Nom de plume: Rivrdog

Ready for Marx Day?

Tomorrow is Karl Marx Day, and the forces of the Left will turn out en-masse to disrupt the centers of cities all over the Nation.

Too bad. I wonder if anyone will calculate the lost productivity and send Valerie Jarrett a bill. My guess is that she's coordinating it, as far as it could be coordinated.

What! You STILL think that all that leftoid drama is un-planned?

Silly you.

Conflict management Rule One: avoid confrontation, but be able to get yourself out of the worst one you might unavoidably find yourself in.

Tomorrow, when I travel to Clackamas, OR for the MOAA meeting, I think I'll carry my Glock model 22, and it's companion carbine, the Kel-Tec Sub Rifle 2000, both in .40 S&W. Of course, the EBC (Evil Black Carbine) will be locked folded and out of action, but I figure I can get to it and put it into action safely by use of the pistol and 3 magazines if and when the need arises...

I'd pack some extra ammo and go to the MOAA meeting early, since the Sheriff's Range is one block away from the hotel, but I notice it's closed on Tuesdays, and most of the spare Deputies will likely be detailed to downtown Portland, where the fun is supposed to break out.

2A litmus test for Romney

Without further ado, here it is:

Fast & Furious, aka, "Gunwalker"

The House Oversight Committee has USAG Holder in their sights for Contempt of Congress, but according to Brit Hume, senior analyst for Fox News, who opined on this issue tonight on O'Reilly, there will be a behind-the-scenes game played by Issa and Holder, who will give just enough of the 92% of the documents subpoenaed, but not yet delivered, to keep the noose off of his neck.

This situation is ripe for waking up the US of A with, and Romney is the guy to do it. If he bumps up Fast & Furious to near the top of his agenda to hammer on Obama with, he will add some stiffening to the spine of Rep. Issa, and maybe Issa will be less likely to cave or make a "backroom" deal which would let the inventor of Gunwalker walk.

Holder, at least, and probably Obama, conspired to try to weaken the SCOTUS-strengthened Second Amendment by a false-flag operation that was supposed to show how US guns were arming the violent drug cartels in Mexico. With plenty of evidence to show that the cartels didn't need US guns, but had a better supply of (military) arms which they got from Central America and the corrupt military in Mexico, Gunwalker was supposed to smother all that evidence, and, at the very least, "close the gun-show loophole", if not allow an acceptance of AWB Two. When the Border Patrol agent got killed on duty with a "walked" gun, though (just bad luck, really; by the numbers, he should have been killed with a Mexican M16 or Central American M16 or AK), it blew the lid off of Gunwalker, and gave an actionable cause to Issa & Co.

If Brit Hume was right, and he usually is, Holder and Obama will skate on Gunwalker until after the November election.

Romney could change all of that, give Obama a huge black eye, force him to throw Holder under the bus, and forever cement his creds with the gunnies. Heaven only knows those creds need cementing after Romney's anti-gun performance as MA Governor.

So, whichever readers are contemplating sending campaign cash to Romney (I haven't convinced myself to do that yet), consider putting the check in with a letter strongly urging Romney to start using the GOP treasury to highlight Gunwalker, and keep highlighting it.

If the GOP campaign smarties can do that, it will, at least, raise enough of a 2A ruckus that even if Obama wins a second term, he will be likely to have to forgo 2A Executive Orders, which would then be just too hot a topic for him to touch. In the best of scenarios, with Romney harping on Gunwalker, Holder might just be cut out of the herd, the GOP wolves getting their prey, and maybe, just maybe, he might cut a deal with Issa to stay out of the hoosegow. That deal, of course, would involve implicating his boss as having okayed Gunwalker.

Gunwalker could be the issue that brings down Obama, but to attain that status, it will need a boost by Romney. The One Big Question is: does Romney believe strongly enough in the 2A to give Obama the severe test he should get with Gunwalker?

I can't answer that just now, nor can I say that I really want Romney to win.

Only Romney could change that, and Gunwalker is his chance to do exactly that.

Mucked-Up Monday

I arise today at a reasonable hour, and decide to reconcile my checking account, which I haven't done in 12 days. At the 'puter, I click open the Credit Union web page, and note that it has been completely re-designed. Hmmmm...the hairs on the back of my neck start to tingle (I am the RivrDOG, after all!).

I find the log-in tab, and click it. It opens very slowly, and so I insert my account number and click on "Password", which fails to take the password I type. Hmmmm. I change from Chrome to Internet Exploder and try again. No joy.

I go back to Chrome and re-enter everything, but now use the "tab" key to get to the password box, and now it takes my password, but when I click "go", it doesn't go, and I get a FUBAR box from Chrome. Back to Exploder, do the same, get the same result. Go back, do it all over again, this time using the keyboard Enter key to enter instead of mouse-clicking on "go". Still FUBAR.

I started to try to access this account (into which ALL my pension deposits are electronically made, and out of which I pay all bills) @ 0745 local, and it is now 0905, and the CU is actually open, but still no fix. I have been on "hold" on the phone for over and hour, and have no answer, just hold ads. I read blogs for an hour to pass the time while on hold.

It's payday, too, and if this keeps up, I will have been denied almost $7K in incoming funds.

This about rips it with me for this CU. I have done business with them for almost 40 years, but they cheap out on everything. In this case, their mistake is obvious: they changed everything to have the newest and latest web-page, but failed to post their IT guy to 24-hour monitoring of it to make sure all the new server links stayed up and working.

This is also the age of robo-calling, and the farging CU COULD have had a robo-call sent out to all the members to advise them of the outage, but they didn't do THAT, either.

******************************************

The issue got resolved about 0915, 1.5 hours after I discovered it. I had to redial the CU, the hold music went nowhere, and after the staff took their desks for the business day, no one picked up that line. GRRRRRR! After redialing, I get a staff member, and she discovers that in the last five minutes, the system had just come back up.

Tomorrow is the Annual Meeting, so I might just have to drop by the CU and pose a question from the floor to the CEO of why the CU either does not have a 24-7 IT guy, or subscribe to a monitoring service, or have ANY way to report an online banking outage when the office is closed. Saving the members' money is one thing, but when they are so cheap as to make online banking useless with their inattention because they won't pay for some system to monitor and report to the IT manager, then they're saving TOO many shekels.

 

Jobs, the REAL question

In honor of Joe Huffman, who taught me to ask the One Big Question...Joe's a bit busy this weekend, so I'll iterate what he would say if someone asked him the One Big Question which has formed in my mind.

Simple question, that.

It seems that we are about to decide the policy direction of our Nation based on one little word, "Jobs", but has ANYONE stopped to ask what a "Job" actually is, how it is properly defined, how the statistics about "Jobs" are actually derived, and whether ANYONE ever checks those statistics for accuracy?

I might not be an economist, but I have dealt, to some degree, with the idea of budgeting. In budgeting, we have a concept called "Full Time Equivalent". At any sizable organization, public or private, that employs people, there is a standard definition of what it costs to have one person perform work, and that is the FTE.

Basically, the FTE is what one "standard" person draws as a wage, together with the value of that person's economic benefits (vacation days, health insurance, etc), over a period of 2,080 hours (one standard working year of 52 forty-hour weeks). My FTE, just before I retired from copping, was just over $90,0000. That was a wage of $28.56/hr, plus annual benefits running to just over $30K.

So, for full-time employees, the costs are fairly easy to break down. The tricky part is how to measure less-than-full-time work.

That's NOT tricky if fractions or decimals of an FTE are used. The average US wage (Median wage, to be accurate) last year was $26,364. Just search on "average US wage", and you will get all sorts of sites which display the statistic, and tell you how it was derived.

Why then, does the Government "play" with the figure so loosely? Here's an example of "playing". With "Job Creation" now the measure of whether a candidate "has it in him" to be President, why haven't we demanded, and gotten, a precise definition of what One Created Job actually is?

Here's what "One Created Job" ought to be: One FTE, measured against the last, accurate US Median Wage, projected as if that job lasted one year. A couple of years ago, when the "stimulus" was the big topic of discussion inside the Beltway, and "shovel-ready jobs" were being "created", I remember reading that the Obama Administration was claiming One Created Job for every job opening that lasted 15 days or more. Of course, that's crap. No two-week job ought to ever be compared to a full-time position.

Since we all have calculators, let's do the math. Taking $26,000 as the annual wage in question, and adding in, say, $10K in benefits, we have an FTE for those "shovel-ready" jobs of $36,000, or $3K/month. If those jobs only last, say, 3 months each, then each one is 0.25 FTE, and the base earning is only $9K for each job. Did YOU ever see those jobs listed that way? I didn't. That same Obama Administration (and, likely the Bush II Administration before it) claimed Christmas Seasonal workers as "created jobs" every Fall, despite the fact that those jobs never last past the middle of January, and are less than .25 FTE each. Same thing with Summer Seasonals, etc

The Government (and candidates to run it) lies, and our entire National future is being decided by this particular brand of lie.

Let's ALL go activist on the political process here, and demand that ANYONE who uses Job Creation in any sort of political statement be REQUIRED to prove out how many actual FTEs he/she is referring to, and what the actual dollar figure of that FTE actually is.

Can we do that, people? I think we can, and I expect THAT sharp saber, if universally used, would deflate a LOT of political hot-air balloons, if not ALL of them.

You have your assignments. Attend political rallies, and at the right moment, shout the One Big Question at the candidate(s): "Sir, what is YOUR definition of a Job"? I guarantee that the pretenders will NOT be ready to answer you, so YOU be ready to repeat your question.

"Tactical" Clothing

Yeah, well...

Tactical. Okay, first prepare the soldier, then put the soldier into tactical clothing. As long as we follow THAT order, we might wind up with a soldier who is tactically prepared. Same for cops, same for we-the-people.

Mind you, I am NOT saying "tactical" is useless, I just think it's oversold, and the danger in that is those folks who feel that it's appropriate to think "tactically" might just stop their tactical preparations when they put on those tactical pants or that tactical vest, shield their eyes with tactical shades, and hide behind/under a tactical head cover.

The real questions always remain, though: can they hit what they shoot at with that Tactical rifle, can they move tactically when they are not shooting, and can they communicate tactically when necessary? If you can't do those Big Three of "tactical", well, then you aren't "tactical", no matter what you wear.

Now, as if to prove my point about "tactical", along comes the "Tactical Kilt". Okay, then, does putting on a lower-body garment with NO knee protection, and little leg protection, REALLY rate as dressing Tactically?

I'm one-eighth Scot, Campbell Clan, but I don't wear the kilt. When I don't need to protect my lower legs from abrasive assault, I wear shorts (no, not those baggy ones, I prefer my shorts SHORT). Generally, though, I find that full-length men's pants are ideal for the active man.

I'm not a kilt kind of guy, so I guess then I don't have to answer THAT question either, do I?

H/T for the kilt link goes to the Hammer-Bone, sometimes known as Two Dogs

B.O.A.T.

B.O.A.T. = Bring Out Another Thousand (for boat repair)

I just hauled my cruising boat, Lofoten Girl, out for bottom painting at the boatyard. I don't do fiberglas prep, so I always hire this work out. I put a lot of time, the last time I did it, 4 years ago, into checking the professional creds of the fiberglass guys at the various local boat yards, and one of them came out much more highly recommended than the rest, so I used him to do the work. He had to take off some gel-coat and fill, then put on a barrier coat (replacement gel-coat), then bottom paint. With all that work, and with all the hazmat dust and fumes involved, customers MAY NOT observe the process, so you just go and pick up the boat, by then, back in the water, when it's done.

Had I observed, I might have seen this:

That's an improperly filled blister (filler failed to bond to the base fiberglass), and, in fact, the entire area of the hull there is not filled at all (note the curly gouged aspect). There are numerous of these places, the result of which is that I have to have the last grind-fill-gel-coat and bottom paint job completely done over again, where all I should have had to do was replace the ablative bottom-paint. My $1200 estimate for bottom-work has just ballooned to over $4000, and might go over $5000.

Simple, you say, go after the last fiberglass guy. Not so simple. For some reason (guess why), he has pulled up stakes and moved to Hawai'i, where he does the same work, and also works for the University of HA as a crewman on their research vessel (if the Socialist Republic of HA likes him, they will shield him from any of my collection efforts). I've already found two other cases similar to mine that he has failed to satisfy, and if one phone call can find two cases, there are probably many more.

Boating, yeah. Some throw their $$$ away on guns, some on wimmen, some on boats. I do all three...

Earth Day, 2012

There's some history behind Earth Day, you need to go to the Wiki and read it. You actually only need to read the first paragraph, because it will tell you (between the lines, I'm sure it wasn't written that way on purpose or the Wiki would have been deleted by now). Note in the Wiki that the original Earth Day was all about stewardship of the planet and it's natural environment, which is what it should be about today, but isn't.

Note also, in the Wiki, that the United Nations hijacked Earth Day three years ago. It is now just another tool of that anti-national-sovereignty body, which uses and recommends socialism as it's mechanism to destroy sovereign capitalist governments.

When the UN hijacked Earth Day, they brought in the "Mother Earth" thing. Back when the original Earth Day was proclaimed, the Mother Earth or Mother Nature thing was a joke, as in the margarine commercial. Now it is a religion, and as such, is the only religion the United Nations recognizes (overtly, they recognize Islam under the table).

So, we have had a progression here, a progressive change. It's just another one of the progressive changes that wound up as a socialist tool, but environmentalism went from "conservation", as advanced one hundred years ago by Teddy Roosevelt, to Earth Day (let's ALL save the Planet) in 1970, to today's version (we're acolytes of Gaia, the Earth Goddess).

The only true version is the original. We can use the bounty of nature, but we must conserve it, so there will always be some.

That's what your Rivrdog follows as his outdoor creed. I recycle, too, in fact, devoted yesterday morning to getting the non-curbside recyclables together to take to City Hall, where, once a year, their huge parking lot is used for actual GOOD, and becomes a massive recycling center for the hard-to-recycle items.

If you conserve nature, you've done your duty to the planet. Socialism does not count as doing your duty to the planet, nor does prostrating yourself before the false idol of Gaia.

The stars aligned...

Today, the stars aligned and I was able to pay the gudwife back for 35 years of putting up with me. 

I was boating all day, but returned home about 2pm. My wife and I exchanged news, since I had been out for 24 hours, then I went upstairs to take a nap, having only managed 4 hours of sleep last night. I undressed, and was just pulling back the covers when I heard a strange voice calling my name. It was a soft, small voice, but yet, urgent. I went to the stair landing and looked over, and saw my wife collapsing, holding her throat. She had just used the last air in her lungs to alert me that she was choking.

I rushed downstairs, and followed my training. I skipped the back slaps, since she was blue already, went straight to the Heimelich Maneuver, between 5 & 10 repetitions . No effect, book says to do a finger sweep, so I went in there and just felt the blockage. I couldn't hook it out, so I threw the book away, as she was almost gone now, and shoved the chunk of meat farther down.

It worked, and she began to get air. I put her in a chair and dialed  911. I got put on Hold for almost a minute, then got a surly SOB of a dispatcher who refused to listen to the patient's history, wanted to run a script on me like a farking telemarketer (I'll file the Internal Affairs complaint tomorrow). I asked for a supervisor, and got the message passed. Less than 5 minutes later, an ambulance arrived, and the pros took over.

We're in the ER now, and she's going to be just fine. My fingernails were long and I was afraid I'd lacerated her when I shoved my ham-hand down her throat, and she got a good dose of the worst that the Willamette River has for uglies, because I had been handling lines on my boat since I last scrubbed myself down, but a close examination by the doc saw no damage, despite quite a lot of pain.

If this had happened earlier, before I had gotten home, if I had been fully asleep and not had heard the cry...

Lord God, I meant to have this conversation to thank you before now, but never got around to it. I hope you can see me to match the voice to my face, because I'm not really tall on my knees just now, and don't stand out in the crowd of seven billion other humans on this planet, any of whom might also need your guidance...

For you, dear readers, if you're ever offered the chance to take Basic EMT class like I did, almost 20 years ago, take it, and pay attention in class. I did, or I'd be planning a funeral now instead of getting ready to welcome my daughter home from overseas.

I'm about done myself, and need a drink, and I STILL hear my pillow calling.

Ted Nugent got Obama's attention

With his speech at the NRA convention, which, I'll admit, was a FAR more fire-and-brimstone presentation of speakers than I would have imagined. They probably even closed the NRA-LifeLock booth during his speech, so everyone could concentrate on the TV screens and not the pitchmen.

So, now Ted has a problem, a Secret Service problem. That makes the Irony list, that the Secret Service should begin a Presidentially-directed harassment program of Ted Nugent. Hell, it appears that the Secret Service wouldn't know morality or truth if it ran them over with a D9 Caterpillar as if they were Rachel Corrie.

Anyway, what will your Rivrdog do about it? I don't need the Secret Service around here, soooo....

I will bend over backwards to accomodate opposing viewpoints, in fact, I am starting a new Department on my blog just for that.

Welcome to the Progressive Sound Board.

All progressive comments will be welcome here, no matter how stomach-chruning they might be to me, and I might even make individual blogs out of the more provocative ones! I might even get a well-known Progressive moderator to keep track of this Board-within-a-blog.

Welcome aboard, dissident Crew!

I knew Ronald Reagan, and you may NOT compare yourself to him, Obama

I knew Ronald Reagan because being stationed in CA during the late 1960s then the late 70s to early 80s, he was the talk of the State. The much-more-respectful MSM reported more accurately on the President then.

Ronald Reagan started out as a union guy, President of the Screen Actor's Guild, but at the time, the "wild-eyed socialists"* in Hollywood were in the minority, not the majority like now. There were a LOT of WW2 veterans calling each other Brother and Sister at Union meetings then, and there was at least SOME respect for the USA amongst the members of SAG.

After his SAG stint, Reagan went on to get elected Lieutenant Governor, then Governor of California, which, at the time really WAS "paradise on earth" (yes, readers, I could easily have been a dope-smoking hippie myself, they were graciously accepted most places then, as somewhat of a side-show, but they were accepted there).

Reagan went on to become President, taking over from Jimmy Carter, who dispite being a Naval Academy graduate, and a small businessman, made a piss-poor President. I had a fellow B52 crew-member who bought a residence in Riverside in '81, and had to pay a 18% mortgage rate (and the rates were FALLING then!), IIRC. I rented, was scared out of the home-buyer's market.

President Reagan's Airborne Command Post used to land at my duty station, March AFB (Now March Air Reserve Base), which was then the headquarters for the Strategic Air Command's Fifteenth Air Force, and it was home to double-Squadron wings of both B52s and KC-135 tankers. The Presidential Airborne Command Post was a brand-new E-4 (Boeing 747), which was outfitted as the President's place to fight a nuke war with the USSR from, even before Air Force One, it was THAT important. I got a VIP tour of the top-secret aircraft, which was later featured (a mock-up of it was featured) in the HBO movie "By Dawn's Early Light".

Gawd, this is digressy, isn't it?

*The point here was supposed to be: I knew Ronald Reagan, I probably knew him better than you do, Presient Obama. He was NOT a "wild-eyed socialist", but YOU ARE. Plus, you're a liar to boot, Obama, and I never knew Reagan to lie. 

Oh, BTW, President Obama, Warren Buffet, who has put up with you to an excessive degree, has just signaled you to quit calling your "tax the producers out of existence" plan the "Buffet Rule". Do the old, sick guy a favor and stop with that nonsense. Don't bother to try to call it the "Reagan Rule", either. Reagan wanted to lower taxes for EVERYONE, not just the dependable sloths who will always vote to get their "free stuff". Oh, and quit smoking that history-revisionist crack-pipe, Mister President. It's not legal yet. If you want it to be, fire Biden from your ticket and put Ron Paul on there....