Poor people don't understand maintenance.

Someone once told me 'poor people have poor ways'.

Lot's to be said for that. People don't understand the true cost of things. They seem to think, for example, if they can stretch the budget to make the payments then they can afford a new (or newer than the one they have) car.

They forget that it has to be maintained and taken care of. Oil changes are required at intervals to keep the engine running properly. The other fluid levels have to be maintained and checked. Oil changes run in the $50-75 range. Needless to say, oil change intervals usually land when you've had a bad month and it gets put off and often generally forgotten about for a year or so and now your engine is smoking and clattering.

Now you're handed a $4500 engine job to deal with and you put it on a credit card and get yourself in deeper.

Or windshield wipers wear out and instead of coughing up $35 to replace them you keep putting it off until the windshield is scratched up. In some states that won't pass a safety inspection so you're out another $400 that you add to the credit card.

Of course this isn't only about cars it's a general lifestyle choice.

You have to take care of things. The cost of owning something doesn't stop when you take it home with you.

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

Protip.

You're getting ready to make your last $500 car monthly payment on a 5 year note. This proves you have managed to cough up $500/month for the last 5 years. 

You figure you're going to keep it for another five years. 

Open an account, label it 'car payment' and drop $500/month into it. Inflation, pay raises etc. have made it easier to do now than it was 5 years ago so it's easily doable.

When you get around to needing a new car you should be able to either pay cash or put one hell of a down payment on your next vehicle.

Plan ahead.

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Islam has no place in western civilization

ESPECIALLY not in the United States. Read what I have to say carefully before you start babbling about the First Amendment. I'm pretty much a hard nosed Constitutionalist.

Muslims don't assimilate. They want to change their new home to fit them. Mamdani has already taken over a city owned building and is using it for a mosque. One of his lieutenants has already said Islam will be in every home in the United States. Another has said their goal is to destroy the Constitution and replace it with Sharia law. Other Muslim leaders have said the same things. 

There have been criticisms over people bringing their dogs into their homes. The new and improved NYC grocery store doesn't sell pork products. Restaurants have been hassled over serving pork barbecue. Muslims want to ban alcohol. 

Muslims have hassled people for eating in public during Ramadan citing that they are fasting and it annoys them. Sorry about that but I am eating my lunch where and when I want and demand to be able do it in peace. 

Imams have stated they want to replace the Constitution with Sharia Law. Islam is actually a religion of conquering. Everywhere they land they insist the locals bend to them. I have no intentions whatsoever of living under Sharia law or changing my habits to accommodate newcomers. It's their job to assimilate.

The Quran permits them to lie, cheat, steal and even murder unbelievers.

It's not a religion, it is a terrorist organization. It destroys everything it touches. It was directly responsible for 9-11. A big example of that is Iran which has supplied many groups with arms and ammunition to go after western nations in general and the United States in particular. The Taliban, Hezbollah, Hamas and others come to mind as I sit here. All have been given money and arms from Iran and other Muslim sources.

They have killed any number of Americans and Islam in general and Iran in particular is a clear and present danger to the United States. Period.

The United States hosts every religion in the world that I am aware of and probably some I'm not aware of. We all seem to get along together and they have all assimilated well...EXCEPT the Muslims. They get along with none of the other religions. In fact they don't even get along with themselves. Sunni and Shiite Muslims are constantly going after each other. 

One time I wished a Hindu a merry Christmas and he smiled and replied that even though he was Hindi he loved Christians offering to share their holiday with him. He was gracious.

Not so when I offered a Muslim cab driver to buy him lunch. He could have simply said he was Muslim and fasting and been halfway decent about it. Instead he got $hitty about it.

Another time I offered a Jewish subcontractor a ham sandwich (I didn't know he was Jewish) when I was making lunch at work and he graciously begged off. It later got back to me that the Jew had gone and told my supervisor I was a nice guy for offering him lunch. Gracious.

Muslims simply have no place in western civilization. For the record the first war our then fledgling nation fought was with the Barbary pirates. They were not Irish Catholics or Methodists. They were Muslims. Our dealings go way back.

Japan has told the small handful of Muslims there to go whistle and I'm sure they'll soon get the boot. Denmark and Sweden have had a bellyful of Muslims and are in the process of giving large numbers of them the boot.

England and France are screwed royally. France seem to have a number of Catholic churches falling prey to mysterious fires and although the Notre Dame fire is officially listed as being caused by a worker it would be interesting to know of the employees possible connection with Islam. The Mayor of London is a Muslim and you might just as well write England off.

My solution is to follow the leadership of the Japanese and expel any non native born Muslim. We should also designate Islam to be a domestic terrorist group and encourage the rest to leave. 

Before anyone accuses me of being a Nazi, I don't advocate camps, death chambers or any harm be done to these people. I simply want them to leave and go somewhere else. That's fair and reasonable.

This is the Islamic Doomsday clock. I figure that right now we are between 7 and 8 O'clock. They've done a damned good job at 4 O'clock. They have taken New York City!

I've said what I said. As a hard nosed Constitutionalist it was difficult for me to come to this conclusion. I have always stood on the side of liberty but it has occurred to me that those people simply want to take our liberties away from us.

Historically in the early 70s I had a leave them alone attitude toward gays. By the mid 80s I had dealings with the TG community and left them alone, preferring to treat them the same way they treated me which for the most part was civilly. I had and still have a live and let live attitude. 

Before you decide to go off on me, do your own research. You just might find I am not too far off base when I say the biggest threat to democracy is Islam. Open your eyes and look around.

Here's a list. The list is not all inclusive. It is a plain and simple fact.

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Books.

I have had two I wanted to read and just finished one of them. 

"The Filthy Thirteen" which was a memoir of a WW2 paratrooper. I finished it wondering how accurate it really was. Much of it sounded a little over the top to me regarding his run-ins with officers and NCOs.

The other one arriving soon is "The Simple Sounds of Freedom" which is about the only USGI ever to join the Russian Army.

He was captured a few days after D Day in France, escaped from the PW camp a couple of times, finally making good an escape where he worked his way east and met the Russian forces. 

Instead of asking the Russians for repatriation he simple joined the Soviet Army and fought alongside them for a while.  Later he was wounded and sent to a hospital. 

A Soviet general was visiting and found out the non-Russian was there and made arrangements to return him to the States.

I kind of like off the wall WW2 incidents. It makes for good reading. Especially when it's about ordinary people in extraordinary situations.

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After 50 years I realize I miss

my old coffee boiler.

For some reason I woke up with a hankering for Old School boiled coffee. I do not know why I would like such a nasty beverage as this upon wakeup but I do want a cup or three.

I had a real chuck wagon gallon boiler for a while when I lived in a tipi and would make up a batch every few days. Surprisingly it drew many favorable comments.

Later when I lived in more civilized housing I'd make a  basic 9 cup batch with a percolator I took the guts out of.

Today I think I'm going to go to Goodwill or maybe Walmart if I feel like getting dressed up and grab a stovetop percolator and use that.

Drip coffee is OK but I do believe it is time to build me a pot of Old School cowboy coffee.

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we have gotten too lax with criminals.

I just read where some clown with 54 arrests just got arrested for murdering someone. What was he doing out on the streets to begin with? It's obvious the system isn't working if that is the case.

Back in the early 60s there was an episode of a long forgotten television show 'Car 54 where are you?'

There was an episode where Car 54s beat was the lowest crime beat in the entire city. Police officials wanted to know why and discovered that Toody and Muldoon had endeared themselves and were so useful to the community that the locals decided they were too valuable to have to waste their time doing police work so they handled it themselves. Robbers and thieves woke up on an alley outside of Car 54's beat. Here's a link to the episode. The good part is the last third of it.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQEridEINzw 

Needless to say, if the locals did decide to  get rid of the police and police themselves it would soon reduce things to chaos. 

However the system doesn't seem to be doing it's job and because of that I am of the mind that there are circumstances that I would cover for someone that did take the law into their own hands.

People are getting sick and tired of catch and release judges and recently after someone murdered a rapist that raped his daughter and was given no prison time simply whacked the rapist and got off.

It wasn't long ago I would have wanted to see the killer get time because I don't generally believe in extra legal justice but that has been changing over the years. If the system fails something must be done to keep things from falling into chaos.

People think the police (and by extension the courts) only protect us from criminals. The fail to realize the police protect society from itself. 

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The heaving line

Early on in my career I worked on a bunker barge. We refueled ships.

Ships don't pull into the corner Sunoco and stick the nozzle in the tank filler. The fuel is delivered to them. A barge comes alongside and ties up alongside, a barge hose is sent up, normally a 6 inch in diameter hose. The hose gets bolted to the manifold and the barge pumps the fuel into the ship. 

Anyway, there was this Korean crewed ship and the crew was pretty lazy. They just wanted us to hang on with 2 lines which is illegal. we required at least six.  

Most ships would throw down a heaving line and pull our deck lines up.  These guys made us throw our heaving line up and then after they removed it they would throw the whole thing back instead of just the end with the weighted monkey's fist.

That angered me so I busted my ass to make them bust theirs by making them pull up at least 8 lines. The bastards could have tried to make it easier for both of us but tried to be lazy and wound up doing more work because of it.

They became a monthly customer and my pard and I decided that enough was enough. we decided to fix their ass good. We started to beg, borrow or steal all the 3/8s manila we could find and spliced into one long heaving line. It was at least an entire mile long but probably closer to a nautical mile of 6000 feet long. There was a monkey's fist on one end and the other end was back spliced. 

We left the tail out of the humongous galvanized tub we coiled it up in and about 90 feet of the end with the monkey's fist out the other side. The tail we tied to the deck line and covered the tub the pile of line with a tarp to hide it from the ship's crew.

When we came alongside I threw the monkey's fist aloft and one of the deckhands caught it and started pulling it up. It went from the strange to the ridiculous to the sublime as they kept pulling more and more 3/8s inch line up. Finally they got well over a mile of heaving line up and the deck line came with it. They were rather exhausted.

They found the monkey's fist and threw it down and it was repeated that way until all six deck lines were made fast. They sure had a pile of manila line on deck. 

The fueling went efficiently and flawlessly.

After everything was finished and we sailed they dropped our deck lines and we snapped them and they landed on deck. We'd coil them after we sailed.

When the last line was off a deckhand threw us our monkey's fist back and the crew gathered to watch me have to haul all 6000 feet of line back aboard. 

I pulled back about 85 feet, pulled out my knife, cut it and we sailed off leaving them a huge rat's nest of line on their deck. Their jaws dropped.

A month later when we came up alongside them they threw a heaving line down to us made of the 3/8ths manila rat's nest we had left behind a month earlier and everything went smoothly thereafter. They probably had made about 50 to 60 heaving lines out of what we had left behind!

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Sad news.

My ex-wife just passed last night. I got the call from my former brother in law last night at 2240.

The animosity between us ended shortly after the divorce and we became friends afterwards so this is nothing to cheer about.

She passed as a result of the medications she was taking for depression which is actually what broke up our marriage in the first place. She had a choice between fighting depression at the cost of longevity and she chose to fight the depression. Personally I would have done the same thing.

She passed peacefully, thank God.

Maybe I'll eventually post part of it.

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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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