I have a liberal friend that I have known for fifty years

 and we disagree on just about everything which is fine, I suppose.

There is one thing we do both agree on, though. It's a person's right to know what's in a package of whatever food you are buying.

There are a lot of genetically modified food products out there and laws requiring them to be labeled as such are far and few between. The big boys in the corporate offices are generally doing a fine job of paying off politicians to keep the labeling requirement off the books.

I am not a scientist by a long shot. I certainly am not a biologist. I took a high school course in biology that consisted of cutting up a couple of dead frogs and learning to use punnet squares to figure out the liklihood of having a three-headed kid. That's about it.

Still, I can't help but wonder if the allergies and things I never saw back in my day are not the result or even partial result of eating genetically modified foodstuffs.

Either way, we as a people have a right to know what is in our chow. 

I can see genetically modifying crops to allow them to grow in, for example, arid lands as a way to feed starving people in the plains of Africa. Many of those people simply need something to eat.

What I can't see is modifying a crop just to be able to get a marginally better yield. American agri-manufacturers are efficient enough as it is.

Liberals and many others are upset, and often rightfully so, that our democratic process has been stifled by big money. Resistance to truth in labeling laws is one classic example of this.

I certinly do not think that genetically modified foods should be banned. I am pretty pro-choice on most things and what you eat is your business. 

I simply think we have a right to know so we can make out own choices.

That being said, I see that my grease level is down and a double bacon cheese burger sounds pretty good about now. I want it made with Velveeta cheese. After all, it's my choice and if I want to eat junk that's my business.

I also have a right to know when I'm eating junk.

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One of the things that I see a lot of is that people think that

 raising the minimum wage is going to be the big be-all and end all solution to cure all social ills and eliminate the common cold.

I am no great economist and have a basic high school education but I can figure that one out.

The first thing that is likely to happen is the number of minimum wage jobs will simply drop. People will be replaced by automation. Anyone that has ordered a sandwich in a convenience store deli can see that. 

The person that used to say, "May I help you?" has been replaced with an ordering touch screen. Every touch screen means a lost job.

So the lower end jobs get replaced with automation.

Some of the businesses that depend on minimum wage labor will be forced to close. More jobs lost.

The next step, of course, is inflation. The price of goods and services will go up accordingly. It will still mean that to buy something that takes X many hours at minimum wage will still take X many hours to buy. Or at least until you figure that the new minimum wage earner is in a higher tax bracket. Now that something costs X plus hours to pay for.

In short the guy at the bottom will find himself no better off, and after a while worse off than if they had just left things alone.

The next step is that it is a lot of mildly successful people will find that they are an awful lot closer to minimum wage than they used to be. They are not going to get raises comsumerate to the change created by raising the minumum wage at all. If the minimum wage goes up, for example, 40% then you can bet their wage isn't going up 40%. They have now been dragged down closer to poverty in terms of purchasing power.

From a practical standpoint they have just gotten a pay cut.

A lot of people griped about Reagan's 'Trickle Down Economics' but in truth it created jobs. 

Right now raising the minimum wage is likely only to create Trickle Up Poverty.

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I have a long dead uncle that had an interesting WW2 history.

He was an amateur radio operator in the late 20s and 30s and had one hell of a fist coupled with a damned good ear. He could send and receive CW (Morse) at an ungodly rate.

Such a skill generally meant that the person would not be handed amusket and sent to the front. It meant they would be pulled out of basic training and turned into a radio operator or an instructor it the skillholder was good at it.

My uncle was offered a civilian job helping the war effort by training high speed radio operators and he accepted it. He was sent to Virginia instantly.

He was told not to enlist. Apparently Donovan wanted some of his people to remain civvies. I would have done the same thing because civvies are not under military control. He didn't want some idiot of an army officer messing with his people.

SpecOps military people have constantly had this problem. An example of a minor thing that has happened to the Green Berets could be that when they have been ordered into beards and paramilitary clothing only to have some pompous ass comes along and order them back into issue uniforms, clean shaven and strictly GI appearance.

These days military officers generally leave SpecOps types alone because the SpecOps people now have gotten themselves friends in high places. Messing with SpecOps types is a sure ticket to ending a career in Barstow, California counting dented mess kits. It wasn't always that way, though.

I believe my uncle was too old early in the war to be drafted but as it dragged on they raised the age and tried to draft him. By this time he was training high speed radio operators in Virginia. 

When he found out he was eligible he told his boss who passed word up the chain. An army officer was sent to his local draft board and told the old bag running it to lose his paperwork. He was not to be drafted.

Apparently the old witch figured such a thing 'wasn't fair to the other boys' and ignored the officer. She sent him a letter ordering him to take a physical.

I don't know why they didn't simply give him a 'critical to the war effort' deferment but my guess is that just about anything to do with the OSS was classified. People said OSS stood for 'Oh, So Secret'. My guess is that it would have come to light that my uncle had been taken into the OSS and they didn't want it on paper.

Anyway, my uncle got a call from his mother saying he had been ordered to take a physical. He told his boss and something pretty cool happened. A brigadier general took his physical for him. 

On the given date, a brigadier general accompanied by a master sergeant showed up and picked up his paperwork and proceeded to the medical officer in charge and had the MO stamp it 4F, medically ineligible for military service.

The brigadier and master sergeant then took the paperwork back to his local draft board and the woman there was given a memorable lecture. She was simply ordered to do what she was told and stop worrying about what was fair and what wasn't.

My uncle was left alone by the draft board for the rest of the war and continued to train high speed radio operators until hostilities ceased in 1945.

Actually he did quite well. As soon as he arrived in Virginia he got a small apartment somehow and sent for his wife. She took an Army office job and stayed at it for as long as my uncle was there.

At the end of the war they had saved enough to buy a house back home in Massachusetts and lived there until they died.

I liked my uncle. Actually I believe he was my great-uncle and my dad was one of his favorites. I always looked forward to his visits. I also looked forward to visiting him, too. His amateur radio station was pretty neat.

He was an old school code guy and I don't believe he even had phone (voice) capabilities.

His car had a trunk full of surplus military radios and an antenna that looked like something out of the Jetsons. He could hop in, start it up and put on a leg key. He could drive a manual transmission (a three in the tree), carry on a conversaton with an animated and highly curious grand nephew and communicate using CW with another ham in Outer Mongolia at the same time in complete safety.

I remember the constant beep a beep beep of the CW coming out of the speaker as we drove in heavy traffic. It is one of my coolest childhood memories.

He was kind of a spry old character, too. I remember when I was older and he was in his 70s. He visited us and my sister had just gotten s new bicycle.

My uncle said to her, 'Watch this" and took her bicycle. He sat on the handle bars, gave himself a shove and put his feet on the pedals and started riding it. It was pretty funny. He had to keep turning his head to see where he was going but he did a pretty good job of things. It was amazing to watch.

With a twinkle in his eye, he asked my dad to try and dad smiled and refused. "I'd bust my ass," he said and they both laughed.

He also had an old Model T Ford in his garage and occasionally took it out. He let me drive once even though I was too young to have a license. This was back in the 60s and it was in a large empty area.

I imagine that if we had been caught that it would have been overlooked as there was a thing called common sense going around in those days.

I didn't get to see my uncle very much but I sure remember the times I did.

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All laws should sunset after ten or fifteen years

All of them.

When the law is due to sunset it can be reviewed and a decision can be made to either renew it or let it just die off.

An example of this is the Clinton (so-called) assault weapon ban. It was enacted with a sunset clause. Ten years after it was enacted it became automatically null and void.

Congress looked at the results and saw that the law wasn't doing anybody any good so they just didn't renew it. Apparently the number of drive-by bayonettings didn't drop off any. 

There are a lot of laws on the books that are really useless and serve no purpose except for to take up space and paper and annoy people.

This isn't just a federal thing, the states are chock full of laws that should have been repealed decades ago. Some of them are ridiculous.

On a state level the laws that are still on the books are insane. Many of these are so-called 'Blue Laws'. In one state it is illegal to take a bath on Sunday. Somewhere else throwing a pair of cargo pants on to mow the lawn on Sunday can get you fined because it is illegal to wear a pair of pants with pockets big enough to hold a pint bottle.

Some of these laws have been on the books since the Pilgrims stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock. Many of them no longer even make sense.

There really is no reason having a law on the books making it illegal to ride a horse backwards past a cemetery at midnight.

Incidentally many of these laws were sidestepped shortly after they were enacted. One law prohibited eating ice cream cones on Sunday. As a result ice cream parlors started serving ice cream in dishes. It started to be referred to as the Sunday. This was later changed to what people today call the sundae.

If a law is worth keeping it is worth reviewing every decade or so to see if it still is earning its place on the books.





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I have to change oils

 in machinery periodically and I have learned a pretty slick trick.

Common lore says that the oil runs better when it is still hot and that is true. Hot oil flows faster.

Still, on some machines I wait a while until the oil cools down. For one thing it contracts when it cools and doesn't make as much of a mess when you pull the oil filter off. For another thing you don't have to worry about getting burned by hot oil.

Most drain plugs are big enough so that even cold oil will flow fairly rapidly. The loss in time there is overcompensated for by not making a mess or getting burned.

Generally I let the machine sit a while but this time I wanted to get the job done before I ended my day. I let the temperature drop to about 100 degrees and everything came out fine.

During this past winter I would let it drop to maybe 40 degrees and everything worked out fine.

Like a lot of things in life sometimes being in a hurry isn't the way to go.  




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George Zimmerman

George Zimmerman really is a screw-up when you look at it. It seems that every time you turn around he is getting into some kind of hot water.

He's recently spoken out since Holder and the Justice Department have decided not to charge him.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/trayvon-martin-george-zimmerman/os-george-zimmerman-reacts-doj-20150323-story.html

Even a blind squirrel finds a nut.

Zimmerman put this one right into the X-ring.



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One of the things I am pretty grateful for is that I can post here daily.

Our Constitution says I can and that's good enough for me. I live in a country that was founded by outright geniuses but is presently run by idiots but that's another story.

There is no rhyme nor reason as to what I post here. I can't say this is specifically a political blog because it isn't. Nor is it a shooter's nor a ham radio blog even though a lot of posts are shooter or ham related.

It is nothing more or less than what it is advertised as. It is the the grumblings of a wayward sailor.

This blog is about anything I see and decide I want to comment on. It can be anything. I kind of like it that way.

One thing that is a constant, though is that I side with the guy packing a lunch pail even though sometimes it doesn't look like it.

Anyway, I suppose that it is a good thing that the Constitution allows me to do this, not that it really matters. I am the kind of outlaw that would find some kind of way to speak my mind for as long as I could even though I'd likely wind up in some concentration camp.

Speaking of speaking one's mind, has anyone ever noticed that the powers that be hate the First Amendment? They don't like being in the firing line. 

I would imagine the last president that truly embraced the First Amendment was Harry Truman. Truman was generally smart enough to embrace any vilification he got as president. The rest of them most likely don't like being taken to task.

Truman was taken to task by the American people when he fired Douglas MacArthur. The American people didn't like this very much at the time.

Truman simply said that history would eventually support his decision and he was right.

(Sea story digression time) My dad was in the church hall one time for some thing or another and as usual was sitting by Deegan. Deegan was kind of a character  who went by his last name. Even his wife called him 'Deegan'. A rite of passage for me was when I didn't have to call him 'Mister Deegan' anymore. One day he told me to stop calling him 'Mister' anymore unless we were around the womenfolk.

Deegan had served in Korea and was mentioning what a raw deal Mac got. My dad pointed out that Mac had brought it on himself by disobeying Truman and said that Deegan would be looking for another job if he didn't obey his boss. After all, Harry Truman was Commander in Chief.

Deegan thought about that a minute and said, "You know, you're right."

Point is, it took time but the truth came to light.

Still, the press vilified Truman for firing Mac. Truman didn't care. He was likely the last president that truly understood and respected the Bill of Rights.

As this wayward sailor grumbles he has to say that he hopes that the younger people will respect and love the Bill of Rights and not be afraid to do whatever it takes to defend it from the powers that would take these rights from them.

Maybe after I am dead and gone some wayward sailor will take over where I left off. 

I just hope he is able to.

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There are people you just like to run into every so often.

It may be the guy at the hardware store or the woman behind the coffee counter but just running into them from time to time makes your life a little nicer.

The guy at the local hardware store is one of those people that I generally learn something from. He explains things to me that make the job I am doing go easier. He's also a pretty neat guy.

Then there's the woman at the deli counter. She always has something nice to say. Once she gets to know you she has a pretty outrageous sense of humor.

The guy that runs the electronic department at Target is pretty interesting. He always has something interesting to say. I think Target is a retirement gig for him, actually.

Some of them you see fairly often, some seldom. When I go to Camp Perry which I seem to do every year I meet a bunch of people I like to see.

Some of them are work-related, too. There are a handful of old time dockmen I alway like to run into. Most of these guys are the old pros that know how to get things done with less time and effort that the newer guys.

Of course, there are a collection of jerks out there but they are outnumbered by the good guys but let's put the jerks aside.

One of the things that make life worth living is people.

This post is dedicated to the good ones that make life worth living.




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Sometimes ya just gotta bite the bullet.

One of the guys just climbed a tree and tied a rope to somewhere near the top to use for an antenna. He figured he'd tie the rope to one end of the antenna and the other end of the antenna would be lifted by another rope  he threw over the branch of another tree.

Problem is the antenna is a bit too long and he can't get it lifted properly.

Of course, the prospect of climbing the tree isn't too inviting.  As so many of us are inclined to do he started engineering a way to get around having to climb the tree again.

It doesn't take a lot before things get out of hand and one is doing several times the work than simply re-climbing the tree.

It sounds to me like he should have climbed the tree and installed a plastic laundry pulley with a piece of 550 paracord reeved through it and tied the pulley to the top of the tree in the first place. 

Still, rather than engineering and re-engineering things it would be a lot easier to just bite the bullet and climb the tree and do it right. 



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Inside the next couple of months this blog is going to take a turn

for reasons I can't get into.

I may not be able to get a post out every day. I may have to make several catch-up posts after a period of silence.

We'll see what happens but I figure I'd mention it now.

Life is about to change.




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A space holder

I have a couple blogs and just posted in one of the others.

That boots it to the top of the list and if I am foggy tomorrow I am likely to put the daily post in the wrong blog.

This is to kick the Hash back to the top so I don't screw up.


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Your mother lied to you.

She told you you were smart, handsome, intelligent, clever and going to be the President of the United States some day.

And you sit there in your mom's basement playing X-Box waiting for the American Public to show up and demand that you come out to accept the presidency.

She lied to you. You're not going anywhere.

Let's look back at school.

Were you taking calculus in 8th grade?

Did you take it in your junior year of high school? Did you take it at all? No?

Well, it looks like NASA isn't going to call you to run on down to the Kennedy Space Center to take charge of the space shuttle project. Might as well chalk that one off. That's not going to happen.

Of course, you know you're smart and clever and NASA is willing to overlook the fact that you can barely count.

After all, your mother told you how smart and clever you are. And you are. After all, you're some kind of Grand Wizard on Dungeons and Dragons.

If Dungeons and Dragons paid cash money, you'd be rich!

But it doesn't so you have to go to Fast Burgers for a four-hour shift to make some money for a new X-Box controller which is going to take months to save for even though it is not all that expensive.

After all, you've got some partying to do. Six-packs cost money and don't last very long. 

Of course, you can make excuses, but the sooner you realize that your mother lied to you and you're not going to magically become president the better off you will be.

You can face fact, get a job of some sort, look at your options and see what kind of schooling and training you can get and start trying to make a life for yourself.

Don't hold it against your mother that she lied to you, though. She's supposed to. It is in her DNA.

Every mother that gives birth wants to believe she's given birth to a future president.

The best thing you can do is get out of the basement and on with life. She may be a little sad that you don't get elected to the Oval Office but she'll learn to be proud of you if you wind up a reasonably successful carpenter or heating guy.

Now get the hell out of your mom's basement.



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From the best I can gather the Israelis are

signing their own death warrant in the long run.

I have not been paying attention to Israeli doings lately although I suppose I should be.

They have just re-elected Netanyahu. He seems to have managed to alienate a lot of his supporters over the past few years and he really isn't too popular of a person anywhere but in Israel. He has lost a lot of support from the rest of the world.

I would imagine it won't be long before the Arabs finally get angry enough to spool up for another Arab-Israeli war. When this one starts it isn't going to be short. It will be a slug fest and will cost Israel dearly.

With diminished support from the rest of the world it is going to be a hard row to hoe for Israel.

Then again, I may be wrong as I have only heard what is going on in dribs and drabs. Still, from what little I know, it doesn't look good for Israel over the long haul.







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The Idiot Box is in the background and if my ears

 are working there is a young couple in love that are looking for a ship's captain to marry them.

For what it's worth, they can save a few bucks by getting a subway conductor in Hoboken, New Jersey to marry them. The end result is the same. It's an invalid marriage.

I don't know where the rumor get started but it has been going around for years that ship's captains can marry people. I think what really gave it some creedence is when the movie The African Queen came out and Bogey's character married Katherine Hepburn's character just before they were supposed to be hanged.

I have a master's license that says, 'To U.S. Merchant Marine Officer' on it and have been asked if I can marry people. I tell them I can in certain instances but it has nothing to do with being a licensed captain. It's because I also am an ordained minister in the Universal Life Church. 

Naval regulations clearly specify that the captain of a US Naval vessel not only can't marry people, but can't even permit anyone to get married on a US Naval vessel. 

Of course, that has never stopped Hollyweird from reinforcing the old rumor every time they run into a snag of some sort in the plot. This happened on The Love Boat quite a bit. A lot of Grade B celebs tied the knot in a ceremony performed by Captain Stubing. I suppose this also helped clinch the rumor.

Even Star Trek's Captain James T. Kirk of the Star Ship Enterprise performed a marriage back in one episode that aired back in 1966. That's not my all-time favorite, though. On Married with Children, Al Bundy arranged for a drunken, nasty old unshaven tugboat skipper to perform a wedding ceremony over a two-way radio.

Personally I don't really think that being married by a ship's captain is romantic. I suppose that is because as a career seaman I have long ago seen through all of that 'romance of the sea' business. 

Of course, in the movies you see a ship's captain in a crisp, natty uniform but that is also more Hollywood. About the only time you see a merchant ship's captain in uniform any time is when he's actually conducting ship's business with shoreside people. While underway the captain wears what he wants, generally something comfortable. Cut-offs and flip flops are not unheard of.

Chances of finding one of those snappy blue uniforms on a merchie are not really all that good unless it's a cruise liner. Then again, I suppose that nobody is really interested in getting married on a tanker full of crude coming out of Kuwait by an unshaved guy in cut-offs and flip flops. If you are going that route, you may just as well get married in the break room of an oil refinery.

I can actually picture that. Some couple telling people that "We couldn't find a ship's captain to marry us on a ship so we got married in the break room of the local  Texaco refinery by a justice of the peace."

I can here the ceremony now. "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here at the I.M.T.T tank terminal in Bayonne, New Jersey to unite this couple in holy wedlock..."

Actually I really was married on a boat. My wife and I tied the know on a rental pontoon boat on Lake Arthur by a local minister but let's not let the facts get in the way of a good story.

The next person that asks is going to be told we were married by a train conductor while we were on the way to Scranton, Pennsylvania. Or maybe by a cab driver in Hackensack, New Jersey.
And why not? Train conductors and cab drivers have just about as much authority to marry someone as a sea captain does.



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Lifeis moving very fast.

If it slows down I might be able to make a post



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Here I am sitting here trying to remember what I wanted to write about today.

I had an idea yesterday and I suppose I should have written it down but I didn't so here I sit with a void between my ears.

Oh, yeah.

There is a movement out there to force the food companies to label genetically modified foodstuffs. Of course, the movement seems to be led by the usual anti corporate types but that's neither here nor there.

It sounds to me like for once in their lives they are on to something.

Now I generally eat what's put in front of me and simply shovel it down which is not necessarily a good thing but it is what it is.

Still, I have a right to know what I am eating. 

If genetically modified foods are not harmful than I wonder why companies like Monsanto are so eager not to label it as such. It sounds like someone's hiding something somewhere along the line.

Maybe they are, maybe not. Still, the American public has a right to know what is in the box of cereal they are feeding their kids.

I keep hearing of all sorts of allergies and autism that never seemed to exist years ago and some people are attributing this to the foods we eat. They may or may not be right.  

In some schools kids can't even bring peanut butter sandwiches to school because of allergies their classmates have. What's this all about? Back in the day all of us lived on peanut butter sandwiches. Now all of a sudden kids can't even bring them into school? What's with this badness?

Where are these new and improved allergies coming from?

 The public simply does have a right to know what they are eating.

I'm not saying we should become hippies and plant little gardens in out back yards and live on tofu and flax seeds. I'm simply saying that the public has a right to know what that can or box of whatever contains.



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 NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY

Well, it's time to do the daily post

and I am facing a block of sorts but will get over it in about a second or two. Let's see here....How about something from my recent emails.

About a week ago I was looking at a DX cluster and saw in the list of upcoming events that a ham was headed to the Kingdom of Tonga to set up there for a few days.

I have Tonga in my log but it is unconfirmed. I sent this Japanese ham an email asking him to look into this if he had any spare time and also to keep his ears open for my call sign.

Propagation has been lousy for me lately and was never able to work him. As I write he's now in New Zealand and probably headed back to Japan. He could find nothing about my previous QSO with a Tongan. Possibly it was a pirate but who knows.

Still, I like this hobby because just about everyone involved is pretty good about trying to help another ham out.

It's pretty cool when you can email someone that you have never met that lives abroad and help you out.






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There is a method to my madness

I am now trying to get proficient at CW (Morse code) and have tried a couple of programs with a remarkable lack of success.

I have my alphabet, numbers and a few punctuation symbols memorized and that's about it. It's a start and now I have to go with what I got because programs don't seem to work well on me.

I have to simply sit down behind a key and start working CW.

My problem isn't sending it as I can send it as fast as I can recall the letters which isn't all that fast but that will pick up.  Like most people my problem is reading it.

I am listening to it now as I write and am able to pick out letters here and there at the speed the operators are sending it. A letter here, a letter there.

All of this is going to take time. Still, I have realized that in my case the best way for me to learn to read code is to actually send it.

Of course, when I go out and try and send in a world of 30 word per minute operators I get swamped fast. A few guys get upset but they have the right to spin the dial and find a faster operator. Everybody's got to learn sometime.

Anyway, enter the certificate of appreciation.

I am in the process of getting about 100 official certificates of appreciation made up and the first 100 DX stations to work me on CW will get one.

It says thank you for working a newbie and for being kind and patient they have been awarded this certificate, suitable for framing, wrapping fish or lining a bird cage.

There's a method to this madness. 

Word will get out as everyone likes to get a certificate.

A few will simply be thrown away, most will go into a ham related file after they get a chuckle. A few will actually be framed and put up on the ham's vanity wall along with his various awards. 

From time to time a visitor will notice the certificate and get a confused look on his face and the owner will proudly and cheerfully explain that he was given it for helping a newbie learn code.

No matter what, the ham that gets one of these certificates will likely appreciate that someone was grateful for his help. He'll likely keep his ear tuned for my call sign in the future and answer my calls.

I'll be printing these up in a few days. I have a friend that loves to make official looking certificates and letterheads up.




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John Kerry's got a lot of Goddamn gall.

Recently a bunch of Republican senators sent a letter to Iran reminding them that the Senate has to ratify any treaties and that agreements between Iran and President Obama can be changed.

It's not really news when you think about it. It's the way the system works. I would imagine the Iranians have enough savvy to know that. Last time I checked, the Iranians are not totally dumbasses.

Of course, John Kerry tried to pass this off as treasonous.

He's got a lot of gall. After the way he demoralized the troops during the Vietnam war. He and Hanoi Jane ought to just find a nice corner to sit in and shut up.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

There is a 5 gallon pail in my garage that has been there for years. It is maybe a third to halfway full of nice sized throwing rocks and every so often I offer it out.

For decades I have said that one should support the troops. The troops are just that, military people that go where they're sent and do what they're told. They have no real say in the matter and unless they are officers they can't resign if they don't like it.

If you want to protest what the troops are doing than go after the elected officials that sent them there. Enter the pail of rocks.

I keep that pail there so that anyone that wants to take any or all of the rocks to throw at elected officials can use them. You may NOT throw any of my rocks at the troops. All you have to do is ask. I'll hand you the entire pail. What you do with them is on you.

Let me know at least an hour in advance because I am out of popcorn and need to make a quick trip to the store.

I am not going to limit the use of them to elected officials of one party or another because both parties suck.

We have Republicans trying to legislate our bodies and sex lives and Democrats trying to take away our right to defend ourselves and make us dependent on government.

How about a party that wants to simply leave us to our own devices?








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Ah, yes. Good weather ahead.

The weather seems to have broken, thank you very much!

It is time to run the snow machine out of gas and change the oil in it and park it.

I took a look at the way-back yesterday and it looks pretty good. Last fall I leveled it and the winter seems to have eaten up any of the stuff that was ground up and left to rot. Looking at it left me with a peaceful feeling.

There's a pine tree that likely will fall soon, though. That means I had better get the chain saw up and running.

When the snow melted in the front and back yards it exposed piles of dirt, products of moles. What was interesting is that there was no mole damage inside the radius of the windmill I set up last summer.

Last summer I picked up a little windmill from Harbor Freight and set it up near the air conditioning unit. There's some kind of a mechanism in it that creates a vibration that moles supposedly do not like. It seems to have worked like a charm and I'd like to get a few more of them.

I'm not one of those lawn worshipers, but it would be nice to not have to undo mole created dirt piles in the spring.

I think that I am going to plant my annuals from seeds this year as an old high school classmate, now a farmer of sorts, has told me that a lot of commercially grown annuals are bad for bees and butterflies.

We'll see what spring brings us.

Incidentally the deer seem to have done well this past winter. I'll bet you there is a fawn born on the hill fifty feet from where I now sit as there has been for the past several years. 




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A couple more days like yesterday and the snow will be gone.

Which means I put the snow blower away and get some room in the garage.

I went to a ham radio club meeting last night and there was a brief mention of the upcoming Field Day.

For some it means getting out into the out of doors part of the world and setting up away from the grid.

For others it means dragging one's gear on the porch and running an extension cord out the back door.

I am not one of the latter types, I am one of the former. I run totally off the grid. No shore power for this kid.

The guy talking about Field Day offered me the use of a club laptop to log my calls and wasn't too happy with the look of scorn I gave him followed by my holding up a pen. He told me that it would make logging my QSOs a lot easier which I do not doubt for an instant.

Still, it isn't part of what I would call a Field Day because even though the laptop is battery powered, batteries need recharging and that means back to the grid. I suppose I could use a generator but the point is that Field Day should be just that, a day in the field.

The club has a trailer that they can haul around and set up which is not really a bad deal, depending on the nature of the emergency requiring a message center. They can get on the air with a generator and make themselves useful. I'm sure that they can provide communications to the powers that be.

Still, I am a grass roots sort of guy and I suppose it there was some kind of natural disaster I'd be pitching in at more of a neighborhood level.

Another thing covered was an up and coming downtown event that ham radio has contributed to historically.

It was brought up that we seem to get used less and less every year and  the ham community asked if they were still needed and they received a resounding YES.

Apparently they want amateur radio people as somewhat of a reserve parachute. This makes sense, really.

What as happened over the years is that communications in general have improved and really gotten a lot cheaper. 

Still, amateur radio has one solid thing going for it. It can run when everything else fails.







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I just read where Colin Powell

 is griping about racism in the Republican party. I think that is a statement worthy of ridicule.

If you look historically the Republicans were the party that supported the civil rights movement pretty much since Day One.

The Emancipation Proclamation itself was delivered from the first Republican to hold the presidency. It was Ike that sent troops into Little Rock.

Of course, a lot of people will say that LBJ signed the Civil Rights act of 1964 and that's true, but he didn't sign it as a friend of the lack man. Look at his congressional voting record. Also look at the comment he made on Air Force One.

"When I sign this bill, we'll have those ni&&ers voting Democrat for the next 200 years." Like it or not, that's what the man said before he signed it. It had nothing to do with equality or decency. Johnson just wanted to insure the black community would vote Democrat. He was looking for votes.

The truth is that there are racists in both parties and trying to pin racism on one party or the other is just plain ignorant.

It was only a couple of years ago I was dealing with a liberal Democrat that was trying to defend the present welfare system. His defense for the system ended with "Besides, it keeps the ni&&ers down in the city where they belong instead of in our neighborhoods."

Interesting.

I have to be fair about things, though. I've heard a Republican make a similar statement.

I wish Colin Powell would stop trying to pin racism on one party or the other. It just makes him look lame.

Quite frankly, there was once a time I held the man in high esteem. Now I think he's just another talking empty head. 

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

In other news, the ham community just lost someone a couple months ago and I heard about it the other day.

Jda Rogers, the voice of the Sunrise portion of the YLISSB suffered a stroke some time ago. She went Silent Key last January.

She will be missed.



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Al Capone went to jail over $150,000

Yet Al Sharpton owes 4.5 million.

What gives?



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The blog people here have changed policy regarding

Adult content. This really doesn't effect me as I have pretty much kept the blog G-rated.

I did this so the kids my niece and nephew are raising can read this when they are a bit older. 

Their site, their rules as it should be. If I don't like the rules I should go somewhere else.

Personally I try and be a self-governing type of person in the things I do and try and at least show an iota of decency. That's why a lot of times I may change a few details and names. It's bad taste to come out and post "Oh, yeah! I woke up next to your Ma back in the day. Wow! Was she hot!"

Or I remember the time your father got all coked up and....."

It's just not a decent thing to do.

Of course, the media doesn't seem to be this kind...

They stir up a lot of stuff that is unnecessary and don't really give a damn who gets hurt. An example of this would be when they point out that So and So is having an affair and then go on to expose the sordid details.

They seem to forget that the person's family is innocent and they're going to be really hurt by this. But they don't care because all they're interested in is drawing a readership and being able to sell advertising.

I was no fan of Bill Clinton and when the Lewinsky deal came up I was all for crucifying Clinton for lying under oath. He did lie under oath and I consider that serious.

However had he simply stated that what may or may not gone on was simply nobody's business I would have respected that.

When I was in my middle to late teens there were a couple of times Dad would ask me about something or another. I would reply with "Sir, that is none of your business."

When I said that it meant a couple of things. First I wasn't going to tell him. Secondly it meant he was under no obligation to help me with whatever it was. I was on my own. I do remember doing this to him once to keep him out of something for his own protection. I was in a mess that I knew would blow up exponentially if any parents got involved.

But I digress.

The truth of the matter is that the media stuck its nose where it didn't belong that time because it invaded Bill's privacy. It caused a lot of grief that didn't need to be caused.

Of course, ever the snake, Clinton wound up lying under oath to try and protect himself, but that's a different issue.

Anyway, to go back to the origin of today's post, I have tried to be decent about things here to keep the blog readable for younger people.

If I want to post something sordid I'll just go somewhere else.





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Well, it's Sunday. The day clocks get set back

Which is a colossal pain in the ass for my atomic clock....wait, no it isn't. I just stopped and reset it and got lucky.

When you only do something twice a year it is easy to forget how to do it. I must have remembered because it only took a few seconds. Cool!

I keep that clock set on UTC but it is a Mickey Mouse arrangement and the clock is designed to reset itself to daylight savings time. There is no DST on UTC. It's an absolute.

A score and a half of years ago I was learning the basics of celestial navigation and was mentioning the theory to an interested co-worker. Another guy overheard it and shouted "Who cares what time it is in Greenwich, England?"

I looked at him and shrugged.

"Well?" he demanded.

I looked at him and told him that he had just told me he knew nothing about navigation, worldwide communications, international business and life outside of Kodiak in general. I also told him he was on his own to find out.

He was one of those pigheaded guys that I knew I couldn't teach anything. When someone doesn't want to learn something I don't bother to teach them anything. Why bother?

Anyway, the clocks are now squared away and it was painless.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

In the background there is a big spiel on the tube about the goings-on in Selma, Alabama fifty years ago. I remember it well. It was an ugly piece of American history.

This was fought over a basic American right and it was a battle that the feds the responsibility of getting involved in as it is their job to protect the basic rights of all Americans.

Of course, this eventually went too far as I see it.

Equality should (and for all practical purposes now is) the law of the land. In government hiring, accommodations, etc it should be without regard to race, creed, color, sex or natural origin.

In private enterprise it should be the decision of the company owner.

Of course, a lot of people reading this are agape and want to call me a racist or whatever. They want to know how integration would be achieved without having the feds step in.

It's really quite simple. Look in your ass pocket. What's in it? Probably a wallet that contains a negotiable instrument or two. Mine has a Visa and about two bucks. Whatever.

What does a group of people that need goods and services constitute? Simple, a market.

The last time I checked I saw that money is green and stays that way no matter of what color the money holder is. I have also noticed that it spends the same way regardless of who has it.

The very buck that people curse as the root of evil is the very thing that likely would have started a real integration movement. It would have been an honest integration as opposed to the kind of forced integration because the law says so.

While we're on the subject, there's always the issue of becoming one of the boys in the back room. We're talking about the back room with the oak paneling and where brandy and cigars are served.

As far as minorities go there are a number of them that are there. A handful of them likely cried their way in and they are tolerated because they have to be.

There are also a number of them that were invited there because of their character and skills. These are the guys that are welcomed and truly respected. That is true integration. You can't force something like that.

Same holds true in the working class. Guys that do their job well are respected no matter what their race.

  





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Yesterday I think I set a new record in the air.

I must have asked well over a dozen Italian hams if they knew where they lived.

I had heard that there was a guy on the 20 meter band in Patagonia so I fired up the rig and started shouting "CQ Patagonia", meaning calling any Patagonian station.

It is pretty much a specific call, not really open to anyone unless they are a Patagonian. A very rare exception might be a case where someone needed the guy for an award or something. Then he would generally precede his call by saying he needed the caller for an award. Any good operator would cheerfully make an exception for that. I know I would.

Still, it seemed that every time I called out "CQ Patagonia!"

I'd be responded to with an Italian callsign.

Of course, I would stop for a minute and ask the Italian if he knew where he lived. It generally makes them stop dead and think, "Huh?" Then I would explain to them that I wasn't looking for Italy, I was looking for Patagonia and ask them what part of Italy Patagonia is in.

They generally pout and slink off.

I have generally said the Italy produces very, very few middle of the road operators. They are either the finest operators out there...or the worst. There doesn't seem to be much of a halfway for some reason.

Someone asked me why I didn't call "CQ Patagonia and not Italy," and I told him I refuse to because it would be a slight to the excellent operators.

It would be the same as hanging a sign on a store saying that blacks or Jews or women were not allowed in. I'd never insult an entire group like that. It's just plain wrong. So I deal with things on a case by case basis.

It was after I had dealt with a few of these recalcitrant Italians that something cool happened. Another 'Ital-Lee Zoo-Loo" interrupted my quest for Patagonia. I was just finishing with the usual "Do you know where you live?" spiel when another Italian ham interrupted.

"Excuse me, DX station," he said and then proceeded to blister the hell out of the hapless little guy telling him he was tired of lids like him giving Italian operators a bad name. Then he apologized to me for his outburst.

"Hey!" I said. "Stick around. I'm a real magnet for these guys and it would be a joy to have you instill a little discipline into them. Just let me play with them first. I like asking them if they know where they live."

I started calling out for Patagonia again and after a couple of minutes another Italian lid threw out his call. I asked him if he knew where he lived, listened to his confusion and then called in the other Italian and was treated to hearing an epic blistering.

I never did get Patagonia but it was a treat listening to a good operator chew out a couple of lids.

Then I posted on the ham forum of a website I am a member of that I set a new record for asking Italians if they knew where they lived and broke my previous record of a dozen by an additional two.

It was really an exaggeration. The number was about half that but the point is that I had spoken out about poor operation and more importantly, so had one of their countrymen that was upset of being dragged down with the poor operators.

It was a good thing to see and I wish we'd see more of it. It's time for people to speak out.

Right now in this country Muslims are taking a real beating and to some extent this is rightfully so simply because the freedom loving Muslims are not speaking out against the radical terrorist Islamist movement.

The blacks in this country are taking a beating because the successful blacks are not speaking out and condemning the mentality of ghetto gangsta types.

The truth is that it was great listening to a fine Italian ham operator speak out and straighten a few people out. 

The sad part is that it was over something so trivial as a hobby.








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The m855 ammo ban isn't about police safety.

It's about power in Washington and eroding freedom.

If you believe for a nanosecond that anything anyone in Washington does is for the average guy then guess again.

This ban has nothing to do with protecting police officers or anyone for that matter except for the sorry asses of our elected officials that fear an armed populace. This means a pretty good sized chunk of them.

The M855 ammunition in question is pretty much ball ammunition. It is not designed to expand on impact and create a larger wound channel like hunting ammunition does.

M855 ammo on the surplus market is plentiful and fairly cheap. It has kept responsible shooters in ammunition for years.

This attempt to ban this ammunition is nothing more than a mean, petty way of the present administration to take a cheap shot at the shooting community that they so despise.

Even the police have gone on record to say this ammunition is no problem and the ban is not needed for officer protection.

The only people it hurts is responsible gun owners because they are responsible. Criminals simply do not obey the law.

I simply wish the clowns in Washington would leave us the hell alone.




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Thanks, governor! A retirement job!

I just heard where the governor of PA is asking for another buck-a-pack tax on smokes. Ten bucks a carton.

Job opportunity.

They are a lot cheaper in West Virginia and Delaware. The state line is only about an hour away and it probably wouldn't take moving too many cartons to pay expenses. The family Toyota Tacoma has a 4 cylinder engine in it so costs are low.

It wouldn't take a whole lot to set up a weekly route and move maybe 100 cartons at a clip. Booze is a little cheaper, too. Maybe find a few drinkers that want a deal.

The trick is not to find a whole bunch of carton a week smokers, but a few mom and pop convenience stores that can really move some product. It would probably not be too hard to find them. 

Not when you figure they can make an extra buck a pack or more, cash money directly into their pocket.

Of course, the operation would be tax-free simply because it is a criminal enterprise. They would not be able to come to the surface and be a legitimate business and pay taxes so that means the state eats that one.

If I were the governor of, say Ohio or West Virginia I'd let some sharp entrepreneur set up shop on the border the same way they do firework stands.

Over-the-state-line fireworks stands have two entrances. One is for out of staters and the other is for locals. The locals can only buy what is legal for them to have in their state. Non-residents can buy anything.

They ought to do the same with cigarettes and liquor. Set up stands right along the border. It would be a slam dunk moneymaker for both some businessman and the state. The state, of course, would lower the tax on exports and make up for it by doing an astounding volume. 

Every time I see a tax on some kind of item the first thing that comes to mind are the two words 'job opportunity'.





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More snow.

More snow today.

I hate snow.

According to Weather Underground it is going to snow all day.

It makes me feel like General Custer looking up and seeing more Indians.

Anyway, someone tried with a remarkable lack of success to shame me into doing something I didn't want to do.

That generally doesn't work out well because I have no sense of shame.

Generally when you tell someone you're busy and they ask you what you are going to be doing it is to compare what they want you to do with what your plans are.

So when they asked e my plans I told them I was involved in very important social work making sure that single moms were able to feed their young children. "That's pretty important if you ask me," I said and they agreed.

Then he got a little too nosy and asked the name of the organization. I told him there wasn't one and I did it on my own. I guess he was impressed. Then he asked how I did it.

That's when I went in for the kill.

I told him that if I didn't get down to the Kit Kat club and start putting dollar bills into the G-strings of the single moms than their babies would go hungry and we wouldn't want that to happen, now, would we?

He knew he had been beaten by the man with no shame. 






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I'm watching something happen now.

I have been on a certain shooter website now for years both as a shooter and a ham radio operator.

Shooters get a lot of bad press from groups like PETA because a lot of them hunt. The PETA types seem to like to use that as prima facia evidence that shooter are callous and hate animals.

One of the guys on the board has a love for dogs and runs a one man campaign to rescue as many as he can.

The wonders of the internet make it possible for him to find a home for his rescued canine friends just about anywhere. Right now he has a pooch he's trying to get to the Spokane area as there are people there that want to adopt the critter. He lives in Kentucky.

Every so often he goes up on the board asking the guys to try and put together a relay to get a dog to its new home. Generally it works out. People offer to take the rescued dog at part of the way and pass him on to the next person who in turn takes the animal another leg of the way.

If anyone is interested in occasionally transporting an animal part of the way to a new owner say something in the comments and I will try find a way to put you through the the rescuer.




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Someone asked me what to do with an IRC

An IRC is an International Reply Coupon. It is valid in many places to use to purchase a stamp with.

The USPS does not sell these but they are supposed to honor them. You can take one to the post office and trade it in for one overseas stamp.

Finding a PO clerk in a sub-station that knows about this is probably kind of difficult, though. You'd likely have to go to a main PO.

Hams in general and DXers in specific sometimes use these when they want a QSL card from overseas. You send your card, an SAE, and an IRC so the person can send you back his card.

Most hams generally send a  US dollar or two, though.

Still, they are good to have because some places prohibit their citizenry from possessing foreign currency or stamps.

I'm aware of that from Hurricane Sandy. 

A Cuban ham got torn up pretty badly and the ham community put together a small relief effort. It was actually based in Spain.

I couldn't send the Cuban any money because of the blockade but I did, however send his Spanish QSL manager a few bucks to buy a drink with. What he did with it was his business.

I believe he bought Euros with it and sent it to Cuba.

In return I asked him to have the ham send me a QSL card directly from Cuba so I could have the stamped envelope and add it to my collection.

A few weeks later I received a QSL card directly from Cuba so I imagine the Spanish manager forwarded the donation, having converted it into Euros, to the ham in Cuba.

I'll digress here a minute. 

If governments want to treat other governments other like dogs that's fine by me. Don't ask me to treat non governmental humans like that. I won't.

Don't get me wrong. I can perform the duties of a soldier and chew up enemy combatants in wholesale numbers. However, don't ask me to mistreat any non combatants that are a part of a reasonably well behaved part of the countryside I happen to be in. I simply won't do it.







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The cat is at it again.

I think you ought to hear from him and hear what he has to say.

zzzxxuuuuhyyyyyyyyyy''''''''''.

The cat has spoken.

Thank you, Kitty.

I do not care who you are or what you do but if you have a cat and a computer you had best get used to the cat taking the short cut across your keyboard. That is what cats do.

Anyway, I am looking out the window and I see that it is snowing which sucks. As I have written before and likely will again, I hate snow. 

I just blew out the driveway yesterday and it looks like I'm going to have to blow it out again today. I'll just wait for the snow to stop falling, whenever that is.

In other news I just got confirmation from Western Sahara. It was somewhat of a QSL record. It only took about three weeks from the time I sent to Spain for confirmation until the card showed up in my mailbox.

S01WS uses a Spanish QSL manager and apparently downloads their logs to him quite often so that means the QSL manager can get to it as soon as one's card arrives. Then again, maybe I just got lucky. Who knows?

Anyway, I made a quick count and believe I have over 185 confirmed entities.










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