Guard Dog

In January of 2006 I agreed to foster a 12 week old puppy with a bad case of demodectic mange. That poor little thing barely had a hair on his body and his skin was scabbed from head to tail. I fed all the dogs (I had many back then) together but since he was a puppy he ate in the kitchen alone. He had this funny little howl/bark he would do when I was mixing up his food. So I named him Tommy Tucker ( just Tommy really ) from the old nursery rhyme. After a year of treatment with Ivermectin, weekly baths with anti-microbial shampoo, good diet, and TLC he grew into a beautiful, healthy 90 pound tornado of a dog. Of course I couldn't give him up when his foster period ended so I adopted him. For the next eleven and a half years (except the six months I was working out of the country) I took that crazy mutt everywhere. Camping, fishing, hunting , sightseeing trips from the Great Plains to the Florida Keys and the gulf Coast to the Blue Ridge. He made friends of strangers wherever he went. The last few months I thought time was catching up with him. He has had trouble getting around. Back in February our vet diagnosed it as arthritis so he put him on a daily pain killer. We started a weekly therapy with Adaquan too. It helped a little but then he started getting worse. I took him to a canine orthopedic doctor in Dyersburg and she found a tumor in his shoulder. The Canine Oncologist in Memphis confirmed my worst fears, it was an aggressive form of Osteosarcoma. It was advanced and had already spread. There was nothing they could do. So we began a home hospice course with pain killers. I set up a mattress on the floor next to the fireplace and kept him comfortable and made sure he wasn't alone. I cooked him steak, eggs, chicken and other things to eat he wouldn't normally get to have. Three days ago I left work early to come home and check on him. He gave me "the look" and I knew it was time. I stayed with him through the procedure though. I know many of you have had to do this too. It's the bargain we make when we take these mutts into our lives. They will be with us on our best and our worst days. And we'll be with them on their last day. It was very important to me that the last thing he knows in this world was me petting him. I arranged for a private cremation. Early this morning Sunny & I walked down to Cold Creek and scattered his ashes along the bank. We spent so many hours fishing down there is was always our place. Now it always will be. I refuse to be sad about this. Almost twelve years of happy memories far outweigh one sad one. In the words of Dr. Seuss "Don't cry that it's over. Smile because it happened." I'm the luckiest SOB in the world to have had a friend like that!

Ben, Gorgon and others, I have not forgotten our conversation, I'll get back to it. The last 48 hours have been a very bad time for me. Just a thought on the current news though. I'm not providing links, you can look for yourself. In the last few days stories have run that have link the Clinton Campaign, John McCain, various members of the Trump campaign including his son, a Republican Congressman from California, two Democrat Congressmen from New York, and the Obama DoJ and State Department have all been linked to various Russian nationals who may or may not be agents of it's government concerning "incriminating" political information on people the various actors here don't like/oppose. Assume there is a grain (at least) of truth in all of it. If Putin really wanted to undermine the US why do it with helping one party over the other? Why not help both against each other then let it slip that it happened? You can completely undermine the faith people have in all of their government (more than it already is). All you need is: 1 Evil genius intent on sowing chaos among his enemies. Check 2 political parties so arrayed against each other they will gladly accept a Faustian bargain and sell their souls for an advantage over the other. Check 1 Electorate divided down the middle that honestly believes one party is evil and the other is good. Check. Just a thought.

Happy 200th Birthday to Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau was jailed for refusing to pay taxes to the government for its endorsement of slavery and the Mexican-American war, Ralph Waldo Emerson visited him in jail and asked, “Henry, what are you doing in there?” Thoreau replied, “Waldo, the question is what are you doing out there?”

OK, now where were we before being so rudely interrupted by a four hour conference call? @Ben, the other point you made that I wanted to address is the removal of religion from public. In the US we have a philosophy of "a wall of seperation between the church and the state".. It was Thomas Jefferson who first coined the term. It's rooted in the first two clauses of the 1st Amendment of our Constitution "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" . In other words we don't compel anyone to follow any particular faith or no faith at all. And we do not stop anyone from practicing their faith whatever it is so long as no one is harmed by it (no human sacrifice or whatever).. Now I'll grant, particularly lately we have not done such a great job of following that. The former clause has been enforced with too much zeal and the latter often ignored. But in my opinion this is a model to follow. You say the state has no business being involved in religion. And I agree with that. But when the state starts to interfere with the free practice of religion in the manner you suggested (banning it in public) then it IS getting involved.The better way to go would be hands off 100%. But of course we don't even do that here. We should. Now, your other point about the child in a religious school. They are free, in that when they become adults they are free to follow or reject anything they were taught as a child. If their parents chose to put them in a religious school that is a choice they are free to make. Religious schools in the US are accredited in the same way public schools are. The kids are taught the same subjects with the same requirements with the addition of the curriculum of the sponsoring faith. The difference is those kids are not costing the state any money. Those schools are private and the parents have to pay to send their kids to them. @aluminiumtrioxid: In theory yes. Is the economy could continue to expand with the valuation of the currency staying ahead of the costs of goods then yes there are an infinite number of dollars. Of course that can't happen. Eventually the growth slows once the value if the currency starts to fall due to inflation. There are a lot of theories on WHY inflation happens (I tend to believe the monetarist theory that the sheer amount and availability of anything including currency eventually undermines it's value) but whatever theory you like... it happens. That leads to contraction and eventually recession. Once that happens the prices of goods starts to drop until they catch up with the devaluation of currency and the whole cycle starts over. That's the beauty of the system. It corrects itself naturally... sort of. @Gorgon: OK, that is a whole other conversation. We were talking just about the effect on income tax on consumers and investors. Getting into business behavior it all comes down to one thing: what is the cost of producing one widget here as opposed to anywhere else. This is something I'd like to dive deeper into but I'm leaving for the day in a half hour and don't have time. We'll come back to this one.

It's been that kind of day! Actually my thanks to Ben and the rest of you. So far it has been very entertaining!

LOL Yeah, That was a straw man, I didn't just knock him over... I shot him! Anyway, on to your points. Trotting out Paul Krugman carries no weight with me. His utter devotion to Keyensian economic theory is famous. And yes he even does have nobel prize (for what that's worth). And he's never done a thing outside of academia. No one has ever put him in charge of anything, he's never held an office. He's an academic. And yes he does advocate for taxes that i would describe as confiscatory. Although yes there were wealthy people in the US back then our top tax rate was in the 70-90% range. But there is a hell of a lot MORE wealthy Americans not that it isn't. But here is the funny thing. Once the government started cutting the income tax rate in the 1920's, revenue collected began to GROW: Not only did revenue collected from taxes grow, the amount of taxes paid by the people whose taxes were cut increased: And again in the 1960 the top rates reduced and again in the 1980's in both cases revenue collected by the government increased even though the tax rates when down. See for yourself: http://www.heritage.org/taxes/report/the-historical-lessons-lower-tax-rates-0 Why is this you ask? We have a consumer driven economy. Our economy grows when we invest and consume. If you take away our ability to do that by taking too much from us in taxes we buy less and we invest less. When we buy less business sells less. They buy less raw materials. Prices drop. It feeds on itself. If we have more of our money then we buy more and invest more and business expands and makes money. That means more money to buy and invest which makes even more. So even though the government is taxing at a lower rate it's making more in revenue because there is more income to tax. Unlike liberty, and contrary to what the disciples of John Maynard Keyens would have us believe money in a consumer economy is no zero sum. Krugman would have us believe there is a finite number of US dollars in existence and one person having more consequently means another has less. That is simply not true. In the 1980s an economist named Arthur Laffer developed a model we call the Laffer Curve today. His theory became the conerstone of President Reagan's economic policy which cut the top tax rate from 70% to 50% in 1981 and again to 38% in 1986. In the time revenue collected by the government went from $517B to $909B in seven years. Taxes go down revenue goes up: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/laffercurve.asp I'll get to you other points in a few

@Ben Economics: Make employees the majority share holders of their respective companies? So the government (I assume) just comes in and says to the owner/investors/board of directors "this company isn't yours anymore. Oh, and all than money you've sunk into it? Sucks to be you huh?" What about employees who change jobs? Do they retain their shares and then get shares of their new company? It does not matter. I won't suffer a government that can just come in and take what belongs to one person/people and just keep it or give it to other person/people. How would I ever feel secure in my home and property after that? I do business from my home sometimes. 70% income Tax? Why would I go out and bust my a$$ working hard when I'm just going to lose it all in taxes? I sure as hell won't be starting any more businesses. Social: OK, more universities. And free too. sounds great. I can't wait to hear the faculty react when they hear they won't be getting paid because even with our tax burden today the primary costs of universities are paid by students and donators. Well the students won't be paying and the doners can't. The other downside to your 70% tax is no one will be able to afford to support things like charity and university donations because you're beggaring them with taxes. Ah yes, banning all religious symbols. Remember how I said every evil act begins with the twisted notion that one group of people should control how another lives? It's not enough you take their property, money, and freedom you have to crawl into their heads and that their very beliefs from them? What you are hoping for sounds great. An egalitarian society of true equality and all you have to do is grab a gun (the government) and FORCE people to comply with it. Take their property. Take their money. Take their very sous. And of course the next step is kill the ones that refuse. And just like that no matter how good or enlightened your intentions were you just became Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc. To quote the great Milton Friedman "A society that places equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will have a high degree of both"

Are you asking me? If so go back and read my last 5 or so posts. I'm not here defending capitalism as the end all be all way of doing business. At best it's just better than the alternatives.is it really efficient enough to justify the suffering it causes? We're speaking globally, anything else wouldn't make sense... When you have a better idea I'm willing to listen. But if that idea concentrates absolute political power in the hands of the few then it's a non-starter with me.

Not all of them surely. But some I guess. It comes down to this: how much of someone else work, sweat, labor, etc does someone who didn't do that work feel they are entitled to?

Are you asking me? If so go back and read my last 5 or so posts. I'm not here defending capitalism as the end all be all way of doing business. At best it's just better than the alternatives.

That's a start, but what do we do about those who can't afford the Stiches? Don't forget prevention... do you always want to wait until a lack of Stiches turned into a serious infection that needs immediate treatment? That just seems more... inefficient, assuming you are willing to cover poor people's life saving surgeries. People are responsible for THEMSELVES! No one is owed anything from anyone else just because they are here breathing air. We do not owe them food, water, a place to sleep or healthcare. They are owed the opportunity to do what is required to have these things and then to DO the things to have them. People voluntarily help the less fortunate here all the time. It's called charity. I donated more than 20% of my after tax income to various charities last year alone. Citizens of the US donate to charitites more than most of the nations of Europe combined. But that is something we choose to do. It's a different thing when the government put a gun to your head and tells you it is going to take the money you worked to earn and buy something that guy over there who didn't earn it. Every dollar someone receives without working for someone else worked for without receiving. I am and have always been willing to give my life for my fellow citizens. But I will NOT live it for them!

Oh and Ben in your previous post you are conflating the actions of governments with economic systems again. Communism tends to permit terrible governments because is requires a concentrations of absolute power over the state and people to be implemented. People being people once they have absolute power do terrible things with it. The enemy in the end is not economics, it's governments. Communism did not kill millions of Russians during the "purges", the Soviet government did. But the Soviet government does not exist without Communism. Every evil act in human history begins with this terrible need, this sickness in the human soul to have control over the lives of the other humans. And a system like Communism already being rooted in the base human emotion of envy just brings out the worst in already flawed people by concentrating power on a few and forcibly rendering the rest powerless by reducing them to the lowest common denominator. A wise people should understand whatever economic system you choose to follow you MUST be able to keep the power of your government in check. Liberty in any society is a zero sum commodity. The more the state has over you the less you have over yourself. That is one of the big reasons gun control is so ferociously contested here in the United States. If some future government of the US decided to start lining up citizens and shooting them, the citizens here shoot back.

Health care is a service. It's not a right. However, it think it would be worth discussing a national plan that covers catastrophic illness and injury. If you need heart surgery your fellow citizens will cover you. If you need stitches then you pay for them yourself or you buy insurance. The costs of insurance will drop because now the big ticket expenses are out of their hands.

I honestly think America is more or less a feudal system. Especially the way healthcare and benefits are largely due to being associated with a company. Honestly it looks remarkably similar to japan in the late Nanboku-chō period. So basically pre-feudal. The only real distinction being the rise of the samurai class, which would be our police force more or less. #SamuraiLivesMatter amiright? Yeah... see what I mean? Totally pre-feudal, more so than any of the claims that we are an oligarchy. I'm sorry but that is completely absurd. The benefit of buying health care coverage through employers is you are buying through a pool and can negotiate a better rate. You can do that without going through employers as well. You can also by individual policies. You can also get low cost services for simple problems at walk in clinics. The notion that only people with jobs can get health insurance gets bandied about a lot but it has always been false. But this does need to be improved. The federal government has thoroughly f----d up the health insurance marketplace with anti-competitive regulation at the behest of health insurance lobbyists. Step 1 to fixing things is to remove the roadblocks placed before insurance companies selling smaller and a la carte style plans to consumers everywhere and anywhere.

Nice! Wait, you live in California You have an nearly two month vacation and you might get bored? That does not compute!

Today NASA will begin releasing data from Juno's flyover of the great red storm on Jupiter last night. I'll be watching with great interest: http://www.inquisitr.com/4359175/nass-juno-probe-flyby-jupiter-great-red-spot/

Yep. Capitalism, the worst system in the world. Except all the others. You all have heard me say this a hundred times. The goal should be a society that maximizes the freedom of the individual. The biggest incentive to work and improve oneself is the ability to enjoy the rewards of doing that. You won't hear me arguing for complete laissez-faire capitalism. There must be some regulation on a free market. but it should be kept to a minimum. That's good for consumers, good for producers, good for everyone. Even the liberty we hold so dear cannot be absolute. Only nearly so. And we are forced to accept a government that had can keep a free market free while being lightly regulated and a free society free while being lightly restrained. No one has quite figured out how to do that yet. We certainly haven't even after 241 years of trying in the USA. But going in the opposite direction, a government that controls everything and equalizes everyone by force? No. I'd take up arms against it today. I'd rather die with my guns in my hands than live one day under even the most benevolent form of communism. To quote Thomas Paine "Government even in it's best state is but a necessary evil. In it's worst state an intolerable one."

There are folks who just love the notion of seeing everyone with opinions differing from theirs lined up and shot.

You know what sucks about the All Star Break? There is nothing on TV now.

hah, even you can see through it, noice"The government has softened the legislation by excluding email and messenger providers"THAT WAS ON THE TABLE? Hah, and you want to have communism. Did you ever heard about KGB? they done same stuff with news. Only approved news were allowed.neither surveillance nor corruption is inherent to communism but rather to hierarchies, wouldn't you agree?Well I don't like surveillance too much now, but its difference if its because of breaking the law or if its because you are anti establishment/political oppositionthat's really a matter of when... Mc Carthy didn't see it that way, and I believe Trump did ask for voter's personal information. Now, obviously the US is still very strong on such things as freedom of speech, but I don't see why that would be an inherent feat of capitalism. Capitalism dies after all exists in dictatorships, and historically always has. The amount of suffering caused by the big empires of the past, especially the British, are unparalleled (if we go by pure numbers). Now, does that mean that capitalism must lead to such tragedies? No, but it means that capitalism certainly doesn't prevent them. Communism certainly also has an impressive death toll, no doubt. But again, I do see neither inherent necessity nor prevention. And besides, it's not like countries like the Soviet Union were always a Stalinist hell. Take a look at the USSR between the civil war and Stalins "Revolution from above" (what might be considered his grasp on power), so around 1921-1928; in other words the time of the NEP. The 1925 elections, so those which fell into this time frame, were the freest in the Soviet Unions history. For example, communists lost their majority in large pars of the rural areas where local farmers elected them out of their soviets, causing the Bolsheviks much worry. Political opposition was also very open. This isn't to say that there was no censorship-a socialists call for "freedom of thought for anything from anarchism to monarchism" wasn't exactly followed on. But political discussions within a certain frame were vivid and controversial. Yes, also the communists had a left and right wing; the left advocating for a more quick industrialisation and more decentralised power, while the right seeked a more authoritarian form of government and much more economic adaption to the peasants, i.e. The farmers. Stalin Fell more on the right (and usually allying with them), but also supported shock industrialisation much more radically than the left. Lenin was also more to the right, Trotzki the most prominent left communist. The populance and their options was very diverse and difficult to generalise, but they can, very roughly, be divided into three fairly equal groups: those opposed to the new order, those in support of its ideals but sceptical of specific policies Due to the NEP, economic liberty was surprisingly high. Though state enterprise continued to dominate, basic markets were installed and private ownership brought back (though still treated with extreme suspicion). This introduction of capitalist elements did result in a strong economic growth, however, there were some who felt that the revolution was betrayed. Indeed, inequality did rise, but it was still nowhere near anything in the west. Social liberty also peaked. Women were made equal legally in every way, and the Soviets became the first worldwide to introduce equal pay legislation. Due to a high degree of sexism in the populace however, progress was slow in this field, but many politicians were burning feminists (though theft probably wouldn't have called themselves that), insisting that women must have an equal position in the working world . Homosexuality was also legalised. Welfare programs were supposed to increase living conditions, but sometimes failed due to the people's mindset or still had severe Problems. For example, the numbers of people per doctor fell from around 4000ppl/1d to around 2500ppl/1d, which is an obvious improvement but still very bad. The number of children attending school also rose from around 30 to 80 percent. However, most parents, especially in the rural areas took their children out of school after two or two and a half years. The regime also tried to raise awareness for health issues, for example through large and continuous campaigns against alcohol (schoolchildren carrying signs saying "don't buy vodka buy us school books" for example). The Soviets also connected the country, for example through bringing electricity to the villages ("Lenins Lamp"). Of course, one must also remember the regimes aggression against religion and purging of many churches. On the contrary, the arts were at an all time high. In the 20s, the Soviet Union was the leading artists country. Cinema, literature, photography and the classic arts all experienced a spirit of revolution and departure. While there is no doubt that the horrors of the Soviet regime must be remembered, it would also be wrong to simply ignore its best times. Communism is an economic system. Just because about all of the "communist" countries have been brutal and repressive tyrannies that murdered their own people and others by the hundreds of thousands does not necessarily reflect on communism as a system. It's more about the evil bastards that ran those countries. The problem is communism is by it's nature it suppresses the biggest safeguard against the evil bastards: individual freedom. Communism does not permit individual ownership of anything up to and including the self. If you don't own your own labor, the work of your own hands you don't own anything. I get that Marx meant for the "dictatorship of the proletariat" to only wield power long enough to dismantle the things that are bad for the working class, then give up power and go hoe vegetables on some farm somewhere. But he was an idiot. That is not how humans work. When you get a bunch of them with absolute power the only way to remove them is to wait for them to die or at gunpoint. It's a pipe dream. The only way it could ever work is if you change the nature of man. Good luck with that. .

Think you had a bad day yesterday? Jon Lester had a worse one. He didn't even get out of the first inning. He threw 59 pitches, recorded 2 outs, gave up six hits, ten runs, three walks and no strikeouts. You know your day is going to suck when the other teams #2 hitter hits a grand slam in the FIRST INNING! Think about that for a moment. Pittsburgh beat Chicago 14-3. And no that wasn't the Steelers playing the Bears. I thought this was cool. After the Rays beat the Red Sox 5-3, to take 3 out of 4 and pull into a positional tie with the Yankees for 2nd place, Red Sox RF Mookie Betts offered to fly Rays pitcher Chris Archer to Miami for the All Star Game in his own airplane. The rub there is Betts hit a solo HR off Arch to lead off the 1st Inning. http://m.mlb.com/cutfour/2017/07/10/241513608 Giancarlo Stanton hits four HR in three nights and the Marlins swept the Giant in SF. Very quietly the Fabulous Fighting Fish of Florida have been creeping back into this thing. They are 5 games on the wrong side of .500 still and 9 games back from a WC but if they keep scoring enough runs to apologize for their awful pitching it's not impossible they could make some noise. Unless of course there is a fire sale. The sons of Dante Bichette and Vlad Guerrero were on the field today for the Futures Game if feels like the 90's are here again! http://m.mlb.com/cutfour/2017/07/09/241450614/guerrero-bichette-gordon-more-shine-in-futures-game

Oh I'm just having a little fun with this story. In all seriousness this is, at best, an impossible solution to a problem that does not exist. At worst it's a 9.9 on the Absurd-O-Meter.

Trump did something decent in this video but I want you guys to pay attention to what the Marine does: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/watch-trump-stops-to-pick-up-and-return-marines-hat-blown-off-by-the-wind/article/2628087 I'd buy that Lance Corporal a beer. THAT is how you hold the position of Attention.

This one os for Shady & Manifested:

This is it Gentlemen. The moment we have all been waiting for. The United States of America is now considering a sixth branch of the US Military. A branch dedicated to extra-plantetary operations. A Space Corps. https://www.vox.com/world/2017/7/5/15905018/space-corps-air-force-rogers-house-senate-armed-services We have trained for this. We have waited for this. Now the moment has come. The moment when this: is about to become a real f-----g career choice! God Bless America! We have even commissioned proofs for our first Space Corps recruiting posters: & And some of you may be wondering how a nation whose previous Presidential Administration has cancelled their manned space program and shut down all development of heavy lift launch vehicles can even consider military operations in space when it can't even launch it's own satellite's into space. To them we say: "Shut up! Don't screw this up with your s----y little details!"