Coping: OMTARS (Month in Review)

If you’re under 50, new to this site, this morning is “Old Men Talking About Real Shit” –  – the kind of crap that doesn’t make it onto the teevee and which your politically correct mush-filled brain can’t possibly have assimilated. You’re not old enough.

This is also because people under 50 have been inculcated, inoculated, politicized, guilt-tagged, stupefied, and fluoridated well past the bounds of rationality.  If you’re an under 50 reader, you have our sincere admiration.  Clear thinking is a rarity.

If you are under 50 and take mood enhancers, you may or not no “get it.”

Here’s the thing:  My friend Ray writes often, but he has been out on the road lately.  Now that he’s back, he offers some catch-up commentary on UrbanSurvival (and Peoplenomics) columns.  Here are a few selected  RayNotes  that you’ll find interesting:

(Long read warning: 5,820 words.  Pack a lunch and a thermos.)

10-29 (On your book)  [What BOOK?]

That cover photo is incredibly important. People who don’t know you are going to prejudge your works by the message it conveys.

Agreed;  That’s why on this site’s “bio” page, the picture includes both me and Elaine.  I figure most people would rather look at her than me…

10-29 (On Gold)

Gold was at $35/oz until Nixon did his thing. Along with decoupling, he raised the “official value” of gold to $42/oz. That said, gold could not be had for less than $214/oz until the Krugerrand flood, because that price was a reflection of the real value of gold during the post-Vietnam recession. Gold appreciated almost none, between 1973 and 2005, despite an 8x devaluation of the purchasing power of the US$, which screamed “manipulation” to me, years before I acquired an interest in markets…

11-05 (Trade Deal)

In regards to TPP, before other countries can import our stuff, we have to make said stuff — something which ain’t happening now. The U.S. still manufactures nearly 25% of the world’s manufactured goods, on paper, but with few exceptions we’re not turning raw American materials into finished American goods, and our factories are not churning out products, but subassemblies, which are then shipped to Mexico, China, and many of the countries in-between, for assembly into cars, computers, and much of our current military materiel. I love Pendleton, Woolrich, and Bill’s Khahis, but you can’t drive wool socks down to the city, and the 40¢/hr PacRim crowd ain’t gonna drop $300 bucks for a shirt. Hey, I know: The other participants in TPP will be able to buy our (subsidized) wheat crop for less than we can.

Meanwhile, our gubmint can beg the Chinese for more moolah, so the Fools have the cash to pay those subsidies. DAMN! Stimulus right before me eyes, and I didn’t see it until now…

11-06 (Power Tool/Tool Sluts Note)

No one manufacturer builds all the best tools. The majority of Amazon tool users are idiots and yuppie back-to-whatever wannabees who have no clue what they’re buying and, in many cases, no idea how to properly use them. I’ve been called an “over-engineer” and “hopelessly anal” since I was a kid. ‘Truth is: I detest buying the same tool twice, or doing the same job twice, and I developed a pattern as a young teen, to avoid these issues whenever possible.

Comment:  Ray just disqualified himself from government work, lol.

Before any major purchase that’s not driven by necessity, I research exhaustively, then base the purchase on a mental graph which plots quality against price. If I haven’t the money, I save until I do. My first major tool purchase was a Milwaukee Super Sawzall which I purchased at age 19. More than 40 years later, the saw, which has gotten considerable use, still looks nearly new, and is still the best recip ever made.

Ure’s truly is confounded by the paradox between “considerable use” and “looks nearly new” because my tools like like hand-me-downs after a single project…

Used ta be, I’d go to the library and pour over books & mags to see what the pros used and find out why. Now I surf Internet forums toward that same end. I also note any financial stake a forum host or user might have in a particular tool before accepting their word as Gospel.

It is not unusual for me to spend 6-18 months, doing off-and-on research, before coming to a purchase decision.

Some of us are married and don’t have such time luxuries….ahem….

As you know, my cordless tools are Makita. DeWalt tools are probably slightly better, but they’re also heavier and considerably more spendy. The most important thing is to choose a single brand, then buy one of their families of tools, so everything’s using the same battery packs. Bear in mind, the Nimh and Li-ion batteries are chipped, and the chips often fail. A battery with a failed chip or minor fault will function just fine, but it won’t charge, so it’s good to find out, in advance, the workshop workaround for this issue.

After owning two petrol “consumer-grade” generators, both of which shit themselves at ~300hrs, I bought a Mil-Surplus diesel generator (M802, 5kW @12,000ft, constant duty, fully EMP-hardened, 43db SPL@1m, MTBF > 50,000hrs) with 15hrs on the clock. $2500 cash & carry from a seller in Kentucky, which I thought reasonable, since it cost the U.S. taxpayers over $12k. (I’d spent roughly $1200 combined for my two mistakes…) “Consumer” 5kW diesel generators sell for between $1300 and $1800 around here, depending on label. ‘Nuff said.

I then bought a small utility trailer off CL, on which to mount the generator. The next day I fell into a Michigan police surplus snowmobile, so last week involved 1400 miles of driving over two days, with a day in-between to offload the generator from my pickup to the trailer, and sleep. ‘Point is, after two necessity-driven mistakes, I bought the best available tool, at a reasonable cost and, barring an extreme Act of God, should never need buy another. Oh yeah, the snowmobile? It’s an ultra heavy duty Ski-Doo that’ll do 110, or do 80mph all day long whilst towing a sled, and it is immaculate. Just because I can build my own snowshoes doesn’t mean I want to depend on walking on glorified tennis rackets when the snow’s 20’ deep…

BTW I spent over a year researching the generator, and almost two, the snowmobile, then waited for opportunities to arise. Power’s been out twice already, once for 11 hours, and winter isn’t even here, yet…

On’y the gales of November, and they’re not early. (You did catch this Gordon Lightfoot reference, right?)

No, I was too busy praying it was a typo so I wouldn’t have to answer the hate mail from edjumacators.  Fortunately for me, that has fallen off.  We have so many ESL teachers now I can write fribbledeeflip and people will nod like they understand the shit that was accidentally made-up.

Ruining America has benefits. Unfortunately, it’s along the lines of “In a nation of blind, the one-eyed man is king.”  (You’re welcome to substitute “nitwits” and “half-wit” if you prefer.)

Your commenters who talked about hand tools made me smile. I, too, wasn’t allowed on the power tools until I’d done my time on a brace and a Stanley No.4. I’m a sucker for farm rummage sales, where hand tools can be acquired for next to nothing, and I do so acquire.

One thing the hand tool mavens didn’t mention, which I did come into possession of a couple years ago, was an adjustable setting tool. This is a plier which is used to bend saw teeth, to “set” the saw’s kerf.

AFAIK it’ll work on any blade from a Japanese dovetail to a bigassed circular sawmill blade, and it sets a uniform kerf.

Here at the Uretopa Ranch Main Shop we have managed to avoid the need for a blade-setting tool rather efficiently.  Simply break any blade that becomes dull.  This covers the wood and metal bandsaws. Japanese draw saws, too.

(Speaking of draw saws: A word in passing to visit Frank Tashiro’s website.  Frank’s shop down by the County Courthouse in Seattle (back when it was the location of  Tashiro Hardware)   was a marvel to me as a kid.  They had everything, including Japanese saws to the very best fresh-frozen herring.  The Japanese-Americans of Seattle owned King Salmon fishing on Elliott Bay forever…they invested the art of “mooching” which went mainstream.)

Back on saws, my throw-out approach to blade sharpness also works on the table saw (where blades are tossed when the hardened ends bust off and the blade goes out of balance).

Anything else (like chainsaw blades) I leave around for my bro-in-law.  He, (doing well now, thanks) is, as you know, retired SF and Rangers.  So he is compulsively sharpening everything in sight.  (Ever see what an Arkansas Stone-honed cat looks like?).  He produces the only chain saw blades sharp-enough to shave with and has volunteered to demonstrate on me several times.

ISTM a number of your readers don’t care for the things Warhammer has to say. Shame. Dude knows his shit, and yes, he occasionally spins a populist politickspeak web, but the reasoning is sound, and I can tell you from firsthand experience, it ain’t easy, when one is privy to non-circulating information, to convey such without breaching the government’s NDA, and that’s how it should be. Perhaps France wishes they’d been closer allies with Israel and Arabia, now…

Totally agreed.  Folks with Oak Clusters are generally not stupid (thus, I won’t play poker with ‘em).  They are usually very good at big picture to small…an art not taught in the intellectually burned-out buildings we  jokingly call schools, anymore.  Instead, we have pushed America’s young down the “plug and play” socialist model of conformity above all.

Just because someone doesn’t think like you, it doesn’t make them your enemy.

However, if they have been radicalized, don’t think like you, and they have an automatic weapon or scimitar, then your life expectancy as a liberal may disappoint your ideologues.

11-07 (Programming the People)

I noticed the cable teevee broadcast subchannels are currently playing the shit outta The Matrix. Is the Movie the Message…?

11-09 (Racism)

Da problem wit’ Mizzou is it’s segregated. Missouri is an interesting State to perambulate around (which I did for a few weeks, about 15 years ago.) The cities have been cosmopolitanized, but rural areas, ‘specially north of I-70, house pockets where black, white, or red people are not particularly welcome, and the Civil War, not completely forgotten. Because of this, the Black Panthers targeted UM in the late ’60s to see how far they could push a major college administration.

The school has, since the 1970s, had black and white homecomings, black and white proms, black and white organizations, etc. Segregation is both institutional and sanctioned. That such idiocy has surfaced does not surprise me — that it has done so on the football field, does…

I grew up “the minority” in my high school, worked in R&B/Jazz radio…and damn it, all people are the same.  Having lived all over the country I can tell you that when you stand up for real universal equality, and you do so in the South, you’re a Northernah or damn Yankee.  Seems to be regardless of how long you’ve been south of “the line.”

On the other hand, being a real egalitarian, we also get regularly ripped when we detest things like the black former student who was posting racial incitements the other day  (Kean University, wasn’t it?).  North of the M/D Line, you get called a bigot or racist for pointing out the dual standards…

It all continues to fit with the slow-motion dismantling of America (The Great Melting Pot) which has been well-underway for…lemme see now…seven years.

11-10  (Prepping)

I have two SOG Seal Team Elite hunting knives — always carry one on a trip, and I favor nutrient bars, trail mix, and especially pinole, to MREs — lighter, smaller, more nutrient-dense, and much cheaper.

{quote}

Pinole:

Pinole is nothing more than parched corn ground into coarse cornmeal.

It sometimes has other things added to it.

Pinole is eaten preferably by mixing two to four tablespoons into a cup of water and drinking it down.

Daniel Boone, Simon Kenton, and other long hunters and surveyors used pinole extensively in their adventures in the late eighteenth century.

A few pounds could sustain a man in the wilderness for many months…

{/quote}

I make pinole in a dry frying pan. The Iroquois made it in a shovel, suspended over a campfire. You can also make it in a baking pan. Dry the corn until it turns golden brown, then coarse-grind it. It can also be eaten dry, a’la Lewis & Clark, as long as one has water with which to wash it down. A couple handfuls will keep a body going for a whole day — it is extremely nutrient-dense. Use Indian corn or an organic…

Since I-40 and Route-66 are essentially the same road from OKC to Kingman, why not hit some of the Historic Route 66 diners and dives on one of these Arizona road trips of yours…?

Well, because I am a compulsive gambler, is why.  Been married three times, two before it worked as advertised.  And that route is FULL of interesting casinos along I-40 (previously 66).

Since I actually came out ahead on the gambling side, I can afford to order as much La India Verdena Toasted Corn Pinole as makes sense.  Which is how much?  I’ll check with Zeus the Cat who is almost back up to his quartermaster chores around here.

Elaine wandered by wondering about the shovels…noting her that ancient relatives called it “parched corn.”  If you have any shovel details, we’d love to know about them because her band (Cherokee) didn’t get them for cooking and I’m working out 150-years of compound interest if this was some kind of government give-away program her kin missed.  Sounds like discrimination, know what I mean?

11-11 (Fast Food/Fast Junk)

Since the break-even point for robofood was $12.92 eleven months ago, there’s a fair possibility that number is lower, now. We both know the fast food joints are going to go to robotics as soon as it is practicable. Such a shift is usually done at a fairly radical short-term financial loss, with the promise of a long-term recoup of both the investment and the loss. Bumping minimum wage is just going to hasten the move to robochow, and lessen the financial blow to the fast food industry. Those 12.5 million entry-level jobs, once they go away, will never return.

Damn, Ray:  Just when Obama is bringing in all those delightful low-end workers, too.  Say, you don’t suppose that is part of the plan, too, do you?

Small business can’t take the hit. Jacking the formerly free market with a minimum wage does nothing but transfer wealth from small businesses and the working poor to the government. The higher the wage floor, the greater the transfer and the faster it occurs. $15/hr is more than factory, hospital, or college staff make in my corner of the world. Those folks will appreciate getting a wage hike, until they realize they are suddenly making the same wage as new hires, and have no expectation of loyalty or incentive based raises.

The Union skilled tradesmen will appreciate a minimum wage hike even more, because their rates are indexed to the minimum wage (between 18x and 20x minimum, depending on the trade, everywhere in my phonebook –YMMV.)

The Unions get pissed when Wal-Mart builds a store and hires $12/hr workers instead of $146/hr IBEW tradesmen, but having once hired IBEW tradesmen, which cost me over $2000 to have a Square-D 200 amp service box installed (a job I could easily do myself, and have done several times before and since), I blame them not in the least.

BTW, the lesson learned: Involve wives in planning, but not execution…

Mandated minimum wage destroys the middle class. The higher the mandate, the faster people move from middle class to dependent class, and society from capitalism to socialism. Only in businesses which profit-shares does this not hold, and in profit-sharing businesses, minimum wage is never an issue…

Of course robots should not pay income tax — nobody should. That said, if tax there be, the people or entities which own the robots should pay the tax. As for the draconian depreciation regs: How ’bout we just eliminate depreciation, and Section 179…?

Sorry Ray, can’t do that – eliminate either of those items and there would be no Donald Trump to teach the poor to read the damn rule book.

In my State you can’t do away with the bathrooms, because they’re required of any establishment which has a dining-in facility. AAMOF, under Obamacare, they will all be required to have three rooms — a His’n, a Her’n, and a nursing room so nursing mothers don’t provide tit-shots to the other diners. I can hardly wait until 2017, when that “nursing room” requirement kicks in…

It is a make-work plan, got to say.  My kids were breast-fed and near as I can figure, they’re no different on the IQ scale than kids who were fed plastic milk and soy products.  Still, I will mention this coming restroom festival to a buddy of mine who does pizza store rehabs.  This should be a bonanza for him.

11-12  (Nature Money and Paper)

Interesting thing about coinage: Coin is issued by the Department of the Treasury, Bureau of the Mint, and is backed by the Full Faith and Credit of the United States of America — it is actual coin of the realm, as opposed to FRNs which, well, you know…

I find it interesting that (since the 2015 numbers must needs be incomplete) the U.S. Government has doubled the issued coinage in just four years. $15bln is a pittance, 3/10 of a percent of our budget, but again, it is actually issued by the gummint, not the Fed, and IMO that is significant. Circulating coinage has no numismatic value. “Mint” and “Proof” sets are not circulating, and the “Proof” dies are not the same ones used to strike circulating coins.

If I cared (which I don’t) I’d bother to find out whether mint and proof coinage is a part of the production totals, although I doubt it, since IIRC the proof coins are struck at San Francisco and West Point, and are 90% silver.

“Capitalism” works beautifully at the “stable, everyone happy” level.

Unfortunately, at the “stable level,” folks have to actually work to outmake (and consequently outspend) the Jones’es next door. Greedy bastards seek to use force-multipliers to acquire wealth and power, and will exploit any governmental or economic system, to do so.

Capitalism is easier to exploit than socialism and cheaper than fascism…

Truer words were never said.  Every time I look at pictures from Washington DC  I ask “If Hitler tan this place, would we still have legions of lobbyists?”

11-16 (Hotel costs and travel)

‘Can’t see spending a dime more of my own money than I have to for a hotel bed, and I try to never spend more than $65. I’ll take a 50 mile drive over a $90 room, any day. I bring my own brew and have a percolator in my GO-bag. I also, obviously, am not married… <G>

Which is how you get time to research projects as noted previously.

IMO anyone who didn’t learn the craft shooting film, isn’t a “photographer;” and anyone who can’t paint still-life in oil, isn’t an artist, irrespective of their particular bent. When I was shooting, I’d do, say, a wedding, take 64 shots and print typically 56 in a proof portfolio, from which the happy couple could select five for enlargement, and one for a framed 11×14, 14×17, or 16×20.

With few exceptions, the young (under 40) photographers I know now take many hundreds, some of them [take] thousands of photos for a wedding, cull all but a hundred, then upload the remainder or burn them to CD/DVD, for the same money I got for actual artistry, risk, and proper equipment. They are apparently taught: If one takes a sufficiently-large number of images, simple chance dictates a percentage will be of marketable quality. There’s no longer any financial incentive to learn the craft, nor monetary punishment for not doing so.

As for the color blotches which pass for “artistry” in a post-modern world, I view them as color blotches, and don’t try to read any artistic interpretation into them whatsoever — keeps a person sane and on-point…

11-17  (Terror as PR)

“Terrorism” is indeed a PR stunt. Its function is to affect political change through fear. The Islamic fundamentalists who’re wreaking havoc are not terrorists. They are holy warriors. Their goal is a global caliphate. They couldn’t care less about generating sympathy, because the execution of their holy war demands everyone with whom they contact, either convert to fundamentalist Islam, or die.

They sometimes employ terrorist methods, and they sometimes play the PR game, but these are dedicated warriors with no concern for populism, because Allah is on their side. BTW, speaking of Paris from a strictly strategic standpoint, an 18:1 kill ratio is pretty damn’ good — a lot better than in any conventional war.

We’ll never nuke the bastards. AAMOF if we ever face the choice of nuking Mecca or committing national suicide, we’re done. Until the many, many, MANY groups of bleeding hearts are lined up and shot or beheaded with the rest of us, it will never occur to them that it is our lifestyle and our devotion to any deity other than Allah (or no deity at all) which the fundamentalists find offensive to the point they cannot tolerate our existence.

11-21 (Black Friday)

Black Friday has held no fascination for several years, because the fabulous buys ceased being so after about 2010. I did traffic interdiction for EMA for a couple years, but now? I’m getting older and have begun to value my warm bed between the hours of 0300 and 0600…

I am not particularly concerned about a Muslim terror-attack during the BF madness — ‘least not for a couple more years. Terror is a verb, not a noun, and a tactic, not a uniform. As long as somebody can attack anyone, anywhere, in a manner the MSM can brand as “terrorism,”

the majority of the U.S. population is perfectly capable of scaring itself into a stupor. With hundreds of thousands of densely-populated soft targets, I’m sure we’ll get ours, however, if I’m a General, I’m not going to waste a military asset — not a single one — when I can achieve an objective without doing so.

‘Definitely going to have to reread Iron Mountain…

Head &or chest colds suck; getting them on the road sucks more. I don’t carry supplements in my GO-bag. I DO carry them in a thin Plano toolbox which travels with me, under my back seat. The box has both coffee and tea, bullion and dehydrated soup, Ace bandages, an air splint, a spare knife, flares, waterproof matches & tinder, and a bunch of other handy stuff. BTW if’fn yer packin’ zinc, don’t forget to throw in some selenium (they’re synergistic.)

I also carry a shrink-bag which is extra (warm, and more-importantly, dry and sealed) clothes, a sleeping bag, and an extra coat. I have a well-worn pair of 9″ insulated boots which are my “American Express”

(I don’t leave home without ’em.) They’re no longer waterproof, but they are excellent hikers and have about the same ankle support as a good pair of ice skates. I rarely break out my serious cold-weather gear (the Antarctica stuff), but the coat I carry in my vac-pack is sufficient for most breakdowns this side of International Falls or Minot. It is a licensed Green Bay Packers heavy-insulated pullover — the same coat the Packers’ coaching staff wears when the temps go below zero. It cost over $300 new (because people will spend stupid money for team-logo merch), but for me [it] was a $5 score from a thrift store several years ago

I’d not bother with a CCW, unless you are planning on spending considerable time in Houston or DFW. It is not a legal protection and is not accepted everywhere. You might be better-served by looking into a Curios & Relics FFL, and checking locale-specific laws (Arizona is an “open carry State,” which means anyone can carry a gun in a holster

— in the open, without a permit.) New Jersey is a “no carry” State, meaning no-one (military included) who does not possess a (nearly impossible to obtain) Joisey CCW, can carry any firearm in (or through) the State. I believe an FFL trumps the draconian NJ and NY carry laws. Yer still going to the hoosegow if you brandish or use a gun. ‘Best bet is to just not be where such might become necessary. If you do get a CCW, your first obligation is to do whatever it takes to not surrender your sidearm.

Remember Ray’s Rule of fighting:

The only sure-fire way to win a fight is to not have a fight.

CarPreps is a good section…

A Rand-McNally Road Atlas is a cheap, easy way to carry print maps of all of the U.S. States and Canadian Provinces. The R-M Trucker’s Atlas is the best, because the maps are largest and most-detailed, but it’s also the hardest to read. AFAIK the only commercial maps one can get which are better, are those available to AAA members. I’ve contemplated joining Triple A just to get a set of North American maps.

Shopping Link: Rand Mcnally 2016 Motor Carriers’ Road Atlas (Rand Mcnally Motor Carriers’ Road Atlas)   If you have a CDL we hope your eyes are good enough to read it – while running us off the road…we were that tan car in your blind spot flashing its lights.

Every county in the U.S. has a survey map or Plat Book available, either at their offices or through a GIS Web interface. These are the most detailed maps available (they’re even more detailed than Terraserver/Google because they show abandoned roads, rights-of-way, and legal easements) but they ain’t free, and the last ones I bought cost $15 each for 30-36 sq. mi. counties. I can’t imagine a plat book for Toole County, Utah (~40,000 sq. mi) would cost so little…

You should carry enough cash to buy gas at 4x the prevailing price. I base this on Midwest prices the day after the AMOCO/BP-Gary Refinery shit itself, several years ago. I carry enough to pay a 200 mile tow-bill, as well.

See aforementioned CCW discussion and be creative, if necessary.  On the other hand, being married, it is easy to do away with excess cash after a trip.

I’ve an augmented first aid kit in my GO-bag, but carry a factory-sized industrial first aid kit, also under my seat — ‘Never know when one may come upon an accident site.

Again, trail mix and pinole are much more nutrient-dense than MREs, and pack in smaller spaces.

But they don’t have gravy or desert, know what I mean?

I rarely leave my driveway without water and tools (and duct tape & bailing wire.) Old habits die hard, and I’ve had this one for 40 years…

Lug nuts (or screws) can rust or bind over time, even without the help of a Neanderthal mechanic. Are you familiar with “cheater bars?” The cheater bar is a length of pipe which can be slipped over the end of a wrench as a torque-multiplier. Mechanics have used them for years. I use a 3′ length of 1″ pipe to assist in the removal of stubborn nuts at home, but would use my entrenching tool (fancy military name for “folding foxhole shovel”) as a cheater in my vehicles. BTW, the E-Tool is a highly-recommended GO-bag component!

I’ve twice used mine to shovel a car out of snow (had to shovel 60′ of road, the last time.) The real ones (made by Ames for the U.S.  Military) are tempered and hardened, and have a serrated edge which most G.I.s sharpen. The serrated edge, once sharpened, makes a passable emergency saw, and the tool itself becomes a formidable, and intimidating hand-to-hand weapon. When my kids got cars, the first things they got from me were entrenching shovels, ice scrapers, and 12v tire-inflaters.

Another shopping link:  US GI Military Original Issue E-Tool Entrenching Shovel  (Ames/TrueTemper)

11-25 (Turkey after Turkey)

I suspect Putin’s response will be to do nothing, although the meters at Gazprom may get tweaked a bit. Vlad ain’t no fool. He also won’t forget, and paybacks, when they arrive, WILL be a bitch. We and the EU are treating Russia in a manner not dissimilar to the prodding we did of Japan in the 1930s. This is not good…

You should take the time to define, then identify likely Neocons in the upcoming election (hint: Bush and Rubio are the only ones above 2% in the polling. Trump may qualify, or if he becomes CiC, may well send a big “f*ck you” to the puppetmasters — time will tell.)

Too many people listen to the MSM, then label all Republicans or conservatives as Neocons. BTW, glad you finally connected Vickie to the PNAC debacles. You should also mention to the uninformed that SHE is primarily responsible for Benghazi, and that Mr. Obama promoted her after the ambassador’s assassination. The Wikipedia bio is exceedingly generous with regards to both her political lineage and the lack of blood on her hands. It does mention her hubby is Robert Kagan, but unless one follows his link, they may not realize he and Wolfie were the principal authors of PNAC…

Don’t know as you noticed, but we do our best to equalize the Universe on  the other side of such war-mongering which ends up in the Muslim invasion…

I’ve got a $20 bet on that as soon as he’s out of office, Obama will reveal his radical agenda.  Speaking of which, here’s one for legal scholars to consider:

If an outgoing president pardons himself, is that pardon legal?  Just wondering…

11-27 (Hallicrafters Radio Gear and the fix-0it shop mentality)

Sage advise! Along with too many Hallicrafters radios, my workbench (actually work-shelves) contain a 1937 Sunbeam Mixmaster, a 1980 Oster Food Processor, a 1939 Sunbeam T-9 toaster (the ’50-vintage T-20 I use every day is still being used every day, and despite its original cloth cord, still makes flawless toast), a Berkel 909 (‘cuz everybody should own a slicing machine that’ll slice whole cows — bone and all), and, if I get around to it, my ’85 Jenn-Air range’s clock/timer.

I bought a Zippo lighter last week – hadn’t owned one since I smoked a pipe in college, but thought it’d be a good addition to the kit. The warranty page still reads:

Made in Bradford, PA, U.S.A.

“Any Zippo pocket lighter, when returned to our factory, will be put in first-class mechanical condition free of charge, for we have yet to charge a cent for the repair of a Zippo pocket lighter, regardless of age or condition.”

No “30-days” crap or “original purchaser” nonsense, just a straight forward, cut & dried, unconditional lifetime warranty. If I could justify it, I’d buy a dozen more.

That’s also why I patronize L.L. Bean…

11-27  (Who has Rights?)

So, we’re not allowed to watch Muslim refugees, but we can keep all Citizens under surveillance… WTF?

Ray (for a second time in one month-long review) disqualifies himself from office. This time for asking obvious questions.

11-30  (Cosmology)

“The first problem is that the assertion is that 2-million pound rocks could be washed up on the Bahamas by “mega-storms” resulting from climate change.”

Oh, they certainly could, IF they were contained inside an ice floe, then tossed up onto the Bahamian land mass. How much ice is required to float a 2mln pound rock, and how big a storm is required to toss a piece of ice the size of a destroyer, onto the shore? The rocks are much more likely the remnants of a space hit or æons of erosion…

I, too, own a first edition of Cosmic Winter. Unfortunately, I’ve never cracked it. Perhaps I will do so before year’s end…

“Climate change” is absolutely essential to life on this planet. Minor fluctuations are periodical and caused by the sun, else why would every other planet indicate a warming trend which corresponds exactly with our “global warming?” Whether Clube’s work has merit, I’ve yet to decide (pending reading CW) but it is a reasonable postulate from incredibly well-credentialed astrophysicists, as opposed to the Global-Warming/Global-Climate-Change crowd, the vast majority of whom are dallying considerably far afield from their degreed patterns, and into religion (assuming, of course, they have advanced degrees, which I doubt, for if they did, they’d know and respect the Scientific Method, instead of using emotional triggers to extort their research grants…)

Third strike, Ray!  Barred from public office for life for excessive clarity, not becoming a sycophant.

The mammoths and mastodons died out 50mln years after the last o’ the lizards. That said, I can’t conceive a sudden burst of, perhaps, -200° Celsius, flashing across the plains, although it’s obvious that is what had to have happened, to flash-freeze near man and near elephant in mid stride and mid-bite…

12/03  (Sad Bernardino)

Just a quick comment on the shooting:

It seems somehow odd to me, that a pair conducts a professional mass-assassination, escapes in a leisurely manner, then drives around the neighborhood for six hours in their escape vehicle, until Berdoo’s Finest discovers them and shoots ’em to doll rags.

This was a carbon copy of an ISIS attack from several months past. My suspicion is the shooters were fundamentalists, and the drive-about was to ensure they were identified by-name, and eventually by religion. Of course, the Organizer in-Chief took the news and added an anti-gun vibe to his daily global warming spiel, ‘cuz the problem can’t be Muslim fundamentalists nor the incident a terror attack. I can hardly wait to see which facts are suppressed by the mainstream enablers…

As always, when Ray reviews and comments on how we’re doing around here, it is both encouraging to know there are still people who believe in America.  Yet at the same time I am incredibly sad that today’s youth – led by corruption as highest levels – are not even able to connect the dots between a crooked email server and corporate favorite’s and will STILL vote for the perp when their votes are purchased in media.

Besides, if they don’t, the voting machines will “fix” it.

We go to jail if we sell our votes on eBay.

Yet the ugly fact remains:  If you sell your vote by paying attention to mass media, is that any less a crime?

It is and in two ways:  You pay something.  And you don’t get value in return.

Sucks, that.

But like we write about almost every day:  We have gone from the Land of the Free, home of the Brave to something quite different.

Land of the Sheep, home of the Well-Monetized.

A Parting Question

Who said the following?

“I would also like to address Muslim spiritual leaders: Your authority and your guidance are of great importance right now. It is essential to prevent people targeted for recruitment by extremists from making hasty decisions, and those who have already been deceived and, due to various circumstances, found themselves among terrorists, must be assisted in finding a way back to normal life, laying down arms and putting an end to fratricide.

Two choices:

A.  Barrack Obama

B.  Vladimir Putin

The correct answer is B.  Vladimir Putin.

He’s the guy who really is bombing the shit out of ISIS while the Pretender pretends.

Have a great weekend…such as it is.  Remember, weekends when you don’t work for ‘the man’ should be when you do something on your own behalf for your personal enterprise.

Tell 1.2 million of your closest friends to drop by Monday and…our sincere thanks to Ray for the fine review and amplifications.

Write when you break-even…

George   george@ure.net