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My neighbor has a vegetable garden and the deer have discovered it. His yard is surrounded by privacy fence except for a section in the back where they get access. Last Friday night I was sitting out back and heard a big crash followed by a bunch of snorting and growling. I ran inside and got my Q-beam and shined it on the fence only to find a full grown buck hanging there. One of the aluminum balusters had pierced the skin on his rear haunch. The rest of his body was hanging there on my side of the fence. I called my neighbor but it was 2 am and I got no answer, so I ran around to his back yard to see if I could do anything. When I first got up to the deer he was struggling to get off. I rubbed his back and tried to tell him to calm down. Surprisingly enough, he did. The post to the right of the empty spot in the photo was buried in his left rear haunch. Fortunately it glanced off the muscle and didn't puncture anything but skin, but it was firmly lodged there and supporting his entire weight. I stuck my left arm through the fence and put my hand on his belly to lift him up while using my right hand to try and lever the skin up over the post. I was about to give up and he turned his head and barked, and I gave his belly a good heave and used my whole right hand to lever the skin off the post. When he hit the ground he shot out of there like a cannonball. It probably took less than a minute. Old boy was just lucky that post didn’t puncture anything more than skin. I never knew this before but deer hides are extremely tough and those guys are all muscle in the rear end. Anyway, never a dull moment here. I hope he’s OK.

A lot of great restaurants in Chicago, but my favorite where I like to go every time I'm in Chicago is Joe's Steak and Seafood: https://www.joes.net/ Just the perfect old-school steak and seafood house! Great desserts too! Cheers!

Forgot to add that Pequod's deep dish pizza with caramelized crust is damn tasty. We ate at the one in Morton Grove.

Word. One of the nicest US cities I've ever visited.

Chicago is one of my favorite cities. Just love it there...beautiful architecture, river, food, museums, sports, people! Also loved going to the old Macy's there, that used to be the Marshall Fields building. And real estate prices are very reasonable compared to other such big cities! Cheers!

@Spekulatius I don’t really think illegal immigrants are making a huge impact on housing prices. Sure, they’re adding to population growth a bit and obviously they need to rent a place to live. But I think they’re more likely to live in multi generational situations, and it’s pretty hard to argue that illegal immigrants don’t lower the cost of construction / renovations since they make up a reasonably large chunk of the construction workforce. Maybe nets out and certainly doesn’t strike me as a really significant factor in real estate prices at least in most locations.

Yeah, that's bad news... At least they "asked" for them, instead of doing the Jack Smith/Merrick Garland/Chris Wray method of illegal wiretaps on hundreds of their political opponents. But you're right - Chicago is not the shit-hole, Washington DC sure is!

Very funny.... I'm very jealous of Trump as he has way more hair than me and is older! At least I'm in better shape than his fat ass.

There are a lot of factors here. iI think the increase in multi family home building was due to very low interest rates while demand for housing was picking due to COVID-19. This combo created a unique window to build more multi family homes. As for homes, I am sure that for example in Canada, the legal immigration has a lot to do incrsse in home prices. this is because these legal immigrants from Asia are relatively well to do and can afford to buy homes and that’s way many do. Then you add a limited ability to add to the housing stock and you get rising prices. I don’t think the US is similar to Canada because of the relative size, the fact that illegals immigrants can’t buy homes and because many illegal immigrants work in housing and hence hell to add supply as well. Here is a paper representing the counter argument based on comparing areas with high immigrants influx versus those with less https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1544612325001503

Absolutely true. Both parties at fault for the decline of the American working class wages via illegal immigration. Both parties love their "cheap labor" and unwilling to let it go. Trump is the only one will to stop it.

Awesome , thanks for the clarification. Always been a fan of your opinion. And I apologize for completely misunderstanding your post.

This fucker is probably your next Director of National Security! Congratulations! Cheers! https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/15/politics/video/jay-clayton-national-security-nominee-testimony-election-2020-digvid

Hey, I thought this was supposed to be donated to the Trump Library? Again, the hypocrisy by Trumpie and his team is never an empty bullshit bowl! Now which one of you assholes leaked it to the media?! Cheers! https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/15/politics/susie-wiles-kash-patel-leak

You two behave, otherwise you both get week-long bans! It will come without warning next time, so choose your words and pictures carefully. Cheers!

Chicago is not an unsafe shithole. You go to certain areas and yeah it's not as safe...that's no different than any other big city in North America or the world really! Just like drug gangs aren't going to kill every other tourist in Mexico. Washington DC has a higher gun deaths per 100,000 than Chicago...nearly 22 compared to nearly 15. Makes you go "hmmm!" Another MAGA fallacy proven false! Cheers! https://everytownresearch.org/report/city-data/

There's a lot of you guys constantly stepping on the back of his shoes as he's trying to walk. That gets annoying for anyone, especially a die hard MAGA. None of you, including Cubs, should make it personal! Cheers!

The truth is, most countries know their governments and native lands are worse than the U.S. Critics of the U.S. aren't saying that the U.S. is horrible...they are saying that it's current administration is horrible! There's a big difference there. I don't have a problem with you...I have a problem with what Trump is doing often, and his behavior is in sharp contradiction to what I've seen and known of the U.S. in my lifetime. Now you may agree with what Trump is doing...that's fine. It's you country. But getting angry at critics is no different than Canada or Greenland getting pissed at your President for his criticisms or open threats of annexation. Ask yourself how you would feel if Putin or Xi kept threatening the U.S. on a weekly basis if they were far bigger? It isn't just rhetoric when they are ten times your size and their military is 100 times your size! Cheers!

Well, I think you have to give him credit for holding to his guns...literally and figuratively! Cubs is a very nice person, just crazy MAGA...I'm pretty sure he's Trump's illegitimate brother. Cubs, do you have a east to west or west to east combover? Cheers!

That's what I forgot to do today.

Who utilized illegal help more than anyone else in the last 30 years? Lower wages, no recourse to courts or labor laws, etc...your pool boy, your gardener, your fast food worker, your service worker, your carpenter, etc. I'm pretty sure blue collar workers weren't the ones hiring all of the illegals! Cheers!

Yes, good catch! I estimated roughly $8-9B

Starter in HONA and somehow my stink bid for ERIE hit today as well.

She got lucky: https://apple.news/AzFzPxESmRgiRSH6qXBL3dw

Probably as it get page views . I have been in exactly the same shoes than this fellow many years ago. I never felt there is indoctrination in Europe about America. Most Feinds admired me for getting there chance to try my luck there , even though others felt they would not do it themself. I knew friend from the US (military) as well as exchange students from the US as well. was not one of them who through it was all bad. Europeans know Amerika better other way around. Culture is actually well projected especially through family shows. This was even before you could check the Internet with out hundred of sources. I for example through that these ridicolous prom festivities are something that movies exaggerate and then when I got there I found that this is really what is happening in every high school. We had nothing of this sort in Germany. Then I had some Gf showing me the ropes. When you emigrate, you find things that are much better then expected and other that are more difficult. You go from the honeymoon phase (everything is new and interesting) to a frustration phase (many things are difficult and you miss home and your friends and family) to, ok- I can handle this. The. You become a hybrid where every time you go back, your home feels a bit less familiar and stranger

I haven't been following this thread for awhile, was in Spain for 5 weeks. Not even sure where your response is coming from, I'll assume it's because I write lazily, it takes too long to actually get somewhere with someone vs tete a tete. I just thought it was funny that people were arguing against you that 10-15 million illegal immigrants in 4 years didn't increase rent/housing prices. Obviously that could only be true insofar as there was housing added in proportion to the the increase in buyers/renters and assuming that we weren't already building to few homes in the first place. It's really pretty simple, would plus 15m people, leave immigrants out of it, or minus 15m people, make a difference in housing prices/rent? For the former, yes it would, except in massive oversupply, and the latter yes it would except in extreme under supply, some areas would be hit more of less than others. There can be a debate about the weighting of it, but that's not really what was being discussed. Anyways, cheers, I'll go away now.