Speaking of civil discourse...

Ron Paul finishes second in Washington and the local press reports;

 Attending his first caucus at the Labor Temple in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood, Dillon Smith, 31, vowed to write in Paul's name no matter who is on the ballot in November...


Good for you, Dillon. And it isn't a "wasted" vote. It is a statement of enlightened disgust, of which we have too few.


"I would rather die than vote for any of the other candidates," said Smith,...


That may be carrying things further than necessary. You could just move to another country, like maybe Malawi, where all of our over-the-hill celebrity sex sirens lived and adopted babies during the eight years of the Bush Administration.


... because the country needs someone who will "basically slit the throat of the federal government."


Attention all aromatherapy clinics in the Los Angeles-Frisco corridor!   Surely you understand that Dillon is speaking metaphorically and has not demanded ventilating any actual human jugulars.

Five neighbors who showed up from his precinct also supported Paul and voted 6-0 to elect Smith as a delegate to an upcoming legislative-district convention.


On the other hand, you never know. If I were a thug bent on violence, I think I'd avoid taking my jugular to Seattle's Belltown neighborhood.

Air solution

Some fellows manage to run a house and even a hobby gun-tinkering shop without compressed air. This is sad. Forget people on food stamps; an airless man is the truly deprived soul.

Couple of months ago I became one. The 10-or-12 year-old Campbell-Hausfield blew up.  It was my own fault. A consumer-grade machine  -- the happy-homeowner model -- it  still  would have lasted years longer  if I were more religious about turning it off  when I left the shop. A slow leak in the system kept it needlessly cycling on and off, at least trebling the wear.

I recently hauled a new one home.  It's also assuredly non-professional, with an  advertised output smaller than the old one, about five cfpm  at 90 psi. That's enough for most of the work around here, but too wussy if I decide to use air-hog tools -- sanders, etc. The situation is improved by adding an extra tank to the system.

Aha! Opportunity knocks.

I've never had a convenient air outlet in the gun/reloading shack. But now the old C-H tank will be mounted in or adjacent to the room and fed by the new magic air densifier thourgh permanent piping to its on-board tank.  A whip hose will be handy to the bench.  One result: tidier gun innards.  Another: About 35 gallons of  total storage capacity, just in case I want to sand-blast this or that.

Well, that's probably already more than you want to know about me and my air. So I'll sign off now.

Oh wait, you have a question? ...

Well, yes, hot compressed air is sometimes useful, but I'll be damned if I can think up a way to pipe Al Sharpton into the system

Thank You!

Your diligent discharge of unburned hydrocarbons, C02, and methane into the atmosphere is appreciated. Only three days of grungy chill stand between me and an improved lifestyle.  From Monday onward, as far as meteorological eyes can see,  Camp J will bask in mid-40s to mid-50s temperatures, well above normal. It means blogging a little less and doing actual things a little more.

Start the annual yard cleanup. Clean the vehicles. Build the new compressed air distribution system (q.v. - next post)  Catch a crappie or two.  Et a helluva lot al.


'course, there's no suggestion yet that the sublime no-socks season will arrive earlier than the usual June time frame. I wish it would, of course, and if you care to help you could certainly run your SUV around  the block a few extra times.

Iowa Stand-Your-Ground Bill

The text of the bill as passed by the house last evening is here. 

It goes to the senate. I can't offer a confident prophecy on its chances there. Comments in the previous Constitutional amendment note also apply here.

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The best argument the opponents could dream up seems to be that we're turning gentle,  agrarian Iowa into the "Wild, Wild West."

That's nonsense. But even if it were true, so what?

Wander though the Boot Hills of Deadwood, Tombstone and the like and two things will stand out. (1) They're pretty small places. (2)  In even the toughest towns of frontier legend, moving to the local grave yard courtesy of  a gunslinger's bullet was a remote danger compared to,  say, the fatal results of untreated acne.

The point being, Ladies and Gentlemen of the statist left,  Clint Eastwood westerns are tales written to entertain, not exhaustively researched narratives of the norm in the 19th Century American West.