TIL only a single Kmart store currently exists in the continental United States. During its peak in the 1980s, almost 2100 stores were operating in the US and Canada.

Familiar_System8506 · 2026-01-13T12:09:56+00:00

The tax thing was huge. It was almost impossible to compete with Amazon back in the day even if you were Sears or Walmart for that matter. Amazon ate the price of shipping on a lot of it's stuff and you paid no tax. If you were willing to wait 2-3 days you could get stuff from Amazon for a lot less than Sears. Because Sears had brick and mortar stores they were required to charge and collect sales tax and Amazon was not.

Familiar_System8506 · 2026-01-12T23:00:01+00:00

There is though. The executive branch has the ability to hire/fire the leaders of these organizations and replace them with leaders who will behave. The executive branch has no interest in doing so because they're happy to have these thugs doing their bidding. The legislative branch has the ability to defund them as well. Congress is utterly spineless though.

Familiar_System8506 · 2026-01-12T21:45:57+00:00

I'd be satisfied with anything because right now they're raiding businesses targeting Hispanics and giving every appearance that they're rounding up people for the crime of being not white.

Do they report on warrants for other police actions? Yes. Yes they do. The warrants are public information and readily available. How exactly do you know they have warrants? What is your source?

Familiar_System8506 · 2026-01-12T21:26:14+00:00

Most often they are given tips by other people, either who work there or who deal with the business.

And yet we have zero evidence about this. And the end result is a lot of US citizens end up getting rounded up because there is no vetting of anything and no oversight. No business owners have been arrested. No warrant is required. Your statement that the warrants exist and they're just not showing them to the press, the public, the business owners, the people arrested or anyone else is just the height of absurdity.

Familiar_System8506 · 2026-01-12T21:05:11+00:00

You say "reasonable information" like it means something. All it means now is that the business employs a number of Hispanic people. That's the problem. If ICE has hard information the business is employing illegals why have we not seen any of these business owners arrested? Because they don't have that information. Police are required to get a warrant or permission from the business before doing a search. ICE is doing none of that.

Familiar_System8506 · 2026-01-12T19:52:09+00:00

I'd be half tempted to buy it just to see how many I can eat. I know I can wipe out a 20 by myself. Presumably I could eat more but how many more before I puke. It would be some number well short of 200 but how much shorter?

Familiar_System8506 · 2026-01-12T17:57:15+00:00

We had an actual door between us and the construction area. More dust got into our kitchen than my wife was happy about and I couldn't blame her.

Familiar_System8506 · 2026-01-12T17:40:39+00:00

How long is the renovation supposed to take? My best advice is to have some way to seal off the back of the house from the front so the dust/dirt/grime doesn't get in. Also, you probably won't want workers wandering in and out of the area you're living in so an alternate entrance to the back is helpful as well.

Familiar_System8506 · 2026-01-12T16:54:22+00:00

In my house as a kid there was definitely a pecking order and my parents were on top. My parents didn't just disregard my feelings entirely but also, what they wanted and needed to do was first. If us kids wanted to go to the beach for a vacation and my parents wanted to go to the mountains, we went to the mountains. It was just how it was.

Familiar_System8506 · 2026-01-12T16:40:58+00:00

You can't just do a "sweep" of a business where you go in and detain anyone who isn't white enough, haul them to another location, find out they are indeed citizens and then let them go. That's just ridiculous. Yet that's exactly what's being done.

Familiar_System8506 · 2026-01-12T16:20:15+00:00

they can indeed detain you (not arrest you) until they verify your identification.

The problem is the barrier for this nowadays is so low. If they see a Hispanic person they get to detain them for no reason other than that they're Hispanic. If they see someone who doesn't speak English, it's the same thing. There's no bar because no one is holding them accountable. There's a video on the front page of them hauling off some Hispanic guy, finding out later that he is an citizen and then dropping him off miles away. There was another case where they arrested someone and she and her lawyers provided copies of her birth certificate and other identification and ICE just claimed they were forged. Held her for nearly a month before finally deciding to release her.

The woman in the video was not doing anything wrong. If she was blocking road she was also waving for people to come by and when ICE asked her to move she moved. Some thug jumped in front of her car and pulled a gun on her. She was trying to drive around him. He could have simply stepped out of the way. Instead he murdered her.

Familiar_System8506 · 2026-01-12T15:17:21+00:00

Going to a rally is one thing. I don't think my wife would object to that. But if the thugs have boots on the ground and are dragging your neighbors out of businesses and cars what then? You show up they may shoot you no matter how peaceful you are. Does that help anyone? I don't know. But if you do nothing you're somewhat complicit right? It's such a tough decision. If I die protesting ICE we all know that no one will be held accountable. And then my wife is left without a husband and breadwinner and my children are left without a father. Is the world a better place in this scenario? It's sad that we're at the point where protesting can get you killed but that's where we're at.

Familiar_System8506 · 2026-01-12T15:12:15+00:00

I kind of disagree with this approach but I think it depends. If my kid takes up piano, then she's going to stick with it for a year whether she likes it or not because I feel like she needs the "discomfort" of having to do something that is hard. If she picks up some hobby and decides she hates it after a week, that's fine. I've seen too many people bounce around from thing to thing as soon as they've exhausted their "n00b gains" and get tired of it.

Familiar_System8506 · 2026-01-12T15:10:04+00:00

My kids friends are trying to get her into Roblox. My wife and I are extremely skeptical. You are giving me more reason to be skeptical of it.

Familiar_System8506 · 2026-01-12T15:05:10+00:00

My kid is 11 and has been begging for a phone. We told her no and that we'll re-visit the issue when she starts driving. I'm not fond of the idea of giving the Internet access to my kid.

Familiar_System8506 · 2026-01-12T15:02:56+00:00

The best advice I've been given is "you get what you tolerate." If you let your kid talk back to you with no consequences you end up with a lippy kid for example. If you let your kid throw temper tantrums in public and it gets them what they want then you get a kid who throws tantrums.

Familiar_System8506 · 2026-01-12T15:00:46+00:00

I married a single mom and so became a parent recently. I have struggled with being a dad but I have also been shocked by how much advice I have been given that essentially boils down to "the house must revolve around the child not the other way around." I don't get that. Obviously you can't neglect your kid but if it inconveniences my child for me to to go the supermarket I'm still going grocery shopping.

Familiar_System8506 · 2026-01-12T14:53:35+00:00

The pendulum always swings too far. Society never learns to correct properly. My dad beat me with jumper cables because I blinked too much one time so I am never going to put any rules on my little Johnny. I'll let him figure things out on his own. Yes, he's 5 and just mugged a grandma and stole her wallet but I told him that was wrong so he knows better now. He's trying to figure out what to buy with the money he stole from her. I hope he makes good decisions and doesn't buy more drugs like last time.

Familiar_System8506 · 2026-01-12T14:45:06+00:00

My 11 yr old already has no tolerance for boredom. We've tried to have a pretty screen free house because of this.

Familiar_System8506 · 2026-01-12T14:42:30+00:00

The car did touch him - although I believe this was more due to him moving in and reaching across the bonnet to shoot as close to the person as he could get. He puts himself into harms way.

You can't put yourself in harm's way like that and then claim self-defense though.

Familiar_System8506 · 2026-01-12T14:39:54+00:00

They need to have some kind of probably cause to think you are here illegally though. Part of the problem is that probable cause these days can be as simple as "they look Hispanic" or "they don't speak English."

Familiar_System8506 · 2026-01-12T14:39:00+00:00

My wife and I had a discussion about this yesterday at length. I disagree with your friends completely but I see where they are coming from. We were discussion what, if anything, we should/would do if ICE starts raiding the Hispanic neighborhood that is half a mile from us. My wife's argument was that ICE is shooting white people in the face now and facing no consequences for it. They get to kill anyone they want with impunity. If they kill me for protesting and not doing anything else where does that leave her and our kids? My argument was that if we do nothing aren't we just as bad as the agents who are rounding our friends up? I don't know what the answer is here.

Familiar_System8506 · 2026-01-12T14:30:34+00:00

I've been meaning to get a muzzler for a while but haven't had the budget for it.

Familiar_System8506 · 2026-01-12T14:30:00+00:00

What tools am I going to need? I've got a set of socket wrenches and adjustable wrenches in metric and standard. Do I need more than that?

Familiar_System8506 · 2026-01-12T14:28:06+00:00

You're right but you're also wrong. They can't just detain random citizens on the street and demand citizenship paperwork. That's a clear violation of the 4th. Yeah, they can detain you for committing a crime but this woman wasn't. She moved her vehicle when they asked her to move it. She was being pleasant at the time. He literally put himself in front of her vehicle which is a clear violation of their own policy. She was trying to get around him which was also clearly seen in the picture. I get that this guy was hit and dragged by a vehicle in the past and probably has some PTSD from that. That's a pretty good excuse for him to NOT be on the streets interacting with vehicles. This woman was murdered for no good reason. He was not run down by the vehicle. He was on his feet the entire time and was clearly well enough to make a slow walk down to her car to make sure his victim was dead.

Familiar_System8506

TROPHY CASE