Manly Pursuits For The Weekend

Shooting at Lee Kay?

Nah. The High Command dumped a mission folder on me as I tied on my boots this morning. My mission, which has nothing of the taint of "if you choose to accept it", is actually a string of intermediate objectives like this:

1. Mow the back lawn.

2. Plant the flowers that Mom will bring home in the front beds, and pick yer own for the brick box off the dining room.(Mom is down hard with a summer cold. I did the shopping today -- no flowers.)

3. Coordinate with the West neighbor on completing reconstruction of the W'ly fence line, which still needs pickets.

4. Clean out the right bay of the garage. (Not as clean as I want it, but cubic is precious.)

5. Estimate and purchase sufficient OSB, 15/32 CDL, and 1"x6" sufficient to re-skin the garage addition.

There's more that needs doing ... but that's enough for today.

Shooting TOMORROW at Lee Kay.

Arrrrghhhhh

Enough. I'm going shooting tomorrow morning at Lee Kay. I will be there when they open at nine.

Have a fine weekend.

Oops

What a fine day this has been.

We had guests over to share baby back ribs off the coals and a sitdown to watch the directors cut of Independence Day.

The movie was carried on the Encore channel. They are having a big Memorial Day event and, after the last of the ID credits, rolled one of their extended commercials (I guess it might better be called a trailer) for it.

Well, near the end of the segment the narrator was paying respect to the men and women who over the years have done the muddy, cold, and bloody to preserve our freedoms. As he is speaking, you watch a montage of stills of U.S. servicemen and women from across the wars. Soldiers in Africa. Pilots in their Mae Wests standing in front of a Hellcat. Marines running up a beach. Sailors anxiously scanning the skies from behind the sights of their Bofors guns.

And a tired, unshaven Wermacht machine gunner looking into the camera from beneath his frost covered coal-scuttle helmet, MG-42 hitched over his shoulder. That photo may have been originally published in Signal, the German Army magazine, and most likely taken on the Russian Front.


Now to be fair, it was a tight shot and most folks probably won't look past the exhaustion and pain on the man's face. It is a striking photograph. And the chances that the person who put together the trailer is historically inclined are slight. This is not the picture in question, but it could have come off the same roll.

Oops.

Context Please?

The following vid appears to confirm what a lot of conservative folks thought about the 2006 elections:



I would really like to know where this happened, and what the occasion was. It's a real privilege to see an old hand laying out the tools of the trade, just the same.

Oh, and this is the first video link from Three Rounds Brisk.

We live in wondrous times.

UPDATE: Here's the playah:

"In the 11th Congressional District, Congressman Kanjorski is best known for his efforts to harness federal resources to stimulate economic development and support job creation. He has advanced vital projects such as the $250 million Wyoming Valley Levee Raising Project to protect residents from flooding and the $48 million renovation of the VA Medical Center in Wilkes-Barre. Congressman Kanjorski has also continued to increase flood protection throughout Northeastern Pennsylvania by helping to secure federal funding for multiple flood control projects."

He was a trial lawyer before he hit the big time.

We... the Democrats..." and "Now anybody who was a good student of government knew that wasn't true".

Damn. Honesty is just busting out all over, isn't it?

UPDATE II: Just another defender of American exceptionalism and free markets.

Free Translation Service

UPDATE: What she said:

""My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. You know I just, I don't understand it," she said, dismissing the idea of abandoning the race."

Which meant:

"I'd climb right over his cooling body if that's what it would take."

Every once in a while a little honesty creeps into these campaigns. Refreshing, ain't it?

All joking aside, she's right, and not merely in the event of violence. Obama is a train wreck looking for a downed bridge and time is Hillary's friend. Even if she's just pushing her car on the shoulder, she'll still be on the track if Obama takes himself out.

It occurs to me that of the two, I can more accurately predict what Mrs. Clinton might do in a given situation than what Mr. McCain would choose to do. That's unsettling.

We all knew that Mr. Clinton was a liar and womanizer, as well as being light in the political accomplishments column, long before the '92 primary race was decided. The media brought their own kneepads and lined up to service him; being anointed the "Comeback Kid" for not losing badly in early primaries eventually helped land him in the White House. Here in 2008 the hummers are being enjoyed by Mr. Obama, but he looks worse the longer he stumps, which was not a failing of Mr. Clinton.

Everything goes back to Watergate. The denizens of the media want to be anything but objective. They decide which they hold: either the crown or the axe, then set out to fulfill the chosen Narrative for their targets... er, candidates.

Hillary is being ignored in the hope that she will just go away. If that situation isn't a statement attesting to the ignorance of our political punditry and journalism corps I don't know what is.

Madame Senator is pretty tough, in a grasping, mean sort of way. She's a long leg up on the media in that she understands what power really is, and that it's nothing the most conceited, self important talking head or columnist ever get close to.

In fairness, the Junior Senator from the great state of New York is in fact a lot tougher than I ever gave her credit for. Because of that Mr.Obama isn't near out of the woods yet, even with all the favors he's getting from the Best and Brightest.

We live in interesting times.

(UPDATE: Hasty edit for clarity and a flailing attempt to use proper grammar.)

Milestones

I have found in the federal government, for most of my forty-seven years, the most to dislike about this great nation of ours.

I've never been disappointed to be an American. Far, far from it. Embarrassed now and again, of course, by specific acts of specific people that reflected poorly on our community BUT I always remember that freedom means "free to screw up".

So what is the Congress of these United States up to these days? Well...:

"The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation on Tuesday allowing the Justice Department to sue OPEC members for limiting oil supplies and working together to set crude prices, but the White House threatened to veto the measure.

The bill would subject OPEC oil producers, including Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela, to the same antitrust laws that U.S. companies must follow."

Yes, we already knew that there exists a statesmanship vacuum in our hallowed halls. I don't think anybody realized until just now that there is a Special Olympics training camp where the U.S. Congress used to be.

Our legislative branch won't pull the trigger on a soon to be nuclear Iran, and can barely be bothered to acknowledge that the war they did support is almost won, in spite of their apathy, inattention, bad faith, or treason (match the names with the labels; there's plenty in each class). They will shatter the world food market in exchange for farmer/agrigiant money. They won't allow parents school choice, but they will fund charter schools cum madrassas run by Islamic fundamentalists. They won't develop domestic hydrocarbons, they won't permit refineries for the ones we do have, they won't permit nuclear technology, and they think the answer is to SUE nations who we BUY stuff from at world market value.

And with what are they going to threaten the people we BUY oil from? That we will screw with the refining and payment at our end of the pipeline.

There is a silver lining, if only a sickeningly faint glimmer: maybe these feckless bastards and bitches may finally realize that lawyers really aren't "all that" when the real world is the arena. You know, where nations bump ugly.

We are represented by fucking idiots.

And that makes us...?

UPDATE: NO!.

(Update via American Digest) (Link Corrected)

Great News

I have tested positive for Lyme antibodies. But not to a level sufficient to call me infected. I guess it's a clinical thing.

Woot! Oh to not hurt any more; how sweet it would be.

Two weeks of antibiotics, and retest.

I didn't work today, and am on call for tomorrow.

Weekend Snapshot

We got our pander payment yesterday. I purchased two hundred fifty rounds of .223 in 55gr soft point. It's official:

I now have enough ammunition.

And if you knew me, that statement would make your jaw drop. But it's true, just the same.

Today: Yardwork. Tomatoes to be planted. Flower bed to be cleaned out. Lawns are already mowed, next comes fertilizer spikes around the drip line of our mighty, late spring budding, Catawba tree. Weed n' feed the lawn, use Life Begone herbicide on the dirt back drive and the edges of the concrete drives and garage foundation. Paint the vehicle gate on the back fence. Also, helping the One True Love finish details with the near-complete living room remodel on a by-request basis.

I hope to go pistol shooting at Orem Rec Center later today.

Ongoing blogblather: here, here,here, here, and most important of all, here.

Things to look forward to:

Hanging shelf standards where the bookshelves used to live, at the landing on top of the stairs leading from our living room to the basement.

Finding out how the Lyme disease test comes out. I fear I studied for that exam. But it will be nice to have some idea why my major joints don't want to get with the program.

I worked three days last week.

Hope your weekend is going great, and that the coming week brings you good luck and great joy.