Hmmmmmmm?

What’s not to love about this:

How anyone can read history and still believe in political messiahs is beyond me. The fact that it has become possible to graduate from even our most prestigious colleges and universities, still fundamentally ignorant of history, may have much to do with our electing a political messiah to the White House– for which we, our children and grandchildren will pay dearly.

Borrowed from my Sister at Pixie Place II. The above is from Thomas Sowell.

Flag Counter Thingy

Been messing with it.  Then had password and regeneration issues.
Starting over. The story of my life at times.

Update, again

Got the Missus out of Bakersfield Memorial after the angiogram. Small amount of arterial plaque. No stent required. Good thing.
My event for tomorrow is cancelled here and will be in another location on next Monday. The place here in Bakersfield has business practices that are suspect when using Tricare Standard-Retired such as I have. They wanted 223 bucks up front which according to Tricare is illegal.
But The Missus will get a chance to rest. The nurses didn't want her sitting in a car for the trip back over the mountain right away.

About that first woman executed in the US in 5 years

Pause for thought on this one. And thanks to Warner Todd, I swiped it from Stop the ACLU.

-By Warner Todd Huston




OK, the story is all over the Old Media edifice: forty-one-year-old Teresa Lewis has become “the first woman to be executed in the U.S. in five years.”



Every news outlet from TV and cable, to newspapers, to radio, to the Internet is using this line, this “the first woman to be executed in the U.S. in five years” line. They are all playing the same narrative.



So, here’s the question I have. How exactly can anyone be the “first” anything “in five years”? Doesn’t the whole “in five years” presuppose that someone else came first? See, the one “five years” ago was at the very least the real first one, not the one that came today. And in this case, the real “first” woman executed came over a hundred years ago.



See that woman was Lincoln assassination conspirator Mary Surratt. And that is only the “official” version of events because one could easily count those women hanged for being witches in the famed Salem Witch Trials way back in the 1600s (though this country wasn’t quite “the United States” yet, granted).



Why, then, is this language being used? Why so that this murderer’s execution somehow sounds like a bad thing, that’s why. If we say “the first one in five years,” we make it all seem so outrageous, so shocking. And that heightened emotion is applied to the execution making many people feel that it is somehow untoward.



The truth is, though, that this woman got what she deserved. There is nothing at all untoward in her elimination from society. She does not deserve the distinction of being known as any “first” anything.



And as the Old Media establishment tsk tsks America after executing a woman that confessed to her crime, underwent an extensive trial with proper representation, and saw years of court procedures, can we remember what is going on elsewhere?



How about the 1983 hanging of ten women by the Iranian regime? Why were they murdered by the mad mullahs? Because they dared believe in the Baha’i faith, a religion that Iranian authorities had banned. One was only 17 years old and was tortured by the Iranians before she was hanged.



But, heck, we don’t have to go all the way back to 1983. Women are commonly raped, murdered, and executed by hanging and stoning by the “religion of peace.”



Then there are the hundreds of thousands of women held in North Korean gulags, the hundreds of thousands held in Chinese prison camps, the many thousands held in Cuba’s prisons…. the U.S. executes one admitted murderer and we are the evil ones while these other “respected” nations do this sort of thing on a daily basis and no one says a word.



Excuse me if I don’t feel so bad for Teresa Lewis.

 Ah, perspective rears it's ugly head again. Seems that this makes us the "bad guys" again?

BP Bloodwork results

Got the letter today. Everything looks normal. The Triglycerides are up but that is it.
Still waiting on the referral for both the hernia and the kidney scan thing.
Much better news today!

BP update

152 over 102. Did a full blood work, EKG and Chest X-ray. The nurse took four tubes of blood and I had to pee in a cup.
We are beginning the process to get a scan of the remaining kidney. There is a possiblity that the arteries to the remaining one may not be of adequate size. This will require the dye in the blood stream. If it is small then a stent will need to be installed.
And I still need a hernia repair!

Railroad Tracks are this wide because..............funny, sort of.

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number.


Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates designed the US railroads.

...Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.

Why did 'they' use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they had used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (including England ) for their legions. Those roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels.

Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Bureaucracies live forever.

So the next time you are handed a specification/procedure/process and wonder 'What horse's ass came up with this?' , you may be exactly right. Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses' asses.)　

Now, the twist to the story:
When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah

The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.

　
So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass. And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important? Ancient horse's asses control almost everything... and

CURRENT Horses Asses in Washington DC are controlling everything else

Sad places for airplane guys, addendum

Another sort of famous resident of the "Storage area" at Mojave Airport.
This is the Gimli Glider. It is on Wikipedia. That is the entire story. Go check it out.

A coworker of mine was working for the storage management company and was on the crew that took all the markings off.

Ex C-GAUN The Gimli Glider.

Last time I went by it was missing the engines. Word has it from my friend Dwight that she is due to be scrapped.
But the newer ones from Boeing and even Airbus are so much better in terms of the systems installed.

Speaking of Airbus, these A330s have found new homes. Of the six that were here, three of them were at a hangar on the south side of the field in front of a large hangar. They had been there through the winter and into the summer. Less chance of corrosion as they are of mostly composite construction.

Sad Places for airplane guys

VCV-Southern California Logistics Airport. Former George AFB

Boneyard. This is a photo from various newspapers after the initial economic meltdown last year. When passing by Victorville and Adelanto on the way to Oceanside we see this very view. That Joshua Tree is next to US 395.

Mojave Air and Space Port. This is an older photo of ex-Air Canada B767s. I see these airplanes on a regular basis. It is on the way to Rosamond, Lancaster, Palmdale and other points south. One of them is the "renowned Gimli Glider" These airplanes are due to be scrapped after all usable items are stripped.
Boneyards. Where Airplanes go to die.
I read a blurb on Airliners.net that the first Frontier Airbus A318 is on it's way to Mississippi to be parted out and scrapped. We are talking a fairly new airplane.
Here at Falcon, we are getting an F-16D ready to go to AMARG at Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson. Even we get rid of them!

The Wicked Jester

Clothing site with other stuff. Can be rude, crude and socially unacceptable. I like it. Go figure.

Wicked Jester is the place to go!

Medical Update

There will be surgery. My doc has begun the referral process for a general surgeon. Don't know when, yet.
Additional item: The blood pressure yesterday was 150/103 and today it was 170/110. Not good. Appointment on Monday for that. Wow! Ain't it fun being in the later fifties.
Subjects dicussed: Salt intake, coffee, only one kidney and the fact that I am not a kid anymore.
Salt, I am not a big user, overtly. But the intake needs to go down.
Coffee, this one is gonna hurt. I was in the Sea Service for twenty years!  Coffee is almost like air to me.
Kidney, the artery may be smaller in diameter to the remaining one.
Age, he said we do have some issues as we age. Duh.
So, on Monday next, I will probably be starting a new prescription. Oh boy!
Surgery, less than a year after the last one! My sentiments, exactly!

200 Posts and other stuff

Boy, was I not paying attention. I hit 200 posts. Not bad for a rookie!
Considering it was started as a bit of a lark.
Oh there was a Major Primary Upset in Delaware last night. Christine O'Donnell waxed the establishment favorite in the GOP primary for the senate. Gotta love that Tea Party and a Sarah endorsement.
From this Old Sea Dog's viewpoint, the times may be changing come November. We can only hope. I did catch a bit on Fox News of the Wicked Witch of The West saying she has confidence that the DemComs will maintain control and she will keep her job as spinchter.......Not to sure of either with the feelings I get.
I sure as hell hope that she becomes just the Representative from San Fran Idiotville. We know that one is safe with her base. They are all just as disconnected as she is. A peas in the pod thing, as it were.
Oh Yeah, this is 201 in less than a year. I can be a pain at times, can't I?
And thanks to all for the readership and support. It is still fun. Especially to Buck, Jeff, Kath, MUD, Fredd, kc, snigs, Opus6 and all those who are my followers.

A Boo-Boo again, part two

Felt a pull/pinch sensation in the left groin today while hanging a boarding ladder on an airplane. Shortly afterward, it started to hurt. Did the chain of command notifications. Went to see the Flight Surgeon as per SOP. Got a hernia check. It was there! OUCH!
Left Direct Inguinal Hernia! Oh Boy! Fun! Yeah. Right. Got to see my primary provider tomorrow. One outcome for this, surgery. One of my favourite things, ya know!
25 pound lifting restriction. Gonna be doing a lot of forms and document reviews for a while.

Makes one go....Hmmmmmmmmmmmm?

 Stolen from Camp of The Saints. Read it. By James Bowman.

How to explain such pluperfect block-headedness? Even if he really believes anything so preposterous — as many in his prime constituency of academia no doubt do believe it — why would he say it publicly and so reinforce the impression he already gives of being haughty and superior, vain of his reputation for intelligence and out of touch with the feelings of ordinary people? Can he not see how condescending comments like this are?
I think the answer must be, no he can’t. But the problem is not unique to him. It seems to be something in the DNA of the post-Vietnam Democratic Party. Cast your mind back to the Democratic presidents and candidates for president — the fact that there are many more of the latter than the former is not insignificant — of the last 40 years and you observe a remarkable pattern. All of them, with the exception of Bill Clinton — who is also not insignificantly the most electorally successful of them — were guilty of the same kind of intellectual snobbery. All of them welcomed and cultivated a reputation for being intellectuals themselves and for associating with intellectuals and technocrats — people, that is, who were supposed to know better what was good for us than we knew ourselves. President Clinton did too but, alone among his party’s standard-bearers, he managed to keep the eggheads at arms length, at least most of the time. There were a few slips, but he rarely allowed people, including people he disagreed with, to feel that he thought himself smarter than they were, even if he did.
But just look at the others: George McGovern, leading his anti-war students and professors and his hippie cohorts to a crushing defeat; Jimmy Carter the “nuclear engineer” who concerned himself with allocating time on the White House tennis court and thought that the American people who had grown disenchanted with him must be suffering from a malaise; Walter Mondale with his contempt for Reagan’s intelligence; Michael Dukakis with his ostentatious wonkery and apparent inability to feel anything about the speculative rape and murder of his wife; Al Gore with his deep sighs and the slow-speaking manner of a first grade teacher and, finally, the haughty, French-looking John Kerry who made the mistake of believing his own propaganda about President Bush’s stupidity — all were precursors of the Obama style and the Obama blindness to how unattractively that air of superiority comes across to the average voter. And the only one of them ever to be elected president wore his religion on his sleeve like Glenn Beck!

Speaks for itself

Here it is. Nothing else is required. For the CinC, he can go pound sand up his ass.
And the invite still stands. In the street, stripped to the waist and we go. I will even leave my glasses on.

11 September

I would put up a really long, insightful, somewhat ranting post for the sad occasion that this day represents. But it is also my birthday. 56 today. Before we had a radical islamist problem. It is a problem, like insects in a wheat field. Pesticides need to be applied. Preferably large quantities of ordnance from various sources such as airplanes, ships, submarines and good old fashioned infantry. Find all of them, in their dwelling places and destroy them.
There are enough posts about the tragedy of the day. I can not add to that.
Suffice to say that the liar/totus/closet-muzzi in chief called for tolerance. The time for that expired on that day nine years ago.
With the help of the Almighty, the new congress will be possessed with some real balls come the new year. And finally decide to buck the BO(Body Odor) in chief and his out and out subversive agenda.
As for the bucket of shit imam who is on the State Department payroll to push the Ground Zero Mosque, send him back to whatever sand filled shit hole he originally came from. And he can take that worthless bloomberg with him.
Not tolerant. I am a Jew. These bastards remind me of the nazi filth that killed 57 of my relatives somewhere between 1933 and 1945. Call it delayed retribution. Most of you who are Gentiles will not understand this. If you take sides with them, then the other G word comes out. Goyim.

Testing. Testing.

This is a test. This is only a test. If this had been a real emergency, I would have you contact the Exile in Portales.
I had lost the comments do hickey. I got it back. 

Number 56

I know today is supposed to be solemn and all of that. But just for shits and grins.................................this was a bit of a milestone day for me in it's own right.
As it says, number 56. At about 1155 Mountain Time on 11 September 1954 yours truly entered this world.
I turned on the Fox News this morning at about 0500 after the usual morning ritual. Going to catch some Overtime today.
The shot at Ground Zero was of Idiot Joe Biden, Panty Waist Patterson and others. The Won is enroute, I guess. I try to not pay attention to those I hold in contempt and that have a long way to go to match Buck, Me, MCPO Airdale and MUD to name a few. And SN1 and SN2 of my trusty friend Buck are also on that list.
Pontificating and strutting around like a bantam rooster doesn't do anything for anybody.
Yeah, it is my birthday and I will be with friends today. Honorable men all.

Oceanside

The newest acquisition. 2006 Nissan Titan. Finally got me a truck. Picked it up on Thursday and went to Oceanside in it the following day.

My niece, Ashlee. Ain't she pretty?

Ashlee showing her rebellious side. It was for her Dad and I giving her some flak.

The pool and spa. The Brother in Law does well.

I have to wear minimum sleeves at work. Shows. But feet in the pool with a Saint Pauli Girl in Hand!

My Missus, Niece and Sis in Law got me an ice cream cake. We sort of had my birthday party a week early. It actually is on the coming Saturday. Number 56 it is.

Still around

Just so no one gets worried. I am doing this post from my wife's laptop in Jerri's and Hector's living room. I left my computer at home. I did it by design as it were. Not connected for a weekend like this is a good thing.
I will have a few pictures to put up. Including the acquisition of Thursday night. I have taken ownership, along with the bank, of a 2006 Nissan Titan King Cab pickup. We drove it to Oceanside. My niece has even dared to take it for a spin. She has a little four door Mitusbishi.
At some point during the week, I will post some of the few pictures. I did spend time in the pool.