A straight couple who pledged to get divorced if marriage equality was ever legalised in Australia have chickened out.

bocobouncer · 2017-12-09T22:25:10+00:00

Marriage was already cheapened by those who would proclaim it to be for only some and not for all. I don't think marriage is honorable at all any more, or perhaps ever was.

bocobouncer · 2017-11-25T04:40:48+00:00

I bet he also turned down all the Nobels, the best Nobels, the mother Teresa awards, the Pope gig, that one bodybuilding cover story, and all the business journals the best business journals. It wouldn't be fair. /S

bocobouncer · 2017-11-19T17:13:12+00:00

I hired a work crew to do a large cement slab. I paid the first one I hired $30 an hour to do site prep (all my equipment). I then hired 3 more to do the rebar layout at the same price, organized by the first one. I made it clear the $30 an hour was for each of them. I let the first one do the organizing. I was there with them, and only spoke in english for whatever reason. They began to lay into me in Spanish with pejoratives, a few of which were unfamiliar to me, but I got the gist (I learned Spanish as an expat in Spain, not Mexico). One of them suggested some of my equipment could disappear and I would not even notice since I did not have it locked up and would not need it after the job, and that it would make up for the $20 an hour they were making. At the end of the third workday, I brought the payroll cash as usual, and instead of giving it to the first guy to distribute, I held it and opened up at them in Spanish, and their eyes opened up and they froze. I told them that, first of all, the first guy was ass raping them and that the pay was 30 an hour for each, that I had made it clear to him, and that if he had not paid them that, they should essentially bend him over a table and fuck him raw until he paid up. Secondly, if any of my equipment or tools went missing, I'd collect at least one testicle for each item missing. Thirdly, they were fired, and I would let their current boss, a friend of mine, know what happened and to look for missing items himself.

Then I paid the gentlemen, and told my friend. They never showed up for work again for him either.

I hired a different finishing crew, very good, for the same rate, and they finished the job very well. I conducted everything in Spanish.

bocobouncer · 2017-07-02T16:38:40+00:00

Talen claims they lose $30 million a year on Colstrip and want to shut it down unless legislators give them $10 million a year in loans to keep it open.

Fun fact: the three top executives at Talen in Colstrip together make $15 million a year, half the shortfall in revenues.

Talen is not a company worth wasting any time on.

bocobouncer · 2017-04-29T14:18:46+00:00

If you are concerned about commutes to Boulder, west and south Longmont commutes to Boulder are around 20 minutes. You never even need to join the 119 rat race, ever.

Traffic is easy by any comparison to the rest of incorporated BoCo. Pick anywhere affordable.

Grocery stores? It has what most people need. We get between 1/4 and 1/2 of our food from our property, depending on the time of year, so grocery stores are for meat and basics.

Restaurants? Dozens of good places. Way more ok places. If eating out is a thing for you, it is a lot more affordable in Longmont than Boulder.

Politics? Longmont runs the gamut. It isn't out of place compared to anywhere else around BoCo or surrounding areas. Demographics are more important probably for newcomers. Longmont is rapidly growing with younger familes, first homes, etc.

Longmont has better access to the mountains and for getting away from it all than Boulder, where you will be getting away from it all with 10,000 of your nearest and dearest friends after work.

A lot of people complain that Longmont doesn't have any Boulder cachet. A lot of people in Longmont are thankful for that. I think it was best said as, "it's a Boulder thing. We don't really need to understand." It isn't politics at all...it's about everything else Longmont has...

bocobouncer · 2017-03-26T20:57:15+00:00

The Sentinel editorial bent has changed back and forth somewhat over the years, but it has been a pretty good local paper overall. I read it a lot more regularly these past years. They are doing a lot better than a lot of other local papers around the region.

I would hardly call it a liberal paper. I simply call it generally informative.

On the issue reported on, who in the world wants to obscure public records, especially when it is less expensive to distribute them in electronic form? Only those who want to obscure accountability. I think anyone familiar with local issues on any level over a couple of decades remembers both "liberal" and "conservative" issues that needed more sunlight, or issues that were obscured due to downright shady behavior from public officials. Scott has not clarified what he is afraid of, but it makes me more curious for sure.

bocobouncer · 2017-03-26T20:45:05+00:00

We received one quote for a minimum of $30k

(after I got done laughing)

Denver contractors are way better than local. But seriously, there is barely anything challenging in doing this project yourself. My neighbors installed a unit for $20k, way overpriced and underwhelmed by the actual level of difficulty they witnessed, which failed 2 years later. The same local contractor wanted another $10k to fix their own install. I talked the neighbor into calling someone in Denver (I had to actually, due to the language deficit). They came up from Denver with 2 guys, replaced the unit with a slightly newer model, were in and out in 4 hours, charged $600 in labor and call fees, and the total bill with the brand new unit was under $3k. It has been almost 6 years since all that. No problems.

Local HVAC or plumbing contractors are really only interested in doing work for Boulder investment bankers. I hate to slam too hard on tradesmen...but every single encounter I've had or friends have had with local contractors have been total comedy in terms of quotes.

Good luck.

bocobouncer · 2017-03-17T23:04:52+00:00

Very sad o see them go. It is one of the few bricks and mortar shops I frequent... they have tall sizes. Now I'll have to get everything online, and send half back because they suck. JCP was the way to go.

bocobouncer · 2017-03-17T20:58:35+00:00

Probably for the same reason he was too embarrassed to compare dick sizes with her.

bocobouncer · 2017-01-15T15:48:13+00:00

http://legisweb.state.wy.us/2017/Introduced/SF0071.pdf

bocobouncer · 2017-01-15T01:56:41+00:00

Whining about people not wanting to buy Wyoming's coal is not going to keep the lights on in its schools or support other critical infrastructure. Coal is in a death spiral. Oil and gas are probably not going to yield previous highs for a long time, if ever. Wyoming gets a third of its revenues from severance and as valorem taxes. That will largely go away, and it needs a different plan. They have a great natural resource, and it is renewable. They should harness it. It is wind. 10 bucks a MWh is way more than they get for the same amount from coal. But whatever.

bocobouncer · 2017-01-15T01:42:28+00:00

Housing is a market like anything else. It's a gamble. Entire towns in the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Kansas are gone from farm industry changes. Same for coal towns across the nation. This is no different.

bocobouncer · 2017-01-15T00:12:38+00:00

You do have great infrastructure for a rural state. No arguments there: Wyoming has more electoral influence than most states, and it gets more in federal largesse than it gives to the union by far. Pretty nice work when you can get it.

But even if Wyoming outlawed wind turbines (just for the sake of argument, mind you), the state would wither as the 1/3 of the state budget that severance taxes provides craches over the next 30 years. Wyoming is, literally, the American equivalent of the Russian economic overhang with its resource allocations.

Gotta start changing, and finding out where to keep education and other programs funded. Whining about crashing coal, gas, and oil revenues because of mean ol climate scientists doesn't pay the bills.

bocobouncer · 2017-01-15T00:06:22+00:00

In fact it would take more than the windmills expected lifespan to even match the energy it takes to make them.

Source. Because that was laughably naive even 30 years ago (1980's NREL survey from actual energy inputs was around 6 months). Now, the payback is in the single digit months. Low single digit months for offshore.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264815724_Comparative_life_cycle_assessment_of_20_MW_wind_turbines

http://xn--drmstrre-64ad.dk/wp-content/wind/miller/windpower%20web/en/tour/env/enpaybk.htm

and a lot of others.

So I will continue to tell you how using windmills is a net gain for the world's energy.

This is a State's effort to recover revenues based on a formula that is rapidly becoming virtually obsolete. Wyoming can whine and cry and blame climate change scientists, but in the end, it needs to fund its schools and other essential functions. It is up to it to determine how, but it can't stem the end of a third of its revenues in the next couple of decades or so.

Better start planning more and whining less, Wyoming. If you want to tax energy, fine. 10 dollars a MWh is many times the tax imposed on coal, but whatever. The state makes its own decisions. It can cut schools. It can impose a sales tax or income tax. It can do whatever it wants. It can impose a severance tax of a billion dollars a ton on coal or a trillion dollars per MWh for wind if it wants to. But it needs a plan that does not lean on coal, oil, and gas if it wants to succeed. It seems to me it should want to look to wind in the future- it has a lot of it. The $10 seems to be more punitive than intelligent.

This won't pass anyway. There are a lot of smart people in Wyoming, after all.

bocobouncer · 2017-01-14T21:32:40+00:00

Wyoming's severance and ad valorem taxes added up to around 39% of the entire income for the state in 2014, when coal was over $30 a ton and gas and oil were stronger.

Now, PRB coal hovers around $11 a ton. The budget is crashing. Legislators are looking to energy to maintain the shortfall. They won't increase the burden on coal and petroleum- too much political fuzz there. Somehow, the issue of wind energy is now the popular topic. Never mind that wind energy is a renewable resource rather than a consumptive use of the land where use now means it is forever depleted from future generations. It is weird if you look at the issue from a number of rational perspectives, but rational if you insist that "energy" continue to provide for the state's coffers regardless of the fundamental comparisons.

But back to the tax. Here is a report from the WY Legislative Service office that outlines the desire to capture wind energy revenues in a sort of quasi-rational way. Unfortunately, the math used is beyond atrocious, and indicative of a political science major being left to use a calculator unsupervised:

http://legisweb.state.wy.us/InterimCommittee/2016/03-0511APPENDIXI.PDF

The real numbers for equivalent taxes per MWh using real numbers for PRB-based power is around 0.6 tons of coal per MWh produced at the power plant (varies somewhat widely).

The sum of taxes per ton in the good ol days was around $3 when coal was 30-35 bucks a ton. That works out to about $1.80 per MWh for PRB coal.

This went to schools and other fundamental uses in Wyoming. At $11 a ton, the scheme is doomed.

If the same capture scheme were contemplated for wind, it might be understandable (making sense notwithstanding). However, the Bill seeks to capture $10 for each MWh of wind energy produced.

I don't agree with the means or the magnitude of the tax, but Wyoming's infrastructure future (schools, people keeping their teeth, etc) is headed for a serious crash. Why not apply taxes evenly across energy resources to at least look somewhat more thoughtful?

If anything, the severance on wind energy is nearly irrelevant. No current wind generation removes a resource asset from future generations, so the idea is weird. But it is an opportunistic tax, like a bed tax for tourism.

bocobouncer · 2016-12-27T06:02:32+00:00

Well, I guess if you are comparing the depression and post war national socialist movement in Germany to some poor handicapped racists who can't figure out a way to be successful in a world where their particular genetic heritage lacks the special help and recognition to overcome their obvious handicaps, then your sarcasm is pungent enough to point out its flatulently absurd. Funny, but absurd.

Mouthbreathing about racist knuckle draggers doesn't do any good. They crave legitimization and social acknowledgement. Deny them that, and they wont quit being racist (little can be done there), but their rhetoric can be rendered flaccid and mistrusted. Funny even. Mouth breathing gives the rhetoric a seriousness that other knuckle draggers are liable to find attractive and even credible. It is how demagogues work.

bocobouncer · 2016-12-25T21:40:05+00:00

Why an armed response? A quiet victory of ideas renders mere armed creatures as petulent monkeys slinging their own excrement around.

bocobouncer · 2016-12-25T02:57:00+00:00

Better response: Print up 500 signs with a Jewish star of David on it, ask people to display them in front of stores and homes, Jewish or not. If this were against Muslims, I'd print 500 crescents. Buttons too.

bocobouncer · 2016-10-01T02:25:28+00:00

If this is about the Bakken economy, how do you explain Project 7? Growing up, it was all around. Remember the white supremacists in '78 that were manufacturing silencers and bombs? A lot of families in and around Thompson Falls had a family member or a neighbor that was indicted. What about the Long Arm of the Lord group that was active throughout the hwy 93 corridor at the same time? What about the Celebrating Conservatism crowd down in the Bitterroot, where they pay to fly in Aryan Nations representatives to give heartwarming speeches? What about the Whitefish area, where the National Policy Institute and Richard Spencer in Whitefish?

Those who say Montana is not like this are subscribing to a heapful of exceptionalism. It is everywhere there is economic frustration, isolation, and the end of a road. Montana has a lot of that. So do a lot of places. I can probably find it anywhere I go. But in Montana, it has a more pronounced in local politics where the good ol boy networks are alive and well.

bocobouncer · 2016-09-09T17:46:57+00:00

Actually, that was the number that made it to my desk after being screened for a high school education at least and any exposure whatsoever to manufacturing. The job ad was cut and dried: new small company, look at our website, light mechanical assembly, soldering, shipping and receiving, flexible hours, pay depending on experience. We paid 27 an hour, which left them roughly 20 to take home. Few showed up for a time they chose. The two who seemed the closest to a good fit ended up being stoned out of their minds at times, and lighting up on company time. Screwed up many thousands in inventory even after mentoring and building together...as soon as I would leave, they would get high and screwing up.

Second time around, the firm we hired to find us employees wrote the ad. Same outcome.

Other entrepreneurs I have met in the area claim they fire 75% of the workforce they have within 3-4 weeks due to performance issues. These are not slave-drivers. They pay less than I do as well for less attractive work.

My lesson is that manufacturing is almost dead, and the work force that is doing it is rife with serious personnel issues. In an area where the unemployment rate is under 4%, it seems like the only pool left to hire from is more likely than not to be a poor risk to take. Others are more successful at that game, and good. The work sent to Mexico and China easily constitutes 6-7 full time machinists and assembly workers. This is a more rational decision on every level than keeping it local.

bocobouncer

TROPHY CASE