Maybe we should outsource congress, too.

L1 Identity Solutions of Stamford, Connecticut, has sold itself in two parts:

1. It owns a spook shop, although it calls it a "government consulting business," a sort  of overflow catch basin for the CIA.  The company is selling this part of itself to BAE of Farnborough, Hampshire, England,

2. The main part of the business is biometric devices, software, and databases, and there's a good chance this includes the drivers license in your wallet. These get sold to France's Safron.

So,

(1) not to worry old chap

(2) et dormez bien

This transfer of another chunk of our security to foreign contractors results from CEO Robert LaPenta's inability to turn a buck on one of the world's hottest technologies.

Great-Grandpa Goodwrench's multi-tasker

The "Hawkeye Wrench,"  from Marshalltown,  to help you keep your Maxwell Mascotte  in shape.

The alligator jaws  handle various size nuts. The center  holes are dies for chasing 5/16 -- 3/8 -- and /2- inch threads. Note the screwdriver on the left jaw and the deep marks suggesting an early mechanic found it a useful hammer, also.

My Sunday Sermon

A girl I love married an astute man, and I sometimes discuss government with him, mostly in an effort to cleanse him of a few notions which I find insufficiently anti-statist.

When ever I think of him and of government in the same paragraph, I am heartened,  even though he still insists it is good that taxpayers underwrite athletic stadiums. That is because, in a fit of disgust at theocratic politicians, a disgust I share, he once remarked loudly that these guys do not comprehend that "a government is not a religion."

Leading us to this morning's text.

Which opens thusly:

Whereas, Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness...


Out of rhetorical compassion, I  omit the remainder of my written harangue this Sabbath. 

Transition

The first substantial fire of the season dances in the wood burner. This annual milestone marks the first day of the year when I begin consuming wood faster than I cut and split it.

If a man can put aside thoughts of approaching continental winter at 43 north,  this is a fine time. A few sticks of maple raise the Camp J quarters  to near 80 degrees, even with a couple of  windows open to the fresh air.  Altogether pleasant.

There will come a day when the  body revolts at the brute labor of wood, and I will join the fossil-fuel world.  I will miss the subtle hint of wood smoke. It is one of the great atavistic delights.