MacGyver

When I first saw this I thought, “well… they’re trying to take an unforced error and turn it into a rout that may land the current speaker in prison - maybe even before of the speaker that he replaced makes it to trial.” One of two things is true - and they’re both worth considering regardless of where you sit on the political spectrum. Either they truly think that the rules don’t apply to them and they can do whatever they want. Or they see the proverbial writing on the wall and are willing to burn everything down on the way out. Both are problematic.

Pride goeth before destruction - or so the old proverb goes... Jones and Pearson will likely both be back in the House on an interim basis by Tuesday afternoon. The council here in Nashville already is near unanimous - and Memphis has come out in support too. Word is that Sexton is trying to bargain with the Memphis's mayor behind the scenes - threatening to withhold funding for the work being done on the Forum if they send Pearson back. Pearson will be back. Regardless of what you think of their particular politics - I would encourage anyone to avoid making the same mistake the legislature did yesterday. Jones was instrumental - and a thorn in the flesh of the legislature - in getting the NBF statue removed from the Rotunda. Pearson was quite effective as an organizer in getting the Byhalia Pipeline stopped. So much so that the state passed laws to make it so that local legislatures can't intervene again. That will likely get tossed out in court. If you didn't watch the proceedings yesterday - I'd encourage you to. Both of those gentlemen are there because their communities sent them there. You may not agree with them. But those two - with less than four months between them in the House - went up against people who talk for a living - and ran laps around them. They gave a master class on swaying public opinion. Dismiss or discount them at your peril.

That one vote was Justin Pearson. Had they removed him first they would have had the votes. Something is changing in a way it hasn’t before. You can feel it on the ground at these protests. More on that later maybe. These lawmakers made fools of themselves yesterday in front of the whole nation. They’re going to do anything to get that spotlight off of themselves.

The Tennessee House made the greatest unforced error since John Bell Hood decimated the Army of Tennessee in the Battle of Franklin.

I do love some M390.

For what it’s worth, I know a bunch of the students who were at the Capitol today - because they’re my kids’ classmates. A couple of things worth noting as an “insurrection” narrative is crafted: 1. This crowd was almost entirely students 2. Everyone you see passed through a metal detector and through security 3. They were loud - and it was tense - but it was in no way violent 4. At one point three students blocked a bathroom - and the state troopers got physical as they cleared a path 5. no students were on the floor at any point 6. At one point a few Democratic freshmen state reps took to the floor with a megaphone. The Democratic leadership was yelling for them to stop - and they’ll likely get censured. 7. Whether we agree or not with the message - protest is a fundamental right. It’s rarely a solution by itself - but it often makes room to find a solution. Do with that as you will.

I want to remind and encourage everyone to interact with the community in way that adds to the overall community. We can agree and disagree on all manner of things - but do it in good faith.

There are some things I’m going to keep private out of respect - but by all accounts one of the children acted in a truly heroic manner. Lives were almost certainly saved because of it. These children acted like they were trained. Lord bless them and keep them all.

We live in a terribly fallen world. Events like yesterday are worst nightmares realized. When I look at the arc of scripture from Genesis to Revelation - I know that we're closer to the end than we are the beginning. That Jesus broke the curse of the garden - and has put the end game in motion. It cannot come soon enough. I appreciate that we do not mourn without hope. Because it sure feels awfully heavy right now.

The manifesto doesn't matter. As reasonable people we're drawn to looking for a reason for something - but sometimes there just isn't one. A mentor told me a long time ago when working a case involving children that, "you're trying to make logical sense of something that can't be understood." The reason it happened was this person was terribly broken. Should it be studied by people who might look for warning signs in other cases? Sure, I guess. Even that probably won't do much good. It's not like any legislature is going to give them the tools to do something about it. This girl did contact a former middle school teammate and tell her she was going to do something terrible and that she was going to die. She received the message at a few minutes before 10:00 The girl made contact with 911 at 10:13. The first call from campus happened at 10:14.

My wife works less than a mile from there. Truly horrific situation. MNPD engaged quickly.

Glad you’re okay. That could have been a lot worse.

Grimey’s and Phonoluxe are great. Third Man Records doesn’t have a lot of vintage but is worth a visit. McKay’s and Great Escape have a ton of stuff.

He also was apparently quite involved in several video game series. He’s Sylens in the Horizon Zero Dawn franchise - which if you’ve played that and Forbidden West - it’s quite the storyline.

Credit Suisse has been known to have problems for over a year now - but their stock is down 97% and their priced in chances of collapse are currently at 47%. They’d be considered an SIB (systemically important bank) or as you might know it - “too big to fail.”

There are some peculiarities to a bank where a lot of equity investors keep bringing in dump trucks of cash and they’re not lending a bunch out. Matt Levine (whose newsletter you should probably read) put it really well:

Think about it like this. Let’s assume a borrower wants to buy a house with a traditional 30-year fixed mortgage and 20% down. They’d like to keep their payment to $2000/month. A year and a half ago before rates started rising, that couple could have gotten a mortgage at 2.25% and would have been shopping for a $520k house. Today, at 7.09% that same buyer with the same fundamentals is looking for a $330k house to keep their payment at something they can afford. So that couple’s budget has been cut to around 63% of what it was before rates started rising. That same kind of math applies in a different way when banks bundle up big packages of mortgage and sell them as mortgage backed securities. They’re suddenly holding something that was worth less than it was last year. Importantly for this story they have it on their books and this have to account for losses in value. For the average homeowner, it really doesn’t matter so long as you’re not planning on moving anytime soon. If you bought a house in late 2021 and then needed to sell it because your job got transferred or whatever - then you might well find yourself underwater.

That’s right. Those are totally different animals.

I though I’d post this here just to put a stake in the sand, because this may turn out to be one of the most important charts we’ll see this year: What you’re basically looking at on this chart is unrealized losses in the hundreds of billions. Mortgage backed securities (remember the other time in recent memory where you heard/learned this term) are trading way lower. The underlying cause is essentially that mortgages closed in 2020 and 2021 are now basically trading at 65 cents on the dollar. It turns out that interest rates go up, too. And, a lot of our venture backed business models simply don’t work when money isn’t free. There are a few “bloggers” who have been talking about this. A lot of people read their newsletters. You probably saw Thursday that a a few venture capitalists told their portfolio companies to move their money from one of these banks and caused a bank run that wound up collapsing the 18th largest bank in the country - Silicon Valley Bank. Panics are a funny thing - and I think there’s a non-zero chance of seeing some much larger collapses this week. Ought to be an awfully interesting week. I hope I’m wrong.

I’m a squash casserole fan - I’ll eat about any variant. This is about the best one I’ve had - it’s not runny at all and is really good: https://gardenandgun.com/recipe/squash-casserole/ Its earned its place at our Thanksgiving table.

Jiffy has a place in the Southern lexicon at least as much as Martha White or White Lily. It’s not my idea of “cornbread” - but it’s great as a muffin. I like mixing up a couple of boxes and cooking it in a loaf pan. Then I like to slice it, butter it up, and then toast it up in a skillet.

1/2 cup unsalted butter melted or bacon grease 1 cup all-purpose flour 1 cup yellow cornmeal or polenta 1 tablespoon sugar (optional - doesn’t make it sweet) 2 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 1/2 cup buttermilk 2 large eggs This is for your big cast iron. Half it and use a smaller 6” cast iron. Buttermilk is the key ingredient. If I’m being particular- use King Arthur all purpose flour and the best cornmeal you can find. Pro tip - stick your cast iron in the oven and melt your butter in the cast iron. Pour the rest of your batter over it once hot. Don’t mix it. You’ll get a great crust that way. Made this the other evening along with a big pot of red beans and rice for several homeless guys. Several mentioned that it was the best meal they’d had all season. There is joy in good simplicity.

I've used the ones above in size medium and size large. I don't notice a huge difference. I take them off if I'm getting something out of my pocket - but other than that I'm usually able to leave them on. If I'm writing/marking - it's probably with a construction pencil - and I use one that clips on my pocket or tool belt and can simple be dropped down into the holder. While I'm here - let me go ahead and make a pitch for the greatest construction pencil ever... https://www.amazon.com/Pica-Dry-Longlife-Automatic-Pencil-3030/dp/B002X7Y90U @peejmanif you've not used one of these - you should get one - the whole design of the thing just brings a smile to any engineer's face.

I don’t know that you’ll totally get away from that. I‘d love to have a nice pair of leather gloves with all kinds of character like you see in the old western movies. But there’s a reason you only see those in the movies - because they’re not real. If we’re using gloves to protect our hands - then they’re a consumable item and we should think of them like that. So then it’s down to balancing “how do I consume these less frequently at a reasonable price point.“ The gloves I posted above meet that criteria for me. They’re super comfortable, and it doesn’t make me viscerally angry to have to replace them. I can’t even count how many mechanic type gloves I’ve worn out over the years after less than a day of use. Paying 25 or 30 bucks for a “heavy duty” pair just makes you mad when they wear out. I keep two types of gloves around. The ones I posted above, and a $20 box of nitrile gloves that I use when I just want to keep my hands clean.

These “HydraHyde” gloves by Wells Lamont are on the shelf at Lowe’s and have become my favorite over the last several years. Whatever they treat them with really seems to toughen the leather up while still staying soft. https://www.lowes.com/pd/Wells-Lamont-HydraHyde-Large-Mens-Leather-Multipurpose-Gloves/1000380323 I don’t use gloves on a daily basis - but I’d call myself a heavy weekly user. I just bought my third pair in maybe 6 years - the second pair is still fine. I wore the first pair out. They’re typically around $15 so they won’t break the bank