Warning Order

I'd like to be upbeat, but I just don't have the will.

Today I see that defining Chrysler's advertising budget has become a presidential duty.


That suddenly Mr. Obama understands what a shit tsunami would accompany releasing more Abu Ghraib photos; what looked like an easy sop to his vicious, anti-American base turns out to carry a cost he declines to pay.

In financial circles, the sucker's rally continues as congress continues to explore yet more ways to tax individuals and businesses.

Just how great a tax burden they will hammer us with is a mystery. What is absolutely certain is that they will continue to shield their own from any annoying questions about ethics.


Here at the home of Utah we are doubling emergency cash on hand at the house, refilling prescriptions out to three months, and have decided to double our garden area. I don't know when I'll find time to tend it properly but I think that come fall we'll be glad we grew our own this year...


What a joke we have become.

Won't be anybody laughing by August, I'm thinking.

Day Of Rest

I just finished watching a couple of episodes of 'Firefly' with Mrs. Utah. Damn, the good die too young, don't they?

We watched 'Serenity' earlier in the week.

In it, the captain utters one of the greatest lines in Hollywood history:

"I aim to misbehave."

Think I'll get that on a smallish sticker for the rear window of my Dakota.


Shooting tomorrow morning. I'm taking a Mosin out across the lake and am going to shoot jugs until I get tired. Then it will be home for yard work until it's time for Mrs. Utah's famous Sunday Night Spaghetti Feast. Now with TWO kinds of homemade bread!

I hope you have a fine week. Comrade. Because now we ALL are comrades...

But I aim to misbehave a bit, myself...

I Wonder

Working closer to sixty than seventy hours a week now. I've arrived at a state where the macro of maintaining horizontal and vertical control over a city block's worth of parking structure is routine. Not that familiarity has bred anything close to contempt, of course. Far, far from it.

I still cannot prevent myself from listening to radio instead of cycling through my CD's on the commute. With radio comes network news and commercials.

The news talks about our communist president and imperial congress as if they were just the same old stripe of politicians. The commercials are going... well, going green. And going collectivist as well. Lots of PSA's talking about "doing our part" "helping the recovery". The aim is to appeal to community, but the execution is just damned sad and wrong.

My tax dollars paid for them. If I close my eyes I can here the script of 1984.

Or maybe THX1138.

I cannot talk politics with my family. But I can post links like this on the off chance somebody who knows me may wander through and perhaps follow it. There really is nothing to talk about. Nothing I could change. We could change.

I think it's time I bought a grain mill and several vac pacs of hard red wheat.

Depression is a bitch. I will grab a random stack of CD's off the shelf and put them in the truck tonight.

The fifth different surveying outfit to pass through my job has confirmed my control network and adopted my coordinate system. Funny how it all comes down to thousandths of a foot each time. "Close enough" is the goal. Nice that "close" in this case is damn near nuts on.

Back in the hole tomorrow.

(Link via American Digest)

Party On

I went to the Salt Lake City Tea Party at the Federal building. This location happens to be across the street from the hole in which I work.

I estimate minimum seven hundred people. The venue was not all that large, but it was packed. Speakers included the President of the Utah chapter of the Eagle Forum, Rep. Jason Chafetz (freshman, we kicked Cannon out last election), AG Shurtleff, Rep. Rod Bishop. I don't know if any elected Democrat spoke but I was only able to stay for a short half hour. All the speakers I heard made a point of the non-partisan nature of the Tea Party movement. Many passing cars honked in response to signs asking them to honk if they are taxed too much; many thumbs up.

I’ve got to get a “Don’t Tread On Me” flag for the yard; I’ll fly it alongside the Colors on holidays for the next little while.

The protesters were overwhelmingly working and family people and many kids were present. One goober did show wearing a Glock on a duty belt and cammie trousers bloused into Doc Marten boots. His tshirt said something about “combat training team nine” and I overheard him stating that Utah was an open carry state. He was ignored by everybody, including two uniformed cops. One guy on the periphery wore an Obama mask and had a Soviet flag on his shoulders. He danced around whenever a camera got close.

I leave my ball cap in my truck when I get to work in the morning. You have to be wearing your badge, hard hat, safety glasses, and vest to get into my site. So I stood hatless in the rain and listened to the speeches until the rain turned to snow. The crowd was growing larger when I had to leave.

No paper machet heads were hurt in this protest, and we didn’t even kick in the Starbuck’s windows.

Shooting Date

I will be at Lee Kay this Saturday, arriving at nine a.m. and staying for as long as the kids want to shoot.

Plan A was a west desert outing to shoot cannon but the weather just isn't going to cooperate.

Have a fine day.

Shocka!

*

(Update)I should have put up a screen cap. The original headline was "U.N. meets in emergency session, adjourns without decision" or some such twaddle.

Changes

I have made deletions and additions to the Purser's List.

Enjoy.

I'm going to go out and burn some powder.

What Button?

The DGAF button is officially pushed:

*

What a joke this clown is. What a tragedy we are become.

Done with politics. Just work, chores, sleep. And pay taxes.

You have a fine day.

Hot Saturday Night!

This is all I have planned.

Happy Saturday, all.

We are inventorying the Team supplies. This means that Mrs. Tmj will finally see the ammo count.

Shucks. Forget the ammo. Ammo is something you can run out of. The Mosin number is what is going to take some 'splainin, I am thinking.

Women just don't understand the finer points of armory markings, stock variations, and proof stamps.

(via Instapundit)

Wowsers

Shooting day, finally! Yes, friends, it is possible to get off work early enough on a Saturday to actually make it to the range. Plan A was for my chain man to join me but we were just too late for him to make the range and get in his bike ride. He's doing a triathlon later this spring and is in training mode.

A few weeks back I mentioned that I had once again added an item to the wall o' Mosin down in the reloading room. I got to shoot that one today.

Just damn.

There is a definite issue with the extractor. It doesn't like to engage over the rim of the cartridge unless you slap the bolt with authority. Being that we are talking a Mosin here, "slap" is or should already be understood to be SOP, but the sad truth is is that I face planted right through the door way of our connex box plan/ break office this morning. The first part of my anatomy to kiss the linoleum was my right hand, which hyper extended backwards as the rest of my body tried to push it through the floor. I got through the rest of the work day with my right hand shoved in my vest and my motivated assistant performing the bulk of the tasks.

So I arrived at Lee Kay and signed in. Check in with the RO and get the last open bench on the line. There are about fifty positions. Full house and then some, today. The timing works out so that I can get my first target out and begin shooting immediately. I post at fifty yards, walk back with the rest of the crowd, and then begin shooting left handed off the bench. Even shooting weak side, I admire the solid, if heavier than preferred by most Westerners, trigger pull. The bolt operates well except for the tendency for the extractor to resist engaging the rim unless I shout "URRRAHH STALINO!!" as I slam the damned thing home with my wounded hand... and my three different flavors of stripper clips function well, too. So I merrily bang away fifteen well aimed rounds and put things aside to cool while I wait for the break to go forward and check targets. My spotting scope was still in the truck and since my glasses prescription is frankly more good intentions, now, than therapeutic I had no idea where things were down on the paper. Old age is creeping up on me at a dead run.

Dad/daughter was shooting on my left, dad/son on my right. I love seeing preteens hitting their targets with an AR. It's just... right. Son on right peeked down range with his binos and asked where I was aiming. I told him six o'clock on the bullseye and he said "You missed, here, look".

Fifteen rounds (Soviet ammo head stamped 1947, light ball, steel case) shot out of a Tula 1944 production 91/30, at fifty yards, shot weak side because of a sprained wrist, from a bench sitting position, not off a bag.

They all landed inside a three inch circle including four rounds in the X ring (NRA small bore 100 yard target).

I fired a satisfying string from the right side, in agony, and then went ahead and tried another of my 91/30's. That was a wasted effort since by then my thumb and wrist were ballooned too tight in my glove to continue shooting. So I came home.

The '44 Tula is going to get a reproduction PU scope - right after the blue job and the stock bedding and refinishing project. I will finally buy a cheap and simple digital camera to document the process, and will post the results here.

Hope your Saturday is going well. I'm off to clean some shooting irons.

(Okay, not all in a three inch circle:



... but that will do for me! The first five shots are the "L" shaped group at five o'clock. Breathing with a wee bit of flinch, I think.)

The Archduke and a Horse Shoe Nail

There are going to be several wars, beginning this spring. Wars which probably would never have happened if America did not shirk the responsibility incumbent upon the most free nation on the planet.

We have not elected a president. We hired a baby sitter. He's got lot of ground rules that maybe, just maybe, all those folks looking for hope, change, and two for one hot wings on game day might should have paid a little more attention to...

Iran and Russia have no common interest in American interest beyond how far we'll retract from interfering in their goals - namely, reestablishment of Imperial Russia and Iran supplanting the Saudis as the leaders of the ummah.

It takes a lot of concentration to nationalize an economy. I can see Putin and Amadinejad going out of their way for eighteen months or even two or three years to say nice and play nice for Obama.

Not that that will do Georgia any good this spring, or stop Hamas from expanding their missile offensive into Israel, using Iranian weapons. Georgia and Lebanon again, only this time the Bear won't even pretend to leave. And Israel gets to choose whether it is better to fight and die on their terms, or to wait on the end of Obama's leash and wait for the blow to fall.

I'm done following politics or news for awhile. Work, sleep, chores.

Oops.

Small. Rifle. Primers.

Cabela's, Gunnies, Sportsman's. Nada. None to be had here, except for some Remington match primers, and only two boxes of a hundred each of those. I need ... more than that.

They are the only reloading component I don't have in spades. If I can't find Winchester or at least CCI primers in Salt Lake next week I will buy a couple more cases of ammo for my lone EBR. I had never planned on reloading for my Bushmaster but after finding a few each commercial and home brew loads that do work spectacularly well with it I've decided to pick up a single shot or bolt in 5.56 and hope that the same accuracy may be realized across the two different platforms.

Or I may just end up buying a Century Arms AR A2 rebuild. They have three on the shelf here and my research into them shows that purists hate them and hobbyists are perfectly satisfied. I don't need a rifle length AR. I just want a rifle length .223 (yes, yes, I'd LIKE a NATO chambered boltie but I don't think those fall off the tree too often....

It could go either way.

Other than that, just a lazy weekend. No garages were cleaned - but Mrs. Tmj is out and about in her Miata for the first time since Christmas, topless.

Top down. DOWN.

Have a fine one.

Just A Lazy Sunday

Howdy. These things happened last week:

1. I billed sixty two hours. I worked a few more than that. I actually wore shirt sleeves part of two days, too. No thermal under wear those two days, either.

We had our first top - out section on Saturday. My project was a muddy hole in November. Now it's got several hundred thousand tons of steel and concrete where some of the mud used to be. There will be millions before we are through.

2. My government told me that I was a fool to have gone forty seven years paying my bills and debts, and living within my means.

3. Barak Obama and his crew undershot my low expectations for their first month in office. Low by a considerable margin, in fact. I expected nefarious. The incompetence is actually more disturbing.

4. The AG told me I live in a nation of cowards. If you were an honest man, you might take a look about you and accept that the only three institutions in the country that give a damn what color you are are Government, Education, and the NAACP.

My nation is many things, but cowardly is not even on the list. Most of the weak or reprehensible qualities that have come to the fore in recent years are by the design of people just like you, Mr. AG. You think that people must be driven, not lead. You may think of it as baby sitting, even.

5. I observed that patriots actually protesting the destruction of our economy is akin to watching the Osmonds trying to cover Linkin Park. Not a machine made sign nor a paper mache head in sight.

But no masks. I don't think any Starbucks or MacDonald's got their windows kicked in, either.

Well, it's a start.

(Link via Instapundit)

6. I picked up a 1944 manufacture Tula 91/30 retired PU. Just another cheap, reliable bolt in .30 caliber. The barrel contour appears to be subtly different than all my other Mosins of that model; perhaps a tad heavier. The rifling is sharp and clear and the trigger is very crisp even if Mosin-typical heavy. I also picked up a 440 round can of Soviet manufacture light ball a few days later. Both these purchases were at Gunnies in Orem.

They give me a frequent buyer discount now, at least on firearms.



And here it is almost eight o'clock, and I'm looking to be in bed in an hour or so.

I Hope your life is roses and laughter with a healthy dose of spring just around the corner.

Required Reading

Via Professor Reynolds, this gem:

"Republic is a complex and profound morality tale in which we can see, if darkly, the reflection of our own republic. Its story is not exactly ours, but we have a lot in common with this once-beautiful city. Specifically, we have the same moneylenders and borrowers. The eeriest similarity to Plato's moneylenders is the agressive (sic) marketing of credit cards to college students. However, the reckless use of home loans on the part of both lender and borrower has proven more devastating."

Working. And more working. Set my second tower crane base on Friday night - a thirteen hour day. Also on Friday they began building the one I staked back in December - adding the number of thirty foot sections necessary to get up to around a hundred thirty feet for the boom. Plus I have been tasked with monitoring two areas for purposes of determining concrete slab/deck shrinkage.

At least the weather hasn't been as nasty. And I couldn't ask for a sweeter control network. Bless those Utah street and sidewalk builders of the past. I can jump outside my hole on three sides of my block and tie into originating control that I can trust at any time.

I have informed the powers that be that I'm only working a few hours next Saturday. I have a shooting date with a busload full of young adults that are friends of my friends, friends of my daughters, and just people who have an interest in learning how to shoot. So next Saturday I'm loading up a butt load of mil surps, an EBR or two, some pistols, an excessive amount of ammo, and heading over to Lee Kay some time around noon.

Last time I was there it was only four dollars to shoot. I don't know if they've had to raise their rates or not. Aside from not allowing silhouette targets or full auto, it's an excellent venue, either for solo shooting or for safe instruction.

Party on! It's like, 1978 all over again.

Required Reading

Still breathing. Panting, actually. I've still not seen a Saturday, excepting Christmas weekend, since October.

And I love it.

I am almost at full stop where blogging is concerned. The reasons are simple and unambiguous:

1. I got into blogs and finally blogging in order to explore ideas and engage in debate.

2. I was ignorant of the true character of the Left. I thought they were too stupid to recognize evil when they saw it. Far from it.

This post I found via American Digest pretty well covers all the ground I've traveled these last few years, and then some.

You argue with a competitor. Even an opponent. but what is become of the part of the American polity that supports creatures like Reid, Pelosi, Gore, and Obama are gone a far, far toss beyond of what "loyal opposition" could ever be stretched to mean.

You defeat an enemy. That's all that's left to do.

My sixty-hour work weeks don't leave me time for proselytizing for individual responsibility and against increased government. I have had time to collect about twenty copies of "Atlas Shrugged" over the years. I drop one or two a week off in various public places.

Sounds silly, you say? Our elected government just spent more money in the last six months than it has in the years since I left high school. Harry Reid is Senate Majority leader, the Republicans ran John McCain for their candidate, Charlie Rangel chairs Ways and Means, and Joe Biden is in line of succession to the Presidency of the United States.

Not so silly, I'm thinking.

Building At A Breakneck Pace

No time to follow politics. Precious little time to get ready for the arrival of the inlaws come Christmas week. I haven't heard news outside of top-of-the-hour radio this last five weeks.

I am typing this on our new PC. The old one finally cratered a few weeks back and it is only in the last few days that the new beast (suitably Death Star in appearance) has been up and running. Vista. Meh.

Tomorrow we are placing about 1800 square feet of concrete pad. I will be on hand to check grades and assist with any conflict resolution that pops up. Concurrent with that, the pile contractor will be drilling a total of eight seventy foot deep 24" bores for our second tower crane location. The pipe guys (who yesterday buried four connections I needed to shoot for asbuilt purposes, and then disappeared) will be pushing north with two ten inch, one six inch, and two twelve inch lines that I must stake and then map.

I missed my first shot at seeing youngest goddess' Christmas dance concert last Friday; plan A was to be done and gone by four but I ended up hitting the road home around six thirty. This is the magic hour of the Salt Lake commute wherein all Utah drivers remove their brains and sit them in the mason jars on their dashboards. What is a nominal forty five minute commute at five AM becomes by five PM an hour and a half trial by fire. I have my second chance tomorrow, and have already let the powers that be know that I'm leaving by four.

Since the laborers are going to be there by four thirty AM to strip blankets, the carpenters and finishers there by five thirty, myself by six, and the pipe guys by seven, I have a reasonable shot at making it to the show.

Too many people here in Utah are jobless, or know that they soon will be. I met a man last night who lost his state job a few weeks back and whose entire extended family is either laid off or closing their businesses.

He was buying a gun. There's a lot of that going on. I'm buying Christmas presents (on a modest, so modest scale) and more food - the food being for long term storage.

I think that the "in the event of" is just about to hit.

Merry Christmas to you.

Dispatched In Haste

Three weeks (including Saturdays) into the new project and aside from aches and pains things are moving right along. We have been blessed with warm and clear weather for the last week and it should stay nice, if cooler, until at least Thanksgiving Day.

We get that one off. Work Friday and SaturdaY, though.

I'm learning AutoCaDD Light. Once I am on the distribution list to receive plan addenda and changes electronically I'll be a lot better positioned to backstop my superintendent(s). Our client (and their architects) don't have an adequate appreciation for just how fast my outfit moves once we've got the word to go to it. If they've got it in their mind to change anything, they better publish it quick before we build right past them.


Politics? What's that? We've still got a commie for president, and looking at how he delegates, not a very bright one, at that.

I've read my history, Mr. Obama, and while you may be mistaken for a sorry Che wannabe in some nutroot fever swamps, you don't even land on the same shelf as Mr. Lincoln.

When I first heard credible reports that Ms. Clinton was being seriously considered for State, I assumed that Obama was just maneuvering her for a killing shot; get her up in front of the microphones once or twice and then release a previously unknown (there's so much we already know) scandal and knock her right off the public stage for good.

Nope. He's not smart enough for that. For a guy from Chicago, he sure doesn't understand winning.

Hope you have a great week! I probably won't be back before next weekend. I am off to make a dent in household chores, and hopefully have enough time left to get out and buy a second pair of boots.

Priorities

The sole reason for the financial shell game undertaken over the last eighteen months by the federal government was to prevent the collapse of the U.S. economy until AFTER the election.

The numbers are so big now that they are meaningless. And the baldfaced criminal actions of all the public "servants" involved will go unpunished, except for those who screw up their escape plans.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system. Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn't require approval by Congress, Americans have no idea where their money is going or what securities the banks are pledging in return.

We are at the point where the two Chinese gentlemen were, there in the bottom of their hole selling rocks to each other.

One will end up with all the rocks sooner or later. But he will starve, too, just the same.

Happy Birthday, Chesty

233 years of loyal service. Any clime, any place.



That is all.

Second Monday

The plans make a lot more sense than they did last week.

The weather is still a challenge. Rain all day today.

I watched the collapse of five floors of the building they are demolishing on the north limit of my project. A warning would have been nice, but since there was one bored guy playing a fire hose over the rubble after the dust cleared we reckoned that there wasn't anybody under the pile.

This company lives by "Get it done or go home". There's nothing different about that mindset from any other employer I've had in this business, but here in a straight up construction outfit there are about five hundred of us getting it done simultaneously, from pile drillers to electricians, and all inside of two city blocks. The ethos is amplified. Tact, diplomacy, and the willingness to stand your ground gracefully are all in great demand.

It's a job. I am grateful for it. It will be something to see in six months or so. I will be most happy to see the last of the mud.

Look At It This Way

A comment I left here:

Look at it this way:

The Republican rank and file are bummed because they failed to execute due diligence on their own party. As a result fiscal responsibility, moral leadership, and government dedicated to preserving individual opportunity were all abandoned by their leaders.

But the Democrats are actually in even worse shape.

Their leaders, instead of ensuring that they could continue farming populist divides and manufactured victim groups for personal wealth and power have gone and elected themselves a genuine communist. With a plan.

Watch closely as the Democrat plantation undergoes a renovation that would make Norm Abrams blanch. And then watch as Change really begins to happen.

Now how's that for some shite?

Hope. Change. You betcha.

A Good Run.

Not with a bang, but a whimper.

Sorry, George.

Better Late Than Never (I Can Hope)

This is the most important post you will read this weekend.

(Via The Other Side Of Kim)

Update:

Hey, you bitter clingers out there in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kentucky... and here in Utah, too, actually. Uncle Barak has plans for coal.

Go, watch, and be amazed. Yet more important stuff.

Make sure you vote in your economic interest on Tuesday. Uncle Barak says so!

What? You already early voted? Man, that sucks. If somebody in media had told you about this when the statements were made over a MONTH TEN MONTHS ago, maybe you might have done something different.

What do you call a job killed by the coming socialist economy. It gets choped!

Wolverines!

Time is short. Class is almost out and there is going to be an exam.

The study question is this: More ammunition for semi auto rifle, or a backup semi auto rifle, both in a caliber I already own?

I've already procured spares kits for my two primary "evil" rifles. But my only AR is definitely a carbine, and I'd like a full size model for range/varmint/Wolverines!!!11! work.

(That "Wolverines" is for Lisa over at Protein Wisdom, which just so happens is in the middle of a fundraiser.)

I'm looking at rack grade A2 AR platforms, but it appears that idea already occurred to a few hundred of my neighbors. I know of at least two ROMAK Druganov clones in fair shape and do have a grundle of that caliber on hand already, even if the vast majority of it is corrosive. I have also heard mixed reviews on these rifles.

I don't know who is going to win on Tuesday. I am going to vote today to prevent any tension in getting off work and then making it down here from Salt Lake to vote - during the storm already forecast for then.

The test isn't scheduled, but will happen soon after January 20.

Ahead Begins Today

I start Monday.

Thanks for the prayers, they worked.

Looking Ahead

Looks like the Dow had a good day today. Yahoo shows it up almost 900 for the day, at around 9065 points.

I think it will bottom around 6500 before lunch next Wednesday, myself.

We'll be down there for a bit.

Get ready for some hope and change.

UPDATE: I have a job interview at 0630 tomorrow. Wish me luck!

I Almost Forgot

*

I have no words worth printing this year; too much politics and too much anger.

Semper Fi, brothers.

The Long War continues.

Oops

I have spent a few hours spread over the last week to inventory and organize my on-hand ammo components, and to knock out some test lots of .30'06.

I went to the Provo public shooting range this evening to put some groups up out at a hundred yards to find out which loads worked better than the others. When I arrived I found that I had packed some light (125gr TNT bullets) loads I had assembled years ago. After I shot my test groups I decided to see where the old varminter loads were landing and loaded up three rounds in the Remington.

Bang. Feh; I was hitting about an inch right of my aiming point all night, and it was me, not the scope. I spent a few hours this week swinging a hammer for a surveyor friend and as a result it was awfully hard to get a good, relaxed natural point of aim working for me. Bang. Another shot two inches high, about an inch right, maybe a half inch from the first round. *click*. Pause. Open the bolt, see the case sliding back on the end of the bolt, then ejecting onto the table. Pick it up, inspect the primer and find it properly punched. There's no projectile... but there's no soot marks in the neck of the "expended" brass case to show it was recently fired. I pulled the bolt and looked up the bore into... blackness.

I've experienced my first squib load since I began reloading my own metallic cartridges in 1987. This happens when you get clumsy and skip charging a case and seat a bullet on top of a primer only. It's good that it happened at a range and in my hunting rifle. If I'd been shooting my M1 in the field the same situation might have turned out much uglier. I might well have been blasting away and experienced a failure to function and then executed "immediate action", which in the M1 simply means "rack the operating rod to the rear, let fly, and attempt to fire". Firing a round on top of a squib will blow up any rifle, and most pistols, too.

Tonight, the squib bullet was forced about six inches into the bore by the detonation of the primer. I don't carry a sectioned cleaning rod in my range bag, just a few bore snakes in my calibers. That's going to change. I didn't want to bug anybody else so I just packed up and brought every thing home. It took about a minute down in the Temple of Bang to tap out the projectile and then punch the bore with a brush soaked in solvent.

Lessons learned. PAY ATTENTION. Geeze, maybe that's how we get to mid October with a Communist running for the president, for the Democrats.

Reflection

The single most objectionable statement from the O!during the last presidential debate was about taxes:

“If I can answer the question. Number one, I want to cut taxes for 95 percent of Americans. Now, it is true that my friend and supporter, Warren Buffett, for example, could afford to pay a little more in taxes in order…”

This is the mindset that destroys freedom, liberty, and justice. You cannot steal from the rich for any meaningful length of time; the numbers don't work. Commenter Ric Locke put up an elegant essay on this subject here, on a comment thread at Protein Wisdom.

History. It comes, it bites you on the ass, you totter on down the trail… and the next morning you walk the same trail at the same time.

Quite a bit of repetitive reporting on O's! insurmountable poll lead. I don't buy it. We'll all know November 5th.

It occurs to me that an I.D. requirement at polling places coupled with a flat tax would kill the Democrat party deader than Lenin, wouldn't it?

Call Me Joe

(Hat tip to commenter "Neo" on Protein Wisdom)

UPDATE: I can't get trackback to work... but go here and read Iowahawk. I found this after putting up this post this morning.

Howdy

Back from hunting.

I had intended to write a lengthy, chatty post on the beauty that is the north slope of the Uintah Mountains, the camaraderie of new friends, and the fulfillment and worth of time well spent enjoying the beauty that is our world.

But I returned home yesterday just in time for the mail.

Here's some pics:

This is a pocket lake. The gentleman in the picture is pastor of a new Baptist congregation that meets over in American Fork. His service in the Marines overlapped mine by just a small bit. He served in Gulf War I and it was there that he received his calling that led him to ministry. We shared camp and hunted the high ground for three days. Here's another one:

If you look very carefully at the center of the photo, you can just make out the three point buck that Oldest Goddess and I were looking for last week. There were two deer there, but the second one beat feet before I could get my phone out.

Shucks. Here's one with me smiling:

Sure wish I was up there now.

You got near the same news about your investments and retirement plans as we just did. This catastrophe is an equal opportunity destroyer of dreams and futures. We were positioned "conservatively"; including the girls' education funds.

I cannot speak with my wife of politics any more. I cannot bring myself to argue the same lines on the same forums with the same audiences. I grieve for what was once a great nation as it slides to the abyss.

Let what may come, come. I was pretty impressed when I watched the wall come down in '89. I read today that the G8 and the UN are marshaling their forces to respond to the crisis.

I can't remember when it was ever a good idea to buy more gasoline while you were on fire, but then I'm just an unemployed surveyor in Utah.

Our government has spent more money in the last two weeks attempting to "rescue" this economy than FDR spent in his first term for the New Deal. The regulations requiring lenders to make crap loans with the full understanding that those loans can then become investment instruments that will then eventually end up in the ledgers of Fannie and Freddie haven't been touched.

And our choices for president are Angry McOldguy or the criminal lead character in an unsalable political conspiracy/thriller movie pitch. Somewhere in Hell Vladimir Lenin is laughing, but his cackles are as nothing to the howls coming from the Ayer's residence in Hyde Park, Chicago, Illinois.


Good luck. Thanks for stopping by. I do not know if or when TRB will be updated again.

Like a Horse, But With Handlebars

It's the 2008 General Elk Season here in Utah and I've got an Any Bull tag. Posting will be sporadic for the next week or so.

I will be on the North Slope of the Uintahs, or north of the Soapstone Basin. We've had a front through since the muzzle loader hunt so hopefully there may be some elk lower down.

Have a fine one.

A Thunderous Flapping Of Pig Wings

Go here.

Hang tough to at LEAST 1:55.

Well said, Mr... Baldwin.

I never in my wildest dreams thought I'd say that. Or link to video with Bill Maher, Christine Amanapour, Alec Baldwin, and Gary Shandling.

It's the End of Times!

It's Going To Be Obama

The radio news just flashed that the House has passed the bail out.

Republicans, you are a ship of cowards and fools and deserve the time you are about to spend in the wilderness.

Democrats, history will judge you harshly. You have fooled the nation for thirty years. You have gutted the spiritual core of what America should be. It took no ability to cajole the Republicans into their own destruction this morning.

You've killed a nation. What challenge a mere party, then?

UPDATE: Cannon voted for the bailout. Bishop and Matheson against. Cannon leaves congress in disgrace, Bishop did the right thing, and Matheson got permission from Pelosi to vote against. He probably reminded her what happened to Bill Orton in the aftermath of the Grand Staircase Affair.

Or not. I'm heading to the range this afternoon, rain or no.

Glimpse (Updated)

Coblenz, Germany
July 18, 1919

Dear Jay,

Just received your letter of July 14 and shall answer at once, as I know Uncle Sam never moves very quickly and you may still be in Brest...

Neatly typed words on this sheet of paper:



This is a letter from Frank Stewart, a son of Price, Utah, to his brother, who was awaiting transport home from France after their Army service in World War One.

The Mormons have a very active church welfare system, and one of the key components of that system is the Deseret Industries chain of thrift stores. These facilities serve as employment centers for unskilled workers, locations for job training and job seeker networking, recyclers on a massive scale of unwanted and gently used household products, and oh by the way are nothing short of an adventure if you are into treasure hunting.

Last year I picked up a mint first edition of Tregaskis' "Guadalcanal Diary" at the Provo store. It still smelled of printer's ink and had a flawless dust jacket. The closing paragraphs of the book were poignant; since they were written in 1943, the cost of victory, if not its certainty, was very much in doubt.

Common to most thrift stores, there is a section of locked cases set aside for higher value items. Today, in the Provo store again, I found a battered steamer trunk with a hand drawn sign that said "World War One Memorabilia $1500" inside one of the cases.

One of the key carrier ladies let me remove the trunk (very carefully) and said I could look at the stuff, but under no circumstances was I to "unroll anything".

How would you like some history? How about a Yank Army newspaper, with front page stories about American success against Bolsheviks, and German negotiators signing preliminary peace terms? Okay - here's your issue of "The Duckboard" from July of 1919, and I apologize for not writing down the date. I really must get a real camera, because my phone just doesn't get the job done:


The trunk is full of brownie photographs of scenes from Mr. Stewart's service. By full I mean they are jumbled in loosely between the twine-bundled stacks of letters and postcards, the old newspapers, the French/English phrasebook, the LDS devotional books printed for the war, and the three tubes containing what must be either class or unit photographs. The trunk itself is roughly a foot wide by eighteen inches long, and eighteen inches deep. The lid is hanging on by the remnants of one hinge, and the bottom metal has worn away, leaving what feels like a paper thin sheet of mahogany plywood as the last bit of protection for the contents.

I intend to go back tomorrow at the opening with a better camera and spend some time trying to put together a package sufficiently persuasive to get a local museum to pick up the collection.

Were the times not so tight, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. It looks like a battered old box.

But it's really a time machine.

Update 0900 3 Oct: I have just gotten off the phone with the Reference Librarian of BYU's Library Special Collections section. I started to explain what I'd found at DI and she exclaimed "Oh, I saw that, too!"; the price tag influenced her to pass it by. She is passing my description of the contents on to the Documents and Photo Archival curators and expects they will be down to look at the box this morning. There is great interest in Saints at War - there is an entire section of their exhibits based on it, actually.

Desert Industries opens at ten; I'll be there, too, for a closer look.

Update 1200 3 Oct: Here are a couple of the pics I took this morning:


After looking through top portion of the trunk for a bit, I realize that most of the photographs don't have much historic value. The little two inch snaps were sold by photographers to soldiers as souveniers. There are many of them in the trunk, though. No journal that I could see, but I didn't disturb any of the envelopes or bundled letters.

I was contacted by one of the BYU folks on my way back home. He was on his way out to look at the exhibit. I hope he finds the collection worthwhile enough to acquire for the school; perhaps DI will bargain.

Humour

It all makes sense after this:

(via the PW Pub)

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

Go watch insanity here:

I fear for my country.

(found at the PW Pub)

Range Report

I picked up another Mosin 91/30 retired PU sniper on Monday. This latest example is a '43 Izhevsk manufacture that appears to be sitting in its original sniper stock; there are very good repairs to the left side of the receiver where the scope mount base used to be, and there are brass shims present on the bearing surfaces inside the stock. Original crown on the barrel, good rifling (more on this below), and a long, heavy, but sweetly breaking trigger. It has a matching number straight bolt of Tula manufacture that works remarkably smoothly.

I sold the High Command (Mrs. Tmj) on the purchase by pledging to sell two of my less-favored milsurps, specifically my Swiss K31 carbine and my Savage-manufacture SMLE No4mk1 (plus whatever rounds for each that I have on hand). I may possibly put up one of my standard 91/30's as a price leader. All of these weapons shoot "minute of Nazi" or better with decent ammunition.

They will be up on KSL.com classifieds by the weekend.

Yesterday I headed up to the Provo range to check out the new Mosin and generate some targets to include with the adverts for the rifles I intend to sell. Sighting conditions were marginal and deteriorated as the lowering sun was shined low across the firing line from right to left. I arrived with one and a half hours in which to shoot groups for three rifles.

I fired between ten and twenty shots each from the K31 and SMLE, starting with a throw away barrel warmer dumped into the dead paper on a target at 50 yards and then an initial sighting group at the bull on that 50 yard target. Then I fired for representative groups at a standard NRA small bore rifle 100 yard target, holding at six on the bull. The light by this time was sleeting across the genuinely marginal sights on these rifles and I had to dig my pirate patch out in order to lessen the eye strain I was experiencing trying to achieve good sight picture/sight alignment with 47 year old eyes.

Everything ended up on the paper, though, with both rifles:

I am selling off these particular weapons because their ergonomics (specifically the sights) don't match my preferences, because I need to knock back on the number of calibers for which I have to stock or make ammunition, and to allow me to concentrate on my (sad, shameless, and growing) Mosin addiction interest.

And now a bit on the new Mosin. The first four shots were fired at the 50 yard sighter target, with an opener to warm up the barrel aimed at the center bottom edge of the target and three aimed in earnest at the bull center.

It looked like this:

Lo, the Bulgarian Light Ball functioned well, the bolt did not stick, and the three rounds fell under a fifty cent piece even with Mr. Twilight seriously screwing up the sight situation. And it was good.

There was a moment of comic relief: The target holders at the range don't line up all that well with the firing points. The gentleman one firing position to my right didn't know that I was shooting at both 50 and 100 yard distances and he had hung an orange scope sighting target in the center of one of the three paper targets I'd put up on the 100 yard holder. I fired my first shot from the Mosin at that target, and wrote off the difficulty I had in getting a good sharp looking bull over the front sight post as a byproduct of the failing light. The other shooter asked if I was indeed shooting at that target, and I said yes and explained why, and he apologized for having made the mistake in hanging his paper.

He had run out of the load for which his 300 mag was sighted for with his last shot just prior to me putting my first round on the target. (His last two good shots are in the four quadrant of the sighter target he put up.) He spent the rest of his night trying to zero with another brand. I watched through my sighting scope as he tried to put any more bullets on the target, but in vain. Those hyper-velocity .30 cal rounds vary hugely in point of zero between different loads. After he was done firing his scoped, bedded, muzzle braked rifle, I fired three more rounds at the target. This is what it looked like:


Those are my four in the black, quadrants 1 to 3. With open sights. At a hundred yards. At twilight.

And it was better than good. Lo, yea, verily, zounds, etc, etc, etc....

Now to the rifling: I haven't yet slugged any of my barrels, but the common thread between all my Mosins is that they seem to have been rifled with a plow. Seriously. The lands may appear less than razor sharp but you could plant potatoes in the grooves. I did my preliminary cleanup of all three rifles last night, to include boiling water down the bore and over the bolt of the Mosin in order to counter the corrosive qualities of the priming compounds in the surplus ammo. Then I brushed hard with a poly brush and bore cleaner, and then punched with alternating wet/dry patches (bore cleaner) until I started seeing mostly-clean flannel.

This morning I pushed a CLP-soaked patch on jag from the breech to the muzzle on each of the three rifles. The K31 and Enfield patches came out almost white. The Mosin patch came out blacker than truck stop coffee, with stark green lines indicating oxidized gilding material still embedded in the rifling. So out came the Barnes copper/lead/powder solvent out and I followed the label directions for almost twenty minutes. The bore might be clean now... but I won't know until I punch it tonight or tomorrow after it has had a further chance to soak in CLP.

The more I shoot Mosins the more I appreciate the engineering elegance in the base design. This elegance survived and excelled even after decades of Soviet influence on the production of the weapons themselves.

Obama. All In One Package.

Mr. Goldstein has an epic post up on the biography of and cast of characters associated with the Coming of The One:


"What we are seeing, as I have at length tried to hammer home here, is the careful mainstreaming of the New Leftist as a viable leader of the free world, radicalism dressed in empty and evasive bromides and wrapped around charisma and cult of personality, made palatable to the masses by way of a project that included, among other things, a slow takeover of the Democratic party (and the label of “liberal” by way of a self-servingly described “progressive” ideology), thus insuring that life-long Democrats remain convinced that they aren’t changing their own principles; a long and carefully planned reworking of the education system through a linguistic takeover: denaturing the ground for meaning plays directly into the motivations of identity politics and sets the “logical” ground for a multiculturalist social engineering plan, in which meaning is relegated to those whose “authenticity” gives them the essential right to define and control their own group narrative; the breakdown of traditional religion, either by mockery or a re-imagining of religion as the realm of “social justice”; a takeover of the press by j-school grads who are taught that facts are secondary to the lessons to be drawn from the narrative of their framing, giving them power to become advocates rather than reporters."

I sure wish trackback worked.

Cheer Up!

You've got more brains than this guy.

Remarks Upon The Failure of Congress To Nationalize The Economy

Good job.

My representative Chris Cannon voted in favor of the bail out, which just reinforced my judgment that he needed to be replaced.

There's nothing easy about what is coming. But I believe that it is better to deal with failure as soon as you recognize it rather than subsidize it for an even more catastrophic failure tomorrow, the next day, or next week.

Nobody reading these words (all none of you) should be surprised by the economy we've found ourselves in.

Good luck.

UPDATE: Interesting after action commentary from Karl Rove on the Gibson radio show here. (found at Johnny Dollar's Place)

Fudd 0, Bambi 1

We spent two days hunting in the environs of the Soapstone Basin but came up dry. Oldest Goddess didn't have a tag but joined me for the walk in the woods anyway.

We met wonderful people at every intersection of trails and every wide spot where folks had pulled off to pitch a tent. Or park their forty eight foot long fifth-wheel; to each his own. I discovered that my GI Intermediate Cold sleeping bag is designed for sleek warrior types, and that I really should make room in the garage for a bag loft so I can store the different bags unrolled. I would have been just right had I thought to toss in a poncho liner or even a fleece throw, but it's not really a hunting trip if you don't leave something back to home.

The weather was clear, calm, and mild, with almost no moon. It was nice to see the milky way brushed across the sky. You can't get that look from inside a city. Also, the light winds made the hunting an even more cerebral a task than it always is.


The final tally of seen ungulates came out to eight doe in three sightings. First night out we spied a group of three doe and another deer partially hidden in the bushes; maybe, we thought, we had a chance. It was joyous stalking the edge of the lower Provo river, blowing on a grunt call or having the Goddess flip her can call off to the side. We were never able to put antlers on that fourth deer but what a fine way to spend a misty sunset under the pines. (Deer photo below taken on board some subdivision property - no hunting there!)

I was able to take the Goddess up to the place I helped build, for the first and probably only time. This is the primary survey control point for the golf course subdivision community for which I became the project surveyor. My mornings began here
for almost three straight years. I'm glad I was able to show the Goddess what I had a part of building. And to apologize again for not being there during her high school experience as much as I wanted to be. It took us more than an hour just to drive the roads, and we weren't lolly gagging. This was probably the last time I will ever go out there. I hope my old outfit, and this client, survive the coming financial storms.

Just two days and a night of roughing it were enough to convince me that old age has indeed crept up on me. Snuck up and given me a healthy kick or two, as well as a thorough, if objective, beating. My daughter asked "are you sure you want to go up/down there?" a bit more often than I remember her ever having done before, but probably maybe not as often as she thought she should have.

Well, we're back from the forest and the hills. Oldest Goddess is heading out to look for a day job to supplement her weekend waitressing now that she's done with school until the winter semester. I'm off to Pocatello, Idaho for the One True Love's last race of the season. I have feelers out with a couple of retail outfits but won't know anything about them until the middle of next week.

I give humble thanks to God for giving me these last two days of grace on top of a life so filled with wonderful people and blessings beyond count. I hope your day is filled with light, better than yesterday and just a stepping off point for a great tomorrow.

Vulcan Mating Rituals? Not Even Close.

The general muzzle loader mule deer hunt opens tomorrow at first light.

I will be in the forest north and east of Kamas for the next few days, with my trusty little Hawken sidelock.

I have been told repeatedly over the last few weeks that I'm an anachronism for shooting a patched round ball.

I already knew that. About being an anachronism. Ball or sabot doesn't begin to address the subject.

Good luck to you. Don't run on the bank while I'm gone; if the insurance isn't any good, then your cash isn't, either.

Back on the weekend, unless I fill my tag early.

UPDATE: Heading for the Soapstone Basin. See ya.

UPDATE the second, later, same evening: Oldest Goddess is a High School Grad! Decided to have dinner here, celebrate at Baskin Robins. Was the right thing to do since all the Good Old Boys heading up the canyon were so busy grimly clinging to their guns that enough of them booted securing their trailers or loads to the point that the road was a morass. We leave tomorrow, and will make our way - nay, we will mosey - on up Provo Canyon and head into the wilds of the Northern Region Utah Muzzle Loader General Buck Mule Deer Hunt.

G'night, now.

Honor, High Standards And Principles

Oh.... sorry, none of that stuff to be found in the events and actions revealed here:

Our research suggests that a subdivision of one of the largest public relations firms in the world most likely started and promulgated rumors about Sarah Palin that were known to be false. These rumors were spread in a surreptitious manner to avoid exposure.

The excerpt is from some darn fine work by Dr. Rusty Shackleford and friends over at the Jawa Report.

The Jawa folks usually deal with creeping Islamic evil. It looks like they took a break to shine a little light on some domestic political dirty tricks here.

Whoops

Between being laid off, stocking up for TEOTWAWKI, and doing chores, I completely skied that the Northern Region Muzzle Loader Mule Deer Hunt starts the 24Th!

Whoops, indeed. The world will have to fall apart without my constant surveillance. I am going to be busy getting my stuff in one bag and figuring out where I am going to go.

No hunt partner. And there's not a tag available for my daughter; she may or may not come along for the walk.

Have a fine one.

Say Hello To The Wizard

Well, our economy might not be worth a bucket of runny excrement in trade right at the moment, but at least the House is laboring mightily to redress our awful domestic energy resource recovery policy.

Or not:

Pelosi's goal in crafting this legislation was three fold. First, an by far the most important, Pelosi wanted to make absolutely certain that no legislation would actually pass. None. No type of energy bill. She wants nothing to help America. The bill had to be designed so that the only outcome would be failure.

Second, the bill had to provide cover for her freshman Red State Democrats. It had to have the illusion of a comprehensive energy plan, including additional oil exploration. The Red Stater's had to be able to go home and say, "I voted for more oil. I voted for lower gas prices. I voted for alternative energy research, I voted for a comprehensive energy plan. See. I'm a good guy."

Lastly, she wanted total failure of the bill to allow her to have an additional Election Issue. She needs to be able to say "See, we Democrats compromised and passed an oil drilling bill. Drill, Baby, Drill. But those mean old Republicans stopped it."

Watching Nancy Pelosi shooting for crafty is like watching Rosie O'Donnell trying to be likable.

Please go visit, and read the whole thing.

TTBO

Well, it's Wednesday, so that must mean the Federal Government is bailing out another financial giant. The following was posted here:

You know, we could toss out Congress six weeks from now. I thought that we might see a sea change in 2010... but we don't have that luxury any more. Social Security? Socialized medicine and confiscatory taxation/predatory regulation, should Obama win? Medicare/Medicaid - how much closer is their insolvency today than it was BEFORE the collapse of the financial sector?

Bueller? BUELLER??

Who here is comfortable facing more future with the Reid and Pelosi show still in town, after having had the chance to do something about it?

I feel like I'm in a science fiction movie.

"It's the only way to be sure."

What other action is open to us? The meltdown is the result of bipartisan trough wallowing extending back decades. Replacing congressmen as they achieve their financial goals and not before is, as we see so clearly this morning, suicidal for the nation.

Computer going off. Taking my sidelock, pouch, and horn across the lake and hunting jack rabbits the rest of the day.

Have a fine one.

THROW THE BUMS OUT!

More on the meltdown here, and here.

This Day

(0riginally published here 11 September, 2005)


Fall is here. We no longer sleep with all the windows open at night. It is still and cool outside, with the bright light falling on leaves that have just begun to dry and fade. Last night my daughter got home from her first Homecoming dance after midnight, so the Team slept in this morning. Mom and Dad didn't really wait up, of course; we just happened to have good books to read.

She was beautiful in her midnight blue satin dress. She wore a silver filigree band over the crown of her head, and strand of fine silver beads were woven through her jet black hair. I'm sure there's a fashion term for the effect, but it wasn't a tiara and I'm certainly no Mr. Blackwell to pull the right word out of the bag. Her date was one of the neighbor kids - one of my former scouts even, from back in the day when our LDS ward drafted me for assistant scoutmaster duties with the twelve year olds.

Talk about "in my wildest dreams"...

She's making pancakes now. It's Sunday and that's what she always does. Last night was a rite of passage, and she said as much this morning while thanking us for the dress and recounting the experiences of pictures and dancing and the silly or embarrassing things that happened to her or around her.

But now it's time for pancakes. Because that is what we do on a Sunday.

Four years ago today was also a brilliantly clear and cool morning. On that Tuesday we were involved in last minute packing for a cross country trip to say a final goodbye to my wife's mother. Services were to be held Thursday in the family church in Burlington, Vermont, and then we'd all go up to the most beautiful hillside in that most beautiful northeastern state and lay her ashes to rest among the plots containing her neighbors and ancestors going back almost three hundred years.

The kids and mom were in the living room putting the last items in their carry-on bags. The TV at the end of the coffee table was probably tuned to Nick or Disney; I don't know.

I was on our bed contemplating a cat nap when my wife literally dragged me to my feet. I was coming out of my doze quickly but still spinning up when I began to understand what she was asking me.

"What kind of bomb did that? What happened?"

I came through the kitchen into the living room. The TV sat on the entertainment center, framed between the still heads of my daughters. The Twin Towers filled the screen - the one on the right scarred by a smoking hole near the top third of the building.

I'm a surveyor. I've staked out a dozen or so commercial buildings, plus bridges, dams, and highways. Nothing on the scale of a genuine skyscraper of course, but I knew just enough about the design of the WTC to confuse the hell out of myself in those first few seconds. The WTC was built with the mass of the structural support in the walls of the building - soaring vertical steel columns spaced narrowly and then tied to floor pans for rigidity. The gaping wound in that building traversed four or five floors - which meant that whatever kind of bomb had been used must have been massive to have punched through so many floors. I wondered why there were any windows left on the floor where the bomb had to have been. The spaces inside the floors were huge and open; what office walls did exist were aesthetic, not structural. The majority of the spaces in there had to be cube farms. Were there multiple bombs? Maybe smuggled in as copiers or computers or office supplies? Blast follows least resistance... so why one big hole and intact windows on each side? The noise from the TV was just that - noise. The commentators were reporting an explosion and ad libbing while they tried to catch up.

"What kind of bomb? What kind of bomb?" My daughters hadn't moved since I came into the room.

Then the second 767 flashed into view, in a skidding bank to port, and disappeared behind the other tower. A blink of awful silent stillness and then the eruption of smoke, flame, and glass filled the screen.

I told my wife "We are at war". And then I cried with my family.

There were other awful moments in that awful day. My girls figured out where the airplanes had come from in less than an hour - and that some had been hijacked from Boston, which was to have been one of our connections. The urge to fight back - to reject the terrorists' goals - drove both my wife and I to head into work shortly after noon. I was on the way to a construction site in my work truck when the President's second statement was broadcast.

The thought struck me that had things gone differently, I could just have well been listening to Al Gore.

I pulled over and threw up.

I've always known that I live in an embarrassment of riches. Random chance placing me here in America has been the greatest blessing a person could ever hope for. Those that feel differently are free to do so. "Free" as in so shielded from the potential of their convictions that they can embrace agendas tantamount to suicide if they should ever be fulfilled.

What a country, eh?

I will continue to do those things that a citizen must do to support and defend our nation, and hope that enough of my fellow citizens do the same. Lincoln was right when he predicted that if we ever fell it would be a failure from within and not the result of some foreign attack.

Jihadis can only kill us. Should we ever lose our liberty, it will be by our own hand and no other's.

It's time for pancakes. Y'all have a fine day.

Good Neighbors, GREAT Neighborhood

Here's how a community is supposed to work.

No accident here. It takes work to be a village - if you don't do the work, it's just another bunch of people preying on each other.

Via The Geek With A .45.

He Never Felt It Land

Did you ever watch a fight end a minute before the last punch was thrown? You saw a flurry of jabs and feints and in the crush one or maybe two of the punches land. It doesn't look so bad right at the moment of contact. Both fighters continue to dance and weave... but one is now a half step behind. He's on his feet, but not in the fight except as target practice. Moments later a good ref will have jumped between the fighters.

There is no referee here, just a crowd at the ropes baying for blood. I don't believe there is precedent for a party nominee to withdraw at this late date. Obama is hurt so bad now he's just punching wind, and missing. It's obvious that what little esteem may have existed between Obama and Biden has evaporated, as well. No message discipline, no strategy. They are just showing up for their scheduled appearances and "making it up as they go along".

Initiative. It's all McCain/Palin for the time being. And Media is running, as near as I can tell, almost five days behind the LeftBlogs, and thus is hurting Obama almost more than his own gaffes. The hate and *vitriol leaking from the Leftosphere has become narrative basis for MSM...

Make no mistake about it: no man would put the words "fish" and "stink" in a statement or comment that could possibly be a reference to a woman unless that man is dumber than a doorknob or too clever by half. If you are male, you know this to be true.

I go with the latter in Mr. Obama's case. He doesn't dissemble half as effectively as a Clinton; trouble is, he thinks he does. That just pisses people off.


*HOLY SHIT:

I am listening to Limbaugh as I write this, and a caller (self identified as "Independant") has just made a case for "fish/stink" to be wholly appropriate and applicable toward the Ms. Palin. Sounds like a twenty - something drop out from barrista school. Limbaugh invited him to repeat the entire charge, including the website the caller slipped in, so the whole country gets a good listen. Caller declined - "They already heard" - and Limbaugh ended the call.

I will update later (here's the link) with the appropriate transcript links from the Rush site, if it's on the public side.

UPDATE: More here, via Protein Wisdom.

SHTF. I Hope This Is A Drill

Pursuant to this, today we spent over four hundred dollars on canned food and staples.

Tomorrow I pick up three month's worth of the various prescriptions my family has accumulated over the last twenty years. By the time I get home, the water barrels will be done sanitizing and I can refill them and push them into the back of the garage.

I think I may be too late to get the currency I intended to, tomorrow. I was expecting the nationalization of Freddie and Fannie concurrent only with news of some successful government response to some minor disaster somewhere else. However, Gustav flamed out and Bernanke is obviously no longer able to keep the bears cowed.

The financial liability the Federal government just assumed instantly dwarfs the combined values of all the underfunded benefits programs currently administered by them, plus the total existing government debt, by several orders of magnitude.

I have heard the number "5.8 trillion dollars" in more than one place, but the number is actually meaningless next to the fact that beginning at the opening bell tomorrow morning, every financial trader on the planet will act on the knowledge that the future of the U.S. economy is subject to the direct control of the U.S. Congress, prop. N. Pelosi and H. Reid.

I'd be scared if I hadn't seen it coming. Now I'm just sad, and hoping that I'm wrong about what I've prepared for for the past few months.

Good luck.

I Know It's Early

But here is the blog comment of the week, by commenter Spies, Brigands, and Pirates, on a Protein Wisdom Pub thread to a post by Dan Collins:

"Don’t worry, ‘feets. When O! makes Ayers Secretary of Education you’ll be able to see a live one on TV all the time."

It's a punch line. Make sure to read the whole thing at the PW Pub.

Say Congratulations to Maj. John!

Hie thee hence to the humble blog of Maj. John, and contribute to the merry making you will find there.

He's going to be a Lieutenant Colonel, just as soon as the Feds and his state figure out where his records are.

How long until he retires? Hmmmm...

Equine Feces

"And I actually always thought of the military as an ennobling and, you know, honorable option. But keep in mind that I graduated in 1979. The Vietnam War had come to an end. We weren't engaged in an active military conflict at that point. And so, it's not an option that I ever decided to pursue."

Mr. Obama... may I call you Barry? Seeing as how were were just that close to being comrades-in-arms? Maybe even in the same service?

Dare I say it... maybe even... bunkies?

My heart trembles... right up until I recall that of all the data in the public eye about your formative years (whether the incidents or events are fact or just something you fancied would look nice on your resume), there is no reference to the military. Not whether or not you might serve, or what you thought about the branches, but no mention at all.

So if you are just mentioning it now, I guess it's because you focus grouped a few ideas and crafting a legend as a mulatto moose hunter on Hilo or maybe an imagined stint hanging high steel over Chicago flew even worse than the military bullshit. But you don't have any options, so golly, the New Thing automatically becomes "I almost joined the service".

Pathetic. You already locked up the oxygen - deprived -as- children vote, bud.
Just how much are you paying all those advisors, anyway? I bet you can't find ONE who served active duty ANYTIME. This latest move gaffe will probably remove a solid, even if statistically insignificant, number of votes you might otherwise have gotten from Democrat-leaning service members.

Once you wear a uniform for awhile, even if you retain some wackaloonish political fantasies, your tolerance for disrespect just about vanishes. I can say without the least reservation that the average IQ of any platoon I ever served in demonstrably exceeds that of your cadre of advisors. Most guys I ever served with would recognize your dishonest pandering for exactly what it is, and find the time to write or call home to talk to the family, or their friends, about what kind of cheap stunt you were trying to pull.

Hey - you'll always have Chicago. That's all you will ever rate.

UPDATE: Mr. Van Der Leun weighs in here:

"Translation: 'At this point, I'm just making this shit up as I go along.'"

Coffee Break

There is a convenience store exactly halfway to my friend's house. I was heading there to help demolish his old garage and remembered to stop. They sell the good stuff, and nothing starts a day of saw, sledgehammer, and shovel work better than the true Colombian. Coffee, that is.

I pulled in at eight, walked in, and waited for my turn at the coffee urns. The lady in front of me was filling two cups. I heard laughing, and glanced over to see a couple of small boys dart around the corner. Eight a.m. on a warm fall morning, on a Saturday, is a good time to hear laughter. I smiled.

Dad corralled the older boy - maybe six years old, but wiry and tall already, like his dad - had him help bring what had to be picnic supplies up to the register. Mom was still dumping creamers, stirring in sugar. She noticed me and scooted to the side enough for me to grab a carafe and fill my travel cup. Then I added raw sugar and my last remaining vice, french vanilla creamer, to my drink.

"Ya'll going picnicking today?" I ask.

"Yes. Maybe the boys will play enough to sleep tonight." And she says this at eight in the morning?

I hear a giggle and look across the store. There is a row of upside down soft drink cups on a bare counter at the back of the store, just visible over the stock shelves. While I watch, I see another cup tacked up onto the end of the line, two little dark hands carefully placing it just so, then disappearing. I walk over to the end aisle to get a better look.

The youngest kid is maybe four. I watch him pull a medium sized cup out of the dispenser magazine and carry it over to the row already set up on the counter. He sees me and flashes me such a grin that I almost laugh out loud. But he is intense, and a picture of concentration as he stands the cup next in line. Then he heads back down the line, counting each cup. He gets to the end and stops. He looks over his shoulder at me, still smiling, and whispers "fifteen!" and pulls another cup.

I stepped back to the coffee service and said -

"Having a good time, though, right?"

"Yes, of course. It's a beautiful day."

"Your youngest is counting cups. I'll help you put them back. He's being careful."

She chuckles and shakes her head.

"It's okay, ma'am. Boys are ... just boys."

The family is just finishing up at the register when I step into the line. They are heading to the door when a crap blue Ford F-150 screeches to a stop at the curb directly in front of the entrance. The front tires actually bounce off the curb face. There's a dealer temporary plate taped onto the window behind the driver's head. He and his partner tumble out of their doors. They are both tattooed, pierced, guaged, possibly stoned and certainly unwashed. There is a two foot square transparent poster of Che Guevara taped onto the window behind the passenger's seat.

They barge into the door, pushing the doubles almost into Mom, who drops her bag, which causes Dad to straighten up to his full six foot four or five height. It's not so much the height but the fact his shoulders pretty well fill the aisle he stands in... and he's suddenly very still... that cause Laurel and Hardy to finally take notice of their environment. A waft of that old Mary Jane reek rolls over me at the register.

It is very quiet in the store. The ice cream freezer behind the cashier's island needs some work - the whuckawhuckawhucka of the compressor is the only sound in the shop.

"I'm sorry." mumbles the driver.

"Okay." says dad, and picks up his wife's bag. He follows his family out through the door held by the passenger. I hadn't noticed, but both sons had faded all the way to the back of the store, directly behind their dad. That's a family that understands each other.

"Hey, mister, you didn't pay money for that poster, I hope?", I ask.

"Whut?"

"That one doesn't have the mickey mouse ears. How can you tell if he was a real communist hero if he doesn't have the ears? A joke is a joke, you know."

The cashier says, "Sir, your coffee is on the house."

And we even went shooting later. What a fine day this was.

Sighting

As of seven o'clock this evening, there is a 1943 Tula manufacture model 91/30 Mosin Nagant rifle on the rack at the Spanish Fork Big 5 sporting goods store.

This is a retired PU rifle in a laminated stock. Clean, sharp stamps, to include the "CH" on the top center of the barrel above the receiver. Matching numbers on all parts. I didn't see an arsenal stamp on the bolt. I believe the weapon was renumbered during rearsenal process. The crown appears to be the factory original; it has not been counter bored. Distinct rifling. The bore is cleaner than the average Big 5 offering. The toe has a typical repair. Star cartouche on right side of buttstock.

The prices they want for these have gone up recently. I haven't bought a Mosin in months, and it looks like the laminate stock models are going for about twenty dollars more than the straight birch models. This one is currently $209.00; cheaper than ordering one, but even better to wait until it is on sale.

I own two retired PU's. Love them both. If this goes on sale and it drops by fifty, I may try to sell Wife of Utah on the deal....

In other news, there is a 1939 Tula manufacture 91/30 in American Fork. Very clean, not counterbored, and they want $179.00 off sale.

Have a fine weekend.

Decorum

No matter how convivial the host, or how genteel the house, there comes a time in every adult community when somebody needs to be laid out and put out with the empties. If they prove they can learn a lesson and return to contribute, good for them.

Oooh

Drudge has some advance blurbs on Governor Palin's speech, to be given later this evening:

"I had the privilege of living most of my life in a small town. I was just your average hockey mom, and signed up for the PTA because I wanted to make my kids' public education better. When I ran for city council, I didn't need focus groups and voter profiles because I knew those voters, and knew their families, too. Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown. And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves. I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer', except that you have actual responsibilities."

The other snips are great, too.

Popcorn! With butter!

I am half convinced that the Left may have some action planned to attempt to distract from the speech. But... I am a cynic that way.

But it's not like they could offer good faith arguments on issues, is it? They've invested in "America sucks" and now it is coming home to bite them.

That's some serious roosting they've got to deal with. Love it. Just love it.