Knowing the Difference

But unfortunately people treat kindness as weakness in a fit of progressive confusion —  and then when you disabuse them of that shit, they feel that you’re not kind. Putting a wounded ‘animal’ out of its misery is kind, right?

TRIGGERING!

Why is it that old movies, pancake syrup, rice, cotton and statues weren’t racist back when Barack was president for eight years?

On a Bell P-63 King Cobra

This is a litmus test. When the military is allowed to put nose art on aircraft again, we will have passed through the “Crazy Years” and will have emerged on the other side.

What’s in a Mailing Address?

I don’t know, but I want to have this one.

Close Quarters Battle

CQB matters…it just does.

The following list is a partial (h/t Brietbart and Cube) of companies that give danegeld to Antifa, BLM and other domestic terror groups. There are more like PetSmart that aren’t on the list, but this is what’s out there. I’m simply adding the list here so that it is diversified on the Internet.

You can boycott them if you want to, or you can embrace them. Up to you. There are some that I really don’t like and wouldn’t giver them a rusty nail under normal circumstances. Others are companies that make this blog work and I’m still blogging. They don’t get much money from me, but you see my point. Delta Airlines hasn’t been funding the animals so they’re on my fly-list, for example.

Buying off anarchists makes these corporations fetid pools of puke in my opinion. Fredd says that he’s boycotting Massachusetts with the exception of some craft beer companies.  Everyone has to pick and choose, including me. I will wear my NorthFace jacket, for example, but I won’t every by gear from them again – ever. I don’t watch The Oscars, and don’t plan to start. I will cancel my AMEX card. I will stop banking with Citi.

1. 23andme: https://archive.is/Mjbwk
2. 72andSunny: https://archive.is/B1x7Y
3. AbbVie: https://archive.is/Q2Vqj
4. Abbey Road Studios: https://archive.is/AJlrg
5. The Academy (the Oscars): https://archive.is/cNRYf
6. Activision Blizzard: https://archive.is/qfRJ1
7. Adidas: https://archive.is/ezQ22
8. Airbnb: https://archive.is/GmMjl
9. Alaska Airlines: https://archive.is/wnICf
10. Amazon: https://archive.is/lBR4u
11. AMD: https://archive.is/i3krt
12. American Airlines: https://archive.is/XBwhw
13. American Express: https://archive.is/kzWXa
14. American Apparel: https://archive.is/ETfYw
15. Apple Music: https://archive.is/cj97E
16. Ancestry: https://archive.is/5Q9JW
17. Armani: https://archive.is/hX6Yw
18. Astro Gaming: https://archive.is/9aWhf
19. AT&T: https://archive.is/OzC04
20. Atlantic Records: https://archive.is/65QQq
21. AWS: https://archive.is/NXNAG
22. AXE: https://archive.is/Xpxhw
23. Barclays Bank: https://archive.is/9EAl4
24. Barnes & Noble: https://archive.is/PCPKn
25. Bandcamp: https://archive.is/5QQBT
26. Bank of America: https://archive.is/FH1O0
27. Bayer: https://archive.is/iT3EG
28. Bergdorf Goodman: https://archive.is/nQiPA
29. Bethesda: https://archive.is/2xeNE
30. Ben & Jerry’s: https://archive.is/BqHRv
31. Billboard: https://archive.is/Ruuv8
32. BMW: https://archive.is/lRN51
33. BP: https://archive.is/0qSwy
34. Booking.com: https://archive.is/CZAs7
35. Boost Mobile: https://archive.is/pLnAf
36. Bratz: https://archive.is/vOA1d
37. Burger King: https://archive.is/U9VzB
38. Bungie: https://archive.is/81KHV
39. Burberry: https://archive.is/ha0jP
40. Burt’s Bees: https://archive.is/4NbLi
41. Cadillac: https://archive.is/bS60C
42. Call of Duty: https://archive.is/DEJA6
43. Capcom: https://archive.is/S1BgN
44. Capitol Records: https://archive.is/jeUpY
45. Canada Goose: https://archive.is/y2nLo
46. Cartoon Network: https://archive.is/CxAd7
47. Chick-fil-A: https://archive.is/yiviH
48. Chipotle: https://archive.is/Rk9zI
49. Cisco: https://archive.is/fNvdP
50. Citigroup: https://archive.is/36fkF
51. Coca Cola: https://archive.is/bzTHi
52. Colourpop Cosmetics: https://archive.is/AapIR
53. Conde Nast: https://archive.is/ChMdI
54. Converse: https://archive.is//sKjmg
55. CORSAIR: https://archive.is/5S5DY
56. Creative Commons: https://archive.is/kPdCO
57. Criterion Collection: https://archive.is/JZ2Sd
58. Crunchyroll: https://archive.is/q7Ucj
59. CW: https://archive.is/JumZU
60. CVS: https://archive.is/DbBSV
61. DHL Express: https://archive.is/r4Pmp
62. Dell: https://archive.is/IeI9j
63. Degree: https://archive.is/SItaW
64. Devolver Digital: https://archive.is/xcaEH
65. DIRECTV: https://archive.is/hhBG4
66. Discord: https://archive.is/hGtDw
67. Disney: https://archive.is/wldfM
68. Doritos: https://archive.is/nLHv0
69. DoorDash: https://archive.is/vhTW2
70. Doulingo: https://archive.is/v9Wpk
71. Dribbble: https://archive.is/TDWFY
72. Dropbox: https://archive.is/O2ygm
73. E! News: https://archive.is/3PJyz
74. EA: https://archive.is/92ALS
75. Eaton: https://archive.is/ezfyE
76. eBay: https://archive.is/TYTIz
77. Eight Sleep: https://archive.is/IiV7n
78. ESPN: https://archive.is/1I5Tf
79. Etsy: https://archive.is/FtTof
80. FedEx: https://archive.is/kKVJp
81. Fender: https://archive.is/OGjBM
82. Figma: https://archive.is/hNpcE
83. FILA: https://archive.is/d6bZ6
84. Fitbit: https://archive.is/Smx2g
85. Foot Locker: https://archive.is/XRL65
86. Formula 1: https://archive.is/FCpBG
87. FOX: https://archive.is/p2BvT
88. Frosted Mini Wheats: https://archive.is/vrEYN
89. Funimation: https://archive.is/sfN8E
90. GameSpot: https://archive.is/zEkO3
91. Gartner: https://archive.is/QC8tz
92. Gatorade: https://archive.is/fo7wl
93. Genentech: https://archive.is/phHtt
94. General Motors: https://archive.is/IP0a6
95. Gibson: https://archive.is/qJYZY
96. Glossier: https://archive.is/IYlXB
97. GoDaddy: https://archive.is/VEMk4
98. Goldman Sachs: https://archive.is/TA2h0
99. GoFundMe: https://archive.is/Be0fJ
100. Google: https://archive.is/DK2T8
101. GoPro: https://archive.is/Aakvo
102. Gorilla Glue: https://archive.is/0R9ya
103. Grammarly: https://archive.is/Su1PT
104. Grindr: https://archive.is/Z6KcW
105. Guerilla Collective: https://archive.is/TTchM
106. Gumroad: https://archive.is/oZMr7
107. Gushers: https://archive.is/3Dju7
108. Habitat for Humanity: https://archive.is/B81pI
109. Harry’s: https://archive.is/mE4NN
110. HBO: https://archive.is/oiUyY
111. HBO Max: https://archive.is/LGsPt
112. Headup: https://archive.is/G8ygg
113. Help Scout: https://archive.is//D8DCs
114. Hershey’s: https://archive.is/ZQ5zD
115. H&M: https://archive.is/A9ONJ
116. Home Depot: https://archive.is/KjUtA
117. Honda: https://archive.is/4UYtd
118. HP: https://archive.is/BO2tc
119. Hulu: https://archive.is/4CyO2
120. Humana: https://archive.is/RMRmE
121. Humble Bundle: https://archive.is/YXDb6
122. HyperX: https://archive.is/ZfHYp
123. IBM: https://archive.is/ij3Q1
124. IKEA: https://archive.is/piwcs
125. IMAX: https://archive.is/OiCj1
126. Indiegogo: https://archive.is/jrDZk
127. itch.io: https://archive.is/UTsTi
128. Intel: https://archive.is/93D5q
129. Invision: https://archive.is/UZkK1
130. ITV: https://archive.is/yD1pS
131. Kickstarter: https://archive.is/0zwng
132. Lacoste: https://archive.is/T7nwc
133. Lego: https://archive.is/UKFhD
134. Levi’s: https://archive.is/KizLO
135. Lenovo: https://archive.is/aRuDu
136. Lexus: https://archive.is/71b2c
137. LinkedIn: https://archive.is/sX5zb
138. L’Oreal Paris: https://archive.is/Jfelo
139. Logitech: https://archive.is/vf6J7
140. Lowe’s: https://archive.is/V5UFz
141. Lucky Brand: https://archive.is/fY2Mw
142. Lululemon: https://archive.is/rjCRV
143. Louis Vuitton: https://archive.is/nGZe8
144. Lyft: https://archive.is/UXl3k
145. Madden NFL 20: https://archive.is/CTUoi
146. Marvel Entertainment: https://archive.is/Ptup6
147. Mastercard: https://archive.is/K0n1d
148. MATTEL: https://archive.is/bvsqN
149. McAfee: https://archive.is/IGXA1
150. McDonald’s: https://archive.is/jOZ65
151. Merck: https://archive.is/Uq30E
152. Mercedes Benz: https://archive.is/bs8y6
153. Met Life: https://archive.is/Dukhi
154. Metropolitan Opera: https://archive.fo/wecQ2
155. Microsoft: https://archive.is/A7Vjv
156. Mozilla: https://archive.is/m1aLg
157. Napster: https://archive.is/fVY1s
158. NASCAR: https://archive.is/LG2hU
159. Ncsoft: https://archive.is/OVPVP
160. Netflix: https://archive.is/UVSEr
161. New Balance: https://archive.is/NyGnG
162. New York Life: https://archive.is/HVVVk
163. NFL: https://archive.is/G4yq4
164. NHL: https://archive.is/lYbyG
165. Niantic: https://archive.is/UdKYR
166. Nickelodeon: https://archive.is/JWSPQ
167. Nike: https://archive.is/UXYBy
168. Nintendo: https://archive.is/5UOjp
169. Nordstrom: https://archive.is/A7mUU
170. North Face: https://archive.is/rq1Cb
171. Old Spice: https://archive.is/1UK5d
172. OnlyFans: https://archive.is/EFs5C
173. Paramount Pictures: https://archive.is/ixXHd
174. Paramount Network: https://archive.is/BCAX3
175. Patreon: https://archive.is/wzfM5
176. Peloton: https://archive.is/d36k7
177. Pepsi Co: https://archive.is/9S5ow
178. Pfizer Inc: https://archive.is/A6hby
179. Playstation: https://archive.is/52Vvl
180. Plex: https://archive.is/9szCf
181. Pokemon: https://archive.is/p9zuP
182. Popeye’s Chicken: https://archive.is/CzlHd
183. Pop-Tarts: https://archive.is/8cMGG
184. Pornhub: https://archive.is/nciUB
185. Porsche: https://archive.is/VrmlZ
186. Pringles: https://archive.is/1WpA1
187. Procter & Gamble: https://archive.is/JSMO4
188. Puget Systems: https://archive.is/4Zcu7
189. PUMA: https://archive.is/lHx9j
190. Pusheen: https://archive.is/71dL1
191. Qualcomm: https://archive.is/syYmb
192. Quicken Loans: https://archive.is/SmDfJ
193. Reddit: https://archive.is/H09M8
194. RedHat: https://archive.is/ObTZu
195. Red Lobster: https://archive.is/aIUyy
196. Red Wing: https://archive.is/LLCVv
197. Reebok: https://archive.is/v0nat
198. Reese’s: https://archive.is/Rc4pJ
199. Rice Krispies: https://archive.is/U4Zn9
200. Riot Games: https://archive.is/2XH97
201. Rockstar Games: https://archive.is/QdcPI
202. Salesforce: https://archive.is/t1qZB
203. Sanofi: https://archive.is//ErmGO
204. Scholastic: https://archive.is/fFmX3
205. Sega: https://archive.is/9YyUJ
206. Sesame Street: https://archive.is/5he9K
207. Society Generale US: https://archive.is/IoUgp
208. Showtime: https://archive.is/YTPVw
209. Sketch: https://archive.is/QvXDT
210. Slack: https://archive.is/gF9ym
211. Sephora: https://archive.is/Gm7Rc
212. Shopify: https://archive.is/iq5jB
213. Skillshare: https://archive.is/JX5em
214. Snap: https://archive.is/HcGGQ
215. Snapchat: https://archive.is/5reL4
216. Sony: https://archive.is/1PtlU
217. Soundcloud: https://archive.is/H3ZDC
218. Spotify: https://archive.is/ufTeo
219. Square Enix: https://archive.is/qmPIX
220. STARZ: https://archive.is/eQ4YG
221. Starbucks: https://archive.is/EENlS
222. Star Wars: https://archive.is/xnSgt
223. Subway: https://archive.is/D5F8H
224. Supreme New York: https://archive.is/KqeQs
225. Sysco Corporation: https://archive.is/WyXx8
226. Taco Bell: https://archive.is/LLY9l
227. Target: https://archive.is/YoIrO
228. TBS: https://archive.is/N0QhU
229. Tesco: https://archive.is/hZS7B
230. Thatgamecompany: https://archive.is/7po1C
231. Ticketmaster: https://archive.is/VkhNC
232. TikTok: https://archive.is/bt2vy
233. Timberland: https://archive.is/HZtxv
234. Tinder: https://archive.is/YaY2y
235. TMobile: https://archive.is//KB2lG
236. Tumblr: https://archive.is/i9fMQ
237. Twitch: https://archive.is/DAmR5
238. Twitter: https://archive.is/auIgi
239. Uber: https://archive.is/RrScn
240. Uber Eats: https://archive.is/UwwQS
241. Ubisoft: https://archive.is/0qMff
242. Ugg: https://archive.is/YZuWv
243. Ulta Beauty: https://archive.is/6ZESx
244. Under Armor: https://archive.is/WuYMM
245. UnitedHealth Group: https://archive.is/rzQXF
246. Vanguard: https://archive.is/Y12IM
247. Vans: https://archive.is/5nYag
248. VeggieTales: https://archive.is/ocjzA
249. Verizon: https://archive.is/hPZoJ
250. VERSACE: https://archive.is/wWsxK
251. Vevo: https://archive.is/MVtrR
252. Via: https://archive.is/fFIvU
253. ViacomCBS: https://archive.is/uCGXy
254. Virgin Records: https://archive.is/QiykN
255. Virta: https://archive.is/7e9KT
256. VIZ: https://archive.is/eMuIW
257. Vivaldi: https://archive.is/QO9do
258. Warner Bros https://archive.is/F1Tqn
259. Warner Records: https://archive.is/Mm6qb
260. Well’s Fargo: https://archive.is/CGA4n
261. Wendy’s: https://archive.is/7X4Nu
262. WeWork: https://archive.is/TEpa7
263. XBox: https://archive.is/6zdVS
264. Yamaha Music USA: https://archive.is/ANDkF
265. Yelp: https://archive.is/eU4NS
266. YouTube: https://archive.is/5qz6a
267. Zara: https://archive.is/t2QeR
268. Zildijian: https://archive.fo/o6Tqi
269. Zoom: https://archive.is/7o03X

Tesla’s Crystal Ball

Nature Shows the Way of the Future

Magic Axe (head)

Many progressive people in leadership positions engage in magical thinking. Such as: “People would be law abiding if only there were no police.” It influences their view of the future. It’s just like this magic axe head. I’m sure that there was a myth that whoever carried it couldn’t be killed in battle.

Future Cars (same as the old cars)?

improvised armored vehicle, Spanish civil war 1936-1939

Timeless High Art

Gold prospector John Dubriel and his dog.

Klondike Gold Rush, 1899. (LL the future years)

Better to Have and not Need

Than to need and not have (a maxim for our time)

Globalists – on the move again

If you like your Chinese Plague, you can keep your Chinese Plague…

These globalists are like an abusive spouse that joins the police force to respond to DV calls ; they make billions exploiting foreign labor and flouting environmental regulations , closing businesses all over the world , destroying the middle class and then have the temerity to say to their victims; ” See how bad capitalism is ???”

Corrupt, senile, creepy Joe, is Barack’s ticket back to the White House through surrogates. The media will stop reporting on riots and plague if Biden is elected. No more annoying CNN.

Thoughts on Police Reform

There has been a lot of chatter about police reform.  If you want to hire a more educated person, pay more. The officer who was responsible for the death of George Floyd worked the door of a night club with poor old narc’d up George. Why was that allowed? Maybe because the day job didn’t pay enough and the police department knew that. I mentioned on this blog that I worked a case with Houston PD once and the Asian Organized Crime headquarters (for want of a better word), an illegal gambling club, was protected by two uniformed Houston PD officers with a police car, off duty. I was surprised but the HPD detectives that we partnered up with said that was common throughout Houston.

There was one point in Los Angeles, some years ago now, where a Secret Service Agent I knew qualified for and collected food stamps. FBI Special Agent Richard Miller was selling AMWAY out of the trunk of his FBI car to make ends meet before he took money from the Russians, became a spy, was convicted, etc. FBI Assistant Director Robert Philip Hanssen, spied for the Russians for other reasons. It’s not all about money all the time.

Most municipalities spend about 60% of their budgets on police and fire. Are you willing to see your taxes double? No? Ok, well that’s off the table then.

There haven’t been choke holds taught for the last forty years. The bar-arm hold went out a LONG time ago. The carotid hold is not a choke hold. It cuts out the blood supply to the brain of the subject and they lose consciousness, at which time you roll them over and cuff them. It doesn’t interrupt your air supply. It was used a lot when PCP was in heavy use because you had to do that or use concussion weapons to beat subjects into unconsciousness. The carotid was far more merciful than a night stick, asp or a 245 Gonzales sap.

Beavertail sap (flat) on the top, 245 Gonzales on the bottom.

Frankly, tear gas/pepper spray and tasers have limited value if the subject is high or insane. You’re back to a very limited number of options. You can swarm the person if you have enough people (defunding the police will address that, won’t it?), you can use a carotid hold, use gas or shock, which works sometimes, or you can use concussion weapons, saps, various clubs, flashlights if authorized and trained or firearms. That’s about it. Or the police can never respond in the first place until the suspect is gone, eliminating the pesky use of force.

Reforms are difficult these days because when you look at the statistics (ignore the ‘grievance culture’ for a moment), and taken as a whole, police nationwide are doing a really good job.

I’m not opposed to social workers stepping in here and there but most agencies use them these days in roles where appropriate. The same is true of para-professionals because it’s cheaper to do it. Police work has been reformed over and over and over again.

But America doesn’t need to worry, because the standards are dropping and they will drop more to fill the ranks. “How long has it been since your last felony conviction?” may be one of the new questions on the application. Maybe a rape or armed robbery conviction with prison time can be excused if you’ve been out of prison for longer than two years?

Quiz

Look at the kitchen appliance behind the lady in the photo below. Can you identify what it is? We had one.

It’s a pattern that I’ve seen with many Middle Eastern men.

A Day at the Range

You just take your rifle, put on your Crye Precision camo and off you go!

Yes, I’m an American – weapons are part of my religion. I tried to explain that to the Canadians, who encourage Sikhs to carry knives, and they didn’t look at it the same way that I did. Why is that? Do I have to become a Sikh to carry an “appropriate” fighting knife in Canada? I had to call friends in CSIS and have THEM explain it to the customs pukes, and they grudgingly let me pass. I know that Canadians are allergic to firearms but it’s discrimination to let Sikhs carry knives and to deny the same right to Americans, exercising their faith.

Some people are anti-Tripod

I look at it another way. I think that you need to have enough goodies to pick and chose depending on the thing that you plan to do. Flexibility in load-out is smart. Sometimes off-hand, sometimes bipod, sometimes tripod, and so forth.

A Politician

You can just hear the steam calliope in the background when they speak, can’t you?

Chupacabra (at the least the Puerto Rican version) is described as reptilian in appearance, with scaly or leathery skin, black or glowing red eyes, mostly bipedal, with a row of quills on its back Related sightings mention feathers or wings.

It looks like it belongs in Congress.

It’s not a naked coyote we have on our hands open your eyes people.

Institutional Racism

Motor Machineguns – 1918, The Western Front

I’d buy a sidecar for the Ducati (not really) if I could put an operating machinegun in it legally. Ok, maybe I would defile the Ducati.

Naval Aviation

A Real Vacation Home

A Hussar

I’ve always been obsessed by horse cavalry. I’m not sure why, but it may have something to do with having horses when I was a boy, living in the country. There was no quatrain to practice on. I didn’t know what one was. I didn’t have a saber to lop melons in half with. But I made do with javelins and lances, such as they were. I tried archery from horseback but it didn’t work. Horse archers had specialized bows. Such is the life of a boy. I think that such activities are discouraged in this progressive age. I worked up to an 85 lbs Kodiak recurve. If I’d had a yew bow, I would have used that but there is not substitute for yew in the desert southwest.

15 things police officers wish the public knew about policing. Unfortunately, most of what most people know about cops is from watching television.

1. USE OF FORCE ISN’T PRETTY.
People have been conditioned by TV to believe that a properly trained police officer of any size can take down a person of superior size and strength, quickly, almost effortlessly, without the use of weapons, and without any injury to either party. This is not true. Few cops are expert martial artists. The defensive tactics training they receive is fairly perfunctory. Struggles often result in injured joints, lacerations, concussions and other injuries to both parties. There is lots of cursing and screaming involved. The cops usually win, but only because they can get enough cops on the scene to overwhelm the adversary.

2. MOST COPS NEVER SHOOT ANYONE.
Very few cops will fire their sidearms outside of the pistol range at some time in their career (more if the cop works in a rural area where having to “dispatch” wounded animals is common). Some might go months without taking the gun out of the holster.

3. COPS WILL GO TO EXTREMES TO AVOID SHOOTING PEOPLE.
My personal experience is that, about once a month, I would encounter a situation where I would have been legally justified in shooting someone. I did that only once, so all the other times, I found some other way of resolving the situation. Casual research tells me my experience is not unique. Most cops have ample opportunities to shoot people, but they choose not to do so.

4. THE PEOPLE AT THE TOP OFTEN DON’T HAVE A LOT OF PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE.
There are exceptions, but most cops who become chiefs, sheriffs, or other high-ranking officers spend most of their career paving the path to promotion. They spend a brief time as working cops, then transfer to a non-enforcement job, where they stay until they get their first promotion. They never truly understand the job, and the cops they oversee don’t identify with the brass, or the brass with the cops.

5. PTSD IS REAL AND COMMONPLACE.
A cop may have a bad time after he’s involved in a shooting, but the traumatic incident could just as well be a nasty car crash, a fight, or a rescue that didn’t end well. Anyone who can say truthfully that they are never bothered by such things is probably a sociopath. Cops who seek mental health treatment are often viewed suspiciously by their superiors. Those guys didn’t spend enough time on the street to experience anything that bothered them, and they believe that anyone who is bothered is probably unstable.

6. THERE IS LOTS OF STRESS, BUT NOT THE KIND YOU MIGHT THINK.
Most of the stress comes from the police station, not the street. Law enforcement agencies are extremely political. Who likes you or who you’re friends or relatives with has a lot more to do with the progress of your career than how good you are at your job. “Management by intimidation” is a common technique. From a human resources perspective, law enforcement agencies are horrible places to work.

7. THERE AREN’T ALL THAT MANY BIGOTS.
There are some, of course – in a cohort of close to a million people, some of them will be biased. You can get fired for expressing those feelings, so they tend not to last long. Most cops don’t especially care what color you are, what religion you practice, what country your ancestors came from, how much money you have, or what your sexual orientation is. Cops see every kind of person, often at the worst moments of their lives. They know there are good and bad people in every category. They do have a strong bias against jerks, so don’t be one of those.

8. SOME OF OUR BROTHER (AND SISTER) OFFICERS EMBARRASS US.
With the possible exception of field training officers, cops don’t have a lot of input to who gets hired and who is retained on their agency. Everyone knows somebody who is reckless, immature, lazy, dishonest, or just dumb. When these people are allowed to keep being cops, it’s usually because they are politically connected, and reporting them for a transgression will almost always backfire on you.

9. YOUR “MY FAVORITE POLICE ENCOUNTER” STORY IS NOT UNIQUE.
On learning someone is a police officer, most people will immediately relate their most memorable contact with the police. It’s usually a traffic stop, as that’s how most people encounter the police. Your new friend will smile and nod politely, but he’s silently waiting for it to be over. It’s nothing he hasn’t heard before.

10. THERE ARE FEW UNIVERSAL RULES OR POLICIES.
I have lost count of how many questions I have seen on Quora along the lines of, “How much over the speed limit can I go before I’ll get stopped?” and, “What do I say to get out of getting a ticket?” People want to believe there is some industry-wide practice they can exploit to aid them in violating the law. There are over 800,000 law enforcement officers in the United States, and each one of them is a unique person. Their employers seldom impose a formal policy of allowing drivers to exceed the limit by X miles per hour. This is most often left up to the individual.

11. IT’S SELDOM PERSONAL.
Few cops start their day looking for a particular person, or even a particular class of people to stop. Cops see violations of the law and suspicious circumstances, and they are encouraged by their employers to intervene. If you got a ticket or got arrested, it’s probably because you broke the law, not because the cop didn’t like you or you are a member of some targeted group. If this happens to you a lot, you might want to stop blaming the variables and consider the constant instead.

12. BECOMING A COP IS HARDER THAN YOU THINK.
Some agencies have to collect over 100 applications to get one viable hire. Some of those hires won’t make it through the police academy. Some who do won’t complete field training. About half of new hires leave law enforcement within five years. Mainly because of anti-police sentiment, it’s more difficult to recruit new cops than ever before. You might want to think that people become cops because they’re too stupid or lazy for real jobs, but you’re fooling yourself. Chances are, you couldn’t make the grade.

13. TELEVISION DOES NOT REPRESENT LAW ENFORCEMENT ACCURATELY.
Most of what most people know about cops is from watching television. This is why people believe that every arrest must be immediately followed by a Miranda warning, that there is a team of FBI agents who fly to crime scenes in an executive jet and solve the case within days, that detectives in one major PD can move to another, distant major PD and instantly resume being detectives, that crime scene investigators collect evidence, identify the suspects, interrogate the suspects, and make the arrests (no one seems to care what the detectives are doing), and that cops who are involved in shootings are back at work the next day.

14. WE WISH YOU WOULD STOP TELLING YOUR CHILDREN WE WILL ARREST THEM IF THEY AREN’T GOOD.
The day may come, God forbid, that your child is separated from you and doesn’t know where to turn. You’ll probably call the police if this happens. Do you want your child to look for a police officer to help him, or hide from the police because he is afraid he will go to jail?

LL, standing next to seized narcotics (7-12-2000)

15. YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND POLICE WORK.
This applies even if your father, mother, sibling, or next-door-neighbor was a cop. Until you have actually done the job for a few years, you will never understand what it’s actually like.

Q and A

Name the US General

And if you can’t, you should reassess whether or not you should be reading this blog.

And where (which continent) is he standing?

Name the Army 

Name the Aircraft

The answers to the “name the (insert here) is at the bottom

Bonus points: Do you see pasta in this picture?

How do you feel?

About magazines stacked this way for a quick re-load?

About single point slings?

One issue with single point slings doesn’t concern her- they tend to hit you in the dick. Another concern with single point slings…the barrel can run into the dirt. A double could pull that up a bit. Still sexy… just more practical.

Know your enemy

US Air Force News

And for you haters, no, the US Air Force hasn’t been absorbed into the US Space Force (yet).

In a strong show of bipartisanship, the Senate Armed Services Committee lapproved its version of the National Defense Authorization Act with a 25-2 vote. It must still earn full Senate approval and weather a House-Senate conference before it becomes law, BUT this version of the NDAA has made four big moves that will improve Air Force capacity, capability, and posture for years to come.

More fifth-generation fighters.

The Air Force budget has grown by more than 30 percent over the last four years. The lion’s share of that has gone toward developing future weapons and a digital communications infrastructure, all the while hoping that Congress would fund additional combat platforms for the service. For those of you unfamiliar with the USAF budgeting process, this is how they work – they spend their money on personnel, upgraded housing, computers and new weapons and THEN ask Congress if they can have aircraft to go with it. The strategy is paying off, at least in part, with the Senate bill. It authorizes the Air Force to procure 12 additional F-35As and to take possession of six more F-35As formerly bound for Turkey. When combined with the 48 fighters proposed in the president’s budget, the FY21 NDAA will add 65  fighters to the Air Force TO&E.

386 operational squadrons is the new minimum. Two years ago, the Secretary of the Air Force and Air Force Chief of Staff unveiled “The Air Force We Need.” The study revealed that the service needed to grow from 312 to 386 operational squadrons to meet the demands of the 2018 National Defense Strategy. Among the “missing” squadrons were seven additional fighter squadrons, five additional bomber squadrons, and 14 additional tanker squadrons needed just to handle a peer-level fight with China or Russia. Ok, that’s bull-hit, but they want more planes for their pilots.

The move to establish the number of squadrons that USAF asked for effectively thwarts the service’s stated intent to retire 17 B-1 bombers, 44 A-10 fighters, 16 KC-10 and 13 KC-135 tankers in fiscal 2021. If the Air Force is unable to save money by divesting those platforms and receives no additional funding to sustain them, it will have to reallocate funds from other areas like Research, Development, Test, & Evaluation to make its budget work.

Today, the active duty Air Force has 32 fighter squadrons. Ten are based in the Pacific; six are in Europe, and there is not a single fifth-generation F-35A squadron among them. You might ask where the F-35A’s were sent.

The Senate committee bill forbids the Air Force to remove F-15C air superiority fighters currently based in Europe, and encourages the Air Force to base F-35As in the Indo-Pacific region to deter, or immediately respond, to a hostile move in the region. So, the COMING WAR WITH CHINA.

To emphasize the need to prepare for a war with a peer competitor, the NDAA requires the Defense Secretary to recommend a minimum number of bombers that would give the Air Force the long-range, penetrating strike force it would need to hold the heartland of a peer adversary like China at risk.

Name the General – Answer

LTGEN George S. Patton, US Army, North Africa, after getting his third star.

Name the Army – Answer

French Army gun crew with their Canon de 12 La Hitte Mle1859 – a rifled 26-pounder – c.1870 in the Franco-Prussian war6

Name the Aircraft – Answer

C-46 Commando

Bonus Point – Answer

There is no pasta in the picture.

(continued)

This concludes the three part series of trying to examine the Left, without simply chalking it up to ‘insanity’. It’s not insane from their point of view. A lot of it comes down to this:

punishing success

Who doesn’t remember President Obama, reading from the teleprompter, “You didn’t build that.”

If you are the owner of Chick-Fil-A, you must polish a negro’s shoes to scourge yourself and excoriate your sin of success.

Any behavior, from single motherhood to drunkenness to drug addiction, must be excused or even applauded, and can never be blamed for causing poverty. By definition, poverty is caused by the crookedness of life’s roulette wheel that we discussed yesterday in Part Two.

The Left must reward and laud the destructive and self destructive behaviors of the vice-ridden and barbaric and backward men within the nation, and the vice-ridden and barbaric and backward nations in the world.

If the rich and powerful tilting the wheel of life is the only explanation for life’s miseries and sorrows and failures, they are always to blame for everything. Everything. These days, the rich men and rich nations are blamed for warm weather.

Whatever or whoever reason calls good and decent is in fact bad and wretched, and whatever reason calls bad is in fact good. If it sounds like doublespeak, it is.

This explains everything from the Leftist’s driving need to support the Jihadists who stand for everything the Left hates, to his driving need to demean George Washington, and other heroic men, and to demean everything else society admires; and it even explains why the Left is fascinated with vulgarity and ugliness in speech and in the fine arts. This is why the Leftists love four letter words.

—-

If you look at prominent leftist leaders in Congress, they’re clearly not a brain trust. They selected as their presidential champion a man who is clearly senile, whose skulduggery in office has been documented time and time again, and whose assaults on women are legion. Rep. Johnson (D-GA) was concerned that Guam would capsize if we sent marines, Rep AOC (D-NY) was barely qualified to be a bartender, yet she’s lauded with praise as a leftist legislator. These people are cunning, but they are stupid; they’re too stupid to understand the law of cause and effect, too stupid to understand the causes of war, too stupid to understand the difference between men and women, too stupid to understand the law of supply and demand, too stupid to know the difference between the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

And yet these progressives achieve the highest academic degrees, and are elevated to the most prestigious positions on the bench, even to the Supreme Court, and they become teachers and professors and award-winning journalists, and the producers of all forms of art and entertainment. They not only predominate intellectual circles, they define it, so that the word ‘intellectual’ nowadays is a synonym for ‘ignoramus.’

How can this be?

If life is a crooked wheel, all intellectual honors, awards, and degrees, judicial posts, and so on, are and should be rewarded to those least qualified to hold them, including oneself. Barack Obama awarded Ellen DeGeneres the Medal of Freedom (our highest civilian honor for being a lesbian comedian).

When a pragmatist fights an idealist, even when the idealist serves a sick and perverse ideal, the idealist eventually wins.

Also, like their sanctimonious superiority, which is never actually put to the test, intellectual superiority of a Leftist ignoramus is difficult to prove. Intellectual superiority can be proved in fields where there is a definite product, such as in mathematics and physics and engineering: hence these are precisely the fields that Leftists tend to avoid.

They flock to the humanities and soft sciences and arts, where matters are more subjective, sharp corners are padded, and no one is likely to judge them harshly. The Nobel Peace Price can be awarded within the first week of a leader’s term of service in office.

Political Correctness applies only to certain topics, such as race, sex, sexual perversion, the superiority of Islam to Christianity, and so on. On any topic outside the bounds of Political Correctness, the Leftist allows his intellect to operate, and nothing prevents him from accomplishing works of genius in his particular field. Oppenheimer could be a world-famous physicist or Von Braun a leading rocket scientist without either of them being following right reason in politics.

Leftist Theories lead to Dramatic Failure

The Welfare State should not have abolished the family structure among inner city blacks and, even if it did, the loss of the family should not have malign side effects on child rearing. But it doesn’t take a PhD to see that. Turning all the inmates of insane asylums loose on the streets for some reason not named should not have lead to an increase of the number of insane street people. Being lenient on criminals should not produce an increase in violent crime. Disarming the victims should not encourage attackers. Surrendering a war should produce victory, not defeat. Rewarding Jihadist violence by praising and funding them should decrease Jihadist violence. Socializing the student loan industry will lower costs. Socializing the medical insurance industry will not only allow you to keep your plan and your doctor, your premiums will actually go down.  And more people, rather then fewer, will be covered by health care the moment less health care is available to them. Goods can be rationed without rationing. And so on and so on and so on.

In each case, the theory fails in the most remarkable and jaw-droppingly spectacular fashion possible.

Thanks to the Mass Media, you can live in the richest nation in the history of forever, and believe that poverty is overwhelming. You can live in the least imperial nation of all time, and denounce it daily as imperialist. You can live in the one nation, out of all of infinity, which grants the best opportunities and bends over backwards to offer education and jobs to women, blacks, Jews, and immigrants of all colors and backgrounds, and denounce it as systematically racist. You can live in the nation where there are fewer Fascist White Supremacists than there are members of the Flat Earth Society, and yet believe that the brain of Hitler kept alive in a jar in Brazil is about to give the order for a sudden Aryan insurrection, and the blacks will be strung up from lampposts as far as the eye can see tomorrow.

Progressive theory holds that the theory cannot fail. If life does not cooperate with the theory, life is wrong, not the theory. Remember the basis of Leftist moral theory, that the wheel of life is crooked, and the game is rigged by evil conspirators. So when the game of life gives the wrong answers, what else? Blame the conspiracy. Who else? Blame the Jews. (Exclude George Soros, a Jew, from blame)

At some point, their frustration with their own stupid theories and their spectacular failures expands until it explodes into wrath. Often this is when reality begins pressing in on the hermetically sealed bubble of social-cue-protected dreamland in which they live in a goofy paranoid world where every institution is a sinister con-game meant to lull the victims into the abattoir: if such a world were real, violent revolution would be the only answer. They cannot seek justice, not if justice is merely the will of the stronger. They cannot appeal to reason, since reason is the first thing they abandoned.

And yet, why do the Leftists so admire  figures like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, who used only nonviolent means to promote their goals? Pacifism is not in innate part of the theory; it is merely an ornament, like vegetarianism, with which they adorn themselves, as a maiden might put a flower in her hair, to flatter themselves. It is one more excuse for moral preening. It has no relation to their lust for bloodshed or their admiration for figures like Mao and Che and Saddam, and all the brutal killers of the world.

To the Progressive, there is no greater high than to fly on the drug of smug moral superiority. You may look down your nose at all fashion of men greater than you in every other way, but if they are evil and you are righteous, the savory odor of your righteousness in your own nostrils is finer than the finest perfume.

Anything that reminds them of innocence or truth is abhorrent to them. It makes them uneasy, lest their master raise his whip of iron and punish them. Therefore the very people and things the addicts of self righteousness hate the most are saints, women like Mother Theresa, and heroes, figures like George Washington, and captains of industry, men like Henry Ford.

There is no paradox at all of rich men being committed to policies that will destroy the laws and customs needed to create wealth. The Middle Class creates most of the wealth, most of the jobs. Socialism requires cooperation between certain protected industries to be kept alive as neutered pets. Whether the rich bribe the powerful or the powerful extort wealth from the rich makes no matter: the end result is a progressive partnership between the rich and powerful to trample the faces of the poor. That is the end result of the mindset described above, once it is free to act, and devoid of scruples. Imagine a boot stomping a human face forever.

Captioned Photo: Turkey 5 Livres banknote (obverse), 1926. I collect old banknotes. It’s been a hobby for many years. My collection specializes in French Indochina, primarily because of the beauty of the banknotes (for the most part).  This Turkish banknote was interesting because there is a wolf pictured, rare in banknotes. And because this blog post concerns the White Wolf Mine in part.

Meanwhile, at the White Wolf Mine

There are big horns in the area but I don’t see them all that often. There is a canyon to the east and I think that they came up through there from the Clear Creek Gorge,  to hang out. You can see that the forest floor is dry – waiting for the monsoon, maybe still a month off.

Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky

LSP recently accused me of having a bust of Dzerhinsky on my desk in a comment that he made. It’s not on my desk, it’s in the book case in my den. I have more than a few war trophies in the den. The bust of Iron Felix is only one of them.

It used to rest on the desk of William L. Cassidy, Chief of Staff to Hon. Oscar (Mouthpiece of the Mob) Goodman, Mayor of Las Vegas. Cassidy gave it to me as sort of a war trophy. I accepted it in the spirit in which it was given. Victor Ostrovsky (Mossad traitor) gave me his book, By Way of Deception when I met him in Montreal, and he autographed it. And there are significant back stories to these innocuous objects.

Not unlike this photo (LL second from left) taken on the lawn of the Tropicana Hotel, Las Vegas. It was a murder-for-hire case and the guy in the middle was the hit man. He’s holding the .45 barrel that we dug up in the lawn, located with the aid of a metal detector. The hand behind him is handcuffed.

Explaining the Left (part three) will go live on the blog at noon, PST, while I’m out fishing at Clear Creek.

Check this out – Weapons of Waterloo – Rifles and Muskets that fired on Napoleon (Sean Bean) More on Waterloo here.

St. Augustine of Hippo wrote:

“The Truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it.

Let it loose and it will defend itself.”

-Moving On-

An important meme for you to consider

Please Don’t – it’s bad form

Yesterday we saw protesters across the street from the White House trying to tear down a statue of President Andrew Jackson. It’s a trend. Will they be breaking into churches next to smash stained glass windows and pull down Christ on the Cross?

And will the churches bow down (literally) to the mob, open the doors and invite them in to do whatever they want to?

(link) Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King called Monday for the removal of statues, murals and stained glass windows that depict Jesus as a “white European,” which he claimed “are a form of white supremacy. Yes, I think the statues of the white European they claim is Jesus should also come down,” King, a former surrogate on Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign, wrote on Twitter. “They are a form of white supremacy. Always have been.”

MANY (clearly not all) major religious leaders and their congregants have joined with corporate America, and have been sending money to feeder groups such as NAACP, Media Matters, or directly to Black Lives Matters and ANTIFA to the tune of well over a billion dollars over the last month. Some on this blog have called it Danegeld, and I think that’s on point.

Now the domestic terrorists will likely be entering YOUR church and ripping down religious symbols in self righteous rage. Will you let them? Will you bend your knee and “worship” Black Lives Matter the way many police chiefs have, the way many of your politicians have?

The Speaker of the House is third in succession to the Presidency of the United States…

It’s a serious question.

We’ve seen civic leaders across America encourage the mob to tear down statues of people who built the country including President George Washington. Will church leaders do the same?

(continued)

In essence, Leftism is the sin of pride disguised as compassion.

Leftists believe that men can’t know the truth. There is no objective litmus test for truth or a lie (CNN). All truth is therefore subjective to the individual, which is the definition of a sociopath. If it’s good for me, it must be “good”.

What this means in a progressive nation is that “there is no truth”. Unfortunately you will also hear that preached to congregants who “shop for a church” that will pander to their particular sins. Keep the money coming and I’ll tell you what you want to hear. No, not everywhere, but often enough.

Progressive theory holds that all we know is irredeemably distorted by our racial make-up, history, class interests, and psychological shortcomings; hence all knowledge is merely bigotry in disguise. To make a judgment between virtue and vice is vile bigotry in disguise; and to make a judgment that one society is better than another is vile racism in disguise. And bigotry or racism is a hate-crime. Discrimination is a hate-crime.

The Progressives do not believe that there is any relation between human causes and human effects. They do not believe virtue leads to happiness or righteousness, nor that vice leads to unhappiness or condemnation.

If you say that chastity leads to happy marriage as cause leads to effect, the Modern Liberal will stare at you blankly, like a cow watching a passing train. If you say paying unwed mothers to have bastards discourages wedlock, they will call you a racist. If you say applauding, defending and supporting the terrorist Antifa thugs against the innocent American citizens encourages more terrorism, they will shriek like mad harpies. They think that to come to an unflattering judgment about any other man or race of men is not just rash and rude, they think it is evil, a type of bigotry, a(nother) hate crime.

They have taken a whole area of human thought, namely, everything embraced in ethics, politics, morals, economics and history, and declared it all off limits, and forbidden to be thought about or discussed.

By definition, you cannot indulge in self deception without being at once a deceiver and a victim of deception. Both the humiliation of being a chump and the guilt of being a con-man boils in the back of the progressive mind.

Only one emotion is potent enough to smother this humiliation and guilt: pride. Humiliation and guilt lower the self esteem. Only pride raises it. The only source of pride immune from facts in the world is spiritual pride, the arrogance of a Pharisee who sneers at all other men as smaller than himself, because and only because of his greater holiness, his lofty moral code, his spiritual greatness. Watch any CNN anchor pontificate and it will become obvious that this is their holy grail.

A man who claims to be a faster runner can be put to the race; a man who claims to be the greater poet can be asked to read his verse; but a man who claims only superiority in an invisible and imponderable spiritual realm can be put to no human test.

In short, because Leftism is the theory that truth is impossible, and reason is a hate-crime, it requires self deception. Because self deception provokes guilt and humiliation, the self esteem of the Leftist is continually uncertain. Because it is uncertain, it must be uplifted.

The only emotion loud and broad enough to smother the powerful emotions of guilt and humiliation is the uplift of sanctimonious pride, pride in one’s own perfect righteousness.

Since they live in a world without cause and effect, they are unwilling and unable to make any judgment about what actually harms and actually helps. Making such a judgment, remember, in their minds is bigotry, the one sin to be avoided at all costs.

They can only judge by good intentions. Results do not matter. Everyone receives a participation trophy.

However, their judgment by intentions and not by results is not a satisfactory explanation. Why are they predictably, inevitably, and always wrong?

They are always wrong because their theory of morality springs out of their theory of epistemology. Their theory of epistemology is that there is no truth. Hence, their theory of morality is that there is no right and wrong.

If there is no right and wrong, there is no such thing as virtue and vice, no winning behaviors that lead to success and no losing behaviors that lead to loss. There is no consequences to any act. At most there are acceptable behaviors which gladden the hearts of your neighbors, and unacceptable behaviors, such as being judgmental (that is, using your evil reasoning powers to perform the evil hate-crime known as stating the obvious).

To the morally retarded who live in a world where there is no such thing as better and worse, wise and foolish, virtue and vice, efficient and inefficient, logically there can be no such thing as success and failure.

In the Progressive playbook, all life is pure chance. Those men and races and nations who are successful are merely fortunate. The unsuccessful are merely unfortunate. (See Jarred Diamond’s GERMS, GUNS AND STEEL for a truly embarrassing display of this pathology on display. The reason for the success of the Europeans is due to the good luck of living along a wide band of temperate climate. Just luck.)

“Civil rights used to be about treating everyone the same. But today some people are so used to special treatment that equal treatment is considered to be discrimination.” — Thomas Sowell

Imagine if your theory of life convinces you life is all purely random chance. Life is a spinning roulette wheel. Now you watch the wheel spin: and the number for the White races of Europe comes up not once or twice, but over and over and over again. After the Europeans win the game the first time, that might be random chance. After they win twenty-five centuries in a row, that seems crooked. If they win every game between the Peloponnesian War and the Cold War, that is clearly a plot.

Were you in such a game, you would not demand proof that the game was crooked: no proof is needed because no one wins every single spin of a true roulette wheel. There would be no discussion, and the winners would not be merely lucky, they would be crooks. The losers would demand, and rightly so, restitution of every penny.

Any loser who continued to think that the game was fair would be a fool whose blind gullibility is frustrating to the point of madness — such frustration is felt by the Marxist meeting the poor man who believes in private property, or the feminist meeting the woman who believes in marriage.

All rules by definition are crooked, part of a con game. Any attempt to excuse, explain or defend the rules is either misguided or malign.

The only success under crooked and malign rule is by definition a crooked and malign success. It is a successful crime.

Concluded tomorrow with part three

The Failure of City Government

One of the most beautiful streets in America now looks like a ravaged inner city ghetto because elected officials won’t do their job.

However, liberals sort of like the feeling of living in a ghetto. You understand that better when you can wedge yourself into the liberal brain (make sure to wear a body condom).

Please, Keep the Chinese Plague going until November

Before the coming of the Chinese Plague, people caught the flu. COVID-19 seems to have cured the common cold and the flu because nobody gets that anymore.

There is a Reason for Virgins to Live

For all you BBQ Lovers

Ten in a Box

You shouldn’t need more than ten.

There are a lot of Haters

But the Bradley Armored Fighting Vehicle (AFV) has turned into a good personnel carrier. It was designed by committee, to be al things to all people and in that role it hasn’t measured up.

I’ve received a few back channel e-mails asking how an entire population of leftists (millions of them) can  fail to discriminate between police and criminals, to pull down statues of abolitionists, or wear the neck-cloths of African tribes notorious for being slavers, all in the name of fighting imaginary neonazism, or how people can call both for gun confiscation and, without a blush or stammer, for defunding the police.

It takes a special kind of stupid if you’re a thinking person, but if you’re a pathological narcissist, maybe it all makes sense, I guess. Orwell summed it up in 1984 with the Party’s Slogan:

“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”

It only makes sense if you’re progressive.

How do we explain why the rich, who are routinely vilified by the Left, numbered among its most ardent supporters? Why do the secular American Jews fawn over the people who would thrill to throw them into box cars and send them off to be gassed?

How do we explain the Left’s astonishing hostility to facts, common sense, and evidence? How do we square their proud and enduring narcissism with their total lack of accomplishment, and with their utter devotion to destructiveness, a yearning to ruin everything they touch?

How do we explain their profound sanctimoniousness combined with their applause, praise, support, and tireless efforts to spread all perversions (especially sexual), moral decay, vulgarity, and every form of desecration?

Other than just chalking it up to narcissism, how do we explain their pretense of intellectual superiority combined with their notorious mental fecklessness? Maybe their professors instilled it in them in the expensive temples of higher learning where their parents sent them to get them out of the house? Maybe they learned it in shopping malls (temples of greed) where they learned to spend without earning?

How can we possibly explain the duality of their violence and their pacifism; why they hate the very things they should love most?

Why do they scorn and vilify any honest disagreement?

Why do the churches – the Catholics, the Baptists, the Buddhists, the Anglicans, the Congregationalists and even the Mormons throw money at domestic terrorist organizations and make common cause with the people who hate them most? And don’t tell me that it’s returning scorn with love and cash.

I often chalk this up to some form of insanity, some sort of intellectual infection that can’t be attributed to a plague, but it’s more complicated and simpler than that.

Rudyard Kipling wrote about it in 1909 and documented it in The City of Brass. Heinlein couched it in science fiction, but it’s still there for all who have eyes to see.

Continued tomorrow with Explaining the Left –  part two

Identify the Rifle

Let’s see if I can stump any of you.

Corsican Vendetta Knife – a great gift for the dad that has everything

Inscription: May all your wounds be mortal

Family is everything. No success in life can compensate for failure in your home.

The Interstate TDR (captioned photo) was an early unmanned combat aerial vehicle — referred to at the time as an “assault drone” — developed by the Interstate Aircraft and Engineering Corporation during the Second World War for use by the United States Navy.

In 1936, Lieutenant Commander Delmar S. Fahrney proposed that un-piloted, remotely controlled aircraft had potential for use by the US Navy in combat operations. Due to the limitations of the technology of the time, development of the “assault drone” project was given a low priority, but by the early 1940s the development of the radar altimeter and television made the project more feasible. About 200 of these aircraft were built.

Another similar project used by the US Army Air Force was also developed for use in the European theater. They loaded B-17 bombers with explosives and flew them remotely, into high value targets.

Union Island, Grenadines

It takes both time and money to do this sort of thing. Through my life, time and money were not interchangeable so no, I never did this. There were always more obligations, more people to please. But it would have been worth doing.  The closest I got was a sloop owned by the US Navy, equipped for special activities and I got a trip on it in the Caribbean once. But I was at work/busman’s holiday.

Riding a motorcycle through North Africa, in the sand, in summer, with people shooting at me, sounds like a lot more work than it is worth.

I had two great uncles who served in North Africa with the US Army in World War Two (from Torch through Sicily and Italy) and both of them said that the Germans were a problem, but the locals in Africa, in so many ways, were worse.

Product Sensitivity

Now that people will no longer wear shirts made of cotton because black people and others picked cotton; No more Uncle Ben’s Rice; No more Aunt Jemimah Pancake Syrup; and the re-named Caucasian Jacks are going onto the shelves, there may be peace as people of color feel better about themselves. I’ve been looking for an “African Pelosi scarf” so that I can be more like the Democrat caucus and can hang with the brothers and be one of them, but they’re back-ordered. I’ll have to wait before I can go to the hood and kill a 44 oz Schlitz Malt Liquor can with my home boys…my new people.

SAA T-72B

The Russian re-tread (pun intended) has improvised slat-armor and is missing ERA on its turret. The reactive armor under the gun is devastating to friendly dismounted infantry who may be arrayed in front, screening for the tank

A US M18 Hellcat (modified locally)

It was surrendered by the Serbs to NATO during the Bosnia War, 1995. The engine deck was  replaced by the hood and radiator from a FAP-13 2.5-ton truck.

A normal, unmodified Hellcat tank destroyer.

Arizona Tactical

Maybe it’s better that Antifa stays in California.

The Bored Children of Elites

‘The counter culture exists in the country, but it was never a matter of the poor vs. the rich. We see idiot children of the American ruling class, Champagne Bolsheviks and the phony oppressed play Jacobite for a while until they return to graduate school in the fall.

‘Actual poor, oppressed masses of the world live in squalor, but they do not live in squalor by choice the way that we see in the “occupy movement” in its current evolution. Playing poor is the woke version of playing cowboys and Indians, but playing cowboys and Indians would make you a pariah, even if, like the infinitely progressive Senator Elizabeth Warren, you chose to be an Indian.’

CHAZ now Chopistan

Democrats, Bitterly Clinging to Power

In the era of Trump, black empowerment through economic prosperity threatens to upend the applecart that has kept them poor, ignorant, and voting Democrat reliably. The levers of power are threatened. The internal rot in America is exposed and that can’t happen.

What happens when people no longer need (or want) food stamps? What happens when people have jobs, and are self-empowered?

So— They busy themselves burning Black businesses and stoking the crime rates and creating unemployment, and creating all the misery that Leftwing policies have created ever since the Great Society started by bribing them into unemployment, divorce, bastardy and dependency. They say Black Lives Matter, but then take the police away, leaving those lives at the mercy of gangs and rioters.

These oh-so-virtuous panderers who say the Black Lives Matter want to virtue signal their virtue, and also signal their power over Blacks.

They want to play the Great White Savior to save the Blacks — from the very evils they themselves promote.

And when their victims act — what is their word? — uppity and the Blacks vote for Trump, why, then the Donkey governors and Donkey mayors tell the police to stand down, and the Donkey billionaires bus in the rioters, and burn everything Black lives have worked so hard to gain these last three years.

They say it is institutional racism. Really? What institutions?

Police forces under Dem administration control by public sector unions controlled by Dem billionaires? Businesses controlled by Dem billionaires? Silicon valley controlled by Dem billionaires? Sports teams controlled by Dem billionaires? Nightly news controlled by Dem billionaires? Trashy public schools controlled by public sector unions controlled by Dem billionaires?

Well, yes, maybe there is a point here. All these institutions are controlled by the same political party responsible for the Trail of Tears, the Confederacy, the KKK, Jim Crow.

Why are rioters burning and looting Black-owned businesses, killing Black security guards, driving away Black jobs from the Dem-controlled inner cities, turning Black neighborhood into helpless hellholes? Why?

Because anyone trapped in the inner city, betrayed by teachers unions into failing schools, betrayed by police unions into boglands of crime and lawlessness, betrayed by Great Society programs into a rubble-strewn wasteland of broken families and bastard children, will reliably vote corrupt politicians back into office.

Think about the situation that way and you’re on the pathway to understanding why all this is happening.

Captioned photo credit:  The Untouchables (1987), screenplay by David Mamet

Story copyright © Larry Lambert, 2016-2020

This is a component of a fictional law-enforcement related story that I started in 2016 and it appeared on the blog back then. I’ve since spent some time fleshing it out into a novelette length in my spare time, but frankly, there hasn’t been much of that. It’s the journey of Police Sergeant Michael Francis Xavier Muldoon and his journey through the dystopian world of law enforcement, set sometime in the future.

I hope that you enjoy–

Vigilante Moon, continued

I supervise a foot beat because I’m inept at collecting. I’m simply not a very good earner, and neither are the guys and gals who work for me. The good earners gravitate to vice, narcotics, intelligence and traffic enforcement where the big money is raked in. The elite executive protection and Party Liaison squads who protect police commanders and Party officials and provide drivers and bodyguards to the great and near great don’t have to be good earners. They simply need to be brutal. In the past year we’ve seen slots in Party Liaison go to leading members of the Brotherhood of International Workers and the International Service Employees Union rather than to trained and vetted police officers. One sergeant’s billet in the Public Control Bureau went to a member of the National Transportation Worker’s Local 919 last month, but I think that he landed that because his father is an alderman in the Twenty-Fourth Ward.

I knew Halvard Drummond from when he worked as a shop steward at Reliable Trucking. He moved directly from an army officer’s slot to the shop steward job and now he continued his career path with the police department’s Civil Unrest Division. Such were the sacrifices required by the party.

I mentioned Drummond, because it finally clicked that he, Drummond, was the person who didn’t fit in, outside the window at the Indian Restaurant. He’d been dressed up to pass for a street vagrant, but it was Drummond. The only remaining question was why he was there.

“Dewey, I saw Howard Drummond outside just a minute ago.”

“Was he wearing his army captain’s uniform, his shop steward shirt or his police Gestapo outfit?”

“Neither. He was dressed up like a bum.”

Dewey said, “That’s odd, he’s the sort of guy who likes to let you know he’s there.”

I stepped out into the sunshine and looked around but I didn’t see Drummond. So, I walked out onto the street with my lunch wrapped in a tortilla forming a burrito, and ate as I watched. If you never wore a badge, you won’t know what I’m talking about. Civilians walk the streets or ride on trams and don’t pay attention to the people around them. All I’ve done is watch people and where a civilian wouldn’t see anything amiss, it stands out to a cop, particularly one who walks a beat. Drummond stood out as if he wore a neon sign.

Dewey followed me a moment later. “Do you think it was Drummond, or maybe a bum that looked like Drummond?”

I stared at Dewey.

“Okay, Michael Francis Xavier Muldoon, you’re never wrong about a thing like that.”

“That’s right, I’m not.”

I noticed another bum who looked out of place stood down the street, but it wasn’t Drummond. His eyes were fixed on the Third Interstate Bank building. I crossed the street and walked over to him, finishing my burrito with one last delicious mouthful, and gulping it down, said, “Step into my office.”

He looked up at me. Face well shaved, plump bordering on over-fed, dark eyes in a skull framed by a raggedy, hooded parka, gerry curls drifted out next to his face.

“Pull back the parka hood.” He complied and I saw hair styled with long, greasy ringlets.

Dewey followed me when I walked over. “What do you make of that?” He saw the same thing I did.

I pulled my electroshock blaster/stunner from its holder and twisted the charging handle. It gave off a low hum and vibrated as it powered up. You can say one thing for the Party. They like their troops to be well armed.  In addition to a conventional pistol, I carried the blaster, two conventional hand grenades, two stingball grenades, and a short sword with a sharp blade on one side and an entry blade for chopping doors down on the other. Oh, yeah, and the 245 Gonzales sap.

“Break out identification,” I ordered.

“Don’t have any,” the wealthy-looking man, slumming in low street clothing replied.

No bum would ever say that because failure to identify always ended badly for them. I put his age at somewhere between thirty and thirty-five. His eyes darted to me, then to Dewey, then back to mine. “If he wasn’t there, I’d take you, flatfoot.”

Dewey still walked like a police sergeant, talked and behaved like a police sergeant and kept his lion-colored hair hair spiked in what had become the police fashion.

What to do?

I did what anybody on the beat should do.  I fired a blaster round at him. Each blaster fired up to forty rounds called ‘bees’ that were about the size and shape of a large bumblebee. Each bee had a potent enough charge to put a horse or cow on the ground and into convulsions. They completely incapacitated a healthy human being. If the human being in question had health issues, it could be fatal.

It wasn’t fatal to the fake bum, because I only fired two bees, but it did put him into convulsions.  I hadn’t deactivated the bees and they continued to send a gazillion volts through him.  So he bucked and twitched, foamed at the mouth like a rabid dog and his bladder and intestines voided. Only then did I deactivate the bees.

Dewey walked back into his pawnshop once I handcuffed the bum. He watched from a distance because he’d done the same sort of thing himself countless times and knew that encapsulation was coming. When I keyed the microphone, it sent out a GPS signal with my precise coordinates. There are also GPS transponders that we’re supposed to wear, but none of those work.

I called for the Short Bus on the radio for a transport.  The armored three-ton “Short Bus”  (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) six-wheeled paddy wagon roared up while he was still twitching, though now handcuffed and searched.

Corporal Bruce (Blue Moon) Mooney worked for me and drove the armored car that was mine-proof, bullet-proof, grenade-proof, everything but idiot-proof.

“What ya got, Sarge?”

Mooney had a long, hang-dog, wrinkled face. He’d been on the job twenty longer than me and had a serious alcohol problem, which is why he drove the wagon. It was almost impossible to dent the Short Bus no matter what you hit, and he hit a lot of things when he was in his cups.

I handed Mooney what I found on the guy. “His name is Mark Fuller and he’s carrying army credentials, even though he’s out of uniform. He’s also got a small army issue handgun.”

Mooney bagged the ID and gun, then I handed him the magazine I’d taken from the pistol. “It’s one of those fancy pistols that only fires if the DNA of the trigger puller matches the chip in the weapon.”

“Exploding rounds.” Mooney marveled.

“That means he’s either a very good army imposter, a deserter or he’s a soldier here on the street out of uniform, wearing long, curly hair, with a yen to hurt a cop.”

“Did he try anything on you, Sarge?”

“He wanted to, but I blasted him for good measure before he got the chance.”

“Good thinking.”

“The word is ‘proactive’, Corporal.”

I helped Mooney lift Soldier Mark Fuller into the coffin on the back of the wagon. They aren’t real coffins. They look like metal coffins and we use them to transport incapacitated prisoners. It’s officially called encapsulation. You dump the prisoner in the coffin and it’s moved into position on top of the wagon by means of a hydraulic hoist.

Before the coffin snapped shut, Drummond walked up to me, dressed in his bum clothing.

“The damned blasters are effective.” Drummond observed dispassionately, “But you’ll have hell to pay.” Then he looked up at me, because I’m taller than he is.  “Yeah, they’re with me. They’re from the Federal Protective Police.”

The coffin lid snapped shut. Mooney toggled the hoist.

“Nobody told me about an operation in my district, Drummond. The rules call for me to be informed. If I’m not, I’m not responsible for any pre-emptive action I take.”

“The Protective Police can do more or less anything they want because they guard the Party’s elite.”

“He doesn’t have police identification. He has army identification, he’s out of uniform, and he may be a fancy fed, but he wasn’t blaster-proof was he?”

Drummond’s voice grew plaintive, “I said he was with me, Sergeant Muldoon.”

“How many times have you busted my chops, Drummond?”

The coffin clanked home on top of the wagon and the retaining latches engaged.

Drummond shrugged. “Fuck ‘em. Frankly, Muldoon I don’t care much about the guy. He treated me like a local.”

“You are a local,” I pointed out politely, “and so am I.”

“I was an army officer, a federal officer,” Drummond said somewhat wistfully.

“You’re a Party man. You do what the Party says, right?” Drummond looked at me hard and I saw for once that he wasn’t all together pleased with who he was. I filed it away and slapped the armored flanks of the wagon. Blue-black smoke belched from its smoke stacks as it powered up and lumbered from the curb into the street.

—

Lieutenant Rudolph Chang, even more of a lush than Corporal Mooney, served as the watch commander and my immediate boss for the South Side. Drummond called ahead so Chang was aware of something afoot, but neither he nor Drummond cracked the coffin with Soldier Mark Fuller, or whatever his real name was, still stuffed in it. In fact, Drummond was nowhere to be seen.

A couple of hours had passed since Mooney hoisted it onto the wagon. I didn’t like being called a flatfoot, so I let the situation mellow. I imagined that it was getting ripe in there – and hot. Oxygen ported into the coffins by way of ducting so unless he vomited and aspirated it, it was unlikely he’d die from asphyxiation while confined. But if he wasn’t dead, he’d be conscious and furious inside the coffin with his full trousers getting raunchier. The early coffins allowed prisoners to claw the lid from the inside, but these formed a tight seal and it was hell for people with the slightest hint of claustrophobia.

I met the lieutenant near the wagon. Mooney stood more or less to attention.

“Muldoon, what are you doing out there on my streets?” Chang asked. His Asiatic eyes were narrowed to even finer slits than they had been.

“Earning, Lieutenant Chang.”

A light went on in Chang’s more or less pickled mind and his eyes opened, hopeful. “What did you come up with, Muldoon?”

“Contraband alcoholic beverage, no tax stamps. A whole case of Tullimore Dew export grade.” Dewey gave me the case to bring in with me because he thought somebody was going to be upset about the electroshocked fed.

Chang pulled me aside by the arm, out of earshot from Corporal Mooney. “Where did you find it?”

“Not far from where I arrested this guy. I think maybe he’s an army deserter and had the stash.” Untaxed alcohol is a very serious crime as are all crimes where a Party stamp is required on goods.

“Someone is coming to collect the prisoner, but there is no need to indict a young soldier for that sort of indiscretion, is there?”

“For wanting a drink? Certainly not, Lieutenant Chang. Perhaps you could book the evidence, or destroy it. It’s not a task I want to delegate to Corporal Mooney because he’s a man given over to drink and might consume some of the contraband in the process of its destruction.”

“I agree to take charge of it. Where might it be?” Lieutenant Chang licked his lips involuntarily.

I handed the lieutenant the keys to my black Mariah, the armored cruiser that I drove – perquisite of a sergeant because of Party membership. “It’s in the back, under a blanket.”

Lieutenant Chang took the keys and that’s the last I saw of him on that shift. I found the keys to my car on his desk later that day.

“Drop the coffin, Mooney. Let’s see what we have inside.”

Mooney had the coffin half-way down when Captain Wilbur Drake walked up into the enclosed bay, called a sally port, that held the Short Bus. Two civilians in natty business suits followed him.  One short, the other taller than I am.

Drake had an anger problem as severe as Chang’s drinking problem. He always traveled with a full head of steam.

“I think you pissed off Captain Drake.” Mooney said to me.

“You’ve got a remarkable grasp of the fucking obvious, Blue Moon,” Captain Drake told Corporal Mooney. Drake is known for his remarkably acute hearing. Some credit that and that alone to his rise in the ranks to Captain. Others attribute his rapid promotion to a wife that didn’t hesitate to pleasure superior officers who had the power to recommend for promotion.

Drake talked a good game when he chewed me out, but he used to work for Dewey when he’d started on the department and as a result, I know where the skeletons are buried. I always took the reprimands with due humility, but knew that he knew, that there were limits. For the most part, he’d yell at me in public to let everyone know I didn’t enjoy any special privileges.

“One of these days, I’m going to grab you by the stacking swivel and shake the stupid out of you, Muldoon.”

“I’m a poor excuse for a sergeant, Captain Drake.”

Drake ordered, “Drop the goddamned coffin and let’s have a look at this—pride of the Federal Government.”

Mooney lowered the coffin to the concrete deck and toggled the release button. Air hissed and the retaining latches snapped open.

Agent Fuller sat up, forming a ninety-degree angle with his waist as the pivot point.  He sucked in a deep breath. My eyes began to water from the corrupt smell erupting from the coffin. Vomit, shit, piss and every other possible leakage from a human orifice each had their own peculiar offensive smell. When combined, the synergistic effect made me want to puke, but I didn’t.

“I’m gonna kill you cop!” Fuller croaked, looking up at me through puffy, red eyes.

The shorter of the two feds spoke up.

“Shut your cock holster, Fuller.”

Fuller closed his mouth as ordered.

I went away with the feds and Captain Drake while Mooney took a fire hose to Soldier Fuller, or whoever he really was, and the inside of the coffin. Thankfully, the interior of those coffins are designed to be washed and reused without much more than a fire hose blast.

The shorter Fed identified himself to me Erasimo Tambunga. Many of them take African-style names because it is the fashion and demonstrates their commitment to African heritage whether they are genuinely Africans, part African, or not. Soldier Fuller’s skin had a milk chocolate luster. Tambunga had skin black as anthracite, but it was a pigment enhancer that he’d taken. If you want to play to trends, you get a skin job.

“Fuller is a trench monkey, Sergeant Muldoon. I’m sorry if he caused you any trouble.” That sort of language coming from a fed constituted an ominous change in behavior. My guard snapped up though my face remained a mask of appreciation. “But he’s out there on the street on a special mission. Alderman Wlibur Quail is missing and we suspect foul play.”

“This is the first I’ve heard of that.”

Tambunga said, “I argued for letting the locals know but it’s a Party matter first when one of our leaders is unaccounted for.”

“Can I tell my men to be on the look-out, Agent Tambunga?”

“You can call me Erasimo, and yes I think that it’s time we put the word out that Alderman Quail may be the victim of foul play. As a police sergeant, you know that subversive elements remain in our model society no matter how well off the citizens are. There was even a serpent in Eden, Sergeant Muldoon.”

We created this worker’s paradise when we became Sheeople, and the greed of the common man overcame his willingness to work for the good of all. The myriad of labor unions and the Party itself formed a living, breathing thugocracy that existed to serve its own ends.  We were divided and then we were conquered by our own.

—

Ehigie, called Eggy, ran Rubin’s Deli, the Rubin family having moved on two decades previously. He hailed from Nigeria and didn’t talk much about his life there. Eggy didn’t talk much about anything. People rarely came to the deli because he served Nigerian food and there were very few Nigerians in the city.

Dewey thought that the local politics were foolish. Eggy didn’t talk to Silky Jackson, who ran Girls-Girls-Girls because Silky was a high yellow negro and Eggy’s skin was so black that very little light reflected, at least that’s how Dewey saw it. It turned out that the strip bar that Silky built near his dining establishment had offended Eggy’s sense of modesty. People misunderstood race to mean agenda.

As I mentioned, Nelson Begay ran an Indian restaurant – Not a restaurant serving East Indian food. Nelson served southwestern cuisine because he came from Gallup, New Mexico, not from Bombay or Calcutta.

And me? When Tambunga told me about the Wilbur Quail abduction, I became as alert as a mouse at a cat show. When had Wilbur been abducted? Marie Watts almost raped me after work a week ago, probing about what I knew about what. Marie was the station clearing barrel, and a tool of upper management. The term clearing barrel refers to the red, sand filled barrels used to verify that small arms are unloaded before turn in. Police officers preparing to turn in weapons line up and dry fire their rifles into the barrel. Some called her the ‘department groundsheet’. The presence and agenda of Marie Watts made me wearily contemplate some idiotic or malicious decisions by higher-ups. She never appeared unbidden. But maybe, just maybe it had something to do with Alderman Quail.

Advanced as we had once become, we were hurtling backwards into a new dark age. I saw it every day, felt it with every sunset and retrospective glance at the day before. In the story of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, the main character, Hank Morgan, a mechanic in an arms manufacturing plant woke up one day in King Arthur’s England. He did everything that he could to advance the backwardness of the peasants and royalty alike, but in the end it all came to naught, as the people were forgetful and more comfortable in their ignorance. All of the advancements he made to the civilization in which he found himself were wasted, and there’s the nugget of truth for today’s civilization. Perhaps it had something to do with the end of reading as a pastime. People preferred to be force-fed trivia through video screens and pads. Electronic games replaced learning by offering endless entertainment.

I might be a police sergeant supervising a street squad, but I could read contraband books the same as everyone else. In fact, other than the job and a wife who generally ignored me, the books were all that I had.  They told an ancient story that repeated itself over and over again through the ages, and in a weird sense, told my story.

We put ourselves in the same place that the Roman Empire found itself. The people who built and forged the institutions that made the nation great had long been dead by the end. Men like Scipio couldn’t reach out and teach the later offspring about life and how to wage war. Adaptation to the police state and thugocracy that I myself perpetuated was easier than struggling to keep things strong. Values were replaced by emotion and unbounded greed. It had become greed, more than anything else that bound the society. Every institution in the country had become corrupt at the Party’s urging. We became slothful, and failed in our basic responsibility to the generations to follow. A nation built upon optimism and faith, which sloughs off its beliefs will descend into hedonism, decadence and fatalism. And some operative in police management sent Marie Watts, the clearing barrel, to me to seduce information out of me that I didn’t have. It’s simply how things were done now.

Of course, I knew who had Wilbur Quail on ice. Who else? John Dewey had authored a training course on planned political kidnapping, he had a secret room under the Third Interstate Bank and he sat on a pile of cash from the armored car heist. He had the motivation, the skill and the bankroll along with the natural vindictiveness that all police officers harbored toward the politicians who treated us like servants or pawns in their power struggles.

When the complete novelette, Vigilante Moon is available, there will be a notice on this blog.

A reader from Bangkok suggested that we do an open forum Q and A on the blog, and I’m frankly reluctant. However he has something on his chest and wanted to throw spaghetti against the wall to see if it would stick.

I have questions such as “who is really buried in Grant’s Tomb”.

If I had been smarter, I’d have been Jackson Pollock. I’d have filled squirt bottles with pigment, would have splashed them on canvas and people would have paid me $4 million for an original “Larry” painting.  Maybe that ship hasn’t sailed. It is said that a fool and his money are soon parted. If any of you send me a cashier’s check for $1 million or better $1 million in Krugerand, I promise to send you TWO original LL paintings (while the supply lasts). They’re bound to double in price at some point.

Pollock was widely noticed for his technique of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a horizontal surface. That’s not quite the same as throwing spaghetti against the wall to see it if will stick, or tossing ideas out.

Jackson Pollock, a reclusive, volatile, drunk who died behind the wheel in 1956, was said to splash pigment during a drug induced orgy of frenetic dance. His work only became famous after he croaked – for it is often the case with artists.

If you’re going to participate in a Q and A there will be none of that behavior here.

The forum is now yours.

The True Cross

Until recently, I’d never actually heard of the True Cross legends, about how it was fashioned from wood that originally grew from a tree planted by a son of Adam and Eve and was made into a bridge crossed by the Queen of Sheba on her way to meet King Solomon who was scared of it and buried the timber until later it was dug up and made into a cross and used to crucify Jesus Christ and then hidden again so it could be found by medieval tourists (Constantine’s mother and entourage in 326).

Nearly as  Profound as finding the True Cross while on vacation… but also legendary…

Dutchess Meghan Markle told her friends that her instinct to leave the UK ‘all makes sense’ now because she was ‘destined’ to help fight systemic racism in US – and she hasn’t ruled out a career in politics. She’s here to help and is willing to reach out to the racist curs in America to heal the divide. Meghan is willing to lead us. Please drop her a note of thanks. I don’t know where she and her cuckolded husband are living in LA, but you can send your letter to Buckingham Palace c/o Queen Elizabeth. I’m sure they’ll get it to her. And if you want to enclose a check (love gift), I know that it will be well spent.

Finding a Better Speed Bump

Free Falling

Taiwan’s Reach

Blogging

I’m sitting in the den at the White Wolf mine, trying to blog.

Pink Floyd is on a continuous loop (the later stuff with Waters and Gilmour starting with Dark Side of the Moon – chopping some words out on Vigilante Moon), planning on taking the canoe out early to the Blue Ridge Reservoir for a paddle.  That’s my life these days. On the phone with lawyers and guys in China and guys in Mexico and then the phone becomes too much. Writing and blogging and what not at night. Except night is tomorrow in China, and that messing things up and the chi is destroyed for a while.