The little Somali war

You probably aren't reading about this unpleasantness in the Town Talk, but that doesn't mean it isn't happening.

A little country called Somalia has been unstable (truly, really unstable) since the overthrow of the last tin-pot dictator a few years back. The jihadis, in the form of something called the Islamic Courts moved in and set up shop. The Ethiopian government decided that having radical Islamists on their border was a bad thing, so the Ethiop Army decided to run the bastards out of the country. They started on Christmas Eve and the job is just about completed. The remnants of the Islamic Courts are trying to cross the border into Kenya.

I am also told that US NCOs have been training the Ethiopian army for the past couple of years and that most of the tactics used in this latest exercise were learned from American sergeants.

Bill Roggio is covering all of this at The Fourth Rail. Start here for the Dec 24th posting. Or just go to his main page and scroll down to see them all.

The Ethiopians have given the Islamic Courts a serious ass-kicking. I'm told that US Special Forces troops have joined the pursuit, looking for a couple of particularly nasty folks we'd like to incarcerate.

This is a major smack-down for the Islamists and something you won't read in the morning rag.

Insulation

The project house is insulated. It was a pain in the butt, but not nearly as bad as other insulation jobs I have done.

I used standard fiberglass insulation, but this stuff was made by Johns Manville. It is called encapsulated insulation and the fiberglass is sheathed in a plastic sheeting not unlike a standard garbage bag. The plastic bag has little tabs to staple it in place.

I remember the old paper faced insulation and working with that stuff would drive me crazy. The tiny glass fibers would get all over you, cut you, make you miserable. This new encapsulated insulation avoids all the discomfort of installation. Plus, it was the cheapest thing going at Lowe's when I dropped by to price it.

I called my contractor buddy and he is going to supply the name of a drywall guy. Hopefully by the end of the week, I'll be ready to paint.

Connie's essay

There is a lady, Connie, over at the Personal Effects. She is an essayist and pens pieces about life. Her latest is about the power that women have over men, and she is right with most of her premise. Go read it.

You're back? Good. Most of her premise is correct. Our ladies have remarkable power over us, and that is how it should be. Women are the keepers of the hearth, the basis of the traditional family. However, Connie makes a mistake in interpretation and the particular paragraph is here:

There is nothing like the insanity of a man whose wife has left him. He will never fully recover. It will forever change him. He may find a new wife, but the scars left by the former one will be deep and festering. The man is an empty shell.

A man might want to control his surroundings. He may even think he has control over his life. But he doesn’t.

Respectfully, I disagree.

I've been left, you see, and have come through the fire stronger. My situation isn't necessarily unique.

In 1998 I found myself left. It hurt. Really badly. And I got a bit crazy during the trauma of the divorce. During my first marriage, I fell into some stereotypical behaviors that most men find themselves in at some point. I was trying to control my life, and in doing so, was trying to control the people in my life.

All because I wasn't in control of myself.

Then, slowly, the lesson dawned, as most of life's lessons dawn. If I couldn't control myself, how could I control the people around me? More particularly, why would I want to control anyone for any reason? I learned a lot of things during my divorce, things that made me stonger, things that made me wiser. I'm a better man for having gone through it.

I decided that if I couldn't control the people in my life, then I had to control who was in my life. I had to control myself. That if I wanted love, I had to be loveable. That if I wanted peace in my household I had to be peaceful. That if I didn't want strife, I had to avoid strife. That if I wanted my children to grow to be healthy adults, I had to provide the example. I still try to do that, even now that they are all grown.

In time, I met a lady who wanted to be part of my life, and I wanted her in it. We agreed on the big things we wanted. We agreed on the things we didn't want, and we formulated an understanding that allows us to live in a manner that pleases both of us.

We started dating in 2001. We became engaged on New Years Eve 2002-03 and we married in 2003. In five years, we haven't had an argument, we haven't spoken a cross word.

Don't think for a minute that either she or I are shrinking violets. We aren't. We both hold very particular opinions on a variety of topics. We both know who is in charge of particular pieces of our life. We agree to disagree on certain subjects, but we don't argue. It's just not worth it.

I know that there are behaviors she won't tolerate, so I don't commit those behaviors. She knows the same about me, and respects my boundaries. Anything else is up for negotiation, and we negotiate frequently. When we negotiate, it isn't in a adversarial sense, but one in which both our best interests are important.

For example: She is in charge of the interior decoration of the home. If she decides to paint the living room day-glo orange, I have no vote. That is her domain. It is my task to help her paint the room, but I have no vote on the color.

Other things are my domain. Our project house, for example. I am responsible for construction and design as it relates to ease of construction, materials, and maintenance. The time line is my domain. Whether it is done in a day or a year, she knows that I'll take care of it as I am able. She doesn't nag, although she watches the progress with a keen eye. She knows that there will come a time soon in which she will be tasked with picking colors and decorative style. Those are her domains and I won't participate in them, except as it relates to the actual painting. Whatever she chooses is okay by me.

I haven't been in a domestic argument in five years. I love my wife and she loves me. There are areas in our life that are particularly the province of the other, and we both respect those boundaries in things large and small.

I may not be in control of my life, but I am in control of myself. The things that swirl around me in this life are not my fault, except as it relates to choices I have made. I think I am a better man than I was ten years ago.

Age and Time

It amazes me what some people will believe.

You've got to see this story from about two groups arguing about how old the Grand Canyon happens to be.

On the one side, we have the scientists who are pretty good at measuring things, within the last 10,000 years or so:

The difference between the views of some groups is--literally--millions of years apart. "The Grand Canyon was formed millions of years ago," said William Ausich, president of the Paleontological Society, who signed a letter along with presidents of six other scientific organizations. "It is the job of the National Park Service to present the best scientific information possible to the public and the book is complete pseudoscience."

Then we have the Creationists, who defend this statement:

Mark Looy, vice president of Answers in Genesis, said four staff members of his organization contributed essays to the book and believe the canyon is much newer. "The canyon was formed as a result of the aftereffects of Noah's flood, a worldwide global flood," he said. "Most of the canyon was formed by a lot of water over a relatively short period of time."

Okay, Mr. Looy, tell me how old these galaxies might be?



According to NASA and the Hubble folks, these galaxies are 4 billion light years away. Think about that for just a minute. The light from those galaxies has been traveling for 4 billion years. I'm sure that's give or take a couple of hundred thousand. So, we can reasonably infer that the universe is at least 4 billion years old.

I am a Christian. I'm also a science fan. I'm not overly educated, but the differing beliefs are easily reconciled in my mind.

God doesn't lie to me, but He is not constrained by space or time. We are. He gave us mathematics and logic to use as tools to understand His universe. More importantly, he gave us the power to observe, to discern, so that we might properly wonder at His creation.

Goldwing Repair

Our successful excursion into the bowels of Goldwing wiring has my Wing up and running. I'd get on it tomorrow and drive anywhere in the country, yet motorcycles are designed for tinkering and mine needs a couple of things.

Like an oil change. That isn't much of a problem, as Wix makes filters for it. I have a filter and seven quarts of oil on the workbench. (No, the Wing doesn't take seven quarts. That's what I have on hand.) The very first thing you do when you change a Wing's oil is to remove the lower cowling. Three screws (5X14, Honda Part #93891-05014-07). These things are easily lost. I need a couple for replacements. Two of mine have vibrated loose over the last ten years and fallen to the road. I need a couple for replacements. The guys over at Honda Direct list them for $2.50 each.

Two frigging dollars and fifty cents each for a screw? You have got to be kidding me. These are machine screws I'm talking about. Not some gold-plated titanium aircraft part. These things hold a piece of plastic to a piece of metal. They ought to be $2.50 for a box of ten. Hell, I just went and bought three big honking lag bolts and paid 11 cents apiece for them. I'm not about to pay $2.50 for a machine screw that is going to vibrate out and fall on the road.

Somebody makes these screws. I've just got to find them. I guess I'll take the one remaining one I have and hie myself over to Fastenal next week.

That's a wrap!

CNN reports that the Arab stations are broadcasting the news that Saddam Hussein is dead.

Also hanged with him were Barzan Hassan, Hussein's half-brother, and Awad Bandar, former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court.

Because I am Christian, I believe in heaven and in hell. I also believe that there is a special place for despots and Saddam is just now feeling the heat.

Maybe after the fact

Looks like Saddam Hussein is about to hang.

And not a bit too soon. Lots of folks are trumpeting the fact, MSNBC, Jules Crittenden, Michelle Malkin He's about to swing, and this report may even now be after the fact.

History will say a lot about Saddam Hussein, one of the truly evil men of this era. The simple fact that he existed colored the entire second half of my military career and provided me one of the truly adventurous deployments of my twenty-plus years of service.

There is a truism in the Army that we always train for the last war we fought. That's true in that a good portion of my career was spent training for a Vietnam style jungle environment, or an East Germany, watch-the-Red-Horde-pour-through-Fulda Gap scenario. That isn't always the case, however. In the '70s some far-sighted Army officers saw the need to train heavy brigade sized forces and looked about to find an area that would support large formations locked in manuever. They picked Fort Irwin California, and in 1979 the National Training Center was launched.

The fact that it is a desert environment was truly prophetic. From NTC, we taught brigades to fight as brigades and taught heavy (tank, infantry, artillery) forces to exist, maintain, and succeed in a desert.

There were some truly forward-thinking officers that chose a piece of California desert to build a state of the art training center. Those guys, whoever they are, saved countless thousands of lives.

And sometime soon, if not after the fact, Saddam Hussein will swing into eternity. When the news is made fact, a lot of us who sweated, worked, and bled to make it happen will pause, have a drink, and toast the guys at NTC who made it all possible.

The One Question

Like Kevin, over at the Smallest Minority, I am unabashedly conservative and am becoming more libertarian as I mature. Kevin has done a wonderful job of preaching in the wilderness about individual rights and recently he penned a masterful piece about gun rights. I recommend it to you all.

In it, he asks the one question that everyone who advocates abrogating the 2nd Amendment should be forced to answer.

Can you demonstrate just one time, one place, throughout all of human history, where restricting the access of handheld weapons to the average person made them safer?

That question was originally asked by Joe Huffman with an open challenge to anyone who would like to take it. As far as I know, no one has answered it with a defensible YES answer.

Unfortunately, those people who would take your rights first try to take your guns. We've seen this repeatedly through human history. To subjugate a population, you must first make them unable to resist.

Living nativity scene

As part of my church's ongoing Christmas celebration, I got volunteered to play Joseph as part of the living nativity scene. The church performed it on December 20, 21, 27 and 28. I was on the roster for tonight.

I have fulfilled my duty. There were sheep, cattle, donkeys, and one jackass on the set. We won't discuss who the jackass was, but he's glad we're through too. It was cold out there by the manger, watching the livestock eat the set. I hope my feet thaw out before daylight.

I've done sillier things, but I can't recall when.

Saddam's appeal

Looks like the appelate division has spoken:

BAGHDAD, Dec. 26 -- An Iraqi appeals court on Tuesday upheld a ruling to execute deposed leader Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity and said he could hang within 30 days.

"From tomorrow, any day could be the day of implementation," chief judge Aref Abdul-Razzaq al-Shahin said at a news conference in Baghdad.

That's the way to do it. No pissing around like we do here in the United States.

On Nov. 5, a five-judge panel unanimously sentenced Hussein and two of his seven co-defendants to death by hanging. Four other defendants were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 15 years to life, and an eighth was acquitted.

The high court also upheld the death penalty of two of Hussein's co-defendants, Shahin said, but returned the case of another convicted man to the high tribunal after deciding his life sentence was too lenient.

That's interesting. An appeals court who returns a defendant to the district bench because the sentence was too lenient. I like those guys.

But, the bigger lesson is that a defendant can be sentenced in November, file an appeal and have a decision on that appeal in December. Not bad at all, and from my way of thinking, the US Courts could take judicial notice. Punishment is no good as a deterrent unless the sanctions are quickly enforced. Wilbert Rideau could have benefitted from time limits like these.

I understand that the preferred method of hanging in the Arab world employs a braided wire cable, much like we use on a winch.

Goldwing repair

I own a 1996 Honda Goldwing Interstate. The Goldwing marque set the motorcycling market on its ear back in 1975 and continues to be the leader in comfort, innovation, and dependability. Mine has carried me across country, and is still a solid, dependable bike, with some 140,000 miles on the odometer. I wouldn't hesitate to give it a basic servicing and ride it across the country again. This is my second Goldwing and if the good Lord allows me to ride, there will probably be a third one in a couple of years.

However, with a bike this old, things happen. Last fall, I had a problem with the bike I couldn't diagnose. The motorcycle ran fine until you applied the brakes, then the engine died as if you had cut the ignition switch. I traced wires and called techs and no one could help me with the problem.

Until this morning. My second son, a mechanic by training and trade, helped me look for the problem and after an evening of poring over schematics he had an idea of what the problem might be. He suspected a interittent ground connector in the bank-angle sensor, or the brake light circuit. As it turns out, there was a burned ground lead in one of the main connectors. Matt told me that when the connector got hot, that connector would lose connectivity and would trip the bank-angle sensor, which told the bike it was on its side. The sensor killed the ignition, just like it was designed to do.

A trip to the parts house, a couple of connectors, some dialectric grease, and my scooter is running again. Try as we might in the garage, we were unable to duplicate the fault. I think it's fixed.

Remington 870

The Remington 870 shotgun is a marvel of manufacturing. They're made as inexpensively as possible, yet they are virtually bulletproof. Long a standard of police work, they're also well known in the duck blinds and bird fields all over the world. I don't know how many Remington has made since 1950, but the population has to be in the millions.

Tonight my daughter brought me her boyfriend's 870. It's a garden variety 870 Express Magnum with a 28 inch barrel. It wouldn't lock up and he asked that I look at it. It took a while, but I found a problem that I have never seen in the 870 line.

I took the barrel off and looked first at the locking notch in the barrel extension. Sometimes a piece of shot gets wedged up in there and won't let the locking lug engage the notch. It was clean. Then I took the trigger group out and inspected it for breakage or damage, or more loose shot. Sometimes a piece of shot gets in there and locks the trigger group. It worked fine took.

Scratching my head, I took the bolt out and inspected the locking lug. It was clean and serviceable. Sometimes trash gets in there and keeps the bolt from sliding completely forward. Nope, that bolt was just fine, although over lubed. We cleaned it and I started inspecting the forearm when I noticed it was loose.

The spanner bolt that holds the forearm to the action bars was loose. Really loose. I tightened it and reassembled the shotgun. It locked up fine. Evidently, that spanner collar had worked loose over the years until the bolt wouldn't slide forward enough to lock the action. If the forearm won't pull the bolt completely into battery, the shotgun won't lock up. Basic common sense, yet it was the last thing I looked at, and frankly, I was out of ideas.

Thirty minutes into the job, we were done. Boyfriend's shotgun is working fine. He owes me one, and that is a fine position to be in.

Christmas Morning

It's rainy here, and Milady is asleep in our bed. She crawled in this morning just before 7:00 and put her cold feet against my sleeping body. That is a standard practice that has evolved over our marriage and I suspect is fairly common among couples. It is my job, my calling, to warm her when she sleeps. When there are cold feet in the bed, then I know my wife is there, and all is right with the world.

Once I got her warm and toasty I crawled out to begin my day. She and I sleep on differing schedules because of the nature of our work. I'm a daytime deputy, she is a nighttime nurse. She'll awaken early this afternoon and we'll enjoy her two days off. The children are at other folks homes this morning, enjoying Christmas with the other people in their lives, and that is just exactly as planned. Christmas is in the heart, not wrapped in tinsel under a tree. We did the tinsel thing last week and I was truly in the Christmas spirit till I went to bed last night. When I awakened this morning, I found it finished. This morning I find myself with a pot of coffee, this computer, a darkened kitchen and the rest of the year stretching before me. Today I am at peace with the world, and if that is the best of God's gifts to me, I'll take it.

We're entertaining friends later this afternoon and my one task is to prepare the meal. We're serving something Milady calls Taco Soup and the recipe is simplicity itself.

Get out a skillet and a crock pot. We have the large oval one.

Brown a pound of good lean hamburger and a half-pound of good breakfast sausage. I use Jimmy Dean's. When brown, dump it in the crock-pot.

Add to the crock-pot (don't drain anything)
2 cans of pinto beans
2 cans red beans
1 can whole kernel corn
1 can Ro*tel tomatoes
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can chopped green chilis
1 package taco seasoning
1 package Ranch dressing mix.

Put it on low and let it cook for a couple of hours. Serve over corn chips, we use Fritos, and garnish with grated cheese.

Bon apetit!

Merry Christmas, again

I just got back from church. Our pastor had a Christmas message, but preached from Phillipians. She admitted that she didn't know why she wasn't preaching the traditional Christmas message, but that she was moved by God to preach from Phillipians 4:4-7. Her sermon dealt with why God does things and the fact that we are often unable to understand God's mind. We just have to accept. She dedicated the service to all the service-members who are serving away from home in whatever capacity they are ordered to serve. I thought it was a nice touch to remind us all of the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who are in some place other than home for the Christmas season.

At any rate, I have to go out and get some last minute foodstuffs before the stores all close. While I was checking email, I went over to Hog on Ice and found this little blurb. It sets up Christmas against the modern backdrop of current events and says it about as well as anyone has said it.

Oh, yeah. While you're having fun, remember that Christmas has something or other to do with that "Christ" guy. In a world where most religions see God or the gods as selfish, capricious jerks or apathetic administrators who don't care about human suffering, Christianity alone recognizes God as a person who loved us so much He came to earth in the form of a man and allowed Himself to be tortured to death by His jeering enemies so we could be free of the consequences of our own evil deeds.

A lot of religions require the sacrifice of human beings to please gods. Christianity's God sacrificed Himself for the benefit of human beings.

As end-of-the-year gifts go, that one is hard to top.

I concur.

Merry Christmas.

New Camera

Evidently, every PawPaw needs a video camera, to take those holiday videos that no one ever watches. So, for my birthday, I got a JVC GR-D370 video camera. It uses tape, of all things.

I have to get a firewire cable to download video to the computer, and that search will wait till I get to town. I have a 4-pin to 6-pin cable, but evidently what I need is a 4-pin to 4-pin to connect to the computer, as my computer doesn't have a 4-pin slot. The manual tells me that I can download still pictures from the camera to the computer using a standard USB cable, but for video I need a DV cable. Whatever that is.

This camera uses the little digital video cassettes, and I'm sure that there is some utility to those, but to properly edit and manage my video, I'll need some way of getting the video out of the camera and into the computer.

One day next week I'll put both the camera and the laptop in the truck and go searching for a cable. Radio Shack ought to be able to hook me up.

Everyone else has figured out how to do this, what with the monumental success of YouTube. There has got to be an easy way to get video out of the computer and on to my hard drive. Or am I missing something?

Merry Christmas

I'm off work this morning but have to go back tonight. After tonight I'm taking off till after the New Year. It'll be a time for reflection, for projects, for relaxation. Regular readers may notice a difference in the blog postings, because I intend to relax for the next two weeks.

I may even drink a little whiskey.

Should I forget, or be otherwise occupied, I want to wish a Merry Christmas to everyone who regularly reads this little blog. Further, I hope that the New Year brings joy and prosperity to each of you.

Merry Christmas.

Cups

I know what a cup is. Measured from a standard US measuring cup, it is 8 liquid ounces. These are US measurements.

When I pour a cup of coffee in the morning, I use a coffee cup that holds 6 ounces. Like most of us, I have an eclectic mix of coffee mugs in the cupboard, but they all hold about six ounces. There ain't no demitasse cups in my cupboard.

I have a 12 cup coffee maker. I make a full pot every morning. My particular coffee maker is a Proctor-Silex, but I've noticed that all the brands have about the same weird-assed markings on the carafes. Normally, I get about 6 or seven cups of coffee from a 12 cup coffee maker, depending on the mug I use to drink my brew.

I just took the carafe off the coffee maker, filled it to the 8 cup line, then measured the water in the carafe with a measuring cup. My coffee maker, at the 8 cup line, holds just exactly four measured cups of water.

SO, the cup markings my US coffee maker are just exactly half a cup. What sort of dumb-ass marked the cup measures on the pot?

Note to coffee-maker manufacturers: Use standard measures, or mark it at 6 ounces and call it a nine-mug coffee maker.

Not that I expect anything from the manufacturers. I'm sure that the engineers who design these things know that they're lying to us. I'm used to being victimized by engineers, who in my experience are no better than lawyers, and I hold lawyers in complete and utter contempt. We need engineers and lawyers like we need septic systems, but it isn't something that a civilized person wants to be familiar with.

New Press

A reloading press is a lifetime acquisition. Most single-stage reloading presses are over-engineered to the point where they'll never wear out in a lifetime of hobby use. I have a Lee Challenger press that I've been using for the past twenty years and it remains just as serviceable today as it was the day I took it out or the box. I have loaded thousands of rounds of ammunition on it and taught others to reload on it. It works great.

For the past year or so, I've been jonesing for a new press, for no other reason than greed. Having two presses on the bench is a time-saver for more production than the yearly hunting ammo. If I want to load a couple hundred rounds of .30-06, for example, having one press set up for one task and the second press set up for another task makes a lot of sense.

Because the Challenger press is lightweight, made of aluminum, I wanted something with a little more substance.

Last night, Milady presented me with this.



The Lee Classic Cast Press. This thing is cast iron. 1-1/8 inch ram. It's big enough to load .50 BMG if I ever feel the need to do that. I can't find a shipping weight, but it must weigh 15 pounds. This thing is built like a tank, and based on the reviews I've seen, I'll probably never want another single-stage press.

I am a lucky, lucky man.

Wednesday again

Wednesday again, and time flies. This week isn't as busy as the last, and we're well into the Christmas season.

Today is a milestone, of sorts. PawPaw will attain the ripe old age of 53 sometime today. And, my drivers license isn't due for renewal for another year.

Three years ago, Milady hosted a surprise party for me. I didn't realize that there was a surprise party until I came in the backdoor of the house and stepped into the bathroom. I kept my toothbrush in there and my toothbrush had been moved. I realized then that she had straightened for a special occasion and that either I was going to a party or I had been evicted.

Two years ago I spent my birthday in a court room.

Last year I worked a fifteen hour day on my birthday.

This year, I get off at 3:00 and all the kids are coming over for a combination birthday/christmas party.

My married children spend thanksgiving with us, and go to the other parents for Christmas. As Milady normally works Christmas, and when I was working shift I worked Christmas, this doesn't pose a burden. We just have Christmas early.

So, tonight the grandkids will open presents under our tree and we'll exchange gifts with our children, and Milady has something especially sparkly under the tree.

I hope she likes it.

Wolves and Gators.

No, this isn't a football matchup. It looks like Wyoming is having the same problems with wolves as Louisiana had with gators twenty years ago.

Guys on the ground, the wildlife managers and the ranchers know how many wolves are on their ground. Any person who works the land knows what is on his land. Some predators can be tolerated, some cannot.

I knew, for example of a bobcat that lived behind my pond. Saw it regularly. Told the kids not to molest it. It kept the mouse population down. I also knew of a panther that lived in the woods behind the house. I didn't mind it being out there either and was fairly certain that it would maintain its distance from livestock. The coyotes that roamed the bayous and hilltops bothered me more than the feline predators. A pack of coyotes will do some damage if they focus on a lifestock animal, plus, they hunt at night so you often don't find the damage till the next morning.

The folks who come up with regulations are often slower than the folks who work outside to arrive at suitable regulations for the treatment of predators. We saw this when alligators were making their comeback from endangered to commonly seen.

One afternoon I found a gator in my pond. I knew they were still protected, so I called the Fish & Wildlife guy. "Don't you have a rifle?" he asked. I got the message. From that day forward I managed my predators on my land. Sometimes, the only thing you can do is shoot, shovel, and shut-up. We call it the 3-S's and it accounts for big part of my management plan.

The Wyoming ranchers have probably all ready adopted it.