POLITICAL: Suggesting an episode: 17th Amendment

Wednesday, April 28, 2021

https://www.brionmcclanahan.com/contact/

Listen often to his podcast and made this comment to him.

*** begin quote ***

I know you like “listener suggestions. (I hope you’ll consider this.)

The 17th Amendment to directly elect senators, imho, after the Income Tax Amendment, was the single most destructive Amendment to the “American Experiment”. It destroyed the ability of the States to resist “unfunded mandates” and allowed “carpet baggers” like Hillary Clinton an easy path to high elective office.

Personally, I’d love to see it repealed but doubt it’ll ever happen in my lifetime. Those, who want to get the money out of politics, could do it quickly by its repeal.

As a retired fat old white guy injineer that studied a lot of “systems”, I think it merely duplicates the House of Representative while “neutering” the State legislatures. If the 17th can NOT be repealed, then I’d just eliminate the House completely and save all that money.

I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on this topic.

*** end quote ***

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PRODUCTIVITY: AMAZON strikes back at porch pirates

Tuesday, April 27, 2021

https://www.reviewgeek.com/79942/amazon-expands-in-garage-grocery-delivery-to-curb-porch-pirates/

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Amazon said Tuesday that its in-garage grocery delivery service is expanding from just five cities to over 5,000. This is an extension of Key by Amazon, and those with Prime can have Amazon Fresh or Whole Foods grocery orders left directly in their garage.

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I signed up for the “garage key” and it works.

BUT, (and there is always a BIG butt), it can add a day to the delivery time.  I don’t understand why, but for high value items it’s seems an easy choice. 

Now they need a “car trunk” system.

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TECHNOLOGY: Yelp replaces restaurant phone numbers

Tuesday, April 27, 2021

https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/jurn6l/lpt_yelp_replaces_restaurant_phone_numbers_with_a

LPT: Yelp replaces restaurant phone numbers with a special number that charges that business a marketing fee. If you find a good restaurant on Yelp Google their phone number instead so they don’t lose any money.

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GOVEROTRAGEOUS: Gooferment has an open checkbook to counterfeit “money”

Tuesday, April 27, 2021

https://dailyreckoning.com/time-to-separate-money-and-state/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailyreckoning+%28The+Daily+Reckoning%29

Time to Separate Money and State
BRIAN MAHER — POSTED APRIL 22, 2021

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Governments cannot print gold. They cannot print silver. Thus their hands are bound.

The titan Austrian school economist, Ludwig von Mises:

It is impossible to grasp the meaning of the idea of sound money if one does not realize that it was devised as an instrument for the protection of civil liberties against despotic inroads on the part of governments. Ideologically it belongs in the same class with political constitutions and bills of rights.
Church and state are famously separate in these United States. We would separate money and state with equal ruthlessness.

For a state minding money is a fox minding the henhouse.

Deny it the privilege, and you deny it its natural rascality.

*** end quote ***

Until “We, The Sheeple” limit the Gooferment from “printing money”, then it can never be put back in the box.

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GOVEROTRAGEOUS: 175.30 billion of Social Security and Medicare liabilities should be recognized as 41.2 trillion

Monday, April 26, 2021

https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2021/04/23/the-national-debt-is-worse-than-advertised/

The National Debt Is Worse Than Advertised
By: Mike Maharrey|Published on: Apr 23, 2021|Categories: Federal Funding

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Here’s a breakdown of Uncle Sam’s liabilities in broad categories.

Medicare benefits – $55.12 trillion
Social Security obligations – $41.2 trillion
Publicly held debt – $21.08 trillion.
Military and civilian retirement benefits $9.41 trillion
Other liabilities – $2.25 trillion
According to Truth in Accounting’s analysis, the US government’s financial situation has deteriorated over the last year. Based on the latest available audited financial reports, its financial condition worsened by $9.84 trillion in 2020.

Interestingly, the Treasury Department only includes $175.30 billion of Social Security and Medicare liabilities on the federal balance sheet; according to government documents, recipients do not have the right to benefits beyond the benefits currently being paid and laws to reduce or stop future benefits can be passed at any time. Truth in Accounting assumes no changes in the current Social Security or Medicare schemes. This is a pretty safe assumption considering these programs are generally considered the “third rail” of politics. In other words, politicians dare not touch them.

*** end quote ***

Isn’t “We, The Sheeple” have a right to “honest accounting”?

Maybe if the numbers were really understood, then the seriousness of the situation might be recognized!

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LIBERTARIAN: Rounding up “domestic terrorists”?

Sunday, April 25, 2021

https://nypost.com/2021/04/25/vaccinated-us-tourists-to-be-allowed-into-europe-this-summer/?utm_source=maropost&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=news_alert&utm_content=20210425&mpweb=755-9359204-720859581

 

Jim Bovard: The Feds Are Coming For Libertarians
BY TYLER DURDEN
SATURDAY, APR 24, 2021 – 07:20 PM
Authored by Jim Bovard via The Libertarian Institute

*** begin quote ***

Libertarians are in the federal crosshairs. Six or seven years ago, there was a lot of prattle about how “the libertarian moment has arrived.” I always knew that was hokum. Since then, there has been a huge increase in hostility to libertarians in Washington DC and elsewhere around the country.

*** end quote ***

Guess they’ll be rounding us up for the trains to the camps?

Like what they did to Ian Freeman, Nobody, and the rest of the Crypto6? https://youtu.be/Ded_HrjZU2Y

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FINANCIAL: Are NFTs the ‘tulipmania’ of the 21st century?

Sunday, April 25, 2021

https://ritholtz.com/2021/04/10-friday-am-reads-316/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheBigPicture+%28The+Big+Picture%29

10 Friday AM Reads
April 23, 2021 6:55am by Barry Ritholtz
My end of week morning train WFH reads:

*** begin quote ***

The cost of a single tulip bulb surged to the same price as a mansion 400 years ago: are NFTs the ‘tulipmania’ of the 21st century? Similarities between the new digital technology craze in the art world and the surge in value of tulips in 17th-century Holland suggest that it could all end in (real) tears (Art Newspaper)

*** end quote ***

Certainly seems that way to me.

I keep wondering how to cash in.  Maybe take a public domain work and NFT it?

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TECHNOLOGY: What are we “buying” or are we “renting”?

Saturday, April 24, 2021

https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22387601/smart-fridge-car-personal-ownership-internet-things

The erosion of personal ownership
Everything from your fridge to your tractor can change without your permission.
By Dan Greene Apr 21, 2021, 9:20am EDT

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These dual trends — the rise of purchased and subscription-based non-physical media — are driven by the benefits such consumption provides, chiefly convenience. Digital and streaming media generally offer minimal effort to access and strong portability without physical degradation or the constraints imposed by taking up physical space (say, in a box on a TV stand). But such benefits do impose costs, like streaming’s aforementioned unending billing cycles and lack of library control, or the limits a digital purchaser faces when trying to lend or resell their wares. In fact, as some digital consumers have found out firsthand, they may suddenly no longer have their purchases at all.

*** end quote ***

Sounds like the “consumer” is getting screwed.

I look at my collection of Iomega Zip drive media and say “WTH”.

No sense saving them or the data on them.  

I don’t even know what I have lost.

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HEALTH: Covid be a flu combined with a vitamin B1 deficiency disease?

Friday, April 23, 2021

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/04/no_author/the-grim-reaper-uses-a-stealth-vitamin-b1-deficiency-beriberi-hidden-behind-the-covid-19-coronavirus-pandemic-as-breathless-loved-ones-silently-slip-into-their-graves/

The Grim Reaper Uses a Stealth Vitamin B1 Deficiency (Beriberi), Hidden Behind the Covid-19 Coronavirus Pandemic

*** begin quote ***

Six months into the thiamine pandemic, on September 28, 2020, an obscure letter published in the British Medical Journal penned by a retired Australian physician stated:

“Reported prolonged symptoms among COVID ‘long-haulers’ are the same as the known symptoms of thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency disease, called beriberi,” and that “the pandemic we are witnessing is actually the result of a combination of a somewhat more severe virus than we have hitherto experienced, and a generally poor state of nutrition in the community as a whole.”

Many Americans may have heard of the other vitamin deficiency diseases, scurvy (vitamin C), pellagra (niacin), rickets (vitamin D), but beriberi (thiamine or vitamin B1) they are not familiar with whatsoever.

*** end quote ***

If we could get the politicians and bureaucrats off TV and stop pontificating, then maybe the doctors, scientists, and epidemiologists could get down to work and figure out what be are dealing with.

Argh!

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RECOMMENDED: Queen’s Gambit

Thursday, April 22, 2021

For anyone with Netflix, I recommend Queen’s Gambit. and not just because it was my favorite opening during my chess playing games. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

But that women are not big into chess is a sad fact of-life and I wonder why?

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