You don't go to Tony Hillerman's Sgt. Jim Chee for your political insights, at least not on purpose. So it's fun when you just happen to run across one.
Jim is working on a homicide on the Navajo reservation. The FBI is claiming jurisdiction and getting in the way of honest police work. He explains it as a life lesson to his young and lovely deputy, Ms. Bernadette Manuelito:
"It is a political law. Like physics. ... When a federal agency gets into something, the number of tax-paid people at work multiplies itself by five, raw number of hours taken to get it done multiplies by ten, and the chances of a successful conclusion must be divided by three."
Oct 9, 2013
Oct 8, 2013
Shutdown side bar -- Mrs. Obama is more equal that others
Not all .gov sites are dark.
Michelle's is up and running. It's a must read. Where else can you see her as sexy hip-hop stunner in one frame, then gushing about healthy federal chow (which the kids won't eat) in the next.
Michelle's is up and running. It's a must read. Where else can you see her as sexy hip-hop stunner in one frame, then gushing about healthy federal chow (which the kids won't eat) in the next.
I'm gonna take your ball and go home
It is the soul-sliming pettiness of the thing, the "shutdown."
A paid vacation for a million bureaucrats has consequences, some of them probably bad, some perhaps good, but most as unremarkable as that bland tan paint you slap on the wall because you can't decide on a real color.
Beige is too neutral for fun television, so you have to create drama.
"No, goddammit, you may not walk up to the Vietnam wall and shed a tear for your dad who died there because the Tea Party closed America."
"And stop whining about all the black dot.gov sites. Can you fools not see that permitting access to historical data bought and paid for years ago corrupts the nation?"
When a national administration spends hugely to erect steel barriers long the sidewalks meandering through open-air memorials, you know you are being governed by snit-fits. The teevee loves it. So do grandstanding politicians from the left, right, and muddle.
The same occurs when the world's greatest wire service defines the impact by caterwauling with a Kansas farmer who doesn't know what to do because he isn't getting the latest breathless crop-yield predictions from the USDA. Should he go short or long on wheat futures? He doesn't know because his vacuum head has no mental resources other than the federal government's guess about how much grain will be grown in America, Argentina, Greece, and Tierra del Fuego.
It has gone beyond the silliness of the absent park tour guide -- the kid in the Smokey hat in front of Lincoln's statue, explaining that cuddly ol' Abe freed the slaves.
It has become the dangerous confluence of a leader's snake-handling pentecostal oratory wedded to power on a national stage populated by chanting citizenoids massed in front of the Department of Treasure edifice. "Whadda we want? MORE. When do we want it. "NOW." And forevermore.
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Making all necessary allowances for "studies," does this help explain it?
A paid vacation for a million bureaucrats has consequences, some of them probably bad, some perhaps good, but most as unremarkable as that bland tan paint you slap on the wall because you can't decide on a real color.
Beige is too neutral for fun television, so you have to create drama.
"No, goddammit, you may not walk up to the Vietnam wall and shed a tear for your dad who died there because the Tea Party closed America."
"And stop whining about all the black dot.gov sites. Can you fools not see that permitting access to historical data bought and paid for years ago corrupts the nation?"
When a national administration spends hugely to erect steel barriers long the sidewalks meandering through open-air memorials, you know you are being governed by snit-fits. The teevee loves it. So do grandstanding politicians from the left, right, and muddle.
The same occurs when the world's greatest wire service defines the impact by caterwauling with a Kansas farmer who doesn't know what to do because he isn't getting the latest breathless crop-yield predictions from the USDA. Should he go short or long on wheat futures? He doesn't know because his vacuum head has no mental resources other than the federal government's guess about how much grain will be grown in America, Argentina, Greece, and Tierra del Fuego.
It has gone beyond the silliness of the absent park tour guide -- the kid in the Smokey hat in front of Lincoln's statue, explaining that cuddly ol' Abe freed the slaves.
It has become the dangerous confluence of a leader's snake-handling pentecostal oratory wedded to power on a national stage populated by chanting citizenoids massed in front of the Department of Treasure edifice. "Whadda we want? MORE. When do we want it. "NOW." And forevermore.
---
Making all necessary allowances for "studies," does this help explain it?
Oct 4, 2013
Sixty bucks worth of gun porn, anyone?
Okay, let's start with Asian.
Ho-hum. Another old Jap. However:
A Type 99 or 38/99 with three kanji but no mum, ground off or otherwise. Smooth bore. A school-boy trainer, never meant to fire live rounds except perhaps as an overly complicated seppuku tool. It came my way for $40 at an auction two weeks ago, and since it isn't a "gun" I feel free to loophole it out at the local show next weekend. Maybe an even-up swap for a SW 25? Naah, probably not that much.
Switching to mature Americans:
Boooooring. Old Winchester 1897 12-gauge tubes. But wait!
The little word on the right, just forward of the 20-incher's extension -- "cyl" -- spells factory original r-i-o-t. Numrich would sell me one for about $275 if they had one. The other barrel, 26-inch full, would be upwards of $150, again if Mr. Numrich had one.
The Winchester tubes came at five bucks each, so if you are keeping track, I'm ten dollars shy of the $60 mentioned above. That's accounted for by:
--A take-off Remington 700 barrel in .222 Remington, with sights, grading somewhere between "damned good" and "near mint." I'll put it out, but finding a reasonably priced 700 short action would be more pleasing than a sale. That was an excellent round, and I forgive it for grand-siring the .223 McNamara-Stalemate.
--The world's ugliest Mossberg .22 barreled action which I'll price at three or four times cost and probably sell. If you have ever been on the vendor side of the table, you may have been asked, "Gotta bolt for ________ ?" Often enough, it's a Mossy.
Sometimes going to an auction brings out my venality. No, actually I mean my spirit of entrepreneurship, my patriotic desire to stimulate the economy.
Ho-hum. Another old Jap. However:
A Type 99 or 38/99 with three kanji but no mum, ground off or otherwise. Smooth bore. A school-boy trainer, never meant to fire live rounds except perhaps as an overly complicated seppuku tool. It came my way for $40 at an auction two weeks ago, and since it isn't a "gun" I feel free to loophole it out at the local show next weekend. Maybe an even-up swap for a SW 25? Naah, probably not that much.
Switching to mature Americans:
Boooooring. Old Winchester 1897 12-gauge tubes. But wait!
The little word on the right, just forward of the 20-incher's extension -- "cyl" -- spells factory original r-i-o-t. Numrich would sell me one for about $275 if they had one. The other barrel, 26-inch full, would be upwards of $150, again if Mr. Numrich had one.
The Winchester tubes came at five bucks each, so if you are keeping track, I'm ten dollars shy of the $60 mentioned above. That's accounted for by:
--A take-off Remington 700 barrel in .222 Remington, with sights, grading somewhere between "damned good" and "near mint." I'll put it out, but finding a reasonably priced 700 short action would be more pleasing than a sale. That was an excellent round, and I forgive it for grand-siring the .223 McNamara-Stalemate.
--The world's ugliest Mossberg .22 barreled action which I'll price at three or four times cost and probably sell. If you have ever been on the vendor side of the table, you may have been asked, "Gotta bolt for ________ ?" Often enough, it's a Mossy.
Sometimes going to an auction brings out my venality. No, actually I mean my spirit of entrepreneurship, my patriotic desire to stimulate the economy.
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