Guard Dog

Budweiser and Miller lite on the ground floor. If you want to good stuff (IPA, Belgian Style, and cream stout) you need to come upstairs. There is a passphrase to go up to the next level. Not sure if you are ready for that one yet though. "What cannot be trusted must be disposed of"

Our last staff meeting of the year is today. After this we're on cruise control with nothing but occasional zoning variance requests, ground well permits, and small projects designed to keep us out of the office. Some of which may or may not be legitimate.

Here is another great example of people incapable of minding their own goddamned business. https://denver.cbslocal.com/2019/11/18/jonathan-sawyer-jefferson-county-helicopter/ As long as it does not hinder or impact you in any real (as opposed to imagined) way then leave your neighbors alone. Live and let live. Do you guys know the difference between the philosophical positions of an oppressive government and on that is not as oppressive? The latter will tell you "Everything not forbidden is permitted". The former says "Everything not permitted is forbidden".

You are soooo close to entering the Tower of Wisdom. You are knocking on the front door even now! All you have to do is say the password: "What cannot be trusted should not be empowered". Come on in Hurlshot.... there is beer in the fridge!

There is something satisfying about nailing a goal from the forwards so hard the whole table shakes

Well, the point I was trying to make was KP was misrepresenting the difficulty of starting a business for the average person. He's holding out the most difficult path to doing it as an example of how out of reach it is. Asking a lender for even the majority of seed capital is such a long shot unless you have a proven track record, a business plan than can't fail, and/or enough personal assets to cover the whole loss if needed. Generally speaking average folks who start businesses don't go that route. At least not right away

I'm not injecting myself into your conversation with Sharpie, rather pointing out something tangentially. Getting a business loan is difficult in that it makes the lending entity a partner in your business plan. It also gives them an interest in the financial positions of any partners you may have. If the seed capital for the business is entirely made up of the loan you had better be able to demonstrate to the lender a sustainable business model and the ability to personally float the costs through the start up process with contingencies for cost overruns. The business should also begin with sufficient assets for the lender to lien against or they will want to make your personal property part of your business property (something to be avoided). It is difficult to do because it is the financial equivalent to a full rectal exam. If your loan is to start a mine you need to come to them with geological studies to prove the ore you hope to find is there in sufficient quantities and you have already excavated some to show them. Start up seed money is usually not done through business loans because lenders are so reluctant to lend seed capital. Once the hole is dug and the gold is coming out THEN you can get financing much. MUCH easier. Case in point my last business I started with six other partners. My share of the seed capital came to close to $300k. I mortgaged my house and sold off a lot of assets and borrowed from my 401k to raise it. Two years in the business was profitable and we had to beat off financiers with a stick when we wanted to expand. To bring this back to your example of the 20 guys and a mine. It would be very hard to get a loan to start the business but if they started it by personally financing the seed capital it would be easy to get business loans afterwards.

KP & Numbers do you guys know the story of Br'er Rabbit and the Tar Baby? KP you should growing up in the US. Numbers it would be worth your while to google it if you don't know it. Sharpie is (at times) a tar baby.

I bought a bottle of the new offering from Maker's Mark; Maker's 46. As you all know I am a big fan of small batch bourbon. Much less so of big label blended brands. Well, Maker's 47 is advertised as "barrel strength" which I mistook to mean "not blended". That was my first mistake. Makers Mark is a pretty good product. For a big label. Ten years ago they had a black wax special edition that was really good. But the way I see it, I don't drink more than a few glasses a week (usually). I'm 48. I'm only going to live, what... 32 more years on the outside? 1660 more weeks? three glasses a week that's like 4900 glasses I have left. Life is too short to drink crappy booze. So.... where was I going with this? Oh yeah... Maker's 46. It's darker and definitely richer than regular Makers. But that owes nothing to the aging like you'd think. Along with being a slightly different recipe they used French Oaks to make the aging cask staves. Oaks are different in France I guess. The first problem is that it's aged six years. Bourbon should not be aged less than nine years IMO. Good bourbon should retain a little flavor from the aging cask but six years is like taking a bite of charcoal and chasing it with grain liquor. It tastes very oaky. Not good. Second problem is it's 94 proof. Bourbon should not be more than 45% alcohol. This is a little obnoxious and kills the taste. Not that the taste was all that good to begin with. Third problem is it is too sweet. Bourbon should be dry and lightly sweet with afternotes of whatever spices were added to the mashbill. Sweetness kills the after taste and makes your mouth feel sticky. It's not the worst thing I've ever tried. Certainly better than the rot-gut brands like Jim Beam.... excuse me... just threw up in my mouth a little typing that name. But you are not going to live forever and there are better brands for you to try. Give this one a pass.

Pretty much. That way none of your selections have to be confirmed by the Senate. I don’t recall any other president squeezing through that legal loophole to deprive the Senate of its constitutional responsibility to advise and consent

It is 33F here today. 1 degree for those of you who follow Anders Celsius. Feels like a warm spring day compared to the last few. The chickens even came out of their house for the first time in three days. Bella and Sunny are both still in bed. Cold mornings are hard on old doggie bones.

DHS Confirms no new border wall has been built Ummmm.... how much money did we spend on this? I seems to recall it was diverted from military projects? Sometimes I think the federal government is a criminal enterprise. Sometimes just that it is criminally incompetent. I guess no reason both can't be true. The only thing it does well is kill people and make taxpayer money disappear. And you guys want to give them MORE power over you. It just.... just boggles the mind!

BREAKING NEWS........ Three judges get into drunken brawl at White Castle. Two are shot. I see not one, not two, but three potential Supreme Court nominees!

Didn't watch the video but no, UBI is NOT socialism. In fact socialism kind of breaks down when people want to do what I suggested. Not that I'd care.

Hmmmm.... my house is paid for. My retirement is paid for. I can grow my own food. I make use of solar power so my utility expenses are minimal. My only entertainment expenses are SiriusXM, my Kindle, and my WiFi. I could totally live on $1k a month and have money left over. You know what? Put me down for some Yang too! If these lazy Millennials want Socialism then God bless them. I'll just quit my job, kick back and let THEM support ME!

I enjoy discussing things like socialism (happy or otherwise) and capitalism from a philosophical viewpoint. The practical application of any economic system is messy. Nothing is all of one thing or another. And the political system of the country muddies the water even more. Usually exploiting whatever is there for it's own ends and those of the people in the government. Governments, like private companies, are made up of people. They are every bit as greedy, selfish, venal, and vainglories as the "evil" corporations you guys rail against. The difference is governments have men with guns who will happily kill you. Amazon cannot take a penny from me I don't freely give them. Tipton County TN can take everything I own including my life. Who should I really be afraid of here? You see why I recoil from any economic system whose very existence give MORE power to the men with guns?

No, Medicare is entirely Federal. Medicaid is joint state and Federal. The ACA is a fancy way of subsidized private health insurance. I’m talking about free public healthcare for everyone over a certain dollar figure. In other words if you need stitches you pay yourself or with private insurance. If you have a heart attack or need a knee replacement then your fellow citizens pick up the bill over a certain dollar amount. Consider it a state run catastrophic insurance. It would not be as subject abuses and rationing.

Let me throw this idea out there. What would you guys say to a publicly managed healthcare if the federal government played absolutely no role in it? Suppose it were administrated paid for and managed by the individual states solely for the benefit of the citizens of those states? And just to keep the proposal realistic and affordable suppose it was only for catastrophic illness. If you’ve got cancer we’ve got you covered. If you have a cold you’re on your own. What would you guys say to that? No Uncle Sam. Not even a little bit.

National socialism is not really socialism as Marx and Engels imagined it. It does not really check many boxes on the modern definitions of it either. It would be a stretch to compare the two although there are similarities. But by adding Hitler to that list I was really more thinking about people who lead the “downtrodden“ to overthrow the status quo in hopes of something better. And got something far worse.

Do you think the people who followed Chavez, Castro, Lenin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Kim Il sung, etc, etc imagined they were creating a society incomparably worse than the ones they wanted to improve? It is a problem when so much power rests in the hands of the people who control the state. The outcomes you are hoping for in not guaranteed. It might be far worse. Socialist economic systems, even the "happy" kind that people think they want, presents an opportunity for the state to control the majority of the economy. Power makes monsters. Shady answer me honestly. In the age of Trump, warrantless searches, data mining, the NSA literally spying on us, police brutality almost out of control, expansion of regulation over private property at the state level, expanding eminent domain seizures at every level, Obama and his drone strikes on American citizens, the IRS suppressing political activity, I could go on; with all of this happening do YOU trust your government? If the answer is "yes" then you haven't been paying attention. If it's "no" then surely the expansion of their power that comes with even "happy" socialism would be madness.

Drag Queen Make an Entrance at Today's Hearings

Well, if we ever go full socialism I have a contingency for that too. Liquidate all my assets, hide the proceeds, quit my job, live off the labor of others. F--k it. Why invest my own money and labor for no return? If it's some kind of Democratic Socialism it will be mostly BAU for me.

It is freaking COLD here! WTF? The dogs water bowl in the kitchen froze over. I turned on the heater for the first time in six years just now.