MacGyver

Half and half salt and brown sugar - maybe with a touch of teriyaki sauce is my go to . Brining overnight at least will really take it to another level. Also, if you’re going to put it on the smoker, after you rinse it - it’s really worth it to let it sit on the counter for an hour or so to form a pellicle - sort of a tacky layer the smoke adheres to and seals the moisture inside the fish. And of course - watch your temperature. You’re going a lot lower with salmon.

Well, as long as we’re posting neighborhood birds - this guy was driving my bird dog nuts the other day.

Thanks for giving me a name for these. I've seen a ton of them on my daily walks with my dog over the last couple of weeks. They're pretty.

A couple of more recommendations now that I'm not on mobile. 1. Floodlines by The Atlantic. This is an in depth examination of everything that went wrong in Hurricane Katrina. The whole series is worth it - but there are two episodes that really stand out. First, the episode with Lieutenant General Russell Honorè is outstanding. Second, the last episode where they interview the FEMA Director at the time - the infamous Michael ("Brownie") Brown is worth a listen. 2. In Plain Sight: Lady Bird Johnson. If you're a history buff - or even if you're not - I cannot recommend this podcast enough. The premise - a journalist was doing research in the Johnson Presidential Library and came across 123 hours of recorded audio diaries made by Lady Bird Johnson that no one had ever really documented. She was her husband's closest confidant - and it is a first hand look straight into the White House. While there is some light narration to tie everything together - this podcast is more or less Lady Bird Johnson in her own words. It goes from LBJ's time in the Senate, to Dealey Plaza, to the White House, to their ranch in Texas, and covers everything from the war in Vietnam to the assassinations of the '60's. It's really an amazing first hand look. 3. The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill by Christianity Today - covers as the title states the meteoric rise of the Mars Hill Church and celebrity pastor Mark Driscoll. If you're a Christian in America today - you've been influenced whether you realize it or not by celebrity pastors and the mega church movement. If you’ve been a part of an Acts 29 network church, or if you just wonder, “how did we get here?” this podcast is for you This podcast looks at the good and bad of the movement and church and the people who built and enabled it. It's really a testament to what happens when we put a person between us and Jesus. That's probably 30 hours of listening - even though the first two are quite bingeable - so @-boatman- take note Let me know what you think.

I forget what part of the state you’re in, but for what it’s worth, I’ve had nothing but good experiences with the Kia dealership in Murfreesboro when it comes to servicing my wife’s truck and feel like they’ve been square with me every time. I drive a little bit to get there - because unfortunately that absolutely has not been the case with any of the Greenway dealerships around Nashville.

As someone who’s read a bunch of manifestos over the years professionally, I can say what I’m about to say with absolute certainty. Whatever it is that anyone is hoping to find in the shooter’s writings - you're going to be disappointed. You’re not going to understand it - because there’s nothing to be logically understood. You’re not going to find a reason - because the reason was this person was terribly broken in a way that we don’t - and can’t understand. The manifesto is a red herring - allowing politicians to distract people by calling for their release. There are a lot of reasons not to release it. One, like @Snaveba mentioned above - they contain a lot of truly graphic stuff that serves no public good by its release - and may take the trauma victims have suffered and make it worse. Look at what Sandy Hook parents have had to deal with for the last decade, and you’ll understand why they don’t want it released. But second, and more importantly we don’t release manifestos because there are broken people out there who that stuff *does* inspire.

He lost a run off bid for Circuit Judge back in December. He’s still DA for now - I think he’s got a year left on his term. He’s cost the state of Mississippi a bunch of money. I hope this is his last term in office.

I enjoyed them - but you really had to commit to listen - and then listen to the episode with the intro in mind. It all came back to the overarching story he had to tell. I took them I n a, “nothing new under the sun” sort of way. I wonder if for some people it would have been helpful to be able to listen to the intros at the end after they had heard they had heard the episode? One of my favorite things about that podcast was some of the music that he went and hunted down. I’ve enjoyed listening to some of it after the podcast ended.

If you had told me at the beginning of season 2 that I was going to listen to approximately 20 hours of in depth history of everything George Jones - I don’t know that I would have committed to it - even knowing how much I enjoyed season 1. I really enjoyed the entirety of the second season.

I can hear that theme music in my head as I type this. I’m glad you got to enjoy it in its resolved form - even if it took 4 days It was brutal when it first came out waiting a week until the next episode. We all grew up that way - how quickly things have changed. They’re working on a third season as we speak. The team got laid off by Minnesota Public Radio a while back - but someone brought the whole team over - maybe the New Yorker? I imagine that was the most significant work any of them will do in their careers - but I’ll sure be glad to see new episodes.

FWIW, I don't know what's driving the current outrage - but Brazil has had stringent gun control for at least the last couple of decades. All guns have to be registered. Minimum age to purchase is 25. There are fees for registration (part of Bolsonaro's executive order reduced that fee some) and there is a limit on the amount of ammunition you could buy - something like 50 rounds/year. I think Bolsonaro's order lifted that somewhat too. Brazilians basically have no codified rights to self defense. Just zooming out on the timeline some.

Let me recommend to you the current season of Embedded, titled Taking Cover: https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510311/embedded I know some of y'all might be dismissive of it because it's produced by NPR. I really encourage you to look past that and give it a listen. It's produced by Embedded reporters - who as the name suggests - have reported from various war zones for the entirety of the last 20 years. Tom Bowman, one of the co-hosts of this podcast was in a convoy that was attacked in Helmand Province in 2016 when photographer Dave Gilkey was killed. At its core, this story is about doing right by the memories of two Marines and their Iraqi interpreter who were killed in what would come to be known as the First Battle of Fallujah on April 12, 2004. There is a definite twist in the plot line of the podcast - and when you hear it it puts a lot of stuff into perspective. It's an ugly story. It's hard to listen to. But, at the end of the day, all the twists fade into the background. It's a deeply reported podcast about bringing truth to the families of the 2/1 Marines out of Pendleton who died that day. Note to add, this podcast probably wasn’t good for my PTSD. I found myself so angry at times and in tears moments later. The last 22 and a half years have been really tough. Be kind to yourself - and listen insofar as you feel it’s healthy.

Neat.

His black book was made public. It was government exhibit 52 in his associate Maxwell's trial. https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1508273/jeffrey-epsteins-little-black-book-redacted.pdf

It’s absolutely poisonous. It’s also absolutely not real

Knoxville city ordinance 19-109 is the one that’s relevant to your case.

Unfortunately - assuming you’re within city limits in any metro area in Tennessee - everything you want to do and all your proposed methods for doing it are quite illegal. While a pellet gun *might* be looked on with less disdain than an actual firearm - your concern about the road beyond your target means that you’d almost certainly be breaking a fundamental rule of firearms, “know your target and what’s beyond it.” Starlings are a pain - but you wouldn’t be able to kill enough of them to make a difference - and in your case would almost certainly open yourself up to the judgement of your neighbors and the complex management. The Aguila SSS is probably the quietest option mentioned - but it still sounds like a gunshot. A modern pellet rifle propelling a projectile over 1040FPS isn’t quiet either. You need another deterrent.

I may be misremembering off the top of my head - but weren’t the minis included in the ‘94 ban?

It’s amazing that this seems so out of place on 2023. I’m so thankful for that - and it kind of serves as a reminder of how much things have changed and how quickly. In our grandparent’s generation “dental infections” were a top 10 cause of death in the US.

So glad to hear this.

One more brief note I guess on having antiquated infrastructure as a limiting factor in the economy. The US is responsible for about 25% of the world’s GDP. We are the world’s reserve currency. That is - the world trades most major commodities in dollars. You and I benefit from that. There are a lot of groups that would very much like to *not* have the dollar as the reserve currency. To be a 21st century player - you kind of need to not make other global entities wait a week while your systems catch up.

If this is something that does worry you - I might encourage you to model out what you think actually happens behind the scenes when you use your check card - or write a check - or pay a bill online. If an out of control government wanted to take all your money or whatever - they don’t need this system to that.

This is from the CBC - so maybe if you move to Canada, I guess? The Federal Reserve is concerned (by law) with liquidity amongst financial institutions. They don’t have visibility into individual customers - and don’t care. Now, banks have to comply with OFAC (the Office of Foreign Assets Control) as instituted by the Treasury. That’s very much concerned with terrorists. But the key word in OFAC is *foreign*. As a citizen it doesn’t apply to you.

I can speak to this in detail. I’ll do it in general terms here just to make it understandable - but if anyone wants more detail we can do that too. Bottom Line Up Front: The regular outrage brokers are getting people all spooled up about something they have no need to worry about. So here’s the deal. The payment rails on which our modern $23T economy rides on are really antiquated - much like a lot of the rest of our infrastructure. When you think about a bank - we kind of think of them in “old west” type terms. I’ve got some actual money - and it’s sitting in a vault somewhere - and when I need it, I’ll go see the teller and they’ll give it to me. Thats a fine representation of a bank up until around the middle part of the last century. You can still think about a bank that way - except now it’s all digital “marks” in a ledger that denotes how much money you have. And, when you make a big purchase or pay your mortgage or whatever, the computers banks have in their back office make all the appropriate entries - and for the most part we’re good. * Let’s take out some of the lending/financial engineering that modern banks do that’s *very much* not like the banks of old and we’ve seen go *very bad* recently with the likes of SVB and FRB. * The infrastructure problem comes into focus because even though you the consumer expect your bank transfers to be instantaneous (and most of the big banks kind of play along to make it look like they are) - from a back office perspective those transfers are *not* instantaneous. The current primary rails that these back office payments ride on is the ACH system that went into service in 1970ish. It literally turns off every weekday at 5:00. It’s closed on the weekend. The ACH system is built more for those “old west” type banks than it is a modern banking system. It’s no way to run an economy. As middle and upper class, Americans, most of your banks extend you the courtesy of not really having to deal with any of this very much. Maybe you see it when you go buy a car. You might see it when you make a car payment or a mortgage payment and you have to get it in before 3 o’clock or it doesn’t post until the next day. You see it when you close on a mortgage because those funds have to be cleared before you can go to closing and ACH causes a delay there. But, for most of us it’s not really a big deal at all in our daily lives. But, by enabling real time payments - this system will markedly, improve the banking experience of a lot of lower income users. For those users, they are banks are typically not extending them the courtesy that they extend all of us. When you work paycheck to paycheck and have to wait 4 days for your check to clear - that’s a big deal. I could go into the limiting factor that our old banking infrastructure actually puts on economic growth - because that’s very much a thing - but this post is too long as is. But, no one here needs to worry about this. Seriously, you don’t need to spend any more brain cycles on it. If you’re worried about whoever being able to seize your money - that ship sailed a long time ago. But that’s another post for another time.

Let me offer this from personal experience - as someone who’s married to a teacher who was in one of those “liberal” school districts. Even if there were some agenda to be pushed - there isn’t the time, will, or resource to push it. She spent her days making sure her kids had enough to eat. There’s no telling how many coats and pairs of shoes we’ve bought. She spends her off hours creating resources to use in the classroom because there aren’t curriculums to use. She has had two books that her students love and cause them to grow in the reading levels banned - Hatchet and Love that Dog. She manages behaviors instead of teaching - again due to lack of resources. She’s got a job that she loves - but constantly thinks about leaving the profession because of the damage it does to both her mental and physical health. I’m sure there are teachers who would love to push some type of agenda. But I don’t know who they are. There are way more that come home at the end of the day exhausted like my wife. My oldest two kids are at the most diverse school in the state. They go to school with all races, genders, sexual identities, and everything else - both at the student and teacher level. We have conversations about what they’re experiencing at school all the time - like weekly. My wife and I believe that stuff like that isn’t the school’s job - it’s ours. But, in all those conversations I can’t remember the last time where they were exposed to something in the classroom that my wife and I weren’t comfortable with - maybe a middle school extracurricular reading club selection? Now one thing is true. My kids are more compassionate and empathetic just by being present with people who aren’t like them. I think this probably registers on some people’s scale as more “liberal”. This would make some people uncomfortable. I’m okay with it. I know the voices that speak into their lives. *edited to remove me quoting @BigK - made it look like I was responding directly to him - and this was more general observation