Guard Dog

I’ll get mine close to the end. Once everybody else has. I am minimal risk. I was avoiding contact with the other humans before it was even cool to do so!

I would not want to be the chairman of the Federal Reserve for all the money in the world. They have three tasks: moderate interest rates (the repo market especially, inter-banking system borrowing), stabilize bond prices, and (hopefully) maximize employment through crisis avoidance. Only one of those three are actually within their control. The last three Presidential admins and the current one have done nothing but deficient spend. The Obama admin had a real shot at turning it around with their austerity measures which, while meant as a political weapon at the time, did unintentional good but was wiped out by runaway spending. You have probably heard me say this, because I've been saying it for years, I would not buy US bonds if they took dried dog poop for payment. The default is inevitable. Most folks think the US Dollar will be ok long term because even with all this it is still the most stable currency and the world reserve currency. But in the era of blockchain and crypto's immunity to inflation that may not last. It probably won't. Nations are already using bitcoin for trade. As far as the Fed putting a happy (dishonestly so) face on it... wow... shocking. Not. It is worrisome because sooner or later the bill comes due. Inflation has been creeping up for a while. That worries me being so close to retirement and now with a minimal income. Inflation is a tax on savings. But... there is nothing anyone can do about it. Not even voting. Fiscally responsible candidates don't win elections. All we can do it: Manage debt: if you are in debt get out. If you're not, don't go in. Invest in things that have real value. Real estate, hard commodity, etc.

Nope. There are gonna be some trade offs 😆

Portland Maine wouldn't be bad. Still too big for my tastes. If I can see another human or human habitation from my house I get anxious!

For the second time in less than a week I find myself giving the Biden Admin the slow clap: Pentagon Confirms Biden’s New Restrictions on Drone Strikes, Commando Raids

Pardon me a moment. I think I have something stuck in my eye.

Biden dogs sent back to Delaware after one bit a White House staffer. Champ and Major have been impeached! Well I guess he did what he had to do. If it had been me I think I would’ve fired the staff guy. If a dog doesn’t like you there’s something no good about you! 😆

I found this very interesting. Read it this morning after looking up that solar clock IC posted. Since leaving the heliopause voyager 1’s velocity has been fairly constant at 38k MPH, about 17 km/s. That’s extremely fast obviously. But it’s nowhere near relativistic velocity you’d think right? You would be wrong. Since Sept 5 1977 Voyager 1 has spent 15981 days in space. But from its perspective it has only been in space 15959 days. Even at the (comparatively) low speed of 3.6 AU/yr time is still passing quicker for us than it. 11 seconds per hour after all this time. Wild stuff. At least I thought that was pretty cool

Bah. I cannot imagine anything less interesting then inter family squabbles of great Britain‘s national pets.

Pepe Le Pew has been culture cancelled! 😂 actually he hasn’t. It sounds like his scene was just cut from the new space jam movie. But a short while ago it went around that he was the next loony tune character to be hated because he promoted “rape culture“. LOL! If they think he is the worst and most politically incorrect thing to come out of Looney Tunes they need to watch some of the really old episodes! 😂 Anyway some of the responses to this are truly comedic.

She was on the Lightning so I am required to hate her.

As soon as I finish this cup of coffee I’m going to go out and start cutting ground for the garden. Call me crazy but I actually enjoy this work

My favorite female historical figures is a four-way tie. Boudica of course needs no introduction. Edith Clarke was an electrical engineer, MIT graduate and professor, stellar career at General Electric, and invented one of the first graphing calculators. Lydmila Pavlichenko, Red Army sniper nicknamed Lady Death during WW2 Nancy Wake, journalist, French resistance operative, allied spy extraordinaire. I read a great book about her last year. Had never heard of her prior.

LOL there’s only one female in my life right now. And she’s a dog.

Everyone wants the thing they don’t like prohibited. No one is on the side of the angels. But every one mistakenly thinks they are.

Finished the last one tonight. Started this one: It's making me thirsty for a Black and Tan.

OK, some of this criticism is fair some not. With the Seuss thing I knew from the get-go the Seuss people were making the call and this was not "cancel culture" (as though that were some new thing or only a tool of the modern left). So my target for criticism was not the decision to stop publishing the books rather the "outrage" if you want to call it that that led them to do so. But, when making that jest I had not actually SEEN the pics. Not like they were on the front page of the paper and googling "Seuss + offensive image" and similar came up with very little on that one day. Gfted linked some and my response to that was here. I think you'll see I was singing a different tune after that on this one point. But, as you well know, about half the time the public cries "racist" it's much ado about nothing. The other half there is a legit beef. I mean people got in a twist about Kendall Jenner investing in a tequila company for crying out loud. After a while it becomes difficult to take this s--t seriously. Well, in this case there was a good reason. Had this been anything else I'd say let it go. That's just how things were back then. They are not like that now. But these are children's books and stuff like this is not appropriate for impressionable minds. There is no question I've staked out untenable positions before. Sometimes deliberately to provoke conversation, sometimes earnestly. I've also painted myself into ideological corners and been left with making contradictory arguments. Even the best chess players blunder and I am far from the best. It's also fair to say my "mockrage" tends to run in one direction: against the "left". In past days mocking the "right" is like kicking a blind three legged dog. Their influence was waning. Plus as distasteful as the right is in promoting militant nationalism and Judeo-Christian ethics as the underpinning of all public policy (and this coming from a religious man speaking of contradictions) the collectivism and preference for heavy handed regulation of the modern left strikes me as far more insidious. At least until Trump started pitching his fits in 2016. Now the right is a fair bit worse sometimes. Yeah, democracy gets it wrong all the time. Slavery, Jim Crow, prohibition, Indian Relocation Acts, Secession, internment camps, etc. Suppression of liberty comes not just from the capitals but from the ballot box too. Sometimes it must be done, sometimes it's unnecessary nanny state overreach. Unless an act has a high probability of harming someone else (drunk driving for example) the prerogatives of the individual > the "there ought to be a law" voters. About that much I think I have always been consistent. The idea of getting a ticket for drinking a cup of coffee while driving is pretty freaking awful. Besides, as Von Causewitz would tell us if you fight hard in the small battles you might not have to fight the big ones. As far as Nazi imagery, I don't like trotting that out. I've criticized people for doing it because the more false comparisons are made the more people forget how terrible they were. But, off the top of my head I can't think of anyone else who had public book burnings.

I think this is an awesome idea. We should all stop using that name. That dude would be best forgotten

No because with regard to the vaccines they are behaving as a regular administration should. The previous one was an aberration. As far as re-joining all the climate change agreements they are absolutely nothing but lip service to goals that no one is trying to meet. The Biden a ministration is doing its job. It hasn’t horrified me and until this it hasn’t impressed me. But seeing an executive willing to give back power is certainly more than I could ever have hoped for from a president. But, like I said it hasn’t actually happened yet. Maybe it never will. Once it does then we’ll talk about it. Let’s just say so far it’s encouraging

Back home again. Getting the smokehouse ready for cooking. My total catch this week was two hardhead catfish. One already cooked and gone. I caught four cobia but only one was big enough to keep. I’m glad I checked because they were checking at the ranger station as I left. The Cobia and the other catfish are going in the smoker this afternoon. I also caught a couple of sheepshead that were too small and a few others not fit for eating. Unless I was in some kind of survival situation. Then it’s screw the sizes and limit.

Currently reading

I think it’s incredibly funny how sales of the six books are skyrocketing. I believe the thinking is that since they’re going out publication they might become collectors items. The problem is they’ve been in publication since the 30s so there’s a hell of a lot of them out there. It’s going to be 100 years or more before scarcity even becomes a thing.

Biden administration supports congressional war Powers reform I never thought I would say this but hats off to the Biden ministration and the Democrats in Congress. This is much needed and long-overdue. So far I have been neither impressed nor upset at anything the Biden admin has done. They have been very predictable. And that’s a good thing. But this is big because this is a president indicating they are willing to give up Executive power. Granted it’s power the executive should not have been granted but the fact that he’s OK to go along with it says a lot. Makes me happy.