Yay, yet again.

Another day, another milestone. Tonight's modest workout pushed my accumulated scores past the point where I earned a Silver medal in the President's Fitness Challenge--a self-paced workout program that I cannot recommend enough.

it's simple--you register and you select the types of exercise/activity that you like to engage in, and when you do them, it keeps track. You can then track your progress and compare your activity level to other people in your area, nationwide, in your age group, etc. You don't have to be a super-athlete to participate--even walking counts. It's a great way to motivate yourself to get out and just do stuff.

So now I got a Silver medal and it's on towards a Gold.

Bad Influence

So this week-end, I did much good gun stuff.

I know... I do much gun stuff every week-end. It's what I do. Either gun stuff or airplane stuff of dog stuff comprises most of my free time.

Well this time, Nicki was along. We went shooting and I gave her carte blanche to try anything in the gun room that struck her fancy. She's now decided that she absolutely must have a Model 1911 .45, hopefully as a replacement for those effective but dull Glocks of hers. She also took a liking to the M1 Carbine and the SKS.
Here she is, killing targets downrange with my ex-Yugoslavian M59 SKS. ----->




For my part, I took along an old World War two-vintage M1 Garand--one that I've had for several years but never actually shot before.This particular Garand came from the Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) back in the day, and while I was quite pleased to see that it was a Winchester rifle with what was probably the original bolt and barrel and the nice green parkerized finish, a check with the bore gauges indicated that the throat and muzzle were both heavily worn to the point where I simply relegated it to the display rack without even bothering to see how it shot. It sat there for probably eight or nine year until Friday, when on an impulse, I grabbed it and took it out to the range, basically just to play with it and pot-shot at whatever targets of opportunity presented themselves. However I was shocked to find that despite it's badly worn barrel, it was dead-bang accurate and almost invariably put round after round into some old plastic laundry detergent jugs and small boxes at both one hundred and two hundred meters. That just goes to show that you can't always judge a rifle just by the amount of indicated wear in the barrel--this one still shoots good enough to use in the local CMP matches. Nicki shot it too but she seems to think that the M1 Garand is a mite too much rifle for her. I can understand that. The M1 is a man's rifle and she is, after all, just a girl.

After the shooting, we took in a classic guy movie that Nicki had never seen before: The Wild Geese, with Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Roger Moore and Hardy Kruger. She actually got teary-eyed when Richard Harris died on the airport runway, screaming his son's name as Richard Burton emptied an Uzi into him. It was cute.

Saturday we went to the gun show in Chantilly. Neither of us bought anything because the prices were high and the selection on things that I needed was poor. There were very little in the way of ammunition and even less when it came to reloading supplies. One dealer had a few boxes of Winchester small rifle primers on his table and I had to ask the price because I was sure that I was reading the sticker wrong. But he confirmed that he was charging $135.00 for a thousand primers. As the normal price is about twenty to thirty dollars per thousand, I let the profiteer know what he could do with his primers and anything else on his table. Pity, because he did have several other things that I might have bought in a package deal with a box or two of reasonably-priced primers. His loss, but that's what happens when you get greedy.
Bridget and her guy were supposed to join us there but bailed on us, allegedly "sick". (insert rolling eyes emoticon here.)

And after spending all this time with Nicki and giving her some good shooting tips, does she thank me or tell me how great I am?

Uh, yeah. As if. But she gets points for the attitude.

Later that evening, a nice Thai dinner settled her down a bit and served to put a nice cap on the evening.

Now it's Sunday and I have to spend most of the day doing household and yard work and giving Lagniappe some attention since he was badly neglected this weekend, but I figured that I could spare a few minutes to blog about the past couple of pretty nice days.

Running...

And this week has been a good one for running.

I've taken the liberty of running in Washington, DC lately, in large part because I really like being around the Memorials and other historical stuff, and because there are so many other runners and bike riders down there all trying to be healthy as well.

Tuesday I parked on Hains Point and ran a route up to the Jefferson Memorial and around the Tidal Basin to the Washington Monument. From there, I went up 15th Street to Pennsylvania Avenue and turned to run past the White House, a place I've always enjoyed. But somehow it just seems to be more sinister and less Presidential now. Damned shame. I ran back down 17th Street to the World War Two Memorial, then went west along the Reflecting Pool to the Lincoln Memorial before turning south and running back down the Potomac River to Hains Point again, detourling slightly to run through the FDR Memorial. This was about a five mile run and I did it in 51 minutes, which was not exactly a speed run, but hey--vehicle traffic and pedestrians tend to interfere.

I laid off running on Wednesday but just went back out again today. From the same parking space on Hains Point, I ran up the Potomac River to the Lincoln Memorial, then across Memorial Bridge towards Arlington National Cemetery. On the west bank of the river, I ran north along the bike path past Theodore Roosevelt Island and up to Key Bridge, where I crossed back into the Georgetown section of Washington DC. Ducking down through Francis Scott Key Park, I got onto the C&O Canal towpath and ran it down to Rock Creek Parkway, dodging one set of mules pulling a canal full of tourists along the way. I then ran back down the parkway past the Watergate and the Kennedy Center and finally past the Lincoln Memorial again. I followed the Potomac back to Hains Point and my ride. This was roughly a seven mile run and it took me an hour and twenty minutes. (I lost some time trying--and failing--to find a working drinking fountain or someplace willing to part with a cup of water.) The weather was great today--a nice sunny 65 degrees or so, but with one hell of a wind coming off the river. It was in my face on the outbound run and I had to work against it, but coming back, it was a nice tailwind that both cooled me and gave me an appreciated push when I was tiring.

I'm feeling good now, and I think that I probably burned off enough calories this week to justify grabbing a burger and fries at Five Guys in Winchester, VA when I go in tomorrow to get my running foot re-soled. I seem to have worn through the rubberized tread again and it has to be replaced.

But the best part? I got to run around, through and past all these places and things that people come from all over the word to see, and it was all free!

You may all go to hell...

Yes. You may all go to hell and I will go to Texas.

This phrase was first uttered by Davy Crockett of Tennessee after he lost a Congressional election in 1835, but it works for me too now that Chuck Norris is considering running for President in a post-secession Texas.

Martial-arts master Chuck Norris has his sights set on becoming more than a Texas Ranger - he has volunteered to run as the state's first president.

Norris, who played TV hardman Cordell Walker in hit series Walker, Texas Ranger, has put himself up for the job of running the region after discussing the possibility of the state seceding from U.S. control during a rant on CNN.com's political blog.

The actor, who is a staunch Republican, insists Texans want an independent state after being let down by the American government - and thinks he'd be the ideal candidate to lead the Lone Star state's revolution.

He says, "I may run for president of Texas. That need may be a reality sooner than we think. If not me, someone someday may again be running for president of the Lone Star state, if the state of the union continues to turn into the enemy of the state.

"Anyone who has been around Texas for any length of time knows exactly what we'd do if the going got rough in America."

Lagniappe and I talked it over and we decided that we're long overdue for a good fight. So if Texas does secede, me and my ammo-bearing German Shepherd will be heading south to support President Norris. and he'll need it, what with a corrupt socialist government to the north and Mexico to the south.

Hail to the Chief...or else he'll kick you into the middle of next week.

A special lunchtime treat

Well today was another "first". I drove a manual transmission car for the first time since getting my store-bought leg.

I used to drive sticks almost exclusively, everything from small cars to large trucks, both civilian commercial and military. I preferred stick shifts but as luck would have it, back when I got hurt I actually owned a vehicle with an automatic transmission, only the second such vehicle I'd ever owned in my life. So at least I didn't have to deal with clutches right out of the gate. I'd always meant to get reacquainted with one, but I hadn't gotten around to it yet. Until today.

I took Nicki to lunch today, and since she didn't know downtown Washington DC traffic very well, she asked me if I wouldn't mind driving. Now being a guy, how could I refuse? It's just a guy thing that we gotta drive. But it wasn't until I'd agreed to do so and went to get in the car that I realized that not only was her car one of those little Toyotas (I'm an American car guy all the way), it was also a stick shift.

Well being a guy, I couldn't really back down. I'd said I'd drive, and the more I thought about it, the more I became confident that I could pull this off. And it's not like it was my car, so what the heck...

It took a few practice shifts to get the hang of where the clutch pedal was since I couldn't actually feel it anymore, but it seemed fairly straightforward. Granted, I did miss the clutch once and hit the brake instead, bringing the car to an abrupt stop in the middle of the road, but there was harm to us. The people on the tour bus right behind us probably weren't too happy when their driver locked up his brakes to avoid drop-kicking the Toyota, but life's full of surprises. Welcome to DC, tourists.

But I quickly got it down well enough to drive in traffic, and other then a tendency to ride the clutch if I don't remind myself to take my foot off the pedal, it went well. Much fun, and I got to take Nicki to my favorite Chinese restaurant, The Magic Gourd. (Best General Tso's Chicken I've ever found.)

All in all, it was a good day despite the rain. The food was great and so was the company. Nicki did seem to have a little trouble with some ice at the restaurant, but I won't go there. (Heh!) And afterwards, as a bonus, the rain stopped long enough to let me grab a nice little run around the Tidal Basin and Hains Point while I was down there. Sometimes life's just nice.

4/20 arrives again, and like the Daffodils, the pot-heads and stoners spring forth anew...

April 20th is upon us again, and once again we can expect more brain-dead antics from the druggie crowd on some of America's more liberal college campuses, including but not limited to the University of Colorado. Every April 20th, our nation's underachievers gather to smoke dope, somehow thinking that if they all smoke dope at the same time, somehow it will make the rest of us vote to legalize their drug use.

They choose April 20th because it's the 4th month, 20th day and the number 420 is magical to those suffering from reefer madness. This is about the height of cleverness that the rest of us can expect from the pickled-brain crowd.

Sadly, the school officials that parents are entrusting their kids to typically turn their backs on these festivals of law-breaking and local police are just as culpable when they refuse to step in aggressively and hammer as many dopers as possible as hard as the law allows.

On one hand, I feel bad for these losers because they miss out on so much in life when they just sit around trying to bake their brains, but the conservative side of me says that even though they are immature, they're still old enough to know better and they're making their own choices. If they want to condemn themselves to a life of dead-end, minimum-wage jobs, that's really on them. But I draw the line at them doing this stuff at public universities that are supported by my tax dollars, even "universities" where someone like Ward Churchill is looked upon as something more than a fraud. (You know that someone there is smoking something just from that.)

The potheads even have a spokesperson (spokestoner?) and wanna-be leader who says that they need to learn to dress and act appropriately and lobby for the right to abuse drugs.

BOULDER, Colo. — A self-described conservative "soccer mom" told marijuana legalization advocates that they'll need to do more than smoke pot in public to get drug laws changed during a speech on the University of Colorado campus Saturday.

Jessica Corry, the executive director of the Colorado Civil Rights initiative, said 4/20 "smoke-out" events like the one planned for Farrand Field on Monday are a good way to bring attention to the issue.

But she said people fighting marijuana prohibition also need to participate in the political process -- and, she said, advocates need to show lawmakers a sober, serious side as well.

"They're laughing at us," she said. "The 4/20 events are fine... but let's also get people down to the Capitol in suits."

One thing she said is true, stoners. The rest of us are laughing at you. and we'll still be laughing at you in ten years or so when you're out of college and working hard at the local Fotohut because it's the only job that you could manage to get and hold onto.

How's that song go again? Oh yeah...

I was gonna put on a suit, but I got high.
Was gonna see my Congressman too, but I got high.
Now I'm 40, unemployed and in jail, and I know whyyyyyy....
Because I got high, because I got high, because I got high...

Pathetic losers. And the only ones more contemptible are the parents of these punks who write their tuition checks every semester, usually knowing good and well that their little over-indulged Jeff Spicoli clone is never going to amount to a damned thing and is only occupying a seat in classes that decent kids with actual futures could be making use of.

Mexico and media lie about guns again.

So the big news on the headlines now is that an "anti-aircraft machine gun" has just been captured from a Mexican drug cartel, supposedly the first of it's kind discovered by anti-drug forces. ABC News has it, so does the Associated Press. According to the story, the weapon is a "confiscated .50-caliber, anti-aircraft machine gun can fire 800 rounds per minute and is capable of penetrating armor from more than 5,000 feet (1,500 meters). Police on a routine patrol Monday found the gun fitted atop an SUV at a house in northern Sonora state."

They go on to show pictures of the alleged ".50 caliber anti-aircraft weapon", and lo and behold, it's not even close!







That's right--those of you who know guns should easily recognize this gem--it's a World War two-era Browning model 1919A4 .30 machine gun. Not a .50, but just a little .30. And for those of you unfamiliar with such firearms, that's a big difference. It's like mistaking a Ford ranger 1/4 ton pick-up for a semi tractor rig. And this gun's not even set up for anti-aircraft use--it's on a ground tripod, not one suited at all for engaging aircraft, and the traverse and Elevation mechanism is missing, making it a pretty crummy ground gun too.
basically it's a 60+ year old weapon that serves primarily to intimidate peasants just by making a lot of noise.

And lest ye question my credentials or my weapons identification expertise, you only have to go to the search box in the upper left corner of this blog and use "Browning 1919A4" as a search term and you'll see several articles concerning the one that I personally own. Trust me--it's a nice historical item, but long obsolete and hardly as dangerous as the .50 caliber gun that they claimed it is. And again, this one's not even particularly useful either as an anti-aircraft weapon or in any other role without that T&E mechanism.

Authorities did not release any other details about the gun, including its make, where it was manufactured, or where it was sold.

Lemme help you out there, "authorities". It's a Browning 1919A4, caliber .30. It was most likely manufactured here in the good old US of A in during World War Two and subsequently given to some Central or South American country as military foreign aid in the 1960's...probably Mexico. It definitely didn't come from an American civilian gun shop, even though the Mexican government and Hillary Clinton like to claim that 90% of the weapons seized in that country do.

The problem here is that lies like this, if allowed to stand, will eventually become the basis for stricter gun control laws here in our country. Hillary's said that we need more restrictions on our gun ownership to help Mexico, and Eric Holder, Obama's radically anti-gun Attorney General has made the same claim. excuses are being made right now to slam the lid on your gun-buying ability and mine, and deliberate misinformation like this propaganda piece are part and parcel to those efforts even though that claim is just not true. The truth is that the drug cartels in Mexico arm themselves with military-grade weapons from other countries, including many that were originally given or sold to the Mexican government and diverted to the criminal gangs via corrupt Mexican officials. But American gun owners are poised to take the rap for Mexico's corruption and out-of-control crime problem, and our own gun-haters like Clinton and Holder and Obama himself are more than willing to play along with the lie and pretend that the only way to stop Mexico's violent crime is to close US gun shops and shows and ban many types of guns that Americans like to own. This is going to happen unless we stand up and tell our elected servants that we're not going to go along with it and that we'll replace every one of them that wants to go down that road.

And if they really want to keep US guns out of Mexico so badly, you'd think that both our government and the Mexicans would be rushing to build a border wall between the two countries. Such a wall would serve to keep our guns here and Mexico's drugs and citizens in their country, thus solving a lot of problems.

But apparently neither country wants to do anything that drastic. They just want to stop law-abiding Americans from buying and owning guns, particularly the guns that may someday protect them from the well-armed Mexican criminals who decide that it's safer and more lucrative to come here in search of easy prey.

Pirate drama over, Captain Phillips is free...No thanks to Obama

The reports are coming in now. Phillips is free, three pirates are dead, and the fourth is in custody. And the Obama camp is already trying to top the news stories by claiming that Obama authorized the rescue. But that's NOT what really happened. For the truth, I give you this credible report from Blackfive.

At the time it happened the USS Bainbridge was towing the lifeboat to calmer waters as the sea state was deteriorating. One of the pirates was on board the Bainbridge as the talks about obtaining Phillip's release continued. The lifeboat was approx. 25 m behind the Bainbridge when snipers on the fantail observed one of the pirates in the pilot house of the lifeboat pointing an AK-47 at the back of a tied up Phillips and the other two pirates on board were visible (at least shoulders and heads). The standing authority gave them clearance to engage the pirates if the life of the captain was in imminent danger. The on scene commander deemed this to be true and gave the order to fire. All three bad guys were taken out and then a rigid inflatable boat went to the lifeboat to retrieve Phillips. Iti is unknown at this point whether the shooters were SEALs or Marine Scout Snipers as both would have been available. This was not a rescue attempt ordered by National Command Authority i.e. the President. It was a reaction by the on scene commander under standard authority to safeguard the life of a hostage.

The AP is reporting that President Obama gave the order to use military force to rescue the hostage, that is misleading.

WASHINGTON (AP)—Administration officials say President Barack Obama approved the military operation that rescued a U.S. captain held hostage by Somali pirates.

The officials say Obama ordered the Defense Department to use military resources to rescue Richard Phillips from a lifeboat off the Somali coast.

He did affirm the military's authorization to use force if the captain's life was in danger, but they already would have had that authorization as part of their standard rules of engagement. If there are innocents about to be slaughtered the same reasoning that authorizes self defense also covers an imminent execution unless the ROE specifically forbid it.The AP is making it sound like there was an active rescue ordered by the President. It was not, there was an imminent threat and the local commander gave the order to fire. Good on Obama for ensuring their authorization was clear, but let's also be clear that he did not authorize or order an active rescue attempt.

So let's be clear on this. Captain Phillips is free and the pirates are toast, but it was the US Navy personnel on scene that acted autonomously and put some starch back in our flag. The President, for all of his attempts to horn in and grab credit, had nothing to do with the actual decision to take the scumbags down.

I also have to note that it took Obama three days to even authorize the Defense Department to act. Three days. Remember those commercials during the campaign when he claimed that he had the ability to react decisively when that hypothetical 3AM crisis call came in? I guess we've just seen that fiction exposed.

On the plus side, he did seem to find time to pick out a dog for his kids in the middle of this episode. But then even waffling appeasers have their priorities...

Welcome home, Captain Phillips...and way to go US NAVY!!!

Happy Easter

Back by popular demand... a classic Easter greeting from Lagniappe's Lair.



Oh look---Lagniappe's looking for the Easter Bunny. How cute.



What do you see out there, boy? What is that down on the road?



Uh-oh...

On Presidents and pirates and the resolve to uphold our national honor

So here we are, not even three months into the four years of the Obama Presidency, and we have our first new military crisis. A band of four--yes, four--pirates attacked an American-flagged ship and kidnapped it's American citizen captain, and the world is watching to see what Obama plans to do about it.

Unfortunately, other than dithering behind the scenes while publicly refusing to address it, Obama doesn't appear to be doing anything at all. Our SEAL teams--professionals who exist specifically to handle this sort of thing--are sitting idle.

And the world shakes it's collective head.

There was a proud time--actually there were many proud times over the years--when the American flag stood for a sovereignty that was inviolate. Bad guys of every stripe and color knew that if you messed with Old Glory, you would shortly have your ass handed to you. Over the years, we've taught many nations the folly of attacking the United States or It's possessions. We taught the British (twice), we taught the Spanish and the Mexicans more than once, and in the last century we taught the Japanese and the Germans, the Libyans, the Russians, and most recently, Saddam Hussein and the Taliban along with several terrorist outfits. The world knows that America can, has and will kick your ass if you get stupid and harm our people.

Unfortunately the world also knows that every now and again, WE get stupid and elect leaders who lack the spine to kick ass. And then all of the evildoers rush to hit us and get their licks in and get clear before we replace those leaders with new ones that have balls and they set things to rights again.

Look back through our history. Ronald Reagan defined "American Pride" in the 20th Century. When PLO terrorists hijacked the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro and killed a wheelchair-bound American named Leon Klinghoffer, the Europeans on scene sniveled and quaked and finally granted the terrorists safe passage away from their crime. But President Reagan sent the US Navy to intercept their jet, and that's exactly what they did.
"You can run, but you can't hide." President Reagan told the world's thugs.
When Libyan leader Ghadaffi insisted on supporting terrorist operations against US and other personnel overseas and our European "allies" refused to act, President Reagan unilaterally acted by sending the US Air Force to Libya and giving Ghadaffi a serious attitude adjustment that stopped his support for terrorists cold. American President Ronald Wilson Reagan was a man that you did not mess with, and the creeps of the world figured that out and quit messing with the US of A.

Of course you can't put Reagan into perspective without looking at the man who preceded him. President Jimmy Carter had been an appeaser and a vacillator to the extent that even a bunch of Iranian students (backed up by the Iranian government) attacked our embassy in Tehran and held American citizens captive for 444 days, knowing full well that Carter did not have the guts to do anything about it. Sure enough, after one horribly mismanaged rescue attempt went wrong, Carter basically retreated into a corner and sucked his thumb for the rest of his term. But the Iranians weren't stupid; as soon as they saw President-elect Reagan rolling up his sleeves, they released the hostages on the eve of his inauguration. They knew what his first act would have been had they not, and it likely would have involved large numbers of US marines and soldiers and lots of trashed Iranian real estate.

Things went well for Americans under President Reagan and his successor, President George H. Bush. The bad guys knew that Bush--Reagan's former Vice-President--would maintain the Reagan Doctrine as far as it pertained to ferreting out those who murdered Americans and killing them and often anyone with them. But then came President Clinton, and he was too busy sticking cigars into Monica Lewinsky's private places to deal with such pesky trivialities like the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and other terrorist attacks, all of which he dismissed as "law enforcement problems" and allowed to go unresponded to. Incredibly, when the government of the Sudan offered to hand the Clinton Administration Osama bin Laden free of charge, he declined. The result: September 11, 2001, and the largest terrorist attack on American soil in the history of our country.

Well it sucked to be an enemy of America after that. President George W. Bush responded strongly and decisively and the Taliban in Afghanistan and got their asses kicked almost simultaneously with Saddam Hussein and his followers in Iraq. The citizens in both of those countries are free now, thanks to US President Bush. The panty-wearers and bedwetters of the American liberal establishment have always hated President Bush, but not one of them could ever say that America and Americans abroad weren't safer with him at the helm then they were under Clinton.

And lest anyone think that this is a Republican vs. Democrats issue, it's not. Many have thought so over the years, and the Russians in particular erred badly when they tried to punk newbie Democrat President John F. Kennedy both in Europe and in Cuba. (Missile Crisis, anyone?) Kennedy didn't actually have to kick the Russians' asses, but that was only because they realized that he was fixin' to and backed down. Kennedy had balls, and more people than Marilyn Monroe came to know it.

Also, let me remind you that the first US president to project American military power overseas (ironically, in pursuit of pirates) was Thomas Jefferson, a Democrat. When the rest of the world was paying tribute and/or ransom to the Barbary Pirates, Jefferson sent the new US Navy and Marines over to kick their Barbary asses. Result: no more piracy, and the world was a safer place for all--even our lily-livered European "allies".

President Andrew Jackson was a Democrat too. He never had to send the Marines anywhere. He was so bad-ass that everyone in the world knew that if they disrespected us with Jackson in office, he'd personally go kick their asses.

Sadly, the Democrats celebrate both of these men as icons today, but without regard for the fact that Jefferson and Jackson represented a time when even Democrat males had testosterone. That's not the case any more though, and our latest Democratic president, Barack "don't call me B.O." Obama proves it. While four terrorists in an out-of-gas lifeboat thumb their noses at us, he just sits there. Apparently this is one of those times when even his trusty teleprompter can't help him look slicker and more decisive than he really is.

If any of the other Presidents that I've mentioned here--Reagan, Kennedy, Jefferson, Jackson, either Bush--was in charge now (or even someone like Theodore Roosevelt), is there any doubt that we'd have our citizen back and there'd be four less pirates in the world right now? That was the sort of dynamic leadership that we've had at critical times in our country's history and it's the kind of dynamic leadership that we need now because it would deter any more of this sort of nonsense. God help us, President Obama is not that kind of leader, and like Clinton and Carter before him, I predict that he's only going to open the door to much, much more of this sort of thing if he keeps insisting on merely talking to our enemies and refusing to demand that they straighten up and fly right. and our enemies know that they're not dealing with Reagan or Bush any more--they're dealing with a guy who takes his cues from Jimmy Carter and Neville Chamberlain. The SEALs won't be sent because Obama is reportedly too afraid of offending the Somalis. In other words, the bad guys have gotten the message and that message is: "Game on and go like hell until America wises up and elects a real President again."

2010 and President Palin can't get here quick enough for me.






Additional: Oliver North on Reagan.

Driving, driving...

So here I am, actually trying to get somewhere this morning, and almost right out of the gate, I wind up behind a large semi truck that is on the local two-lane highway over the mountain instead of on the interstate a few miles to the north where it should be.

Now I used to drive trucks once, and I know exactly why this one's here. The driver is trying to avoid the scales on the interstate by taking this longer route over a curvy mountain road. I can tell that his truck is fat (overweight) just looking at it and watching it handle, and the smell of burning transmission fluid coming from it's overworked gearbox confirms it. Of course the damned thing is doing 20-30mph on a road where I could be doing 60-70 or better but for him. I'm fourth in line behind him--he only beat me to the intersection where I got on by a few seconds. But damned if he didn't add several minutes to my drive and those of all of the other people backed up behind him. Assmonkey.

And of course when we got to one of only two passing areas on this side of the mountain, there's an oncoming car in the other lane. Haven't seen one going that direction yet this morning, but sure enough, when we need to pass this truck, there's one. I swear that these people just set their clocks so that they can arrange to arrive in the passing zone at just theright time. Sigh....

So I suck it up for a few more miles, and when we finally get to the second--and last--passing zone, the assmonkey apprentice right behind the semi balks at passing it even though it's only doing 25mph so no one is able to get past it because then the van behind that guy doesn't want to try to pass them both.

Where are these people all coming from? The same assmonkey convention?

I finally get pissed off and bust the double yellow line on the next hill, passing ALL of them, truck included. Yeah, that makes me king of the assmonkeys this morning but at least I'm getting somewhere now. I took it up to 90 and made some time for the next few miles since everyone who would normally have been on this strip of road was still back behind that truck.

Fast-forward half an hour or so, and things are looking good. I've made up my lost time, so I pull into one of those liberal specialty coffee shops, you know--the chain that seems to only hire unshaven metrosexual guys to serve the coffee and overpriced pastries. I walk in and there's like five people in line waiting to have their orders taken. What's up with that?

Then I realize that the jam-up is caused by the zipperhead in the beige overcoat at the front of the line. He's ordering all sorts of custom coffeess and pastries, and both of the counter monkeys are ambling around trying to fill his order, bagging each freaking pastry in it's own little bag--all the better to clutter some landfill with more of their logos. Finally one of the green-aproned primates asks him rather sarcastically if he's ordering for his whole office this morning, and instead of telling it to mind it's own business and keep filling coffee cups, the zipperhead laughs and says that he is.

OK, that's what Dunkin-fucking-Donuts is for, jack-ass. This is a "to-go" place that isn't really set up for bulk orders that total $42.13 and require two trips to get all of the coffees out to your little yuppified and no doubt foreign-made SUV...probably the one with the Obama stickers all over it.

Hey zipperhead--people like you just need to be shot in the back. They really do. It's justifiable and a courtesy to the world, and my concealed Browning Hi-Power was screaming "Do it, do it!" from it's holster. I think that my fingers even brushed it's Hogue grips once or twice, but I resisted the impulse to improve the world and you're free to keep doing thoughtless time-wasting stuff in front of other people who might actually need to be someplace.

Finally I got back on the road with MY coffee--just a simple no-frills large back coffee. (I refuse to use stupid words like "venti" EVER. Just gimme the largest coffee you got and if you look at me like I'm uncivilized or try to get me to say "venti", I will leap over that counter and smack the ever-loving shit out of you. Got it, counter monkey?)

I had a few choice words for the usual Obliviots who drive along in heavy traffic totally out of sync with the ither vehicles because they're too busy yapping on their cell phones, texting someone, or applying make-up, but eventually I got past them all, and I only felt the need to brake-check a couple of the most egregious offenders--all Maryland-tagged, naturally. What is it that makes that state produce so many people who are totally unsuitable for driving? It's got to be something in the groundwater.

So--how's YOUR day going?

Damn...Just Damn.

Robert Barnaskas is gone.

He crashed his P-40 Warhawk into Long Island Sound this past Saturday.
story

A pilot practicing aerial maneuvers was killed today after he nose-dived a vintage World War II plane into the waters off Long Island before more than 100 horrified spectators -- including his own son, officials said.

Bob Baranaskas, 61 of Northport was killed when the single-engine plane splashed into the water at about 1:30 p.m. nearly 300 yards off Mastic Beach in the Suffolk County town of Shirley, police said.

Police said the pilot's son, Chris, who is also a pilot, was on the beach when the crash occurred.

"There was not a day that my father didn't climb into the cockpit and realize that he was entrusted with a piece of our American military heritage so that he could tell our country's story," the son said in a statement.

"He was in every sense of the world, my wingman and now my wingman is gone but our mission continues."

Scores of people enjoying the beautiful weather watched as the plane went into a twirling nosedive from which it never recovered.

Helicopters and Coast Guard crews were still searching for the Baranaskas' body.

"People were watching because of the tricks and then it just went right down," said Roberta Fuentes, a witness from Bayside. "It was hard to believe your own eyes."

Suffolk County cops said the pilot was practicing for an upcoming Memorial Day air show.

Officials described the plane as a privately-owned, authentic single seat P-40 War Hawk, the same type of plane that drew fire during the Dec. 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that pulled the US into World War II.

An oil slick marked the spot where the plane crashed. Helicopters and coast guard crews joined the search for the pilot's body.

The plane crashed just east of the Flight 800 Memorial in Smith Point Park, which commemorates those killed when a Paris-bound TWA airliner carrying 230 passengers and crew exploded in 1996.

Baranaskas, a luxury home builder, flew the plane at parades and during holidays honoring veterans and soldiers.

"Bob was one of those handfuls of people who understood the enormous debt we owe our veterans and those still in uniform," said US Rep Steve Israel (D-Long Island).

Bob and his son Chris flew their planes in the Martinsburg, WV Airshow, back on September 21st. I blogged it briefly and took some pictures of the warbirds there, and sure enough, some of those pics were of Bob and Chris and their fighters.

Here's more pics-- These from the news story's photo gallery:
Click on any of the pics to make them larger.














And these are a few more that I took at the show. It's the same two planes. And the man shown sitting under the wing of the P-40--a man that I talked to for quite some time about his plane and flying in general--is Bob Barnaskas. That's the plane that he went down in.








Thanks for taking some time that day to talk to a one-legged fellow pilot, Bob. I appreciated it and won't forget you.


Robert Barnaskas Obituary

Exercising the dog

So last night, I was down in the workshop at the Lair, loading up a little "socialist repellent" (.223 ammunition). Because it had been so nice out, I'd left the door to the outside openso that I could enjoy the breeze and hopefully flush out some of the cold damp that was down there.

Unfortunately, I hadn't contemplated one of the neighbors' numerous free-range feral cats coming in, but that's exactly what happened when I wasn't looking. I never realized that it was in until I'd shut the door and gone back upstairs. But eventually the cat tried to get out, and it wasn't quite quiet enough. I didn't hear it but Lagniappe apparently did and he jumped up from his rug and raced down the open basement stairs.

I knew enough to figure--correctly--that something was amiss, so I followed him, arriving downstairs just in time to witness the spectacle of a 100lb German Shepherd chasing a hysterical cat that was only managing to stay alive by turning faster than the Shepherd and going under and over furniture that slowed but did not stop the Shepherd.

Of course in the process, numerous things belonging to me were knocked over or jumped upon, but neither cat nor dog were heeding my entreaties to cease and desist.

Round and round the basement they went, into and out of the laundry room, through the crawlspace under the stairs, and several places where I would have bet money that no cat or dog could ever go. But such was the game that they defied several laws of physics...I almost felt like I was on the set of The Matrix watching these two go round and round.

Finally I opened the door to the outside, and the cat made it out a fraction of a second before I slammed the door back shut in Lagniappe's face. He appeared to be more than a little miffed that I'd robbed him of his prey, but life works like that when you're a dog and I suggested that he get over it. He went off to sulk.

Well today I got to be thinking that he'd probably gotten the rough equivalent of a half-hour walk during that little romp downstairs. And since he does need to drop a few pounds of winter-weight, I thought that he might do well if I actually acquired a cat solely for use as a workout buddy for him. So I just told him that I was going to buy a cat tomorrow."YOU WANT TO BUY A WHAT?!"

Look who the latest attention whore to write a book is...

That's right...Lynndie England, a somewhat local piece of shit who dishonored our armed forces, disgraced our country, and now wants to get back into the limelight in an attempt to profit on what she did.

CUMBERLAND, MD - They say a picture's worth a thousand words, but pictures that surfaced in 2004 of the Abu Ghraib Prison scandal spoke volumes to the world.

Most of the pictures leaked to the press included army specialist Lynndie England.

Now, five years later, England is releasing a book.

England said, "I still don't understand how my face got out there. I was only in a handful of pictures."

However, those photos shocked the world. Despite these pictures, England says it hasn't changed her love for the armed forces.

England said, "If I could still go out and be a part of my unit, I would. I miss it. I miss wearing the uniform."

That's a right England lost when she was sentenced on six counts involving prisoner mistreatment in 2005.

England says she's not looking back. Instead her goal now is to share her side of the story.

England said, "I kept thinking this through my trial and everyone else's trial, I didn't felt guilty about the charges I was charged with or what happened because in my mind we were ordered to do this."

Author Gary Winkler is putting England's thoughts into words next month.

Winkler said, "There's so much more to it than this little snapshot, and in the end, I think people will come away with an understanding of Lynn as a human being."

She's tried to get a job in her community, but says she and the other officers from the 372nd military infantry implicated in the scandal can't find work.

She's hoping her book will help give the public a bigger picture of the situation than a limited view from the infamous snapshots.

Well as the retards funding the Octomom's shopping sprees at high-end clothing and make-up stores have already proven, if you're a total loser but brazen enough to act proud of yourself, someone somewhere will give you money.

I honestly hope that whatever bookseller buys this crap gets burned and stuck with crates of unsold copies. We don't need to see this vain, self-centered waste of oxygen portrayed as "a human being". We know that she's a human being. Ted Bundy was a human being. So was Jeffrey Dahmer. Tim McVeigh was a human being too. But none of them were the sort of human being that any real American wants to hear from or have around. And England is that same type of human being.

You want money, bitch? I'll personally pay you $500 if you leave this country and don't ever come back, and I'm sure that other real Americans will pony up more cash to get rid of you. But I definitely don't want to hear how you still won't accept responsibility for what you did, and I don't want any more of your lies about how you were "ordered" to do what you did. We both know that's a lie but even if it wasn't, I wouldn't care. You knew it was wrong when you did it, but you didn't have enough pride in yourself as an American or a member of the military to do the right thing. So fuck you. Just go die somewhere, only do it quietly, because none of us want to hear from you again or be reminded of the colossal stain that you and your posse put on our country and our mission in Iraq.