Tag: blogging

So Much To Do, So Little Time…

KevinLeave a comment

Still working 10-12 hour days.  Lots going on out in the real world, and no time to analyze and write about any of it. 

Nobody shows for a “Climate Change Rally” in  Washington.  The snark and schadenfreude just ache to be written.

Obamacare’s implementation of a 30-hour “full time” workweek has spawned an “unintended consequence” – hour cuts to avoid having to provide health care.  “Unintended” my ass.  Everyone who saw that provision KNEW what the result would be.  But the White House says there’s no there, there.  In other Obamacare news, first there was the delay of planned Medicare cuts, then delay of the “employer mandate” for companies with 50 or more employees, and now the cap on out-of-pocket expenses has been delayed by proclamation.  And they’re still telling us that our premiums will go down.

A rodeo clown gets “lifetime ban” for un-PC political speech, and calls for “federal involvement” are raised. 

Jesse Jackson, Jr. and his wife get jail sentences, and CBS doesn’t find his party affiliation newsworthy.  (Hey, the New York Times put it in the first SENTENCE of their story.)

The Federal Government is still running at a loss, but the National Debt has remained at $16,699,396,000,000 since last month.  Truly, if a private business was run like the .gov, it would be shut down in thirty seconds and every officer would be sitting in prison alongside Rep. Jackson, Jr.  And the regular media has nothing to say about this accounting sleight-of-hand, I guess because “the right people” are in charge.

In other money news, apparently while the Fed can create money electronically with ease, the Mint can’t actually PRINT money worth a damn.

Egypt is coming apart at the seams.  Syria isn’t doing any better.  Or Iraq.  That “smart diplomacy” sure is working wonders, no?

Still no motion from the media on IRS-Gate, Bengazi-Gate, or any of the other myriad Obama scandals.  Of course not!  He’s not George W. Bush!

Yeesh.  Maybe I should be happy that I’ve got three more weeks of  busting my ass at work, and at least another month when I get back from Reno.

Please enjoy yourself in the comments and the archives, and a BIG thank you to reader John Hardin who has been making MASSIVE efforts to make available the old JS-Kit/Echo comment threads for a lot of the older posts, like this one.  Thank you, John.  It’s much appreciated, and if I’m ever in your neck of the woods, I owe you a beer or twelve.

Light Blogging Alert

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I woke up at 03:30 this morning thinking about a work-related problem.  Looks like for the next several weeks (excepting my trip to Gun Blogger Rendezvous VIII), I’m going to be BURIED at work, so don’t expect to see much here except for random snippets.  Certainly no Überposts.  Sorry about that.  Read the archives, or go outside and get a tan or something.

Rendezvous!

KevinLeave a comment

Only 45 days until Gun Blogger Rendezvous VIII!  As I’ve reported previously, the activities this year will include some time using the new OCAT (Optical Computer Aided Training) System both indoors with a laser, and outdoors with live-fire. Here’s a demo:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj1AofC0aNw?rel=0]
Plus, one attendee will be taking one home with them!

If you attend, you can also win a new Ruger Blackhawk in .357 Magnum, a Hi-Point pistol-caliber carbine, or a youth-sized Stevens take-down .22 rifle.

Mr. Completely says:

The Gun Blogger Rendezvous is not just for gun bloggers. if you read gun blogs, enjoy shooting or shooting sports, are interested in Second Amendment issues, or are in the shooting sports industry in some manner, you are all welcome to the Gun Blogger Rendezvous.

As we have done for the last seven years at the Gun Blogger Rendezvous, every penny we can raise goes to benefit Soldiers Angels and project Valour-IT. if you have not attended a Rendezvous in a few years, then this is the year for you to get back into the swing of the Gun Blogger Rendezvous. The registration for the Rendezvous is only $30, and it has not changed price in eight years. For the $30, you get one dinner, two breakfasts, access to all of the events, and several trips to the door prize table. Between now and the Rendezvous dates there may be additional items and benefits also added. The Silver Legacy hotel and casino where we are holding the Rendezvous provides the hospitality room for us at no charge, since we book a block of rooms for the attendees. they also provide free in room Wi-Fi for attendees.

It is very important that you send in your registration right away, so that we will know how many people are planning on attending. We are expecting a really good turnout this year, and it is possible that those who sign up at the last minute may not be able to get in on all of the free meals. We must notify the hotel well in advance as to how many people will be eating at each meal. If we give them a number that is too high we pay for those meals whether they are eaten or not. If we give the hotel a number that is too small there may not be enough meals for everyone to eat. As you can see, it is very important that you get your registration in right away. Since the all you can eat pizza feed on Saturday night sponsored by NSSF is not catered, we can order the amount of pizza that we need right at the last minute, so everyone will get plenty of pizza!

To make your room reservations at the Silver Legacy you need to use the group code GBLOG13 in order to get the discounted room rate. to use this group code and to get the discounted room right, you must place your reservations by telephone. It will not work if you try to book online. The telephone number for the Silver Legacy is 1-800-687-7733.

To register for the Gun Blogger Rendezvous you must download the registration form and mail it in along with your $30 to the address on the registration form. you’re check will be deposited into a Gun Blogger Rendezvous escrow account, and after the Rendezvous one check for the total amount will be sent to soldiers Angels.

If it is too far to Reno for you to drive, and you would prefer not flying, the Amtrak train station is only a block or so away from the Silver Legacy.

This is definitely the year to come to the Gun Blogger Rendezvous in Reno. We will be having more fun and more activities than we have ever had in the past. Hopefully, we will also be raising more money for Soldiers Angels than we ever have raised at any previous Gun Blogger Rendezvous. For that to happen, however, we need for you to come to the Rendezvous, bring your friends, and also help promote the Rendezvous by forwarding this on to other folks who you think would also enjoy coming to Reno for the Rendezvous.

So make your plans! I’d love to meet you!

OK, Let’s Have a Vote (Bumped)

KevinLeave a comment

Markadelphia is currently doing his thing in the comments to So Detroit Files for Bankruptcy, having veered off into a non sequitur thread about Trayvon Martin and race relations in the U.S.  Current comment count as I write this is 91.

I will admit that through the years (going on seven now), Markadelphia has inspired some pretty good posts (see the left sidebar) and a LOT of outstanding commentary (inspired, not generated).  And I will admit to “hunting over bait” to draw him and his special brand of Leftist brain-damage out from time to time, but as the GeekWitha.45 (among others) has noted more than once, what Markadelphia does in general is well described as comment shitting.  Great for traffic, but the signal-to-noise ratio drops right the hell off when he starts up.

I, your “Cult Grand Wizard” have said that I will never ban him from this site, but he left once previously voluntarily when he believed he had been “voted off the island” by my readers.  I pointed out to him the “vote” was 2-2, which is known in my world as “a tie.”  So he came back.

So let’s do this for real.  Leave a comment below:  Should Markadelphia be voted off the island, Yes or No?

UPDATE:  Regardless of the vote, I’m not going to ban-hammer Markadelphia.  I’m going to let his conscience be his guide (I can’t believe I actually wrote that.)   Voting concludes Monday at midnight, MST.

As of 4PM MST 7/20/13:  Yes – 4, No – 9

As of 9:30PM 7/20/13:      Yes – 5, No – 11

As of 7:50AM 7/21/13:      Yes – 5, No – 16

5:05PM 7/21/13:               Yes – 10, No – 13, Abstaining – 3

I just rechecked the comment thread and also my email.  Sixty-two comments, 23 votes.  A couple of people have changed their votes, I’ve gotten one “Yes” vote via email because Disqus refuses to work for them, and I think I might have double-counted one “No” vote on the last round.  Somebody check my work.

07:28 7/22/13:  OK, with Unix having now weighed in, the vote stands at:  Yes:  12 13,  No:  14 (two “Yes” votes via email) and Abstaining:  2.  Voting continues until midnight tonight.  Anything timestamped after that will be ignored.  Honestly, it’s closer than I thought it would be.

I changed the “Yes” count to 13.  I’m tired of him, too.  I’d have been happy if he hadn’t gotten progressively (and I use that word deliberately) worse over the last six years, but his complete wharrgarbl of late has prompted me into it (and this post).  I still won’t ban him, but I am tired of him and would not be disappointed if he took his navel lint and went home.

12:32 7/22/13:  TIE!  Yes – 14, No – 14, Abstaining – 2.  Less than twelve hours left.
14:03 7/22/13:  Another vote change.  Yes – 15, No – 13, Abstaining – 2.
18:40 7/22/13:  Yes – 16, No – 16, Abstaining – 2.  Yup.  We’re a monolithic cult here marching in mindless lockstep.  What kind of “Cult Grand Wizard” am I?

UPDATE — FINAL TALLY:

YES NO ABSTAIN
DJ juris imprudent Lyle
Toastrider Helen Thomas Perlhaqr
Peter G. (email) Grumpy Old Fart  
Merchant O’Death (email)   GuardDuck
Phil B RandyGC
Andrew P Robert Frampton
QuadGMoto Frognot
Mark Dietzler John Pryce
GeekWithA.45 Ragin’ Dave
Pascal MiddleAgeKen
DC Jeffro
Unix-Jedi John Hardin
Mark D Steve
John Hardin 6Kings
Will Haplo9
Dixie MrBill
JustSomeGuy
Peter Barrett

One late vote from pedeim was excluded.  “Yes” – 18, “No” – 16, Abstain – 2.  I left my vote off because it didn’t matter.  The People Have Spoken.

UPDATE 4:07 MST 7/23/13 – Now that we’re done with this, I’m going to lock this thread in a little bit.  If you have something you want to say, please get it off your chest, but leave comments specifically about Markadelphia out of it.  We’ve voted, it’s done.

For Breda

KevinLeave a comment

…everyone’s favorite research librarian.

I’m currently reading The End is Near and It’s Going to Be Awesome:  How Going Broke will Leave America Richer, Happier and More Secure by Kevin D. Williamson.  I’m about halfway through it, and so far it’s been written in pretty pure libertarian win.  Lots of Quote of the Day fodder, but I get the sinking impression that the last third is going to largely be of “and then a MIRACLE will occur!” variety, because, by George, we’re AMERICANS and that’s what we DO!

Time will tell.

But for today, I ran across a section that just had me saying to myself “Gotta post this for Breda.”  It’s in the chapter on “What Government is For.”:

Privately funded and volunteer-staffed public libraries were the norm for many years, from magnificent ones such as the New York Public Library―the main branch of which was the largest marble building in the world at the time of its opening―to modest ones throughout suburbs and small towns across the country.  At the apogee of WASP society-lady culture, volunteering at the local library was practically a rite of passage, an entrée into more prestigious charitable work.  (It was a perfection of mid-twentieth-century American upper-class culture that the vanity of ambitious social climbers was exceedingly well aligned with genuine civic virtue, and that conspicuous consumption had not yet displaced conspicuous civil service.  The WASP establishment had its shortcomings, to be sure, but its absence is today keenly felt from the Main Line to Orange County.)  To be sure, in many of these cases there was some entanglement with politics from the beginning, and in a great many more an eventual entanglement with politics, which has been especially harmful in the case of the public libraries: Somehow, as library budgets ballooned and volunteer society ladies were displaced by graduate-schooled, credentialed professionals in the faintly ridiculous field of “library science,” our libraries were transformed from quiet places to read a book into psychiatric wards in which homeless men masturbate to Internet pornography.  The San Francisco public libraries recently installed barriers to increase the level of privacy for this activity.

Coming to a library near you?

I Push ELECTRONS for a Living

KevinLeave a comment

I am most definitely not a plumber.

Had a major garbage disposal failure Sunday morning. I knew the unit was failing and had bought a replacement previously, but I just hadn’t gotten around to swapping them out. The new one is longer than the old, and the discharge port is located at a different elevation than previously, so the undersink drain piping doesn’t line up.

Two days later, it STILL doesn’t line up. I’m tired of fv%$ing with it. Got a pro coming tomorrow. (Anything worth doing is worth paying a professional to do.) All I want is for it to drain and not to leak when it’s finished.

I may actually start posting things to the blog again afterward….

Falling Down on the Job

KevinLeave a comment

First rule of blogging:  Post Something Every Day.

FAIL!
I’ve been busy with work.  Three days in a row in Phoenix, leaving at 0500 and not getting home until well after 1700.  Too burned out to post.

Free ice cream machine is on the blink.  Read the archives or somebody else.  I’ll get back to this thing sooner or later.

UPDATE:

From the comments to this post.  I’ll just leave this here:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgbNymZ7vqY?rel=0]

Thanks.  I needed that.

Rendezvous!

KevinLeave a comment

OK, we’re officially 94 days from Gun Blogger Rendezvous VIII!  Mr. Completely has the details:

Once a year Gun Bloggers, Gun Blog Readers, gun writers, shooters, gun association folks, and industry representatives from around the country gather in Reno at the Silver Legacy Hotel & Casino to visit, socialize, compare notes, discuss everything firearms related, and get in three range days covering everything from long range rifle, steel shooting, Cowboy Fast Draw, and more. At the Gun Blogger Rendezvous there is something going on from breakfast to well into the night! 2013 will be the Gun Blogger Rendezvous’ Seventh Anniversary.

The Rendezvous also raises money for Project Valour-IT, a division of Soldiers Angels, through a raffle of firearms and shooting sports items donated by our sponsors. Project Valour-IT buys voice actuated laptop computers for injured servicemen, who, due to the nature of their injuries, are unable to operate a computer using a conventional mouse and keyboard. This allows them to communicate with their family and friends, directly from their hospital beds, and has been shown to significantly increase their rate of recovery.

We also give out a large number of door prizes and promotional items to our attendees. Our sponsors, in return, get a lot of positive Internet exposure through the Gun Blogs and stories about the Rendezvous.

Some of our current and previous year include Ruger, Gunbroker.com, Cabelas, MKSSupply/HiPoint, Crimson Trace, Comp-Tac, Springfield Armory, Dillon Precision, Brownells, National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), The NRA, The Second Amendment Foundation, and more.

Last year we raised approximately $6,000 for Project Valour-IT, and this year, we hope to do even better. Every penny we can make from the Rendezvous goes to Project Valour-IT. Even the event organizer (that’s me) pays to register for the Rendezvous!

Dates: September 5th, 6th, 7th, & 8th
Location: Silver Legacy Resort/Casino in Reno
Gun Blogger Rendezvous Website: http://gunbloggers.blogspot.com

Contact:
Mike Gallion
2704E Gabelein Rd.
Clinton, WA 98236
magaero@whidbey.com or blog@whidbey.com
(360) 321-6258

Some footage from previous Rendezvous:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWxVvZUpT1Q?rel=0]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsYarFtEwkQ?rel=0]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kIoMWyW070?rel=0]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYEenS0dcHE?rel=0]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq7xBerIQQE?rel=0]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3Iz7vqMruc?rel=0]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfEVLNKxovw?rel=0]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLZm5MXynsI?rel=0]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hvm7oFct97Y?rel=0]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1MMHW72DNc?rel=0]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8Y7tG4D6x4?rel=0]
So, you coming this year?  Make your reservations now!