Something else I didn't build

The Wood Faerie not only brought it one day, that night he cut it, split it, and stacked it.  For that I certainly want to thank the Wood Faerie and his advisor, His Ineptness, the president.

The president deserves yet another paean in this regard. By reminding me I don't actually own this little project he saves me from the notion that I have some right to resist any looter who swings buy with a pickup to transfer any or all of the sustainable, renewable biomass from my residence to his.

(Unfortunately, "paean" is always a noun, never a verb, which prevents a  fellow from writing that we should have a great national meeting and paean the president. Proper grammar imposes regrettable limits on expression.)

For energy geeks, you're looking at a little more tha two cords, mostly oak, containing roughly 40 million btus of energy, comparable to the heat available from more than six  barrels of crude from the Arabs who, oddly, seem to own their oil. At least His Ineptness, has never lectured them on the universal nature of collectivism.

Reloading dope

Namely me.

My buddy P is getting more interested in shooting. His son bought a .30-06 bolt gun a while back, and P decided he'd like one himself. Prosperous enough, he still gags the idea of spending a buck every time the hammer falls. (Me too.)  So he decided to sit at the feet of a guy who started assembling cartridges back in the Nixon years. An expert.

Namely me.

Yeah. Right.

Now, I can generally get through a reloading session without too much fuss. The components are on hand and decently organized. The gear is robust and  trustworthy. My usual loads -- especially for the only really noble calibers, .30-06, .45ACP, and .45 Colt -- are well-tested, as are the procedures which begin with an attitude: At the bench, the only proper mindset is that of a paranoid old-maid aunt. The fact of the matter is that a high-pressure accident does hide under your bed, just waiting to snatch out your eyeballs. Fear is good.

I go into my didactic mode and lecture my friend about all of this, including that line I stole from P.O. Ackley, "You see a man with a rabbit's foot hanging over his loading bench, run like Hell."

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We got started on two boxes of bright, once-fired Remington brass.

The competent old pro cleverly noticed that the primers weren't coming out. Dang, I thought I replaced the broken decap pin. Double-dang, I was sure there were still some spares is the drawer. Time out while I found the proper sized panel nail to sub for the real thing. We proceeded through the lubing and sizing steps for a few rounds, me doing and explaining before turning it over to P. HIs first couple of strokes went well. About the third there was a snap. You don't want to hear a snap in my press.  Rub noises are okay. Not snaps. Stop everything. Take a look. Curse.

My first -ever stuck case. I thought it was something you smugly read about,a mishap afflicting only lesser mortals.  Another timeout. P is getting dubious about this whole thing. It takes a few minutes to cut a dowel and hammer out the case. And that process drives the expanding ball into it. Hacksaw the brass apart and pry out the ball while discussing causes.

Fortunately,  P is an engineer and has no trouble understanding the possibility of a shell holder at the loose end of manufacturing tolerance and a rim at the tight end. But still...

I fool around a little longer, finding another holder  which, though  identically numbered by the RCBS folks, seems tighter than original. And just to be safe we swab out the die body, roll the cases across the pad again,  and swipe a smidgen more goop inside the mouths.

The rest of the operation goes better, and we end with 39 cases prepped and primed, ready for Lesson Two, scheduled for this evening, wherein your expert will explain and demonstrate the fine art of not blowing up a rifle. Load selection, powder measuring, checking with a flashlight, bullet seating. Etc. What could possibly go wrong?

Probably nothing because, on reflection, I concluded all the gods were bored last week, held a meeting, and, just for shits and grins, decided it would be amusing to humiliate that guy who keeps boasting about his really cool reloading shack and the nice rounds he produces.

Unless, of course, they're really feeling vindictive and decide that if one torture  session is good, two would be even more fun.

We'll see. And I think I do have a rabbit's foot around here somewhere.

EDIT to update: Taku-Wakan give good medicine tonight. Smooth like papoose behind.

False prophecy there, AP

Somebody on the AP General Desk may wish he had held off a few minutes. He filed a lede predicting:

With a month to go until the presidential election, the government on Friday issues its September jobs report, expected to show an uptick in the U.S. unemployment rate after employers added only a modest number of jobs.

You've seen that the opposite occurred. The official unemployment rate -- which may or may not be a number related to any earthly reality --  fell to 7.8 per cent, and we were blessed with a few more new jobs than predicted.

It isn't a horrible journalistic mistake. Technically, it is not an error at all because it was true when released and based on quotations from "experts." But it is a useful reminder to keep your salt shaker handy when reading the day's news.

The campaign to re-coronate His Ineptness has to love the new  numbers. If nothing else they kill the GOP sloganeering that the current ruler has presided over an 8 per cent or higher unemployment rate since Day One of the Unicorn Administration.

But with Kwee* Three in full assault on the accumulated wealth of American citizens, a fractional rise or fall in number of Americans hired by MacDonald's or the Staten Island Topless Car Wash is damned thin gruel for any claim that happy days are her again.

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*TMR speak for QE -- Quantitative Easing -- which is a term altogether too pretentious for creating money out of thin air.

No business like show business

In full fairness, honoring my duty to be an informed citizen, I watched the damned thing,  all the way through from Obama's open to Michelle. Honey Pie, it's our anniversary and I wish our clothes and the cameras were off.

All the way from the Romney rejoinder that he sympathized with his opponent's romantic frustration.  Very gentlemanly.

All the way to the end when Mitt pinned the poor president for the fifth and final time. (WWF debates have special rules.)   He had sort of expected someone to cinch the big championship belt around his middle.That didn't happen until later when all the world -- meaning Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC --  declared Obama the loser.

The story line carried through to the morning hours when a talker on Joe Scarborough's show  praised Romney for winning and both of them for engaging in such a meaningful exchange of views, for shunning the cheap shots. For being "two highly intelligent men ... presenting entirely different world views."

Okay. Obama presented a world view of free candy. Romney offered free ice cream. Obama promised to be a more compassionate Romney. Romney promised to  be a more efficient Obama.

If there were any "world-view" differences, science has a serious challenge: develop an instrument sensitive enough to detect them.

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This analysis may be slightly flawed. About 25 minutes in,  I walked away from my electric teevee long enough to pop a bowl of corn and pour a sugary drink. Perhaps I missed crucial information.

Maybe Mitt explained the advantage of a revenue-neutral tax scheme for the "rich." Close loopholes and end deductions, but lower rates so the feds would extort precisely the same amount of money.

Maybe His Ineptness had a good retort to Mitt's notation that he had squandered 20 years worth of "tax breaks for big oil" on greenish jobs, i.e., Solyndra and its belly-up  brethren.

Maybe one or the other even hinted that we might want to give a thought to Charmin Basic, known to some as the American Dollar.