Slaughter in the woods, a national crisis

The Minnesota press is reporting tragedy during the firearms deer season opener. Three humans died, giving new urgency to the need for common-sense regulation.

The three men perished in falls from tree stands. Nothing else is needed to  illustrate the vital  need for common-sense ladder control -- license to possess,  mandatory government training,  and certainly a strict one-tree stand-a-month purchase limit.

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But leave it to my buddy B to make light of the special horror inherent the the 82 -year-old man's fatal fall.

"He just fell asleep."

"Yeah. On his way up."

I'm not telling who made that last wiseass remark.

Hello, Abdul

On  November 8, 1942, Yanks and  Brits launched Operation Torch. The avowed enemies were Rommel and the Italians

But first we needed to whip some French. It didn't take long, and they turned out to be a minor annoyance in the grand scheme of things.

Rommel was tougher, and the green American army carried its butt in its hands in the aftermath of the Kasserine Pass adventure. Eventually all was righted, and six months after the invasion North Africa was no longer Nazi country.

Three significant developments followed the victory in Tunisia:

1. The blimp-scale ego of Bernard Law Montgomery

2. Ditto George F. Patton

3. The war in Sicily where (1) and (2) above, opposed one another in the race for Messina. There was collateral damage, of course; that is, some Nazis got killed.

Just a placeholder, here

Mundane tasks occupy me, and I'm concentrating. The closest I've come to ratiocination this morning is explaining to New Dog Libby that she didn't get to go for a ride because she was a pain in the ass earlier.

I explained that an  excitable adolescent girl nature did not justify totally ignoring a clear call to "come" when I'd finished a little wood-splitting.  "Young Lady,"  I said, "The Camp J command structure follows B.F. Skinner, and you must learn to accommodate yourself to a strict behaviorist regimen."

She didn't say anything back. Probably wants to think it over.

Why we're broke

It seems the Wells Fargo and  Principal banks got caught cheating the rest of us out of a hundred million bucks or so. They loaned some money to cooperative Frogs and told Uncle Sam it was a tax-free investment. The judge told them they were full of it.

The U.S. Department of Justice  is delighted. One of Holder's Heroes says  the rulings show the federal government will not tolerate companies that construct tax shelters for fictitious investments.

I think maybe the Holder guy is a little over the top in the self-righteousness department. I'll be glad to modify that opinion when I see the DoJ  try to at least annoy Solyndra execs and the Obama operatives who tossed money down that rat hole.

In round numbers, Obama buddy Solyandra swiped five dollars for every one the banks tried to steal.