If you don't know how to use something either find out or leave it the hell alone.

Over the years I have had any number of problems with people fooling around with things they simply either do not know how to use or know the limitations of.

I once had someone get a carbide tooth off of a blade stuck in their cheek once because they were trying to cut a piece of angle iron with my miter saw. 

When I came across that spectacle I simply pinched the offending saw blade tooth out of their cheek and told them they owed me fifty bucks for a new blade. I have yet to see the fifty bucks yet.

The offender still seems to think it is the tool's fault, which it is not. It is the fault of the imbicile that tried to use a wood cutting blade to cut through a tough piece of steel with.

He could have simply avoided this by asking if the saw was capable of cutting steel. I would have simply taken the wood cutting blade off of it and replaced it with a blade I also have which is capable of cutting steel.

Another thing that I have noticed is that some people think you have to have big muscles to use power tools when in fact they were designed so you DIDN'T have to use a lot of muscle. Yet time and again I run into someone bearing down on a power tool with all they have and even when they smell smoke they do not let up.

Another thing is that people will try something they know nothing about to figure out how it works. I once watched someone fry a brand new VHF radio once because they tried to use it before the antenna was attached. Of course he wanted to blame the manufacturer even after I read him the directions that said that transmitting without an antenna would harm the rig.

I wonder how many generators, lawn mowers and snow blowers have been burned up because some dumbass gets it home, dumps a tank of gas into it and fires it up without checking to see if the manufacturer put oil in the crankcase.

Virtually all manufacturers put a bottle of oil in the box with the machine if they ship the unit dry. A lot of manufacturers ship the units dry so as not to make a mess if some shipper lays the box on its side.

Yet the number of people that don't even look in the box to see what came with the machine is probably staggering.

I think the second to worst ones of all are those that say, "Hey, what's this?" as they turn something on they do not understand.

That's happened to me over they years ashore but seldom do I meet a person like that at sea bacause by the time I meet up with him he's likely had the habit of touching something he doesn't know how to use beaten out of him by Chief Engineers.

A while ago I shipped on another rig for a few days and when it was time to fire up the pumps I took someone with me to make sure I knew how it worked. The pump engines were Cats and I am used to John Deeres and while the basics are the same and I likely could have figured it out with no problem it was nice to be shown the first time in case there was something I was unaware of. 

Sometimes the shut-downs are a little different, for example.

Actually after the diesels were up and running the other guy looked at me and told me he wondered why I bothered to ask. I shrugged and told him that it was simply cheap insurance.
It doesn't take a whole lot to stop and check something out and by doing so you can prevent injury or property damage. 

All of this reminds me, I do want my fifty bucks for the blade the idiot ruined by cutting steel with it.

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Little old ladies are loose cannons.

You never know when dealing with them as to what they are going to say or do and generally it's pretty entertaining.

One old woman will get upset and offended if you say "Oh, darn it!" in front of her and get all upset.

On the other hand I have had more than one one that reminded me of an aged Barbara Billingsley (Beaver's mom) blow up and rip loose with profanity I seldom see among my fellow sailors.

You never know.

What was funny was listening to one sweet little old church rummage sale cake baker type go off on a tirade about congress and the government in general. I dare not post the foul language she used on this blog.

I do not know why it tickles my funnybone but there is little funnier than listening to some sweet looking grandmotherly type woman in her late 80s using the F word to describe a congressman.


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How many of you out there have ever been given a full time job by a poor man?

Anyone out there ever been hired, given a paycheck, medical insurance and a 401k by a person that was was collecting government assistance or living in a shack somewhere on the wrong side of the tracks?

I didn't think so.

Yet everyone seems to hate the rich.

"They don't need all that money" is a common gripe. Need has nothing to do with it. They earned it.

"They make all that money and pay us peanuts," is another common gripe generally heard from the lowest echelon. These are generally the guys that bring nothing into the endeavor but a set of arms and legs, have no credentials and nothing invested in the endeavor.

The skilled guys generally do OK, depending on their skills.

The whiner I heard the other day hadn't even finished high school, was making about $45,000 a year plus benefits and thought he was worth more. Frankly I would pay him about half of that for what he does but that's none of my business. Guys like that ought to simply keep their mouths shut and count their blessings.

There are a few realists and honest guys out there. I was yakking about this with a guy at a refinery once and instead of being pushy and greedy he made two comments I respected.

"The guy packin' a lunch pail deserves a halfway decent place to live in a safe neighborhood a new pickup every six or eight years and to be able to put away a few bucks toward his kids education," he said.

He also admitted responsibility for being where he is. "We grew up dirt poor and when I got out of high school there were a whole slew of programs to send me to college but I didn't take advantage of them so here I am."

Interesting man.

Union greed is blamed for a lot and rightly so. In the 70s and 80s the steel industry in Pittsburgh collapsed because of it.

When you think that some guy that never finished high school was working in a steel mill making enough to own a house on the hill, a deer camp, a new pickup every year and all the toys along with six weeks or more of paid vacation it's pretty hard to feel sorry for him.

It's even harder to listen to him complain about how he is under compensated. It's harder yet to feel sorry for him when he goes on strike because he isn't getting enough for no investment in education or other vocational training.

Truth is, they didn't get much sympathy when the steel companies decided they'd had enough and moved overseas. I can't say as I blame them much. If I were in management I likely would have done it a lot sooner.

I get sick and tired of all of those that complain about the rich because I have not seen one single one of them give anybody a full time job of ANY sort.




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I would have to say that the real reason

 I avoided illegal drugs in my younger days has nothing to do with a fear of addiction or to protect my health. I was young and bulletproof and none of that sort of thing scared me.

The real reason I steered clear of that silly game had a whole lot to do with the people that were into it. I didn't really want a whole lot to do with the people involved or the headaches that went along with it.

What is interesting is that for a pretty close to a decade I lived on the fringes of society. By today's standards I would be considered homeless as I officially had no fixed address.

The closest thing I had during this decade that remotely can be considered a fixed address was when I lived aboard a 25 foot sailbot but that was even dubious. It was against the law to be a liveaboard in the harbor, but the law was selectively enforced. I was considered one of the good guys.

I had a quiet conversation with a harbor cop over this. When I asked what the deal was he grew sort of 'Joe Friday'-ish.

"It is hereby against the law to live aboard a vessel in this harbor. However, it is recognized that fishermen work hard and work odd hours. Sometimes they get tired and need a nap. Your boat is registered as a fishing boat and that makes you a fisherman. We would like it if you are not working or taking a nap that you keep your eyes open and report any suspicous activity," He said.

"Got  it," I replied.

That was as close as I had during the decade plus to having a legitimate address.

Anyway, during that time I noticed that there were a lot of people living outside the fringes of society that seemed to alway be getting ripped off or otherwise being victims of some sort of crime or misfortune.

In fact I know for sure of two murders that took place over drugs and I believe to this date neither of them were ever solved. One of them I believe to be a sniping with a hunting rifle and the other was a basic shooting of opportunity. I knew neither of the two victims, though.

Most of these were immersed in the drug culture in some form or another. Looking back on it, most of the crimes went unreported. Actually it makes sense when you think about it. 

How do you report that you have been beaten up for ripping someone off for a couple ounces of cocaine?

Incidentally one of the places I lived where there were kindred souls was on board my boat. There was an interesting community there and the thing I notice looking back on it is that we all had goals and dreams while the drug/criminal set on the streets didn't. They were looking for their next high or rip-off to pull so as to get high.

Frankly it was none of my doings and I really didn't want to get wrapped up in it.

Looking back on things I can say that it is likely that I didn't get wrapped up in being stoned all the time is because I had my dreams to follow and refused to let cocaine get in the way.

I suppose I did party like an animal by stateside standards but by local standards I was kind of a light weight. 

This isn't to say I wouldn't pull a cork frequently, and the week before Christmas until a few days after I frequently lived in a whisky bottle. What it does mean is that I didn't sidetrack from my dreams for any appreciable amount of time.

I've kicked this around on a police forum board and from what some seem to think is that most of the victims they run into are not snow white and that most victimization can be avoided simply by avoiding the wrong people to begin with.

I suppose it's pretty hard to get ripped off for $2500 worth of coke if you don't have any. You're also not likely to get the living daylights beat out of you for selling stepped-on coke if you don't sell it.

I think I managed to walk the edge of being around a lot of stuff and not get dragged into it quite nicely. Truth is if someone asked me where they could buy a gram of blow I would tell them as a favor if I trusted them. Sometimes the dealer would look me up and offer me a few bucks as a finder's fee but I'd refuse because by accepting it I knew it would make me a party to it.

I'd also tell someone looking for a whore where to look and if the hooker offered me a finder's fee I'd let her buy me a beer and I'd call it good.

When I decided to follow my dream and buy myself a sailboat I simply focused on that. I was living in a trailer next to a bar/liquor store and had a gig there both keeping the club and the store in repairs and upgrades as needed.

I suppose I could have drummed a lot of cash up quick via the dope route but I chose the carpentry route and did a few odd jobs and kept books to make sure I could cover myself come tax time.

I found out that a lot of self-employed people got whaled by the IRS when they tried to play it coy and didn't report their income. I paid my taxes.

Meanwhile a lot of people around me were dying like flies.

While most came from fishing accidents, there were a lot of other things killing young people off. Flying accidents were another thing but these as well as fishing were legitimate.

I knew a pair of brothers that died of overdoses. There were also a number of other drug and drug related lifestyle things that killed people off, too. These were people I knew and was friendly towards.

Still, I plugged away at my goal to be a sailboat owner and finally I flew to Seattle and in a borrowed car hit the road and located one after a hunt of about two weeks, living out of the car.

I looked like a bum and although I had credibility issues with yacht brokers, the truth is I was running around with over $10K in the inside pocket of an old flight jacket. Nobody bothered me as I looked like a bum.

I guess I can attribute my not having the problems most of my fellow street people seemed to simply by not getting involved in things that seemed to breed problems.




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If you don't dig their trip, don't buy their ice cream.

I was at the Powder Ridge Music festival in the summer of '70.

It got cancelled but 30,000 people showed up, anyway. I heard it was cancelled and showed up becauuse the jungle telegraph told me that it was going to be held anyway.

This was long before I began to wonder if the human race was worth saving but we can save that for later. I tried to pitch in and make the place a little better for everyone by joining the ad hoc medics.

I generally wound up dealing with bad acid trips and spent about a week there among acid heads calming people down. I saw every sunrise and sunset for the full 5 days or so I was there working with freaked out people.

It was pretty disorganized and I have never seen a trashier camp in my life. I guess none of the hippies there had brought their mothers with them to clean up after them.

There was one thing I can remember that will stay in my head until the day I die and it was one of the announcements over the PA system.

There were a boatload of Mr. Softee ice cream trucks there and some of the anti everything people were hassling them for free ice cream.

A voice on the PA came out. "Some of you people are hassling the Mr. Softee trucks for free ice cream. Quit it. If you don't dig their trip don't buy their ice cream."

It has stayed with me all these years and has been part of my code of life.

If I don't like someone don't bust your ass and waste your time screwing with them, simply don't do business with them. 



A little postscript here. I have spent some time Googling through a lot of pictures and saw a lot of pictures that brought back memories.  I think I found a picture I was in there.

As I was Googling and saw so many pictures of people getting high I thought to myself, I'm glad I didn't get involved inn drugs there!  At least nobody can look at me and say, "Look! Here's a picture of your Uncle Piccolo getting stoned out of his gourd!" 

Thank God for small miracles.



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I try and think out of the box.

I QSO'd a guy in Tajikistan the other day and his QRZ page said that to get a card out of him you had to send a registered letter which popped up a red flag.

Sounds like mail corruption to me. 

I went to the USPS website and looked up what that would run and it is $7.95 but I cannot send any cash or anything to compensate him for return postage.

Generally when we want a QSL card from someone we stick between $1-3 in the envelope, depending on their postage rates. No return postage, no QSL card. It works unless you are dealing with a post office in 

Outer Slobovia where the postman has to ride a goat to deliver the mail and gets paid with what he can steal. This brings Tonga to mind.

I know nothing about Tajikistan except that getting a QSO from there is a rather rare event and I want a card to prove if for my DXCC award AND bragging rights.
I wondered how to get the job done and it occurred to me.

This is a job for the United States Marine Corps.

What? The Marines? How in hell do you figure the Marines are going to be able to help you get a QSL card from Tajikistan?

Simple. There is a Marine detachment at just about every US embassy in the world.  There's one in Tajikistan.

It's actually pretty good duty and if you play your cards right as a good Marine you can wind up with a pretty good job at one of the alphabet agencies when you retire. 
I heard a Marine describe embassy duty as being one of the best kept secrets in the Corps.

Generally there is a Gunnery Sergeant on duty there and any Marine can tell you that if you want to get something squared away most riki-tik you see the Gunny.

It seems that Staff Sergeants are issued sticks to get the job done. First Sergeants are issued baseball bats. 
Between the two is the Gunny and he is issued a magic wand,

The Gunny should be able to get me my card in his sleep.

Of course, it's likely that he knows what's going to happen when I get the card and show it off at the club.

"It was a snap. I wrote the Marine detatchment at the embassy and the Marines sent out a couple of rifle companies and 4 tanks to the guy's house to collect my QSL card. Didn't you see it on the news a couple of weeks ago?"

"Really?"

"Oh, yeah! A sergeant won the Navy Cross for delivering the card under intense small arms fire."

Or this: Four reinforced rifle companies and six tanks battled their way up Khyber Pass along with a 113 years old swashbuckler. He was a retired college professor clad in a leather jacket and carrying a bull whip showing them the way to get the QSL card the the Tajikistan ham radio operator...

One can never let the facts get in the way of a pretty good story and I'll promise the Gunny that if he is successful getting my card by simple means that I will keep the truth to myself and that my lips are sealed. I'll tell everybody something that is befitting the Marines.

The likely scenario IS the Gunny will simply mail the QSL card to the ham in Tajikistan via local mail along with a prepaid return envelope to the embassy and will forward the card to me but you never know.
Anyway, I sent a package to HQ USMC to forward to the NCOIC of the embassy in Tajikistan and we'll see what happens.

This one may wind up being a pretty good tale or maybe HQ USMC might just say 'No dice' and return the package to me.

We'll see, but still it ought to be fun to watch what happens.

I'll keep you posted.

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We're always a stroke of the pen away from becoming criminals.

Yesterday I posted that if the Feds outlawed ham radio that quite a number of hams would simply go underground. I have already gotten a couple of back channel messages from readers that they wouldn't.

Can't say as I blame them.

Right now amateur radio is controlled by the FCC and is legal. Amateurs are licensed and as long as it stays this way the government has a certain amount of control over it.

If it gets outlawed the government will have no control over it because those that are in it are criminals and when something goes underground there is no control over it.

I would imagine that after some jerk gives an airplane or two some bogus landing instruction the Feds will wonder what happened.

The state of New Jersey a while ago outlawed the possession of a number of firearms a few years back and ordered them turned in. California did likewise and when the turn-in by date arrived and went the number of firearms turned in was pretty slim. It was really an insult to even the meanest intelligence.

Now it's likely there is a thriving underground business of outlawed firearms.

We have laws outlawing the possession of narcotics and all they seem to have done is to create a criminal class all of its own. 

Druggies are going to do drugs no matter what. The business of illegal narcotics continues to thrive.
Besides thriving financially, the quality control is dubious and there is the accompanying violence with it that tends to follow illegal activities.Those that partake in illegal activities don't go to the police. 
Druggies tend to settle differences in an alley someplace with guns, knives or clubs. They really have no choice as asking for police help would likely put the victim in an awkward position and possibly get them carted off to the pokey.

We can take a look at prohibition and call that a miserable failure because all it did was create criminal empires. Many of these are still with us to this day having switched into other fields of criminality after the Volstead Act was repealed in 1933.

Generally difference between rival bootleggers were settled with guns. The St. Valentines Day Massacre is the classic example as to how criminals settle their differences.

The law was flouted universally. It is sometimes said that more Americans drank during prohibition than they did before the law was enacted.

While governments all over the world have been trying to stop prostitution for years, the trade still flourishes worldwide. It shows no signs of going away.

Incidentally I once lived in a town where the trade was somewhat overlooked by the local police. There was a tacit agreement between the madam and the police chief. So long as the girls were kept clean and there was no theft and rough stuff the brothel was permitted to run.

It was actually somewhat of a win-win situation. The police had a certain amount of control over it and the girls were working in an environment of relative safety unlike in other places where the prostitutes working underground were constantly at risk of harm by wierdos.

It would be foolish to say that we do not need laws. We do. There are behaviors out there that are intolerable to all of us. A society permitting theft, rape and murder is not a society, it is a struggle to survive.

Still, it strikes me that the government spends too much time creating criminals with the stroke of a pen when they should be following the rule that Thomas Jefferson said.

The government that governs least governs best.







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Ham field day

Yesterday was Field Day for hams. It is a day they take their rigs outside.

For me it's a walk in the park because my military rig is designed for outside use as there are few heated dwellings for the troops in time of war.

Yesterday someone made a comment about how the government was getting into everything and looking at what people are doing which is none of their business.

Ham radio is really one of the things that can't be shut down because any ham that knows what he is doing can pick up and go portable.

While the government can legislate it out of business it will have one hell of a time knocking it out of commission when you think about it. A good ham can get a message out and be moving in seconds and catching him is difficult at best.

The government can shut down the internet and cell towers but shutting down hams with rigs isn't all that easy. Every ham with a rig does not need infrastructure because they are self contained radio transceivers.

One of the things that hams had going for them during Hurricane Katrina is that there were other hams that were forwarding information to the people in New Orleans.

While the government was telling people to go to the sports arena there were hams in places like Iowa that saw the news in the mainstream media that the sports arena was NOT the place to go because it was torn up there.

A bunch of smart hams and the people they knew simply made other arrangements and ignored the government plan because they found out it was bogus.

Someone asked me what would happen if they outlawed ham radio and I replied that it would simply mean that the hams would not be restricted to the present bands they use. After all, they stick to the assigned bans because they want to keep their licenses. If you take the licenses away they no longer have to follow the rules.

Of course many will obey the law but many won't. They'll just start setting up mobile pirate stations, transmitting messages and then moving before they can be apprehended.

One of the things most hams do or have done is ECOMM (Emergency communications) drills.

A retired army sergeant and I put a drill together one night and simply scrambled every ham on a website to get a message across the country fro Pittsburgh to a guy in California.

When we scrambled everyone it was an organized zoo and the message got from Pittsburgh to California letter perfect in minutes.

I got it out to New Mexico in a couple of minutes and the New Mexican shot it straight up to Washington State and the Washingtonian shot it down to California. Total time if I recall was about 25 or 30 minutes.

It should be noted that I was working under field conditions.
The part about ham radio that is precious is that every operator with a rig is self supporting, self sustaining and needs nothing from anyone. He is simply has the equipment and skill to go on the air as an individual.

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I was casually defusing an IED that was made of 25,4764 pounds of C-4

When someone saw me and told me it was dangerous to do that.

I answered that it was dangerous to tell people that something is dangerous because it could get the teller's nose busted. With that I got up and cleared the blast zone because there is no way in hell I am going to defuse that damned thing after someone ran their mouth like that.

The reason for that is that I am now hexed thanks to the pimplebrain that ran his mouth.

If I go NEAR that thing it will go off thanks to the nebby little asshole that shot off his mouth. It can stay there until Hell freezes over and I do not care if it takes out 4764 kindergartners, 472 little old ladies and 564 teachers because if I go near it it's going to go off.

OK, there is no IED but you get my point. Actually the most recent case of this was yesterday when I decided to change my oil. I was just climbing under my pickup and someone passing by said, "Gee! I hope you don't get burned by the hot oil."

I got out from under the truck, cussed the passerby out, put the oil and filter into the cab and drove down to quickie oil change and coughed up $20. I had to because there was no way in hell I was going to be able to change that oil without getting hurt after that imbecile of a passerby had shot his mouth off. I had been hexed.

When you see someone doing something that's even remotely risky just shut the hell up and walk away. Give the poor bastard half of a chance to get something done.

Don't stand there agape and watch, gasping as he picks up a screwdriver. Leave. Just quietly leave.





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But I don't understand.....

I had to deal with someone the other day that does not understand time whatsoever.

Take a coupon for such and such off at whatever. Let's make it an amusement park and 50% off, offer ends June 21, 2013. There is always some idiot that never seems to understand that they are not going to get their 50% off on June 22nd. Sorry It doesn't work that way.

There are a lot of things that you have to be ready for in life. Having a guy with a $1500 rifle in his hand that he'll take $100 for now because he has a bill to pay immediately means if you don't have $100 in your pocket right here and now you ain't gettin' a $1500 rifle for a hundred bucks.  It's as simple as that.

There are things in life that you can do later and things you can't.

As soon as I finish this post I am going to go out into the driveway and drop my oil. It can wait until at least then. It can actually wait a lot longer because I'm not driving the truck today, anyway. It's a Miata kind of day and I'll drive that.

There are also a lot of things that have to be done when the opportunity arises and there are a lot of people that don't seem to get it. They seem to think that the world revolves around their schedules and that things will wait for them.

I have gotten up in the middle of the night to work my ham rig to bag places in the Pacific because that's when the propagation was. For some reason the Oceania area is on the air in the middle of the night. I guess it may have something to do with people being up and around because we're 12 hours apart on schedules.

I have a number of Oceania stations under my belt because I woke up at 3 am and worked the rig. Had I stayed in the sack I would not have bagged Australia or New Zealand. It's as simple as that.

I don't know why the concept of being in the right place at the right time in the right uniform is so alien to people. When you are life goes along pretty well.

One of the things I like about working on the water is that there are not a  whole lot of people like the ones I have described. Almost everyone out there knows that time and tides wait for no man and most of them have dragged the concept into other parts of their lives and seem to understand the concept of being in the right place at the right time.Being around people like that make a difference in getting things done.

Several years ago I was considered a jerk because I left without a bunch of people at the Anchor Bar in Kodiak because they said they'd be with me as soon as they had finished their beers. I heard that and left everyone there because I had seen the movie before.

They were just talking because if they wanted to go where we were going they would have knocked them back at once and gotten into the truck and gone. Instead, it was going to take hours to gather everyone because the game is the first guy to finish his beer is going to see that the other guy has half of one left and he'd order another one. The process would be repeated until either everyone was falling down plastered or the place closed.

Of course the following day I got jumped on as to why I didn't wait for everyone else. When I pointed out that they were not going to be ready until after the movie we supposedly wanted to see was over they got kind of testy but that's the way the ball bounces.

Anyway, it's kind of funny watching people that don't understand the concept of here and now bellyache about how it isn't fair that they missed out on something. What's even funnier is that there are an awful lot of people that simply don't learn from missing out on something.








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Yesterday someone griped that I posted a link

which is fine because I have a triple your money back guarantee with this blog. If you don't like it you get triple your money back. If you can count, you will realize that three times nothin' is nothin.

I generally write my own stuff as I sit here looking out my back window but every so often something comes up that I want to pass on. I thought yesterdays link to a black Democrat turned Republican was pretty interesting.  

Right now I have the rig on as I usually do in the morning and am listening to the YL system in the background having already checked in. I generally do this every morning I can for the hell of it.

Yesterday I bagged a couple of interesting ones, Ceuta & Melilla, Egypt and Tajkistan to name a couple. The last one, Tajkistan is going to be pretty difficult to prove because the postal system there likely isn't the best in the world. I would imaging that the postman there rides a goat and isn't paid very much and possibly considers all he can steal to be a part of his pay. 

The QRZ page of my contact says the only way to get a QSL card to him is by registered mail.  I wonder what that costs?

Apparently he doesn't have an email address, either because he didn't list it on the QRZ page. This is going to be interesting getting this one confirmed. It's rare so I want it and ought to be an interesting challenge.

Any readers want to go for a goat ride through the Khyber pass or something along these lines? Where the hell is Indiana Jones now that I need him? Actually, Indy is probably too old for that kind of thing these days.

With the rig on I just got a call from the YL net to see if I could hear someone in CT. No joy. 

I think the next time I go to the PO I'll ask how to send a registered letter to Tajkistan. That ought to get a rise out of the PO clerk. Betcha he has to send me up the chain. My guess is that it'll go up the chain to at least the Postmaster Major or Colonel and maybe even the Postmaster General.

It ought to give the Postmaster General something interesting to do because all he does all day is sit around approving post office boxes. I know he approves boxes because every single box I have sen has been approved by him according to the stamping on the back. Sounds boring to me.

Anyway, we'll see how this works out. A QSL card from Tajkistan is something worth having.

In other news a Kuwaiti told me to put a layer of grease on my mast to keep the snow and ice from sticking to it in winter. I guess it makes sense and is interesting that I got such advice from a desert dweller.

I asked him if it would make the radio waves slip off the antenna any faster so they'd get to him faster.

He doesn't seem to think it will make any difference.












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This guy gets it.

http://therightscoop.com/make-it-viral-black-louisiana-senator-explains-why-he-became-a-republican/



Interesting man.

He's a black Louisiana senator that changed parties. He left the Democrats and became a Republican and makes a pretty good point.



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Back in the swing of things

It generally takes a day or so after a long drive to get back into things but I wound up with a boatload of things to do yesterday as I had spent a weekend out of town.

So I did a bunch of things yesterday but I was really off of my usual game which sucked. Some of the things I wound up doing were frustrating. I drove a 50 mile round trip for nothing, for example.

Last night Kitty and I sacked out and I good a pretty good night's sleep so I'm good to go today.

Yesterday a  friend dropped off a radio for me to try out. It's an IC-7200 and I have wanted to try one out for some time. I'll try DXing with it as that is my focus these days. 

Last time I was home for a couple of weeks I sent out over 80 QSL requests and when I got home there were about 15 of them, mostly DX. Yesterday I got an envelope from 'The Bureau' and there were 5 cards in the envelope, mostly from September, 2012. Most of them requested QSL which means I had to send out  4 QSL cards. 

I could have cheaped out and sent them via the bureau but sent them out in the mail as making them wait another several months just isn't right. On the other hand, they sent their cards to me via the bureau.

I have been chipping away at things and it is time to pick up my list and see how many more I need to get 100 and therefore my DXCC award. I think I am 125+ logged and 75 confirmed on paper.

While looking through I swore I had missed checking off one or two so I maybe closer than I think.

I have 5 from the Middle East logged but not one has confirmed. One from Saudi would have but his QSL manager returned my card and said I wasn't on his log.

That happens sometimes especially in pile ups when the poor slob is trying to keep up with things. He likely missed a letter. When his DX manager ran my call through it wasn't there and I suppose he wasn't going to dig through hundreds of QSOs to find mine. I'll bet this happens a lot during contests.

Guys that do their own QSL logs (like me) can look it up by time and frequency and make a correction to make sure the guy gets the proper QSL.

Last night I rebagged Kuwait, which I did because Kuwait hasn't responded yet. I also rebagged Bosnia and Herezog and Lithuania. Liuthuania is a new one entirely so I sent out a card to  him.

I should leave my list next to the rig so when I hear a call sign I can see if I need him as it gets confusing. Sometimes I do, but not always.

Yesterday a pretty good book came to my door."The Lucky Bastards Club". My day was a Lucky Bastard, having survived 25 missions over Europe and I'll bet it's going to be good reading.

Life expectancy was 15 missions.

If you survived 25 you WERE a lucky bastard.

Anyway that's today's post. Be the first kid on your block to read them all.












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I am home now

My nephew is now married to the Most Beautiful Bride in the World.

I have been to the first wedding I have been to since '86 and am not on anyone's shitlist for once.

My sister commented on how well I behaved myself and I sniffled. "I'm sorry," I replied. "I'm just so ashamed of myself." That drew laughter from one sister and a dirty look from the other.

I did my job as senior uncle of the groom's side which was to dance the night away with the 2 flower girls, ages 8 and 7. They were thrilled to be dancing with their old uncle and it served a purpose. 

Getting them tired out insured my niece would have a peaceful ride home with them asleep in the back of the car instead of squalling. It's easier to unload a couple of inert sacks when you get home than listen to them all keyed up, I suppose.

There was one young hottie there that I had fun with. She was introduced to me as the groom's sailor uncle and started the 20 questions of life at sea that I always get. She asked me how I managed to communicate with people overseas.

I told her I speak fluent Russian... in French and it went right over her head.

I have just finished several detailed pages of everything and was going to post them here but decided I am going to keep the memories to myself and deleted the post.






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May report later on tonight

Rolling today



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Last minute wedding stuff.

I camped at the groom's house last night. He tossed the keys to my sister and the three of us, Myself and my 2 sisters stayed there. 

His mom, also my sister has a room in the house that she uses when she visits so she went there. I hit the spare bedroom upstairs and my other sister had choices but she's kind of like me in that she can camp easily. She opted for the couch and a poncho liner.

We're up now and I have fried up a pond of bacon and ate a good sized chunk of it along with three eggs and left the bacon out for my sisters who will nibble on it and maybe fry themselves an egg or two.

What is funny is that even though I'm the champion fast dresser, my sisters are no slouches either. Either of them can dive into a phone booth and give Clark Kent a run for his money, coming out looking like a queen ready for the embassy ball.

One of the things about staying somewhere else is that you do not know where things are. I broke out the coffee and sis came in and took over and made a pot but finding the fixings was a chore. I almost broke out my little plastic bag of sugar and coffee creamers but we found everything.

As far as being on time goes I actually syncronized my watch off ot WWV before I left home because I have had headaches over time before. 

Someone got in a hurry when we buried my mother and things started five minutes early and it made my kid sister look like she was late when in fact she was 3 mintues early. I bailed her out over that one.

When I was in high school I used to set my watch by WWV and they remember that. If I say it is a certain time, they accept it as gospel if I mention setting it by WWV.

In fact a few years back a cousin was griping about time and I flatly told them what time it was. The looked at me dubiously. One of my sisters asked me when I had set my watch and I told her it was two days ago. Instantly BOTH sisters ratpacked him and pointed out that MY watch was set by the American Bureau of Standards and the atomic clock in Ft. Collins, Colorado and NOT by asking some wino what time it was.

I've been trying to find an old Radio Shack time cube for my baby sister as she cuts things awfully close at times.

Today is going to be lazy until about 11:15. Everything is calm as we fought ourselves out yesterday. At about 11:15 there will be chaos as the two girls fight over the shower.

I guess the bride and groom are planning on offspring. The Most Beautiful Bride in the World is a tiny little thing and I commented to my sisters the way things seem to work. If/when she does have a baby my guess is that it will be a baby the size of an elephant.

It is generally those six-foot plus tall broad shouldered, big hipped Big  Olga types that give birth to babies the size of a peanut.

I got into trouble several years ago when a moose of a woman gave birth to a very small baby. I was astonished and let my mouth run off and said I had taken dumps bigger than that. Immediately the referee blew his whistle and threw out a penalty marker. Fifteen yards. Ouch.

Last night I took off my jersey and my sis instantly confiscated it to sleep in. Seeing the rehearsal was totally informal I opted for a pair of Dickies pants and a CMP jersey I snagged at Camp Perry last summer and had been saving for something like this. It is a subtle shade of pink whaich you know I wear often.

One of my nephew's friends asked who the old guy in the pink shirt was and he laughed and told him that I was his Old School tough guy uncle and that he would be wise to steer clear of and derogatory comments about the color pink or he would wind up looking pretty stupid. 

He also said that it was a slam dunk that I would be wearing a pink shirt and a black tie to the wedding which I am.

When you tell your friends that the scar on your uncle's arm came from fighting his way out of a Singapore whorehouse whan he was seventeen they tend to remember their manners, even if it is a bullshit story.

It was a guess on his part but a good one. I generaly do wear a pink shirt and a black tie to functions requiring a tie. It's generally a pretty subtle shade of pink.

Incidentally the rehearsal dinner was actually pretty subdued as my nephew is smart enough to hang with a more intelligent crown than his dopey old uncle did when he was his age.

It is actually a good thing because years ago everyone would get toasted and show up at the wedding looking like a bunch of two-dollar whores after a thousand-dollar night.

I didn't see anyone getting truly plastered and actually like things that way. For the record the bottle of Beam in my seabag is still pretty much full. I bought that jug this past March after a match at Quantico and only had a swig to wash down some cold medicine.

Incidentally, I am in PRM, aka People's Republic of Massachusetts which is a communist country. I carefully went through my truck before I left and made sure there wasn't so much as a loose .22 round in it as he rules in this place suck and I could wind up in the bucket for a year for something like that.

I'm going to shower now and beat the last minute panic as my two sisters will invariably fight over the shower come about 11 O'clock. 

I'm fishing my bar of Irish Spring out of my duffel because a lot of people today, especially the younger ones, use all of these newer products and body washes. Soap is what I am used to.

My sisters commented yeaterday that I looked pretty starched and pressed but there's a trick to that. The pants and shirts are new. Dickies work pants when they are new are pretty well creased and look damned good. 

After the wedding they will go into my closet until I wear them again and have to wash them and knock the crease down. Then they go into my seabag and become a work uniform.

I am now showered about an hour and a half ahead of time which means the hot water tank can recover for the two womanfolk.

It also means that they can't get even with me for when I turn on the hot water in the kitchen sink while they are in the shower and give them a blast of ice water. This, of course, is a part of my job and a delightful thing to do because I get to hear my sisters use language so foul I seldom hear it at sea.

First it is the wail of the Banshee followed by unspeakable profanity. Navy chiefs ought to take a lesson or two here.

Back years ago before the state mandated those safety valves the trick was to turn on the cold water and hear the shrieks of pain as they boiled like napalmed Vietnamese regulars. If you timed it right there would be a last minute wardrobe change as they womenfolk changed plans from bare shoulders to something that would cover up the first and second degree burns.

Back then you'd plan ahead and turn up the hot water tank to the Big Max and after an hour or so when you went back to check it you could hear the satisfying sound of the water in the tank boiling away. Then you knew that you had best have aloe vera on hand.

The PRM has legislated that bit of fun off the rolls and now all I can do is give them a blast of cold water. Oh, well.

I am sitting here now in shorts and nthing else but I am slathered down in Old Spice because I am a sailor and that's what sailors wear.

I am also trying to figure out how to escape the clutches of the bride's sister who last night seemed to have put my name on her dance card. That ain't going to happen as I do not dance at weddings. I do not know why people like that seem to zero in on me but they do.

You have to remember that I have not been to a wedding since I lived in Kodiak and I left there in '86. I'll be damned if I dance at one. It got to the point that I would ask my employer for extra work to avoid the damned things. My fear of attending weddings after I left Kodiak made me contemplate joining the French Foreign Legion for a while.

This one's different. I want to be here.

Hmmm. Speaking of the French Foreign Legion, I wonder why that subject has't been brought up. I escaped a wedding a couple of decades ago thanks to a friend stationed in Germany who remailed a letter for me that I was en route to Aubagne to enlist. 

My mother threw a conniption but my dad calmed her down because I sent him a letter through his workplace cluing him in that I wanted to squirm out of the wedding. He covered for me somehow. The man was a genius at that.

Quick fix as a rummaging of things in the nephew's closet has found me an ace bandage and the clips. In the same closet is a Ka-Bar which makes it easy as I whack off about a foot of bandage and the two clips. This will  wrap around my right ankle above the shoe and stay hidden by the sock so when she asks me to dance I will show it and have an easy out.

One sea story coming right up. I got my foot crushed between two supertankers out in the North Atlantic. Whatever. If push comes to shove I will simply refuse but the excuse should cover me.

Time marches on and I have to go back on task but there is only one fear I do have and that is if the idiot they hired to perform the ceremony runs late because of traffic on the bridge I will be pressed into service. 

While I most certainly do not want to do the ceremony I will if pressed as I did promise to be the insurance policy. While it is a fear of mine, most likely it is a bigger fear of the rest of the family as they are cringing at what I will pull out of my ass to marry them.

Actually my nephew and his blushing bride know I will come up with something. 

Right now one of the womenfolk is heading into the shower and I have to get ready to turn on the cold water in a few. I gotta go and stand by.

Update. I just heard the wail of the banshee and the the profanity is enough to make a Navy chief blush. Good job.


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Thank God for the Combat laptop.

It's still up and running and doing its job. 

On site for the family wedding which is already a zoo as to be expected but this is a serious mess because everyoone is in an uproar EXCEPT for the bride to be. She's pretty cool under fire.

Last night I sacked out in a nieces apartment with people crashed out everywhere. It reminded me of a 60s crash pad but that's the way we run, I guess. Whatever it takes.
I think she's still upset over the time I passed her and her 2 kids off as mine a couple years ago to a gossip I met from my high school days.

Things are getting pretty vicious as every single person in the family has sidled up to her suggesting that her Uncle Piccolo perform the ceremony for her next summer.

I am NOT going to perforn the ceremony which is what I actually hoped for but the neat part is that my neice is tying the knot next July and the family now has something to ratpack her on.

Of course, they get blasted for even thinking of such a thing and they act hurt and  tell her that I look good in a purple turban.

I even offered to wear an eyepatch and a gold tooth today with my turban at breakfast and acted all hurt when she adamantly refused my kind offer.

To make matters worse, her beau said that getting married by 'Swami Piccolo' was a great idea. More indignation and steadfast refusal.

What is funny is that when she was younger she kept telling us she was NOT going to become one of us and now a few years later she's in the middle of the melee duking it out with the rest of us.

My sis slyly said something to her and my niece shot right back at her. Bam! Headshot! It was funny watching sis turn red.

This family is lovingly brutal and sometimes a meal is like a night at the barricades. I guess it would be like the Danny DiVito/Rhea Pearlman family, but in fact underneath it all it's good old fashioned Irish love.

I wonder what the bride's tribe would be thinking if they saw even half of the melee that is going on now. Likely they would be mortified.

Another neice said ahe'd like to visit me this summer for a few days and I shot back that the week she suggested wasn't any good as Mrs Pic will be out of town then and I'd be damned if I'd share quarters with a 17 year old girl without Mrs. Pic around.

She said I could tell the neighbors we met on the Jerry Springer show and laughter ensued. Then someone suggested to her that when I was busy somewhere else she tell a passerby or two that she needs help escaping and that her face is on a milk carton.

That's all I need.

As I fish something out of my duffel my sisters both marvel at how I can operate out of such a small amount of stuff and come out smelling like a rose. Truth is it comes from years of being a seaman.

One of the things about the constant bickering between us that seems odd is how well things get done. This is a well oiled team that thrives on flexibility and communication.

I have not had so many texts and phone calls over such a short period of time. My cell is constantly going off with messages as is everyone else's.

Someone dropped one of the younger ones off to get their hair done and she was supposed to pick her up. Instead my other sister that happened to be in the area on a totally unrelated errand called and traded errands with my niece.

We would pick her up and my niece could pick up whatever it was. It's terrible efficient, incredibly coordinated and the best part is the bickering never missed a beat. My other niece even managed to ask her why she's not having me marry them. Another dig.

Truth is I really don't want to perform the ceremony, and would try skin out of it if I could but it gives us something fun to bicker about.

The unholy alliances I make with one sister to play against the other sister and then make another pact with the other sister against the one. This is truly Machiavellian and anyone watching this as an outsider would be appalled at me for this until they realize that the other two are doing the same to me.

I just got busted. Earlier today they commented on my classic highly shined panny loafers and how the classics never go out of style and how well polished they were. I gloated a bit and explained that buying a classic like that is a good investment.

Silly me. I took them off for a minute and then POW! Busted! They found the tag in them from Goodwill that said I only paid $1.95 for them. 

That started a mixed melee as one sister started calling me a cheapskate and the other complimented me on being a pretty good bargain hunter. Two minutes later they both switched roles and I got called a cheapskate and a bargain hunter by both again, but they had swapped sides because I managed to point out that some accessory one of them had came from a bargain store.

You have to be quick and while I am not the full time winner, I do well enough to say I hold my own.

The rehearsal and rehearsal dinner went well and we presented a nice united front and played well together and everyone was reasonably impressed.

The rehearsal seemed to go normally as the guys goofed off a bit and the womanfolk took it seriously. Tomorrow the guys will be like good GIs and will full in and it's likely one of the women will do something dumb. Happens every time.

One of the things I did I was glad of is that when I had 45 free minutes I grabbed a burger as I knew it would be some time to rehearsal dinner.  I picked Burger King as their brand of grease works well for me. 

WHile I have the constitution of a goat and little bothers me I am not taking any chances. When I watched Prince William's wedding I noticed that a lot of the guests looked like they had to piss like a racehorse. I could have made a lot of money that day if I had a gallon mayonaise jar and a cloak.

The Third Lord of Cricklewood Green (or whoever he was)looked like he was ready to soil his pants and I don't want to have that feeling tomorrow.

Anyway what is amazing is that the rehearsal dinner was decided on several months ago and I think they screwed up and threw in an extra course which is OK. It was good eating. Still, it was a late supper so I was glad I hit the BK.

I mentioned my $1.95 penny loafers I snagged a couple of years ago. As soon as I bought them I soaked them overnight in water and wore them the next day while wearing heavy socks to break them in. They were actually new.

After they dried out I spit shined them and put them away. Today I was glad I did that as new shoes are rough and I can't slip them off at a wedding. They were pretty comfortable.

It's called doing your homework. I'm surprised the Goodwill tag survived to get me busted after the break-in I gave them.

I'm home now and getting ready to sack out and I have one hope for tomorrow and that is that the person hired to do the wedding shows up because if they don't I am going to have to pull a wedding ceremony out of my ass in short order.

Before we all sack out under the same roof tonight there is the usual gathering of electronics and wall worts are in every socket of the kitchen. It's cell phones, iPads and an electronic cigarette along with a few other odds and ends.

My cell phone got quite a workout today and I have never seen the battery drop like that. I'm beat and hitting the rack soon.

One thing I did do was tell the Most Beautiful Bride in the World that I would teach her to brawl with the rest of us. Her face lit up and it was something to behold. I'll make another Rhea Pearlman out of her yet!

Tomorrow I plan on sleeping in for a bit and cooking breakfast for everyone when I do get up and tomorrow the melee will likely reach a crescendo until about 1400 and will abruptly stop because the wedding is at 1500.

I suppose the experts would call us a dysfunctional mess but we're really not. We're a well oiled team.

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The next few days are going to be hit or miss as I have a wedding to attend to

and a bunch of other stuff to take care of..




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One of the things that annoys me is that a lot of the stores

 out there ask me for stuff that they have no business asking me for.

Tonight I went to a K-Mart for a pair of sneakers and at the register the cerk asked me for my telephone number. 

It is none of their business so I decided to have a little fun.

"I'm flatterred you want to go out with me. I'm three times your age, you know."

She looked startled. "I don't want to go out with you," she snapped back.

"Now you broke my heart!" I replied.

"What made you think I wanted to go out with you?" She asked.

"You asked me for my phone number. I figured you were going to call me after you got off of work," I replied.

"No. The STORE wants your phone number. I'm supposed to put it into the register," she explained.

"Well, I'm sorry. I don't have one," I said, aplolgetically.

"You don't have a phone number?" she asked, dubiously. "Everyone has a phone number."

"Well, I don't," I replied.

"Why not?" she asked.

"The judge took it away from me for drunk driving," I said, sadly.

"When my daddy got taken up for that they took away his driver's license," she said, "But he got to keep his phone."

"Oh, yeah. That musta been it. They took away my driver's license for drunk driving," I replied. "I guess they took away my telephone number for talking drunk on it."

"They can't do that," she said.

"Then how come I don't have a phone number?" I asked.

"Well, I guess you don't get to use your K-Mart customer card," she said. 

"I guess not."

Just then my cell went off and I fished it out to see who it was. I saw it was a call I could answer a little later.

"I thought you said you didn't have a phone," she said, indignantly.

"I have a phone, I just don't have a phone number," I said.

"Then how do people call you if you don't have a phone number?" she demanded.

"I don't know, they just do," I shrugged. "I guess they just use their phone numbers or maybe they share theirs with me. Who knows?"

Then I paid for my sneakers and left.

The woman behind me looked like she was having one hell of a time not busting out laughing.





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A while ago I read where some guy with a swastika tattoo

 said he didn't want black nurses tending to his newborn.

OK, the man is a bigot but this is the United States and you can still be as ignorant as you want. If it was against the law to be ignorant than the jails would be stuffed cram pack full of liberals and other people that do not know how to count.

 I guess because this guy was tattooed with a swastika has a lot to do with why everyone is upset. I suppose this might not be as big an issue if the guy was in a suit or something.

First of all the man was in his rights. Woman refuse to be attended by male OB/GYNs all the time and nobody gripes about that.

Secondly there is supposidly a patient bill of rights and a person is permitted to refuse service for any reason they want. I'm OK with that. You have the right to choose who you want to perform a medical proceedure on you and it isn't the job of the government to say otherwise.

My Primary Care doctor is a white male simply because he was on the list and was nearby so I tried him out and he has been pretty good to me over the years. He's sent me to a number of different specialists of different races over the years and I have not found one of them that made me uncomfortable. 

On the other hand, actions have consequences and I have covered this before. When you base entry into schools on anything other than excellence you make a lot of people wonder.

Over the years there have been a lot of minorities that have gotten into colleges and medical schools because they happend to have been able to hop on the minority band wagon. 

Actions have consequences.

I say this time and again that setting aside quotas for minorities is an insult to a race and it debases the minorities that get in there and compete successfully. This is because those that got into a school simply because of their minority status are not really trusted by a lot of people, including other minorities.

Nobody wants to have second rate care of any sort, especially medical care. People will often see a minority health care professional and wonder if they were one of those second-bests that got into their position because of political correctness instead of competency.

While the guy with the swastika tattooed on him is likely a plain and simple bigot and just doesn't like blacks I'd bet there are a lot of people that try steer clear of minority health care professionals because they don't want to risk being seen by someone that might be second rate.

You can't really blame them. I'd bet that an awful lot of the politically correct people out there change their tune when their health or the health of their loved ones enters the equation. 

Frankly I really don't care who works on me if they're competent. It was an Indian that saved my life once and I cheerfully bust his chops and call him an American Indian.

One time I did this and got a lecture from some dumb tech that called me a bigot and chewed me out for being politically incorrect. I told her to shut the hell up and go find some other place to stick her nose. My doctor 'bout like to die laughing as she stormed out in a huff.

When she returned the doc told her that bigots seldom send people they don't like green T-shirts and pints of Jameson's two days before St. Patrick's Day. (I had done this a week earlier) She turned beet red when he said that. 

Still, to be honest he came recommended by my primary care doctor and I know he weeds the hacks, quacks and butchers out before he sends me to someone. If he sends me to a minority than I know the specialist is good. 

If I had to pick my own doctor I do not know what I would do. Likely I would ask around the nurses because they know. In fact I suppose my neighbor, Nurse Connie would be the first person I asked.

While I certainly would not refuse a doctor based on race, I will admit that I would ask around about a minority to make sure he was competent and not someone second-stringer that got into college on a set-aside minority slot. 

If I find out that he's a first-stringer, I'll hire him in a heartbeat no matter what he is.

I can't blame anyone else for doing the same thing.

Then again if we'd pursue excellence instead of pandering to the politically correct set this tattooed guy wouldn't really have too much of a leg to stand on and would truly look as ignorant as he is.

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I wish the NAACP would just simply go away

 because it has done it's job and is now just being a pain in the ass.

Call me whatever you want. I don't care anymore.

The organization was started with a pretty noble purpose.

"To ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination" is the mission statement I just got out of the Wikipedia people and I have no reason to doubt it.

I would have to say it has suceeded and should fold up, say "Mission accomplished" and dissolve leaving a pretty good legacy behind to be looked at by historical scholars.

Until somewhat recently they have done the black community a great service of busting through an awful lot and maybe we wouldn't be where we are without them. Historiaclly they have accomplished a lot.

But I guess that would mean that the leadership would have to go back to being anybodies again and once you have had a place of power you simply don't want to quit.

These days the organization seems not to have anyone out there in any numbers to say is persecuting blacks. Proof is that we now have a black man in the White House.

If all of this bigotry was still there we wouldn't have a black president. 

OK, yes. There are still a few bigots out there and there will always be until we do away with stupid which isn't going to happen in the forseeable future. If we outlaw it the jails will be so full there will be nobody aavailable to guard them.

When a group forms to accomplish a mission and does there are generally a lot of people left over that stand around looking at each other asking 'what's next?'. The next step is what is popularly called a re-invention. The NAACP seems to have started in on this and the reinvention doesn't look very good.

A group that was fighting for equal rights and dignity in the workplace seems now to have embraced the Free $hit Army and seems more interested in taking from the populace that adding to it.

It wasn't very long ago that the group was supporting the dignity of work and being justly and equally rewarded for it and that in itself is a noble thing. It also extolled to their membership the need for being responsible in their daily lives and the need to set an example by contributing to the nation as a whole so as to be noticed as good people.

Over the past decade or so they seem to have changed and made somewhat of a point to make sure their membership gets their free $hit  from government. In short it appears to me that they have stopped contributing and started collecting.

A decade or so ago I would watch the NAACP take on the cause of a person that had truly been treated unfairly. Generally the person was clearly in the right and was a decent human being with no impeachability. He or she would have all of the proper credentials and a pretty clean record.

Ever since they let Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton darken their door they seem to have been supporting some runny-nosed little hype or another. I haven't seen too many good people that have been shafted being defended recently.

Actually the NAACP isn't the only one that has accomplished their mission. There are a lot of them.

MADD is another one. They campaigned for passage and enforcement of drunk driver laws. The purpose, of course, being to make the streets safer. Founded in 1980 by Candice Lightner it grew and in short order it managed to get the mission accomplished.

Drunk driving laws were enacted and strongly enforced. They still are, yet after it had done what it set out to do it became much closer to a neo prohibitionist group that really does little to make the public any safer. In fact, Lightner-the very founder of the group- left the organization after its mission was accomplished after the organization reinvented itself.

The NAACP seems to be paralleling this because instead of folding itself up they have shifted focus and are now supporting causes designed to create what they wanted to stop in the first place.

Recently they have taken up the cause of justice for Treyvon Martin, a black teenager that was shot after apparently assaulting a Hispanic male. The initial investigation cleared the shooter, George Zimmerman who was brought up on charges after pressure from the NAACP and Al Sharpton among others.

The NAAACP should not have touched that case with a ten foot pole. Martin wasn't clean to begin with, but since the case crossed racial lines  they jumped right in.

They ought to simply sit down, shut up and either shut down or go on standby mode instead of looking for problems or creating them where they do not exist.

People are getting pretty tired of them whipping out the race card and all they are doing is creating what they were designed to stop.

To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html