There are days one feels like Jack Nicholson

There are days one feels like Jack Nicholson.

Sometimes people make a simple thing into a royal pain in the ass.

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One of the things I have noticed over the years about city criminals is they

never seem to leave their neighborhood.

They always seem to wind up getting either arrested or gunned down in a few block area from where they did whatever it was that got them on someone's wanted list.

It's always the same, both in the movies and in real life. The victim seems to get gunned down in the same eight or ten block area he hung out in. He gets word that someone's after him and holes up in some friend's house or some other hole in the wall a few blocks from the scene of the crime and sure enough he gets whacked.

It makes no sense to me. I'd be out of there like a shot if someone was after my life. I'd flee to somewhere far away and probably pretty remote.

I seriously doubt the mob would find someone holed up working as a cowboy on a cattle ranch in Idaho or someplace or picking grapes in California. Yeah, it sucks but it beats the alternative.

Yes, I know how hard it is to disappear but it's not as hard as someone would think. Besides the mob for years has used its network of stoolies to find people. They generally let the chased person expose himself.

It makes no sense that you hang around and make it easy to get whacked.

If I heard someone was after me I'd bolt and leave the area for someplace rural. Being a farm worker, cowboy or ranch hand may suck but it's a lot better than the alternative.







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I just strung out another antenna today to use

with a new radio, an IC 7300.

I have had the antenna for some time. I built it a while back and stored it and broke it out today. It's a Windom dipole and I guess it works OK with the new rig.

Still, I am a DXer and I think I'll put the windom on the older rig and use the vertical on the IC 7300 because it has a better take-off angle for DX.

I am also going to put a pair of side rack handles on the rig to protect the dials and face.







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There are all sorts of red flag laws popping up

that enable the authorities to disarm people they think pose a risk to themselves and others.

On paper this actually sounds like a pretty good deal but in reality it has a lot of flaws. The sign of a good law is not what is trying to do, but what is really going to happen if it is enacted.

It will get to the point where some idiot that simply hates firearms an their owners can file a complaint and someone will lose their rights.

Such legislation can be abused.

If any legislation of a red flag type is enacted there should also accompanying law that anyone swatting or making a false accusation spends a full year in the state prison.

After a couple of people go to the can for a year for swatting or issuing a false report the practice will come to an end.

More on this later. I am busy



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We recently did and emergency communications drill involving a 3 part message.

Three different operators had a part of the entire message and gave it out. 

When an operator got any part of it he'd pass on what he had.

Inside of five minutes the entire message was going all through the world via ham radio. 

The scenario and message were foolish and kind of inane. The plot was that we had to get word out as to how to get past prison guards to rescue Rocky and Bullwinkle who were being held by Boris and Natasha.

The message was: We get some grease/and put it on the floor/and slip past the guards.

A while back we did one where there was a password and a countersign. A guy in New Hampshire released the password and when he got the password, a Hawaiian ham released thc countersign.

The countersign reached the password guy in just a couple of minutes having been relayed through the country by several other hams who in return relayed the originator the countersign. It was about five minutes  for the originator to get the countersign and in the process everyone involved had both in a very few minutes.

I am now tagged to produce another and I do believe it will involve portable field stations.

Maybe pass a message from here (Pittsburgh) to Hawaii and back by going through at least two portable rigs.

It will likely take a lot more than ten minutes but one never knows.





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Know who stops completely at stop signs?

Drunk drivers.

Yup. Drunk drivers. 

They make damned good and sure they come to a complete and total stop to make sure they don't get pulled over and nailed.

Back in the day that's what I did. That was long before the drunk driving laws were enforced. After a night of partying you drove home because you were too drunk to walk. You carefully obeyed every single rule and regulation because you didn't want to get stopped. Back then they would make you park it and drive you home. It was a nuisance having to go and get your car the next day with a hangover.

Times have changed and I have changed with them. A single beer and I am grounded. It's not worth it.

A little while back I was driving through a residential neighborhood which is something I really don't like to do especially these days because parents don't parent. 

I am very Old School. When I see a ball of any sort go into the street I don't bother looking for the kid chasing it. I simply stop. When the kid comes out looking at me I wave him and let him get the ball. I got that from my father. He told me if I ever saw a ball fly out on the street to make damned sure I looked for the kid chasing it. I do one better. I simply stop.

Anyway, I was driving through a nearby neighborhood and slowed down to about a half knot and went through a stop sign and as luck would have it, out of the nearby lawn came Goober F***ing Pyle screaming 'Citizen's arrest!' at me that I didn't stop and wait five seconds. 

Instead of shining him or ignoring him I stopped and rolled down the window.

He came up and babbled that I had not stopped completely at the stop sign. I told him that I hadn't stopped because I had not been drinking. He looked stunned.

"The only people that stop completely at stop signs are drunks," I said. "They are afraid of being stopped."

"Yeah, but we got kids around here!" he snapped. Wrong move.

"Judging by the looks of you," I shot back. "Your youngest is 32 and lives in Mankato, Minnesota. What's your vested interest?"

''The neighbor's kids," he answered.

"Can't slight that," I replied. "I'm a reasonable man. But were you paying attention?"

"I saw you fail to come to a complete stop at the sign," he said indignantly.

"True enough, but did you notice that I was driving well under the speed limit? Did you notice my head swiveling around looking to see who was in the front yards? Did you bother to note that?" I asked. "Well, did you?"

"All I saw..." he started.

"That's all you saw," I interrupted. "The next time I come through I'll stop twice." 

"Ever notice that drunk drivers stay focused on the road and make sure they stay in the middle of the lane and stop carefully at stop signs? They don't  want to get stopped. On the other hand they are so focused to the road that they are not looking out for kids, cats and dogs and are a hell of a lot more dangerous than a situationally aware person that is a little sloppy about little things like your dopey stop sign?" I added. "Drunk drivers stop completely at stop signs."

I started to drive off but thought better of it. I recognized the car in his driveway.

"The next time you speed past my house at 7:25 am on your way to work like you do every day you are going to be late for work because you have to change a tire. I am going to throw a rake out in front of you and cut your tires," I said. 

That got his attention.

With that I drove off.

I hate two faced people that demand things from people and won't return the courtesy.

************************

Aftermath:

A day or two later I woke up a little past seven and took my morning coffee in the driveway while holding a steel rake. I guess he spotted me and slowed right down.

I was actually surprised to see him do this. Maybe he spotted me but I do not think he knew where I live before that.

88888888888888888888888

This happened to me yet again at a stop sign in basically the same area. I shined the guy on because I didn't have time to argue with him. I'm just going to take the longer route home now because this seems to be something that is happening in my general area.

Little things like this become a fad of some sort but don't really last too long. As usual the name of the game is in MY neighborhood you behave a certain way which would be fine if those same people behaved the same way in someone else's neighborhood.

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

I saw on Facebook where a small town police department was trying to make things palatable for the locals.

One of the officers had his picture taken with some sort of Bazooka aiming it at a passing car and the caption said they'd be patrolling such and such an area. I thought it was pretty funny, actually and so did a lot of other people but as usual the crybabies moaned and bellyached and I think they had to take the picture off of Facebook.

Sometimes I think the police SHOULD take a Bazooka to the crybabies because they just seem to make the world a less colorful and fun place to be.

I am getting old now and that sometimes makes me think it is a good thing because with any luck I won't see the collapse of the entire country.













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Nobody knows what started the fire in Notre Dame cathedral

but I'll bet Quasimodo has a hunch.



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My War by Andy Rooney.

Andy Rooney served as a reporter for Stars and Stripes.

He did see action and see men die but he generally traveled as an unarmed war correspondent when he visited the front. He also flew combat missions with the 8th Air Force.

It's a fairly interesting read and has somewhat of a different perspective than someone that was a rifleman during the Battle of the Bulge or at Guadalcanal.

Most of the writing that has come out of WW2 is written about the various battles the writer was involved in. Not too much is written by people that didn't see action. It's a shame because some guy that served as, say, a payroll clerk in a Texas airfield has a very different perspective on what the war was all about than an infantryman on Saipan. To both of them the war was a very real experience.

For every GI that fired a weapon of any sort in combat there were quite a number of others behind him that also served making it possible for the line GI to be there and engage the enemy.

Their stories are probably just as interesting as the actual  combatants are.

Some years ago I met a guy that was stationed in Australia and got him to speak up. He was shy at first because he felt he hadn't contributed as much as his kid brother that drove a tank in Europe. 

Still, I pointed out that his war was just that. It was his war. 

Once I got him to talk he told me a pretty interesting story about how the idiot running his outfit was constantly raising hell with them over petty little things that meant nothing whatsoever as far as predicting the weather went. His war was pretty much with Army chicken$hit. I can relate to this.

Actually his war was pretty much a war against the drudgery of military life. In addition to busting his ass with his duties of doing weather station related things he also had to clean rifles, mess gear and other things, none of which he used. 

Still, the work he did was important because the war effort needed good weather information. It's interesting to note that after he got out of the army he seemed to always know if it was going to rain or snow so I guess he learned a few useful things there.

I also grew up with a Navy vet that was on some kind of supply vessel in the backwash of the Pacific. He never saw action and delivered supplies. His war was one against boredom being punctuated by days of backbreaking toil spent on unloading the vessel in places that had already been fought over and were now garrisoned by the army. He never saw a shot fired in anger and stated that he could relate to the movie 'Mister Roberts'.

Still, that was his war. 

Everybody that served had his won war to deal with and it is interesting to see the other side of things






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I just read where the sheriff of one or more of the counties in Washington State

has started dumping criminals into Seattle.

I guess upon release they take them to downtown Seattle and drop them off.

I suppose I should be embarrassed to say this but I am not.

 If I were sheriff I would likely do the same damned thing and why not?

Seattle and Olympia seem to run the state with their liberal policies so it makes sense to drop the very people they seem to tolerate  there.  

I would imagine that most of the criminal activity in the counties is drug abuse related. Seattle seems not to mind drug abuse so it simply makes sense to drop the junkies off there to fend for themselves and/or take advantage of the social programs offered there.




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I was talking to a cop the other day and he confessed to me

that he recently wrote a ticket that gave him a lot of joy.

Some guy was getting all upset if people didn't come to a dead stop at the stop sign in front of his house and has complained repeatedly about it. He organized the neighbors and got them all to complain. 

The department sent an officer out there to ticket people that didn't stop at it. He told me that he saw no real problem except for one or two scofflaws that he ticketed. He said he did stop several people and gave oral or a few written warnings that he felt really didn't deserve it as they was practically at a dead stop-but not quite- at the sign.

ANyway, he saw someone in another neighborhood just roar through a stop sign and pulled him over and guess who it was?

You guessed it. He was the guy that had stirred up all the $hit over the stop sign in front of HIS house. 

Of course, the officer threw the book at him and I can't say as I blame him.

How come it's never OK for anyone to speed in YOUR neighborhood but it's OK for you to roar through someone else's like it's Thunder Alley?



One time I had someone come charging out and stopped me for 'speeding' and babbled something about his children. I wasn't speeding, I was running the Miata in a low gear and it was a bit loud but that was enough for Joe Citizen to make a problem where there was none.

I was ready for this idiot. "Hey, A$$hole," I shot back. "I was driving 24 in a 25 zone AND you might rethink hiding behind your kids. Your youngest is 31 years old and lives in Mankato, Minnesota!"



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How come so many Prius drivers think they are better than everybody else?

It's a car. It's only a car.

A lot of them act like they're smarter than everybody else, too.

I asked someone that has one if they were aware that the technology used in that particular car requires the extensive uses of rare metals, most of which are mined in remote places by exploited native labor that are being paid pennies a day.

That made a jaw fall practically to the ground. I started to see a few cracks in their 'cooler than thou' attitude.

I'm sure  they are going to go home and go straight to Google and see if it's true or not.

I don't know if it's true or not. I do know that the technology does require the use of rare metals but have no clue as to how much or where these metals come from.

The point is that you really ought to stop and think a minute before you go charging off and buy something that is the latest cool thing to have.





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Organizations need problems.

MADD needs drunk drivers because if everyone stopped driving while under the influence MADD would likely have to fold up shop and go away. The mad mothers would have to find something else to piss and moan about.

I suppose they would probably want the alcohol limit lowered so as to create drunk drivers so they could stay in existence or try and make it illegal to stop at a liquor store and buy packaged goods on the way home from work or some damned thing.

The same holds true for the SPLC, the NAACP, the various Aryan white supremacist groups, the NRA, the Brady Bunch and just about every group out there.

If the cause the group supports went away the group would be meaningless.

The SPLC is a pretty good example of trying to reinvent itself. Seems I never hear of them giving legal support to poor people anymore. While they very well may they get much of their publicity by keeping their list of hate groups. It would be interesting to note that in spite of their anti police and questionable attitude toward whites that the Black Lives Matter people are not on the list.

I wonder what would happen to them if we all decided to love one another and hold hands and sing Kum By Ya together. I suppose they would find something else to wail and gnash their teeth about. For one thing there is too much money to be made in hate. With hate still out there the donations keep rolling in. Without hate Al Sharpton would have to get a real job.

At one point the FBI used to use them to keep up with the Big Hate Group scene but recently they have stopped using them because of questionable designations of what a hate group is. I imagine that it is a matter of time before Chick Fil A diners are added to the list as being anti LGBTQ even though there is nothing whatsoever in their published mission statement that is anti much of anything.

As far as MADD goes, I read that the original Mad Mother has cut ties with the group because it has accomplished what she set out to do. She wanted to raise awareness and get legislation passed. When she had accomplished her mission she left. Fair enough.

Of course the group now wants to force car makers to install breath locks on all new vehicles and is discussing lowering the threshold of drunk driving down to .05. 

It should be noted that when they managed to get the threshold lowered to .08 there was no significant change in traffic fatalities. In my opinion if it did no good then it should have been raised back to the original .1 on basic libertarian grounds. Lowering it serves no purpose to public safety and is only a revenue generator at the expense of the public they claim to serve.

I suppose it the entire nation stopped using alcohol (Fat chance!) the group would find something else to bellyache about. Incidentally they supported mandatory seat belt use which strikes me as more Big Brother crap that does no real good for the public. I fail to see how someone else not wearing a seat belt is endangering me or anyone else in the general public but the person that voluntarily opted not to buckle up. It's a person's right to decide if they want to use a seat belt or not. Actually I consider the seat belt law to be another revenue generator.

One interesting thing here. 

The NRA is now the big target of hate for the left as they support the Second Amendment. They started off as an organization to promote marksmanship after the Civil war showed the Northern troops had poorer marksmanship skills than the southern troops did.

They eventually entered the political arena supporting the Second Amendment. I'm sure if all of a sudden the various anti Second Amendment laws were repealed overnight the NRA would go back to its beginnings and train people in marksmanship. I bet they are one of a few organizations that have a non political beginning to fall back on.

Of course, my favorite non-organization, the Disinterested Citizens Concern Committee, would not really change very much unless something like a major nuclear war happened. By then it would be too late.








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While I am no fan of Representative Ilhan Omar

I can't and won't slight her for her Twitter comment made during the recent Notre Dame cathedral fire.


"Art and architecture have a unique ability to help us connect across our differences and bring people together in important ways. Thinking of the people of Paris and praying for every first responder trying to save this wonder."

That is not an unkind or rude things to say and the right has no business criticizing it.

I am no fan of Representative Omar. I wish she would move to Somalia and stay there but I can not and will not let some conservative rag make an unfair insult to her.

I'm sure she cam manage to aggravate a lot of us in the future by saying ignorant things but this time she didn't and doesn't deserve the ragging she is getting for her comment made during the Notre Dame fire.











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I love a woman with a sense of humor

She was working on a dock one really nasty, wet day and was soaked to the bone. She reminded me of a drowned rat and I'm sure she was miserable, cold, tired and wet.

I was outside, too in good rain gear and with a cup of coffee in my hand. 

I couldn't help it. A man's gotta do what he's gotta do. I took one look at her and asked her, "What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?" I then stood back to admire my masterpiece and receive my well deserved dirty look. What I wound up with came out of nowhere and whacked me like a brick from behind.

In a voice oozing with sarcasm and indignant belligerence she demanded, "WHO said I'm a nice girl!?" 

I admit, coffee shot out my nose.

Ya gotta love a woman with a wit. At a workplace they are very few and far between and a woman like that is a precious jewel.





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Notre Dame cathedral burned today

of course there are a million questions on what started it. I have heard that it was likely a contractor screw up as there was work being performed on it.

Someone else's uber secret too cool inside contact claims a fireman thinks it was arson. 

I am not going to venture much of a guess right now but I am going to question a quickie French government statement that it was a careless workman. That would be too neat for my tastes.

As far as possible Islamic terrorism goes, we'll see if someone takes credit for it or where the investigation takes us. Still, if I hear that it was radical Islamic terrorism I won't be surprised. I'm actually sorry to say that, too.

There have been quite a number of vandalism attempts made on French churches as of late and it's gotten pretty stale fast.

Still I don't want to pin this one on the first one handy. This is not the time to simply round up the usual suspects. It requires a complete proper investigation.

I'm interested in seeing where this one leads.

No matter how this turns out it has been a terrible loss to all of us. Notre Dame was more than a religious building. It was a center of Old World craftsmanship, style, grace and beauty.

I just got an update that said the place was not totally destroyed and that Macron said it would be rebuilt.

Hopefully it will be rebuilt as it originally was but I doubt it. 

Anyway, time will tell.






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pineapple upside down cake is racist

Or so it seems.

I am getting sick and tired of people that want to drag racism into everything.

I do believe that if someone posted a recipe for pineapple upside down cake on social media that someone would come along and and start in on how the blacks/gays/Jews/whatever is in style this week never got to make pineapple upside down cake because yada yada yada.

It gets old after a while and really annoys everyone.

Sometimes if I get too sick and tired I may make a racist comment simply to give them something to bellyache about. A while back I did this to someone and I do think I put them in their place.

I said the word "Mexican' but didn't pronounce the letter X hard enough to please some little chickie-poo social justice warrior.

"MeXican," she corrected me.

"Spic!" I shot back and before she could protest I told her "I know almost every single slur and racial epithet out there but prefer not to use them because I really don't care for them. They are demeaning. I admit my tongue was a bit lazy and did not pronounce the letter 'X' to your liking. Tough $hit."

"Yeah, well..." she started.

"Yeah, well,  nothing." I interrupted. It's rude to run around correcting people's Engrish. If you want a job where you can spend all day correcting the way people speak try going back to school, getting a decent education and teaching second grade." I had mispronounced the word 'English' intentionally.

"But..." she started.

"On the other hand, don't teach school," I interrupted her again. "We already have enough leftist moonbats in the classroom as it is."

Generally I don't take this route, though.

Sometimes I just look at them and say to them that a pineapple upside down cake isn't racist and that sometimes a recipe is simply a recipe and requires no racial commentary.

Now that I mention it, I don't know why I picked a recipe for pineapple upside down cake because I really don't like it anywhere near as I do a nice pie.



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Nancy Pelosi, TEAR DOWN YOUR WALL

The one you have around your residence.

Open your home to these illegal immigrants you claim to support by living in a sanctuary city.

While I am at it, let's talk about politicos in general.

How many of them actually have skin in the game?

It's not Chuckie Wuckie Schumer's place that is going to see an influx of phantom crappers on his lawn or the sidewalks outside his house. Nor is it Nancy Pelosi's place, nor Maxine Water's place.

Come to think of it, Mitch McConnell doesn't have too much to worry about, either nor does Mitt Romney nor any of these big shot politicians. Any homeless of illegals that show up within a click of their places is probably going to be stuffed into kind of police/security guard vehicle and taken far away and unceremoniously dumped.

None of these guys have a whole lot to worry about having their places broken into or otherwise invaded and therefore don't really need a personal firearm. Of course, the people guarding their places are armed to the teeth.

Most of them live in gated, well guarded communities of one sort or another and have little to worry about.

(The same holds true for Hollywood types but that's another post later on down the road.)

In short these are the very people that make the rules they expect us to live by.

No, I am not going to play your silly little game.

You don't have my loyalty, my respect or my obedience until you tear down your walls and live with the rest of us and are subject to the very laws you enact. In short I owe you people nothing.

When it's OK to have the corner next to Nancy's house as a drop off point for illegals and has to smell feces as she takes a walk in her neighborhood then come back and talk to me.




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i am starting to see a lot of illegal

firearms in states that have enacted strict gun control.

Just the other day I saw where a couple of guys got arrested for making and selling machine guns in New Jersey. we are not talking about semi automatics here, but fully automatic machine guns.

Actually it makes sense. Ar 15s are for the most part illegal in New Jersey so the attitude becomes if one is doing something illegal, then what's the difference? You can sell someone an illegal AR15 and make money but if it is a fully automatic one is going to make a hell of a lot more money for about the same risk.

Marijuana has recently been decriminalized for a while now in many places. It used to be illegal and was categorized right alongside other illegal drugs. Some of these other drugs had a higher profit margin than pot did and the sentences were pretty close. It didn't make sense to sell pot when a dealer could sell cocaine and make more money although for some reason some dealers chose to stick with pot, probably because they did stand a chance of a lighter sentence if they were caught. On the other hand there are still people in state prisons for selling pot. In that light it would have made sense to sell cocaine or heroin. Same sentence but they would have made more money had they not been caught.

It's pretty much the same with illegal firearms. Why bother with a lousy AR15 when the opportunity to make more money lies in selling fully automatic weapons?

When AR15s became illegal in some places the motivation to stay legal was diminished and illegal fully automatics are starting to become more commonplace.

The law of unintended consequences has reared its head again.

It should also be noted that no state that has outlawed AR15s and like firearms has had a whole lot of people come running to their friendly, local neighborhood police station puffing and panting in a rush to turn these weapons in. The law has become a joke and I'd bet that it doesn't take a whole lot to buy one on the black market.

Of course, one pays no taxes on the black market, nor do they have any sort of registration. It's cash, carry and keep one's mouth shut. Illegal narcotics have been like this for over a century.

The authorities have no clue as to the existence of these. They are strictly underground and generally stay that way.  

As usual, Americans really only obey the laws they want to obey. It's funny seeing someone's otherwise law abiding grandmother get upset over a piece of legislation and mutter "Screw that! I'm not going to do it!"

The true test of a good law is how well it is obeyed. When you look at how many firearms have been ordered to be turned in as opposed to how many are it says a lot.

Yet lawmakers still enact laws that won't be obeyed.

Connecticut recently outlawed a number of types of firearms and demanded they be either removed from the state or turned in. While I have no clue how many were taken out of state, I saw that damned few were turned in. My guess is that people quietly hid them.

Add outlawing ghost guns into the equation which by definition are untraceable because they carry no serial numbers and the number increases in an unknown way. One can't really even venture a guess but a recent bust in New Jersey netted several ghost guns.

Outlawing firearms is a joke and is really a waste of the government's time and limited resources. 

Actually so is outlawing narcotics. We have made no progress in the war on drugs yet we still continue to throw billions at the problem. Then again, drugs are another story.





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This is funny. Trump gives them what they want and they go stark staring rabid.

The Democrats have been stymieing Trump since Day One on immigration. They have created any number of sanctuary cities and blocked Trump at every opportunity.

Now it seems that Trump has decided to have the border people bus illegals to the sanctuary cities under the old "You want it? You got it!' rule.

Of course the first thing the Democrats screamed is "You can't do that!"

Personally I think it is as funny as all get-go.

I would like to see him drop about fifty bus loads of them in front of Nancy Pelosi's house which I understand is in the San Francisco area.

What will eventually happen is that the illegals will be stacked up in the sanctuary cities and will piss the residents off so much that they will probably throw the city/state leadership out on their ass.

What a lot of these sanctuary city/state leaders forget is that the people that live there are getting pretty tired of walking down the street and stepping in human feces.

There are a lot of people that are going to get pretty sick of it and decide that they don't want things like this in THEIR back yard and that will probably lead to an unintended consequence for the liberals.

I just read where there have been 16 THOUSAND complaints of human feces have been lodged this year in San Francisco. That's a lot of poop.

Of course much has been attributed to the homeless but I can't help to wonder how many homeless are illegal immigrants.

I would imagine that if the feds do what Trump has suggested, sending illegals to sanctuary cities like San Francisco we can see a hefty increase in feces complaints and it may very well lead to a change in city government.

All it will take is a few more people to feel the 'squish' under their feet and catch the aroma of what they have just stepped in.







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I am seriously thinking of purchasing an Official Government Approved gas can.

You know, the kind that takes two men and a boy to use and still manage to spill gasoline all over a hot lawn mower.

I want it as a symbol of what kind of stupidity the government is routinely capable of. I can show it to liberals and show why less government is generally a better deal.

Dear President Trump,

How about making gas cans great again?

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There are a lot of artifacts being dug up in Russia these days

and someone asked me why I don't collect stuff like that. 

A lot of what the archaeologist types find are helmets and dogtags.

Both of those two items are seldom if ever ditched by a soldier in combat. You an tell which helmets were still glued to someone's head when he was killed because the organics of his head over time rotted the helmet out from the inside.

Why would I want to collect something that constantly reminds me that some poor bastard had a real bad day and left his mother a sobbing wreck?

I do have a small bottle of sand from the invasion beach of Iwo Jima and when I saw it I admit I cried as I pictured all those Marines and machines bogged down in it. The sand is very coarse and hard enough for a man to slog through it and is impossible to dig into as any holes dug in it will crumple.








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Sometimes ya already got what ya need.

I was seriously considering getting a rocker knife to cut pizzas with until I realized that I had a pretty good wheel.

Of course the wheel isn't as fast or efficient as a rocker knife but so what.

I decided against it simply because it is just one more stupid thing to take up space with no real repayment in return.

As time goes on I am getting to be a lot more like this before I purchase something. There had better be a good reason for it or else it's no dice.



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I keep hearing where the media is trying to get the trust of the American people back

Fat chance with this kid.

Fooled me once shame on you.

Fooled me twice, shame on ME.




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I have just gotten rid of a pest

I turned 'Caps Lock' off because I am a lousy typist and every now and THEN I HIT IT AND HAVE TO GO Back and correct it.

I am on a newer computer now and it is somewhat hard to get used to. For typing I sort of wish I still had my old Itronix GoBooks because the handle could be rolled up under the machine to slant the keyboard and make typing easier.

Still, the GoBooks bit the dust a few years back and were replaced by Toughbooks which are now slowly being replaced by these Dells I can get reasonably. 

I do still prefer the old GoBooks, though.

What interests me is that the laptops seem to be slowly being replaced by tablets. I do have a Kindle and I admit it is a lot handier for most (but not all) email because most emails are pretty short...or at least my replies to them are.

Anyway, Caps Lock has been a nuisance to me and I'm damned glad I got it turned off.






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I wonder what tomorrow will bring?

I think I have today figured out already.



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It's getting near time for me to

write a letter to one of the neighborhood kids.

She's graduating from high school and it looks like she's off to college to study nursing which actually makes sense because nurses can make pretty good money.

At least she has some sort of a plan and isn't going to work for a degree in Women's Dance Studies or some other foolishness.

Of course four years is a long time and she may very well decide nursing is not for her. That's OK IF she actually has a viable Plan B as a backup.

Actually if I were going into nursing I do believe I would check out the services. Word I have gotten is they are screaming for nurses and there are all sorts of bonuses for signing up.

Nurses are automatic lieutenants which is a good deal in pay and privileges. 

As far as looking for safety goes, the Air Force seldom deploys nurses into the $hit. Besides that, few nurses in any service go up front, anyway. The closest they generally go is to a field hospital in a secured area.

I suppose that statement can be argued by the Old School definition of who is in the rear echelon.

The scout on point in a patrol deep into enemy lines can look at the rest of the guys behind him and ask them, "What's keeping you rear echelon guys up, anyway?"

Still, from a practical sense, nurses are rarely sent into areas that are hot.

As an RN in civilian life they can generally expect to make a pretty good wage so any way you slice it nursing is probably a pretty good reason to go to college.

Still, I think I want to have a quiet word with her and let her realize her dad is probably taking on a lot of expense and she should make damned good and well she has a plan and is going to stick to it and if she has to go with Plan B that it should damned well be thought out.







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Something interesting I found

This doesn't surprise me at all. I am part of the generation that shed its racist ideas. I supported Dr King and I believe in the 'I had a dream' speech King made in the Mall in DC.

On the other hand I see a lot out there I certainly don't like one single bit. I am truly astonished that the Klan hasn't regenerated. What's old becomes new again so I imagine we will see something like it grow out of the woodwork. When it does I will simply say, "What did you expect?"

You can park this in the FWIW department.




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The magazine capacity law in California just got thrown out

and there's a real rush on sales of what are actually standard capacity magazines to that state. This probably means that until the state government finds another way to ban them that a few more million of them are going to arrive.

I have mentioned before that turn-in laws are routinely ignored. One wag said that they didn't need magazines, they needed shovels to dig up the magazines they hid.

Gun control in this country is pretty much a losing proposition. 

People basically look at the Bill of Rights and run with that.

What I find so amusing is that the elected officials that enact these laws actually think that Americans are going to run right down to their friendly, local, neighborhood police station and turn these banned items in.

It's really a stupid thing to do on their part because they have seen mass non compliance in other states but enact the laws in their state thinking that it will be different there.

Why we continue to elect idiots that do these things is beyond me.

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The Japanese know how to receive a gift.

Back when I was fishing in Alaska we sold our roe herring to the Japanese. The Japanese fish buyer was damned good to us and after we sold him our catch he both bought us lunch and schlepped us a nice little wad of a couple hundred bucks apiece because he knew we took care of our catch.

Over lunch the skipper asked me for the time and I told him it was 1345. The Japanese asked me if my watch was on a 24 hour mode. It was.

He commented that in the summer he had problems knowing if it was day or night. He was not the Lone Ranger by any stretch of the imagination. I wore a Casio in 24 hour mode just for this reason.

I think I paid about $20 for it at the time.

Anyway, I went out and bought him one and set it for 24 hour mode and hacked it on WWV to the proper time and wandered over to his office.

When he saw me in the doorway he called me in and I handed the watch to him. He opened it up and his face lit up like a Christmas tree.

He pulled off the $2500 (in the mid 1980s!) Alaska gold and jade watch off of his wrist, dropped it in the trash can and strapped my $20 Casio on while thanking me!

While I'm damned good and sure he later fished the Alaska watch out of the trash, I never saw him wearing anything else while he was on the island. I believe he stayed on in Kodiak until very late August or early in September. He had more to do after roe herring season.

THAT's how you accept a gift!

I ran into him several times later and in June he told me he had been sleeping with his watch on so that when he woke up he would know if he had actually slept all night or had just dozed off and caught a nap.

I laughed and told him I did the same thing because it IS sometimes confusing when there's 23 hours of daylight in the summer.


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A simple wind up wrist watch is damned hard to find these days

at least at a reasonable price.

New ones go for hundreds which surprised me.

I did manage to snag a refurbished one from India, though for about fifteen bucks with a year's guarantee which was more than reasonable.

I want it as a backup for my battery powered watch that just crapped out on me at work and means I have a hard time figuring out what time something happened for logging purposes.

I figure that if I buy a second battery powered watch for a backup I'll probably be stuck with two unusable watches but if I have a manual as a backup I can just wind it, set it and strap it on and I'm good to go.

When the tour is over I can replace my battery powered one, let the manual run itself out and stay in my toiletry bag until I need it again. 

While I prefer a Timex Expedition, the manual backup needs no battery and when the battery runs down on the Timex I'm still on business.

Doing what I do at sea, I do need a reliable watch.




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You are still a thief.....

Over the years I have seen people steal from corporations and try and legitimize it with the usual excuses of how they are getting even with the corporations that are ripping us off.

The truth is that you really can't be ripped off by anyone that isn't actually taking something from you. People that do business with a corporation are volunteers. Nobody is forcing them to buy their products or otherwise do business with them.

If the New and Improved Drinking Water Company puts potable water in a stylish looking bottle and charges you $20 for a 16 ounce bottle for it and you pay you are really ripping yourself off. You have only your own stupidity to blame. Nobody says you have to have their water.

Stealing a couple of cases to get even with them for overcharging you isn't getting even with them. It's out and out theft.

I have been listening to people talk about getting even with The Man for over fifty years now and all it has been is a bunch of people admitting to me that they are thieves.

If you don't like what someone charges for something then simply don't buy it.




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it is interesting to note that

I have yet to meet a liberal that doesn't complain bitterly about having to pay taxes. If anyone is going to bellyache about paying taxes it is a liberal.

It makes no sense, really because without taxes all of the wonderful social programs liberals seem to love won't be able to happen.

Just another case of people that want something for nothing. 


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