First the sports team names

Then the Confederates

Now they want to rewrite history to get rid of Columbus day. 

When will they sanitize history enough to make everyone happy?

I like the fact that the Italian American's are upset....."It's a slap in the face"...

How much more rewriting of and outright erasures of history will we allow?

Underfunded

So Nancy Pelosi claims that Donald's response to the Coronavirus effort is "Underfunded".

I agree.
We need to close the border and quarantine people entering this country from anywhere for a period of....say 25 days (at a minimum).

We need more money for border security.
We need some folks in the CDC who have a clue, who realize that simply scanning the foreheads of people getting of a plane with an infrared thermometer is not a preventative response.

And I would ask this of Ms Pelosi:
Which social programs are you gonna cut to get the funding for these programs?
Welfare? SNAP? What?

I'm open to funding the response better if she will figure out who pays for it. She and her ilk spend every dine we give as taxes, and then some.
So what is she gonna cut??

Not approved by the FDA:

There is a persistent rumor that 2 ounces of Ethyl Alcohol  (C2H5OH) applied every 4 hours internally will prevent the Coronavirus from infecting a human body (with 89% effectiveness).

While this has not (yet) been proved, I, so far, have not gotten the Coronavirus.

Further experimentation will continue, of course.

The FDA could not be reached for comment. 

Preps? Got 'em?

I bet that the folks in Northern Italy wish they did have them.

Store shelves are reported as empty in northern Italy as entire towns are blockaded in response to a sudden spike in Coronavirus cases. 

While most people diagnosed with the virus experience mild symptoms (apparently, if you are white european, it doesn't affect you as readily) the quarantines of entire towns has led to store shelves being emptied as people panic buy stock up for the long haul. 

Lots of people in Italy don't have large refrigerators (or =, apparently, any at all) and don't stock much food in their small apartments/homes. (most americans have no idea how small they are)

Can you handle a two or three week quarantine? How about masks if you family is quarantined with a bunch of potential sick people?

I think, conservatively, that I can feed, clothe and support 8 people in my home for about 2 1/2 weeks without having to break into my emergency supplies....even if I should lose electrical power.  If I have electricity to keep the fridge and freezer going, then that becomes closer to 25 weeks (we are gonna get tired of beef though), or a shorter time for more people. If I go to the emergency supplies, that becomes 6 months for 10 people, but the diet gets really boring (beans and rice)

How about medicines? Can you deal with a forced quarantine?

How about you? might could happen here after all.
Think it couldn't? Who in Northern Italy thought that they would have a corona virus outbreak there?

I can't find it online, but there was an interview on ABC where some woman was most worried about her dogs needing specialized food to survive and she only had a weeks worth.

While I don't (yet) believe that things will get to the Pandemic stage, if you don't have 2 or three weeks of supplies for the people you need to take care of, then you might start "panic buying" early...beat the rush.

Ever since....

So I am in line at the local Home Depot..

I hate the store, only because upper management has decided to save money by installing a bunch of Self Checkout kiosks and not staffing the manned checkout registers....

If I could have found the fastener that I needed elsewhere, I would have gone there. But I couldn't, so there I was at Home Depot, in line with like 8 other folks in front of me, waiting for the lone girl at the only staffed checkout line (out of 8)....

And I sneezed.  Folks looked at me but then ignored me.
So I said to the guy behind me (who was standing closer than I like anyway) "Ever since I got back from China I've been sneezing like a bitch".

And just like that!, there was no one in front of me at the checkout line. I was, actually, alone for a space of at least 25 feet.

Odd. 

Coronavirus

If anything good can come out of this disease, there is this:

Folks are realizing that so many of their products that they use daily are produced in China, or made FROM or WITH products produced in China.

And may manufacturers are realizing that without China, they have nothing to produce....and they are realizing that their business depends of China to remain open and viable as a manufacturer.

I thing that this, along with Trumps push to "Make America Great" and return business and manufacturing to the US, will do a lot to bring manufacturing back the the US...*and other countries will move to bring their supply chains back home, or at least diversify them)*

An Observation:

"Paddle Shifters" (those little levers behind th steering wheel that will allow you to shift your automatic transmission on your street car like they do in race cars) are a somewhat useless addition on street cars when the steering ratio such that it is greater than 3/4 of a turn lock to lock.

If your steering ratio is such that you have to move your hands on the wheel, then the "Paddle Shifters" are a joke and are simply added so Millenials can feel like they are bad-assed drivers, much like the steering wheel your parents put on the front of your car seat when you were 3 years old. 

Top. Men.

So it seems that what they thought was a painting by a Rembrandt protege is actually likely an actual painting by Rembrandt himself. 

Of course this painting has been examined by "Experts" many times.  No doubt the "experts" were sure and had reached a "Consensus" on the "fact" that it was not a Rembrandt.

Top Men there in the art world. I wonder if the decision was "peer reviewed"?

Well, shit

"Cocaine does Not kill the Coronavirus"

Who knew?

There goes my excuse....


Do people really believe this sort of shit?

Or leave 'em on an ice floe

As it is rumored some "eskimos" did with their elderly...

“If You Show Up with Cancer and You’re 95 – We Should Say We Can’t Do Anything” – Bloomberg Explains How Healthcare will Bankrupt Us Unless We Deny Care to Elderly

And, on a purely economic level, he is right. I mean, after all, after 70, most people begin to use the healthcare system at an ever more costly rate per year. (Forget that they likely paid a LOT into the health insurance system for years and years, the "New" Obamacare Socialized Medicine system needs the money because it has to cover everyone, no matter how little they contribute

(Which is how the NHS in Britain is starting to act, BTW)

But that is the real issue with Socialism, innit? Socialist Medicine is, after all, Socialism. And Socialism doesn't really care about the individual, except for their usefulness to the State. Once that usefulness is gone, their value is zero....and they should be discarded.

It is even worse when your socialist leader is a short, mean, angry man with zero compassion who thinks he is better than the folks he wishes to lead. 

That fuckin' easy

Mike Bloomberg thinks that farming is easy:

He thinks that machining is pretty simple:

He believes that all those farmers and all those machinists are too stupid to learn something he considers difficult.

Seriously, he thinks y'all are stupid and simple, and that your jobs don't require much in the way of brains or intellect.

Look:



"Information Technology", now that is hard work, requiring both brains and intellect, something which farmers and machinists just don't have...If they can read and use a computer at all.

Probably better if you don't tax yourself and think on it too hard.

Leave that to smarter folks like him and his chosen.

Pass this on to everyone you know.  Make sure that people know what elitist Mikey thinks about us plain people.

HT: Feral Irishman

Biowarfare

MC brought this to my attention last week, and it seems that the story keeps going and has some legs:

Scientists believe killer disease may have begun in research facility 300 yards from Wuhan wet fish market

I dunno, but it does seem as if the Chinese reacted very quickly and massively, at that. Almost as if they know that it was terribly virulent and easily transmitted.

Shades of The Stand there.....

Rumors of an unholy union:

Since Mike Bloomberg appears to have bought off convinced the DNC folks to allow him to run as a Democratic Presidential candidate (despite missing several primaries and therefore those delegate votes)....

and since rumors are strong that he will ask Hillary VonPansuit the loser Clinton to be his Vice President....

I cannot help but think that this has some merit:

If it should come about, does anyone know where I can buy some Life Insurance on Mikey? Or a bookie who will give me some odds for him to survive his first 365 days in office? I'm thinking 8:3 against is where I'd go. Maybe even 7:10 against. 

Just sayin'

You right rotten rat bastard:

So here I am, selling raffle tickets for my Gun Club in order that we can keep the cost of our Gun Safety and Hunter Safety classes artificially low in order that we can provide them to more people.

And some dude walks up with a 6 week old golden retriever puppy in his hands. He listens to my spiel about the tickets, the odds, etc and says, "yes, I'll take one, hold this".

He then hands a very sleepy female puppy to me, who immediately tries to snuggle to be warm and safe.

Bastard.

"She's for sale, you know" as he filled out his contact info on the raffle ticket.
Fuck.
I was tempted. Very tempted. Greatly so. I haven't had a dog since August 13 2012. Haven't wanted one, really.
But Puppy.  pretty little girl labrador puppy.   Damn.

I took his money, gave him his ticket and handed her back, not without reservations.

I'm not strong enough for that yet. I couldn't yet face this or this.....at least not now. Maybe never.

Why are they exempt?

Seems that the City of Chicago is under fire for billing a CHURCH for water used by the church.

Why?

Why are church's Churches exempt from water bills? Why should they be exempt and other organizations (and individuals) are not?

I fail to see why they should get a break for services or water or other consumables they use that are provided by the City...They don't get free electricity, not gas....why is water free?
Water costs money to source, transport, and purify. The pipelines and pumping equipment needs maintenance and upgrades.

What makes the church special? They are, after all, simply an organization. Other Non-profits get the same treatment, but they use water, just as any business or organization with a building uses water and other services provided by the city.

The issue is not this particular church, but all churches in general.

I was unaware of this until the news team from CBS2Chicago chose to bring it to our attention.

++ Thanks to  SmileyFtW  for being a grammar/spelling nazi. 

Good Gun Show

The Dunes Rifle and Pistol club will be having their twice yearly gun show this Saturday and Sunday at the Porter County Expo center.

(Not my club, but a good gunshow).

I'll be there Saturday selling raffle tickets for my club.

Stop in and say hi if you are there.

I predict a run on large diameter PVC and assorted end caps

(Of course, "if it is time to bury 'em it is usually time to use 'em" is another thought for this time as well).

I really wonder if the new government is trying to make things get "sporty" really fast or something.

RICHMOND, Va. — A highly-contested bill that would make it a crime to own an assault weapon in Virginia passed the House of Delegates on Tuesday by a slim margin.

I wonder what the compliance rate will be, if this bill passes

Urban misconceptions:

So CBS is "Interviewing" some folks about the New Hampsire Primary.....

2 dudes who are ice fishing.

They are sitting in lawn chairs. on the ice. Just a bag of fishing tackle.

No ice fishing shelter, just 2 dudes on a lake around a hole in the ice. Not wearing much in the way of protection besides brand new Columbia lightweight jackets and gimme hats or sweaters.... No stocking caps. No gloves. Not even heavy socks and warm boots.
Lawn chairs...out in the open. Drinking fresh coffee and talking about the primary.

Not that this is staged, or anything....

I've ice fished. It was NEVER out in the open. never with just coffee. Never without a shelter of some kind to block the wind.

Maybe they do it differently in NH.

But if you never go off the sidewalk, I guess you might buy it. If you think Central Park is wilderness.....

I don't. 

Arm tired

Flew for 4 hours on Saturday....2.6, then 1.4. Windy, bumpy (not too bad), and lots of wind changes at different levels.

Holds, approaches, holds and more approaches.

No autopilot, all hand flying.

My arms are tired.

I am, however getting less bad at this.

Another couple of hundred hours and I will be ready for my checkride. 

James West has taken his railcar off into the sunset

Robert Conrad has passed .

I remember him first as James West, that 'Special Agent" with all the cool gadgets, who always got the job done...

And later, as "Pappy" Boyington, that guy who took a bunch of Ner-Do Well pilots and forged them into a fighting force that, again, always got the job done. A Patriot who knew he (and his men) was expendable if it drove the Japs back and saved the lives of American Servicemen.

His legacy will live on in my memory.

Not just a fashion accessory, dude.

So. Friday, we got a bit of snow....not normally a big deal, but this was snow that fell on surfaces that were like 44 degrees at the start of the snow, and the snow was "Lake Effect"...which means that it is feathery and becomes REALLY slippery.  Like snot on glass slippery.

Dude at the airport had found out the hard way that his Jeep's four wheel drive only helps so much, and 4wd doesn't help your braking or turning when the coefficient of friction is approaching zero. He slid off the road on a corner...

Not a big deal, he should have been able to back up, except that the ground was a bit soft and he got one wheel stuck in the mud and what with only two wheels on solid ground (the other one was in the air) and they being on different axles, he couldn't put enough torque to the ground to back the vehicle out of the predicament he was in. (yeah, I know, proper application of brake would likely have solved that problem...I tried to explain but gave up.....)

I stopped (I really had to unless I wanted to go four wheeling) and asked if he had a tow strap. Which he did. Still in the shrink wrap from the factory. He wanted me to just stand on the bumper to tip the jeep instead of using the brand new tow strap for me to pull him out. (It was a high dollar bright green thing that he didn't want to get dirty....Dude, it's a TOW STRAP, fer chrissake)....and since he wasn't willing to get his tow strap dirty I wasn't gonna offer mine either.

Anyway, not knowing this dude, I didn't trust him enough to stand on his bumper while he tried to drive out of a bit of mud (He might josle me off and run me over), so I suggested he might use the Hi-Lift jack he had mounted across the hood in some really nice custom looking mounts...That should tip the jeep up and he could simply back away from the jack which would fall away.
His reply? "I don't know how to use it, it's just something "Jeep People" have"....He had no idea how useful a Hi-Lift Jack can be. To him, it was  a fashion accessory, not a tool. I suggested he learn WHY "Jeep People" have them.....

Sad.

I then suggested that if he wanted me to pull him out he's better get that high dollar tow strap dirty or else call a tow truck.

He got it unwrapped and 2 minutes later it was dirty... and I had hooked it to my front bumper with a clevis and 30 seconds later he was free of the slippery mud. I unhooked his strap and went on my way....

I just find it hard to believe that someone would have a $130 dollar jack with another $100 accessory kit with a couple of hundred dollars worth of mounts and have NO IDEA how to use it. Or, really, even what it was for....

Some people have more money than sense, I guess. I really think that his excursion today was the farthest off road his Jeep had been....

And that is why I drink wine

HERE

I mean...wine IS grape juice, right????

Strange:

So I don't hear any crying over the quarantine of travelers in general from China, and especially Chinese people coming from China....areas where the Coronavirus is prevalent....until they are proven to be virus free.....Keeping potentially dangerous individuals from entering this country and endangering the citizens of the US....even though there was no proof that they were a danger.....

Yet we heard a terrible shrieking outcry when Donald J Trump wanted essentially the same thing, only when it was Muslims from certain countries, wanted TIME to have them vetted to be sure we weren't allowing dangerous ideologies and potential terrorists into the country , potentially endangering the citizens of the US.

I guess they simply didn't think that they could use this current (and equally valid) precaution for the safety of the citizens of the US as a stick to beat the President with....

Impeachment is over

No surprise as to the outcome. Rational, reasonable human thinkers knew what the outcome would be before the show started.

But what will the Dems whine about now??

What will the press talk about endlessly now that the charge has finally wound down to a full stop? 

Class act there, Nancy

Nice, but futile, protest, tearing that speech up.

But hey, class is something you reach for, but never quite grasp, innit? 

Now woudn't ya know....

So yesterday was the first clear day in 12 days.
The first day without cloud cover below 2000 feet.

I hadn't flown an Instrument lesson for all that time.

Today was clear below 12,000. Perfect flying weather.
Except.

The winds were at 21 gusting 34 from 270.
58 at 300 feet.
I was scheduled to fly at 11 AM with one instructor. Cancelled that one. Not a chance that I would learn anything trying to hold in those winds.

And another lesson scheduled at 2 PM with another instructor.
We cancelled that one as well. Other flight schools were cutting their flight lessons short due to turbulence.

Maybe today.

This has been an odd winter, weather wise.

Instead, I practiced my draws and pint shooting indoors with my favorite 1911 and the Coolfire trainer.

I should have been studying for my Written test, but my brain is full right now. 

Kinda irritated

by the whole Spanish-Speaking  latin-centric half time show.
and the preeminence of the Puerto Rican flag.

I understand who the performers were, but still. This is, after all, the USA.
Pepsi is getting less and less American. 

Probably not the largest part of their customer demographic....

But damn, that Pop-Tart commercial put me off from trying their new product.

I'd be that this is a major marketing fail, really.

Even most gay people I am acquainted with dislike androgynous flamers.

Whatever "woke" ad agency chose this as a marketing theme should return their fees. 

But it is YOU that Are the problem...

Or at least your culture.

Even those of you that leave the states that are causing the issues in the rest of the country are destroying the culture of all that is good in the places you move to.

You want our (unspecified) help....But we aren't the ones damaging things. You and your fellow state citizens are. We haven't voted *yet) for socialists who want to give everyone everything....who are connected and simply seek additional opportunities for graft....who overregulate things and are soft on crime (with historically predictable results.

Screw you.  You and your ilk are the problem. We aren't the solution to the problems you have created. You still help "Feed the Beast" by living there and paying taxes. And when you move elesewhere, you really want "California Lite" not real freedom.
Coastal States Are in the Fight of Their Lives…Is the Rest of America Listening?
It's your state. We can't fix it.
And as it is, you and your state are a cancer in this country. Fix you own problems. We can't do it for you.

I think

The next time I have a few hours to kill,

I will go to a busy, crowded parking lot, park, leave the car running, in reverse with the brakes on, and see how many people I can piss off as they wait for me to back up.....And how long they will wait until they give up. I may take a Kindle and read for an hour or two....

I mean, folks do it to me all the time....

An interesting point

From an internet meme via Kenny, a good Question:

What about the kids at the border that the press was so concerned about? I mean, they were all "Put in cages".....Remember? (And yes, it was done by Barry as well, but they forgot to mention that.....)

I man, "Impeachment!!" is the current meme....I get that.
But what about the kids? Suddenly they aren't important anymore. Almost as if those Brown Kids were just a tool to beat the Orange Man or something...no real value otherwise.

Strange