Nom de plume: Rivrdog

Blog Station Alpha, reporting online, sir.

Okay then. Too much to blog and a Scotch and Zinfandel fog to blog through. Yes, I probably imbibed more than my share tonight, but not enough to get to the blog-blackout level, and just the right amount to put up my shields against the pusilanimous Veep Biden's abrasive (and losing, if you score on REAL debate standards) debate vs. the NEXT Veep, Paul Ryan.

But, I'm ahead of myself. I arose early this ayem, put on the Coveralls, Men's Cotton Sateen, Ty pe 1, FSN 8405-00-131-6509, and got to work. Work involved End-of -Summer/Start-of-Winter preparation, and here's why:

That's the first winter-weather front of the season, right on time to enter the PacNorWest tomorrow. It will be followed by several more over the next six days. The WET season is less than 10 hours away as I write, so first up was the winter-covering of the M35A2, end result shown here, time expended, one and a half hours:

 

Next, the winter-covering of Petey The Popup, shown here, time expended, forty-five minutes including trimming back the rosebush hedge so I could tie the tarp down on that side:

Then I loaded the empty propane bottles and 5 empty gas jugs into the Little Black Truck and drove out to Shorty's Corner, about 12.5 miles East of here, where they sell 92-octane gasoline MINUS the Ethanol (it's $4.65/gallon and worth every penny), so I now have 35 gallons of gas on hand, and 30 gallons of diesel, and all vehicle tanks are full. That's prepping, baby! Some of the supply below:

 

Cleaned out the garage, swept it out, and now the LBT sits snugly in it's Winter Haven. Rolled up the garden hoses and stacked the outdoor chairs, while the gudwife stored their cushions in their "hole" under the second-story stairs.

At 1630, fired the big Pit for the last time this season, and, thirst slaked with Famous Grouse,  cooked a small Cross Rib Roast for the gudwife, I and our Dee-Bate guest for the night, the Founder of the Gresham TEA Party. A delightful BBQ dinner ensued, the wine being Wilson Creek Zinfandel 2007 (appelation, Temecula Valley). Had several glasses, and noted that the Guest was live-tweeting the dee-bate, so I began suggesting tweets to her, and she published several.

A delightful evening was had by all, but somewhat overshadowed by intell from the Middle East suggesting that Bibi Netanyahu might have also been tweeting the debate, but his tweets would have been to his Chief of Staff. Best guess is that if Bibi figures that Obama gained back his lost initiative, the Israel/Iran war might start this weekend, because of three factors: First, Bibi hopes to finally convert the US Jews from being hopelessly bound to the (D)onks, and a war of Israeli survival would do that, and Second, if Bibi thinks that Obama has the best chance to win now, the war has to start before 06 November, because an Obama win would make that war damn near impossible to carry off, Third, the New Moon is Monday. Bibi might bluff the Won into air tanker support BEFORE the election with 3 to 5 million Jewish votes hanging in the balance, but NOT after an Obama victory. BTW, that 'splains MY prepping also. Bibi is a better prepping guide for the 'ol Rivrdog than is Obama.

Oh, the Dee-Bate: the liberloons say Biden won with his forceful presentation, but real Dee-bate fans know he lost. Whines lose, and he whined to the Moderator three times that I counted. Facial expressions such as smirking count for points off, and Biden smirked all the time. Verbal put-downs, unsupported by facts, count BIG against the put-downer, and Biden did that about 4 times that I noted. On points, a loss for Biden. On "style" where points don't count, Biden at least tied, maybe won, because of his more aggressive style. Depends on how you score. I score like I was trained to score, and so Biden lost, in my view.

The MSM will likely declare a Biden victory, but the result of THIS debate only counts in Israel.

Monday musings

Just now, in the 0800 segment, Fox News revealed a comment of Obama's from back when he was Senator Obama, that showed his true colors: he said, in this comment, that he wanted to lead the welfare class, as he saw it as a "majority coalition". Newt Gingrich also weighed in on this. Two things: this makes Obama's criticism of Romney's statement identifying the Gimmes as 47% of citizens seem fairly hollow, since he was obviously the first of the two candidates to expound on that subject, and secondly, it seems fairly obvious by the quote that Obama thinks that the wants and needs of the welfare class should rise to the top of the hierarchy of needs of this Nation. The average voter lacks the political nuance to properly digest this information, but if they were to digest it, Obama would suffer the worst election loss of any incumbent President in our history.

....snip....

Ah, for comic relief, we have a.....wait for it.....wardrobe malfunction! Hmmmm....when ya got curves like those, Miz Vergara, you need either stretchier material to make the dress out of, or stronger thread to put it together. Or, the "emergency crew" could have just sewn two bar-tacks at the top and bottom of the posterior split, and the designer would have sold thousands of the dresses this week. If you want to see more of Sofia, go here

.....snip....

Speaking of political greed, in Multnomah County, we have a Library system that has gotten all it's requests for operating levies passed, still gets 25% of it's operating funds from the County General Fund, and now wants to form it's own special Taxing District. In Oregon, like most states, we have a form of property tax limitation, which allows modest yearly rises in the propert tax rate (millage). Of late, the property tax limitation is gotten around by spinning off portions of the local government into these special Taxing Districts. If the dollars were the same, the only argument that could be made against this system is it's complexity, but the dollars aren't the same. For example, the Library has NOT offered to vacate it's operating levy (just passed this May) or turn back it's request for County funding if it's taxing district scheme passes. It will have a huge money windfall as a result. More laws to limit government is not usually a good thing, but our Legislature MUST consider a law mandating that such funding changes cannot result in tax-funded windfalls for local government agencies. I just penned an article for the TEA Party Capo Regime that will take this nonsense on.

.....snip....

How about those Ducks! Oregon finally brought it's defense to a football game, and shut out the 4th best offense in the country, Arizona's, 49-0. The Ducks move up to #2 in the polls as a result.

.....snip....

How about those replacement NFL refs? HA! made you upchuck, didn't I?

.....snip....

With the NHL lockout following the usual pattern of owners vs. players' unions, why haven't the Sportz TeeVee moguls announced that the blocked-out TeeVee time for NHL games will be used to broadcast some minor-league games? For example, the Western Hockey League plays a decent game, with the League being split between Canadian and US teams (the Portland Winterhawks are in this league, and played for, but lost, the Cup last year).

That's enough for today, readers, I've got to work on my next novel some while my back still permits vertical posture. 

 

 

The TEA Party lost what????

Just about threw up my breakfast of poached Tilapia on toast, swimming in Court Bullion. Fox News was blathering on, and had just put on an excellent bit by the venerable Liz Trotta, when some tame (D)onk talking head came on and gravely intoned that "The TEA Party just lost a big fight".

Ummmm....Okay then, big fight. Lemme see, I'm actually IN the TEA Party. The Gresham, OR, TEA Party to be exact, and I function as the Motor Corps and Esprit Division to keep the troops stirred up when they are out on location demonstrating. The sight of my M35A2 in traditional Olive Drab CARC with the big White Stars, thundering by (no muffler!) in low gears, flying a 3x5 foot Old Glory and a smaller Gadsen flag, generally serves to remind the troops why they are on those street corners in that hot sun or cold rain.

I hadn't heard that this was a fight I was involved in, and a quick check with the 'Net hasn't revealed any marching orders for other TEA Parties regarding the Supreme Court, either.

Let's make one thing perfectly clear: the TEA Party is a militia-type organization, not the national, traditional party the (D)onks hoped it would be so they could put a static defense up. It exists, trains and responds locally. We of the TEA Party will be there this Summer and Fall, showing the Flag and demonstrating in favor of a great country and those who would keep it great, vs. those who would tear it all down.

We didn't LOSE this past week because we weren't in that fight, or in a position to lose. The Lefty Media can't just say we lost, they have to know if we were even on the field of battle, and they apparently don't have that basic capacity, so they do what they always do, make up the news.

It's B.A.G. Day/Tax day

...but you have two more days to pay your taxes, since today is Sunday, and tomorrow is "Lincoln freed the slaves Day" or some such, celebrated only in DeeCee, apparently (Jan 1 and June 19th are more widely celebrated nationally), but that was good enough for the PeeCee Feds, who then gave us an extra day to get their blood money tax payments in.

I've done both duties. BAG (Buy A Gun) Day as reported here, and taxes, paid my first installment of the quarterlies for next year. I got my State tax refund back in time to use it to pay the quarterly payment, first time that's ever happened. Seeing as how my electronic filing went in on 4/2, that's pretty fast. Kudos to the State Treasurer.

Normally, I would go to some sort of Tax Day Protest, perhaps even taking the M35A2 to be a setpiece of said protest, as I did last year.

Didn't go to this year's local event though, since the Oregon Tea Party, which is putting it on, got a bad case of greedy, and decided to charge $20/head for admission to it. Note to self: try to find out just how many separate Tea Party orgs there are flying under the original, non-organized, TEA party banner now. Most of them are umbrella orgs for other conservative PACs which have stalled out in their fund-raising and want to try to tap into the former TEA Party fervor. It's all about Das Gelt, nothing more.

Note to the Oregon Tea Party: Read the VERY recent political history. There was NO PAC money involved in the original Taxed Enough Already Party (TEA Party), and that was a secret of it's success. If YOU want success, don't charge admission for your "headliners", who, if they were real conservatives and not political greedos themselves, wouldn't charge any more than basic expenses to do a gig on Tax Day, anyway.

Do you pay quarterly taxes?

We do, here at Schloss Rivrdog. Last year, my quarterlies jumped from just over $1,000 per quarter to well over $1,400. That wasn't something I selected, when my CPA ran the worksheet, that's what came out for me to pay. I had no forecast increase in income, either. We live on a fixed income here.

I paid those increased taxes, and this year, I overpaid my Federal tax by over $1,100. Strange. Never did that before, I have always had to pay a small amount on Tax Day.

So, is anyone going to look into this and see if it was universal? If so, it amounts to a fraud scheme by the IRS, and one which pumped up the expected revenue, so more could be spent on vote-buying. Now that I have a significant refund coming, if most other quarterly payers are in the same boat, then the Federal government will run a large shortfall in revenue this year. There might also be issues of deficit reduction not meeting guidelines, or issues of having to print more money than expected.

Dono, but if  I'm not the only one who got rooked like this (to the tune of about 15% of my tax load), then there WILL be some revenue issues that will be hard to hide.

Requiscat in Pacem, Andrew

A great voice was stilled today, that of Andrew Breitbart. Breitbart was the fearless, cutlass-armed balloonist who, somehow, always avoided holing out his own airship whilst deflating many gasbags of the Left. He will be sorely missed.

And yes, it IS a Cold Day, not just in Hell, but right here at Schloss Rivrdog:

It's your turn to rest, my friend. See you on the Other Side.

Pay-per-view Representatives?

According to Politico, there are, and the ones they list all have (R) after their names.

My first thought on hearing this had something to do with rope, oak tree, congressmen, and how I might write that short assembly manual, but first, I want Politico to directly answer a question:

Are there any Representatives with (D) after their names following this practice?

While I'm wating for my answer (no, I'm NOT holding my breath that Politico will do the fair and balanced thing), let me just say that the RNC needs to be making some phone calls to these jerk-offs, calls containing DIRECT ORDERS to cease the practice on pain of their primary opponents getting the RNC's support, and it needs to be dialing those calls NOW!

Way to go, douchenozzles! You just set back the election hopes of your party by a LONG chalk, unless the answer to my above question turns up some (D)s doing this, in which case, it will simply lower the confidence number of Congress down into new, abysmal, uncharted territory.

BTW, RNC, the other point raised by the Politico article, that there seems to be a strange lack of recess-held public town halls by the GOP congresscritters, needs to be addressed.

Put it this way, if the GOP can't take whatever heat comes from standing in their hustings and having a face-to-face exchange with their constituients, of ALL political persuasions, well, I guess maybe those constituents should find someone else to represent them.

The shoe is definitely on the other foot. I seem to recall that the TEA Party types leveled this charge at the (D)s during the last election campaign, and it was quite effective at turning the Congress over.

Hypocrisy is NEVER in political style, boneheads.

Bachmann or Perry?

Side-by-side comparison. One from a lefty view here.

Bachmann has been in the race longer, but Perry isn't starting from zero. He has been running the most successfully-recovering state economy for several years.

Faith: both have demonstrated that they are deeply committed Christians, if that floats your boat. Importantly, if it DOESN'T float your boat, Perry is more executive-appearing than Bachmann, will likely get results despite being Christian. Bachmann has a strike against her in that her family business is a Christian queer-deprogramming counseling service, and THAT'S one for the books!

Perry demonstrates his support of the Second Amendment far better than Bachmann. Both support it, but you actually SEE Perry out on a shooting range, and someone who lives their creed, believes in it and will protect it more strongly.

Perry is more of a fiscal realist. He knows what the government needs to survive and do it's job in a proper minimalist way. Bachmann has told us she's an idealist when it comes to cutting government, and would like to zero out certain things that she doesn't like. That may not fly with Middle America. I feel that Perry will be more successful in reducing government and selling the reductions so that they stick.

Perry is committed to "un-do". Bachmann is committed to her version of a government budget, but hasn't talked about un-do as a concept. Both are committed to repealing ObamaCare.

They will both speak at a county GOP dinner in IA tonight. We shall see who comes off as the most "Presidential".

Comparisons are odious, as my late father used to say, but we've got to do them, and the sooner we get this comparison out of the way, the sooner we can re-unite the GOP and get down to the business of electing Rick Perry the next President of the United States.

BTW, more on the lefty strategy here: It's obviously going to be to grind up Perry, who the Left sees as the genuine threat to Obama, then chew up Bachmann at their leisure, because she's less of a threat, all the while "supporting" Romney The RINO. You can see that strategy in this lefty pundit's (he's straight out of the Clinton War Room) op-ed piece, here.

Terrorists?

So, it's come down to this: Vice President of the US, Mr. Joe Biden, calls the TEA Party branch of the GOP "terrorists", and quite a few (D)emocrats jump on his bandwagon.

OK, let's see here: does that make me the moral equivalent of the Late, not great, Osama Bin Laden and his gang of bad boyz, just because I advocate the position our Founders took that this Nation should have the smallest possible Government, doing only the job the Constitution assigned it?

OK, if it does, maybe we in the TEA Party Movement should start by giving thems something other than just our names, which, thanks to the Internet and thousands of faceless agents culling it, I'm sure they already have.

Maybe we should give them our "terrorist" qualifications, and yes, I actually DO hope this strikes a little terror in the hearts and minds of the traitors who are our enemies, the Vice President included.

I am a retired US Air Force officer, with a career specialty of navigator Bombardier in B-52 D & H aircraft (3500 hrs total time). I was part of the Nuclear Triad in the Cold War, and was familiar and qualified with the design and delivery operation of various nuclear weapons, both gravity bombs and air-launched missiles. I also have served Enlisted, and attained the rank of Staff Sergeant, with specialties in Logistics Planning and operations, plus maintenance and repair on heavy High Mobility and Special Purpose vehicles.

So, on my "Salad Bar", you'll see an Air Medal with six Oak Leaf clusters, you'll see the Vietnam Campaign Ribbon with four Battle Stars, and you'll see Expert in Small Arms near the Presidential Unit Citation with "V" for Valor and two Oak Leaf clusters.

On the other side of my chest from the "Salad Bar" and my Master Navigator wings, you'll see the USAF's Combat Air Crew Badge, permanently awarded.

Oh, and there was another "combat" career, as a Patrol Deputy Sheriff here in Multnomah County, Oregon. If I were wearing my Duty (Court) Uniform, you would have seen three master firearms qualification badges there, for Pistol, Revolver and Shotgun. My file had several Citations in it for valor when they handed it to me as I retired from that second "combat" career.

Terrorists, eh?

We could be.

Don't make us be.

Downtown...conservative invasion of Stumptown! UPDATED! BUMPED! The BLAZE VIDEOS!

Just got here, the genset is humming and I'M WARM ENOUGH, BUT SOAKED! 1615...

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Vets coming out of the woodwork...M35A2 draws 'em in!

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The M35 is covered with Signs of the Resistance, "We the Band" is playing Southern rock, all is well @ 1748...

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Now we're into the Great American Oratory...the Soap Box, as it were, a phalanx of Portland's Finest is on hand to keep the two detachments of the Black Shirts at bay, but the cold rain is doing a better job on the Alpha Hotels. 1844/ temp 46

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That was an interesting hour...the antis got right in my face here, so I and several others just snapped away, and PJTV will do the photo interpretation. The cops just busted the loudest of them, and she's cuffed and stuffed...just had family drop by...oratory over, now second band, more metal....2015

The above subject in the red shirt - I made him to be a union organizer. Said little, didn't chant, everyone was defferential to him, mostly he just shot video and was in the middle of the anti-crowd.

Typical of the anti-demonstrators. The usual "Little Beirut" crowd. Note that the bike cops seem fairly relaxed at this point. I have reports now that the crowd, which (as depicted in the vids) was above on the high ground, suddenly discovered the M35A2, and tried to charge it. That provoked the bike cops to do an intercept maneuver, and this is where they wound up, right outside my cab door, with only that wrought-iron railing between them and your blogger. They were content to scream and curse, though, so MY arms remained concealed. All Soap Box action, no Cartridge Box required. BTW, that "Koch sucker" sign is a HUGE insult to Hizzoner the Queer Mayor. Frankly, I hope he's seen the vids and photos...

Here are some Blaze vids of the anti-action which Glen Beck linked. Made me wish that I'd bought that Gun Ring for the M35A2...

(I've seen what waving a quad-fifty tail barbette on a B-52D at Zengunro demonstrators on Okinawa in 1970 could do to scatter THAT mob)

Captain sez 15 min to go, got to get in the tear-down mode...10-8

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Wrap-up: tear-down went well, drive home at the edge of a warm front was interesting, but safe, but I FUBAR'd upon arriving home. In the dark, tried to back Adam into his slot on the RV pad, and even with guide-lights set, missed being square with the pad and knocked down half my gate, which now has to be repaired on a priority basis (means getting wet AGAIN)! (Repaired 4/16, thanx to the USMC Dau & engineer hubb).

I put out a family all-hands call at 2230 last night, we'll see how many respond today. Prolly have to reset the gate post, maybe replace it (it's not broken, but it's been in the ground 4 or 5 years, so it's half-gone). Then reassembly of the last fence section and then hang the gate, which is intact and undamaged. It's winter-soaked Cedar, and weighs about 180#, by my feeble attempts in trying to hoist it last night..

Then, there the not-inconsiderable job of stowing all the gear I'm drying out in the shed. Most of it goes right there, but has to be stowed for the shed to be useful again. Another big day breaks....0801 4-16-11

BTW, there are lots of photos of yesterday's action. I have to send them from my cell phone, one at a time, to my main puter, via email. It's very labor-intensive, so I will do that later. Got to fuel the body now and put the Carhartts on, it's gonna be a busy day...