric, though the ~30% of US voters who eat up that stuff scare the crap out of me.

Man Mandrake brings back some memories. It was my first linux install solely because they had the fastest shipping time for install cd's and at the time I was on dialup so I couldn't just download anything I wanted. I ran it for several years and ended up on a few different distro's and freebsd for a bit.

Not if you're on kbin. The new server isn't federated with kbin.social for some reason.

I think it's the Youtubers who claim how easy it is and make claims of making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year doing it. Somehow those videos made it into my algorithm on YT. Everyday for several months I get at least one usually 3 or 4 pressure washing / house washing videos recommended. I'm sure many other people are also. Seems like there are 2 bigger companies spamming Youtube with how to get in the soft washing business and that birthed a number of people who vlog on yt about how great the business is.

Edit: It also has a low cost of entry to start a pressure washing or soft washing company. From what I've seen you can start one for under $500 in equipment and have seen videos of guys using their cars to haul around the equipment and chemicals. So anyone who wants to can get into the business. On a side note I doubt many of them are licensed or have liability insurance. The risk of property damage is super high when running a pressure washing or soft washing business.

About 20 years ago I was running a phpnuke site on my home server and had someone doing the same thing as you describe. Hundreds of attempts over and over all night long. I went through the logs and saw it was someone on intelsat (I think, it's been a long time) internet from Africa. I called intelsat or whoever the company was and talked to their system admin that was on call. Within 20 mins of getting off the phone the attack stopped and never happened again. They guy I talked to was really nice and seemed like he was happy to be able to help me.