The Ultimate Answer to Kings

A few days ago Obama made news by landing in Phoenix and not going to that infamous VA hospital. Today he’s all over the news for not going to Paris.
I only want to say, “Mr. Obama, you can stay away from me all you like, and I promise not to get mad about it.”

More rain overnight. I had to meet D&L this morning early. Everything was fine until I left the ridge…The nearer your destination, the more you’re slip-sliding away. Fortunately, though, the one time the Jeep actually left the road there was a convenient hillside to shove it back into play.

Then D&L’s truck battery crapped out without warning. By the time we got that fixed, got our business done and got back home, I was hours late for shit-shoveling and the black clouds were coming back. So I hurried through that and Landlady’s chickens, and now I’m caught up just in time for more rain.
Welcome to the cesspool of the real.

My life sucks.

Doesn’t matter since you’re gonna get both anyway.

Last week we got between 12 and 16 inches of snow, depending on who was doing the estimating. And then we got a warm spell and some of it melted, turning the caliche into lakes of snot. And then it froze…and then it got warm again, releasing more water…

Oy.

Friday the roads had just begun to dry out though there was still lots of unmelted snow. Forecast called for rain, which we didn’t get. However we did get another nice warm day, so more snow melted, and the mud got deeper, and…

Everywhere I go, slip-sliding around. I can barely get the Jeep out of my driveway in either direction. There’s no way I’m firing up the ATV, that’s like driving in a mud shower without an umbrella. You oughta see this floor. I keep sweeping and we just track in more…

I hate winter.

…Because unlike a lot of Moslem-bashers I have actually known and worked with a large number of Moslems, many of whom I rather liked and none of whom tried to behead me…
…though I must say I’ve grown tired of waiting for them to rein in their own fanatics. They’ve had plenty of time, and they’ve got plenty of guns……so I have begun to question my own oft-repeated assertions about how they deplore the fanatics as much as we do, or nearly as much……and although I find Sean Hannity and his ridiculous jingoism annoying – “We’ll put a boot in your ass, it’s the American way” yerass, no it isn’t……and I deplore those who even joke about using American military strength for what amounts to genocide……Still, all that notwithstanding, I have to say… Continue reading →

…at the trigger of a very cool (because Browning) but altogether rather odd old shotgun.

Can’t say I noticed at the time, but in slow-mo it’s clear the gun doesn’t start to recoil until the barrel is all the way to the end of its travel. I wonder if that would have an effect on accuracy, since the shot column would have left the barrel by the time the buttstock starts beating on your shoulder?

Got a single new kill overnight, right in the same spot where I already nailed two, in the narrow space between the Lair and the woodshed. Funny: Last summer I could never catch anything there. Now they’re lining up for me to kill them.

Also, I’m 3000 words into a long new BHM article, which they actually emailed and asked me for. Color me surprised!

It’s a bit of consolation for the stalled book project: Somebody offered to help format You Never Completely Lose for Amazon, I sent it to him months ago, and never heard a thing back. Guess I’m gonna have to figure out how to do it myself – right after I figure out how to upload a 20 meg document over my piddly satellite connection.

I got a very kind mention today in one of Claire’s posts concerning people who want to live without social security numbers. Unfortunately I must disagree with something she said…

Ask Joel how he does it. Offer him some payment. He could use the money and has much more relevant information.

No. Don’t. Seriously. I’ll refuse to discuss possible illegalities with a stranger, and anyway she’s right about her very next comment…

But you’re not going to like what he has to say. Not one bit.

The funny thing is that I don’t particularly consider myself a ‘number of the beast’ refusenik. In fact before reading Claire’s piece I probably hadn’t given SSNs a thought in years. I kind of backed into not using the number, because for various reasons all the state privileges you need it for were closed to me anyway, and I had my own reasons not to consider that a completely bad thing. But you picks your battles where you finds them, and SSN in particular was never a big bugaboo of mine.

But really, don’t come asking for advice on that topic.

…and time to get out into it. It’s supposed to cool down again tomorrow but just seasonal, not all so-you-think-you’re-a-survivalist frickin’ cold. In the meantime I need to catch up with the laundry.
This new Wonder Wash works pretty well, all told. I still have to rinse separately, and that’s when I’m reminded how cold the water in the cistern gets this time of year. I do miss my tubs and hand agitator. But it still beats trying to get sweatshirts clean in the sink.
Ain’t he a fine, dignified old fellow? That’s right next to his very favorite winter morning nappy spot, which happens to be right next to the clotheslines.
“Why,” I hear some hypothetical passer-by ask, “Did he cut the leg off all his longies?”

And now it’s time for shit-shoveling. I’ve got the regular corral-cleaning to do, then I want to haul out another trailer-load while it’s nice. Ten o’clock, and the temp’s almost to forty already!

ETA: Got another packrat kill overnight! Still not from the trap under the Jeep hood. But it’s possible my nemesis has gone to meet Rodent Jesus elsewhere because there’s been no sign of further habitation since I started putting traps in there. This particular dead rat got two bites of the poison apple: Night before last I violated the “Always tie the trap down” rule and found it several feet away with a bloody rat chunk in it, then this morning I found a dead rat in the trap, with a missing bloody chunk. So not exactly the Archimedes of packrats, and I probably only succeeded in improving the breed a bit.

Or was I mistaken, and a vote for the opposition was supposed to be a vote for more of the same, only harder?

It got turned down. Mr. Scalise and Mr. McCarthy talked against it so it would cripple our hand, because they have to do these things short notice. But to me, that’s a lack of leadership, and that’s the whole reason we have to do what we’re doing in the House—that’s a perfect example. The argument was, well, if the bill came out with language on Tuesday at 9 o’clock at night, [giving representatives 72 hours to read it before voting] would mean we would have to stay here until Friday to vote on it. Why not stay here until next week and give members more than two or three days to read a bill? These things—they’re ridiculous. The American people expect and deserve better from us, and they deserve better, and that’s why we need different leadership.

Funny – when Pelosi said that, the republicans called it ridiculous. Now they’re in charge, and it’s official policy. And their very first official act was to vote that bombthrowing radical Boehner back in as speaker, with 28 nay votes out of 29 necessary to take it to a second ballot, and there’s nothing suspicious about that. What happened to all those new conservative members that were going to save us?

Hope and change, baby. Hope and change.

By a delightfully appropriate coincidence I was shoveling actual horseshit when I heard Limbaugh on the Jeep’s radio this morning, talking about how the Tea Partiers are the republicans’ natural base constituency. And I thought no, no they’re not. Not if they’re serious. The republicans’ base is exactly the same as that of the democrats. And it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference which party sits in which chairs. I’ve given up hoping voters will ever figure that out.

When the Jeep broke down – Okay, Zelda, when a packrat wounded the Jeep – the horseshit started to pile up. What with one thing or another, including a foot of snow and a big cold snap, I haven’t yet hit my stride in getting it back under control. So I took the opportunity of this lovely morning to load a few tons of equine excrement from here…
…and then unload it here. By my precise calculations, Ian has enough mulch and fertilizer to maintain a plantation of new fruit trees until roughly the 24^th century.

But we need to get it while the getting’s good, because I now have official word that it’s coming to an end. Back in May J&H started talking about moving (temporarily, one hoped) east for various personal reasons that are nobody’s business. Then it all sort of went away. But now it’s official, they’re going to do that, and of course they’re taking the animals with them. J insists he’ll be back. I’m going to stay in their employ in a truncated fashion as caretaker, but the endless stream of free horse manure is coming to a whoa. Makes me sad – I like those guys. Plus they’ve been the most reliable and important part of my income stream for the past five years, which also has an impact on my opinion of the matter I must confess.

A couple of days ago through the auspices of some friends I received a review copy of Vin’s new novel, and I confess I approached it with some trepidation. I’m on record as finding his first foray into fiction a rather silly thing. Good messy fun, and it’s still on my shelf, but still. Silly. I didn’t want to write a bad review for a new book from someone I largely respect.

But I figured, what the hell? I’ve already lived a long time.

Having now completed the book, I can breathe at least a bit easier. This new novel, which promises to be the first of a series, is a substantial change of pace. Anyone looking for breathless, angry prose, despicable government villains and nonstop superhero action will look in vain. The Testament of James is a quiet little book, for the most part. So quiet, in fact, that after finishing the fifth chapter I grumbled to myself that it should have been titled People Talking in a Book Store. And when it finally gets down to business, it does so in a most unexpected way.

“Books On Benefit” is an old-fashioned rare-book store, of the sort I used to love when I was young – the sort long since driven nearly extinct. The descriptions here are loving: You can practically smell the high-acid paper deteriorating and that dark, secret corner where an ungelded tomcat did something bad. Unfortunately, a few days before the book opens something very bad happened here: The much-loved manager died suddenly in a manner that might not have been sinister, and simultaneously an ancient codex that was supposed to have been delivered apparently wasn’t. But a lot of strange people seem to think it was. Matthew Hunter, the store’s owner, is at first only interested in seeing that his friend is properly buried and his beloved store put back into orderly operation, but those strange people all have their own agendas. Then there’s the break-in, and some Egyptian guys with knives show up…

…and yet for the next few chapters things just sort of go on. And on, as we’re introduced to all the characters that no doubt are intended to inhabit the next books in the series. And some of these characters are indeed amusing and intriguing: I for one would like to know if that one guy will really turn out to be a vampire in the fullness of time. But at some point I found myself wishing we could just get on with it. The book does start rather slowly.

And when at last it turns into a detective story, our hero and his very tough “doxy” employ methods probably not found in Private Detection for the Complete Idiot. I don’t want to spoil anything here, but Suprynowicz already gave away the show in the interview found at Claire’s place. The plausibility of this as a literary device is … questionable, but credit where it’s due: This certainly is not F Is For Formula. (I stole that last thing directly from the book, by the way. Some of the dialog in the slow bits is delightful.)

Suprynowicz’ characters are engaging and entertaining, and leave you wanting to get to know them better. His heroine kicks ass in a most satisfying manner – you do not want to kidnap this lady – and the resolution is satisfying and believable. There are pacing issues, and frankly the MacGuffin he chose for his heroes to chase is a tired old thing that left me rather cold. But I won’t spoil it for you, and your mileage may well vary. All in all, it’s well worth hanging in there to see how everything works out. Vin Suprynowicz may still be growing into fiction but he’s been an excellent professional writer for decades and he can do more than type.

Go thou and see for yourself! There are excerpts at the link.

Backwoods Home, in a classy move, sent me a free copy of the issue in which my one and only BHM article resides.

As an insecure, egotistical bastard, I must admit the article as published is one of the main reasons I got out of writing freelance feature articles. (The other, principal reason is that the dollar value is so rarely worth the time. I did work-for-hire far too long to get any thrill out of seeing my words in print. For the record, BHM paid pretty well – and very promptly.) But when I write words and someone agrees to print them, those are the words I want to see in print. Regular TUAK readers know that I’m fond of my Joelisms. I do not like seeing them edited out, because I like Rocky Road and some editor I don’t know prefers vanilla.

BHM paid me very well for this article, as I said, but then they edited out the Joelisms. Which bugs me, I confess. I think it was Heinlein who said, “Never argue with an editor. Once he’s peed all over your work, he’ll like the taste better and be willing to pay more.” But I never aspired to Heinlein’s lofty ethics.

On the other hand, it did make the cover. So I’ll take that as an ego boost or something and move along.

Two palpable kills overnight. No mice or birds this time.
Unfortunately neither of these traps is the one I’ve set under the Jeep’s hood, so I don’t know if either of these critters is my nemesis. But I DO know that one is the critter that’s been sneaking into the chicken yard after hours, because he left a lovely trail for me in the snow. And so I knew where to set the trap. Because I’m evil.

So this morning dawned bright and cloud-free. Haven’t yet looked at the forecast, but I think the worst is over around here. For now. Woke up to a nippy five degrees.

Came over to Ian’s to borrow a cup of electrons while my solar panels cleared and my batteries recharged, and what to my wondering eyes should appear but a little flat square box. I’ve decided to call it a
…and he foolishly left it in plain sight. Heh.

My goodness! It’s much faster than my satellite connection!

Much of the snow we got 36 hours ago melted yesterday afternoon, but ain’t no snow melting today. Haven’t seen the sun at all, and we’ve gotten some new inches in the past few hours. Not quite knee-high drifts (and fortunately there’s no wind) but walking anywhere is becoming rather more like wading than usual.Good news is that the snowfall has brought the temperature up to something less unpleasant. Also, since the solar panels are all covered and may remain so until sometime Sunday, let me just type a sentence I never thought I’d use…I just paid $30 for two lightbulbs.

The reading lamp above the Lair’s comfy chair is the only two-bulb light fixture to actually contain two bulbs, because that’s my reading lamp. But during times like these when electricity use becomes problematic, using it starts to feel sinful. On the theory that one sin cancels another, I spent a prodigious amount of money (on sale, $30 would buy 75 pounds of flour) to save 50% of the power use from my reading lamp. Given that the electricity costs me nothing per amp, that doesn’t make a lot of financial sense. But this is one of those rare times when I’ve got more dollars than amps, and it seemed like the thing to do at the time.

Anyway it wasn’t actually snowing hard when I made that decision, and now that it’s clear the solar panels will not charge the batteries a bit more today the timing turned out serendipitous. I’ve considered doing it for months.

Got three kills overnight: Two birds and a field mouse that wasn’t quite quick enough. Zero packrats.

Found that bird on the left under the Jeep’s hood, but I’m pretty sure it’s not my culprit. Just the unluckiest Mexican Jay in history.

Far more than usual, though nothing compared to what some of you are probably dealing with. Four, maybe six inches though it seems deeper in spots. Not much wind, which is nice because the temp hit single digits just before sunup and hasn’t climbed a lot since.
Looks like the temp’s gonna stay in the twenties today. Little Bear’s loving it, and that’s about as much good as can be said.
To my surprise, it’s been completely sunny this morning. I cleared off the small solar panel on the powershed and so my numbers are positive instead of the other thing, but the main panels are only now melting off – and it looks like a new cloudbank is moving in, so I’m really expecting more. But the forecast was for today to be completely socked in, so I’ll take it.

Hope you guys are staying warm. Signing off to charge batteries while I can.

That’s Cruise Control the miniature horse, crappy picture courtesy of my phone. I get a kick out of him in his shaggy winter coat, he looks more like a yak than a horse. In all these years I’ve still never gotten used to the idea of taking photographs with a telephone, so I guess it’s appropriate that they still don’t put decent ones in the bubble-pack phones I get from the dollar store. 🙂

It’s been sunny and warmish the past couple of afternoons – it’s almost 45 out now at noon – but windy as hell. I hauled a trailerload of manure out of J&H’s with several left to go and wanted to get it done before the wind got completely cranked up. Yesterday evening it never did get very cold so I never lit a fire, for which I was rewarded this morning after the temperature crashed overnight with indoor temp in the mid-thirties.

I was hoping the cold would drive my packrat tormentor back into the Jeep’s engine compartment, currently paved with traps. But for the second straight night, no joy. I guess he’s either staying away or he doesn’t care for peanut butter so tonight we’re switching to chicken scratch which is basically bird seed. I’m gonna get that little SOB one way or another, even if I have to spread poison on the intake manifold. But that’s a last resort. There’s no sign he’s been in there at all.

Sun is bright right now but supposed to go away this afternoon as the next line of snowstorms comes through. I gather from the news that some of you guys already know all about that. It’s only new year’s eve and I’ve already blown through roughly half a cord of firewood which is almost half my stored supply, so during this pleasant interval I’ve been cutting a bunch more. I confess it’s nice to be able to heat the cabin to a civilized temperature, even though part of me says it’s all sinful and decadent and stuff.

Taking into account what people said about the generic nature of a lot of old stove parts, I took a crack at scrounging the part(s) I need to fix my oven. Down the road a ways there’s an abandoned Toyota RV that’s been completely taken over by the local rodents. Some of you have gotten on my case for being too laid-back about mice and rats – well, this thing even creeps me out. So much so that I’ve never been tempted to loot it. But in hopes that there might still be a stove in there I pried open the door and peeked inside, and sure enough there was. I went in gloved and masked, and sweartagod halfway through the job of tearing out the stove I wished I’d left the paper mask at home and brought my gas mask out of its bag. This place is foul. But I did get the stove out, in the process encountering two live deermice and several dead ones…I’m in the market for an RV stove for the summer kitchen I hope to put up next year, but it definitely wasn’t going to be this stove. I had to clean nests out of the Lair’s stove before I installed it, but they hadn’t befouled it the way they did to this awful thing. So I dismantled it with a prybar until I could get to the valves and thermocouple…None of which turned out to be interchangeable with what I need. So that didn’t work, and this morning it all went into the trailer for a ride to J&H’s Dumpster. Interesting experience, though.

Hope you guys are riding out the weather well, talk at you later.

…has certainly turned into a fine mess.
I’ve started to write about it any number of times but always gave up. There are so many things to say I can’t ever quite get a handle on it.

But that big funeral for the two dead ones brought to mind a pervasive meme from some years ago: Remember when we were told – over and over and over – that cops needed and deserved all sorts of respect for their authoritah because their jobs were just so damned dangerous? SWAT cops have to wear masks because they’ll make enemies on duty who will hunt down them and their families. It virtually never happens outside crime novels, and the notion was shot down (no pun there) by article after article listing the most dangerous professions – lists on which being a police officer never appears. And now we have these two cops who actually were targeted by a whacko just for being cops, something we were once told is routine – and tens of thousands of cops fly in for the funeral, almost as if it’s an unusual occurrence.

It’s all so convoluted. It started with the Michael Brown shooting which may have actually been justified, not that we’ll ever know. The Ferguson PD went into reflexive cover-up mode, so that the evidence of a righteous shoot they eventually trotted out was understandably suspect. Their wild overreaction to the protests didn’t exactly build a bridge over troubled water. Then there was the Eric Garner killing – or, sorry, his completely coincidental and unrelated death subsequent to an encounter with officers of the NYPD – and their “don’t resist if you don’t want to be killed” reaction to the controversy, which really helped a lot. Look! Al Sharpton! Don’t blame us, the guy was overweight.

It’s very unfortunate that this managed to be about race. A ‘national discussion’ about police abuse is long, long overdue, but it needs to cover topics far wider than ‘things that make Al Sharpton rich and famous.’ And now I notice that all the conservative writers seem to be loudly and unanimously denouncing the very notion that police are ever anything but gallant, self-sacrificing Heroes in Blue. Police corruption? A contradiction in terms! And if someone points out that criticism of police misconduct in general and NYPD misconduct in particular didn’t start this month or this year and is certainly not unfounded, they just view Al Sharpton with alarm as if that were an answer. I love to hate him too, but come on.

And so, unfortunately, here we are. All the problems of overbearing cops: Militarization, brutality, asset forfeiture, unjust shootings, union corruption, the whole fetid swamp of Us v. Them double standards, you bloody name it – will be neatly swept under the rug by what may have been the only people who could possibly have made a difference if they’d only chosen to join the ‘discussion’ instead of taking the wrong side.

I don’t think we can expect the problem to ease any time very soon.

…and I had such high hopes.
For obvious reasons I’m reluctant to use poison – I even passed on my original plan to mount one of my traps on top of the most likely tire, because Ghost likes peanut butter too. But in hindsight I’m inclined to think that would have been futile anyway: Cats don’t use the tires to get into an engine compartment, so I don’t know why I assumed rats would.