Mother Jones Weeps. Good.

An appreciative nod to The Associated Press this morning for this lede on the Wisconsin saga:

"Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and his fellow Republicans face a new hurdle in their campaign to curb public sector unions' power."




Reporter Todd Richmond and his editor rate compliments for the final five words.  The construction recognizes that there is more to the debate than the shrieks of public titters frightened at the thought that their grip on your wallet may be slipping, ergo diminishing their "rights."




News guys from the outset wore out the phrase "strip unions of bargaining rights." as though they had never run across the concept of "at will" relationships between the person who writes the paycheck and the one who cashes it.


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The mass of U.S. labor law is daunting, but anyone interested might start with the Clayton Act.  The union provision, stripped to its essentials,  prohibited a trucking company from obtaining enough power  to shut down American motor transport  but ceded the right to do just that to, for instance, Jimmy Hoffa. 


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Survival, anyone?

DirtCrashr took a look at Japan and decided to get more serious about a bugout bag, thoughtfully assembled for his most likely threat, earthquake followed by fires. I like the thinking there, in large part because it has none of the romantic claptrap penned by too many pocketa pocketa pocketa preppers.

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My vehicles usually contain a few essentials (water, tools, something to eat, warm stuff) and there's a little Duluth thwart bag handy which might see me through a couple of nights bivouacking the woods, but I have no SHTF pack as such.  I already bugged out.  I live in a bugout bag.

It is a little more than an acre of trees and grass with two cabins laden with store-bought bugout supplies.  Even without killing mobile protein, there is pretty good eating for a few weeks, adequate nutrition for months,  and wretched fodder for a few more.  The armory is mostly hobby, but it nods to the ancient truth that you can have what you can defend.

Location. Location. Location. By chance, the bookends of my life placed me in kindly geography where food grows  and the dramatic natural threats -- earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes -- are nonexistent.

So where else would I go to celebrate TEOTWAWKI? Medicine Wheel Pass in the Big Horns is more romantic  -- Head fer the hills, boys; we're gonna be mountain men.  --  but unless the hunting gods are feeling very generous, as soon as you run out of granola, Bunkie,  you will starve.

There's no place like home.
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tbc

Reloading, anyone?

Care to see what a half-million pounds of reloadable brass looks like?  And that is Pounds with a "p" -- not rounds.

I don't know how cartridge cases bulk out at that scale, but by weight  the government is peddling something like 500 pickup loads of the stuff.  I would need a larger tumbler.

And we must add a tribute to to the firearms enthusiasts who stymied another one of the Great Ideas from the mind of His Obamaness. The auction notice clearly states: "Mutilation is not required."

I guess we owe our thanks to Kadhaffi

And so His Obamaness presides over the dawning of a new Age of Pericles. Prosperity is just around the corner because consumer spending was up last month by seven-tenths of a per cent.

Counsellor: "But, Sire, your scriveners of the exchequer also say  most new spending merely covered the extra costs of the peasants' petrol."

HIs Obamaness: "Take him out and shoot him."

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The same source reports our personal incomes rose by three-tenths of a per cent in February. Aha! The lathes are humming and it's Morning in America.

Sorry, Charlie. We're still flipping burgers and trying to sell one another 20-pay-life.  "Both (spending and income) gains reflected a Social Security tax cut, which boosted take-home pay."


Think of how rich we'll be if HO can get United Nations'  permission to bomb another towel-head country or two.