bluGill

Why not compare to a F250 which was available in the 1970s? Curb weight 4,067.5 pounds, gross vehicle weight is 7,605.9. Though a lot of people moved from the F350 to the F250 when the superduty line came out in the 1990s - I'm not able to find specs of the F350 from that era, but it would be what I'd look for in a comparison.

You will have a hard time finding a truck you can use off road the one time per year that you need to if you don't own it. Just once per year, but you have to own the truck as most rental trucks will not allow going offroad. Likewise for towing, you will have a hard time finding a truck you can tow with (uhaul will only let you tow their trailers).

Even if you do find a rental truck you can use as truck for that one time of the year, it is common for rental trucks to already rented when you need them and so you can't get it.

So even if your need is once per year, owning your own truck that you use for non-truck tasks as well is realistically your best option.

Safety standards forced the crew cab truck which is then bigger (either that or they compromise with a shorter bed)

Also Ukraine's willingness to accept loss of life. They could have attacked many times already, but it would be by trading soldier lives for ground. They are trying their best to conserve their soldier's lives. (it is an unknowable question if an attack sooner would have overall traded less lives, but I generally trust their generals to know more than me about making war and so I'm not touching that debate)

Worse by rejecting an imperfect ally you often get an ally that is even worse for your goals.

YIMBY rejecting possible right wing allies in turn have to find common ground with left wing NIMBY and that often means more zoning that makes building impossible. There are many other examples where reaching across the "aisles" would better meet your goals.

Basically if you're using a pickup as a commuter vehicle..you probably don't make good life choices.

That is false for nearly everyone. Unless you are driving double the miles of an average person, the costs of a second car that is practical for 99% of your needs and a truck for that last 1% is higher than the costs of just driving the truck for everything. You have to make payments and taxes on the truck even when it sits in the driveway. You might get a small insurance discount for a truck you rarely drive, but your insurance on two vehicles is higher than just one.

People say "just rent a truck", but every time I look into that I discover rental trucks come with a lot of restrictions such that you can't use them as a truck (I expect a truck used as a truck to get paint scratches). And the cost is so high that it won't take many rentals to making having a truck the cheaper option (getting right of the car in exchange).

That new truck is a F250 which can handle a lot more weight in the bed than the small truck. It wasn't much smaller of a truck 40 years ago.

40 years ago it was common to put 5-6 people into the cab of the smaller truck. It wasn't comfortable for anyone but it was done. Worse however it was not safe for anyone (not enough seat belts) and so people died. Often those people were kids who should be in car seats, but instead were sitting on laps. If the weather wasn't too bad they would put some of those people in the bed of the truck (which could fit 15) instead of the cab.

I just make a bit extra for supper every night, and put it in a fridge, the leftovers are then my meal a couple days latter (never the next day - that gets boring!)

I'm very careful about what I buy. Only high quality stuff that I research first. Just because it is a good deal doesn't mean I need to buy it - if I'm not 100% sure I need to use it I won't buy it. I find it hard to get rid of stuff so I'm attacking the problem from the other end: quit buying more stuff. If I do buy it I get the best so it will last a long time (I'm not getting rid of it!)

Every once in a while I will look at something and decide I really don't need it. However this is rare. When something breaks I either fix it or get rid of it, but again rare. (I have a to fix pile that I slowly am working on....)

Taking shoes off only adds maybe a minute to the security time. Large airports in Europe need you to arrive an hour early as well to make it on time. Europe also has security lines - they works little different, but there are still lines. There are also baggage lines, and large airports need you to spend a lot of time to get to your gate.

Competition is good, but railroads are a natural monopoly - there are very few points in the world that can justify more than one set of tracks between them. Airplanes can share an airport because if someone else blocks a runway everyone else can take a different one and thus there can be competition. However if train operator B blocks a track (possibly by running a slow train) everyone else can't get through.

I'm all for competition, but you have to own your own tracks.