Dang, man. Crossing fingers for you.

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Minor irritant: in wintertime, lots of people are leaving their vehicle motors running while they head inside for a minute or two. Your car isn't going to get cold in two minutes. You're not saving fuel by avoiding the next start-up, unless your car is a 1922 Model A Ford. What you are doing is wasting gas, adding a little bit more stink to the air, and adding to the air other not-great stuff that comes from the tailpipe.

I always get this urge to either reach in and turn off the motor, or get in and move the vehicle. And then turn off the motor.

Cars have been stolen that way (leaving motor running while the driver goes into store for a quick purchase).

Everyone does it up here, but then we have no crime. :P There are irritants involved with being a Yooper, but there are also some pretty sweet perks, this definitely being one of them. :D

I know the same cannot be said about St. Louis. Leave your car running there and watch as it magically disappears.

Given how the Klan has taken over rural Missouri, I'll take my chances in the city.

Seriously, I highly doubt there's any klan in Missouri, rural or urban, real or imagined. At least, I never saw any there. Not to mention, Missouri wasn't even part of the Confederacy. It never seceded and was part of the Union for the entire Civil War. But enough history.

I spent 30 years there.
I didn't imagine them, nor did I imagine the groups of Neo Nazis that frequented down town.

As for what it's like now, I don't know, and I'm going back to find out. :P

After he retired, Jackie Robinson noted that when he broke the color barrier, that while he suffered horrific abuse everywhere he played, the only two cities he ever actually felt in danger, were St. Louis and Philadelphia. Philadelphia wasn't a big deal because he was never on the field long enough to become a target. The Phillys refused to play against him and forfeited all the games.

some machines are temperamental and do not like starting in cold weather, even after they were just running

You just described me. XD

Some cars might be like that. But it's not yet that cold, and we're talking, say, a 2017 Chevy Traverse (though I see the gamut doing so up here, new, old, in-between).

I have heard some other techs talk about their experiences from working waaaay north, like not far outside the Arctic Circle. They were telling me that employees at the factories leave their cars running literally all shift in winter, 8 hours plus. Yikes!

I know some rough black and hispanic neighborhoods in OKC that would make you yearn for a cross burning festival. Seriously, if you go to any major American city, racist rednecks are going to be the least of your problems... brother.

I lived in OKC for 22 years. It always had good parts and bad parts. But over the years the urban decay became part of its tapestry. And I'm talking across the board when it came to race. Ultimately, the root problem was economics. You put people in bad places, without money or opportunity, and they WILL make their own money and opportunity, law and order be damned.

So get off that goddamn 'hillbilly alert' shit. My snobby leftist friends have been playing that card for years. The only place you truly have worry about dudes with swastika tattoos and nasty dispositions is prison. And even the Aryan nation is probably going to be one of only many problems you'd have to contend with.

OKC is not St Louis and Oklahoma is not Missouri.

Buy a map.

Been to Missouri many times. My uncle used to live in Lamar. Owned a liquor store. And his brother in law owned a slaughterhouse. Excellent steaks.

And the people I saw there were sadly lacking their klan hoods. Saw lots of trucker hats and my uncle had a driving derby. But no klan hoods. Maybe they hid those away somewhere next to their freemason rings and wizard scepters.

I know what I saw, and I know what I grew up around, and I know what I left behind.

If you want to berate me and call me a liar and call it fake news go ahead.

Got an Uncle lives about fifty miles south of me. He chews me out and calls me a liar every time I remind him that the Holocaust was real. He calls it fake news. In spite of all of that, it still happened. All of your pissing and moaning and berating won't change reality. Sorry.

End of conversation.

It's a storm in a teacup. That's what it is. You're playing the side of the argument that political correctness is losing its influence, and that underneath the civilized facade, millions of white people are just waiting patiently for the day when they can strike back and go on lynching sprees against blacks and gays, and that simply isn't true. Is nationalism on the rise? Certainly the Trump election win proved that there is a backlash against globalism, especially in the U.S. Is there a backlash against radical leftism, such as groups like La Raza and Antifa? Sure there is. That's called equilibrium.

But there's no neo-nazi resurrection. And klan membership for the last 50 years has been made up largely of either disenchanted bikers or Federal agents undercover. You racist white bogeyman doesn't exist at the threat level you seem to persist in conjuring. But hey, we all need a scary man in the closet. Yours clearly isn't crips, bloods, MS13, or Aztlan racists fighting for re-conquista. Just keep hating your uncle and your ignorant mother. That will solve all your problems.

You must have missed those marches. Shit, there aren't even as many people with swastika tattoos in Germany and Austria combined.

The antifa had hardly a presence before the neo-nazi resurrection that you seem to have missed. Say about antifa and their methods what you will ... first there's the fa.

You're right. They're not "waiting for the day". They're already at it. And boy do they love Trump's ethnic cleansing campaign.

Spit in his fucking face. You don't owe him civility or decorum or any basis for "reasonable" communication. Today, family is what we choose to be. There's a reason why racist old Uncle Bob who gets handsy when he's drunk is so damn afraid that the institution of the family isn't worth squat any more. Because he'll have to die alone or change his fucking ways.