Lord Ratner

To be fair to the other side, it's not actually clear that he's using these solely as a negotiating tool. When the president talks about the wonders of President McKinley, the only way to interpret that is that the tariffs are part of a plan to fund the government. Now I happen to support that plan, but it certainly pours water over the argument that Trump is just trying to twist everybody's arm with tariffs. At a certain point, unless we want to that inflation run wild, increase income taxes, and all the other stuff that will be required to bring our debt under control, tariffs are a pretty great way to fund your government. There's a reason so many places use them.

If you're going to be using supersonic rounds, then it doesn't make a ton of sense to choose 300 blackout over 556. That's not to say 300 blackout isn't going to ruin someone's day, but the ballistics of 556 are more damaging in pretty much every configuration over any 300 black. Especially if you don't care about overpenetration, then then 556 is going to put the most damaging hole in the bad guy. 300 blackout is quiet, scary quiet, and not having to worry about deafening yourself while defending your home is one of the things I like about it. But 556 suppressed is still quiet enough that you probably aren't going to ruin your flying career defending your home, and you get all the benefits of the sheer ferocity of 556. If you absolutely need the shortest SBR, or want a hearing safe home defense gun, then 300 black makes sense. That's what I have. But if you're going to use super sonic ammo I'd probably stick with 556.

I love my Rattler, but you pay a big premium for MCX guns. If it's just for the collection I'd want something that looks like the original. The Zenith ZF-5 fits the bill

Nice try, Diddy.

The Sport of Kings claims another career. Starting to wonder if women in the military was really the force multiplier it was pitched as? 😂🤣

Boeing is just what the DOD would look like if it had financial and performance accountability. It's a perfect match.

Two things that should probably never be allowed in that airspace at night. Circling to another runway, and maintaining visual separation. It's hard enough to get eyes on the correct airplane landing at Tulsa at night. I can't think of any way to be absolutely certain you have the correct set of blinking lights in that airspace.

You are incorrect. Chat gpt absolutely has a web search capability. You are confusing the LLM with the many surrounding services that create a product you can use like ChatGPT or DeepSeek, including the phone or web app that acts as an interface between the LLM and the user. The app has all the same security risks any other app, such as TIK TOK, can have.

It is not open source, it's open weight.

Old people suck. It's an inescapable force of nature that as you get older you get shittier. All you can do is try to start the process from a better position and slow the rate of decent into self-absorbed entitlement. Some do a very poor job of this. Add a lifetime of irresponsible financial planning, and maybe even an identity that is too wrapped up in the fantasy of a 1960s style airline captain, you end up with guys do and say anything to cling to the job longer.

It's already a huge stretch to call anything related to J6 treason. No one was working for a foreign entity against our government, and no one was trying to replace one form of government with another. In fact the people involved (wrongly) believed they were defending our system and the integrity of our elections. The intent is a vital distinction. That doesn't mean it was rational or acceptable. It was a riot, and riots are almost always bad. This one certainly was. But that's not treason.

Okay I admit it, vertical landing is way cooler than I thought.

I think you're confusing being out of touch with reality with mounting a legal defense. I have a little knowledge of this topic...

I'd love to see what 5.7 could do compared to 9 mm through some more plausible self-defense scenarios, such as shooting through a car door or windshield. I remember when 357 Sig was being touted to the police because you could shoot right through a windshield and still neutralize a homicidal driver, but that's just another caliber that ended up sacrificed to the altar of 9 mm. I always liked Paul Harrell's videos, and he has a pretty good one on 5.7 showing that it is still going to fuck your day up if you get hit with it. Certainly to the point that I think it's reasonable to consider for carrying. But I don't think you can extend that argument to say that it is *better* or *as good* as the 9mm... Just like the guys who are carrying 1911s. Yeah, it's a gun and it'll work, but it's pretty hard to make an objective argument that a 45 ACP 1911 is a superior concealed carry weapon, unless you're just such a bad shot that you need the weight of a 1911 and feather trigger to hit the target, in which case, yeah, that would be your best option. I'm sure I'll piss someone off here who carries a 1911 with that statement 🤣😂. It is truly incredible what has been done with 9mm though.

A TCAS alert is not "common" to the point you ignore them, even in DCA. Or any airport in America. Or anywhere. Especially when you can see the converging altitudes. Now, I can understand the regional pilots continuing through a tcas alert because they heard that the other aircraft has them in sight. Especially when it's a slow-moving helicopter. And getting visual on the wrong aircraft in the ocean of bright lights, on nogs, is also completely predictable. So far I don't think this is on the pilots of either aircraft, but we'll see. But if the helicopter didn't have a display that shows the surrounding traffic, this is on the military. And anybody who is surprised by that has had their head in the sand forever. DCA has been pretending like their bullshit airspace arrangement is perfectly ok and no big deal for a long time. Sadly, this was bound to happen. Tragedies happen, and maybe there is a traffic display in the helicopter, but so far the Helo pilots over here opining do not believe there is one. Any -60 pilots know the answer? Drowning in ice water is a horrific way to go. I can't even fathom being one of the families right now.

Anyone remember the KCBM sim instructor who went on the news on the 90s saying that the air force was refusing to add TCAS to aircraft and it was a hazard... Right before a military plane crashed into an airliner over the ocean killing everyone? The military never learns... What a shitty day for aviation.

The obvious counterpoint is that the average self-defense posture doesn't include planning for body armor. And 5.7 doesn't have great ballistics. It doesn't have bad ballistics, but for the higher price you probably want better performance. Against armor it's the only option for compact concealability. But I'm not sure how much I care. Personally, one of the reasons I carry is because I have kids, and the places that kids congregate have become (rare, admittedly) targets for the social-reject-mass-shooters. That's probably the most likely bad guy to have body armor in a self-defense situation... short of a Heat-style bank robbery, and I ain't getting involved in that 🤣😂. If one can consider the ballistics of 5.7 "good enough" for CCW purposes (verdict pending), and we don't care about body armor, then we still have the issue of capacity. 21 rounds is a *lot* of lead to throw at a problem, and like I said, I don't carry spare magazines, and neither do most others. Going from 13 to 21 for a sub compact (and 13 rounds is a recent development thanks to the P365X) is a huge upgrade. And the ammo cost is mostly irrelevant since this isn't a gun to take to the range for a full day of shooting. 1k-2k rounds to get comfortable, then 100 rounds every few months to stay proficient. Some high-dollar personal defence ammo for when you are carrying, but that's (hopefully) a one-time charge. So I'm gonna get it and see. I've got to do more research on the ballistics. I might just buy a pork butt and see for myself. I know the round will zip through bone, but will it just zip through the bad guy entirely? Not ideal. Then it has to feel and carry like the P365x which I absolutely love. With KelTec, who knows? Also it's fucking hideous, but I feel it can get away with that for being truly unique. Besides, M2 proves every day that you can be hideous *and* useful. 🤣🖕😚

During WWII there were scientists in the Manhattan project leaking research to the Soviets. They thought the technology was too powerful and too dangerous to be in the hands of one nation. And the technical, socially awkward, autistic-adjacent minds of the world's top brainiacs had an uncomfortable appreciation for a communist system that "solved" a lot of the messiness associated with a free democratic system. Sound familiar? I can't imagine how the Chinese got their hands on that data when nearly every originating member of the OpenAI team has resigned with very public protests regarding the safeguards in place for the advent of AGI.

Retarded. He starts the article by telling us that he *used to* talk to Elon all the time, then provides an analysis that has zero insider insight or connection to his experiences with Elon. But he hopes the reader will assume that his five reasons are somehow informed by something Elon told him. Point 2 is a perfect example. He should have written "I believe he was upset..." But instead he makes it seem like Elon told him this personally. Point 3 is even more retarded. Lot of people out there who are upset they didn't get to ride the elevator to the top with him.

Yeah I'm breaking my rule about new calibers, because this is such an intriguing gun. It's a pure CCW gun, no other purpose, so 5.7 makes sense if you want to cram the maximum number of rounds in it. And once you're proficient with it, you only need to keep a single box of carry ammo for it, and you can just buy a box at the range when you pop in to stay current. I dunno, it might suck, but it might also be genius. I'll let y'all know when I get it. If it was $800-1k I'd laugh and move on. But at $400, if I don't like it I'll sell it for $200 and call it a day, or just keep it in the safe to confuse people 🤣.

You're missing the point. There are two reasons this is interesting, the first is California and other states that are putting restrictions on how many rounds are removable magazine can carry. This bypasses it in a way that will drive them insane. But the second, which I find more compelling, is how many people out there think that they're going to be reloading in some sort of Red Dawn style shootout. The idea of this new pistol is to give you 21 rounds in something much smaller and easier to conceal than a full frame handgun. If it conceals as well as a p365, then I would much rather have the extra eight rounds then the ability to swap magazines (which I absolutely do not carry extra magazines). But it's Kel-Tec. They're basically the only innovative gun maker left, but they strike out *a lot.* I will say, I have enjoyed the KSG-410 quite a bit.

Anyone see KelTec's new CCW abomination? I think it might actually be pure genius, but everything with KelTec is a crap shoot. But for $400, I think I'm going to break my rule about buying new calibers... I just hope it's actually comfortable to shoot.

"It hasn't got anything to do at all with what someone else paid for their home. Property taxes must cover the things we agree that property taxes must cover." You are not a conservative. That's fine, and maybe you are in other areas, but your taxation philosophy is juvenile at best. If you can engage on the topic by actually responding to the questions being posed to you, we can continue. Otherwise I can only point out how you're wrong, I can't actually make you read it. Or understand it for that matter. That's my shortcoming, not necessarily yours.

Once again, you're not really saying anything of substance. But we can take this argument one or two steps further to show the absolute absurdity of your contention. Some people, through the gross unfairness of the sales tax system, are paying far less than other people to fund all of our infrastructure because they just refuse to buy more things. Your most consistent "evidence" is how everyone else does it differently. That's rather amusing coming from an American. I believe we're one of only two or three countries on Earth who have codified Free speech into the foundation of our country. And boy does that create some problems with social division. I guess since we're the only ones doing it it must be a contributing factor, eh? Our gun laws are pretty unique as well. Doesn't take much to see what a huge contributing factor that is to violence and death. You have danced around every single attempt to address the actual issue of both property tax, and the concept of a property tax that adjusts based only on the spending of others. It doesn't matter how many other people are doing it. Is it right, or is it wrong? If it is wrong, then it is not a viable solution, and therefore not a contributing factor. The discussion has no point if we broaden it to allow for unethical systemic decisions. Nowhere have I asserted that taxation in and of itself is immoral or wrong. I've been very specific with what type of taxation I am referring to, even going deeper as to isolate changes to that mechanic rather than the mechanic itself. The *entire* point is that some forms of taxation are moral, and some forms are not. Prop 13 was a rebellion against an immoral form of taxation. That's it. Therefore whatever the solution is, it is not to revert to the immoral form of taxation just because everyone else is doing it. The solution, if you refuse to fix spending, is to increase the forms of taxation that are not unethical. Look, California was just ahead of the curve. Texas is having this debate now and is moving in the direction of California anyways. For 100 plus years the housing market tracked inflation almost perfectly, so this conversation was largely irrelevant. Unless you were in California during the '70s when explosive growth caused their housing prices to balloon. The rest of the country didn't experience a similar spike in prices until the global financial crisis broke the housing market. That's the only reason "everyone else does it differently." And all of this started with a statement you started with that is objectively false. "This is perhaps one of the consequences of serially under-funding your state based on a property tax law that all but guarantees your local governments will be unable to fund basic services." It is top to bottom disingenuous to imply that California cannot fund basic services as a function of their property tax law. First of, all prop 13 does is limit tax *growth*. Second, home price appreciation in California has wildly outpaced inflation, so proposition 13 is only preventing the tax revenues from increasing in the same irrational manner that the housing market has increased. But the inflation in home prices is not matched by the inflation in infrastructure costs. Third, even the California government acknowledges that tax revenues are not lower due to prop 13 because other taxes were increased to compensate: Sales, Hotel, and Utility Taxes Largely Replaced Lost Property Tax Revenue. Figure 14 shows that since Proposition 13 passed property tax revenue (adjusted for inflation) for cities and counties increased over 100 percent. In comparison, hotel, sales, and utility taxes increased over 600 percent. The significant increase in these other local taxes reflects cities’ and counties’ efforts to replace lost property tax revenue. Adjusted for inflation, Proposition 13 reduced cities and counties property tax revenue by almost $10 billion in the first year. Compared to their revenues in 1978–79, local sales, hotel, and utility taxes generated roughly $8.5 billion in additional revenue in 2014–15. Cities and Counties Rely Less on Property Tax Revenues Today. Figure 15 shows the share of revenue by source for cities and counties before Proposition 13 through 2014–15. Before Proposition 13, cities and counties relied almost entirely on property tax revenue. Over time, however, cities and counties increasingly relied on taxes they could raise with voter approval to replace lost property tax revenue. As a result, these other sources of revenue likely are paying for services that before Proposition 13 would have been paid with property tax revenue.

There is no "state of California" with a mind and an opinion. And if there was, it certainly doesn't agree with what you just said. If a state is its people, they have repeatedly (as you point out) refused to repeal 13. If a state is its politicians, then the democrats would like to repeal prop 13, and the republicans would not. Just look at Proposition 5 from the recent elections. If you are siding with the democrats (against the republicans) on a tax measure, your position is almost certainly not a conservative one. I don't live in CA anymore, so I don't benefit. I think the more likely source of your struggle to understand is that you have taken a poorly-considered position on an issue you don't understand well, combined with my poor ability to explain the matter. Everything you've written so far has been chapter-and-verse from the liberal position against proposition 13, yet you have tried to shroud the position as somehow an informed conservative stance. I will make it very simple. No tax that can be changed after the transaction is moral. It might be simpler if you just justify your support for Elizabeth Warren's wealth tax. If you do not support such a tax, then perhaps just explain how property tax is not a wealth tax? You point to the very successes of proposition 13 as the problem with it, then suggest that the supporters are confused. They are not. The two houses in your example were purchased for different prices. Period. Why do you believe that someone who buys something at one price should be saddled with your tax burden simply because you paid more for similar goods at a different time? Your post reeks of the type of jealousy that drives socialist policy. Because your point is illogical. This is the tax version of "she shouldn't have worn that dress if she didn't want to be raped." I already showed that the taxation and spending levels in CA wildly exceed similarly states, even with Prop 13. So when you say that prop 13 is a contributing factor, you either reduce the concept of contributing factor to the point of irrelevance (all taxes and spending are part of the equation, therefore everything is a contributing factor) or you are elevating prop 13 above the legion of bad tax and spending decisions in CA that should be fixed. I can simplify it further. Should CA repeal prop 13 or stop spending billions on not-solving homelessness. What about needle exchange programs? Zoning restrictions that prevent new housing from being built? I'm guessing you can come up with dozens or hundreds of things CA should do first before repealing the single tax provision that sets them ahead of the rest of the country in conservative/libertarian tax policy. The point is that when you have the biggest budget in the country, and the most tax revenue per capita, your problem is not with taxation. It is not a contributing factor, unless everything is, at which point, why say anything at all? So in your mind, you don't own a home. The state owns it and you pay an adjustable fee for the privilege of living there, yes? These are absurd analogies. Let's go one by one: Your toilet flushes are paid by the wastewater service fees assessed by your municipality. They do not scale with the price of your home over time. When you go to Disneyland, you are not purchasing a lifetime pass, nor are you purchasing one of the rides. This one is particularly weak. The communists are the ones who believe you have no right to ownership of property. Property tax is definitionally a wealth tax. You bring up socialism as some sort of defense, but the simple reality is you are on the side of California Progressives and against California conservatives. That's not a guarantee you are wrong, but it's as close as you'll get. Which of us is siding with Bernie here? Honestly it doesn't seems like you've thought much about this at all, as your examples and scenarios are incongruent at best. Agreed, this discussion is quite fun. Obviously on a surface (and largely useless) level you are correct literally. California doesn't have enough money. But that sentence is incomplete and misleading. The complete first sentence is : California does not have enough tax revenue to fund the infrastructure required to keep the state from burning to the ground and the many social programs they wish to enact. If you answer that sentence with: California needs to increase tax revenue in order to fund the infrastructure and social programs (which is absolutely not the conservative answer) then the next part gets us to prop 13. And that question is, assuming we are focusing on the property tax component and not the budget voting threshold: Should a person who responsibly purchased a home at a price they could afford, with a tax burden they could afford, have to pay more (even if it exceeds their capacity to afford) simply because another person at a later date paid a higher price for a different but similar house? If you believe the answer to that question is "yes," then I believe you hold an unethical position on the matter.