The Floor is Yours
don’t burn the place to the ground while I’m away
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Bullet Points:
** More marriage tips – trying to help you keep that spark kindled. Women and men, Mars/Venus
** Jordan Peterson addresses men, women, and communication problems.
** Teamwork makes the dream work.
** Musk and X – Truthtelling
** The end of small farms in America and the need for an off-farm job to keep it all going.
** Cats always look at you as if you asked them to pick you up at 6 am for a ride to the airport.
** Note: MikeW and I have a mutual Canadian friend (Mike, you know who he is) who continually posts anti-Trump stuff. I don’t know that he’s Pro-Ho, either. I wish that he’d simply content himself at being ruled by Castro’s get and let sleeping dogs lie. How often do I post Trudeau in blackface, or Trudeau with his gay boyz, or Trudeau burning down the Canadian economy?
** Illegal Aliens on the move in case Pres. Trump wins – more here.
** The Ho has praised Pedo Joe’s work and his regime as President. If he’s so fantastically capable of being president, why did she and her party bum-rush him out of the Oval like Bill Clinton tossing out a half-naked intern when Hillary was clomping down the hallway toward him?
** Housekeeping – I’m on the road for a couple of weeks and will check in with the blog.
Recent Michigan Polls
The Forever War
I don’t like the term “long war” because this damned thing has gone on for generations, and the military-industrial complex would love to keep it rolling to indenture my great-great-grandchildren.
Good article – H/T Claudio
Israel’s war cabinet has reportedly agreed on what Iranian targets to strike in response to Iran’s October 1 missile attack. So, the question now is what method Israel will employ to carry out the attacks to effectively deter Tehran without escalating this battle into a full-scale war. In doing so, Israel has two choices: either publicly demean the regime or launch a series of covert attacks, and the latter is less likely to provoke Tehran’s retaliation.
After a series of meetings with US officials, Israel has reportedly reassured Washington that its upcoming response to the Islamic Republic will target the regime’s “military and intelligence” infrastructure. In contrast, an attack on Iranian oil facilities would have major repercussions for the global economy, a concern shared by both the United States and Iran’s Gulf Arab neighbors. Fearing the possibility of an all-out war, the Biden administration also allegedly discouraged Israel from targeting Iranian nuclear infrastructure. Washington and Jerusalem seemed to have reached a compromise where Israel’s response would avoid striking nuclear and oil sites. At the same time, the US supplies Israel with the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile system.
Although it remains unclear what Israel’s targets will be, the aim is likely to mitigate the threat posed by Iran’s ballistic missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). In such a scenario, the prime military target would be the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, its missile and drone manufacturing facilities, and the bases housing ammunition and equipment. Not only would the destruction of these resources curb Tehran’s capability to launch ballistic missiles from its own soil, but it would also constrain the Islamic Republic’s proxy network’s use of Iranian-made drones and missiles.
Now that Israel and the US are seemingly aligned on the targets, the question is how the response is carried out: whether it would be a series of covert attacks or if Israel seeks to publicize its military superiority over the Islamic Republic to undermine Iran’s image in the eyes of its supporters, both domestically and regionally. Tehran prefers the former.
The theocratic Islamic Republic is well aware of its unpopularity among Iranians, and multiple waves of nationwide anti-regime movements have further deepened this fear. Tehran’s calculations consider its ability to maintain its image as a formidable force against the ‘Great Satan’ and the ‘malevolent Zionist entity.’ Iran has shown that it will refrain from retaliation as long as it is not publicly undermined, such as in the case of the assassination of Hamas Chief Ismail Haniyah in a supposedly “secure” safehouse within Iran.
The T-Shirt Threat
(Link) SAN FRANCISCO, CA – A woman, who is a 22-year veteran of the United States Marines, was reportedly removed from a Delta flight before being ordered to change clothes after a flight attendant ruled that the passenger’s shirt, which brought attention to those in the military who have taken their own lives, was “threatening.”
I have had a few similar experiences and as a result I SELDOM wear a t-shirt with any logo or slogan on it outside of Northern Arizona where tender feelings aren’t that tender. I was threatened in Disneyland once for wearing a t-shirt with a vulture resting on a cactus on it. That was many years ago. I turned the t-shirt inside out and it was acceptable. I was there with my wife and four daughters. Now I go with the LL Bean Cotton T in 2XL-Long with a pocket – and leave it at that.
Identify the Aircraft
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2
Not a Blackburn
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Can you get the exact variant? Six turning, four burning…
Parting Shot
This means you.
End
Identify the Aircraft:
1. Beriev Be-4
2. Fairey Fulmar
3. Convair GRB-36F with Republic F-84E Thunderjet. Testing for the FICON (Fighter Conveyor) project, the next generation of the Akron/Macon/Sparrowhawk concept (sort of).
That was too fast, Surly. What they’re saying about the new upgraded firmware and software is proven accurate.
Fair winds and following seas wherever you go!
-STA Safe out there LL.Dont forget the Ultra Raptor 2.
One in the chamber and xtra mags!
The F-84 is not the straight-winged E or G (the version my dad flew) but the swept-wing F-84F. Which came out after the F-84G, due to technical issues in getting the -F to fly properly.
You are correct, I didn’t research enough. :( Given the circumstances of the photo, probably a RF-84K.
The Air Force was working on several ways to provide fighter escorts for the B-36. Two of them involved the F-84.
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One, using F-84Gs, had wingtip connectors on both the B-36 and on tanklets on the ends of the F-84’s wingtips. The F-84 could lock on, and get fuel from the B-36. They used the straigth-wing F-84 for this as the wing could be modified easier and the center of movement of the -G was straight through the wing.
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The other F-84 was the bomb-bay version using the F-84F as portrayed above. Either in its fighter or recon role.
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The third method, of course, was the McDonnell XF-85 Goblin micro-fighter. Cool-looking little plane but..
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Eventually the Air Force decided the whole thing was stupid and transitioned to the B-52 and got rid of Convair’s flying nightmare.
Larry. Regarding our mutual Canadian friend. I have no idea what his game is. I agree with your comment entirely. To be honest, even though I am not an American, I am starting to find his posts somewhat irksome.
Good travels, LL.
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– Kle.
>don’t burn the place to the ground while I’m away
When SHOULD we burn the place to the ground? (H/T to Groucho)
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Re Canadian friend: Is there anyone or thing that he supports as much as he hates Trump? My childhood best friend used to go off on Nixon. Like turning in writing assignments that were five-page rants about Watergate. Which was weird because we were in second grade. Me, I knew the man was President, and that there was some sort of scandal. That was probably a normal amount of knowledge for a little kid. Only rather later did I learn that he got it from his father (who never interacted with us children when we were at their house). Father (not dad, which tells you something) was an Associate Professor of Psychology at the second-tier university in the big city down the road. Nixon lived rent free in his head. Remember Nixon? How innocent all that seems compared to the stuff we accept as routine these days. ☹️
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As to Orange Man Bad, he does seem to inspire strong feelings one way or another. It’s looking to me like just about every group/demographic (except ironically the ones I deal with the most, namely melanin-deficient persons of the “professional” caste) are more for than against Trump. And most of “my” group are pretty quiet these days. Actually, astonishing stuff is coming out of their mouths these days. Things like “effeminate men are a bit creepy, you know” and “well, the head of XXX is a woman, so we knew he was doomed from the start” (context was acknowledging the two, or rather multi-tiered hierarchy of power/victimhood in the professional/corporate space). And that stuff was from women. No one (except one man whose family came from Eastern Europe, but who likes to tell me that the native population of his country of origin are “remarkably stupid”) is excited FOR Harris/Walz. At most it’s a resigned, “well, I guess we have to support her.”
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So are “they” going to take the loss and wait out the next four years? “Let” Bad Orange Man take the Presidency and hard crash the economy with him in office? (You know it’s coming, the question is when and how hard.) Or actually “JFK” him this time?
Watergate, the raid that was ruined by those who didn’t want to be exposed in blackmailing politicians. The plumbers weren’t after the DNC election play book, they were after the DNC call girl book with names, dates and photos of the politicians on both sides of the aisle in extremely compromising situations that were being used to blackmail them. No one really said deep state then, but that entity was working hard so many years ago.
Watergate is similar to Epstein’s client list, where we know the names of some of those who were taken in to be used, but we still don’t know the name of one client.
@Dave – X2…my sentiments as well. The corrupt may start small but always creep higher year after year when left unchecked (then v. now). Hubris breeds arrogance which has metastasized into that particular scumbagery group clearly believing (most not all) We The People work for them. Time to move back to basics. (hahahahah, yeah, that’ll happen)
“…they were after the DNC call girl book…”
call girl book? call boy book perhaps more likely
Boron, it probably had both boys and girls.
And drugs. The DNC used that line to order drugs.
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If the RNC or any R politician had done a tenth of what the DNC did out of The Watergate, everyone involved would have been in Fed prison.
> astonishing stuff is coming out of their mouths these days
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If people can quickly speak all the fallacy variations, moving the logical flaw around like a 14-15 puzzle, then they knew it was a lie all along. Example: 1) Pearl Harbor was a sneak attack. But, 2) Allowing it to happen was necessary to bring the US into the war. And 3) It was both noble and necessary to lie about it. Conclusion: they’re lying to you, and they will keep speaking fallback positions until you believe one of them. The stack of fallback positions is deeper than average Americans will believe.
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My prediction: I think the government over-spenders will continue official counterfeiting until hyperinflation starts. When the cost of living doubles in three months, the former professional middle class will reject that as unacceptable. Then some of the DEI inefficiency will be walked back, and in medical land the cost growth may flatten out. What I’d like to see is Bitcoin version 2.0 appear, with better privacy properties, and a mint mark to make them warehouse receipts redeemable for commodities.
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> Watergate
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Was Mo a Ho? The key to the desk drawer reveals what was being plumbed.
Only 2,000 in the migrant caravan? Chickenfeed. Begs the question, though. If the rest of the world looks askance at Canada seizing bank accounts, how does the abdication of our national sovereignty by dot-gov by letting in migrants by the ga-zillion look, eh?
I couldn’t agree more. The problem is that MikeW’s and my friend attacks Pres. Trump who worked to fix the problems. Who is worse, Pedo Jo/Ho or those Russian oligarchs in the days of the failing USSR who were as brain dead? Same issue. Maybe worse with us because if the US catches a cold, the world catches cancer. They don’t like it that way and who could blame them, but it’s the case.
Absolutely. They do not like it and for that fast and fancy “they” to win they must break the power of the United States inherent in the Constitution and the full faith and credit of the American people’s belief that the Constitution works and is worth any amount of support and sacrifice to perpetuate. And our home-grown fifth columnists have made a damn good start on getting it done. On a certain bewildered level, I have to admire the depth of their commitment.
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Monday morning, December 8, 1941 the recruiting stations were mobbed. Wednesday morning, September 12, 2001 they were not. That damn good start got started quite some time ago.
How hard would it really be to shut down the southern border? Dirt simple….especially for those tasked with it who know what to do. Instead they have been hamstrung and told to NOT protect the border. Imagine your boss walking in an telling you to not do your job, a position critical to the companies success, You’d tell him or her to go pound sand…then start packing your gear. The Dem’s – and likely most of the R’s – don’t want a sovereign nation because half of them are in bed with foreign powers — that group is the enemy from within and should be excised as the combatants against our Constitution they have morphed.
x2
Amen, Paul M. Dirt simple, not easy but simple like the important things in life. Active duty military on the border, loaded M-4s, night and day. Maintaining our sovereignty, not enforcing civil law. Can’t cross the dope and sell it, no money, no power. Send in Spec ops and drones. War for two +/- years. Lot more to be done but that is the start. It has been done twice in the past.
Israel & Iran – first, Israel tells the US govt that they will hit certain targets; then while Iran is busy watching for attacks on those targets, hit them somewhere else.
Small farms were on the way out when I was a child. The definition of “small” keeps increasing.
For those concerned about LSP, he texted me this morning that he’s returning to TX in two days. I expect that he’ll be blogging by the weekend.
Something prescient I’m sure. Good to know he’s good to go. You as well, be careful out there among the crazies.
After reading recent comments from a reader who was in the second grade with a classmate who wrote a paper on Watergate, I realized my assessment of VM’s readership was incorrect. Previously I had pegged the majority of readership to be “mature gas passers” (old farts) like me since I was in my 30’s when that event occurred.
Cletus
I like to think of me and my compatriots as gas manufactories and logistical pipeline technicians… among my collegians, Mike_C , even though we orbit in different planets and La Grange points.
Maybe I’m older than the math would suggest. It could be that I was persistently stupid and was “held back a year” a LOT.
;-)
Speaking of stupid, I entered medical school after having worked in a hospital for some years. Basically I was the equivalent of a long-service mustang in some ways. So I had a hard time taking some of the classroom academic stuff seriously, like the lab PhD telling us “you need to know the Krebs cycle because it will be critical knowledge for you on the wards.” Wards meaning taking care of in-patients admitted to hospital. This was total bullshit. No one needs to know that to take care of patients. You DO need it, but to pass board exams. I hate when people try to gaslight me. Anyway, my gross anatomy lab partner, a Korean kid named Cho, was frustrated with me because I never knew things like the names of various bones in the foot (which I considered useless). Near the end of the year there was a radiology section and people were getting confused by the apparent viewpoint of the images on CT (axial slices “looking up from the feet”). After I got our little group literally oriented, Cho grabbed me by the arm, stared at me and said, “Oh my God! You’re dumb BY CHOICE!” Cho was a very practical, number and profit oriented guy (very stereotypically East Asian, plus his parents owned a jewelry store) basically devoid of whimsy or ironic humor. His outburst was so obviously sincere and from the heart that I burst out laughing. I don’t think that made him like me any better, but it made my semester. Ahahaha! Still makes me smile when I think of it.
Don’t worry, Mr. Valvecore – some of us might be younger than you in years,
but we are all extremely old at heart!
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– Kle.
I’ve posted this before, but it never gets old. Mark Gungor, A Tale of Two Brains.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29JPnJSmDs0
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T-shirts. For decades I wore J.C. Penny’s Stafford all cotton pocket T’s. They no longer make them. I have switched to Duluth Trading Co. brand, relaxed fit (heh). If you watch their website, they routinely put them on sale. My only gripe is that they decided to eliminate the pocket on their white T-shirts.
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Our oldest son got me a T-shirt with a full-sized RCBS reloading press printed on the front along with the caption “I roll my own”. I gotta remember to take it for a test drive.
Gungor is great!…funny yet spot on accurate.
I’ve tried a lot of t-shirts and the ‘George’ brand from Walmart seem to hold up as well or better than some of the more expensive brands. And they can be ordered on-line from Walmart so you don’t have to get Wal-cooties or deal with the idiots in and out of your local Walmart.
Union Pacific Big Boy
It is so refreshing to be part of gatherings where there is zero political drama; just people enjoying a rare spectacle. So refreshing! No protestors, no banners, no ugly confrontations.
As this magnificent relic tours the country in the West and Midwest, thousands of people line the tracks in big cities, small towns, and rural railroad crossings. I’m there with them.
On 10/21/2024 business took me near Byers, CO (population 1,600+), a flyspeck on the Colorado High Plains. A dear friend accompanied me and we watched the Big Boy pass by. While I’ve seen it many times, this was his first. Probably 200 vehicles were parked along the roads paralleling the tracks. He remarked that he will never forget the experience.
Haven’t seen the Big Boy yet, but in 2017 I stood at a rural grade crossing here in Idaho as UP #844 ‘The Living Legend’ came wailing by at full-rip, it’s whistle calling out the warning. I saved the vid, and it takes my breath away anytime I watch it.
The 844 is still in Cheyenne. It is the only UP steam engine that has never been out of service since new. It was originally numbered 8444. That particular engine can hit 90 mph. I’ve watched it many times pulling the Cheyenne Frontier Days train Denver-Cheyenne. Sadly that run has been discontinued.
US Sugar is running Locomotive 148, a reconditioned 4-6-2 Pacific built for the Florida East Coast in 1920. They use it for tourist trains off season. US Sugar has its own railroad that interfaces with both the FEC on the east coast of Florida and CSX up the spine.
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Here’s the info on the engine – https://sugarexpress.com/history/
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And the restoration photos, restoration done by US Sugar employees and some outside sources – https://sugarexpress.com/restoration/
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They’ve also acquired an Atlantic Coast Line Pacific, ACL # 1504, and will be restoring it to full function to serve alongside #148.
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All of this done by US Sugar, no government subsidies, no other reason than pride in the company and their long history of railroading.
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Too bad NASA got rid of their engines, though those were ex US Army and Navy diesel heavy switchers. Be neat to do a rail tour of the Cape, see all the nifty ‘back-lot’ stuff they don’t normally show you on the regular bus or car tours. Especially if the tour traveled over the Indian River to the yard that connects the NASA rail lines with the FEC.
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Florida, where the US has the first high-speed rail, Brightlines, all done on private money. Brightlines runs on FEC track from Miami to Cocoa, now rebuilt and double-tracked to the Cocoa turn-off to Brightline’s newly laid single-line (though the underbed is built to handle double lines) to their new facility at the outskirts of Orlando International Airport.
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The FEC has plans to double track all its mainline in the next few years, if the economy doesn’t crash, because the FEC is carrying more and more traffic as Florida becomes more of a cargo port destination (with 10 deepwater ports.)
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Contrast all of this with what most other states are doing and Florida is the happening place for rail roads. And we prosecute cargo theft.
R J Corman, from Kentucky, who made a living cleaning up train wrecks, sent a crew to China and bought a steam engine that was relatively new back in the 80,s I believe. The Chinese guvment bought out our steam engine plans and processes after WW 2. The problem with steam engines is metal fatigue. They disassembled the engine and shipped it back to reassemble it here. He owned a short line in central Kentucky. Old Smokey ran until his death. R J Corman was an interesting fellow. A good rabbit hole to go down.
I’m planning to visit a friend in Beaumont. I don’t drive, and I don’t have much money, so I figured fuck it, it’s gonna be Greyhound. Imagine my surprise when I found that Amtrack was half the price, and actually had service to carry me to my sweet baby’s arms, and back!
Amtrack
I would like to ride it again. Haven’t in years.
I rode it from Ann Arbor to Chicago for a business trip. So many unscheduled stops.
Glad to hear Amtrak worked out for you.
I spent years mocking Amtrak [1], but now that I have to go to NY(F)C regularly, it’s worked out well. To my shame, I’ve become one of the “Acela People” — and I like it.
With the zeal of the New Convert, I looked into using Amtrak for other travel, but generally it’s been suboptimal vs car, or air and rental car. But it’s pretty good for BOS-NYC or NYC-Washington DC. Actually I need to be in WDC soon, but even the Acela takes too long, nor is it a cost savings vs air. But the 3-4 hour hops are IMNSHO superior to air. No TSA for one huge thing, and Amtrak actually treats its “elites” well. The other night my poor-person return train (“NE Regional”) was delayed, then delayed again, etc. I was gonna get to my RTE “home station” around 1AM — assuming it ever showed up in NYC in the first place. Went up to the “Metropolitan Lounge” and talked to the attendant. She put me on the next Acela (at no additional charge) which was literally boarding at the time. Got back to RTE at 10:30 PM instead of 1AM. Nice.
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[1] So ages ago we were working with a European company. They had this imaging software that would compensate for the bulk translation (movement) of the heart, thus isolating the motion due to contraction. The group leader proudly said, “This is true automated motion tracking. We are going to call it AMTRack.” His face fell when we Americans burst out laughing. We explained. He stared blankly for a second or two then blinked and said, “I will have to ask Marketing to come up with something else.”
The pistol is the Springfield 1911 DS Prodigy in 9mm.
The light/laser is the OLight Baldr Pro Tactical Light & Green Laser.
The silencer is the SilencerCo Osprey 9.
A very nice set up!
RE: “Don’t lick the stripper pole.”
World’s Strongest Man (2017) Eddie Hall encounters a mystery.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/JlkHE-2FBBE
Travel safe my friend.
So pedo joe is incompetent to stand trial or run for president, but he is competent enough to be president and we know the swamp will sow as much chaos as possible between election day and January 20th if Trump prevails. joe (his handlers) would write a ton of executive orders and they will probably also try to crash the economy to keep Trump too busy to concentrate on draining and cleaning out the cespit. What are the chances Trump can get republicans to preempt the dims and start impeachment hearings on pedo joe after election day? This would overshadow the dim plans and saturate the news cycle at least until 1/20. I know establishment repubs would cry why bother, let him retire in peace, we should be better than that, it’s pointless, etc… The Senate would never convict even if the hearings concluded in time, but it would sure monkey the wrench on the dim’s plans to hamstring Trump before he took power.