The Ultimate Answer to Kings

NRA calls for ATF review of bump stocks, new regulations after Las Vegas shooting

Utterly unprincipled, utterly cynical, and a relatively cheap way to give cover to their expensive politicians.

Oh, but don’t worry. Trump’s on your side. Just behind you, with a dagger.

“We always welcome a thoughtful conversation on policy and issues. The Second Amendment is a bedrock in our Constitution along with the First Amendment. These rights must be protected,” [Kellyanne Conway] said. “But …”

ETA: Sadly for Diane Feinstein and her new buddies in the NRA, you don’t actually need a Bumpstock to turn money into noise.

Never really had an opinion about it before. Do as you will as long as you don’t harm me, that’s always been my motto. Or would be if I started having a motto.

Then a good friend gave me an iPhone. That was, what, a month ago? Now I hate Apple with every clichéd fiber of my being. Tomorrow I’m going to sneak into the big town so I can have “Die Apple Die” tattooed on my chest. And I don’t even think tattoos are a good thing. It just needs to be expressed.

Why do I hate Apple with such berserk fury, you might reasonably ask. After all, somebody just up and gave you a frickin’ smartphone. They’re cool.

Oh, the phone is completely neato. Don’t get me wrong. You’d have to pry it from my cold dead fingers. But 1) I’m not a technophobe but not a technophile, either. And now there’s a bunch of things to learn. Like how to load music. This should be the simplest thing in the world. It is not. Short of buying all new tunes from Apple, I’m not completely convinced it’s even possible. (As for iTunes: I do not know a single person who ever purchased, or even listened to, a Miley Cyrus song. Miley Cyrus could be beheaded by Muslim radicals while on fire and not upset me in any way. And that’s the only name on the iTunes front screen I even recognize.) 2)Every now and then I’m tempted to attempt actually dealing with Apple. Scenes like this are why thoughts of mass shootings occur to white guys. I just attempted to establish an “Apple ID.” Why do they make this difficult? I attempted 3 times to pick a password acceptable to Apple. Finally stopped because I like this phone and hurling it across the room would be childish and self-destructive. So I stopped.

I’m only writing this as therapy. I have to go feed horses and dogs now. I really, truly hate Apple. That is all.

We pump our own water out of the ground here, using a well Ian paid Big Bux to have drilled, with a solar powered DC immersion pump…

…through a whole bunch of flexible pipe into a big water tank…

…and from the tank to a network of buried pipes. We have lost water from several causes in the past eight years: Manifold freezing. Pump failure. Flexible pipe kinking. Pipes freezing and breaking at a low point. All but the first emptied the tank. The first unavoidable symptom is no water in the pipes.

That’s not a good first symptom. If it’s a simple problem I can fix it myself. If it’s a not-simple problem, like a pump failure, resolution may take weeks while I pull out the pump, wait for someone to show up here and take it to the city, wait for repair, wait for someone in the city to come back up here, re-install the pump. Did I say weeks? Months is not out of the question. So far it’s never taken longer than weeks.

The system’s flow rate is very low, so even if I can fix a pipe break easily it will still take a day or two before there’s sufficient water in the tank to give me good pressure – or maybe any water at all. So paying attention to the water system is a good habit. But it will try to fool you.

I can stand by the wellhouse and hear the pump, if it’s running, humming up through the pipe. That tells me the motor is running, it doesn’t guarantee water is being pumped. That happened once: The pump was fine but the vertical hose had kinked under gravity. Empty tank.

If the pump isn’t running it might be a problem with the pump or with the electrical circuit. That happened twice: The floating switch in the tank got wedged in a dumb crevice of the tank and wouldn’t signal the pump to run. Empty tank.

Or the pump could just crap out. Empty tank.

Or, as happened day before yesterday, a cow could tap dance on the hose I run to my pear-tree-which-will-never-bear-fruit. Broken hose runs for hours, makes much mud, tries to empty tank. Pisses Joel off.

Have I mentioned lately how much I enjoy the privilege of hosting the frickin’ cattleman’s frickin’ cattle? But I digress.

My point is, it’s a good habit to check the water level in the tank. The tap-dancing cow made a good system test: The tank level was definitely low, and probably not because of any fault in the water infrastructure more complex than a torn garden hose. So I made a mental note to check the tank level at the end of the day, after the last dog was walked and the last horse fed…

Perfect. Joel all reassured now. 🙂

Hee…

Someone dressed like the Monopoly guy is photobombing the Senate’s Equifax hearing

It’s getting back down that’s a pain in the ass.

Yah, keep your “big sky country,” Montana. My sky’s plenty big.

There are two ways to get here: The short, rocky, nearly vertical way and the long round-about way. I tend to take the long way up and the short way down.

I always feel kind of bad for horses around here. There’s no grazing to speak of in the poorly-named “pasture” within 20 minutes of the introduction of a horse, and there’s nothing to do but stand around and develop emotional pathologies. Don’t even know if T&S ride these anymore: They both got thrown and injured in quick succession a few years ago and since then I haven’t heard any riding stories. Horses still need to be fed and watered, though.

I took the short way down off the plateau both because it’s the short way and because that way dumps me out right near Landlady’s and S&L’s places. Tend chickens, tend Ghost.

After feeding him and cleaning up one little mess he left me, I pretty much herded him out the door to finish his business. But he insisted on taking the dog food can with him, and then all he wanted to do was lay down in the shade and work on the can.

He always was willful, and age hasn’t made him any less obstinate. So finally I gave up and led him back in out of the sun. He went along with that willingly enough – as long as he could bring the can.

LB got a treat this morning. Daddy came down the ladder and we went straight out the door. It’s gonna be like that all week. I’ve got two sets of neighbors out of state and they’ve all got dogs (and in one case horses) that still need feeding.

Ghost, of course, is a geriatric hospice case by now and needs more than food. If I had a kennel to keep him in I’d load his protesting ass into the Jeep and put him in it. But I don’t, and he can’t get in the Jeep for fun any more – in fact he can’t do much of anything any more – and so I have to go to S&L’s every 3-4 hours to let him out so he can pee. In between that and naps he eats and drinks prodigiously, and his joints are killing him, so he needs to be encouraged to get up and get out to do his chores.

Once this morning and afternoon I have to extend those visits up the ridge and over the plateau to visit T&S’s place – they of the impressive stone walls – to see to their horses and pets.

So lots of backing and forthing. I went nuts filling the Jeep…

…only to leave the gas cap on the rear light mount like I do about half the time. It fell off beside the driveway and this morning I got to stare at the engine light all the way to S&L’s and back. Happy to find a cheap answer to the question of the engine light, since I have a superstition about the trips back and forth to T&S’s place. Break down on that road and you’ve got a long walk over some empty, empty country. And sooner or later the Jeep is going to break down and need a tow. Boots, water, gun and phone, for sure.

Anyway, the Ghost trips started yesterday and the T&S trips start today. Plus with my other hand I need to get busy again on the bedroom. Monday I made what I hope is the last big construction-related purchase of the year…

Swear I may have spent more money for paint in a single year at some point back in my Mr. Suburban Man life, but the memory’s not coming. The Lair’s east and west sides could still use another coat but it’s going to have to wait for Spring. I’m gonna cover the floor with plastic again, hit a couple of coats on the ceiling and walls, then call it good and start moving furniture in. Meant to yesterday, but I let other things get in the way. No more procrastination; I’m writing this in a hoodie. Winter Is Coming.

23 years ago…

Two headlines in quick succession

First:
Top CBS Exec: No Sympathy for Vegas Victims as ‘Country Music Fans Often are Republican Gun Toters’

Yeah! Those damned country music fans deserve to die! Republicans, every one. Gun toters. Church burners. Nazi flags in their garages. Probably hate gays and puppies.

Second:
CBS fires vice president who said Vegas victims didn’t deserve sympathy because country music fans ‘often are Republican’

Oops…

But since I’m only being political in self defense, you first.

You know you’re a member of a persecuted minority when you see references to “the worst mass shooting in [American] history” and your only reaction is “Oh, hell. Here we go again.”

Joel to MSM gasbags: I’ve never even been to Las Vegas. And no, you can’t have my guns.

Also: (this is going to sound like I’m blaming the victims but) when are these f*cking eloi going to start taking responsibility for their own security? Because over and over people act as if there’s no possible danger out there, and then somebody else has to clean up the blood. And then I’ve got to listen to three months of progs and the MSM (BIRM) screaming to the world about how it’s all my fault…

…because I’ve seen a Resident Evil movie.

But it’s close. Very, very close.

Introducing the Pause Pod, your very own portable snowflake safe space.
Enjoy.

They ran a kick-starter to “invent” a $99 pop-up tent? Couldn’t you just use a kid’s tent? Aren’t they, like, $29.99 at Walmart? Here’s one for less than that, and it doesn’t even advertise a Disney movie.

People are funny.

“We just want your compliance.”

The conversation happened a long time ago, but it was sufficiently unpleasant that every time I see that word I’m reminded.

A highwayman would say exactly the same thing – with exactly the same motive. For the record, I wouldn’t feel any duty to oblige him, either.

The government has the drop on us from the moment we’re born, then sends us to school for twelve years to condition us to the notion that compliance is good. By contrast, at least the highwayman has to work at it.

…a blinding flash of insight, informing me I don’t need to do one chore I’d planned for this morning, because that chore has been rendered obsolete.

This is my wood cutting table. All summer it’s been at the Lair to help with construction, but I was going to move it to Ian’s this morning. I normally keep it there because he’s never there and has lots of electricity. In the autumn I mount a chop saw on it and cut up pieces of pallet to stove length and toss them in the Jeep trailer. So here’s the way the process works…

I take the Jeep trailer to the place where I store my pallets. Load as many as will fit in the trailer.

I unload the trailer at Ian’s place, where I have the table and a chop saw.

I cut the pallets apart with a Sawzall, then (careful of nails) feed the bits into the chop saw and cut them to stove lengths.

I toss the stovewood into the trailer, drive it to the Lair, unload the wood into a wheelbarrow and stack it in the woodshed.

I throw my back out at least once during this annual process, losing a good week’s work. Through a mix-up at the factory I was issued a 63-year-old spine, and during wood-cutting season it shows.

Now here’s the part about the epiphany: I have a cordless reciprocating saw that, apparently now that it’s broken in, runs for useful lengths of time on a battery charge. So I can cut up the pallets right where they’re stored. I already knew that. But now, or when that Honda generator gets here, I can either do the whole process at that remote site – inconvenient but it means I only move wood once – Or I can leave the wood cutting table at the Lair, haul the cut-up pallets to the Lair and cut them up right next to the woodshed.

Either way I’m only moving wood once and never big heavy pallets.

I like this new plan.

“…because only cool people have portable generators worth having…”

…That wasn’t a bleg.

🙂 But I’ll take it. Guess what just showed up at the maildrop…

An extremely generous long-time reader emailed me right after the post at the link above, saying there was one that had been purchased for a particular purpose but the purpose had passed, and could I possibly find it in my heart to put aside my generatorphobic ways long enough to make a home for this?

Have I said lately that you guys rock?

And we’re getting into the season where for the first hour or two of the morning a good chore coat feels pretty good.

…so this morning that nice new canvas coat came out of the powershed. Not everything stored in the powershed escapes the attention of rodents, and I’m happy to report that this one survived its only warm season stored there without damage. Soon my seasonal clothes will enjoy the luxury of a nice indoor closet.

But I can’t really say laying out the winter clothes is one of the more joyous annual rituals at the Secret Lair.

I wasn’t going to say anything here about the NFL kerfuffle, because a) I haven’t watched a football game in decades and b) the whole issue of patriotism is such a mess you’d need to start with “first let me hear your definition of patriotism,” and c) exactly who gives a damn about what-all football players do? I’m told that except for Superbowls the TV doesn’t broadcast the national anthem part of the games anyway, so how did this suddenly get so important?

And yet it matters. I suppose.

Standing for the anthem is the new counterculture

So here’s my secret shame – I sort of sympathize with the kneelers. Not a lot, but some.

When I was a little boy, every morning whichever public school class I happened to be in was supposed to stand up, put our hands over our hearts, and recite the pledge of allegiance. Maybe you remember it. I did that without thinking for a few years, and “without thinking” is precisely the way we were all taught to do it. The words, I promise, carry no meaning whatever to a 7-year-old boy. But when I got old enough to actually analyze the words on any level at all, I became very uncomfortable.

Maybe it was the Heinlein reader in me – at first it was just the logic of the words. Pledging allegiance to a flag – a piece of cloth, a symbol, made no sense to me semantically. At some point I must have looked up the word Allegiance, since it was never defined in any elementary school class I recall. I was signing over not only my conscience but also my fair young body – Viet Nam was ramping up, though I didn’t take notice of the fact till later – to people who, I was assured, were wiser, better educated and informed, and in all ways better able to make important decisions than I was. Even before it came clear to me that virtually all of that was a lie, and that the last phrase – “liberty and justice for all of whom exactly?” – was a cruel joke, I was made very uncomfortable by the pledge of allegiance.

So I began wanting to sit it out. Technically this was usually permitted. But actions have consequences – particularly conspicuous actions like remaining seated while all the other kids stand up, assume the position, and drone out the recitation. At a minimum it was very uncomfortable. If the teacher happened to feel strongly on the matter, and some did, “technically permitted” became effectively forbidden. Then the consequences ran from public shaming to spanking with a paddle. I wasn’t always consistently strong-minded on the issue but I did wonder: If I go ahead and say the words, forced and without conviction, does God or whoever’s keeping score still hold me to it?

All in all, I can’t get excited either way when a bunch of conspicuously non-oppressed millionaire football players do what I at least wished to do at seven years old. I may continue to disagree with their stated reasons for doing it.

(Right – and so does the website at the link. There’s an infuriating autoplay video ad FRICKIN’ RIGHT ON TOP OF THE INFURIATING AUTOPLAY VIDEO. SO IT’S TWO INFURIATING AUTOPLAYS ONE AFTER THE OTHER. IF THIS WEBSITE DOES NOT MAKE YOU WANT TO SLOWLY PAINFULLY KILL ALL WEB DESIGNERS AND ADVERTISING EXECUTIVES BEFORE YOU EVER EVEN GET TO THE CONTENT YOU’RE DEFINITELY NOT ME. And I’m not even sitting in a gray carpeted cubicle trying to hide what I’m doing from my supervisor. Any more. So be warned.)

Anyway – the content isn’t even that important, it’s about traffic cameras in Baltimore. Seriously, don’t even click on it. I’m only adding the link for verisimilitude. What got me, what in fact mystified and saddened and horrified and angered me and made me completely give up all hope for my culture and my species and made me want to say f*ck it and go out and buy more flour and then just come home and nail my door shut and wait for the cities’ ashes to cool, was this one paragraph…

“We have many more requests for speed and red light cameras than we’ll probably ever get to,” he said. “Every neighborhood wants one; every council person wants one.”

This person is either the worst liar since the last politician to open his mouth, or Baltimore is a very sad and crazy place where people actually ask to be robbed and oppressed.

Uh…ladies?

I dunno – maybe this is like the Century Village equivalent of taking Grandma out to the ice flow. Seems harsh, is all.

It’s been on-again-off-again rain since daybreak. This afternoon the sky was getting really threatening and I thought I’d better go take care of Landlady’s chickens early while I could do it and stay dry.

Turned out it’s been raining heavily on the high country east of here…

…and when I got to the ridge overlooking the wash crossing near Landlady’s place, I was too late.

That isn’t really much of a flow but it’s deep right there and I won’t risk the Jeep for such a trivial purpose. The chickens have food and water, I fed them this morning. They won’t mind if I wait to collect their eggs.

But I thought that since the flow was just beginning and I had this Nikon point-and-shoot someone recently donated, I’d drive downstream and do something I’ve wanted to do for years, just for you guys… Continue reading →