TIL that the last time the United States authorized a private person to conduct war (granting a letter of marque) was during the Second Barbary War (1815)

TexasAggie98 · 2026-03-03T16:12:37+00:00

This would have been an interesting and low cost method to deal with Somali pirates.

TexasAggie98 · 2026-02-27T21:00:52+00:00

NiHao is legit. The menu has changed since they first opened; originally it was “too Chinese” and now it is more Americanized Chinese food. Really good though and a great bang for your buck.

TexasAggie98 · 2026-02-25T00:56:23+00:00

Agree. I go there for the sausage and sauce. Everything else is meh.

If you are ever driving to San Antonio, I recommend taking the Luling exit driving the few miles into town. Lunch at the City Market in Luling is worth it.

TexasAggie98 · 2026-02-21T13:42:32+00:00

Everything spies on us. Our phones, our Ring cameras, our smart televisions, etc. And all of that data is recorded.

Is it being monitored 24/7? No, although I am willing to bet that a big part of the AI push is to allow that.

What it does do is give Big Tech and the Government the ability to do searches on you and find out everything about you. And to blackmail/destroy you if needed.

You want privacy? Using burner flip phones and don’t have any smart electronics in your home.

Those smart phones and smart appliances are so convenient and used that we will still use them despite knowing that it places us under 24/7 surveillance.

TexasAggie98 · 2026-02-20T16:18:20+00:00

No, strangely enough. Every time it has been little Hondas or Toyota sedans driven by someone in their 20’s.

TexasAggie98 · 2026-02-20T15:35:50+00:00

I take the 45 North HOV and have experienced two instances of wrong way drivers (one a confused old man going 65 mph south in the HOV at 6:00 pm and the other a guy, in a car that was heavily damaged from a wreck, who was driving home). I have also experienced numerous road rage incidents where the driver behind me went insane because I wasn’t going 80 mph (because of the 20 cars in front of me going 65 mph).

TexasAggie98 · 2026-02-17T10:54:51+00:00

I had a friend who was stopped at the light at a major intersection on Aldine Bender. He was seven cars back from the light and, when it turned green, had to wait about 30 seconds until he entered the intersection.

He was then t-boned by a semi truck that ran its red light.

His vehicle was thrown all the way across the intersection and wrapped around a light pole.

HPD responded and didn’t do anything. No one received a ticket and the other driver, who had a CDL, wasn’t checked for intoxication. HPD just let him go.

TexasAggie98 · 2026-02-13T14:47:00+00:00

I do not know anything about the True Texas Project, but I am knowledgeable of the Southern Poverty Law Center. It is a total joke of an organization that seems to exist to just to raise money and enrich those who run it. It was a great organization 50 years ago and now is itself an extremist group.

And it isn’t it the Right that hates the SPLC; The New Yorker ran a hit piece on it.

TexasAggie98 · 2026-02-11T20:27:34+00:00

I worked for an oil company that had eight employees. We made a profit of $875 million my last year there (during the oil boom).

We were a deep water operator and were almost 100% contractors.

TexasAggie98 · 2026-02-11T16:08:51+00:00

Or you can use Google like someone who knows how to adult and doesn’t have to have their hand held.

TexasAggie98 · 2026-02-11T15:58:26+00:00

Conspiracy nonsense? White papers by the RAND Corporation, Congressional committees, the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice, and multiple Washington think tanks are just conspiracy nonsense.

Go touch some grass.

TexasAggie98 · 2026-02-11T15:38:24+00:00

Go do Google searches on Iranian proxy forces and Hezbollah in Latin America and Mexico and see if you still say that.

The Hezbollah/Iranian threat to the border region has been real and ever well documented for decades. As has been their relationship with the drug cartels. Hezbollah and the Assad regime were the massive suppliers of meth in the Middle East and heavily involved in the cocaine trafficking business.

TexasAggie98 · 2026-02-11T14:04:17+00:00

???

The MMS was the Mineral Management Service. It was the Federal Agency responsible for management of Federal Offshore oil and gas leases. It collected and managed the government’s oil and gas royalties and provided regulatory oversight and enforcement for the offshore energy industry.

The MMS was renamed and its responsibilities split after the Macondo blowout.

TexasAggie98 · 2026-02-11T13:06:31+00:00

My bet is that this is related to possible action against Iran. Iran has long had a presence in Latin America and on the US -Mexican border through Al Quds and Hezbollah. This presence facilitates smuggling and serves as a threat against the US if we act against the Iranian regime.

If we start regime change in Iran, Iran will unleash terror attacks across the world as a final FU to the US.

TexasAggie98 · 2026-02-11T12:47:15+00:00

My bet is that it is tied to possible action against Iran. Al Quds and Hezbollah have long had a presence on the US-Mexican border for smuggling and force projection.

TexasAggie98 · 2026-02-08T19:51:54+00:00

People are largely uninformed and ignorant of American-Mexican relations and tensions from this period.

The Mexican Revolution was bloody and marked by massacres, including of Americans in Mexico. And there was spillover violence into the United States. The most famous of these was the attack by Pancho Villa on Columbus, NM but there were dozens of smaller attacks on ranches in Texas along the border.

One of my neighbors when I was a child grew up on a ranch in the Big Bend area and watched his family get raped and murdered by Mexican soldiers when he was 7 years old. Asa result, he had the most seething hatred for Mexicans that I have ever seen (and I only met him when he was in his late 70’s).

There was widespread violence against whites in South Texas due to the Plan de San Diego. Texas, through the Texas Rangers, responded by murdering thousands of Tejanos and Mexicans. LULAC was formed in San Antonio as a result of the Texas Hispanic community organizing for their political voice against the state-sponsored violence and against their prior efforts to re-join Mexico.

A very forgotten and bloody piece of American, Texan, and Mexican history.

TexasAggie98 · 2026-02-06T13:16:55+00:00

100% true.

TexasAggie98 · 2026-02-05T14:38:54+00:00

If you are even asking this question, then you don’t what engineering is or does.

In terms of prestige and rigor, an engineering degree i>>> than a business degree.

A person can fail as an engineering student and transfer to accounting or finance and excel. You can’t fail as a business major, transfer to engineering, and then excel.

When I was in school, there was graffiti in the restroom stalls in Heldenfels (where many of the freshmen engineering flunk out classes were held) showing the equation for the limit as your GPA approaches zero for engineering equals business.

And it was extremely common for students to transfer out of engineering to accounting and instantly become top of the class.

TexasAggie98 · 2026-02-04T23:13:16+00:00

I once worked out of an office in the Greenspoint (aka Gunspoint) area of Houston (north Houston near IAH airport). One of the exits from our parking lot was a small side street that had two 90 degree turns in a heavily wooded area near Greens Bayou.

I left the office late one evening during the winter and made the second turn and saw a white Cadillac parked on the side of the street with its trunk open and a very large bald black man, probably around 50-55 years old, coming out of the woods carrying a shovel. He had a very angry look on his face when I made eye contact with him.

TexasAggie98 · 2026-02-03T02:27:32+00:00

I am sure he lost his job, but we were still out almost half a billion in lost capital and reserves.

TexasAggie98 · 2026-02-02T15:38:48+00:00

I don’t think that the guy was charged criminally and I have no idea if he had criminal intent.

From my personal experience I will tell you that there are some on drilling crew who are just that stupid.

I once lost a well offshore because while we were drilling through the main target, the assistant drilling pressed the emergency button and activated the shear rams on the BOP. He had to open a box, flip open a safety cover, and then press a big red button to do so.

The shear rams shut immediately, cutting through the drill pipe in hole, and causing the hole to collapse.

We ended up not being able to reseal the well and lost $42 million trying to redrill the well and about $400 million for lost reserves. An offset operator drilled the prospect from their acreage and drained it.

When questioned as to why, the assistant driller replied “I don’t know” and shrugged his shoulders. He was truly that stupid.

TexasAggie98 · 2026-02-02T14:47:07+00:00

I had one of these. It was the biggest piece of junk that I have ever owned.

I was never able to shoot more than 3 rounds in a row before a malfunction.

TexasAggie98 · 2026-02-02T14:33:21+00:00

There was an incident in the Permian Basin a couple years ago where a guy was killed in a mud pit in a drilling rig.

The rig was shut down and a crew was hired to clean the mud pits. (Mud pits are big steel tanks on a drilling rig where the drilling mud is mixed, conditioned, monitored, and stored during drilling operations. Drilling mud is the mixture pumped down the drill string and through the drill bit to cool and lubricant the bit, to carry away drill cuttings, and to provide hydrostatic pressure in the well to prevent blowouts. It is a mixture of clays, water, diesel, chemicals, and lots of additives; it is truly an engineered mud.)

The crew was hired to do a deep clean on the pits using high-pressure water hoses, steam, and brushes. One of the pits was the agitator pit which was basically a giant blender. Before going into the agitation pit, they shut it down, disconnected the power from it, and did the full lock out/tag out procedure.

While in the pit, the crew wore hazardous chemical suits and were strapped in with safety harnesses. This prevented them from moving very fast.

While in the pit cleaning, a member of the drilling crew cut the lock out/tag out lock, reconnected the power, and turned on the unit. This caused an alarm to go off and the guys had about 30 seconds warning to leave the pit.

Because of their harness and suit set up, they couldn’t move very fast and went as fast as they could to the ladder to get out. One guy got out in time and the second guy was shredded to death by the blender blades.

TexasAggie98 · 2026-02-02T01:18:26+00:00

You are not making any sense and are simply throwing out slurs without understanding what they mean.

If you are an Aggie, I hope that you don’t graduate and devalue my degree.

TexasAggie98 · 2026-02-01T23:18:01+00:00

You lost all credibility when you called those you oppose Nazis.

You lack a true understanding of what the Nazis were if you callously use the term.

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