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Wait for enough of these encounters. The way the military loves to make an award for anything will kick in.

Why are you so anti-profit for Raytheon?

I think it was more a test than actual spying. Like others, I can't see the benefit from that balloon over what they can get through low orbit satellites and existing cyber efforts. What I think the actual test involved, was how territorial we would be in airspace that high, and if/where we would take it down. I think China was looking for a parallel to what they could presumably get away with and keep a straight face when it comes to our surveillance efforts over territory they claim in and around Taiwan, and other points of interest for them in the South Pacific. Remember, for China, there isn't much difference in what they control versus what they claim. The stronger they've gotten, the more they've been pushing on the latter. The OMG factor from the local and national news was entertaining (sorta), but the real impact I think will be in how this translates to what happens in the areas China has in mind for annexing 10-20-30 years down the line. I don't think this is the last trial balloon (pun intended) we might see.

Keep waiting. I doubt Aaron Rodgers wants to be in the same Hall of Fame class as Tom Brady. He'll probably do one more year so he can be the top of the 2029 class after today's news.

Haven't watched it yet, but will sometime this weekend. I feel compelled to bear witness in a strange way. We'll continue to have the conversation in America about what people feel when they see a cop...their rights and safety being protected, or a danger to their liberties and person. Would that these five officers didn't give us more to consider the worse of that answer. Hoping rage doesn't win the next few nights. The family of the victim certainly made their appeal for catharsis without the need for fire and blood.

Rep. Gaetz didn't file this thinking it was anything other than a press release.

Make sure you tell the manager, or even the owner if you have their contact info. It's perfectly legit for a business to want to establish a customer database for various reasons, but a gun store especially should know that is an iffy thing with parts of their customer base. If it makes you take your business online or elsewhere in town, that's a data point they should have as well. Sorry to hear this about Nashville Armory. I'm a Royal Range guy, but had a positive experience for my visits to Nashville Armory.

The Federal Register is a publication of record across the government. Once this rule is published, it enforceable by law. That is until it gets tied up in court (which should happen soon enough). Back in June 2021 this rule was proposed and opened to public comment. So ATF actually slow rolled it over a year and a half when it could have taken about a third of that time.

This is a great point. We had to epic playoff games back to back. The entertainment value of NYE was amazing. The whole college season was a resounding success as well. It was a bit disappointing to anyone not a Georgia fan because the championship wasn't good TV, but that was a blip otherwise phenomenal season we should appreciate.

The breakthroughs in nuclear fusion are what has me thinking that EVs are not as impossible as we thought. I don't think it'll be on the current timeline, even as an intermediate step, the battery capacity and production cost of an EV are getting better every year. People keep thinking about the here and now and not how far we'll be down the line. We've got more EVs out on the road than people believed would be practical 5 years ago. Imagine 5 years from now, 10, ect. Industry wouldn't be getting behind this, or letting the government force things unless they felt it was worth the time and investment, or they had the ability to alter the mandate as needs dictate.

A sports book is a crazy fun place to watch a big game. Even the less than big games can be fun if it's the only one on at the time. Plus you know anyone betting big enough to be emotionally swooned on Thursday Night Football is a diehard gambler.

People can talk about how gold and silver protect value against inflation, and that may be true on paper. Have we ever had a period in modern memory where attempts to convert gold and silver to transactional currency happened en masse for the perceived value? The GFC in 2008 and COVID in 2020 maybe gave us some examples of people trying to redeem gold and silver for cash? I'm not trying to be facetious, just asking a question. I keep enough knowledge to opine on stocks and legal tender, but don't really understand the value of precious metals as anything other than the hedge as a theory. With the topic of this thread being where is a local dealer for gold and silver, I wonder how much of a barter system really exists now, let alone in a time of crisis. You can look up the exchange rate of gold and silver to the USD, but nothing is guaranteed on the availability of a buyer or the price from what I understand. It would be a classic free market transaction without any price controls. Gold is real pretty to look at, and a friend gifted me a special run 35yr old gold coin from the West Point mint over the holidays which was extremely generous, so my interest has recently been piqued some. But if I'm looking to have funds that can survive the worst to come, give ma a money market account tied to treasury securities and US Government securities. The yield may not beat inflation (especially currently), but it's safe as can be, and I know I'll have the value in cash hit my account in 2-3 business days.

Did you go to the sports book to watch?

I hate that a family lost someone when they should have been celebrating together. There's just nothing to soothe that. The fine line between keeping society civil and protecting your own life is murky sometimes. I don't want to see the San Francisco scenario. But I also would never say retail stores meet the market for risking your life over. Your family, friends, and country are worth dying for... inventory isn't. Even if your preferred measure of justice is served, there is nothing good in this.

The weather was really bad for two, maybe three days. And by really bad, I mean so far out of variance with norms that it taxed the system too much. Is the grid really supposed to be configured to handle 2 bad days out of 365? It's reasonable to talk about what's being done to handle each new subdivision or factory and warehouse going up. But I don't think we're in a death spiral with infrastructure. It was just a statistically unlikely few days.

Not as much as I used to. That's not anything against the site or folks, life and work are just busier and more tiring than they used to be.

This was 6am and -1F. Cold, but kinda pretty.

I'm more of a 1920s through the Gotti years gangsterphile. Yeah I saw they bumped this expanded playoff up. It'll mean more consequential games for less relevant teams. The SEC and to a lesser extent Big10 will still dominate it to the tune of about half the field between the two. They'll still be well positioned to breakaway if they see it as the right move. Expanding the field was done for more money, but also to try and keep them in the fold I think. Doesn't strike me as a coincidence the CFP had such a push to get the start date moved to the left so the games played under of the expansion of the top two conferences counted for it.

It won't matter if the super power conferences only play each other and set up their own playoffs like the AFC and NFC, then meet in what will become a kind of College Super Bowl. That's the ultimate threat from the SEC and Big10 breaking away from the current structure. They're looking to froth up leverage and revenue in TV deals and what not, so that when they want to go independent, the NCAA and CFP aren't a planning factor in their operations. The NCAA is already a paper tiger when it comes to college football. The best analogy I heard a while back is the five power conferences are like the old mafia families of New York city. They each run their own shows, feud from time to time, but have the NCAA act like The Commission of old to regulate things. They run The Commission, not the other way around. The SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey has way more wasta than Mark Emmert the NCAA President.

Oh, it is know what they consider important...TV ratings and how well fan bases travel. It helps to understand when you view this as a production first, and a meritocracy second. The week to week ratings they release are just to gin up content, and interest. Putting in 2x SEC teams is usually a high bar, and one they'll use spur ratings in the regular season. This year has been fantastic for such. Bama and Tennessee taking 2 losses made a TSU or USC bid likely. If Bama had won out after the Tennessee loss and won the SEC Championship, both they and Georgia would be in. With the SEC teams really eating their own this year, the Big XII and PAC-12 have a good chance to each get a team in. Clemson's current abilities finally out-stinking their past glory facilitates this as well.

People who forget or don't think they need to scale admin proportionally with operations usually wind up regretting it. Sure, some organic growth can be absorbed, but it's not long before you need another bucket to catch the overflow when you're making those big leaps like you exampled during the Obama years. I have a hunch that taking the plea deal before any IRS investigators got into the mix was probably the best legal move to make. Those guns that weren't properly accounted for and added to other folks 4473's may well have gone out the backdoor to various sources for straight cash that wasn't reported.

Wow, very dumb. They were either very lazy, or doing shady things with those missing guns. The punishment here is not anything approaching serious (to me, anyway)... I'm no fan of the ATF, and it's debatable how much should be logged by vendors, but what they were doing seems so far out of bounds this doesn't appear to be sufficient. Yeah, they'll lose their business, but that needed to happen anyway it seems. No significant penalties aside from a federal conviction, which I know ain't nothing...but still.

One step at a time is correct since that kind of philosophical shift takes time. Their having guns and realizing they aren't the scariest thing on earth if handled correctly is a big first step into winning people over. Nothing negates ignorance like experience.

$2.969 in Hendersonville this morning. #ThanksBrandon

Easily one of the best upgrades I put into my ARs, and it was sale periods I took advantage of to do it. I know the price is hefty, and I can't honestly say they are abundantly superior to say a LaRue option at about half the price...but I'm not regretting the money I spent on my Geissele triggers for one moment.