Tag: Money

Government, Politics

You Can’t Handle The Truth

First off I have to confess to liking a good conspiracy theory. I can sport a tinfoil hat with the best of them. And you have to admit that this last week has provided a plethora of deep state, unknown force theories all working to undermine our country. The last few days I haven’t been able to refresh my X/Twitter feed fast enough. Approximately every five minutes I’ve been shouting down the hall to Mrs Troutdog the latest news. “OMG won’t believe this – the shooters cell phone had three phone calls from Vladimir Zelensky!” “You won’t believe this – Biden actually died in Vegas and Obama has been coordinating the plan to dump Kamala and get Newsom elected!” You get the idea. But upon reflection this morning… I don’t think any of this is a “conspiracy”.

While I enjoy intrigue, I’m also a realist. You know, that whole Occam’s razor thing. All things being equal, the simplest explanation is usually correct. The more I think about all the recent happenings, there’s one common thread. Incompetence.

Government generally speaking is incredibly incompetent. Usually laughably so. The incompetence increases the further away you get from local government. By the time you reach the federal government, an inability to manage the simplest of tasks is rampant. Throw in greed, corruption, naked ambition, stupidity, and the bubble of Washington, and you have the perfect recipe for the incompetent blog that characterizes much of government.

This is how California has a high speed rail project that’s been going for 15 years, has built virtually nothing, will cost $150 billion, and isn’t projected to finish for at least another decade. Or how the Biden administration “invested” $7.5 billion on EV chargers and has only built 7 of them. Or how we fucked up the Afghanistan withdrawal. Or the Covid response. At the local level it took my town more than six months to get a dashboard/tracking website up for Covid cases. This was the ENTIRE MISSION OF THE HEALTH DEPARTMENT and they weren’t ready. You had one job, be ready for a pandemic event, and you failed completely. The examples are endless. This is government at its finest.

So now when I reflect upon the (many) events of the last weeks, I’m seeing them through the lens of government. I think it’s a cascading series of events that are trying to be managed by incompetent people. Was it a conspiracy to hide multiple shooters paid for by George Soros at the Trump assassination attempt? No, I suspect it was incompetent DEI leadership, lowered performance standards, and laziness that allowed the typical lone wackjob shooter to nearly succeed. Everything else is a collective rush by everyone to cover their butts. Hide behind lawyers, the DOJ, stall, blame “the ongoing investigation”, throw a few local Barney Fife types under the bus, and by the time Kamala is president it’ll be forgotten. You really think anyone in government is actually capable of keeping a secret? Hell, the Secret Service Directors full statement was just “leaked” to the press before she could give it to congress. Leaking is how Washington works.

The Biden drop-out issue? I think in reality this has been in motion for a while. The DNC simply had no idea what to do. Biden didn’t want to go and nobody wanted Kamala for fear she couldn’t win. Finally with the horrible debate performance, the donors started getting cold feet and that was enough for the big players to pressure Jill and Hunter to convince him to drop out. Everything since then has been nothing more than a scramble to figure out how to message this and how to handle the Kamala scenario. Realistically there was probably no way the DEI wing of the party was going to let the first female VP be passed over. Considering Kamala has been the abortion czar and that’s 1/3 of their party platform, the optics wouldn’t have been great had they removed her.

So that’s it. Stupid, power hungry people, desperate to cover their butts, all jockeying to be in the best position possible when the dust settles. I don’t think it’s any more complicated than that. I mean my god, have you seen the picture of Biden’s speechwriting team? Nothing but college interns and gender studies graduates. It’s frightening to think these are the people shaping the messaging of the most powerful country in the world. It actually goes a long way to explain much of the past four years.

I think it’s time to put away the tinfoil hats and crazy theories about a new world order orchestrated by the UN and the WEF. Obama, Hillary, and Pelosi aren’t pulling any strings behind the scenes other than trying to figure out how to make their stock portfolios grow. The CIA isn’t planning the next Bird Flu pandemic to disrupt the election. And the FBI is too busy working with the DOJ to arrest more of those evil J6’rs to be involved in anything more sinister. So just check those conspiracies at the door and let the process play out. The country likes equilibrium and tends to balance itself out every few elections. It may look a little messy, but I guarantee all will be status quo given a bit of time.

LOL, just kidding. Nothing adds up and there is shit being covered up at the highest levels in all agencies. There’s been a glitch in the Matrix and the system is scrambling to regain control. And the closer we get to the bad orange man regaining the presidency… the more desperate the state will get. Buckle up buttercup, it’s about to get weird.

Government, Politics

The Adults Are Back In Charge

The level of incompetence found in this administration is breathtaking. Or it’s calculated evil. I can’t decide which. Before you start shouting about the Illuminati partnering with the WEF to create a new global world order… it’s not. This is a case of snotty, condescending, east coast elites who all went to the best Ivy League schools and are sure they’re the smartest kids in the class. Suddenly they find themselves in power and discover that the cockamamie ideas they bantered about in their dorm rooms when they were making fun of Dan Quayle spelling potato, aren’t working in real life. But just like Disney, rather than admit they were wrong, they decide to double down. And that scares the hell out of me.

Yesterday Secretary of State Antony Blinken reaffirmed that Ukraine will join NATO. National security advisor Jake Sullivan said the same thing last July. So not only are we doing everything humanly possible to prolong the war in Ukraine, we’ve decided that our foreign policy objective is to cross the red line that Putin specifically declared as a path to war. Why?

Why do we continue to push a war that Ukraine has no chance of winning? None. Zero. If you disagree, please explain how Ukraine is going to defeat the entire Russian army – and not just defeat them, but destroy them to the point that Russia will pull back to the original border and Putin will simply apologize and promise to never do it again. Do you really, honestly, think that’s going to happen? Of course not and you know it. So what exactly then is our objective?

At some point, Putin will tire of the stalemate and choose to take decisive action. And then what do we do? This brinksmanship is beyond frightening because of how fast it could escalate to something really bad. Meanwhile, we’re going to vote to send Ukraine another 60 billion dollars (that we don’t have) next week. And, as confirmed by representative Massie, not a single congressperson nor the state department even has the slightest idea how many Ukrainians have been killed in this war. It’s disgusting.

The disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. The unintended consequences of the open border. Loss of the strategic petroleum reserve. Near total depletion of our military ammunition stockpiles. Nord Stream. China spy balloons. The fragile beginnings of Middle East peace are gone. Iran. Threatening Israel while Hamas still holds US hostages. Red Sea shipping shut down by the Houthis. The hits just keep on coming.

I’m not sure I can come up with anything that looks like foreign police success for this administration. It’s pretty bad when your track record is literally zero after almost four years. At this point, I think you could randomly pick people out of the phone book and they’d do a better job. This administration, and the “deep state” for that matter, has become the living embodiment of the Peter Principle – “people in a hierarchy tend to rise to a level of respective incompetence”. We’re living with a governmental bureaucracy ushered in by the Obama administration. Flotillas of idealistic “hope and change” Ivy League college kids who went straight from school to the Washington machine without any real world experience. Now years later, they’ve risen to the top and are leading us to disaster. At this point I think I’d prefer the evil Klaus Schwab Illuminati scenario – at least it’s explainable.

As Obama famously said, “elections have consequences”. He was more right than he could have imagined. We need to take the sharp objects away from the “adults in charge” soon, before things go really bad.

Daily Life, Health, Travel

A Change In Priorities

We had a death in the family this week. Two, actually. Both had massive strokes on the same day and both passed away on the same day. A very odd coincidence. Anyway, I was talking to the widow of one of them and, in an attempt to offer comfort, had mentioned that now is the time to relish the memories they had made together. He brightened up and went into a long list of all the cruises, trips, excursions, and sailing outings they’d done. They’d actually done a lot more than I’d realized. It was obvious how fondly he remembered all those things they’d done together. Ultimately, our life is defined by the experiences we had.

I just finished a book that drove this concept home. It’s called Die With Zero by Bill Perkins. In it, the author has some very unique ideas about money, resources, and what’s important in life. To quote the old saying, “nobody dies wishing they’d spent more time at the office“. He encourages you to use your money to maximize the experience points you accumulate throughout life. He gives an example of when he was just out of school, dirt poor and eating ramen for dinner every night.

His roommate quit his job and borrowed money so he could backpack through Europe for a few months. The author thought he was nuts for being so irresponsible. The roommate came back with fantastic stories of meeting girls, beautiful beaches, and pictures of gorgeous scenery. The roommate found a new job shortly after returning and had paid back the borrowed money before long. Years later the author had built up some savings and thought about the trip the old roommate had taken. He realized that at age 30, he’d never be able to experience or recreate a carefree trip like that. That was an experience reserved for youth, and he’d missed it because he was being responsible with his money. Meanwhile the roommate had an experience he’ll remember forever and suffered no long term financial impacts because of it.

As the name of the book implies, the point is to die with zero. If you’ve got money and savings still in the bank when you’re gone, you left experiences on the table that you could have had. As you lay on your deathbed, wouldn’t you rather have had one last cruise or a trip somewhere with your loved one than a few extra dollars in the bank?

While much of the book is geared towards younger people and helping them think about how to manage their resources long term, there were a few chapters that really hit home for me. He uses the concept of “time buckets” to help prioritize experiences. The things you do in your twenties and thirties can be wild and more risky. You have time to recover, both physically and monetarily. As you move into your forties and fifties you can still have “active” experiences – ski trips, climbing the thousands of stairs in tiny towns in Italy, hiking national parks, etc…

But reality is that by the time you hit your sixties and seventies, the experiences you can have – change. While we all hope we’re still physically fit, for most of us a week long ski trip to Taos is not realistic at 65. Driving and long plane flights are harder. Our experiences tend to be more sedate – cruises, museums, and sitting on the beach enjoying sunsets. If you make it to eighty… well, very few of us are still active. Median life expectancy in the US is 77. Experiences become pretty limited at that point. Most of what you have at that age are memories of the past.

Having someone pass away, combined with the concepts in the book, hit me hard. Based upon average life expectancy, I have twenty years left. That’s only 1,000 weeks. If I did an “experience” every four weeks, that means I’ll have 250 more experiences in my life. That’s sobering. And out of those remaining twenty years, how many do I have left where I can still be relatively active? I hope a lot, but there’s no guarantee.

Why don’t we come to that realization when we’re younger?

So no more farting around and waiting until next month, six months from now, or next year to have those experiences. The clock is ticking and I want those life experiences in the bank. I don’t want to be on my deathbed, with money still in the bank, wishing I’d taken that trip when I was still fit enough to do it.

You only have this life once and you don’t get to take your things with you. You die with nothing more than the memories of what you’ve done and the people around you.

Let’s go make the most out of those remaining weeks.

Daily Life

I Got Scammed

As a registered Contrarian, I tend to be suspicious of everything until I verify it myself. I don’t click on links in emails. I have yet to supply my banking information to a Nigerian prince to share the sum of $3,001,287 dollars US. I don’t believe anything politicians tell me. I don’t use public Wi-Fi. In short, I’m not a very trusting person. And yet, I managed to fall for a scam. The worst part? I went in knowing they were trying to sell me something.

Let me explain. We own a timeshare in Mexico. We bought it thirteen years ago. It’s a long story as to how we ended up with a timeshare, but all-in-all we’ve enjoyed it. Every single time we go, we get the hardcore push to attend a “members update”. There is no update. It’s a play to upsell more points or status level to you. We went a few times to get the free drink tickets they bribe you with, but generally I refuse to attend.

I don’t remember how I got talked into going this time, but somehow I found myself in the hotel lobby with Mrs. Troutdog and the couple who came to Mexico with us. Things did not go well straight out of the gate. The “coordinator” insisted we had to listen to the presentation separately from the other couple. We said no. She insisted. We said no. Off the coordinator went to discuss with someone in another room. She came back and said they’d make a special exception this time. Next, they wanted a credit card from each of us to “verify ID”. We all said no. She insisted. We all said no. She insisted. We all said no. Finally, she reluctantly agreed and took us to meet our sales guys.

It’s at this point a smarter man would have walked out. I am clearly not a smart man. But at the time I was convinced I was far too smart to believe any of the nonsense they were about to dish out. Off we went to get a tour of the penthouse unit. Our sales guys were straight out of used car sales finishing school. One of them was convinced he was Don Johnson from Miami Vice – he wore a silver suit with ridiculous black Vans sneakers and had his hair slicked back. The other guy spent his time telling us he was a very successful real estate developer and builder and was just here as a favor to his friend the VP of sales. Mmmm, right.

We listened to these two goons babble about real estate prices, the shortage of hotel rooms, and room rates for quite a while. At the time I wasn’t clear on why they were telling us this. Then the heavy came in. He had copies of our original contracts along with a few other documents. I’ll spare you the details, but he basically said due to a loophole in the contract he was obligated to offer us the option to purchase a huge number of points at an unheard-of price. The company would be taking a huge hit, but legally he had to give us the option.

This is a one-time deal. Walk out of the room and it won’t be offered again.

The way he presented the contract loophole was so well done… I thought it was real. It was an opportunity to rent out multiple weeks of rooms and make passive income with virtually no effort on our part. After hearing and seeing the going room rates, this really seemed like a way to make some money. I mean, they had contracts and legal looking documents. It had to be legit.

He left us alone in the room to talk amongst ourselves. We went back and forth, unable to decide if it was real or not. It was a lot of money to buy in and none of us wanted to make a snap decision. He came back and said something that was so off-putting, we got up and walked out. His words were, “I’m leaving in twenty minutes because I have to go buy seven Rolex watches for my team. When I leave, the offer is off the table.” Really? Who says something like that?

We spent the remaining vacation days enjoying fruity drinks at the pool and eating too much excellent food. While I was happy we walked away, I was still 60-ish percent convinced it had been a legitimate offer.

Once home, Mrs. Troutdog found an owners group on Facebook. There it was in black and white. A total scam. Multiple other people had received some variation of the same pitch. I was shocked that a large and fairly reputable company would stoop to something so slimy and blatantly deceitful. Because I honestly didn’t believe a corporation would go to those lengths to scam people out of money, I mostly believed the pitch. Sure, I expected some hard sales attempts to get us to upgrade to a bigger unit or something, but not outright deception.

Shame on me. I’ve lost some Contrarian points over this one. I’m shocked I got pulled in by the story. And sadly, I’m now even more distrustful of other humans. How do people like that look at themselves in the mirror? I guess all you can do is hope the karma bus is waiting around the corner for them.

Meanwhile, it turns out a week of drinking, nachos, and extravagant dinners is not good for your diet. Who knew? I guess I better hit the gym. I may go for run on the treadmill for an hour. Or twenty.

Government, Politics

Selective Outrage

I apologize. I don’t check my email that often, so I must have missed the memo about Ukraine being one of our oldest and most trusted allies. I confess that a month or so ago I couldn’t have found Ukraine on the map. Suddenly it’s somehow now in our national interest to pour (more) billions of dollars into this country and potentially risk another world war in Europe. I’m sure they’re lovely people (aside from that pesky actual Nazi problem they have). And it’s absolutely heart wrenching to see the apparent indiscriminate bombing and killing of civilians. War is awful. Period. Full stop.

But guess what campers, this isn’t the only active war currently going on. Let’s pick one like, hmmm, the Congo. The current hostilities in the Democratic Republic of Congo have produced 4.5 million internally displaced persons, 800,000 refugees in other countries, and an estimated death toll of at least three million. Let me repeat that. THREE MILLION DEATHS. This is a country rich in natural resources, which we need. Our greatest real threat, China, is pulling out all stops to control those resources. And the United States does… [crickets chirping].

My point is that it’s odd what conflicts and crisis of the moment reach our attention span. Why is Ukraine any more or less important than the DRC? I don’t pretend to understand either conflict, and neither should you. I do not trust the narrative we’re being fed. Ukraine is a massively corrupt country full of coups, separatists factions, and a puppet regime installed by the United States. The US has been using Ukraine as a stick to keep poking Russia for years. Well… now you’ve woken up the bear. Maybe that’s what we wanted all along? I have no idea and I doubt you do either.

You should ask yourself some questions. Number one, why is paying for and solving this crisis a problem the US needs to manage? This is primarily a European issue. They’re the ones who are dependent on Russian energy supplies. The EU countries have massive GDP’s, economies, and have huge numbers of weapons, planes, and all types of fancy missiles and missile defense stuff. Our European allies need to be front and center in managing and paying for this crisis. If and when they need our help, we can be there. But the US does not need to be the worlds pocketbook and policeman. If you disagree, please explain why we need to take the lead in solving this?

Similar to the first question, why should the US taxpayers fund this war? You do realize we’re now thirty trillion dollars in debt, right? Our economy is poised to crater. There are literally no more checks in the checkbook. Every dollar we give to Ukraine and every weapon system we hand them, was first money we borrowed from China. WE DO NOT HAVE the 14 billion we just authorized to give to Ukraine. We have to borrow that money. Record setting inflation, gas prices, crumbling infrastructure, supply chain issues, and a 150,000 people a month streaming across our border. We have some issues. Please explain why spending billions to give to Ukraine is more important than any of those things? The best that I can tell, the EU has promised a whopping $450 million. Individually, EU countries are giving a smattering of weapons and other goods. If this was such a momentous issue on European soil, wouldn’t you think they’d have a bit more skin in the game? But why should they when they know we’ll pay for it.

As a side note, we give billions to the UN every year. Where are they? What actual purpose do they serve other than to write sternly worded letters? Perhaps we should divert our UN payments to Ukraine.

There are no good answers to any of this. This morning, Ukraine’s president Zelensky gave an impassioned speech to our congress. He invoked the memories of Pearl Harbor and 9/11. He received a standing ovation. I suspect out of fear of appearing to do nothing, our brave representatives will pour more money and aid to Ukraine, further provoking the conflict and increasing the potential of escalation. Do you really think Putin is going to say, “whoops, my bad. I’ll pull out.”? By further arming Ukraine, we’re forcing Putin to take more extreme measures. I fear we’re one mistake or misunderstanding away from another world conflict. Is that really what you want?

Look, I realize I’m sounding all Neville Chamberlain-ish this morning. But the US is not the superpower we once were. We’re broke, and that’s hard to admit. It’s time for US to step aside and let others shoulder the burden for a while. We shouldn’t let social media shame us into something that could rapidly get far worse than we can possibly imagine.

It’s hard to see human suffering. But I doubt any of you have been outraged at the war in the DRC. Why? Admit it, you couldn’t have found Ukraine on a map a month ago. Me either. And you certainly weren’t outraged at (or even know about) the 14,000 killed and 1.5 million people displaced in the Donbass region of Ukraine in 2014. There’s a lot of human suffering going on in the world at any given time and it’s awful to see. But just because CNN is breathlessly promoting this conflict 24×7 doesn’t mean we have to spring into action. It’s time for cooler heads to prevail and for us to sit this one out.

We have a massive economic war looming on the horizon with China. A war that will alter your standard of living. We may very well be wishing we had some of those billions we pissed away, trying to be the good guy, back.

Confirmation bias

Why Is Everything So Complicated?

We are the generation of the soundbite. The Tweet. The meme. We consume our information in tiny little pieces. And most of the time, that’s probably just fine. I don’t need to have a deep understanding of the cattle futures market to decide if I can afford the rib-eye this week or only cube steak. The price is the price and I either have the quan or I don’t.

But every once in a while, big events happen that raise questions. Politicians and pundits jump on these events and start spewing one-liners and soundbites that reinforce their echo chambers. Pretty soon we’re in a full-scale soundbite and meme war that leaves everyone confused and angry. What’s the truth?

I was thinking about this as I read snarky Twitter comments about energy independence, buying Russian oil, and gas prices. Everyone has an answer. Because I’m a dork, I decided to do some light reading on the energy sector and politics. Whew – there is no such thing as “light reading” about this subject! It is a deep, deep rabbit hole. It is hard to describe how many moving parts and global players there are in the energy world.

There are a whole variety of types of crude oil, all coming from different places in the world, all used for different things. Much of the recent increases in our purchase of Russian crude are due to fallout from previous sanctions on other countries like Venezuela, hurricanes in the gulf, and African countries not being able to ramp up production after Covid. We import foreign crude to the East and West coast because we lack the domestic infrastructure to transport our own oil. It’s actually cheaper to purchase non-US crude, than it is to send US crude to the East and West coast from the Midwest or gulf. We often purchase Russian (and other) crude because it has a higher sulfur content than US crude, which is needed for some specific refining processes. The worldwide crude oil market is a very interdependent and complex system. Even when we declared we were “energy independent”, that is a fuzzy interpretation with many moving parts that changed from month to month. We’d offset US products produced from crude and sold, against crude imports and for some quarters and depending upon what the meaning of “is”, is, we’d declare we had greater net exports vs. imports.

This led me to the issue of the current administration shutting down oil and gas leases. Come on, man – drill baby, drill! Well, they did attempt to put a moratorium on new leases in some areas. The courts shut that down. And currently… the Biden administration has outpaced the Trump administration in issuing drilling permits on public lands. Wait, wut? For example, just last fall the Biden admin completed the largest oil and gas lease in US history – 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico. Sigh, I’m so confused.

What’s my point? I don’t care what the Fox, CNN, or Twitter pundit says… virtually every issue you’d like to discuss is infinitely more complex than you think it is. Nothing is black and white, yes or no. It takes years for industry and policy experts to develop a real understanding of their domain. I did a tiny bit of reading this morning beyond Twitter, and quickly realized I know absolutely zero about the energy sector. It has tentacles in transportation, logistics, commodity markets, politics, money supply, production, jobs, and on and on. I think it would take at least a semester equivalent class to have at least a beginners grasp on the entirety of the market. And I think that holds true for most things in life. Geopolitics, military strategy, history, everything…

All of which is to reinforce my standard saying… Question everything. Be a Contrarian. It’s ok to endorse the Left or Right’s approach to the world. Just don’t do it blindly. They’re both equal manipulators of the narrative. And under the surface, things are often more complex than you realize.

The truth is rarely pure and never simple

Oscar Wilde
Cool, Daily Life

Going To The Big House

A random round-up of random things that randomly caught my eye

  • Scrolling through my extensive sources of information (twitter) I saw this headline: “Michigan Nurse Arrested for Selling Fake COVID-19 Vaccine Cards”. My first thought was this is going to happen more and more often… bring on the electronic vaccine passports! Because, you know, security and all. My second thought was, how is a covid vaccine card even a legal document? How is it illegal to sell a randomly printed piece of paper? My vaccine card only has one of the lot numbers and no signature/site listed. Anybody could have filled it out. It’s a horrible “official” document. Naturally I had to put my mad search skills to work to see if it really is a legal document. Turns out there’s about a hundred obscure statutes that could be used to charge this person. The most likely one is:

    The unauthorized use of of the official seal of the CDC or DHHS is a violation of 18 U.S.C. 1017. This federal statute makes it a crime to wrongfully or fraudulently affix the seal of any federal department or agency to a certificate, document, or paper, and likewise makes it a crime to use, buy, sell, or transfer such a document knowing that it’s fraudulent. A violation of this statute is punishable by a fine or imprisonment of up to five years.

    So, that nurse is definitely going to the big house. (slang: A state or federal prison) And she should, if for no other reason than she was selling them via Facebook Messenger. Seriously? She’s not exactly a criminal mastermind.

  • I’ve gone to the golf driving range twice in the last week and hit really, really well. (for me that just means my shots mostly went up in the air and sorta straight) I’m convinced it’s the new shoes. I went with a natural toe box style to let my toes spread out more. They’re very wide. Plus, they’re very bright. They looked more subdued on the website pictures. There’s a definite clown shoe vibe going on. Oh well. If John Daily can dress the way he does, I can wear clown shoes.

  • Take a minute and watch this video titled “Every Sport a Bowling Ball“.

  • I just finished reading “Uncontrolled Spread: Why COVID-19 Crushed Us and How We Can Defeat the Next Pandemic” by Dr Scott Gottlieb, the former head of the FDA. Quite a bit of behind the scenes information related to the inner workings of various federal agencies. It’s a little dry, but worth the read. The sad revelation is that it’s really pitiful how inept the US government is at doing most anything. We’re the freaking technology center of the universe and for most of the pandemic hospitals had to resort to faxing case count data to the CDC. The size, scale, and budget of the United States government is so ginormous it boggles the mind, yet we can’t get the simplest, most basic things right. Sigh…

  • If you’re not already, you need to be following Alaska’s “Fat Bear Week” contest. A weekly bracket competition to find the fattest bear of 2021. The winner will be declared October 5th. My money’s on bear 480, Otis.

  • Tweet of the day: In response to a post about why General Milley didn’t jump across the table and murder Representative Gaetz during yesterdays hearing… “Milley is 5′ 8″ and obese. The only thing he’s murdering is a plate of nachos”. I did actually laugh out loud at that one. Take a look at the picture – definitely not the same regal image the media carefully cultivates. Meanwhile, I’m going to think about nachos all day.

  • I’ve decided to abandon my idea of being a retirement lifestyle coach. I’m stealing an idea from another site and creating a “Contrarian University”. You’ll be able to sign up for classes, listen to podcasts, and receive personal instruction on how to be a Contrarian. I’ll be raking in the Quan. Just as soon as I create some content.

Song of the day: Living Colour- “Cult of Personality” Live in Auburn 1988

Uncategorized

Everyone Likes Popup Ads, Right?
  • I have two computers. One is powerful enough to dim the lights when I turn it on, which I use with a nice large monitor. The other is an older tablet with a fairly small screen. The older one does just fine for writing the occasional email, looking up directions, or crafting a fabulously witty blog post. What I can’t do with it these days is surf the internet. Not because of the processor or memory, but because of the screen size. The last few years the number of popup ads have gotten so out of control on some web sites you literally can’t read the article or content when you have limited screen real estate. There’s now the EU mandatory cookie acceptance popup. Twelve other ads that will be in various states of loading. A popup apologizing for the popup, but while you’re here will you subscribe to our newsletter? The X or cancel button on these ads are either tiny or sometimes fake so you accidentally click on the ad. Once you’ve cleared out enough popups that you can start reading the content, video content from some ad you didn’t see will start auto-playing. Some news sites have a layer of ads every paragraph and a half you need to navigate past. The latest fad seems to be letting you read 1/3 of an article, then forcing you to click a button to “Continue Reading?”. I get it, everyone needs to generate revenue and page clicks/views. I should know, I’ve generated a grand total of $0.49 cents in ad revenue from this blog since 2019 (yes, that is the real number). That’s practically FU, make it rain money. I know it’s a plea that’s as pointless as trying to stop the old school paper junk mail, but is there any way we can limit the number and amount of screen real estate devoted to ads? If an single, well placed ad, is compelling and relevant I actually might investigate. If I’m swatting ads away like mosquitoes in the Alaska backcountry, I’m angry, stubborn, and will boycott any ad I see on general principle. I don’t fault the advertisers, I understand how it works. I fault the content providers. They control the real estate, look and feel for their site. There are a few news sites that have become so hard to navigate due to the ads that I rarely visit any more. Sigh, I guess that’s the price we pay for “free” content since I’m too cheap to actually subscribe to any paid content.
  • The Biden administration has put a gag order on the border patrol and DHS about releasing any information about the current self created disaster on our border. This order has supposedly been passed down verbally so there’s no written record of it to tie back to the administration. The spokesperson for the Ministry of Truth, Jen Psaki, deftly performs her “you need to speak to DHS on that” dodge, knowing full well DHS simply refers requests back to the White House. Either that or “I’ll need to circle back on that”. So much for the most transparent administration ever.
  • Biden’s former aid said he’ll most likely propose $1 Trillion in new taxes. Yesterday they had to clarify that the proposed income threshold wasn’t $400,000 but $200,000 for some “modest” tax increases. Ever notice that government never proposes “modest” cuts to spending? I wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to increasing certain taxes if the government first made an honest attempt to slow down spending. But don’t first spend like drunken sailors, and then tell me you need more money. Maybe we should stop borrowing so we can send aid to foreign countries? Sigh, just like the popup argument, it’s pointless and only makes me mad.
  • Rules are only for the little people. After countless stories of families being kicked off flights because their two year old struggled with wearing a mask, our Climate Czar John Kerry was caught on a flight without his mask on. His response? “Feels like there’s some St. Patrick’s day “malarkey” afoot on Twitter. Let’s be clear: If I dropped my mask to one ear on a flight, it was momentary.” These asshats never take responsibility for anything. Meanwhile American Airlines has dropped the investigation. See if the same will hold true when you get caught without your mouth diaper on.
  • A week from today the White House confirmed President Biden will hold a press conference. I suspect that’s the amount of time needed to prep and coach him with answers. Well, and to properly vet all the questions beforehand.
  • I’m taking a motorcycle class on Saturday. Mrs Troutdog took the beginners class to get her license and now wants to take the level two class. I’ve never taken a motorcycle class, even though I’ve been riding for years. I agreed to take the class to support her, plus learning new things is always a good thing. I’ve found that the most dangerous people are those who think they know everything. There’s always something to learn, no matter how experienced you think you are. Besides, it may help boost my confidence on the new ginormous motorcycle. This class is taught on Harley Davidsons… and I’m a dirt guy. Who knows, maybe after this I’ll be buying leather pants and traveling to Daytona Bike week?

Song of the day: Pearl Jam – Alive [Pinkpop 1992]

Daily Life, Government, Solving the wrong problem

How Does One Percent Sound?
  • 0.5%. That’s a pretty small percentage. If you didn’t see it, the CDC just released their study of mask mandates and Covid case and death rate growth. Since masks are the universal cure-all for Covid, you’d think this study’s results would be touted far and wide across the media. I would have expected at least a 5-15% reduction, maybe 20%. You probably didn’t see it though. Why? The results showed a 0.5% reduction in case rates during the first 20 days. A 1.5% reduction after 80 days. These numbers fall within the margin of error, which means that just about anything could have accounted for the reduction they saw. The study lists a whole host of things that they did not control for that may have impacted the results such as physical distancing, business closures, ventilation, etc… So, the accepted authority on masking still can’t point to any actual data that shows masks have any impact whatsoever. No matter though. The high priest of Covid, Fauci, stated that data and evidence don’t matter. When Fauci, was asked “what’s the science” for denying vaccinated Americans a return to travel, he replied: “When you don’t have the data and you don’t have the actual evidence, you’ve got to make a judgment call.” Yo, science bro.
  • Speaking of science, Dr Atlas was universally hammered, mocked, and cancelled during his tenure as an advisor to the president. Worth reading his thoughts.
  • We have a leak. As I sit here there are multiple high powered fans attempting to dry out walls, ceilings, and floors. It’s like sitting in a hurricane. I can’t hear myself think and the dog hasn’t come out from his bed in two days. It’s truly frightening how fast a little bit of water can do a tremendous amount of damage. We’ve never had to navigate the bureaucracy of homeowners insurance claims before, so this should be interesting. I’m cynical and the only thing that comes to mind is the Seinfeld episode about car rental reservations. I have a feeling the insurance companies are very good at collecting your payment… paying out however? We’ll see.
  • The Pentagon has extended the national guard in DC for another two months. Those insurrectionists are tricky folks. They could pop up out of the bushes at any moment. Gotta be ready. I imagine the rioters have secret storage facilities where they’re passing out buffalo hats and zip ties as we speak. Boogaloo bois coming over the wire any time now.
  • Today they’ll pass another $2 trillion in spending. I don’t think much of it has anything to do with Covid, but who cares? I did see the unions will be happy. $86 billion to bail out failing pensions. You can argue if that’s a good or bad thing, but shouldn’t something like that be argued as it’s own entity? We don’t have any of this money, we have to borrow it from other nations. I heard something the other day that put it in perspective. It was in relation to foreign aid, but the principle is the same. Every time we give aid to a foreign nation, we first have to borrow it from another foreign nation, so we can turn around and distribute it to a different foreign nation. Crazy if you think about it that way. Since we’re already printing money, maybe we can print a few extra dollars so I can fix my leak.
  • I took the ginormous motorcycle out for it’s third official outing and made a little video that didn’t turn out too well. I have two technological challenges to overcome before I can begin my “summer of George”. The first is getting Android Auto working. I found the right cable and it works intermittently. The process is to sync the Bluetooth headset in my helmet to the bike, then plug in my phone and the motorcycle then launches Android Auto. It works briefly then shuts off. Twice the headset stopped pairing, and twice the phone was no longer connected. I am navigationally challenged, so getting this working is key. This is slightly ironic since I once taught a class on UTM and land navigation, but that’s a story for another day. The second issue is that while trying to record my travel the audio from my mic stops working. How am I going to become a huge YouTube star with no audio? Such first world problems.

Song of the day: Elle King – Ex’s & Oh’s (Official Video)

Health

Put Up Or Shut Up
  • I went downhill skiing yesterday. Nothing remarkable about that (it was a gorgeous bluebird day!), as I ski a lot. The issue is that I couldn’t button my ski pants. The waist expansion has been slowly increasing all winter long and has finally reached crisis levels. I’ve said it before, I feel like I’m a reasonably active guy for my age. Maybe a touch above average in the activity level department, so burning calories isn’t the issue. The problem is that my food intake is out of control and massively outpaces what I can burn. I can’t help myself. I know I can lose weight because I’ve done it before. Unfortunately for me dieting is just like the old joke about stopping smoking: “quitting smoking is easy, I’ve done it dozens of times”. I can be super disciplined once I get started. It’s the getting started part that’s the issue. I’ve been meaning to “get started” any day now for months. I officially can’t stand myself any longer. Having to suck in my gut to get my ski pants on was the last straw. I have an additional motivation (as if general health isn’t enough) in that I have this ginormous new motorcycle that I’m going to have to pick up at some point. I honestly don’t know if I’m strong enough right now. That could be an issue on a remote trail by myself. So, operation senior fitness begins today. A buddy has been bugging me to sign up for a trail running event in the fall and I’ve been pretty resistant. I’m still not thrilled at the idea, but I will commit as an incentive to be consistent with my running this summer. I’ll dust off the garage gym and actually start using it. Since I’m now a part time employee, it’s not like I don’t have the time (I hate not having excuses). Which leaves me with the crux of the issue – diet. At the end of the day it still comes down to expending more calories than you consume. Sigh. I wish I didn’t like to eat and drink so much. Realistically I do better with stark changes rather than attempting to ease into something. So I guess I’ll just have to follow Jocko Willink’s advice yesterday morning (sound up).
  • Filed in the WTF department, the Biden administration has decided to ban some Dr Seuss books due to concerns about “racial undertones”. I’d like to laugh, but these people are serious. What I find most concerning is that with everything currently going on in the country and world, THIS is something that someone in the administration actually put time and thought into? Really? Worrying that there may racial issues with a beloved set of children’s books? WTF is wrong with these people?
  • Barak Obama entered the Whitehouse with a net worth of about a million dollars, mostly from book advances. Four years after leaving the presidency his estimated net worth is $70 million. Last year they bought a $15 million dollar beachfront property in Martha’s Vineyard. He’s done pretty well since his days as a community organizer. I have no point to this other than politics sure pays pretty well.
  • This article is an interesting look at potential corruption with the IAFF (International Association of Fire Fighters) union and the Muscular Dystrophy Association charity. I don’t really care, other than it helps illustrate my distrust of unions that I mentioned the other day. When you’re talking about tens of millions of dollars and a $2 million dollar Washington DC headquarters across from the Whitehouse… I’m not sure the unions first focus is simply the wellbeing of its members.
  • Here’s a cartoon illustration of actual climate predictions made by actual climate experts. I’m sure this time they’re right though. The climate crisis is clearly the most existential crisis of our lifetime. Hmmm, ok.
  • A list of actual clever design ideas.

Song of the day: The Smashing Pumpkins – Zero (Official Music Video)