Guard Dog

Overcast and rainy. A good day to stay inside and watch football and play computer games

Is it just me or does anyone else get upset when dog meat gets injured in fallout four? Hearing him crying and seeing him flail around but you can’t run out to him because you’re under heavy fire from gunners? Very upsetting. Of course is he didn’t charge the damned baracade manned by guys with automatic weapons like a bad dog none of that would have happened.

Of course. You would actually have a shot with the strippers. Assuming you’re not too objectionable looking and have at least $20 in your pocket. And don’t mind bullet scars and cigarette breath. LOL

That’s like asking who is the prettiest stripper at the King Frog Truck Stop Restaurant and Caberet in Macon Georgia on a Tuesday afternoon.

Seems Malc & I like the same kind of story. Political corruption, international intrigue, espionage, all it needs is a man in a tux and a couple of racy sex scenes (with a female preferably) to make it complete! Hey we love a good spy yarn!

Following the trumps legal team press conference. So Biden‘s victory was actually a conspiracy between Venezuela and Cuba and China? That’s amazing! This sounds like a Brad Thor novel! I take it Rudy Giuliani will be the action hero that will save the day? Quite a story LOL

Kindle Unlimited has many self published titles. In other words books you cannot find elsewhere. They also have a great many that are just out of print. I read for five books a month. Sometimes more. It’s definitely a great source. I also make prodigious use of the local public library.

OK, for those of you who think we "wasted our vote" on Jo Jorgensen (particularly a certain half-orc bhaalspawn lawyer from west of the Rockies) the numbers are in: In Georgia Jorgensen won 62059 votes. Trump lost by 14163 In Pennsylvania Jorgensen received 78431. Trump lost by 60233. In Arizona the LP ticket got 50636. Trump lost by 12813 In Wisconsin they had 38393, Trump lost by 20557 Now, as I have stated many, many times Libertarians are not Republicans. But they are anti-Democrats on most issues. The Democrats are the party of big tax, big regulation, gun control, eminent domain, suppression of speech, suppression of property rights, collectivism, etc. Libertarians find some common ground with the Dems in social issues but in any sort of "lesser evil" calculation we tend well towards Republicans. If just 46.9% of these 229000+ libertarian voters took the advice, so often given unbidden, about not "wasting" our votes Donald Trump would be starting a second term in 63 days rather than catching a one way ticket home. And to the Republicans who are bitching incessantly about us being "spoilers", if you want Libertarian votes try being more libertarian. You used to be. I'd give the same advice to Democrats but that would be a waste of time.

That is a very fair criticism. Going foreword I'll elucidate a bit more in our exchanges.

President Donald Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign was powered by a cell phone app that allowed staff to monitor the movements of his millions of supporters, and offered intimate access to their social networks. Turns out Big Brother really was watching! This forum (and a few others) is as close as I get to social media. My Facebook account exists solely so I can play chess online for free. I don't do twitter, instagram, or the other stuff. I have few apps on my iPhone and my Kindle is a paperwhite does books only. I keep telling myself one day I'll turn all this s--t off for good. Except the Kindle. And SiriusXM. Never giving that up.

CK3 sells over 1M it’s not a perfect strategy game. There are some things about it that annoy me. But I have to say it is really good. I’ve had fun with it.

The ACA is not health CARE. It's health INSURANCE. It compels everyone to BUY insurance and makes some people pay more for it so some can pay less. It does nothing to address the problem of why health insurance is even needed: out of control costs of health CARE. The problem most Republicans had with the ACA was the "thou shalt buy insurance, and only from who we say. And thou shalt pay for the insurance of the people who would never vote for thee!"

OK so you're talking about single payer health care. Well, the problems with applying that to the US have been discussed at length on this forum and elsewhere. How do you control cost. How do you pay for it. How do you avoid the pitfalls. Ever been treated in a VA hospital or clinic? I have. It's s--t. There are real hurdles that make that kind of thing impossible in the US. But there ARE things that can be done easier. Instead of swinging for the fences we should be looking to hit a bloop single or two. National Catastrophic healthcare. Instead of covering everything from band aids to brain surgery focus a public provided heath care only for big ticket illnesses and injury. Oh you have cancer? Come on in. we'll help. Oh you need stiches, got a cold, broke your wrist? The clinic is right over there. Bring your checkbook. Another way to go, in the vein of treating healthcare like education would be single payer coverage for all children up to age 18 for example. Typically speaking kids are healthy. It will likely be a much lower cost than covering a mixed age adult population of the same size and take a lot of the burden of cost off of families. Those ideas MIGHT be workable. But we'll never do it. We'll keep letting perfect be the enemy of good and do nothing. Now, if it were up to me I'd go a completely different way. But you've heard those arguments many times before.

The healthcare system we have is the product of well-intentioned government meddling. Look at what the affordable care act did. It told us “thou shall buy health insurance“. Furthermore it said “thou shall buy health insurance only from companies we allow to sell to you”. It reinforced an existing practice of giving insurance companies regional exclusivity to markets. And so the price goes up. Because of course it does. If the government decides everyone must buy widgets and decides only certain companies get to sell widgets and those companies are not in competition with each other what happens to the price of widgets? Furthermore if you cannot afford a widget other people will have to pay more for their widgets to help you buy yours. Is there anything in this that would make you think the price of healthcare would go down? This could all be fixed in one way: any insurance company can sell any policy to anyone anywhere from sea to shining sea. When they actually start competing with each other prices will drop. That of course is only for the cost of health coverage. Reducing the cost of healthcare itself is a whole horse of another color. And that will require a big government step back. As opposed to the little one I just suggested

Education is primarily a government enterprise. LOL. Although given governments inability to get out of its own way you could probably say the government is interfering in education as well. Healthcare probably in the low 40s and heading in the wrong direction.

Now reading something lighter and more fun: Also started something less light and less fun but Achilles recommended it so I'll give it a shot:

I'm cautiously optimistic that Biden can strike the right tone and return the office of the Presidency to where it belongs before Obama & Trump (and partially GWB) turned it into the monster it has become. He & Mitch McConnell have been friends for decades and likely can work with each other. He MIGHT be able to fend off the predations of the crazy lefties of his party (far less optimistic on that count) and while he s no better than any of the other pigs in Jones's Farmhouse at least he's no worse. Unlike his soon to be predecessor. I think this is the right move: Biden hopes to avoid divisive Trump investigations

Dinner last night was most awesome. Sunny & I drove down to the Lauderdale river landing and did some fishing from the bank. After just 10 minutes I hooked a nice sized largemouth Bass. All across the USA & world there are pro shops selling billions of dollars worth of fancy lures and fishing tackle. They can keep all that trash. Nightcrawlers, crickets, minnows, & shiners. That is all you will ever need! The fish was a big enough for two filets. I dipped it in cornmeal batter and pan fried and served up with butterbeans & pear sauce (applesauce made with pears). Freshwater fish is seriously underrated for dinner!

If Uncle Sam limited himself to those power enumerated to each branch in articles 1-3 I think it would be complimentary. Too bad that ship sailed a long time ago.

OK, think about a scale that runs from 0-100. Zero is state managed, heavily regulated capitalism. 100 is complete laissez faire, kill or be killed capitalism. No one in their right mind wants 0 or 100. 1-10 and 90-99 are not really desirable either. So what we are really debating is where on that scale we need to be. Right now we (the USA) are about a 48 to 55 depending on what industry you're looking at. The Democrats (most of them) want us in the mid to high 30's. The Republicans want us somewhere between 58 & 62. The US Green Party is around 25. Comrade Master sounds like a 21 to me. You, I figure, are 45. The US Libertarian Party is about an 80. Personally I'm about a 75. I will repeat though... NO ONE wants 100 or 0. What you were describing was about a 99-100. So why is it when someone who wants the needle above 50 and starts bitching when it dips below is automatically assumed to want anarchy? Is the idea of leaving people free to manage their own lives with minimal government supervision really so alien? Hardly. An no one is arguing that supervision should be done away with completely. That would be national suicide. So does this clarify my position a little better here?

I wonder when my Tampa Bay rays world championship T-shirts are going on sale? Seems to be taking a long time

US Military Vets & Gold Star Families Given Lifetime Free Access to National Parks Nice gesture but I'll still pay. Totally worth the cost.

@Achilles& @ComradeMasterremind to explain to you guys again how libertarianism and free market economics is NOT anarchy. Also federalism is NOT anarchy. The 50 states, 14 territories, and DC do have governing powers and enumerated responsibilities and CAN function quite well without Leviathan-on-the-Potomac f----g everything up.

So I was talking to a friend of mine online this weekend. She told me she was considering getting a Furbo for her dog. She wanted to know what my opinion of it was. I told her I didn’t think much of them. She thought of it as a way to help her dog with separation anxiety. I told her that’s not how a dog’s mind works. The dog will form a relationship with the machine and not associate it to her. Not saying that’s a bad thing necessarily if it helps with separation anxiety I just wanted her to know it does not work the way she thinks it does. So she asked me how sunny deals with it when I’m not here. And then it hit me. I’ve been working from home since April. Everywhere I have been since then with the exception of two trips to Kroger sunny has come with. We have literally not been away from each other more than 45 minutes total in seven months. She’s probably sick of me!