No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!
This is my review of Alesmith Speedway Grand Prix Chocolate Raspberry Edition:
Okay fine, I will only make a reference to the 1964 film Goldfinger 2-3 more times*. Starring Sean Connery and a probably the last handful of attractive British women. You have my word as a Spaniard.
Without evidence earlier this week Elon Musk, known without evidence as the DOGEfather, made a startling statement without evidence that the US Treasury’s Bullion Depository at Ft. Know was empty. ALL WITHOUT EVIDENCE.
Ft. Knox of course is a civil war installation that was sought after by both the Union and Confederacy due to its central location during the war. It was not until after the war did it begin to acquire its reputation “as nothing more than a bank[!]”**
During FDR’s great gold purge the government had to do something with the gold besides painting half naked women with it.*** So instead of actually trying to back paper currency with it and used taxpayer resources wisely they just put it in a granite vault. A granite vault surrounded by 109,000 acres of Appalachia, patrolled by one of the US Army’s largest cavalry brigades, artillery, tanks, and probably a few guys with guns. Needless to say they built one hell of a vault, and they appeared to go to great lengths to keep whatever is in it safe from view.
The trouble is there are several nation states purchasing bullion at levels not seen before. Many are even rumored to be purchasing for the explicit purpose of backing an alternative reserve currency to the US Dollar. Not surprising, given the only thing that backs the US Dollar since some random date in history that has an absurd number of correlations and trends affiliated with it, are nuclear missiles. The last time any of the 15 vaults were opened was in 1974. Only one was opened in front of a few politicians and reporters in a made for TV event, all were required to pass through a metal detector on the way out to ensure none of the gold bars disappeared from the vault.
Incidentally, not a single bar in that vault was subject to an assay, nor were any of them subject to a serial number audit. All we saw was just a lady standing in a room filled with gold brick. Ever since then all we ever got were assurances from people I wouldn’t trust to safely operate a motor vehicle the gold is still there.
Open the goddamn vault, what’s the worst thing they could have in there, a Balrog?
If you’re going to play a round of golf on a sunny afternoon, this is not the beer to be drinking. So hats off to Alesmith on that one.****. This is part of their Grand Prix series, a tour de force of Imperial Stouts around 12% abv. This one in particular is the fruity one. But its at least a rich raspberry that works well with the absurd chocolate malt profile. Its dark, its as thick as pancake syrup but probably won’t leave you feeling like it gave you diabetes just by drinking it! Alesmith Speedway Grand Prix Chocolate Raspberry Edition: 4.1/5 12% ABV
*Goldfinger Reference #1
**Goldfinger Reference #2
***Goldfinger Reference #3
****Goldfinger Reference #4 (so sue me)
“Chocolate Raspberry”
No.
Yes, fuck yes,
Alesmith is a good brewery
Indeed
Concur on both counts.
The last time any of the 15 vaults were opened was in 1974.
“Full faith and credit.” What further assurance could you need?
Assurances from ‘Top Men’, of course.
Random Task
https://www.kershaw-knives.net/Kershaw-Random-Task-II-1515.php
I wanted to try a tanto point variation and I’m not a fan despite my interest in Japan.
I was half expecting an exotic sex act.
Not Q worthy…
There isn’t enough gold there to drive out in a Ford Ranchero
(my favorite car in Goldfinger).
I was expecting a figure in the trillions, to be honest.
What they are claiming is there, isn’t enough the back a month’s worth of government grift.
Open the goddamn vault, what’s the worst thing they could have in there, a Balrog?
Al Capone’s papers.
Balrog, Al Capone’s papers, portal to hell, all of these are weak and unfrightening possibilities! What if they open the vault and discover a scene from SugarFree starring Hillary and Huma? What’s worse than no gold? Gold tainted with the essence of innocents sacrificed in lust fueled romps! Gold coated in fluids so vile that only purification in the heart of an exploding star can cleanse the taint! What happens to the dollar then?
ROAD MAPS!
Lunch break from the Pistol Permit Safety class. It’s so close that I came back to my house to eat and will be back there well before we start up again.
From a factual stnadpoint, I already know everything on the curriculum, but I have to go through the process lest I give them an excuse to reject my paperwork.
Plus tomorrow we get to shoot guns. Always a plus.
There was this gorgeous SiG 1911 in the store side of the place. How are SiG’s 1911s in terms of quality?
Permission slip to enjoy inalienable rights. Nice.
Do we still have people insisting on licensing journalists?
If you want to finance my lawyer…
I get it. No criticism of you. I just get unreasonably angry when this subject comes up.
Well, it’s a 1911, the prototype for the best handgun ever made, the Browning Hi-Power. So, you can get something only made due to he plans being free on the internet, or a good pistol that doesn’t use a 2×4 for the grip design.
Or, go and buy a Python.
zwak, what kind if tiny hands do you have that the 1911 has a large grip?
And the hi-power can’t be the best, as it’s chamberedin 9mm.
licensing journalists
You think you can be one without a college degree (and the brainwashing that goes with that)?
Normal sized hands, and I didn’t say it was a large grip, only that it had the ergonomics of a chunk of wood.
And you know it is accurate, as everyone who shoots it modifies it like that weird kid down the street does with his Dodge Neon: extended mag wells, beaver tail grip safety, extended slide release, and every other “go fast” measure.
I’ve always found 1911s comfortable to shoot.
All joking aside, it seems that between the BHP and the 1911 really depends on which you shot first. I learned handguns with the BHP, and find it wonderful, while others find that they get hammer bite, especially if they learned on a 1911. For me it is the other way around, as I find a 1911 (and I do have one) agricultural at best and in such need of aftermarket parts as to make it kind of a joke.
Also, I have never been a recoil queen. And while .45 isn’t some monster caliber, it does have more muzzle flip than I like. I like accurate small bore, and mostly shoot .22 or air guns at this point in my life.
A nice .17 hmr is a very fun time.
I’ve got a nice one in 10mm. Based on a sample of one, I’d recommend.
😀👍
I like the 1911, the BHP, and L-frames….so very much a 20th century traditionalist. The first pistol I ever shot was probably K-frame 38 (Model 10? who knows…we’re talking Watergate), but, to your point, I will admit that the 1911 came early. EDC is G30, so a bizarre mix.
But I like pretty much all guns, I’ve never understood the recoil thing (unless we’re talking about ten gauges or 600Nitro, recoil is just this part of a process that has been second nature to me since before I sprouted balls).
I agree with “agricultural,” but design-for-assembly wasn’t even thought of in 1900. All those guys knew was keep it sloppy enough that a little dirt doesn’t matter….but that’s why shooting one is fun the same way lobbing 303 at something hundreds of yards away is fun and the way that driving an 8N is fun.
I too like a model 10, and have a couple, but, even better a Colt E frame, and have a couple of those too. With autos, I like a push back as opposed to the muzzle coming up, so not a matter of amount of recoil, more how it is engineered.
I have shot a .500 3-1/2 NE, and, yes, that was a bit of recoil. But, by recoil queen, what I am referring to are people who like shooting just for the big boom features, which do not do much for me alone. But, as I am now with zero balance due to physical issues, even a bit of recoil is tiring more than anything, as the old body just doesn’t soak it up like it used too.
of course….you can only do what you can do…take care of yourself and enjoy
Can’t speak to the 1911, but the p938s that my wife and I own are very nice pistols.
Sig is not where I would look for a 1911.
why not? and where would you look?
I’m rather happy with my Kimber.
And yet the internet likes to talk shit about Kimber.*
*I have their Micro 9 esv. Excellent pistol.
I sold my jamomatic Kimber. Would not buy again.
Dry firing exercises are good forearm exercise. (part of the curriculum)
Sig doesn’t a bad 1911, but they do use an external extractor. Its not a dealbreaker, but if you’re the type that stocks up on spare parts its something ti consider.
They also change the external geometry just a bit so while any 1911 holster should fit, some won’t.
I see.
Thank you.
I still have some time to decide. But I’ve told myself for decades that my first handgun would be a 1911, so I’ve been browsing those offerings.
Dog and pony show. We have known for decades Knox has no gold. The notion of a dragon’s lair full of gold lives on in myth in the modern mind but it was long ago dispersed and we knew it. So? Amazing how such things take on an air of magic.
I dont think Elon meant it was stolen by a bunch of guys with flashlights and masks in the middle of the night, hauling if off into the dark in sacks over their shoulders.
No, he meant aliens took it.
Probably. *sigh*
The question isn’t is there gold there. The question is, who owns it/ has a claim to it. Gold is pledged all the time for futures contracts and Allah knows what else. A real audit won’t stop at “Yep, that’s a lot of gold”.
Consequences
If the department is eliminated or rendered obsolete through de-funding and downsizing personnel, the more than 42 million federal student loan borrowers who currently owe a debt to ED could find themselves in administrative turmoil.
First and foremost, even if the department is eliminated, borrowers who owe money on their federal student loans would be expected to continue paying back that debt, says Abby Shafroth, co-director of advocacy and director of the student borrower assistance program at the National Consumer Law Center.
They should sell off the loan portfolio. They might get as much as six or seven cents on the dollar for some of it.
They sold it off long ago. I know people who get calls from a dozen different collectors on their loans even after they have paid them off. One guy paid his off nearly 3x over and still gets calls.
The whole student loan fiasco is a clusterfuck beyond description.
“They might get as much as six or seven cents on the dollar for some of it.”
Also, that is probably more than the degrees they paid for are worth.
They change servicers every few years anyway, and it is always a miserable, confusing, ineptly run hassle to actually log in and pay them every time the servicer changes.
It’s been floated that the Department of the Treasury would take over federal student loans if ED is dismantled. What could that potentially look like?
It might not make an immediate difference, but it’s going to make a difference over time if the person tasked with setting the rules for the student loan program is the Secretary of Education — whose job is just to ensure access to education and excellence in education — versus if the person tasked with setting the rules for the program is the Treasury Secretary, who’s tasked with collecting taxes and overseeing federal revenues.
Let Treasury run the student loan operation as a business based on the expectation of repayment instead of a wink-and-a-nod money laundering scam?
Here’s a crazy idea. What if the schools ran their own finance operations and made tuition loans directly to their own students based on whatever risk assessments they deemed appropriate, with no government backing or guarantees?
Banks are in the business of making loans, govt.s should not be.
Don’t we have money changing intstitution thingies that are good at this stuff?
Ah, yes “banks” 🙂
The Australian government stores their gold with the bank of England – and shenanigans ensued.
https://x.com/AdameMedia/status/1893298304810615147
‘We don’t physically move the gold, but when we do we make sure we replace it gold that is just as good. Trust us.’
Or “We stole it. What are you going to do about it?”
They replace the gold bars with this.
Damn, Ted, that was fucking hilarious. Remarkably dark, and *absolutely* ‘too much’ for people to joke about now.
People are so coddled. Have lots of death around? (Crime in the ’70s alone, let alone illness/disease.) Ya gotta joke ’bout it! It’s no shock most aren’t funny, they don’t *dare* try to be. Generations+ are afraid of existence, to the logical point where they no longer can *handle* existence. See also: (Most) Everyone’s semi-to-severe mental illness, some of which(!), are real. (Exceedingly, *everything* ‘qualifies.’)
the Secretary of Education — whose job is just to ensure access to education and excellence in education
Stop it. You’re killing me.
***
According to the U.S. Mint, current gold holdings at the US Bullion Depository at Fort Knox are 147.3 million ounces. About half of the Treasury’s stored gold is kept at Fort Knox.
Has the gold ever been removed? The Mint says only very small quantities have been removed to test the purity of the gold during regularly scheduled audits. Except for these samples, no gold has been transferred to or from the depository for many years. The gold’s book value is $42.22 per ounce.
***
But the current market price for gold is about $2,735 per ounce. That means there’s $403 billion worth of gold at Fort Knox, plus similar amount in other US Treasury vaults.
Imperial stouts are OK, but like peanut stouts better. Same goes for milk stouts. Belching Beaver is a peanut butter milk stout.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYeIRJQyPtA
link
I see. I distinctly remember more than once expose’s on the gold being gone from Knox and remember the showing of the empty vaults. I think the complaint then was “So why are we maintaining the place?”. I am fairly certain I did not imagine that.
One theory I heard it is in effect a bank. Its storing gold for other countries and notating ownership via a ledger if they cannot receive and store it on their own. Which would mean it’s physically there but doesn’t belong to the US Government.
So the audit will look like this?
https://youtu.be/2oIKaP3Hzes
And when a country requests a withdrawal, they don’t necessarily get their gold back, they just get the amount of gold they’re requesting.
Well, it is fungible. Nobody cares if they make a cash withdrawal from their bank and it’s not the same bills they deposited months ago.
Serialized gold bars that have been assayed for quality are not exactly fungible.
They are fungible, ounce for ounce, with any other gold assayed for the same quality.
Yes and no. The gold itself is obviously fungible, but you will pay, and even receive when selling in some cases, a premium which varies based on the mint which struck or poured the round or bar in question. I can see US mint assayed and serialized bars commanding a premium right now.
link, take 2
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/what-to-know-about-fort-knoxs-gold-depository/ar-AA1zsT5q?ocid=BingNewsSerp
However much gold the fedgov has, I don’t think they’ve been telling the truth about how much or where it is.
This.
* Two things come to mind: I did see a supposed photo from the vaults once that looked very suspicious to me. The gold was stacked high on pallets and I remember thinking…no way in hell could a wooden pallet support that much freakin’ gold. I also thought that the amount of gold they showed, if real, would be probably most or more than all of the gold humans have ever mined. My instinct, which is never ever wrong ever dont even think it is wrong, was that the photo was very, very fishy.
Yeah but 5.4% aint cutting it
Just don’t do this.
https://www.bullionbypost.co.uk/gold-news/2019/may/07/worst-deal-uk-history-20-years-brown-sold-britains-gold/
Speaking of Odd Job, (Random Task *is* brilliant, the last vestige of still-funny Mike Myers), I am 99% employed! I went to the Aldi event but was sure there was no way they could top the official Walmart offer I got yesterday. Just put my info in and just gotta wait for a background check, which I pass. (I’ve never been *convicted*… my interrogations (for a bullshit, ‘assault’ on my boss that she faked) and legal battle was in S Korea.
I’m to be a “Digital Personal Shopper.” About half my day’ll be walking down aisles with a handheld telling me what shit to pick up. Then it goes back to a sorting room, and eventually gets delivered to folks’ cars. Only $14/hr, but the mostly solo/chill aspect of this is probably what I need.
“Here’s task. Accomplish it. Good. Here’s your NEXT task!…” <– *Insert cheerful Ev-face*
Background check may take a few days but they estimate my first day'll be Feb 26, with I'm sure a +- in there. I *will* have to do a drug test. Well. I have fake piss and I know how to use it! Myself and actions tend to make it fairly clear I am capable of many things. I hope for upward advance, but baby step, first. My Munchkin up in MN also likes this idea: Get 'good' at Walmart and there are jobs all over the country. Having a portable skill is important. I *do* have intent to continue writing and make my living that way, in whatever manner, but stability is far more crucial now. This is a good development for me, a predictably off-kilter one.
Nice, congratulations.
Good for you!
Thanks! Was fired from Octapharma Plasma and Grifols Biomat, for different but overlapping reasons (my needlework *was* good!), but my last ‘day’ was Dec 8. Two months later, Feb 7, I had a seizure while walking the dog and was found by…I don’t remember. Been meaning to get the police report for the details. I remember getting pulled OUT of the underbrush. And damn, Peabody. Good Boy.
Two weeks later I got the offer, signed today. Feels remarkable, and remarkably strange, to (soon) have ‘a place to go.’ Vaguely ‘aimless’ wandering is great when *that* is the purpose, and when I had the time/$ to do so, but it really fucking sucks in America/ most everywhere. Onward. Upward. Always. <– Gotta be 'down' to go, and understand the value of, 'up.'
Dood!
But congrats.
Huzzah!
I’ve noticed that the happiest people tend to be the most self-sufficient. It’s certainly been true for me.
Anything that increases your self-reliance increases your independence, freedom, and self-esteem.
^^ This dude, right here, gets it. Natch, from your travels and experience, I think we have similar, diff-sides of the same askew-coin mindset and life. Of great interest to me.
Was joking to myself: Bro is def a Paladin in that realm (parallel to ours): He’s strong, yet magically prescient. (Measured as fuck.) I’d say I’m the Recon, explorer and behind-enemy-lines guy. It’s not always fun ‘out there,’ but I do have to say: My life has been many things, but ‘boring’ it ain’t ever been. Your stories and life remind me of that in interesting ways. (We explored in extraordinarily different ways.)
(I’m also remarkably glad I finally got a new vape to replace the broken/lost one. Not having to go down to the garage to get stoned is a tremendous improvement.)
Movie trivia question, did Odd Job actually his hat out of the bars when he got electrocuted, or did it remain stuck? Will it show up in the Fort Knox audit?
It’s still there.
Geraldo will host The Best Most Classy TV Special!
*shudder*
Stossel should do it.
No rating?
I want my money back.
Do you want it now?
That is one of the most facepalmy ads ever made.
“I have money and I am dying to take 50 cents on the dollar just to be able to set it on fire!”
The vast majority of misery and poverty is self-inflicted.
No rating?
Oh shit, let me fix that.
I thought Hans Gruber’s brother stole the rest of the gold and took it to Canada?
Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaans!
SF?
The “gold depository” may be surrounded by 109000 acres of Appalachia but, as I recall, is visible from a major public road.
***
How much gold has been mined? According to gold.org, We’ve mined over 208,874 tonnes in weight of gold throughout human history. To put this into perspective, if this gold were a cube, it would fit snugly within the confines of a tennis court.
***
https://www.usgoldbureau.com/news/post/how-much-gold-has-been-mined
That works out to about 7.4 billion ounces, which means the US supposedly has about 4% of the world’s gold. Double-check: yep, US official reserves are about 8,000 metric tons.
Seems like you could have a much smaller vault. 4% of the volume of a cubic tennis court is about the size of a garage (15′ x 15′ x 9′).
If the hypothetical gold cube would fit in a tennis court, then it would be 36 feet long, wide, and tall.
That is correct. As I mentioned at least one of the photos I saw roughly looked like more than that….the total gold I mean.
Added a rating, this one was good.
As mentioned by Bro earlier this morning:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/ensuring-lawful-governance-and-implementing-the-presidents-department-of-government-efficiency-regulatory-initiative/
I dont think it has quite sunk in yet for very many people what this means.
Despite the shitty weather I cant complain about winter much. It means I am inside with a nice cozy fire, a wife napping on and off on the couch and three dogs that appear to be dead. It also means there is a huge dish of shephard’s pie in the oven waiting for me to dig into.
After that, nap time for me too.
I am still living in this apartment/ Air B&B. Fire alarm went off again today, chased us out of the building. I cannot wait for this to end.
I was enjoying peaceably assembling a ROXR wood model with my daughter when it went off.
Wait until the smoke detectors in your new place go off in the middle of the night.
That is my favorite. I reproduced some fake fire detectors for my own purposes after that happened twice at different times.
My personal hell is one going off, getting replaced, and a week lateral different one goes off at some ungodly hour.
*horrifying flashbacks to dorm life & alarms going off multiple times a week*
HOOTS, AH CANNAE GET BACK TO MY HOOS IN BONNIE SCOTLAND
Another for all you genetically deficient saps, God help you I mean bless you.
Goodness bless you, you need it.
This isn’t to inveigh against blind people but it is a damned good song.
I got served up an ad that said Gaza needs your mercy now. Boy was that delivered to the wrong audience.
I’ve been on a tear against Gaza for the last eighteen months but especially the last week.
I will inveigh against Palestine.
Binary can express anything a human language can, it just takes a lot more zeros and ones (or dots and dashes) as compared to number of letters/sounds in the source text/audio.
So theoretically, the minimum number of syllables in a spoken language is just two, like the ack-rack alien language in Mars Attacks!:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tca6HISaKVc
Morse can do it with a single sound, just changing duration.
Dinner Lady Arms How Justin Hawkins made the most mundane subject matter so epic, I don’t know. This whole album is awesome.
It’s not even one of their music videos!
Shared this before it’s about masturbating.
Is it just me, or am I all on my own again?
My favorite of their music videos. Not merely for the tawdry bits, you perverts, but for the music.
I rather like Justin Hawkins. He was also quite fast on Top Gear, IIRC. He has an incredible voice. There music is up my alley as well, tho I never dove into them as much as some others.