Monthly Archives: May 2017

What I like about this place is I never feel I get the run around. I am liking the variety and the energy.

I still can’t believe I get this for free.

So France is once again ruled from Berlin by a willing band of turncoat French open-borders and open-legs administrators of decline.  This EU stuff is interesting not only in its own right, but as a cautionary model of the Unites States as well.  The differences are obvious, the similarities not so much, but I posit that the similarities are worth looking into just the same.

Whereas the EU lacks an authoritative central government, it remains very much a thing more like a nation-state than any other collection of countries which might also lack such a central government — OPEC, ASEAN, OIC, and so forth.  The only organizations which are more like nation-states are actually declared as such — centrally governed federations like the US and the Russian Federation.

… Continue reading →

blah blah blah blah Ginger.

For our callers abroad, BDB reports that the local dial-in numbers can try to trick you into hanging up by prematurely and erroneously informing you that there are no other callers. Upon your entering the access code, the voice tells you there are no other callers even if there are. Then it asks you for the host code or to just hit #. Do the latter.

US: 515-604-9908

Access Code: [see chat in “BDB Chat” tab above]

International Local Dial-in Numbers Corresponding to 515-604-9908

Albania +355 4 454 1702

Argentina +54 351 569-7183

Australia +61 2 8077 0505

Austria +43 1 2650524

Belgium +32 3 294 11 50

Brazil +55 11 3042-5274

Bulgaria +359 2 495 1701

Cambodia +855 96 696 7824

Chile +56 2 3210 9930

Colombia +57 6 … Continue reading →

I like the part where Melanie Phillips dissects the fear that people have of losing the argument. The need of the Left and others to shut down the debate.

Has anyone read one of her books?

FBI Director James Comey has been fired, and none too soon.  He needed to go first off when he allowed Attorney General Loretta Lynch to sideline herself to shield the Clintons, and then when he announced that despite clear evidence of noteworthy crimes, he would not recommend prosecuting Clinton.  In the first matter, he, like any single-point direct-report, has an amazing amount of power over his boss.  He literally enabled her to stand by, neither doing her job nor recusing herself, so that James Comey was in fact the Attorney General for a politically fraught case.

Hillary Clinton’s crimes, those of a statutory nature as well as those of misconduct and malpractice rising to the level of criminal negligence *at best*, always had as part of the defense … Continue reading →

Like a fair number of folks, I have always had a basic kit for each vehicle we owned. First aid, tools, flashlight, oil, water, blanket, chains, rope, jumper cables, maps, compass, road flares and fire starters.

Cleaning out my old truck and sedan and transferring the kits to the new vehicles, I checked the gear that had accumulated over nineteen years of ownership in the vehicles and trashed some, replaced some and added a few things to update the mix.

I found a few items that I envisioned if I needed them, things were not going well, but, better safe than screwed, so they were added to the kits.

Continue reading →

Here is a brain teaser:

• EPA and Interior Dept fire half their scientist advisors to “Clean house from Obama”
• Coal mining comes back
• Water and land use regulations are pared back
• Ivanka will lead the Paris Climate Accord review

Please find the thing that is not like the others: No looking at your neighbors answer….

I am seeing the normal conservative hair shirt kneejerk when Trump does something symbolic despite concrete actions taking place. Ivanka terrifies the right and pisses off the left.  A great camouflage player.

Get used to symbolic dissonance.  The President does not care about verbal integrity, just results.

If we kiss the Paris Climate accords but make noises about reserving the right to modify the impact, it is just words, as sincere as the … Continue reading →

A comprehensive outline for restructuring our military to create a force more geared to defense of self and national interests, domestic and abroad.

– Rename the department as War Department. It has never been much about defense and we might as well call it what it does – break things and kill people.

– Navy: increase the number of ships to bulk up the overall ability of the Navy to project power across the seas. Modern warships seem little stronger than the old wooden ships, so we need to build to a new standard. Much of what we will be using will be patrol boats, so cruisers and large destroyers seem to fit the bill. Cutters of various strengths, but with speed, for more local water patrolling, mostly … Continue reading →