Leaderboard

You should check out the 111th Congress - where both the House and the Senate were under Democratic control for the first part of Obama's first term - including for a short time with a filibuster proof majority. You might also remember the 103rd Congress where Bill Clinton also had Democratic control in both houses. Carter had both houses his whole time in office. Kennedy and Johnson both did too. Roosevelt had a Democratic majority from 1933 that lasted until Truman lost it in 1947. Herbert Hoover was president in 1929. He was a Republican. So too were both chambers of Congress. In fact, from 1921 when Warren Harding had a majority - through Calvin Coolidge - all the way to 1931 when Herbert Hoover lost the Republican majority - that was the longest stretch in which the Republican Party would have unified control until George W. Bush (who had it in part of 2001, then from 2003 through 2007). Eisenhower had unified control from 1953-55. edit: here's the sourcing on that with a nice chart - history is cool.

I don't have the patience to read this whole thread but I feel confident people are being scared by hyperbole and misinformation. I can understand why we don't trust the government on the surface as its failed us too many times but I don't think we should apply that skepticism to the point of folly. We you say "we don't know the long term ramification of this vaccine" you haven't researched it very much. This is not new technology, its acutally over 30 years old. They've been researching this vaccine mechanism for a very long time. "So why haven't we had this type of vaccine before now?", because thankfully we haven't had a widespread pandemic significant enought to warrant the human trials. Ebola, Zika, West Nile are all candidates but infections were not enough to be able to study the results (thank God, aint nobody want Ebola). The biggest concern with the vaccine is allergic response. Yes you will feel bad the day after, especially the second shot, but no you did not actually get COVID-19 from the shot. Its just your bodies immune system creating the defenses it needs to make you resistant in the future. The vaccine made it to production so quickly thanks to the 30+years of research before hand, without that it would likely not have happened. I can put my tinfoil hat on a empathize with those that are skeptical about the viruses origin and certainly how the government has leveraged us for its own gain to the determent of thousands of small businesses and personal finances across the country. But none of that leads me to a point where I don't want a vaccine. Obviously because I took one and get my second shot next Thursday and anxiously wait the opportunity to be "immuno-prepared" (i know that's not a word) for getting back to normal.

I would walk over to my neighbors and say "Hey, you good?" Yep, ok? See ya, let me know if you need anything. What are you expecting to have to discuss? Barricading the neighborhood? What did you do before cell phones and the internet? You drove over to see someone if it was farther than just walking. Or get handheld radio's/cb's? I am with Erik on this. If all communications are down, I suspect that is the least of your worries.

I heard them complaining about metal detectors but I'm not clear why they are angry about them. I was shocked they didn't have to go through them to begin with. Apparently everyone else does except for the lawmakers which sounds so typical of them. "Rules for thee but not for me".

We need to remember this when things get back to normal, and stock up accordingly. There probably should be a sticky about being prepared in the ammo section.

This thread is moving too far from the original purpose. It’s not going to turn into the politics section replacement. I’m locking this thread until further notice and discussion with @TGO David

So with all thats going on in the world I got to thinking about alternative communications. What are folks here doing in the event phone and internet communications become unstable, unreliable, or all together non-existent? Read some interesting stuff online about IRC chat and direct dial BBS sites. Gawd, when was the last time... But with the current control and censorship issues, what would you do if it all went *poof* and your txt messages never got replied to. How would you communicate locally in your neighborhood? In town? Relatives nearby or across the state/country? We've become so used to the ubiquity of it all.... I know some folks are setup with HAM, I have a set of Baeofangs I'm trying to figure out... but outside a couple miles... what have some folks prepared for?

If the fluctuation of pricing on Bitcoin doesn't scare someone off, the fact that it really only exists at this point to launder money for organized crime should. We deal with a lot of ransomware/cryptolocker cases, and I can say that all the lawyers involved are growing increasingly concerned with RICO/trafficking/money laundering/OFAC stuff - since you basically know that you're sending large sums of money to criminals as a ransom payment. Then, you can add to that the "days since a cryptocurrency exchange lost more than $100M" sign hasn't reached triple digits yet. If you can get past all that, then I might suggest that in any legitimate market, you need both a party and counterparty to transactions. We have a ton of people putting money into the "market." But, when we examine the blockchain registers, we don't really see any of that money moving out. We don't have counterparties. This could legit turn into a case where you have millions on paper, but couldn't cash out if your life depended on it. Stay away from it.

It's registered with a registrar in Switzerland who has a very good privacy rating.

Not a gun, but just received these guys this morning. Will be going on two USAF (Not USMC) Rem 40XB 22's. If you don't have a classic 22 and scope to go with it you are missing out.

Your intuition is the right one. We can always open something back up later if we decide to.

I had to get a COVID test. Luckily it came back negative.

In 50 years, our grandchildren will look at our use of social media and it’s balkanizing effects in the same way we look at our grandparents who smoked 18 hours a day - sort of a “how could you not have known that stuff was terrible for you?” Hopefully its not preceded by “back before the war.”

The flu vaccine has been around for almost 75 years, and is no more effective than around 60-70% at best, usually less, sometimes far less. AIDS virus was first identified 37 years ago, and there is still no vaccine at all. Not mention the common cold. So I'd opine that the Covid vaccine is quite the success. - OS

Anybody who has been around this game any length of time has already heard this advice repeatedly. If they didn't heed it before, they're not going to now. People have short memories ...

It would be interesting - and I don't have time to do it this afternoon - to post a chart of GDP or the S&P500 or whatever metric you want against control of the government. I expect what it would show is that the economy is largely going to economy and doesn't particularly favor unified government. The 4 biggest drops of any of our lifetimes (1929 crash, S&L bust, dotcom bubble, and the 2008 recession) have all officially occurred on Republican watches - but that's kind of disingenuous to make that argument. Just like the economy under Trump has benefited from some of Obama's policies - Bush too took the hit from some of the rails coming off during Clinton. Etc. Standard disclaimer - The stock market is not the economy - please don't take investing advice from me or anyone else on the internet - unless it's about Bitcoin in which case I know what I'm talking about - consult your financial professional.

The same way it did for the previous three years.

In the same vein of mesh networks, I've thought about a project where people turn their home into an xbee node. Each person involved has a 1k or 10k xbee transceiver in their home with a unique ID and information travels between the nodes in the network. You could think of it as each home hosting one of these becomes a router in a low throughput network. If the internet goes down or cellular communications aren't possible you could still pass messages to various recipients in the network or send out a mass communication to all recipients. The transceiver in your home would communicate to your phone, laptop...whatever over wifi. You could have high thruput repeaters with multiple transceivers and some that are just single node end points that act as back-up for the high thruput nodes. In the event a node is downed the network could autoreconfigure so its hard to bring down conventionally. https://www.digi.com/products/embedded-systems/digi-xbee/rf-modules/sub-1-ghz-rf-modules/xbee-pro-900hp

Translation: Avoid bitcoin like plague ...

Please - for the love of all that's good - don't "invest" and tell the people you love not to "invest" in Bitcoin. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

Marlin Model 60. Got it in 1980 for my 11th Birthday.

Can you ask your sources to point some of these antifa out in photographs?

Hopefully we don't have to resort to that backup URL ever... but it's now ours if we have to.

Wait, so how is it that owners of Backpage.com got arrested for what was on their site (prostitution) yet facebook and twitter get to remain free? They also allow all sorts of illegal radical BS, including things like calls for the eradication of an entire country, killing of homosexuals etc., and now they are silencing those who oppose these ideas. How are they protected???

So, here's my girl (again) posing for our snowy hike this past weekend.

Add me to the group that's willing to cut them a little slack. We saw levels of online shopping in 2020 never seen before. FWIW, I've talked to people recently that have also had packages lost and delayed via UPS.

USPS is currently in the middle of a perfect storm. Covid-19, still backed up from the holidays and an idiot Postmaster General appointed by Trump last summer. As soon as Louis DeJoy took office, he immediately instituted "cost cutting measures" that have done nothing but damage USPS. He stopped all overtime, removed many sorting machines and public mail boxes. He changed many work policies. the biggest being that any mail still in the sorting room at the end of the day was to be left until the next day. As a result, the back log has built up something terrible. Many people believe Trump appointed DeJoy for the sole purpose of wrecking the USPS before the election and mail in voting. Not to mention that DeJoy owns millions in stock from other carriers that are the direct competition to USPS. If Biden does nothing else, I hope he fires this azzhole. Despite all of that, USPS is still and always has been the highest rated government agency in customer satisfaction. They move millions of pieces of mail every single day. And most of it goes off without a hitch.

So, i'm a pig hunter. Rabidly so, in fact. I prefer hunting hogs to just about anything else on the planet. I've hunted them in 8 states & on 3 continents. But tonight I did something I never ever thought i'd manage. I. Shot. A. MONSTER! I have to add, this was completely free range. No lodge, no fences, no pay-to-play & it was here in middle TN.... just a straight up hand to God feral hog. I've seen big pigs before. The kind of hogs that really get your blood pumping, but in 12 years & probably thousands of hours of hunt time I've never, ever seen a pig like this. 12 FOOT, running neck shot with my .300blk.

Me either. But, by the same token literally billions of people have been brought out of extreme poverty in the last 2 generations - in your and my lifetime. Some of the post WWII structures that are so popular to hate on right now have largely kept the continent of Europe largely peaceful for the last 75 years. Parts of it had basically been at war for the 500 years previous to that. So many diseases are treatable that would have been deadly or terribly debilitating only 75 years ago. Many of us have traveled farther in a day than our forefathers did in their entire lives. I could go on - but there’s reason for hope, too. The world and the people in it really are quite amazing.

You just described a lot of C-level executives.

Mostly. Being kinda greedy right now. That's probably not extremely smart.

Mostly. Being kinda greedy right now. That's probably not extremely smart.

Sounds like a few grumpy bitcoin missers around here. If you'd been on the train you'd have a lot of $$$. I caught the train, made a serious multiple, and don't intend to take the train back the other way, FWIW. It is a bit like the tulip mania a few centuries ago. It's all about the timing, and it doesn't even have to be real. If you cash out though, that's real. There are a lot of governments, regulators, and taxing entities that are drooling about bitcoin even more than greedy "skies the limit" pseudo-investors. Not to mention hackers.

My take Last year was like investing in 2009, you didnt have to know anything to win big with the preceding beatdown. There are some good value items that are good bets over the next 2 years in the sectors that the virus is keeping pressure on. Finding them takes a heck of alot more research. Sector consolidations and M&A make is something to look out for in those sectors though. Finding them before they get mentions from the investing media is key. I have one on my watchlist I was researching this last week and it just got a pop from a brokerage article a couple days ago...waiting for the next dip if it comes.

Bump. Lets get more people joined up!

Something I heard today, when was the last time the dems had the president and both houses? What happen then? Wasn't it 1929?

Conventional wisdom is that higher taxes are probably on the horizon, but due to the virus and the overall state of the economy probably won't be enacted this year. Similarly, more government spending is almost certain, likely a mix of stimulus and infrastructure spending which should help boost the short term prospects for the economy as a whole. Most asset classes are overpriced, and more volatility in prices is to be expected, but typically bull markets go through a prolonged period of "melt ups" before coming to a close. Personally, I doubt we'll see the massive rises in tech prices this year as we had in 2020, mostly due to increased efforts for Congressional oversight and possible new regulations including anti-trust suits, so that's an area ripe for a fall. As always, stock and asset picking will remain roughly akin to astrology, palm reading and coin flips in terms of accuracy, as you can always expect the unexpected to occur ...

The wisdom I have: The market oftentimes, if not more, does not behave the way we or any "reasonable" person would expect it. That's all I have.

, sometimes you just have to get a laugh when you can.

I've never heard anyone complain about their Razor line.

I don't know if it's desperation or ignorance. I do know it's a sad state of affairs. I'm all for people setting their own prices. I have no issues with that. I just wonder what the "New Norm" in pricing will be? I guess we'll eventually see.

Loved my boxer who was with us for 11 years. Rescued new pup yesterday, because can’t be without one for too long. Appears to be a hound - looks a lot like a cur or one I had never heard of, Treeing Tennessee Brindle. She’s already made herself a part of the family. Figured y’all would appreciate this here.

I forgot to come back to this. I bought a Vortex Razor II-E in 1-6 with MRAD reticle. Totally pleased with it!

DOH!!

I'm a lifetime member of TFA, GOA, NRA and couple others I can't think of off top of my head. I also donate each year. It's going to take some big dogs in this fight so a bunch of us little dogs need to pony up. Do I agree with everything each organization does, no, but we will not do it alone.

4 guys, 12 beers & knocking on a couple of farmers doors to beg the use of a tractor with a front loader!

Winchester Model 62 pump Winchester Model 62 semiauto Belgian Browning SA-22

16 pounds of badass! Well she thinks she is......

I am going the other way, most do , how ever some do not, I have faith in man kind to do better.