A long term immigrant would pick up on this almost immediately.

One of my handful of immigrant friends some time back told me he learned British English in school. While he said he arrived in the States with a basic skill for communication he felt he didn't speak the American dialect as well as he should have. 

Now he speaks excellent unaccented American English. He's worked hard at it and because of that he says he's constantly still picking up little 'Americanisms' that go with the language and the culture.

I always say that when you pick up and see the humor in little things like I posted you've conquered Americanisms to the point beyond that of many native born Americans.

when an immigrant reads something like this and laughs themselves silly it's a damned good indicator that they have assimilated.

                                                       

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Shortly after the birth of our nation we fought the Barbary Pirates.

 

When the Barbary pirates were seizing our ships and ransoming their crews a hue and cry went up throughout the nation. "Millions for defense but not one cent for tribute." 

Our Sailors and Marines defeated the Barbary pirates and it is mentioned in the Marine's Hymn, 'to the shores of Tripoli'.

Somewhere along the line a couple of our presidents seemed to have skipped history class or failed to let all of this sink in because Obama and Biden paid tribute to Iran in the form of handing Iran pallets of cash and releasing frozen Iranian funds. 

The entire Iranian mess goes back to Jimmy carter who didn't have the balls to slap Iran silly and end things then and there. The can got kicked down the road for the next 47 years until our current POTUS decided to pick it up and deal with it.

Apparently the president remembered what Thomas Jefferson did. 

Iran has only managed to get more dangerous over time. 

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For those of you that are interested. Spread the word.

In a previous post I mentioned that the Japanese PM had acquired a taste for SKIPPY (brand specific) peanut butter and I am going to send her a jar.

Someone asked me for contact information. 

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi
1-6-1 Nagata-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-8914, Japan.

I just thought of something. Maybe we can get something rolling. Spread the word and see if we can get a few more people to do this.

Maybe we can get something rolling. Spread the word.

If nothing else the Japanese security weenies will go nuts. 

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The fastest form of communication is Rumor Control.

Back in the 90s sometime the subject of rumor control was being discussed by a couple of us in tha parking lot before crew change. 

Alvin, John and I were talking about it. John and I were old salts. Alvin was sort of a newbie. John and I decided to show Alvin how well it worked. We made up a rumor and decided to spread it to see how fast it made the rounds.

The rumor was a corker. 'All barges are going to be issued sextants and navigation tools and all tankermen are being sent to the six week celestial navigation course at Piney Point.' 

The alleged reason was so anchored barge crews could check and see if their anchor was dragging.

Never mind the fact that celestial navigation isn't all that accurate. Few tankerman know anything about it.

The three of us set our watches as this was pre-cell phone. Most of us didn't have one then because they were terribly expensive. Tugs and barges did have fixed cell phones installed.

They were supposedly for official use only but like a lot of things that got stretched.

John, headed to New York Harbor, would start the rumor at exactly 1300. Alvin and I would log the time it got to us via the jungle telegraph. John would log when it got back to him which would cover his ass because he could now honestly say he had heard the rumor from someone else. There really was no way the office could trace it back to anyone.

At 1304 the barge cell phone rang and sure enough, the rumor was in full swing. By about 1308 people started calling their port captains asking "What's this $hit I heard about having to go to school at Piney Point for six weeks?"

By 1309 people had started calling their reliefs and passing the word. There were people at home that were living in places like Idaho.

About the only one of us that didn't get the word was Jimmy Beardsley because he was incommunicado because he had taken his family to see the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone or some damned thing and was out in space somewhere.

A couple of days later the tugs all got faxes denying everything which was really too late because the rumor died about as fast as it started. When the office denied it early on Rumor Control spread the denial almost instantly.

The next time I ran into Alvin he told me he was astonished. I told him to keep everything under his hat because if the office ever got wind of who started this there would be hell to pay. I didn't have to tell him twice.

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Trump's Pearl Harbor comment to the Japanese reporter

could probably be described as being so tasteless it was tasteful.

Fact it it was hilarious and the Japanese PM had a hard time keeping it together..

Time has passed and of the original 16.4 million American participants the estimate is that under 45,000 are still alive. The median age is about 98 years old. Estimates are that by 2030 under 8000 will be alive. For the Japanese the estimates are now under 1000. Don't ask me why this is. I believe about 7 million Japanese served.

The war has been long over and with the participants gone healing is pretty much complete.  

As a kid I brought home some anti German/Japanese things from school and my father sat me down and told me the war was long over and pointed out that the Axis military people were no different than our GIs. None of them wanted to be there. They just wanted to go home, marry the girl of their dreams and raise a few kids.

He also pointed out to me that a German that had gotten taken prisoner in North Africa and was sent to a stateside PW camp lived nearby. He had decided shortly after repatriation to Germany to move to the States because he saw it as a land of opportunity. IIRC his kids were a bit younger than me so I never hung out with them.

I'm reasonably sure that Sanae Takaichi, the Japanese Prime Minister took little or no offense to President Trump's comments whatsoever. From what I have seen she likes Americans.

In 1928 a (then) Japanese captain named Tadimichi Kuribayashi came to the States as a student/attache and lived here for about two years. He made many American friends. Kuribayashi is best known for his incredible defense of the Island of Iwo Jima. From what I have read about this man he's my favorite WW2 personality that I would want to have dinner and drinks with.

PM Takaichi has something in common with Kuribayashi. She, too spent two years in the States. She lived here working for a Colorado representative on a modest stipend and reportedly acquired a taste for Skippy peanut butter. I'm sure she knows how we are and much like Kuribayashi generally likes us. She broke both Japanese and American protocol when the President met her at the White House door. She neither bowed not took his offered hand. Instead she charged up to him and gave him a big hug. 

That tells me she know Americans when she abandoned protocol.

It would be interesting to find out what the general Japanese population thought about their PM breaking protocol. It would also be interesting to see what the average Japanese citizen thinks over his comment.

As for PM Takaichi, she obviously thought something was outright hilarious but tried to hide it. The question is what she found funny. Personally my best guess is she got hit with a double whammy. Still, I don't think she was so much amused with Trump's comment as she was watching the Japanese reporter ask a stupid question and get brought up short by President Trump. I'm sure she's more than aware that the President is a bull in a China shop and not too surprised to see him to give an answer like that.

I instinctively like that woman. I think I'll mail her a jar of Skippy peanut butter.   

  

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Circa 1970. Buying beer in New Hampshire on Sunday.

before MA repealed some of the Blue Laws in 2004.

From where I lived the NH border was about 2.5 hours, about 140 miles but gas was 19.9 cents a gallon at the Quincy Oil station the next town over. Five buck would pay for gas with some left over. a six pack was about $1.25. 

About 0930 I got a call from one of my running partners. "Hey! Let's go to NH and buy beer!"

Cool! The fact that I was as sick as a dog from Saturday night had nothing to do with it. we were going to NH to buy beer on Sunday. It was flouting a stupid MA law that made it interesting.

The state of NH had and still does have a monopoly on hard liquor sales but smaller stores sold beer. Most NH state liquor stores are on highways and there's one on I-95 just across the border. Back then the MA State police would often have an unmarked car sitting there recording license plate numbers of MA vehicles and would radio them in so the State Police could bust you for smuggling NH beer into MA. It was somewhat of a joke and one time I had been stopped and tossed. 

The whole thing was pretty much MA at it's finest. They had detailed the State Police to enforce Sunday beer smuggling. What was funny about it is that local cops along the border probably did this routinely if they had a Sunday off and wanted a beer. 

The tossing had been cursory as they were looking for a case or maybe a couple of six-packs. For some reason they didn't look under the spare where there was a GIQ, a Giant Imperial Quart. Still, it scared me into taking other action for future runs.

For you youngsters, a GIQ was the precursor to todays 40. It held 38.4 ounces.  

The run that comes to mind was pretty slick. we hadn't been caught and had no intention of spoiling a perfect record. Needless to say we avoided state stores not only because of the State Police parking there and writing down license tag numbers but because we were minors.

The state store checked IDs carefully. Of course this was well before the time of laminated picture IDs. They still issued cards. I had one I had scored at a U. Mass dorm for about $2 that was absolutely perfect. I scuffed it up by carrying it in a separate section of my wallet and actually had a fear of handing it to a cop if I was ever stopped because it was that good.

On top of that in the trunk I had a set of CA license plates scored when someone from CA moved into the neighborhood and had registered their car in MA. 

The whole thing wasn't really about the beer itself but telling the state go go to hell. Blue laws were a stupid leftover from about the time of the Pilgrims and had just been carried over. They made no sense and therefore were to be flouted. 

Anyway, the run I recall was simple. I drove. I snagged my friend and we took off after a quick refueling at the Quincy station filling the tank with Red Hat, the subgrade that ran pretty good in slant and inline 6 cylinder engines of the time. 

We wound through the side roads, grabbed the expressway and started north, connecting to I-95. The rhythm of the road felt good underneath us as the old crapcan Dodge hummed along. There was something about a Slant Six engine. They really were a good engine for the time.

We crossed the state line and shortly we saw the state liquor store and pulled in for a reconnoiter. Business was fairly slow and we only saw a couple of out of state vehicles, only one from MA and the driver's seat was empty. Most likely it was a guy inside buying a jug and his wife was sitting there. She looked fairly old IIRC. 

I saw no sign of a MA Statie looking around. We drove out and continued up I-95 for a short piece and got off the Interstate. 

In short order we saw a general store, predecessor to today's convenience stores with a Carling Black Label beer neon sign so we went down thee road about a half mile and covered our plates with CA plates, went back to the store and I bought a couple of GIQs and a big bag of ice. He didn't even ask for my license.

The GIQs went into a galvanized steel pail and were covered with ice  and wedged into the trunk in a way it would not tip over. There was already a hole in the trunk floor that was a drain from previous mishaps. Back in the day a serviceable automobile could be purchased for $50 or less, sometimes even gotten for free. Knocking a drain in the trunk was no big thing. The next place the car was likely to wind up was the boneyard. 

We pulled out of the general store and drove a quarter mile towards the Interstate and stopped. The CA plates went into the trunk and we were off and running for home. Actually it was more of a nice cruise. IIRC it was October and the leaves were turning so for a while we got off the Interstate and enjoyed the fall colors before going back into I-95. 

We then retraced our steps and as the sun was setting we enjoyed the fruits of our efforts as we swilled down a GIQ apiece in the early darkness of fall.

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This country could use an AMERICAN Foreign Legion

as a pathway to citizenship. 

Six years+ Honorable discharge=full citizenship. 

Plus a full GI bill and in-service educational opportunities. 

Legal entry required, no Green Cards necessary. Entry to the states for the purpose of enlistment permitted, however if you don't qualify you get returned to your home country. I'd also allow illegals to enlist. OTOH if they don't qualify they get handed over to ICE who POLITELY returns them to where they came from.

Maybe out embassies overseas could serve as a screening point. A couple of trained embassy Marines could administer the various pre enlistment tests.

Upon completion of the six years they are eligible to reenlist if they so desire to continue with a military career. Same benefits, rights and responsibilities as regular troops. Hell, they could even transfer to regular military units.

One more thing, a distinctive uniform badge of some sort akin to the French Foreign Legion's distinctive Kepi Blanc. It would give them a source of pride for both members and our citizenry. We could refer to them as apprentice 'citizens'.

One thing about these people is that if they wanted to come from overseas to enlist they should go to the head of the line. They could bypass the waiting lines that extend to up to 20+ years.

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MREs.

I just bought a case so I can toss a couple in my two vehicles as insurance in case I get stuck somewhere or just want to eat fast and run.

I've had limited experience with them in the past and over the years I've stuffed a couple of Hormel Compleats in the bag while traveling. They are rarely eaten but the couple of times I have made me glad I planned ahead for things.  If I am not mistaken the last time was probably J6 in DYW airport after a long delay in my flight home.

Anyway most things of that nature I have eaten cold. 

MREs now come with a flameless heater and I decided to try that out a couple of weeks ago and it really is a game changer of sorts. The heater, although it takes time, turns a bland cold dish into a halfway decent meal although like military field rations everywhere you don't want to live on them for long periods of time.

I guess what made me think of this is that the usual suspects are raising hell over Pete Hegseth feeding the troops a surf and turf meal which has been done for decades.   

As far as feeding the troops goes, I'm like a tug skipper I knew. He said he didn't worry about going over budget. He looked at the trash can. "I look at the trash can. If there's not a lot of food waste in it I don't worry because I know they're eating it."

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One of my favorite airplane stories was back in the day

On February 4, 1969 an eastern Airlines flight from Newark to Miami was hijacked and the pilot was ordered to land in Cuba.

Only one passenger and the entire aircrew was in the least nervous. 

The passenger's name was Alan Funt.

People were cheerful and laughing at the hijacker and nobody realized they were in any danger at all until the airplane landed in Havana.

Funt had been recognized by some of the passengers and spread word. The entire plane thought they were part of Funt's TV show, Candid Camera. 

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Using the exception to prove the rule.

Like the poor 97 year old deaf, dumb and blind woman that has no arms and only one leg and lives in a mud hut atop a mountain that's 123 miles from the nearest town. She can't even get a job because the nearest IHOP is 426 miles away. 

How is she going to register to vote?

It's not fair!

My answer to someone that was using that excuse over the SAVE act was to tell the Democrats she wants to vote Republican. That way they'll travel all the way up to her mud hut, put her in a wheelchair and roll her off a cliff.

Problem solved.

I don't know why woman and minorities allow themselves to be insulted by Democrats claiming that if SAVE is enacted they won't be able to register to vote.

Update before I posted this:

https://x.com/ForecasterEnten/status/2018727149050741020?fbclid=IwY2xjawQgOrpleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEenVJCJyKdx-vrcjcys8pkL0MzRzGiHVYC_LPLNEn-2Jb0fv7VdvS9PP17U3g_aem_qfyyldg98JoYTsPi0zGLaw 

a CNN poll of all things.

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Another quick fix.

When activists glue their hands to the pavement there are two choices.

If traffic can easily be detoured then reroute it. Leave them there glued to the pavement and allow their supporter to bring them food and water. After about a week of having to deal with the elements and calls of nature and sitting in their own waste for about a week they are not likely to try that stunt again.

Of course if detour is not an option than grabbing their forearm and giving a hard quick jerk and carting them to jail should discourage them from further stupidity.

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It's coming soon to PA.

Eventually Democrats will own the PA government.

When that happens laws will be enacted here prohibiting the possession of certain classes of firearms. NY, MA, IL, MD, CY and a few other places already have much in place banning classes of firearms and from what I have managed to gather compliance is still running in single digits and in NJ there has been an increase in the number of fully automatic rifles the police have been picking up. 

The NJ increase makes sense in that if semi autos are illegal, one might just as well go whole hog and do it right.

It's unconstitutional and they can kiss my a$$.

All it is going to do is start a new class of felons. 

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Toe tags.

I was talking to a friend and told him I wanted to mark a few things for passing on. Things like family heirlooms that you have but never use. The trench knife Grandpa carried in France in 1918, Grandma's figurine she brought from the old country. things like that.  He suggested 'Toe tag them'.

I knew what he meant. The tags the morgue uses on bodies but for the life of me forgot what the real name is. Anyway, I was off to Target.

There I made the mistake of asking a young lady working in the stationary section if she carried toe tags. 

"Toe tags?" she asked.

"Yeah. You know. the kind they toe to someone's toe at the morgue," I said.

"What would you possibly need something like that for?!" 

There was a woman behind her that had turned her head. I can't really call her a busybody because I would have stopped dead to hear where the conversation was going. It was just too juicy to pass up.

I also realized this was an excellent target of opportunity. A man's gotta do what he's gotta do.

"Don't ever buy a house that a drug dealer lived in," I said. "You're always getting people that don't know he moved out and you get home invasions by druggies looking for drugs and money. Since we moved in we've had four invasions and the score is 12-0. It's 14-0 if you count the 2 crackheads that lived. Last night I came home late from work and found three dead crackheads the old Lady shot sprawled around in the living room."

"Oh, my God!" said the young shelf stocker. "What did the police do?"

"They're pretty good about it. They said they recognized all three and told me to call the coroner's office in the morning, I answered. "Oh yeah, the sergeant gave the wife another box of ammunition."

I looked over her shoulder and saw the woman behind her was trying not to outright break into laughter. She was dying inside.

"Anyway we slept in late after the excitement and when I called the coroner's office they said they wanted the three stiffs tagged. I gotta find some toe tags fast because the Old Lady don't want them stinking the place up and we can't leave them on the porch because the raccoons and the coyotes will start chewing them up. I gotta have them tagged before the coroner's office closes. I'll tag 'em and they'll bag em and the coroner will cart them off."

Visibly shaken she pointed and showed me the label section. They had nothing I could use. She left instantly and I was approached by the woman that had overheard everything. She was laughing like hell. "You scared the hell out of that poor girl. That was just plain cruel."

"You're laughing," I said.

"Yes I am. I guess there's something wrong with me, too." she said. 

If I was still single I'd have probably offered to buy her a drink or a cup of coffee. I instinctive liked her.

Off to Staples. I went to the counter.

"Do you carry toe tags?" I asked. The woman was about the same age as the Target girl.

"The kind the morgue uses?" she asked.

"Yeah. That kind," I replied.

"They call them shipping tags. They're in aisle 5 next to the manilla envelopes," she said.

I was in and out in a couple of minutes.

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I DEMAND!

Oh. You demand. 

I see. You demand.

Oh.

Nine times out of ten when someone demands something they are basically admitting that they are negotiating from a position where they have no power other than to just spout off. It means less than nothing.

When you have a cocked pistol against someone's nose you don't demand, you order.

When they have a cocked pistol against your nose they do the ordering. You can demand they lower the pistol but expect to be treated like a demander. They will laugh at you. 

I have been watching governor and mayors demand things of the federal government and they always look lame and pathetic when they do.

A governor or mayor has no business demanding anything from the federal government. what are they going to do when their demands are not met? Hold their breath until they turn blue?

==================================

I just watched the Governor of MA demand ICE leave them alone and stay out of churches, schools, courthouses etc.

If I ran ICE (and it's probably a good thing I don't) I would have agents target these places specifically. I'd also start jailing people that hide and hire illegals. Or governors and mayors that declare their city or state to be a sanctuary.

==============================

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Muslim cab driver in NYC a few years back.

I don't remember the details of where we were going but I certainly remembered the ride. It was about an hour and a half if pretty much silence. Wait a minute...the ride was from Brooklyn to Bridgeport, CT.

I've always been cheerful and generous to cabbies over the years. I've bought numerous snacks and meals for them over the years and I tip generously. 

The cab arrived and the driver looked at me with a bored sullen look. I got in the back seat and we started off. I tried to be polite and make conversation but he had an attitude so I just rode along in silence.

We were about halfway there when I felt hungry and offered to buy him lunch. He snapped angrily back at me that it was Ramadan and he was fasting. So much for that. I really didn't want to start an argument with the guy so we rode along in silence. 

I texted the person I was relieving and found out he didn't plan on returning to Brooklyn. His car was in Philly and he'd catch the train and ride in style. He said he'd catch a local cab to the airport.

I texted back have a lunch containing pork ready for me. He texted back LOL.

We arrived at the terminal and the driver didn't have a TWIC card so he couldn't enter the terminal. No problem. Security would show up in a few minutes and give me a ride to the boat.

Needless to say, he tried fishing for a tip.

"I'll give you a tip, alright. Assimilate or go back to where you came from. You could have been halfway decent and taken the high road when I offered to feed you. when I got into this damned cab I saw a simple human being and out of kindness and compassion offered to break bread with you. I had no idea you're a Muslim and if you had politely refused my offer with a civil explanation I certainly understood."

I continued. "Last Christmas I wished another person a Merry Christmas. He said Merry Christmas back and told me that although he's a Hindu he loves it when Christians offer to share their holiday. Now assimilate or go back to where you came from. By the way I have a ham sandwich waiting for me when I board the boat."

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How do you spell IMTT?

There was and still is a liquid storage facility called IMTT. IMTT stands for International Matex Tank Terminals and I frequently loaded and discharged there during my career. It is in Bayonne, NJ.

During the middle of the first third of my career the company sent a memo to all tank barges regarding spelling in the various reports we had to send in. The memo was accompanied with a dictionary.

At first I was insulted until I thought about it. We had (and likely still do) have a lot of people in the industry that don't have a lot of formal education. Maybe some of the the rednecks can't spell but I sure learned a lot from them. I guess the way they issued the dictionaries left a bad taste in my mouth because it felt like another little indignity. The office was good for little indignities. (The place I spent the last part of my career was great. They treated us like gold.)

Still I felt the need to get my licks in with the office over that one and decided to bide my time and wait for a really good shot back.

This was before the age of cell phones and computers. Most (but not all) of our communication was through VHF radio and repeaters.

My opportunity came faster than I had figured. We got word via VHF we were being sent to IMTT Bayonne NJ to pick up a load.

I played dumb with the dispatcher who was not known for being quick on the uptake.

"IMTT, huh?" I asked an a voice so innocently and humble that it could not possibly carry any guile. "I know we've had a lot of bad spelling on the paperwork and I want to get this right. Would you please spell the loading port for me?"

"Eye period, em period, tee period, tee period." he replied. 

"Thank you," I said in a voice just dripping with sarcasm. "I just wanted to get it right on the paperwork."

Of course the entire on watch fleet heard the exchange. The airwaves shut down for several seconds. Then returned back to business. I had expected hoots and jeers but there was nothing for a while but dead air.

Almost immediately back channel messages got to me for the rest of the tour. Most people thought it was the funniest thing they had ever heard. A handful thought it was a pretty cruel thing to do to the dispatcher and a smaller handful said, "Wow! Dat Piccolo is a ig-rent sumbitch! Why he can't even spell IMTT!"

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The man eating chicken story from the barber shop.

This same thing happened at Camp Perry a year or two later.

A few years back I was getting my locks shorn at the local barber shop. IIRC it was a Saturday morning when the 9-5ers were there for haircuts and a couple of old school farmers were there for their weekly shaves.

I had gotten a seat across from a father and son. dad looked like he was preoccupied, the kid looked like he was paying attention and possibly had a brain of some sort. I let things fall into place and looked at the kid and addressed him.

"Hey, Kid," I asked. "Have you ever in your life seen a man eating chicken?" His father took note of the situation instantly. 

The kid thought for a second or two and replied, "Yes I have."

The father looked at his son and demanded, "Where have you ever seen a man eating chicken?"

"I see it almost every time we eat at KFC," said the kid.

"What do you mean?" the father demanded of his son. "There are no man eating chickens at KFC!" 

"A lot of men eat chicken at KFC," answered the boy.

Dad turned beet red when he figured it out.

Over the years I have come to the conclusion that a lot of kids actually raise themselves. I keep thinking that the people that say that parents should have a license to reproduce have the right idea and I used to agree with them until I realized that if it became a worldwide requirement the human face would become extinct in a few generations.

I guess some thing are better left the way they are.

Let Darwin sort it out. 

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Wow! DST just hit me....again.

My sleep patterns will me screwed up for a few days and now I have to reconfigure one of my atomic clocks. No major undertaking but sometimes I wonder if it's worth the effort.

Sometimes I think we ought to stick with one or the other.

It made sense back in the day when we had to watch television by candle light but now we have electricity.

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8 March!

A beautiful day. 

I've been sluggish all winter so it felt damned good to get  out and take a nice walk..

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I am completely pissed off at the left now. Draft Barron in a pig's ass!

There seems to be a big 'Draft Barron Trump' movement which is nothing more than the most mean spirited thing I have ever heard of.

First of all presidential families have always been off limits. Period. 

I could only imagine the screeching and epic personal attacks had anyone said anything about one of Obama's children...even if it was true. 

While it is true the fact that Hunter Biden was discharged from the Navy as an ensign for popping hot on a drug test and was given an administrative discharge, he was in fact 43 years old when he went in and 44 when he was separated from the service. Still, that one went away fast in the media even though he was a middle aged man at the time. 

Barron Trump has already paid his dues in spades. Since November 2015 when Donald Trump became president-elect his childhood as we know it came to a screeching halt. From then on he could no longer grab a can of worms and a fishing pole and wander down to the pond and go fishing. He couldn't go skateboarding with his pals. taking Marylou to the corner drugstore for a malt was definitely out of the question. In short he was totally robbed of his childhood.  

It's kind of hard to get your sweetie into the back seat of the family '57 Chevy with you at the drive-in when there are a trio of Secret Service agents occupying it.

He grew up with a big target painted on his back and spent most of his childhood living in a huge fish bowl. 

Much to the credit of the young man he hasn't seemed to have gotten into any mischief which speaks VERY highly of him. I say that because if he was walking through an abandoned apple orchard and helped himself to an apple the media screeching would be epic. He'd be called a criminal and a thief and we'd never hear the end of it.

Currently he's being robbed of his early adulthood because he's in college and doesn't even get to go to the bathroom unattended by Secret Service agents.

All of this hate has nothing to do with Barron. They are just trying to get at his father by making the son a target. It's patently wrong. They are trying to use him as a pawn. It's disgraceful and anyone that has half of a brain knows that.

As far as I am concerned Barron has already paid his dues. Leave him alone. He has had nothing to do with anything that would make a normal person dislike him. 

Besides this isn't 1942 anymore. While James Roosevelt went ashore with the 2nd Marine Raiders the Japanese had no way of knowing that FDRs son was with them. Today whatever unit a president's child is in can be found fairly easily on line. A president's child would be a feather in the cap of the enemy unit that either captured or killed them. It would also bring undue stress to the rest of the GIs in the unit they're assigned to. I know if a president's kid was assigned to the same hemisphere I'm on I'd instantly put in for a transfer. I'd want no part of that. Maybe during 1942 things were different.

Besides he'd probably make a crummy soldier because he's too damned tall. He's 6'9" tall (the limit is 6'8") As for asking for a waiver, why should he have to? To make some whiny Karen happy? Not his job. 

Besides there is no draft. 

The thing that really angers me is that if Barron was killed or taken prisoner most of these people would gloat and say the President deserved it which is outright sick. 

The kid has my respect.

========================================

There was a Facebook thread about drafting Barron. It was mainly a bunch of Karens.

My reply was that they ought grab all of you nasty mean spirited old broads and ship the whole push of you off to the infantry.

There were penalty markers thrown for that one.

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I'm getting ready to go on a trip soon and

when I pack I make sure to pack my worst worn out undershorts because instead of washing them I can simply throw them out.

I was going through my stuff and found a fugitive from the law of averages. It was a really worn out pair of skids that as a best guess came out of my footlocker from work that I had not gone through since I retired. They very well might have gotten into the footlocker as a prank someone pulled with battery acid.

Anyway I had a visitor and was emptying the dryer when we were yakking. I was inspecting my shorts as they came out of the dryer looking for likely candidates as throwaways for my next trip to visit family. That pair popped up.

It was nothing but a really torn up elastic and holes defined by a few threads. My pal looked at them wide-eyed and asked me, "You're not actually going to wear those, Are you?"

I casually replied, "Why not? They're my favorite pair. I've had them since high school."

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I just heard Jasmine Crockett lost

which is great because after the mid terms we won't have to listen to her ghettospeak any more.

She's blaming it on the Republicans voter fraud which is hilarious. 

Maybe we can get the Democrats to support the SAVE act and clean things up so things like this never happen again.

===============================

The President or maybe Pete Hegseth ought to make a tweet.

Platoon Sergeant Joe Blow Third Platoon A Company 1/327th Infantry (pick a real name and outfit at random)

I've heard about you and your platoon and I want to remind you of the rules of engagement. You may kill as many enemy combatants but you may not eat any of them unless they have been inspected by the USDA. I don't want you or any of your guys getting sick. Thank you for your attention in this matter.

The screeching would be epic and I'm sure the enemy would wonder if word got back to them.

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4 March already.

Time seems to be whipping past incredibly fast. 

The nation is having a 250th birthday come 4 July and I haven't even managed to recover from the Bicentennial yet which was only fifty years ago. 

Come 28 May I will have been out of the Army for fifty years and it's all been a blur.

the 

===================================

Yesterday for the hell oof it I watched a couple of episodes of The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin and Captain  Gallant of the Foreign Legion, both of which I have not seen in over 65 years.

It was interesting seeing how primitive TV was back in the 50s when I was 7 or 8. 

Both were typical 50s western format. A young orphan boy growing up in Fort Apache and a young boy growing up in a Foreign Legion outpost. Captain Gallant was just a western format but set in a different setting.

Back then every small boy was envious of Rusty and Cuffy because they got to grow up among Old School Real Men.

It took two or three decades to realize we had grown up among real men because it takes a lot of moxie to settle down and raise a couple of kids and do it right.

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It is March 3 and I missed a March 2 post.

Oh, well. I guess I'm good for a day off once in a while.

================================

I have to get away from social media for a while because it is slowly turning me into someone I don't want to be. It has made me at times downright mean.

Then again, I guess you could say only on those that have it coming. Still I really don't like being a savage even though I have to admit it can be fun at times but only in small doses.

Anyway, enough is enough and I think I will take a break from social media for a while.

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I have never seen anything as hate driven as the Democratic party.

Their entire platform is based on one thing and one thing only: Hate Trump.

Currently we are in the middle of military action in Iran and we have elected officials that would love nothing more than to see one of our carriers sunk with a loss of 5500 sailors just to embarrass the President. It's sick.

Immediately after we took Maduro from Venezuela rumors appeared stating that Hakeem Jeffries tried to tip off Maduro but was too late. The day after the night operation he was screeching that the President had failed to notify Congress. I wonder why.

As far as Iran goes the usual suspects, Maxine, AOC and Jasmine are mad because the President didn't ask them for special permission to conduct a military operation in Iran. 

Oh. He didn't ask them for permission. I see. I guess they're going to tell mom on him and he's going to get a spanking.

Until a few days ago Iran was a rogue nation that was destabilizing the entire Middle East and by extension the entire planet. Now we are freeing 90 million people from an oppressive government and anyone in congress that doesn't support that is a big part of the problem.

It's not going to be all peaches and cream in Iran. There's as to be expected supporters of the old regime and there will be hiccups and burps but I do believe that over a reasonable amount of time the United States and Israel are going to wind up with a useful ally in the middle east.

Hopefully they will become trade partners with us because nothing brings nations together better than trade, especially if it's negotiated with a win/win attitude.

 

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March has arrived and

yesterday I took the Miata out to celebrate good February and freshen up the gas a bit. It was a glorious day for it.

=============================

War with Iran has begun. 

Trump simply picked up the can that was being kicked down the road.

We really only had two choices in this matter.

We could have kept kicking the can down the road until the Iranians developed the bomb and tried to use it on us. Most politicians would have likely done just this.

                                             Or

We could take Iranian leadership out and let the people replace the Ayatollahs with a secular government.

Most likely what will happen is we do this Iran will become very friendly to the United States. 

Prior to the Ayatollah takeover Iran was very western and had good relations with us. The good relationship ended with the Ayatollah takeover.

Of course the left is screaming that Obama had a deal in place which is bull$hit because if the deal was being observed then Trump would not have had to bomb their nuclear weapons development site.

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Guinea Bissau.

J11A>2127Z>27Feb2026>17M>5x7> Guinea Bissau> Card sent

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"Well I didn't know it would be like this

I was all for immigration reform but what they are doing to people is just awful!" I heard this in a doctor's office recently.

What did you expect? Did you think that these people would leave when the government mandated it? Did you think they would pack up and leave because they were told to? Are you really that stupid?

Immigrants are divided into two categories, bona fide legal immigrants and invaders. The bona fides enter legally and go through the process required by law. These are generally pretty good people. They have been vetted and seen to be of decent character that have something to contribute to the country. Invaders are a mixed bag. 

Some are gang bangers, thugs, thieves, prisoners released to sneak in to the country. I would imagine some of them are sleeper cells members from unfriendly countries. Still, many are otherwise decent people that just want to make a few bucks. All have one thing in common. They are criminals. They entered the United States illegally.

As for the halfway decent people that illegally entered they are not really halfway decent because they bucked the line. The legal process takes a certain amount of time and money. The illegals have bucked the line and made fools of those that respected the system and paid their dues.

These people are not just going to up and leave because the law told them to. They have to be dug out one by one kicking and screaming.

What do you expect? It IS going to be savage and the blame is Biden's for letting so many of these people into the country to begin with. It's a bitch undoing something that should never have been done to begin with.

  

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The Buddhist walk for peace is over with. The monks are back in Texas.

It took about 120 days and the weather ranged from hot to cold but they persevered.

They had a large following on social media and occasionally someone would wonder what the President thought of it.

The White House was strangely quiet and I believe that Trump did that out of respect for the monks. He most likely wanted to keep them out of the political fray.

Had he said anything remotely kind about their walk for peace I am reasonably sure the left would have lined the march route and turned it into a gauntlet of taunts, jeers and objects being thrown at them. Possibly worse.

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Protip.

Watch what happens to an employee that resigns to take another job because when you resign they are going to do the same damned thing to you.

If the employee gives them the proverbial 2 weeks notice and they can him on the spot then that is what is going to happen to you. If he gets to finish out his final two weeks so will you.

If that's the case is they can him and you find another employer simply don't show up for work the Monday you start your new job.

Fair is fair.

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I got to thinking of life on a sailboat in a Kodiak winter cold snap.

My boat had a small Force 10 cozy cabin heater that was simple and rather amazing. It heated the boat with nothing more than a Primus stove burner.

Designed for kerosine it worked better on #1 stove oil which is basically clean diesel. All you had to do to make #1 fuel work is to strain it through a couple layers of panty hose. The fuel oil burned a bit hotter than kerosine.

What was amazing about it was that it was small and didn't take up much space and worked on a simple principle. The Primus-type burner heated the sheet metal around it and the heat radiated. 

It had a small, maybe 1 gallon pressurized tank whit a gauge on top of the filler cap and I never filled it more than 2/3s full so as to keep the pressure up as the fuel burned off. You'd fill the tank, cap it and pressurize it with a bicycle hand pump.

The next step was to preheat the burner. That was important and I learned fast never to take a shortcut. You'd fill the primer pan with alcohol pretty much to the top and light it. When the alcohol burned off the burner was preheated and you'd crack the fuel valve and light it off. Sometimes you could crack the valve as the last of the alcohol was flickering out and she's start burning. Then you'd adjust the flame, usually to full bore and in a fairly short time you could comfortably take your jacket off. 

The thing vented through a 1" stainless steel pipe that U ran through the coach roof and had an excellent rain cap on it, This prevented the dangerous gases and odors from venting into the cabin. I never smelled any diesel or other aromas inside.

There was also another propane version. I had done my homework when I considered that one but I had gotten reports of moisture building up and it reportedly didn't burn as hot so I ran with the kerosine model.

While it certainly wouldn't be able to bake bread on the counter, it provided more than enough heat to be comfortable on really cold winter nights.

Over the years I have never stopped being amazed at how well simple things like that can work so well.

Of course now I live in a house with a fairly complex HVAC system and push a button a couple of times to regulate the temperature in the entire house but I often look back on things like that little cozy cabin heater and marvel at how such a simple thing could do such a good job of keeping me warm,

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Just to be clear: if you don’t have a recession after having record inflation, prices aren’t going to come down. Bidenomics caused a record 9.1% inflation rate. Which is why experts and economists predicted a recession during this Trump term. A good business sense and strong cabinet secretaries, with good knowledge of economics, have been the reason this administration was able to turn the country around without any type of recession. Everyone refuses to give credit where credit is due. Covid or not, Biden destroyed this country’s economy when him, his son, and the people around him, including Obama, enriched themselves and lined their pockets. Anthony Fauci did too. He should be in prison, not walking around with all of the money he made off of his dealings with Pfizer, Moderna, and the rest of big pharma. We finally have a president who cares more about this country and American citizens than he does about money. We finally have a leader who can’t be bought or influenced. So, within a year after inheriting the worst economy caused by democratic policies, inflation is down, gdp is up, 401k funds are soaring, the stock market has broken countless records despite expert predictions, gas prices are down, job growth is up, and contrary to what democrats swore was going to happen… NO ONE has “lost their rights.” For example, everyone still has their 1st amendment right to free speech. Democrats use that right everyday to lie about our president. Racist, Nazi, bigot, fascist, unhinged, incompetent, dictator, and now pedophile. They are only able to say things BECAUSE they have that first amendment right to free speech. But this type of language sets up a permission structure for violence. They keep using these terms to turn the people against Trump. The racist narrative blew up in their face. The Nazi narrative caused 2 assassination attempts. But Nazi lost its original sting because it’s been said so much. So now, in order to trigger that hardcore emotional reaction in their base again, now it’s pedophile. This new terminology has now forced another mentally unstable leftist to do the unthinkable and try to take a shot at our president. So while Democrats are exercising their constitutional right to smear Trump, with the mainstream media reporting on every single false accusation made, this president will continue to be the most consequential president in modern history… and democrats are afraid that if more people keep finding out how much better he is for this country, they may never get back in power again

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