Trust me, I was never really gone.

Okay, aside from some stray thoughts I haven't posted here in a long time.

Trust me, I was never really gone.  Life just got really really busy for a while.  But that's soon to change, it should get even more so now.

Anyway, back in May, having had enough of Columbus and Ohio. I sought out a job in more polite climes.  I found one in Dallas fairly quickly and that's the short answer.

I'm a captain on a Falcon now.

The last month(s) I've been in indoc. training and then Flight Safety at DFW getting the type rating and then, finally, yesterday was the line check/299 checkride.  Sounds pretty simple, huh.

Not really.

The Falcon type I got is on a design that predates pretty much all of modern aviation's innovations, dark cockpit concept, ergonomics, standardization of instrumentation, etc. etc.  It was pretty much the first corporate jet on the market and as the saying goes, if you've seen one Falcon jet, you've seen one Falcon jet.

That being said, it's a very tough bird that'll take lots of abuse and aside from being underpowered (for a jet) it's really easy to fly.

Other than that, the 2 week initial type rating course that we were supposed to take at FS, turned into a 5 week exercise in hurry up and wait.  About the 3rd day of classroom of the 7 "book larnin'" days we were informed that the sim's visuals had broken and they were trying to fix it.  They'd know more soon and they would keep us updated as they learned it.  Apparently what happened was the Mylar screen that the visuals are projected onto had torn.  Well, the screen is vacuum formed to a curved frame and is kept that way by a constant vacuum action.  Then we find out that only Rockwell Collins, the original manufacturer of this screen system, had the ability to fix it, and they'd be a week getting a team together and getting down to Dallas to fix it.  So, we do our first two days of sim sitting in front of a poster on a wall pretending to flip switches and punch buttons.  Fun.

When that was finished they told us that there was a vibration that was causing the tears in the first place and they needed FAA approval to change the software to remove the vibration and fix the problem.  At this point we were going day by day as to when the sim would be back up.  The FAA being, well the FAA, it took them a week to shuffle the paperwork.

BUT....

By that time, they'd found "structural faults" in the hydraulic legs the sim rode on.  These legs move the entire sim around to simulate aircraft motion.  Now, FS was telling us we'd be week by week instead of day by day.  Hey, paid time off!  Except, part of my paycheck was on hold till I'd finished my line checks.  So, basically, FS cut my pay by 1/3 for a month.

Finally, replacement parts were in, paperwork was shuffled, stamped, folded, spindled and mutilated by as many levels of bureaucracy as possible and 21 days after the last time I showed my face at the DFW training center, I was back for 7 straight days of sim sessions and my type checkride.  Which was 28 days after the training started and 14 days after it was supposed to have finished.  So, 7 days of motion sickness, H'Ray!  You see, even though the sim gets close to what you'd feel flying the actual airplane, it's still not reality and the balance portion of your ears are still telling you one thing while what's actually happening is another.

Anyway, yesterday we finished up with the checkride and I now have 3 full fledged type ratings on my pilots license. Learjet, which allows me to fly the Lear 20 series, the Lear 30 series and the Lear 55. Lr-40/45 which covers two more Lear airframes and basically means the only Lear I can't fly right now is the 60.  And the Falcon.  But I know guys who have half a dozen or more type on their licenses so 3 isn't such a big thing.

Oh, as an aside, under my license's limitations section, it now says English Proficiency.  I would never have known that being proficient in the English language would be a limitation.  I guess if you would ask the French, they'd say it was.

Of course, right after the checkride, we sped over to the airport to get our line checks and what we refer to as our 299 ride done.  Basically it was all the portions of the checkride that FS couldn't do, because they were either company specific or required to be performed in an actual airplane, not a sim.

That was fun, motion sick and all.  It basically turned yesterday into a 16 hour marathon.

On the bright side, my pay jumped by a 1/3 yesterday, so H'Ray for disposable income!

Oh! The move. That was... fun.

My friend Phlegm Fatale coordinates and schedules moves for a national freight company.  I'd used her before to move from Tulsa to Columbus and she/They were both cheap and very good at doing it.  So I contacted them for the move to Texas.  The same relocube cost me 3 times the Tulsa to Columbus price! OUCH! So, I went to UHaul to try to save some money.  The price they quoted me for buying and installing a hitch and electric connector on my Jeep, the trailer and packing boxes and materials was going to keep the move under a grand even including gas, hotels and food on the move.  Except they wont rent trailers to soft top Jeeps.  Which, if you ask me, is Jeepist on their part and we should picket them for being all jeepaphobes and jeepist.  Anyway, they would have ended up costing me half again as much as said national freight company quote for a truck, car trailer, etc. etc. so I went back to national freight company and had them do it.

You know, pretty much every line item that I budgeted for the move ended up costing about a grand more than I planned.

Part of the reason it was so much more expensive to move to Texas than to Ohio is all the jobs are down here and everyone is moving here.  So all the equipment ends up in the south.  The moving companies practically have to pay people to get their equipment up to the north.

While I'm at it, I really need to send out huge thanks to my friends in Texas for letting me couch surf while trying to find an apartment that I could afford and was within my insanely short response time of the airport. Lawdog, Phlegmmy, daniels, Desi, Thank You all so very much.

And that's pretty much what I've been up to in a nutshell for the last several weeks.  And aside from some minor stuff like internet for my apartment and buying new furniture, things are starting to settle down.  Although I still don't know if they'll give me time off for blogorado this year.

What I've been up to.

So, the reason behind the whole contract trip from hell and missing all my friends in St. Louis is this.  I'm finally putting my money where my mouth is and getting my rotory pilots license.  My planning guess-timated that I'd need about $10,000 for my private, another 15k for my commercial and after that, basically chump change to add it to my ATP.

Why, no. It ain't cheap.

So, this week I started.  I'm driving about 90 miles one way to the flight school everyday and back.  Which is a royal pain in the ass, but I've driven longer for flight training before.  It works out to an extra 45 dollars a day in gas, but if I can find a hotel down there for that, I'll just commute once for the week from now on.

This is a bit complicated.  You see, I get 5 hard days off a month.  5 days when they can't call me and put me on a charter trip.  5 days when I don't have to be within 30 minutes of my airport. 5 days when they can't call me at 2 am to go to wherever ASAP. 5 days when I can have a beer without calling 3 people to get it okayed. So, I have to cram as much helicopter training as I can into those 5 days and then let the skills rot for a month till I can get the next 5 days off.  Anyone who's taking flying lessons can tell you, that isn't the best way to do it, but it's the way I'm stuck with.

Anyway, Monday.  First hour. Sort of a combination discovery flight, first lesson.  We went off and did the 4 basics of flying.  Climbs, turns, descents and straight and level.  All flying is basically some combination of those 4.  At least for fixed wing aircraft. We then went to a big wide empty field next to the runway and I proceeded to make myself airsick.  My instructor, great guy by the way, sets up a hover and then give me the pedals.  My only job is to maintain a heading.  Keep the nose pointed at a big white pole just outside of this acre and a half field that we're in the middle of.  Not too bad.  Then he gave me the collective, throttle and pedals.  Now, I'm supposed to maintain heading and height.  A little worse, but okay.  I'm only bouncing up and down maybe 10 ft. and swinging back and forth maybe 30 degrees. Then he says he's gonna take back the collective, throttle and pedals and he's gonna give me just the cyclic. At this point I KNOW this man is insane and suicidal.

Oh, by the way, before this he'd just say, "Okay, you take the pedals now and hold heading.", or, "Take the collective too now."

Now he's like, "Okay, the cyclic is yours in three... two... one..." Right about the time he got to 'two', he had me wondering what the hell I was in for.

The first time, for about the first 3 seconds everything was fine.  Then it went... wonky.  You see the rotor on a helicopter is about the only thing that's really flying, everything else is just hanging underneath like a pendulum. And that's exactly how it went after those three seconds. I was making too large a control inputs and the lag in the pendulum that is the 'airframe' of the helicopter just got worse and worse.  So, he'd take the controls back, re stabilize, or as I was referring to it at this point, performing his voodoo/black magic on the infernal machine, and then, "Okay, take the cyclic in three... two... (for the love of god, I want to live, NO) one..." and we do it all over again.  This goes on for a good half hour. At the end of which, I'm turning green, trying to get as much air to blow across my face as I can and concentrating on non-throwup-y thoughts. 

End of my first lesson.  Looking back, I suppose each time he gave me the controls, the grace period between fine and wonky got a little longer.

Second lesson. We immediately hop over to that field and he proceeds to give me the pedals, then the collective/throttle, the the bastard give me ALL of them. pedals, collective, throttle and cyclic. and I try to hover.  I will say I managed to hover... in a field a good acre and a half on a side.  Then he has me do set downs, pick ups to hover and pedal turns.  Again, I managed to stay inside that acre and a half.  And I didn't get airsick.  All in all a good day. But, I'm still thinking of reporting my instructor to the mental health people at the local hospital.  He needs to be on a 72 hour suicide watch at the very least.

Third lesson. We discuss some of the forces acting on the helicopter and the rotor. Different types of rotors and some other stuff out of the FAA's FAA-H-8083-21 Rotorcraft Flying Handbook.  Part of me is thinking he's trying to distract me from my impending doom.

Part of me is right.

Today, he gets the helicopter off of the trailer/pad and then gives me the controls and tells me to hover taxi over to the compass rose.  This is a 15 ft. circle with the cardinal compass points painted on it.  It's a way for airplanes to swing their compasses and make sure they're accurate.

I get it there in mostly a straight line and then we do pick ups, 120 degree pedal turns and let downs for 45 minutes. All while trying to stay inside this 15ft. circle.  He basically made me stay on the controls alone the entire time.

Honestly. I figured we'd go from an acre and a half field, to an acre to 3/4 of an acre... you know, work me down to something less than a football field in nice easy steps.  Nope.

And to be honest.  My hovering skills are getting better.  As long as I remember to keep my control inputs small, smooth, and relatively slow, I can hover inside a 15ft circle and within 3 to 5 ft. of the ground.  Then we went out and looked at power/collective settings for 60 kt cruise, 80 kt cruise, and climbs and descents at both air speeds as well.  Then did an approach back to the airport to a spot landing, then he hovered over to the trailer and end of lesson.  I still think he's suicidal and I'm pretty sure now that I can take the helicopter with me when I crash, rather than somehow killing myself as I walk up to the machine.

If the weather holds, I'll have 2 more lessons this week before it's back to work for me.

By the way, the place I'm training at, Vertical Aviation in Lebanon, OH, uses Enstrom F28's for training.  The big difference between Enstroms and the more common Robinsons or Hughes 300's is no governor.  You see, Robinsons and Hughes both have engine governors that keep the engine rpm's in the green for any given collective setting.  Not the Enstroms.  You change collective, you adjust throttle, and vice verse. You move the pedals, you adjust the throttle, you move the collective and vice verse.  You move the cyclic... well, you get the idea. So, I actually set out and made learning helicopters harder than I could have.

Yes, I'm kicking myself over that. No, I don't need your help there.

Actually, I did that on purpose. I figured if I can learn to fly helicopters without the governors. Actually manipulating 4 controls to fly rather than just 3, I should be a better pilot in the end.  At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Anyway, so far, 3 hours of training, so good. Another 30 or 35 hours to go. I'll post updates as I fly. 

Oh, and as for the question, why am I learning to fly helicopters?  Well aside from the obvious coming zombie apocalypse.  It's just plain old fun.

I don't know what the Californians get all excited about....

http://ww2.cox.com/myconnection/tulsa/today/news/national/article.cox?articleId=D9QR21U01&moduleType=apNews

But seriously, they managed to shake things up here just a little bit.  I actually had to listen to the radio and hear them talking about it to figure out what it was I felt.

I have no idea.

No, seriously.  I have no idea what the fuck she is saying here.  I mean I recognise that the words are English but I'm not sure she's actually, you know, speaking it.  OOH! Maybe she's just getting out of one of them tent revival meetings and she's still speaking in tongues.

Late night levity.

I saw this on my Fox News feed.

7 Bears Rounded Up in Yellowstone Mauling Probe

And all I could see was the police line up for that.

"Don't worry ma'am, they're behind a two way mirror and can't see you."
"Number three, step forward and say, 'Hey Booboo, let's get us some pik-a-nik baskets!'"
"ROWRRRRRRRrrrrrGROWRRRRrrrrr"
< sob >; "That's him, officer!"

I'm sending this one out to my CO homey, Salamander. A known Ursinophiliac.  Don't try to deny it.

Edit:  Sorry, the above clicky-linky to Sal's blog is the old blog, you can currently find him terrorizing the bears at http://armedandamphibious.wordpress.com/.  Sorry for the mix up.

Edit edit:  After I published this again, I realized that maybe using the word "terrorizing" will pop me up on a couple of gub'mint three letter department's radars.  Oh well, another day, another watch list.

We didn't forget...

My commemoration of the fudamentalist islamic terrorist attacks of 9/11 was to go to the range today.  I skipped the rally across from the Mosque in town and decided that punching holes in paper would do for me.

I packed the Barrett, an ammo can of .50BMG and the usual range stuff and set up for some long range shots.  It's was slightly longer than 500 meters when we had everything set up.

I'm disappointed in myself.  My zero is way off.  5 rounds and only 1 hit and I was holding a mildot and a quarter left to hit. I'll go back out next weekend and sit down and get that zero perfect.

The other thing I was commemorating today was the death of my friend Chris Horton, late of the 45th Inf., Oklahoma National Guard.  He was one of the men killed in a fire fight in Iraq on Friday.  Please send out a prayer for him. He's survived by his wife and family.

It's a double dip recover?

So, the DOW drops 400 or so point on Friday, then another 600 some on Monday when the great zero stood up at the podium, you know the one that has the seal and everything, and said "Move along, nothing to see here... Nothing to see..."

Quick math... carry the one...

That puts us down 1000 points at the beginning of Tuesday.  When the market creeps up 400 that day, we've got talking heads touting the "Obama Recovery"... ZOMG We all be saved! Praise the Lord Anointed One.... 

Now, today that the market has dropped all it was able to get yesterday and then some by noon, the crickets chirping is deafening.

Edit: And in further news, in true liberal form, they're calling for "reform" of the credit ratings system.  Figures, if something happens they don't like because of their actions... Well, just cheat till it goes away.

OBL dead.

Apparently, The Anointed One micromanaged the intelligence and operation that resulted in OBL's death.  I wonder how he fit that in between all the golf games. 

Seriously, if his press conference was to be believed.  He was directly involved in all the intelligence and all the briefings.  And then he apologized to the world for America.

Oh and Quote of The Day:
From IRC's #Gunblogger_Conspiracy
(NinjaViking): I wonder if OBL will be counted as another tragic victim of senseless gun violence

Changes, and not the way we'd want them.

Both Libya's and Egypt's regime changes started as food riots. 

Now watch what current gas prices are doing to the price of a gallon of milk.

When gas hit this price at the pumps last time, Bush signed an executive order suspending the moratorium on oil exploration.  And gas prices plummeted to under 2 dollars a gallon in the space of weeks.  Mind you, no actual drilling took place. Just the fact that it could brought price speculation down.  This regime says they can't do anything about it, but they'll form a commission to look in on price gouging by the oil companies.  Seriously?  They banned exploration, banned new drilling, banned just about anything that would make us more energy independent as a nation and when prices do what they will do when that happens, they try to blame someone else.

But, I'm not surprised. This regime believes corporations are evil, that capitalism is evil, that freedom is evil, that being an adult and standing on your own two feet is evil.  This regime would love to see European prices at the pumps here in the states.  It would make their dream socialist state that much closer.

On a side note, have you seen some states are proposing a usage tax on electric and hybrid vehicles to help offset the drop in revenue from sale of gasoline?

How's that hopey changey thing working out for ya?

My initial thoughts on Libya...

and the US's involvment in this "Police Action". And they're not happy ones.

I can't help thinking the only reason Obmama did this was so...

1) He'd APPEAR to be tough to the people in the US and

2) He's set up the precident that the UN takes precidence over the US in international matters. Now, he only does what the UN wants and not till they want it.

So when the UN says we need to go into Ohio to stop whatever, then he'll get to say, "We have to, because we let them in Libya, See... See? Let me be perfectly clear...".

Just some thoughts from a long drive.

The outgoing speaker of the house, based on her tactics and shenanigans, would have been one the the greatest Soviet Premiers of all time. All the dirty tricks and underhanded dealings and outright threats and corruption would have made Stalin proud. All she needs is a national gulag system to make her complete.... oh wait....

The tax compromise that was maybe almost reached this week. IT'S NOT A TAX CUT! In fact, it's worse than that, it's a 2 year temporary reprieve. Taxes are not going down, they're staying the same, so the situation that's existed for the last two years that's made this mess we're in, IT'S STILL HERE! On top of that we can't run on a temporary economy, that's what this "compromise" has created. Businesses are not going to expand or spend or whatever if they're staring at being in the pickle barrel in two years. And on top of that, 2 years is nothing in terms of business plans. They look at 5 and 10 year business models. I seriously doubt that any smart business will do anything if they know that just as they're getting started, they'll get slapped down with extortionate tax burdens. Looking at individuals, this equates to less than what most of us spend on car insurance per year. You think people are going to look at that 500 dollars and go all spendy crazy? Hell, no. Especially with the government printing money like it's going out of style and devaluing it in job lots. So, all that will happen is in 2 years when the next election cycle rolls around, is the dems will get to shout "SEE, LOWERING TAXES DIDN'T WORK!" Which is complete and utter bull shit. But if you say the lie often enough and loud enough it becomes the truth. The dems have proved that over and over the last few years.

The liberal mindset that will insist on demonizing the item and ignore the fact that it took a person to put that item to an evil purpose, is the same liberal mindset that's running DHS and TSA. They have time and time again refused to look at the people, under the guise of "Oh we can't profile, that's evil.", and demonized the fingernail clippers and bottle of shampoo that you have. We will not be be safe, we will not be anything other than a joke, till we change the mindset that runs these agencies. Listen, some people are bad. That's just the shit of life. And what's even shittier is some people do evil things for what they believe are good reasons. That's just the way it is. The sooner we get over this stupid notion that somehow box cutters are intrinsically evil and realize that it was the fucking nutjob jihadist wielding it that was evil, the sooner we'll actually start making things safer.

And don't get me started on the porno-scanners.

STOP THE PRESSES! We have definitively located the epi-center of fug bucking nuts crazy: http://www.my9tv.com/dpp/my9_news/Berkeley-Mulls-Resolution-to-Honor-Army-Private-Accused-of-Passing-Secret-Info-to-WikiLeaks_49833953 Yes, that's right. These moonbats sitting on the door step to our outgoing speaker of the house's home district have that warped a view of the world. It does go a long way to explaining why Pelosi is the way she is. No?

Speaking of dancing...

Seems we will continue to dance to the tune Osama plays till we find the scum filth peace loving islamic extremeist terrorist shithead person.

Mohamed Osman Mohamud, Somali-born US teen with Al Qaeda links, arrested.

What pisses me off most is now we will have to strip our Christmas trees when we go through the airports.

Too much time to think and the First

Had to do a lot of driving today and as such got to listen to a lot of talk radio. Never a good thing. It seems there's a bit of a kerfuffle about a question asked by a conservative of a liberal. Specifically the question was; what five freedoms are enumerated in the First Amendment.

The short answer is freedom of:

• Religion
• Speech
• Press
• Assembly
• Redress

But that's not what the to do is about. It seems the libs think that the first spells out separation of church and state. And the "radical right wing nuts" say it doesn't. Okay.... Let's look at the First Amendment as it's actually written.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

Lots of commas and semi-colons.

The first clause. "...make no law respecting AN establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise THEREOF;" (emphasis mine)

The highlighted "thereof" is where most people point and say "See, freedom of religion" and libs say "See, freedom FROM religion". I blogged about this before, complete with Websters and Oxfords definition of "thereof". I don't feel like repeating myself, so go dig through my archives. The upshot? The founding fathers meant, and they expounded on this in the Federalists Papers among other places, you're free to practice, don't practice, whatever, pray, don't pray, God, Ghu, Nature, Glaciers (The Great Pumpkin help us), Trees... well you get my drift. If you want to dance naked around trees on the summer solstice and that's how you worship whatever you worship that was honky-dory with our founding fathers.

The "an" on the other hand. You see, the libs, and this is just my guess, look at "establishment" as a verb. The "an" on the other hand sort of forces "establishment" to be a noun. And therein lies the rub. The libs read that and say "Look! Separation of church and state! See, you stupid conservative bible banging idiots.", and then laugh in a condescending and superior way.

Which is ironic.

Because the "an" is sitting there right in front of "establishment". The noun establishment is a different beast and sort of makes the libs wrong. Which means they're... well, the idiots in this case and even dumber for laughing at the conservatives about it.

At the time the First Amendment was drafted, most, if not all, of the 13 states had official state religions. So, the founding fathers were limiting the federal government from stepping on what they saw as the purview of the states. Which is what the first 10 amendments are all about. Limiting the power of the federal government.

So, "establishment of religion" was meant to be a fancy way of saying churches. Or any organized religious body. (The sticky bit here is that read that way, it makes all those laws exempting churches from taxes unconstitutional)

On a side note, the complaint is if churches had to pay taxes they'd be paying things that were against their beliefs, like abortions and civil union marriages, etc. I'd counter with two arguments. Show me where in the constitution abortions are enumerated. Or for that matter where does it say ANYWHERE that the government has any business in marriages?
Secondly, the government has it's fingers in places that would make the founding fathers flip their powdered wigs. Things like soup kitchens, housing the indigent, orphanages, etc were originally funded in a secular manner by the churches and local charity organizations. If they were put back in their hands the churches wouldn't have to pay taxes for things that were against their beliefs. And besides, I have to pay taxes that go for A LOT of thing I don't want to pay for, why should they be any different.

But I digress.

So, when you look at the word establishment as a noun, you sort of make the concept of separation of church and state vanish from the first amendment. But as it was never there in the first place, that's not that amazing.

People have an astonishing penchant for reading the constitution using modern definitions. Which is boggling when you consider that the people writing the stupid thing could have no way of knowing how the definitions would evolve. They wrote using words with definitions that were valid for their time. We should read the constitution using those definitions, NOT ours.

Education and WTF?

I was pointed to this news article today at http://www.msn.com/.

University Undead? Students Study Zombies in New Course.

The payoff is farther down the article when they give examples of other courses offered by universities around the country.

And in a larger context, Blumberg’s zombie class aligns well with a spate of other offbeat courses at universities across the country. At Georgetown University, students have the option of enrolling in the “Philosophy and Star Trek” course. Students at Bowdoin College in Maine can take classes called “The Souls of Animals” and “Tolkien’s Middle Ages.”

In 2007, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s comparative media studies program began offering a course titled “American Pro Wrestling.” The same department also offered a course in 2008 exploring American soap operas.

Srsly?!?! They get to study the philosophy of Star Trek? Soap Operas? Don't get me wrong, I will admit to spending more than one night of my geekdom on Star Trek. But I did it for the sheer enjoyment of it and not for college credit. I think that was very magnanimous of me.

Hey, I've got some ideas for college classes. How about....

Your life and Reality.

Determining Relevance to Life

What color is the sky in your world?

or for Masters Level work

You know all those stupid courses on Oprah and Soap Operas you took? They won't help you now.

Ripples in a pond.

Yesterday, evening to be more specific, after the place I work at closed, the owner took his own life.

He suffocated himself in his car behind one of the 100m carbine bays.

No one can make sense of what happened. I suspect that no one will.

We gathered today to discuss what happened and what little facts were available.

It is not for me to make judgements or conjecture about the act or the reasons behind it. My thoughts and prayers go out to those he left behind, both at home and at work.

Politics vs. the Rule of Law

With all the rhetoric and arguments over the mosque at ground zero issue. One thing kept popping up in the back of my mind. Snarkybytes, I think, brought it up. Placing the mosque at that location is a political move. Granted the Imam fronting it may just be a convenient fool, but his mysterious backers with the hundreds of millions to fund it may not. For them, the mosque is a political move that has no lose to it. If it's built, the Islamic world will look on it as commemorating a tremendous victory over the infidels. If it's denied, it's a victory for them by showing how the "US devils persecute the poor Muslims of the world". Win/win.

Okay, like it or not as the case may be, we have constitutionally guaranteed freedom of religion. Go look it up. It's actually the first amendment to the constitution. That's how important the founding fathers thought it was.

So, for all of you who want the mosque banned. Sorry. The rule of law that this country is supposed to be founded on and following precludes that.

But, this is a political thing. So, we should be able to go to someone we've elected to handle political matters for help in this. Shouldn't we? Except the one we elected, for better or worse, to be our advocate on the international political stage is, for some strange reason, not on our side. This was the man that was chosen to represent us to the world. And when the majority of us want one thing, he always seems to be on the opposite side. Srsly, WTF?

I guess his transition staff was right when she said they would be ready to rule. Because this administration sure as shit ain't about representing us.

I think it's Murphy's law or something.

As soon as I say there's nothing to write about, something pops up.

Today, very quietly, the great zero and his regime changed the sentencing guidelines for crack cocaine (possession, used or distribution). They lowered them to be the same as regular cocaine. Are you ready for the reason? I love this chain of illogic... Crack cocaine is a drug predominately used by lower economic classes (read blacks, African Americans, whatever) and the people being hit hardest by these tougher sentences are the same people living in those neighborhoods. Which means that those tougher sentences are being imposed on the minorities (read blacks, etc. again) and that makes them racist.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the original idea behind making the crack cocaine sentences harsher was because it was a drug "preying on the poor and disenfranchised or our great land" (again read Afri.... oh, you get the drill). And the tougher sentences were supposed to "stamp out this plague of our inner cities"

So, the drug was racist and the sentencing guidelines are racists and the -0 isn't not racists and I'm racists for even daring to think about the great anointed one because he's not racist for being something that I can't possibly understand because I'm not a wise Latina woman and therefore genetically inferior even though we were taught that the Nazi's said that and they were wrong, so wrong for calling anyone inferior to anyone else, but it's okay for the democrats to say that because they're liberal and therefore more enlightened and superior to us flyover hicks but they would never say that out loud or at least where anyone who is a wrong_thinker might overhear and is this mic on?

Oklahoma Primaries

Yesterday Oklahomans set a bit of history. For the first time in state history the ballot for the governor will be between 2 women. From what I understand it is also only the third time something like this has happened in US history.

Before you get all happy dancy, our choice for governor come november will be between a liberal and a RINO. :-/

Typical of the regime...

I was handed an article today from an old campaigner that came out to the range. Just a short 3 paragraph blurb buried in the back of The American Legion Magazine. I was unable to find a link to the article so I'm reproducing it here. Again this is from the August 2010 issue of The American Legion Magazine and is their sole copyright.

Hoping to win more hearts and minds in Afghanistan, the United States and its NATO allies are planning a commendation to recognize "courageous restraint" among troops in the field. According to a NATO statement, the goal would be to "celebrate the troops who exhibit extraordinary courage and self-control by not using their weapons."

The notion that there needs to be a commendation for restraint seems to be based on the false and faulty premise that U.S. forces haven't used restraint to date. In fact, they comprise the most lethal force in history, which makes their restraint all the more impressive.

Plus, the people who know best - those who have served - worry about the unintended consequences of rewarding and thereby encouraging "courageous restraint." As American Legion National Commander Clarence Hill Observes, "Too much restraint will get our own people killed ... The proposal to award medals for holding fire is troubling because it is symptomatic of a growing culture in the military that will punish troops making split-second decisions while they are expected to defend themselves and their comrades."

Or as one of the former marines here put it, "UN-fucking-believable".

The only question that I have is the comment about "unintended consequences". The consequences are there for anyone to see. This system will only cause more deaths of our troops while serving to encourage and embolden the "peace loving" muslim terrorists. I honestly believe whoever thought this grand scheme up fully realizes what he or she is doing and what it will cost on blood and suffering to our side.

Two posts in one day....

I know! How did you get so lucky.

Let's see, oil spill, floods, Afghanistan, Nukes in Iran and N. Korea. Massive, MASSIVE government overspending and debt for decades...

But what is CNN doing a news special on tonight? Yeap, that hard hitting, oh so important, Lindsey Lohan jail time. (psst, she's only doing 2 weeks, not 90 days.) Although, I think the news cycle will last the full 90 with no time off for good behavior.

I guess CNN stands for Celebrity Network News.

Way to keep ensuring you're not relevant anymore Ted.