Mark

Top 10 bands of all time by Spin Magazine. 1. The Beatles 2. Ramones 3. Led Zeppelin 4. Bob Marley & The Wailers 5. Nirvana 6. Parliament/Funkadelic 7. The Clash 8. Public Enemy 9. The Rolling Stones 10. Beastie Boys

The US Gov is selling 30 year bonds at 5%. Lifehack - Take 50M cash and buy bonds, thats 2.5M a year for zero work. Thats 208k a month. Enough to cover basic expenses like security team and cigars. Then you just need another 500k a month to have a good life. You're welcome.

Republicans are now two-time losers in the greater war for the direction of the country in the Trump Era when they had control of all three branches. A major reason for their failure is that they have phonies in their ranks to a degree that simply does not exist in the Democratic Party. This problem persists in the judicial branch as well, though that only reveals itself when the legislatures fail the voters. In both his terms, Donald Trump unfortunately contributed to this main cause of failure, including his own personal policy failures and repeated impeachments, soon to include a future attempt that has a real shot to remove him from office. If you thought elected Republicans let you down now, wait until you see how they act when the fear of Trump as the future leader of the party, is removed from their consideration. Not to mention, lawmakers are fairly open about how much they are mistreated by the White House and hate them. Trump's "new" friends are going to turn on him with the quickness. To that point, names like Andy Barr, John Cornyn, Lindsey Graham, etc. are examples of Trump actively contributing to this problem. The list is very long if we include the House, and over the years. Without James Bacon, his endorsement record sucks and born of considerations not including what's best for the movement or direction of the country. This term, it has been exclusive to how rich MAGA-haters get, his corny Win/Loss record that benefits ego, etc. Everyone knows he has supported people who are expected to support his impeachment/conviction, and will plague his voters—who kept him out of jail—for years to come. Republicans will never "Make American Great Again" let alone stop the March of the Left until they get serious about this, which essentially means drop the act, and not be frauds. Good luck with that.

Make Shit Work Again People almost never come to our door after dark. Because we live in a (what used to be) a quiet place, and random visitors after dark are almost unheard of. So when the doorbell rang at 3:30am this morning I grabbed my shotgun. I racked the pump and shouted for the person at the door to identify themselves. Turns out it was a lady cop. Luckily the cops are used to armed homeowners around here. She shined a to flashlight identify herself, and I secured the gun and the dogs to see what she wanted. Turns out two people were shot across the street in the park. She wanted to know if your security cameras captured any footage of the incident. So I checked the app, and no—there was no footage (because our cameras point the other direction). And that was that. But I couldn’t get back to sleep—mostly because of the adrenaline. But also because I couldn’t help but notice that things are getting worse around here. This used to be a place where nothing happened. And now things definitely do happen. We used to live in LA. My wife and I did industry stuff. We had a good life as an urban childless couple, but then she got pregnant. We thought about the daunting challenge of raising kids in LA, and opted to get out. So we found a place in the Mountain West where nothing ever happens. It was a good place to raise kids. A place with good schools. A place where our children could wander the town by themselves. But it’s not that place anymore. Since Covid the schools have gone to shit. And a few weeks ago my son was at the neighborhood park (by himself) when a gang member pulled a gun on a parent at the playground. So early this morning I’m lying in bed, and I’m thinking about this. And I thought to myself, “We need to leave.” But then I had another thought—a disturbing thought. I thought, “But there’s no place else to go.” Because it’s almost everywhere now. Red State, Blue State, it doesn’t matter. And if it’s not there yet it will be soon. And if you think you’re safe, you’re not. Because this thing is coming for all of us. *** My politics in five words: I Want Shit To Work That’s it. I just want shit to work. And I don’t really care how that happens. I’m old enough to remember when shit did work. It never worked perfectly. But I don’t think shit has worked perfectly in the entire history of human endeavors. I mean, read the Bible—it’s all about shit not working perfectly. But I grew up in a time when things ran fairly well—far better than they do now. I’m not that old, but back in the day schools actually taught stuff. And there wasn’t choking bureaucracy in government and business and every other institution. And we could TRUST those institutions—because they weren’t rife with corruption. And if minor corruption happened to be discovered it was A BIG FUCKING DEAL—because the media wasn’t bent, and they’d actually report on the corruption. And things weren’t so expensive. A young person (me) could work a menial job afford a car and an apartment and still have money left over to take girls on dates. Because there was OPPORTUNITY for young people. Now I could go on and on, but I’m starting to sound like an old man shouting at a cloud, so let me just say, trust me kids: SHIT USED TO WORK. Spencer Pratt is about my age. He remembers when shit used to work. He remembers when you could count on the fire department to not let a giant part of your city burn down with residents inside. He remembers when you didn’t have to step over fentanyl zombies to take your kids to preschool. He remembers when there wasn’t human shit on the streets. He remembers when corrupt government officials were held accountable. He remembers when we could go about our lives and not worry—because shit worked. I can sum up Spencer Pratt’s campaign platform in four words: Make shit work again. So can he win the LA mayoral race? It depends on one question: Is it bad enough yet? I think it is bad enough. It’s so bad that it can no longer be ignored. And I think most Angelenos feel the same way. There’s a critical mass of people who remember when shit worked. They had no way to fix it. They couldn’t imagine a solution. And then one guy stood up and said he could fix it. Because none of these “intractable problems” are actually intractable. We know how to do this. We know how to fix things. We know how to Make. Shit. Work. Again. What was lacking was The Will to do it. And Spencer Pratt has The Will. No, I don’t live in LA anymore. But I’m pulling for Spencer. Because this election is so much larger than Los Angeles. Because there’s no where else to run to. Because we’ve got to make a stand. Somewhere. Anywhere. So vote for Spencer. And if you can’t vote then make a small donation. Because we have to make shit work again. Because we don’t have a choice.

Reprehensible

Make Shit Work Again People almost never come to our door after dark. Because we live in a (what used to be) a quiet place, and random visitors after dark are almost unheard of. So when the doorbell rang at 3:30am this morning I grabbed my shotgun. I racked the pump and shouted for the person at the door to identify themselves. Turns out it was a lady cop. Luckily the cops are used to armed homeowners around here. She shined a to flashlight identify herself, and I secured the gun and the dogs to see what she wanted. Turns out two people were shot across the street in the park. She wanted to know if your security cameras captured any footage of the incident. So I checked the app, and no—there was no footage (because our cameras point the other direction). And that was that. But I couldn’t get back to sleep—mostly because of the adrenaline. But also because I couldn’t help but notice that things are getting worse around here. This used to be a place where nothing happened. And now things definitely do happen. We used to live in LA. My wife and I did industry stuff. We had a good life as an urban childless couple, but then she got pregnant. We thought about the daunting challenge of raising kids in LA, and opted to get out. So we found a place in the Mountain West where nothing ever happens. It was a good place to raise kids. A place with good schools. A place where our children could wander the town by themselves. But it’s not that place anymore. Since Covid the schools have gone to shit. And a few weeks ago my son was at the neighborhood park (by himself) when a gang member pulled a gun on a parent at the playground. So early this morning I’m lying in bed, and I’m thinking about this. And I thought to myself, “We need to leave.” But then I had another thought—a disturbing thought. I thought, “But there’s no place else to go.” Because it’s almost everywhere now. Red State, Blue State, it doesn’t matter. And if it’s not there yet it will be soon. And if you think you’re safe, you’re not. Because this thing is coming for all of us. *** My politics in five words: I Want Shit To Work That’s it. I just want shit to work. And I don’t really care how that happens. I’m old enough to remember when shit did work. It never worked perfectly. But I don’t think shit has worked perfectly in the entire history of human endeavors. I mean, read the Bible—it’s all about shit not working perfectly. But I grew up in a time when things ran fairly well—far better than they do now. I’m not that old, but back in the day schools actually taught stuff. And there wasn’t choking bureaucracy in government and business and every other institution. And we could TRUST those institutions—because they weren’t rife with corruption. And if minor corruption happened to be discovered it was A BIG FUCKING DEAL—because the media wasn’t bent, and they’d actually report on the corruption. And things weren’t so expensive. A young person (me) could work a menial job afford a car and an apartment and still have money left over to take girls on dates. Because there was OPPORTUNITY for young people. Now I could go on and on, but I’m starting to sound like an old man shouting at a cloud, so let me just say, trust me kids: SHIT USED TO WORK. Spencer Pratt is about my age. He remembers when shit used to work. He remembers when you could count on the fire department to not let a giant part of your city burn down with residents inside. He remembers when you didn’t have to step over fentanyl zombies to take your kids to preschool. He remembers when there wasn’t human shit on the streets. He remembers when corrupt government officials were held accountable. He remembers when we could go about our lives and not worry—because shit worked. I can sum up Spencer Pratt’s campaign platform in four words: Make shit work again. So can he win the LA mayoral race? It depends on one question: Is it bad enough yet? I think it is bad enough. It’s so bad that it can no longer be ignored. And I think most Angelenos feel the same way. There’s a critical mass of people who remember when shit worked. They had no way to fix it. They couldn’t imagine a solution. And then one guy stood up and said he could fix it. Because none of these “intractable problems” are actually intractable. We know how to do this. We know how to fix things. We know how to Make. Shit. Work. Again. What was lacking was The Will to do it. And Spencer Pratt has The Will. No, I don’t live in LA anymore. But I’m pulling for Spencer. Because this election is so much larger than Los Angeles. Because there’s no where else to run to. Because we’ve got to make a stand. Somewhere. Anywhere. So vote for Spencer. And if you can’t vote then make a small donation. Because we have to make shit work again. Because we don’t have a choice.

1/ There are no other constitutional rights in substance without freedom to transact Being meaning to write this for 6 months, but the Canadian response to the trucker protests is illustrating this so vividly, that today is the day.

NEW: Javier Milei declares the Falkland Islands — currently under UK control — “were, are, and will always be Argentine.”