Forget Christie in 2016

For the Wingnuts are never going to let Secaucus Fats live this down:

Interviewed Tuesday on NBC, [New Jersey Governor Chris] Christie described Obama's response as "outstanding," and he told CNN that the president had been "incredibly supportive and helpful to our state."

"This is much more important than any election," Christie told CNN's "Piers Morgan Tonight."

Obama has "been outstanding to deal with on this and I look forward to seeing him tomorrow so he can see for himself what this hurricane has done to my state," Christie said Tuesday night.

And this:

"I spoke to the president three times yesterday," Christie said on CNN's "Starting Point with Soledad O'Brien." "He has been incredibly supportive and helpful to our state and not once did he bring up the election. If he's not bringing it up, you can be sure that people in New Jersey are not worried about that primarily if one of the guys running isn't."

Christie is focused on what is best for his state right now. But you know that the GOP's Taliban will never forget that Christie wasn't doing everything he could in order to make Obama look bad and score some cheap political points for Myth Romney.

Could Mitt Romney Be Any More Despicable; Superstorm Sandy Edition

Hard to imagine that Mittens could be any more of a sleazeball, but he keeps digging deeper and deeper.

Like holding a canned goods drive that hinders the Red Cross's disaster relief efforts.

Here's a thought: "Despicable Mitt" might be the next Pixar movie.

Sharia Law

You can find no shortage of politicians and pundits in this country who get oh, so upset at the concept of Sharia law.

But then, a lot of those very same politicians* and pundits will start blathering on about how the Ten Commandments is superior to the Constitution and we should run this country by the will of the Almighty, as set down in the Bible (modified, of course, so that bacon is still on the menu). They are completely blind to the point that they are, in essence, advocating for Christian Sharia law. They all love them some "G-d's Law", they just differ with the Islamicists on which book is the applicable one.

Or they are not. Huckabee is smart enough to know that is exactly what he is doing, pandering to the know-nothings for whom critical thinking and book larnin' are just too hard.

I'm not so sure about the other guys. They probably are not that self-aware.
_______________________________
* Mike Huckabee comes to mind. So does Legitimate Rape Guy, Rape-babies Guy and that Ten Commmanderments judge in Alabama.

Myth Romney-- Poppa Pander Bear?

Apparently Mittens has his surrogates going to moderate groups and saying, in effect: "Pay no attention to what Mitt told the Wingnuts about overturning Rove v. Wade. He has no intention of trying to do that."

So which is it, Mittens? Are you the ardent pro-lifer that you spent months reassuring your base that you said that you were, or are you going to stab them in the back in order to pander for votes from those who are pro-choice?*

Why should anyone believe a word that he says? Hell, even Romney doesn't believe what he says. He can't keep track of his lies anymore.

Romney is betting the farm that the American voters are a bunch of ignoramuses who can't remember what Romney said last week, let alone during the primary season.
___________________________________________
* Yes I know that the Borowitz Report is supposed to be humor.  In this case, it is no less true.

Drone Safety

There is Yet Again Another Test on how unmanned aircraft can be safely integrated into the national airspace.

I have a simnple way to bring that about: If the drone crashes, the drone's pilot dies, just as though they had been flying a real airplane. A designated team just drags the drone pilot out back and caps him (or her). No investigation, no board of inquiry, a simple "if A, then B" process, where "A" = "crash" and "B" = "summary execution".

To my mind, any plan for integrating drones into the national airspace that does not cause the drones' drivers to have the same skin in the game as the rest of us is deficient. And if the drone drivers don't like that they would now share the same risk of dying as the rest of us, then they can go find another line of work.

Stop Pretending You Care About Other People and Vote for Romney

So sayeth Joss Whedon:



Tip: Watch to the very end.

This one will probably fry a few circuits amongst the Libertarian/Wingnut fans of Serenity and Firefly.

Sandy

If you are in the path of the storm, good luck to you.

If you are in a low-lying coastal area (NY, NJ, DE, CR, RI, MA) and you haven't bugged out, then you may be a few bricks short of a full hod. Not only is Hurricane Sandy blowing up a storm surge, but there is a full moon today, which means that high tides would normally be higher before the storm surge is added on. Some clowns are staying behind to "experience the storm"-- well, it's their funeral. And this time around, that's not just a colloquialism. Going up against a hurricane is like bringing a plate of pasta to an artillery bombardment.

The replica of the HMS Bounty is likely going to be lost.

A lot of the shelters that have been set up to evacuate people have finally broken the code: People won't abandon their pets. So they've set up pens and crates for the animals to stay in (and where their owners/staff can visit them).

(Oh, and if you're a Tigers fan, it sucks to be you.)

UPDATE: The ship sank, two crewmen are missing.

Argo

Argo does not suck.

Sure there are a few things that were probably added to increase dramatic tension. Some facts were consolidated to make the story fit into a two-hour movie. But overall, it was an adult-grade movie with adult-level themes.

And by "adult", I don't mean porno. It is a spy thriller with one half-assed chase scene (that is only a minute or two long), no superhuman spies and no gunfights. For it really did happen.

 

(Credit)

Using Frank W. James's metric, I give it a five out of six.

Caturday; All's Right With the World Edition

Jake was snoozing this morning on his heated cat bed.

Do the World a Favor and Don't Eat at Arby's

Because Arby's has one of those stupid corporate safety policies that translate into "if something bad happens, it's your fault and if you survive, we'll fire you."

FAIRBORN [OH] — An assistant manager at an Arby’s, who slipped out of a drive-thru window to get away from an armed robber who invaded the store early Friday, has been fired.

They fired her because having another woman in the store with her would have been a magic talisman against getting robbed. Of course, if that night manager had a handgun and had popped the goblin a few times, you just know that Arby's would have fired her for that.

See, Arby's knows that they can always find someone else to work for shitty-ass pay, but defending against a lawsuit-- that's real money to them.

(H/T)

All Sandy, All the Time

The Weather Channel is into full-bore crisis coverage over Hurricane Sandy, which is going to be a super-storm, a hurricane that is wrapped inside of a nor'easter. They are going nuts because it is projected to be a massive storm and the center of it is projected to make landfall somewhere along the New Jersey coast. If it lands in southern Jersey, the storm surge will push a shitload of water into New York harbor.

The breadth of the storm means that pretty much everyone in the Boston-Washington corridor will be hammered by the storm to some degree. It could result in the biggest power outage since the 2003 blackout (and for much longer). High winds, heavy rain and even snow are in the forecasts.

If you've waited until today to stock up on essentials, you may be shit outta luck.

Pocket Litter, the Data That You Carry

Stratfor put out an interesting article about "pocket litter" and how much data can be gleaned from it.

It's not just cops who can do the gleaning, of course. So you may want to take a hard look at the stuff you've got in your wallet, your pockets, your purse and in your smartphone.

The Government is a Smarter Investor Than Romney (and Bain Capital)

For one thing, they have a higher success rate when it comes to investing in start-up companies (something that Romney has been lying about).

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The next clip discusses the issue that Romney and Ryan are all hot about the government picking winners and losers, some that, as Jon points out, happens every time the government awards a contract.

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Quote of the Day: "Maybe Romney and Ryan don't think we should have picked losers and winners in World War Two. But unlike them, I'm glad we beat Hitler."

Where the Candidates' Top Supporters Work

So someone has put together a chart showing which employees of what organizations have donated the most to the two presidential candidates.

For Obama, it's basically government workers and places where you'd probably find intelligent people.

For Romney, it's the banksters.

Note that "government workers" includes the military. For why would soldiers vote for a guy from the party that is constantly trying to slash veterans benefits?

(H/T)

A Hard Slog Down the Runway

In Bodaybo, Russia.

In Lieu of Actual Content; Die Hard Edition

Yippie Ki-Yay, Motherfucker.

(Video is NSFW.)

A New Measurement of Time: The "Romney Minute"

It is the amount of time it takes Mitt Romney to change his position on any given issue.

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Shorter Mourdock: "If You Were Raped, the Almighty Wanted It to Happen."

WASHINGTON -- Indiana GOP U.S. Senate candidate Richard Mourdock declared Tuesday night he opposes aborting pregnancies conceived in rape because "it is something that God intended to happen."

Clearly, Todd Akin, the GOP Senate candidate in Missouri, isn't the outlier that what is left of the mainstream GOP has spent weeks pretending him to be.

Of course, Mourdock is doing his best to walk his remarks back. Good luck with that, Bucko.

You have to wonder if the GOP is trying to throw away this election. But it isn't by design, not unless the Tea Party is a false-flag operation run by Democrats. They have pushed out electable moderates in favor of running radicals who, might be able to win a congressional district election, but they fall flat statewide. Or they run batshit-crazy neophytes and they lose elections that the GOP should have easily won.

Wørd! -- Flip-Flop Mitt Edition

What this guy said:

Unfortunately, whether it’s climate change, reproductive rights, auto bailouts, or even his own proposed tax and regulation policies, the story is the same: Romney has switched sides on many of the most important issues of our time, then declined to give a coherent explanation as to why. In fact, in some cases he actually denies that he ever changed his position despite crystal clear video evidence to the contrary. Between this unsettling tendency to switch positions without providing a reason, and a consistent reliance on vague assertions with contradictory details when it comes to discussing a policy agenda on his website and in his speeches, I have come to the following conclusion:

I have no idea what Mitt Romney would do if he became President of the United States.

Nobodfy does. Rmoney has been consistent in only one thing: He wants the job. He'll flip and flop and suffer from convenient bouts of Romnesia, whatever it takes to win over another vote.

If the cannibal demographis happened to be the key to winning Ohio, you'd see video of Romney cheerfully snacking on Roasted Sucking Baby.

Be Careful With Those Scooter Chairs

I see quite a few people riding scooter-chairs along the sides of the road and on sidewalks.* On my way into work today, I saw one where the rider had dumped it in the middle of the road.**

This is the thing: Those scooters are tricycles and they have small wheelbases, especially laterally. Some of the folks riding them are well into the morbidly-obese range. Which means that as a rider/vehicle unit, the center-of-gravity is not going to be low.

A narrow wheelbase and high center-of-gravity, coupled with either a sharp turn on a decent bump in the road is a recipe for disaster. Especially since the person being dumped onto the asphalt probably has some semi-serious medical issues to begin with.*** Some of those chairs can clip along at a pretty good pace; being dumped from one isn't going to be as pleasant as falling out of a chair in a house.

Be careful out there, OK?
_________________________
* Probably because within a mile of me, there is a hospital, a senior-only complex and a few nursing homes.
** Three vehicles had stopped, one guy was talking to the vic and a woman was talking on a cell phone. There seemed to be enough people there and, not being EMS trained, I moved on. A mile down the road, two police cars and a fire dept medical response truck were screaming down the road towards the site.
*** Or they wouldn't be riding a scooter-chair.

Bangity- Snap Caps

I need to order some snap caps for revolver dry-firing and reloading drills.*

The choices seem to be A-zoom or Pachmayr.

I'm not too crazy about the Pachmayr ones. They have brass bases, which means that there is a non-zero chance that an episode of "damn, I thought that was a snap cap" could happen.

Yeah, I know. I'd have to be brain-dead to do something like that. But why add a window for sheer stupidity to rear its ugly head?

Thoughts?
____________________________
* I did first check with the local gun shops.

Then and Now; Two Decades Edition

In the campaign for the presidency in 1992, there was no shortage of Republicans bleating that the Democratic candidate, Bill Clinton, was an immoral draft-dodger.

The GOP candidate in 2012, Willard Romney, used several deferments to avoid having to serve in the Vietnam War.

The very same war that the GOP was sooo upset that Clinton didn't serve in.

Worse, Romney was such chicken that he ducked out of an appearance on "The View", fearing his reception by women who are not GOP drones. So he sent Wife Of, also known as Queen Ann, who stated that to Mormons, serving as Mormon missionaries is the equivalent of serving in the armed forces.

[W]e find different ways of serving, and my five boys and my husband did serve missions, and did not serve in the military.

That's good to know that according to the Romney World View, door-to-door proselytizing in France was the same as spending a year humping a rucksack and carrying a M-16 in the Mekong Delta.*
__________________________________________________
* Not that the son of a powerful politician would have done anything like that in the first place.

Shorter Issa: "Nobody Told Me That Releasing the Names of Assets Working for the CIA Could Endanger Their Lives"

For that is precisely what Congressman Issa did when he released over a hundred pages of State Department cables pertaining to Libya.

I'll bet heavily that Issa will now whine that "nobody told me that it would be a bad idea to release the names of intelligence assets". Here is the thing: You would have be brain-dead* to not realize that making public the names of foreigners who are intelligence assets for the US would put them at risk. If, for example, a Russian politician made public the names of American citizens who provided information to the Russian government, all of those people would be nearly instantaneously scooped up by the FBI.

In other countries, like Libya, the local reaction may be more along the lines of: "A pistol bullet to the back of the head."

This sad affair is yet another example of a point that I have been making for years: Republicans like Issa are more loyal to their party than to their nation. And if a few American intelligence assets in another country are imprisoned or killed so that the GOP can score a couple of points in any given news cycle, that's fine with the GOP.
__________________________
*Or a former car thief who has no respect for the law.

Caturday

Jake lies on the couch for some attention. I was sitting next to him when I got up to get the camera.

Now that I've been processing the shot and typing up this post, he's been giving me the Paw of Demand to get me to pet him.

I need to get moving if I'm going to shoot in the Pin Match.

Speedloading

I bought a el-cheapo speedloader pouch at the LGS on my lunch break.  In thinking through how this would work, it seems to me that the pouch will need to be on the same side of my body as the revolver holster.  The guys at  the PPC match who had revolvers seemed to wear them on the opposite side.  That seems inefficient, for it kind of requires using the weak hand to retrieve it, which then implies that one is transferring the revolver from the strong hand to the weak hand for loading and, at the same time, transferring the speedloader the other way.

Meh.  I don't think so.  Wearing the reloads on the weak side works for automatics, for I'd be grasping the new magazine with my left hand and holding the pistol in my right throughout the loading process.

Which reminds me:  Just about everyone I saw there was releasing the slide of their pistols by grasping the slide and pulling it back.  I don't understand that.  There is a handy little gizmo on those guns called a "slide stop/release".  Why not just press that down and let the slide go forward, rather than take the split second to grab the slide and pull it back?  After all, if pushing down on the slide release wasn't a good idea, John Moses Browning (may peace be upon him) would not have designed it to work the way that it does.

But I digress.

The sequence of events for reloading a revolver would seem to be this from a two-handed hold:

1.  Bang x6.
2.  Activate cylinder release with right thumb, right index finger presses cylinder to the left.
3.  Transfer revolver to left hand, trigger guard rests on palm, hold frame with middle two fingers.
4.  Left hand holds revolver barrel-up, left thumb smartly presses cylinder rod to eject empty cartridges.
5.  At same time as #4, right hand goes to speedloader pouch and retrieves speedloader.
6.  Left hand holds revolver barrel-low (45deg or so), middle two fingers ensuring that the cylinder stays open.  Right hand brings up speedloader, aligns cartridges with cylinder, inserts them and releases the cartridges from speedloader.
7.  Left thumb closes cylinder, right hand discards speedloader.
8.  Right had grips revolver, left hand in support.
9.  Resume firing.

What I now need to do is get a couple of sets of snap-caps and practice this.

I know that there is a method to machine the cylinders of revolvers to use full-moon clips that hold the cartridges as a unit, like the half-moon clips that were developed to permit the use of .45 ACP ammunition in revolvers during the World Wars. But I'm not building a racing gun, so that would seem to be a needless expense.

UPDATE: After I linked to a video in a comment, it occurred to me that it would be better to add it here. And so..

The Diagnosis of Mittens's Mental Condition

Romnesia:  The inability to remember, from day to day, what one stands for.



(Yeah, that's going to leave a mark.)

The Snark is Strong; "Binders Full of Women" Dept.

Mitten's comments that he had "binders full of women" has been generating a crap-ton of snarky comments in the products reviews for binders on Amazon.

(From here)

Or, for something different, you can check out the specifics of Romney's tax plan.

Shit Got Real

It's been a busy week and, when I've gotten hope ((PM last night), the last thing I felt like doing was blogging.

If you want to people-watch, ditch the airports. Go to a courthouse, especially one in a county where they don't have dedicated elevators for judges and criminals. In a few hours, you can see the widest spectrum of humanity outside of Greenwich Village back in the old days.

And with that, I'm going to have a glass of wine, a nice shower, watch some of the stuff stacked up on the DVR and then get some sleep.

Bangity; PPC Edition

The weather today isn't exactly conducive for flying. It started out really foggy and then, once it burned off, the wind kicked up.

The local paper had a story about a fund-raiser at the local gun club for some charity. The fund-raiser was a PPC* match. The article said that you needed a handgun, a strong-side holster (no crossdraw or shoulder holsters), three magazines for an autoloader or two speedloaders for a revolver and 150 rounds of ammo.

I had that, so I loaded up the ammo along with two S&W revolvers (a M-10 and a M-19) and I went out to look. It looked like fun. The match director asked me if I was going to shoot. I said I had come out to watch and I had never even seen a PPC match before. Hell, I'd never fired a handgun from a draw before. He pointed out that I had never shot bowling pins until last month and I did all right.

So I signed up to shoot with my 4" Model 10.**

The first stage was at three yards: Three rounds from a draw, strong hand only, in five seconds. Then a reload of three rounds and three shots, weak hand only, from a ready-low position (the only time that we didn't shoot from a draw). That wasn't too difficult for me. In three relays, I kept all but two shots in the X-ring and those two went into the ten ring.

Second stage was at seven yards: Six rounds, strong hand only, ten second time limit. Then there is a reload and another six-round string. This wasn't too bad.

The third stage was at fifteen yards: Both hands, six rounds, reload, six more rounds and do that in twenty seconds. Piece of cake with an autoloader. It's a lot harder with a revolver. The first time I had the speedloader in a pocket and I fumbled it, leaving four shots unfired when time ran out. The second time through, I hung the speedloader on my belt and I didn't fumble it. I got the last shot off with about a half-second to spare. Third time around, I had maybe a second to spare.

If I do this regularly, I'll have to get a belt pouch for the speedloaders and try to fire the first six rounds faster. This is the only stage that come closest to "spray and pray", as it's better to hit the seven ring than to have rounds left over. The other thing I'll have to do is for every stage, even when it's the first six rounds, to load them from the speedloader so that I get used to doing that.

Fourth stage was at 25 yards: 18 rounds- From a standing position, two hand hold, fire six, reload, fire six more, reload, drop to a kneeling position and fire the last six, all in 90 seconds. If you're smooth about it, that's bags of time to carefully aim and fire and the last six are like shooting from a rest (and I shot the last six single-action). One of the guys gave me a tip and told me that this stage was the one to aim carefully and make hay in the scoring.

I don't know what my overall score was. But it was fun. As I said, I had never before fired from a draw, it was the first time I'd had to use a speedloader under time pressure, and I don't believe I had ever shot that much at one time.

It was a gas.

Most definitely, I'll do that again.
____________________________________
* "Practical Pistol Competition" or "Police Pistol Competition".
** Whether it was a good idea or not to enter a match with a handgun that I had only shot twice before is a topic for another time. Or not.

Caturday

Bella:

A Better Debate

More fun than this:

 From here.

Mongo Goes West

Alex Karras has died. He was 77.

Of Course They're Lying

A dissection of Romney's budget promises in three parts. The shorter version: Romeny is promising to not cut Social Security, Medicare, increase defense spending, keep some aspects of Obamacare, slash capital gains taxes, cut income taxes, preserve deductions for most people and all of that will reduce the deficit.

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Democalypse 2012 - Vague Against the Machine - Romney's Wizardry
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You Are Welcome to Kiss Mittens's Ass!

Either that, or he was showing those kids his "Etch-a-Sketch Reboot Switch".

That has to be the most unfortunate photo of ol' Willard since this one:

Spare the Lethal Injection, Spoil the Child

Former Arkansas legislator Charlie Fuqua, a Republican, who is running again with support from the GOP, believes that it should be legal for parents to bring their kids to court and then try to persuade the judge that their kids should be executed for being disobedient.

I find it very odd that all of these clowns get so worked up about abortion, but then after the child is born, they spend their days dreaming up more reasons to expand the death penalty.

Beyond that, if the child is born into poverty, not their problem. If the child lives in a town where the school system is nothing more than a holding pen for the local juvenile detention center, not their problem.* If the air is fouled and the water is poisoned, not their problem.

They are "pro-life", but only so long as that life is in the womb.

UPDATE: Apparently Fuqua was pretty specific that the biblically-mandated method of executing the rebellious kids would be death by stoning. Which doesn't distinguish him from the Taliban, who also seem to favor that method.
____________________________________________
* Hell, a lot of those asshats would repeal mandatory school attendance and child labor laws, if they had their way.

Mitt Romney Agrees With You

No matter what your position, rest assured that Mitt agrees with you. Or at least that, at some time, he has said that he does.

See for yourself.

Rick Perry and Frothy might have been truly batshit-grade insane, but at least they probably believed what they were mouthing.

Not so much with Mittens.

(H/T)

Security Theater; TSA Edition

The Blue-Gloved Goons were getting set for some extra screening:

There were five of them, including one of them who was standing next to the door to the aircraft, just looking at people. When I saw them assembling, I meandered over to the check-in desk and asked if there was a problem. One of the gate agents opined that it was only the TSA justifying their manning levels.

Seriously. At that airport, they run everyone through the Rapie-scanner. All of the carry-on bags are X-rayed. For the extra bag check, the blue-gloved goons looked in the bags and kind of poked around. Unless someone had a gun lying right at the top or a big wad of C-4 all wired up, they weren't going to find anything.

It was nothing more than an act and everyone knew it. The body language of the TSA goons broadcasted that they knew that what they were doing was just for show.

The American Taliban Party

When I first read about these remarks by Congressman Paul Broun (R-GA)

All that stuff I was taught about evolution, embryology, Big Bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell. It’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who are taught that from understanding that they need a savior. There’s a lot of scientific data that I found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I believe that the Earth is about 9,000 years old. I believe that it was created in six days as we know them.

I just sort of dismissed them as the rantings of an ignorant ideologue.

But this clown is a licensed physician. Frankly, if he comes near anyone with a syringe or anything sharper than a tongue depressor, that unfortunate patient would probably be justified in whacking him.

If you want to know one of the reasons why this nation faces a decline in science, technology and engineering, consider this: This asshat, along with Todd "Legitimate Rape" Akin and several other anti-knowledge whackaloons, comprise the GOP side of the House Science and Technology Committee. They are of the opinion that if the science f any particular field doesn't fall neatly into line with their religious beliefs, then that science has to be wrong. "Scientific truthiness", if you will. Never mind the data, what matters is what feels right.

It would appear that, 412 years ago, these clowns would have cheered the immolation of Friar Bruno. I have no doubt that, if they had the power to force adherence to their beliefs, that they would not hesitate to do so.

This Is Not Good.

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Turkey fired artillery into Syria for a fourth consecutive day on Saturday after another Syrian mortar shell landed on the Turkish side of the increasingly tense border.

The exchanges -- and Turkey's recent warnings to Syria that it would defend itself -- have raised fears of regional conflict. While stray shells and bullets from the Syrian conflict have often landed in Lebanon and Turkey, for the first time a Syrian mortar shell killed five Turkish civilians on Wednesday, prompting Turkey's response.

More worrisome than that is that Turkey is a member of NATO. Which means that if the Syrians continue to fuck with the Turks, then the Syrians will be, in effect, fucking with NATO.

Which means that Americans may be fighting there whether we like it or not.

I'll Have the "General Tsao's Deer", Extra Spicy, Please

Yum, yum!

WILLIAMSBURG, Ky. (WKYT) - A Chinese restaurant forced to shut its doors after getting caught with a dead deer in the kitchen. ... The restaurant owner tells the health department that he wasn't going to serve the road kill to customers, but instead to his family.

Ayup, I'll believe that, you betcha.

In New England, really frugal people will pick up fresh roadkill and butcher it.* If I remember correctly, Caspar Weinburger's wife was known for picking up fresh roadkill. But she wasn't running a restaurant.
________________________________________
* In New York State, if you hit a deer and if there is any damage to your car, the deer is yours.

Bird Hunting

Because educating kids without a boat-load of commercials is somehow bad.

By the way, what genius came up with the Romney logo? It looks like it was squirted out of a toothpaste tube.

UPDATE:

Travel

This salvaged SBD is hanging over the entrance to Concourse A at Midway Airport.

On this trip, I had a choice. I could fly on two airlines that use contract feeders flying Embraer RJs or I could fly Southwest in their 737s. The 737s are far more comfortable for passengers and, if you want to carry on a bag, you can. The RJs have about as much room to store a bag as a Cessna 120. Maybe less.

But there is always a tradeoff, and that is is that SWA uses Midway as a hub, or, as I like to refer to it, USS Midway (CV-MDW). MDW has short runways for a jet airport, as in "really effing short". If you want to ride through a max-performance takeoff and landing in a 737, fly into MDW. When Northwest Airlines first flew jets out of MDW back in the `60s, they were so worried about the ability to stop them that they outfitted their airplanes with nosewheel brakes.

MDW is short enough that the pilots try to get as close to the end of the runway for takeoff without running off the end of the runway. I suspect that the "accelerate-stop" distances at MDW for shelling an engine on takeoff are kind of fictional. It is not unknown for westbound flights to have to depart with a planned fuel stop in some place like Omaha, because there is not enough runway for them to depart with a full load of passengers, bags and enough gas to get to their destination.

On landing, it's a max braking, max thrust-reversing and they turn off at either a thousand feet before the end or at the end.

I'm going to have limited online access for the next several days, so keep yourselves amused. Try not to break all of the furniture in the joint and please don't drink up all of my booze.

Some Days You Eat the Bacon Some Days the Bacon Eats You

Authorities are investigating how a farmer in the US state of Oregon was devoured by his pigs.

In the long-canceled HBO series "Deadwood", Al Swearengen's favorite method of disposing of his victims was to feed them to the pigs.

Turkey bacon or macon may not be as tasty, but at least those critters won't eat you if they get the chance.

The Neighbors Probably Hate This Guy

For he has a jet engine from a L-1011 in his backyard and he occaisionally fires it up.



Makes this guy look kind of tame.

American Slave Labor

I wish this was a joke, but it is not. Unicor, the Federal company that manufactures shit with prison labor and which used to be limited to making shit for other Federal agencies, is now starting to compete with American businesses.

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So it's not just Chinese companies that use prison labor. Now, American companies can and without having to get on a fourteen-hour flight to Shanghai.

Bangity

A couple of weeks ago, I picked up a used Smith & Wesson Model 10. So did a friend. On Sunday, we took them to the range.

Really, we didn't expect much for sub-$300 revolvers that were probably carried by cops who may not have ever bothered to clean them.

But did they shoot! Off a rest, both guns fired groups, at 25', that would have been covered by a coffee mug. And this wasn't primo match ammo; I was shooting Winchester White Box stuff from Wal*Mart and he was shooting bulk reloads. We eventually moved to shooting at 25 yard targets, sometimes offhand, sometimes two-handed and, if we did our parts, those guns hit where we wanted them to.

We were both impressed. I might think of getting it tuned up a little to improve the double-action trigger pull.