Dawn Patrol

With dry skies and a visible sunrise at last, it became time to get back into the habit of personally supervising my portion of the county. (The patrol vehicle was the minivan, preferred to the F150 as less intimidating. This is in accord with modern and sensitive policing practices.)

No serious threat level exists in this watershed at this point in time, so I settled on the mere SW59, positioned on the passenger seat and hidden under a WalMart flyer. I'm CCWed, but why let the subject even arise if I happen to stop and chat with someone through the driver-side window?

I am pleased to report that at 0706 local, all is secure and no ammunition was expended. However I observed evidence of a recent ecofelony:

Our DNR has created a monumental ugliness just down the road.

A beautiful stand of sumac there has irritated official state envirocrats ever since we gave the land to the DNR for a park*.

The DNR first claimed sumac was not a native species. That was hooted down by a panel of experts -- farmers, grandfathers, Boy Scouts, and several ordinary citizens with access to Google.

The DNR shifted to a posture that sumac is an "aggressive" plant which stymies its plan to create an "oak savanna" on the plot. There were other verbal ploys to justify the primary point: me government; me want.

Sometime in the past few days the DNR brought in a bush hog, and what was once a fine stand of natural wildlife cover now looks like something the Ax Men would get fined for. I suspect the next chapter is planting -- at huge expense -- some burr oak seedlings.

Lacking the red sumac berries which they loved, the dear will promptly eat the oaks.

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*And I mean "we." The former owner of this c. 20 acre plot was about to create a sub-division. Most of us didn't want ticky-tacky there. A local rich guy kicked in a hefty sum. The rest of us donated what we could. We got it bought, then passed it on to the state of Iowa to add to the existing adjacent park. There's every chance the state of Iowa will give our heirs cause to wonder why we bothered.

Welcome home Jessica Watson

This is Jessica's day, the end of the voyage, round-the-world, under sail, alone, and unaided.

We need to ignore the elected nonentities and media hand wringers who said her dream should be outlawed, that it doesn't amount to much anyway (now that it is successful), and that she's a headstrong kid with no respect for authority.

Her Aussie -- and international -- detractors should shut the Hell up and concentrate on organizing a giant communal diaper and step-in wash.

Tyranny by Zoning

Suppose someone proposed a national policy requiring payday loan shysters to elect, by secret ballot, one representative annually. Said representative would be publicly horse whipped as a gesture of disapproval of the slimy business.

Okay. I would oppose it, but it would be a damned close call. The market justifies all sorts of bottom-feeding by the clever who prowl schools of suckers. That doesn't mean we have to like it, only that we keep our controlling mitts to ourselves.

Such elementary reasoning is beyond the Des Moines city council creatures who decided it is their business to control that business. Through the zoning laws, and here I append one of the four exclamation points I permit myself annually. !

Any zoning regulation is Constitutionally questionable, but used for things like banning a nuclear reactor next door to your neighborhood cathedral it probably can be drafted to a point of general acceptability.

Zoning decrees to stifle perfectly legal operations which happen to offend official sensibilities are just Pelosi pleasers, carrying all of the good sense of the current Congressional stampede to control every aspect of the banking and credit card rackets.

And about those official sensibilities. We're referring here to that sensibility which permits the office holder to go before his voters and bleat that he has ended "predatory lending. "

What he has done, of course, is eliminate one kind of credit, sending the only citizens likely to use it into the alleys where Vito gives you the loan and sends a couple of baseball bats around to collect the vig.

Let's Help Find a Family Legacy Gun

The detailed information is from JPB, The Expert Witness, and he understands that we're haystacking for a needle here.

But why not? That's one of the things the net is for.

The object is a 4-inch bbl Smith and Wesson M and P .38 Special, inscribed:

--PA STATE POLICE 1933-1956 JOHN J BURKE--

Mr. Burke, a retired trooper, is deceased. His daughter would love to have the revolver as a keepsake. Its last known location is in the hands of a dealer near Norristown, Pennsylvania in about 2003.