Guard Dog

That is a whole different situation. We have a joint defense agreement with Japan. Any attack on Japan is an attack on the US. Ditto with RoK & Taiwan. But this Syria mess, there is nothing but bad guys. Attacking one empowers others. Choosing a side it what brought about this whole awful mess. The only thing to do now is just get out of the way until one side wipes the other out. Humanitarian aid for the refugees no doubt, but for God's sake don't wade into another quagmire that ends up replacing one hostile actor with another. You think we'd have figure this out by now.

Goresuch will be confirmed today. As much as I dislike using the "nuclear option" and it is something everyone will have cause to regret one day. But what else could be done? No justice appointed by Trump will meet the approval of the Democrats and as long as control of the Senate remained divided (which is always) the Supreme court would just get smaller and smaller until there was just one judge left. Here is a good idea that will never happen (because it would require a Constitutional Amendment). Rather than having Justices serve for life, have them serve one 10 year or 15 year term after which they must step down. It would have to be at least that long to ensure the President that selected them does not replace them. That idea keeps the blood fresh and lessens the tension placed on the Senate and the justices themselves. Plus it will engage the voters more. That SCOTUS vacancy had a lot to do with Trump getting elected.

Well, my take on this is "here we go again". Wading into yet another foreign entanglement that is not our problem. The situation in Syria is an absolute tragic mess and one the US had a hand in creating. But intervening in a mess created by intervention will not fix it. I wish I could go back in time to 2003, right before the start of the Iraq invasion and tell GWB there are far worse things than dictators who behave predictably.

I wonder if this was the same situation as Clinton did in the '90's. He wanted to be seen as doing "something" but didn't want to do anything too bad so the fired missiles at camps knows to be empty.

“Show business is my life. When I was a kid I sold insurance, but nobody laughed.” RIP Don Rickles

In one sense many of the big businesses are already practically nationalised and the situation is similar to taxpayers being a guarantor on their mortgage without having a share of the title deed- too big to fail/ privatise profits and socialise losses etc. I know you don't agree with that sort of set up either, but practically that is what the situation is and there have been no real attempts to stop it from happening again. The taxpayer effectively has ownership obligations without the ownership benefits. You also can nationalise without doing so at gunpoint, indeed that was exactly what happened to multiple companies in multiple countries around 2008 (partly including GM, iirc). If the alternative is the company literally going bankrupt then the government buying out stock is an advantage to the shareholder, not a disadvantage, since without the government their stock would be near worthless. That isn't exactly how it happened. GM's Bondholders did get screwed and were forced (yes forced) by the Government to accept $0.10 on the dollar for their holdings. And the truth is GM SHOULD have been allowed to fail. A Chapter 7 bankruptcy could have hurt not doubt but all of the assets would have been sold or taken by bondholders. A half dozen new companies would have sprang from those assets and in the long term everyone would have been better off. The short term would have sucked. But that story has yet to have it's final chapter written. All they did was kick the can down the road 20 years. GM has not changed their business model. http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=7444740 https://www.cato.org/blog/truth-about-gm-chrysler-bailouts http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/25/AR2009052502135.html

It appears this forum can come up with some sort of common ground. I have an idea... we all together try outline how "our" state would look like. The thread would be a bloody mess, but I'd be interested to see water we can come up with something Well, you lost me altogether when you mentioned nationalizing big businesses and banks. You do realize a business or a bank belongs to someone right? Often many someones. By nationalizing it you are taking it away from whomever owns it at gunpoint. It would be no different if armed police kicked in your door and said "this is our house now. Get out". If you nationalized GM for example what do you think would happen to all the folks whose retirement funds were heavily invested in GM? Citizens of a free country should not live in fear the government will take their property away from them. Which of course brings up other topics like Civil Asset Forfeiture, Imminent Domain, etc. You all know how I feel about that already.

You know I would not be opposed to a universal income under a certain condition. Suppose the US decided they are going to pay every American over the age of 18 the equivalent of a full time worker at minimum wage. That would be around $15k per year, $1200 a month give or take. And the US agreed to provide single payer health coverage on all single expenses over say $15k. In other words, need a kidney transplant we'll cover you. Needs stitches? Get out your credit card. And that is it. That is the only two benefits you get from Uncle Sam. No social security, no government guaranteed loans, no food stamps, nothing. What you earn over that you'll be taxed on at the usual rate. Would that be acceptable? Do you guys realize that would be less than we are paying per citizen for all the boondoggles mess we have now? Reason Magazine did a piece on that last year. I'll see if I can find it

When someone has money they can do one of three things with it. Spend it. Invest it. Save it. The former two has benefits that stretch beyond the act. If they buy a new swimming pool it means money for pool company who pay the wages of the pool guy, etc. If they invest it in Nabisco (example) Nabisco uses it to make a new strawberry flavored graham cracker that the hire people to bake, deliver, and sell and that I buy and spread lots of peanut butter on. If they save it no one benefits really. Not even them because that is the lowest return on it. For the past 10 years or more we have lived in an economy where investment is riskier and the penalties for success are higher. And failure even higher still. It's a saver's economy which means fewer dollars circulate. Add to that the value hits the dollar has taken do to foolhardy economic ideas from Bush & Obama and the general lack of confidence in things and you have an economy that might be growing but is not conducive to "trickle down" working as it should. Oh I get what you are saying. And yes corporations do spend a hell of a lot lobbying the government to do for them. That is both good and bad and neither good or bad. It just is. It's not new. The biggest thing we an do to fix our economy is to understand what it is and stop trying to manage it. Or regulate the absolute hell out of it and stop pretending it's free. A free market will experience swings. Booms and recessions That cannot and should not be "managed". Just endured. The cycle will always auto correct. A managed economy won't have these swings but it won't be robust. For twenty years now we have been trying to have it both ways. That does not work.

No I work for the Tennessee Dept of Environment & Conservation now. I have been for two years now. Don't ask me how I backed into this job because nothing in my education or professional life even remotely qualified me for it. I sent in a resume for the heck of it, got interviewed twice and here I am. But I must admit I do enjoy it immensely. I used the proceeds of the sale of our business to pay off my house, buy my truck, buy my investment property (the townhouse) and a few other investments.

Ben I'm going to take your point off on a tangent here if you'll indulge me. You (and many others) express a lot of concern over the lack of equality. I am more concerned about a loss of freedom. To quote the great Milton Friedman "A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both." Let me tell you a story. About five years ago I had an idea for a business along with another engineer I worked with. We formulated a business plan and recruited four investors. We all agreed on a one sixth split of the start up costs. It was a lot of money. Far more cash than I had lying around. So I mortgaged my house and committed most of my life savings to the venture. I went "all in". Our first contract was designing and installing wi-fi networks at colleges in Mexico. We were the low bid because my original partner and I agreed to pay our own travel costs. After eight hard months and many sleepless nights we completed our contact ahead of schedule and under budget. More work, bigger jobs followed. After four years we had 12 employees and 14 contractors. That was when we decided to sell the business. The six original investors made a lot of money on it. The venture was thriving at that point. The employees all received six months pay as a bonus/severance. My question to you is do you think the employees were treated fairly. After all they were a big part of our success. Should the split have been 12 ways? No. It should not have been. If the business failed they would have lost their jobs true. But my partners and I would have lost our seed capital and every dollar invested after. For me that would have meant losing my home and my entire life savings. The employees were not working around the clock trying to the the work of a 5 man staff with just two. We were. While they slept in their homes I was killing rats with a hammer while running CAT6 cable through the attic at the Universidad de Sonora in Hermosillo. Disproportionate risk, disproportionate work leads to disproportionate rewards. You see where I'm coming from here? If there was no reward for creating that venture we would not have bothered to do it and for the years we worked those 12 jobs would not have existed at all.

So, I'm sitting here at my kitchen counter drinking a cup of coffee and reading USA Today on my iPad. And a thought hit me like a bolt of lightning. And not for the first time. Donald Trump is the President of the United States? How the F--K did this happen??? Still better than Hillary Clinton though.

I'm working from home tomorrow. So tonight is a good night for a drink. For a few drinks actually. A good night to sit on the porch, listen to the owls, coyotes, whiporills and crickets. Better than any music on my iPad.

Ok, I've been reading the news as well as forum comments here and elsewhere. It seems to me there is a problem with the whole Russia-Election Tampering-Spying on Trump- and Susan Rice thing. The problem is they are being combined into one story. They are not. They are four different stories. Did Russia interfere in the election? Was the Obama Administration spying on Trump during the transition? Were members of the Trump transition team in contact with Russians during the transition? If so to what end? Were the names of transition team members illegally revealed following surveillance (legal surveillance or otherwise). No what follows is strictly my own opinion based on what I've read and deduced. Did Russia interfere in the election? Yes, to a point. They were probably behind the hacking and document dump of the DNC. Although that doe not qualify as interfering with the election because the DNC is private institution, not a part of the Government or any state election agency. So the real question is did that affect the outcome? I'd have to say no. Donald Trump won because Hillary Clinton could not overcome all of her flaws and bad history. No outside interference changed that and t would be virtually impossible to "steal" as US election because it is so decentralized. Was the Obama Administration spying on Trump during the transition? I seriously doubt it. However, some of the transition team members may have been players in an ongoing investigation of other things. This is much more likely. Were members of the Trump transition team in contact with Russians during the transition? If so to what end? The first answer is yes. The second question does beg an answer and is worth looking into. Were the names of transition team members illegally revealed following surveillance (legal surveillance or otherwise). Yes, no doubt about it. If their role in any kind of FBI or DOJ investigation was incidental or if they were persons of interest they are still afforded rights and protections under the law. Rice violated that by outing them to the press no less. And she did it for purely partisan political reasons. And there should be a criminal penalty for that.

Do you, by any chance, have anything against drone strikes? Not yet. But I have an engineering education and a wild imagination!

Just don't kill your mailman. No danger there. I have a PO box!

ES6 is coming out i 2019 or 2020? I'd say don't bother. That would be at least eight years after Skyrim. The title would be irrelevant then. If they feel the Elder Scrolls is creatively exhausted then they should just retire the title.

Nothing quite like that. But let's say it would be very difficult to sneak up on me.

They could literally force me to strap a GoPro to my wang before I would go live off the grid. "Privacy" aint that important to me.If I ever disappear from the forums you'll know I went "grizzly Adams"! Or got a bullet in the head from the Leftists. Oh I doubt that will happen. but if it did, trust me it will make the news. Unless they manage to sneak up on me is some way I won't be the only one to die that day. With all my firearms, countermeasures I've placed around my home, and an absolute committed willingness to use them I figure I'll give a good account of myself the day that happens.

The Nets scored 141 points last night. I will repeat that. The Brooklyn Nets scored 141 points, 81 of which was in the first half. Of course they gave up 118 because neither they nor the 76's can play defense. Whats the NBA record for combined score I wonder? In other news the Grizz lost to San Antonio AGAIN. WTF? Do you realize the Grizz are 22-65 against San Antonio all time? By far the worst percentage of any opponent. Talk about a team just having your number.

They could literally force me to strap a GoPro to my wang before I would go live off the grid. "Privacy" aint that important to me. If I ever disappear from the forums you'll know I went "grizzly Adams"! PM me when you done that, will come to visit Will do... bring beer!

They could literally force me to strap a GoPro to my wang before I would go live off the grid. "Privacy" aint that important to me. If I ever disappear from the forums you'll know I went "grizzly Adams"!

It isnt a big deal losing what you think is privacy, you have been told your whole life " you need your privacy " or " your privacy is your personal obligation " ..says who? You will be fine if sometimes people are able to check your status and monitor certain Internet traffic, and yes this does mean you will have to accept there are people much clever than you who have your best interest in mind. You can trust me on this one But unless you are a terrorist, paedophile or other demented deviant of the dark web then you will have nothing to worry about Democracy requires that I am not afraid of my government. Democracy requires that I have no reason to be afraid when voicing my opinions. If you are okay with taking a dissidents freedom, you'll find yourself having ended up unfree very quickly. Democracy also requires that my opinions are taken seriously. You asks who says that my privacy is important. Well, I say so. And not only am I entitled to my opinion, but a government that claims to be democratic should under all circumstances be required to follow this opinion. It is, after all, neither dangerous nor illegal. As long as I am not breaking the law and I do not consent, te government has absolutely no justification to spy on me. When did we stop assuming innocence until proven guilty and started to say "if you got nothing to hide..."? This mindset, if followed through, places far too much power in the hand of the government. A monitored people are not a free people, regardless of wether they can choose their oppressors every four years or not. Indeed, I would go as far as to say that you, Bruce, and the opinions you defend are the backsrabbers of democracy; driven by fear and naivety. Completely agree

It isnt a big deal losing what you think is privacy, you have been told your whole life " you need your privacy " or " your privacy is your personal obligation " ..says who? You will be fine if sometimes people are able to check your status and monitor certain Internet traffic, and yes this does mean you will have to accept there are people much clever than you who have your best interest in mind. You can trust me on this one But unless you are a terrorist, paedophile or other demented deviant of the dark web then you will have nothing to worry about More and more I have been considering a retirement life disconnected from the internet and everything else too. Lately I've been fascinated by the notion of a completely self sufficient home with no utilities, bills, etc. An added bonus to that kind of life is completely safe from the prying eyes of "Big Brother". Unless they felt a need to use drones or human agents to watch me.