Liberation

 The markets are reacting poorly to President Trump's tariffs. Dow is down 4%, NASDAQ down5%, S&P down6%.  The markets are all about short-term gain and this is a long-term move.  The pain should be short and over soon.  Let the market react.

My Honda is in the shop at the shop.  I didn't have an appointment (really?  It's hard to schedule a major electrical issue.) but I'm told that it's next in line and the techs will get on it tomorrow morning.  We'll see, but before I left the dealership this morning, I had the service-critter check the status on the warranty.  I'm good.

Whut??

 In April of 2020, I bought a new car.  For myself.  Probably the first new car I had purchased since 1975. In my world, the lady drove the nice car, the man drove a clunker, probably a pickup truck.  My current ride is a 2020 Honda Odyssey.  It's been a good ride, and it's carried Belle and I to lots of cowboy shoots.  It hauls a lot of gear and I've been happy with it. It is still under warranty.

Today, I started getting some weird codes. Error messages on the dash.

Weird stuff like that.  Odd.  It all happened at once, and I'm getting about five error codes. Confusing.  I"m going to get up at 0-dark-thirty and have it sitting in front of the Honda dealer tomorrow morning when they open the doors.  I don't know what the issue is, but Honda will figure it out.

Eggs

 I worked the grocers list this morning while doing errands and noticed that the price of eggs have dropped.  Belle and I normally buy the Grade A Large eggs and that's what I looked at today.

$3.93 is a lot better that the ~$5.00 they were earlier when I checked. We don't eat a lot of eggs, but I needed them for lunch.  I fried some nice pork steaks and used an egg wash to help the breading stick to the pork.  

When I get ready to cook chicken fried steak, or chicken fried pork, I season the meat with salt, pepper and garlic powder, then run it through some all-purpose flour, then an egg/milk wash, then into crushed saltine crackers.  Hot oil at 350F, fry till golden brown.  It helps if you have the butcher run those little pork steaks through the tenderizer.

I don't fry chicken. Popeye's is just down the road, and I can't seem to get the motivation to fry chicken anymore. So, today's lunch was chicken fried pork, with mashed potatoes and a cream gravy.  

Torpedo Bat?

 The sports world is abuzz about the Yankees winning a ball game with something called a "torpedo bat". It's actually nothing new. Every kid who ever played sandlot ball knows that some bats work for you and some don't.

Evidently, the batting coach did some analytics and found that each hitter is different and had some bats made that match the hitter.  Good analytics, because it worked for him. But every kid who ever played baseball knows that a bat has a sweet spot, and when you connect that spot with the ball, magic happens. That same kid knows that if you can get to West Main Street in Louisville, the factory will make a bat designed just for you.

Baseball will survive the torpedo bat, just as surely as it survived lights on the field. Every good pitcher knows his hitter, and if he's hitting low and away, then give him high and inside.  Work the corners and keep him guessing.

Wisconsin?

 State Supreme Court races are normally as interesting as planning commission meetings, but somehow, this race in Wisconsin is being hyped as the harbinger of doom for the Republic.

I don't get it. Democrats, after their ignominious defeat in November, are searching for their muse, their path from the wilderness, and Republicans are having a good time watching them try.  But, this race has garnered a bunch of attention and a whole lot of money. It seems that this race, like all races, will be based on turnout and whoever gets more voters to the poll will win. That is all political races.

I would think that there are far more important races, like the congressional special elections in Florida.  Those might flip the House to the Democrats, or make it harder to sustain a majority later.   Maybe I'm not looking at it in the right vein, but a SUpreme COurt seat in Wisconsin?  I really don't get it.

Gun SHopping

 I stopped by the local gun shop today to look thru his used gun rack. Specifically J-frame Smiths.  He had one used Model 640 at over MSRP, and one Model 38 Airweight for over $900.00.  I told him that I had seen a lot of things in my time, but I had never seen a $900.00 Airweight. I am  not going to pay over MSRP for a used gun, it ain't happening.

I've been jonesing for another J-frame.  I gave my last one away after a cerakoting and rebuild, and my daughter-in-law fell in love with it. It rides with her now. The model I'm looking at is the Model 60 3". In .357 Magnum, it might be quite a handful, but I like that longer barrel and the adjustable sights. And, I can get it for less than the local shop wanted for the used 640. I may have to order it closer to BAG day.

Well, How About That?

Reading the news this morning, I was on an article abut ICE detainees being housed in Louisiana, specifically  Mahmoud Khalil, that asshole who has been stirring up Columbia University.  So, I started Googling around, and found an article that tells us where the facility is located.

Turns out, it's Jena, the hometown of my lady, Belle. From the article.

Since last week, Khalil — a Syrian-born Palestinian and permanent U.S. resident— has been locked up in the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center, a privately-run immigration lockup with an average daily detainee population of nearly 1,200.

So, I turned and asked Belle, who is sitting on the couch.  "Yeah,", says she. "That place is behind our old house on a little road that winds through the country and eventually comes out at Olla, LA.  There ain't noting out there but pine trees." 

I know generally where she is talking about and it is just about as remote as you can get and still be where sunshine can hit you. It may not be in the middle of nowhere, but you can see nowhere from there.

That is interesting.  When ICE wants to send someone to purgatory, it is my wife's hometown.

Do The Maintenance

 I took my EDC out today, took all the ammo out of the mag, and decided to give it a good cleaning and lube. I carry a SW Shield in 9mm, but haven't shot it in a year or so.  Carry lots, shoot seldom.

I was amazed at how bone-dry it was, and how much dust and grit was in the innards. A half-hour with rags and oil and I feel a lot better about it. It's ready now for another period of carrying. I really need to get out to the range and do a little.  But life and winter got in the way. I also have a .22 carbine I need to shoot.  We'll make plans for both of those to go to the range, one day next week.

Signal Timeline

 Much ado about the Signal timeline, with more details leaking out.  Goldberg is trying to do as much damage as he can before becoming entirely irrelevant.  It seems USAToday has a timeline of the chat.

According to USAToday, Pete Hegseth revealed at 11:44 am that an attack would be ongoing.

Two hours later, at 1:45 pm, the attack occurred.

Okay, we are just seeing a summary, so we don't know exactly what had been revealed.  If it was a deep, dark secret at 11:45, within two hours, the Houthis knew that they had been attacked.  It was no longer a secret.  Everyone knew.  Even if the Houthis were plugged in to the chat, I doubt they could have done much in two hours.    Talking about national security on Signal is probably a bad idea, and including a leftie journalist is a terrible idea.  I'm sure that the principals have learned a good lesson from this debacle.

I'm reminded of the greatest national secret ever kept.  When the Allies invaded Normandy on June 6, 1944.  Ike and his generals kept it a secret until the evening before, but when the paratroopers started landing, even the Nazis suspected that something was happening.  By daylight, they know what was happening. Military secrets don't last long when the bombers or missiles are overhead.

Signal

 It seems that there is this app called Signal.  From what I've learned, it is an encrypted app that lets users send reasonably secure messages over the interweb.  It seems that it is also approved for government work.

Recent news indicates that a group of Trump officials was using the app for a test chain, and somehow a rabid left wing reporter got included on the chain.  Of course, he waited till the most inopportune moment to reveal that he was party to the messaging, and the Democrats lost their minds.

When we learned years ago that Hillary was running a server out of a broom closet, the Republicans list their minds.  Fair enough.  What goes around comes around. It appears from testimony, this most recent brouhaha revealed no classified information, unlike Hillary's broom closet server.

Oh, the Democrats are outraged, as we might expect and this should serve as a learning opportunity for Hegseth, Gabbard, Radcliff and others. The interweb is a poor place to discuss government matters. To misquote Shakespeare, "Get Thee to a SCIF."

How this rebid lefty reporter got added to the chain is a bit of a mystery, and I'm sure they will sort it out.  But the happiest guy in Washington today is Chuckie Schumer, because the heat is off him for a little while.