Nom de plume: Rivrdog

The most important question is ignored

I'm getting a little frustrated here, to put it mildly.

I ask the most important question I've ever asked of readers, to define their "line in the sand", and I get zero replies. Zero, zilch, nada, rien.

Folks, if you can't be bothered to answer this important question, either I am irrelevant, you are irrelevant, or both.

People, this is why our nation is in the hands of idiots now, and why it is about to be made irrelevant among nations: no one wants to step up and say the words.

I'm probably not going to keep at this quest much longer myself.

Lines in the sand

We've all heard the term, "Line in the sand", and we all suppose that it is a point, once crossed, that a definitive action will be taken, and there will be no retreat from that definitive action once it is initiated.

Almost every gun blog, and a few political blogs as well, have referred at one point or another to "Lines in the Sand".

The problem is that once declared, these lines in the sand tend to be forgotten, and once forgotten, well, they aren't lines in the sand any longer, are they?

A Line in the Sand is supposed to work both ways: it is supposed to remind you (the drawer of that Line) that it exists, and maybe you will have to cross it, and it is supposed to remind the party on the other side of it that there is always the possibility of you coming across the Line and having a set-to.

So, to get to the point of this post, maybe we should have a "Line in the Sand" blogstorm, and all pick a date, and write up our Lines in the Sand on that date, and publish them.

My vote for the Line in the Sand Day is the night President Obama gives his State of the Union address.

Comments?

Suggestions?

Loaded-chamber indicators

For the life of me, I can't figure out why this discussion keeps popping up.

Now it seems that respected gun-blogger Tam (I'm not a reader) has opined, and that started a chain of responses, including a blogger I DO read every day, PawPaw.

I commented over at PawPaw's, but it seems to me that this is a non-fruit-bearing discussion.

Let's take it one step at a time.

First, all guns are loaded, all the time. That's Rule One, and if you fail to heed it, you WILL have an unintentional discharge, which could be anywhere from embarrassing to fatal, depending only on luck, which you DON'T want to have to depend on.

Second, all of us gun people, as well as the gun manufacturers, can read, and we keep reading about unintentional discharges with bad results. All of us want to stop those issues, so we preach the Four Rules, and we re-preach the Four Rules, etc. Some of us (Joe Huffman is an example), even compose new language for the four rules, but always, THE FOUR RULES.

It doesn't stop there. If we were perfect students, it COULD  stop there, but we're not, so it doesn't.

Enter the manufacturers. It doesn't stop there with them, either, thanks to product liability lawsuits, so they HAVE to continue to find ways of improving product to avoid these lawsuits.

Years ago, probably at the dawn of Browning's era, came the Loaded Chamber Indicator for semi-auto pistols. I have an early example, a pre-war Walther PP.

Loaded chamber indicators make sense, not only to help protect manufacturers from lawsuits, not only to protect dummies who can't or won't learn the Four Rules and apply them, but for other reasons as well.

My Walther, being a blowback action, gets dirty. The main way I tell that it is dirty is the Loaded Chamber Indicator, which starts to get sticky. When it starts to get sticky, so does the firing pin in it's channel. Then the pistol needs detailed stripping and cleaning.

That's a bennie of LCIs that no one else seems to have noticed, helping you know when your pistol needs detailed stripping and cleaning.

It's like this, boys and girls: you have a manual safety on your firearm (unless it's a Glock or clone). That safety doesn't need "Safe" and "Fire" designations to function, but most have them. You accept them, right?

'Nuff said. Go with the flow. Find something else to vent about, this isn't a real issue. Nothing to see here, move along.

Capiche?

DEA agents killed in the 'Stan?

So says Fox News, just now.

Ummm.

Something got left out.

Why are DEA agents in the 'Stan, and how much permission did they obtain before going in?

Yes, I know all about the heroin thing. Learned that in my first police academy in '73, thank you.

However, I learned well before that, there is NO such a thing as "international law enforcement". ANY Law enforcement operation from one nation needs the permission of the target nation before such operation can begin, and my guess is that the DEA didn't ask first.

Also, from my International Studies classes in college, I learned that all operations of the US Government in foreign lands are subject to Congressional review, and I have heard of exactly NONE on this operation.

This is NOT about interdicting heroin at it's source, this is ALL about this nation believing that it can inject it's police forces anywhere, do anything with them, and all because some of that poppy gum winds up in our worthless citizens who abuse it.

This is ALSO all about the current administration's idea that everything is a law enforcement problem, and we don't need the stinkin' military there, we can solve all the problems with Federal Agents.

Sorry to harsh your mellow, my DEA and FBI friends, those Taliban don't give a rip about your government's policy, you're just another target to them, another blip on top of the front sight of an AK.

To my Government: Pull the idiot Federal Agents out of the theater of war, and use soldiers to do what work needs to be done. Soldiers ARE war-fighters, and Federal Agents are about bringing lawbreakers to justice. There is ZERO compatibility of those two missions in Afghanistan.

Mexico trip AAR

We just got back 11 hours ago, and after a l.o.o.o.ong nap, here we go with the AAR, good stuff first.

Good: the Peso is weak compared to the weak dollar, and so we had about 35% more purchasing power than last time. Prices HAVE increased down there, but I brought back 20% of my $2500 expense budget, and I've NEVER done that before.

Good: Not many tourists, so no difficulty getting on tourist jaunts. Prices for these jaunts haven't increased much, one example being a chartered (crewed) yacht trip, in a 45-foot sailing yacht, an all-day adventure including two nice meals, open bar, snorkeling and lots of quiet and good company, for $80/person. Another adventure, with a linked company, took us out into the mangrove swamps in an actual old-time steam launch. For 2 1/2 hours, we looked at most of the fine waterside villas, including the Governor's, saw 5 crocodiles, including a 12-footer which came right up to the boat. That trip was $25/person, and included all the cervesa you could drink. BTW, the picture of the retired-looking couple relaxing aboard the S/B African Queen IS yours truly and the gudwife, taken several years ago. BTW2, the launch has a new fire-tube boiler to power it's Fred Semple-designed engine.

Good: Paradise Village Resort is still the same classy place, and our accomodations, in Torre (Tower) Coba, looked down on the yacht harbor in the Marina.

Good: Puerto Vallarta is still well-protected, and has suffered none of the drug-cartel violence which has plagued other parts of Mexico, particularly the border areas.

Good: the Aeropuerto at Puerto Vallarta is growing as well, and easily accommodates the traffic.

It wasn't all roses, however.

Bad: The weather sucked a big root. The Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone had not retreated to it's usual fall-through-winter position down around the Equator, but was till hanging around at 10-20 degrees north latitude, so we had full tropical summer while we were there, complete with wilting humidity, 90+ temps, three nights of SERIOUS electrical storms, and a good lashing by the tail of hurricane Rick, the second-strongest Pacific hurricane ever (Rick was a Cat-5 until just before it passed by just offshore of us). We will NOT go there this early in the season again. We are used to the drier and cooler weather that late November-May brings.

Bad: Being there in the off-season means that a lot of the things to do simply aren't on the calendar yet. The hotel still has all their daily theme nights, but they are toned down to minor affairs, not the major hoopla deals we are used to. Putting on a BBQ night in the main dining room, and eating your meat out of steam tables instead of a chef carving it off a baron of beef cooking over mesquite doesn't quite cut it. A three-piece mariachi combo in the dining room doesn't compare to the mid-season, big and brassy sound of a 15-piece Norteno band out by the main pool.

Bad: In this tough economy, the ever-present shills (salesmen) are just about at a screaming level. They descended on us like a pack of jackals at the airport, and even sported "identity badges" saying they were employees of our resort, when I knew perfectly well (and told them to their faces) that the resort engages in ZERO promotion off it's premises. I was just on the point of lowering my shoulder and serving up a football lineman's block on the second pack of these jerks that accosted me on my way from Customs to the Taxi Dispatch.

Bad: I was pleasantly surprised to find that Mexico now has 3G wireless, but even Verizon couldn't get me out of the dollar-a-minute roaming charges, so my cell phone was STILL useless. I did manage to negotiate a deal with Verizon to use broadband 3G (a puny 500Kb/sec) down there for $10 for the two weeks I was there. Another FUBAR about wireless: they build no backup power into their comm systems there, so whenever electrical storms hit, the network is disrupted for hours.

What works and what doesn't work in Mexico?

Works: the Internet. WiFi and 3G everywhere. No excuse to not have some sort of access.

Works: Your English works just fine in Puerto Vallarta. The Mexicans are bears about their tourist industry being able to talk to us in OUR language.

Works: Your dollars work just fine down there, and that's NOT a good sign, as far as their economy and currency goes. if I was Presidente, there would be ZERO dollars used in commerce there.

Works: Your credit cards work just fine, but you pay an automatic 4% penalty for using one there. Better to take cash in and convert it. I was able to buy Pesos at less than a percentage point below the XE.com rate. Lots of stores have signs up offering big discounts for cash instead of credit cards. That tells me that there is a lot of cheating on their national value-added tax going on.

Works: Wal-Mart works. New stores everywhere, and they have it all.

Fails: Their roads fail. Take the worst pothole-alley in the USA and it would be a smooth boulevard there. Their use of speed bumps is WAAAAAY overboard, and they don't engineer them to be OK on your car's suspension at a certain speed like we do. All of theirs try to wreck you whenever you drive over them, at whatever speed. Their boulevard traffic signals are screwy. You turn LEFT from the right lane, waiting for a signal to stop the left lanes of traffic, but there is still something creepy about that.

Fail: This system of every tourist being a mark to be swindled is a MAJOR failure. Their Tourist Minister REALLLLLY needs to bear down. The outright fraud being openly practiced at the airport is just one example.

Fail: Their entire culture of electronic communication. I don't claim that we do it right all the time here, but we have NAFTA now, so why is TelMex still allowed to charge robber-baron roaming for use of a US cell phone? Changing sim cards like you do in Europe doesn't work in Mexico. You have to have one of their phones in order to lose the roaming charges. Canada changed similar rules when NAFTA came in, so why can't Mexico make us all one big happy cell-phone family? Also, why do the Mexicans require the use of a country code? Canada dumped theirs, you dial ten digits to call anywhere in Canada from the USA.

Fail: Their @$%^&*&^%$#@ city bus system. There is absolutely NO way, except local knowledge, to know where all the different private bus lines stop. There are at least ten bus companies serving PeeVee, and their fares are reasonable, less than $2 for suburb-to-town with a transfer for in-town routes, but unless you are at the end of a busline, you have no clue if it will stop for you at a bus stop, or, in some cases, you won't have a clue where the damn thing goes! The city MUST have the authority to put Autotransportes Medina's (bus line serving my resort) logo on the bus stop signs where the company stops, don't they?

Aaaah, the zzz's are catching up to me at 0315, so I'd better finish or it won't be right.

First week AAR

Flying down was a drudge. I hate the cattle cars, the cattle calls, and the TSA cowboys who lead you to believe that they have a cattle prod within reach.

But, we got here.

The usual hassle in the airport, with shills all competing for our attention. Several were falsely repping themselves as employees of my resort. The Security Director and I had a chat about that next day, and a letter of warning was given to all guests.

But we're here,and in the newest tower to boot! It overlooks the yacht basin, of course. Biggest yacht in harbor is a 148' Christiansen. Few aboard all this luxury plastic, most nights the Yacht Club is almost deserted. The resort is maybe 1/3 full.

The weather is hot and humid, Hawaii with more attitude. The solution to that is water by the gallon, lots of changes of clothing, and dips in the pool or the bay. I've turned up with "sun bumps", a skin condition which is likely related to using waterproof sun block, which I have ceased to use. Went native with a linen long-sleeve shirt instead.

Much less tequila this year. Rum is better for me, and costs about a third as much. A liter of decent Mexican run is about $9.

The wife unit is getting pampered in the world-class spa right now, and THAT will be a few shekels, but she deserves it. My turn next for a Shiatsu massage.

The Mexican government decided to focus the majority of it's development money right in this area, so old Puerto Vallarta and all the rest of tourist Mexico is hit hard by the recession, but Banderas Bay is thriving. It's been rebranded as "Riviera Nayarit", but hey, rebranding is an old socialist trick, supposed to work in every case, right?

Well, enough of this wit, my internet time is about up, although it seems Verizon Wireless bought rights down here and my PDA works just like at home. Roaming is $USD1 per minute, so I'm not calling out, but $10 bought me unlimited broadband down here for 15 days.

I should have bought/brought that netbook, it would have been perfect here with it's Verizon card built-in.

Out of here.

Rivrdog.

You've got two weeks

...to get this country squared away. If you don't, I'll be back, tanned and rested, and I will have to do the whole job myself. You don't want that, so get to work and get this country squared away.

I'm in rest mode for the big silver bird tomorrow early morning, and the computer is OFF (and I'm not taking one with me).

See you in a fortnight.

You can tweet me @04283, and blog-comments ping in at my blog-linked yahoo addy, perspac@yahoo.com which I can be reached at where there is US broadband for my PDA, and wi-fi when there isn't. If I get REALLY bored at the airports, I might fire off a tweet or two myself.

It's been too long. Sun, sand, and the beach bar waiter with his sonorous, "Un otromas, Commandante?" are but hours away. I can even survive a few days of the monsoons, which are in progress now. THAT will remind me of SE Asia, but I survived those days, and can survive a few more.

Yes.

Be patient with the Analog Kid

...as he says, he's had a work-month from Hell, and some personal financial tangles to live with (I hate re-fi), so I guess the last Extenze spam-comment put him over the top, and he plugged in Kaptcha and comment moderation.

I had to do that once, meself.

He's still one of the brightest lights on the Left Coast, and always worth a read.

Alfred Nobel must be spinning in his grave

As if the rich Texas-style BBQ I had last night didn't put me close to indigestion, this little bit of news put me over the top. Time to hurl. Keep bucket by side, etc.

By all historical notes, as well as his poetry, Alfred Nobel was quite the social liberal. He was a practical man, though, and he WOULD NOT have understood giving the Peace Prize to someone who has done nothing, nada, to promote peace from ANY perspective, left or right.

Let's list Obama's "peace accomplishments" (not a long list):

Israel/Mid-east: Bowed to the Saudi King (a despot). No other President had done that. Jawboned Israel to stop building in the Captured Territories. Ho Hum, all Presidents, left and right, have done that. Said he would talk to Iran's President I'm-a-regular-ding-dong (a despot), then threatened him with Dire Consequences over nukes (which are almost ready, according to IAEA). Ho-hum, all Presidents have made such threats. Bribed Kim Jong Il (a despot) to release a couple of Algore's snoopy reporters. All recent Presidents have bribed Kimmy, no big deal there, either. Is reducing troop strength in Iraq. No big deal, we won that war, it's time to bring them home anyway. Held off of his General's request for more troops to the Afghan war (when he heard that he was being considered for the Peace Prize, I'm sure). Big deal, the man wants to shrink the military to insignificance anyway.

Did I forget anything? MAYBE lying about his birth status to gain the position he "won" the Peace Prize for? MAYBE telling the Committee he would do ANYTHING to get the damn prize to shore up his falling prospects here in the USA?

Well, one thing is for sure. The Peace Prize Committee can REALLY pick 'em. First Jimmah Cahtuh and now Barack Hussein Obama. Oh, and the linked Wiki said that the Committee gave the Prize to Alfred Nobel's lover in 1905, presumably for her convincing of Nobel to fund the Peace Prize, showing the bought-and-paid-for nature of the Prize for the past century.

Carter and Obama, now there's a pair to REALLY draw to, and hope you pull a pair of treys, so you can say you had a winning hand.

Can you imagine the dismay of any ACTUAL peace-bringers who might have been nominated and then passed over for this fool?

I should laugh, but I can't, and the real reason I can't is that this mistake proves that Obama-grade idiocy is present all around the world.

It's not of real consequence, except that Obama-mania will now resurface, just in time for the loudest idiots to claim they won the hearts and minds for the complete conversion to Socialism that the idiot world desires for the USA.

War weaseling, Obama style

Read it and weep. Weep for your country, left strong by G.W. Bush, now doomed to be emasculated by B.H. Obama. If he's given the opportunity, we will have to go through another damned "peace dividend" raping of our military.

Obama is hoping that we conveniently forget that Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan were just mercenaries doing some training there under the auspices of the Taliban when the Tenth Mountain marched in and kicked their raghead butts out of the country. It's the Taliban who put women there back into the Stone Age, not Al-Q. It's the Taliban that is now making a major play for control in a large part of Pakistan, not Al-Q. It's the Taliban who wants control of Pakistan's nukes, and is a lot closer to that goal than Al-Qaeda.

Al-Qaeda are simply a Muslim terrorist gang, while the Taliban have plans drawn up to be THE government in Pakistan AND Afghanistan.

When Obama says, "Our enemy is REALLY Al-Qaeda", he's right, but in such a minor sense it might as well be a lie. Al-Q is only our enemy in that they were the ones who came here and attacked us on 9-11, and have done other terrorist atrocities since. They WERE the major force fighting us in Iraq, but we handed their asses to them there.

OTOH, it was and IS the Taliban who have always enabled Al-Qaeda, AND they are fairly nasty terror-boys in their own right.

So when Obama wants to "include a role for the Taliban" in Afghanistan's future, he is really saying we are going to abandon Afghanistan.

He's going to cut and run, and lie to us saying we (he) "re-evaluated the enemy", and we are still fighting the "real" enemy.

No, President Weasel, you are wrong. In Afghanistan, the "real" enemy IS the Taliban, and if we defeat them, we've defeated Muslim extremism. If we let the Taliban slide, and "defeat" Al-Qaeda, we will find that the very same Taliban we let in now will let in more Al-Qaeda or their clones after Johnny comes marching home.