Guard Dog

Possibility of a brokered convention for the Democrats is increasing: https://theweek.com/speedreads/895481/brokered-convention-gets-close-2nd-place-fivethirtyeights-democratic-nomination-forecast When I heard Biden's new strategy I suspected he is counting on that. If we go out of Super Tuesday with the delegates spread evenly between Sanders, Pete B, Klobuchar, and (depending on his showing) Bloomberg the odds of any one candidate getting enough delegates outright really shrinks. This should be a lot of fun to watch. Imagine if it's Bernie vs Trump. "What is this handbasket we're in and where are we going?"

I see what you did there!

I wouldn't go that far. Incompetent and even malicious administrations come and go. Firing ambassadors and advisors for stupid reasons and meddling with the military are all things a President can do. I start swearing when they do things a President CANNOT do and get away with it.

At this point that would be like buckling your seatbelt after the car has already crashed.

You wouldn't want to have been THAT albatross anyway. It didn't turn out too well for her.

One thing I did like about the XFL was the level of access the media and fans have to the game. And I liked that the coaches and players were willing to discuss the X's and O's of each play. What makes football interesting is it's complexity. Far too often the NFL broadcastesr shy away from it. John Madden didn't but others avoid the nuts and bolts. I liked that the XFL put it front and center.

Greta Thunberg is getting her own TV show on BBC. Correct me if I'm wrong here but over 90% of GB's power generation is fossil fuels. Less that 10% is renewable and of that only 3% is nuclear/wind/etc is zero emission. The other 7% is what UK Energy describes as "other fuels". This is as of 2016. So... asking for a friend here... tuning in to watch Greta save the planet is actually HURTING the planet am I right? But... what the hell. If the Kardashians can have a show why note Green Greta. https://www.thewrap.com/greta-thunberg-tv-series-bbc-studios/

You don't have to. They will break themselves. All the Democrats have to do is field a viable candidate and.... ummm...... uh-oh...

Voyager does not have many episodes in the "top ten" list of all the series. But it does have one and it was excellent. Season 2 "Death Wish". And it was a Q episode. And it gave us this moment

This Tampa Bay Vipers squad is pretty poor. The NY team is decent.

Well you know what I say. Draw a line down the middle of the Atlantic east of Purto Rico and the US Virgin Islands and down the Pacific west of Guam and American Samoa. Withdraw all US military forces to bases inside those lines. Then aborgate all defensive treaties and tell the world "this side is ours and that side is yours. Leave us alone and we'll leave you alone. Too bad I'll never be elected to anything.

More social programs paid for by taxes is not socialism. Socialisim starts when the government becomes the sole provider of healthcare and the practitioners become agents of the state. In this country such a system exists for military veterans run by the Veterans Administration and is is s--t. That is not quite what is being suggested in the US at this time. Rather what is being suggested is the practitions remain a private practice and the government pays the bill. The only problem is in a country of 327M people 10% pay 90% of all the taxes. You could strip that 10% of dollar they have. Then kille them and sell their organs on the black market and you still won't come close to covering the cost. The "medicare for all" solution faces the same problem as the health insurance solution. When the end user is not responsible for the cost there is no way to check price escalations. And no incentive for the providders not to scalp the payer. The problem in the US is not access. It's runaway cost. It's basic economics. Subsidize the ability to pay for the cost of widgets and there is no incentive not to increase the cost of widgets.

Yeah that game was sloppy. Tampa Bay and NY kick off in 20 min. I'm still curious enough to watch. Plus Spring Training games don't start for three more weeks so there is nothing else to watch.

Completely disagree with you there too. Netanyahu does not have absolute power. He can be voted out of office at any time. The others you mentioned cannot be voted out and DO have absolute power. They also command large military forces with nuclear weapons that are threatening your country and people either directly or indirectly. All have committed acts of espionage against you. Getting in bed with any of them is like getting in bead with a woman who wants you dead. I am trying to take you seriously CM. But sometimes you make me wonder.

I watched Hostel 1 & 2 last night. Jeez that is some demented s--t.

Someone once asked me in an interview what my weakest trait was. I told him I don't suffer fools well. I didn't get the job. I choose to think the fools there were afraid of me!

Hey Nep! Good to see you back around.

Makes sense to me. Brutal tyrants stick together. Joe was a better match to Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito than he ever was to Roosevelt and Churchill. You know I am puzzled by one thing. We have had a lot of folks come here and defend Communism as an economic system. Some have been utter trolls who enjoy provoking people. Some have been (I think) genuine like Ben. But everyone of them feel compelled to defend the indefensible like Lenin, Stalin Mao, and the worst acts of the USSR and other oppressive nations that delighted in killing people by the thousands. Personally I don't think the brutality and the economic system CAN be separated. But you'd think at least one of our so called Commie's would have tried to make the argument. If they have I don't recall.

I watched the Seattle Dragons at the DC Defenders. The quality of uniforms and play was pretty good. Some of the rules were pretty weird. All in all it was not as amateurish as the UFL or AAC.

Fair enough. We have a very different viewpoint on this. My objective is to help a third party earn a seat at the table. That matters more to me than the political fortunes of whomever is carrying the standard of that party for that election.

Also @ShadySands I am not terribly concerned with socialism coming to the US. If Bernie won and the Democrats had Congress and were actually willing to go along with him (no sure bet at all) they could no more turn the US socialist than they could flap their arms and fly. Oh they can absolutely tax the living crap out of everything that walks or crawls. They can spend a f--kload of money and do terrible damage to the economy. But if/when they overreach those pesky mid-term elections roll around and everything reverses. In 2008 the Republican Party was all but exterminated on the national stage. The Democrats had three of the four aces in the government card game and had 60 votes in the Senate. 60! That is the US equivalent of absolute power. And they overplayed it. Two years later they lost the House. Two years after that they lost the Senate. Four years after that they lost the White House, Congress and were completely shut out of 36 State governments. You could drive from Miami Florida to Pocatillo Idaho and not pass through any state or congressional district where the Democrats had power. With the Supreme Court the GOP had all four aces in their hand. Two years later they lost the House. Four years.... we'll see. You see the pattern here. When Obama was elected with the Congress he had down the street I was worried as hell. I probably should not have been. Of course I'd feel a lot better about the back and forth if the Democrats and Republicans were not essentially the same BS in different buckets. You know what worries me? This: https://www.usdebtclock.org/ This number goes up by $62k per second. In 2020 we will have a spending deficit of $1T. Even if the folks in DC could magically balance the budget right this moment there are still $23.26T in unfunded liabilities and debt. Now, the US has been in the red for a very long time. Why worry now? Crypto-currency. Last year Bashneft, a Russian oil company made sales to Indonesia, Peru, and other governments and were paid in Bitcoin. Crypto-currencies like that have an advantage over traditional bank notes. There is a finite amount that can exist. That means it's largely immune from monetization and inflation. The only reason the US economy has not imploded is because the Dollar is valuable as the currency of choice for international business. The most common way to handle the debt is to devalue the currency via monetization. Basically that means they issue bonds to finance debt then buy the bonds at market value and call it income. These shenanigans have not undermined international confidence in the Dollar before but these days there are viable alternatives. What I am worried about is what has happened to other countries and people fool themselves into believing it can't happen here. Hyperinflation, currency collapse, economic implosion. The Democrats seem to want to sprint to it. The Republicans want to jog. However the destination is not in doubt. You know what really bothers me? I'm not an economist. I'm not a financial expert or political leader. I'm just a guy that's read a few books. If I can see this coming how is it people like Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Andew Yang, and others can't? What really scares me is maybe they do and they don't care.

Like I told you a few weeks ago. He is not the kind of man to endorse violence but he certainly appears to be willing to "ride the tiger". You will have other names on your ballot. And if it assuages your conscience at all remember that you, like myself, live in a state where the winner of the electoral votes is a foregone conclusion. If you lived in Ohio or Florida or somewhere like that I'd suggest being a bit more circumspect with your vote. But you have the luxury of choosing without consequence. You should consider that.

First time I can ever remember agreeing with Chris Matthews: https://www.dailywire.com/news/msnbcs-chris-matthews-explodes-on-democrats-over-socialism-it-doesnt-frickin-work