Sunday Morning Dawg

 He isn't dead, just mapping by the pool.

Bad Jokes

 Yeah, yeah, I know.  It's Saturday night and I've had a drink, but this headline reminds me of some very bad jokes.

Hearing Aids May Help You Avoid Dementia, Study Finds

That's a wrap!  I'm going to finish this cocktail and go to bed before I regret something I might blog. 

Top Gunn

 Today, the Cross Branded Peacemakers met for the final time this year.  It's our annual awards banquet, where we award our top club shooters for the year.

The Peacemakers have ten (10) monthly matches.  Placement in each match is awarded top gun points, and the folks who have the most points at the end of the year are recognized.

First, the Ladies

L-R 1st, Two Step Cookie
2nd - Blue Eyed Belle
3rd - Squirrel Girl

Next, the Men

L-R 1st, Bailey Boy
2nd - Big Bill
3rd - Vovo

And, Finally, our Fastest Time Award.  This is for the man and woman who records the fastest time during a club match during the competition season.   We don't care what you did in practice.  It has to be a recorded score from a monthly match.

Fastest Time
Men - Bullet Bob, 0.335
Ladies - Two Step Cookie, 0.681

That wraps the competition season for the Cross Branded Peacemakers.  We'll start over in January 2023.

Sinema Swaps

It seems that Arizona Senator Krysten Sinema is leaving the Democrats and will register as an Independent.  This leaves us with 49 Republicans, 48 Democrats, and 3 independents.  The other independents, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and Angus King of Maine, caucus with the Democrats to give them their majority.

We don't know yet where Sinema might caucus.

Played Again

 It seems that the Biden administration got played again today by Russia in the international prisoner swap.  We're trading a convicted international arms dealer for a WNBA player who doesn't like the US.  While, of course, a Marine veteran languishes in a Russian jail.

Just another example of the Biden crew not having their priorities in order.  

Community Standards

 I have a small YouTube channel.  Videos of the grandkids, and the dog, and Cowboy Fast Draw.  The videos are purely amateur, have poor production values, are solely for my personal amusement, and are not monetized. Most of what is on there is nonsense.

This morning over coffee, I clicked on YouTube to watch the news and was notified that I had a video removed for some violation of their Community Standards.  So, I played along and learned that it is a video I posted over five years ago, a short reel of grandson Zach shooting Cowboy Fast Draw in the back yard.

Zach was fully clothed, in the back yard, expertly manipulating a revolver.  From my review of the reel, he was 15 years old at the time.  Somehow, this violates the nebulous Community Standards of YouTube, and the video was removed.

I will take this as a badge of honor.

Californians Move to Texas FINALE | Episode 6: Return To California

Episode 6, the finale

Lest We Forget

 A date that will live in infamy.

There is a sailor being buried today who died during the attack.  His remains are finally identified and he is going home.

Common Attribute

 One of the most common attributes of the human condition is that we are all born, and we all die. The actuarial tables that the insurance companies keep are a tribute to that fact.  We are all going to die.  SOme earlier, some later, but the grave (or the urn) awaits us all.

However, if you are a Russian business critter in Putin's Russia, the actuarial tables are a bit skewed, and people are noticing.

Heck, Wikipedia is keeping a list.

I'm sure it's all just coincidence.

Recruiting Shortfall

 Our military is in a tough spot right now, and following 20 years of unrelenting deployments and active combat, I understand that.  But, the leadership isn't helping things.  While they are talking about kicking out members who haven't had the covid vaccine, it's no wonder that the services are short-handed.

This screen grab from Fox News.

Lloyd Austin needs to get his head our of his ass.

They Are Going To US AR-14s?

We were talking about his in the shop last week.  There were several AR variant rifles that didn't make it.  The AR-1, for example.  Several others that didn't see the light of day, when Eugene Stoner was designing rifles for Armalite, a division of Fairchild.

But, I see this morning a headline that some jazzbo is threatening to shoot up a Catholic center with "new AR14 rifl3s".  Yeah, here is the headline.

'Janes Revenge' Abortion Zealots Threaten to 'Shoot Up' Catholic Newman Center With 'New AR14 Rifles'

Mayhem aside, I'd like to know where they intend to buy new AR14 rifles, because I'd like to buy a couple.  The AR14 was going to be a semiauto hunting rifle chambered in .30-06 and other calibers. But, it never went into production, so I doubt that there are any new ones floating in the market.

Ian tells us all about it.

Rolling the Gold

 That's what we always called it.  Rolling the Gold to identify ourselves as police officers. There was nothing nefarious about it.  In the presence of an officer you did not know, you identified yourself to put him or her at ease.

Evidently, the rules have changed.  It seems that the Chief of Police of Tampa was recently pulled over by a Pinellas County Deputy for a minor infraction.  She identified herself as a police officer and was allowed to proceed. When I say minor, she didn't have a license tag on her golf cart.  That is minor.

I never liked giving traffic tickets, so when I rolled out the citation pad, the time for talk was over.  In my time as a road cop, I probably never wrote more that two dozen tickets.  I made a bunch of traffic stops, but I didn't write many tickets.  If everything seemed reasonable, I'd let the violator go.

But, in this case, it seems like something that broke the camel's back. This violation seems so minor that it should not even have elicited conversation at the station coffee pot.

Coincidence?

 It's no secret that the EU has warned Elon Musk about tieir content moderation policies.

It's also no secret that French President Macron was in New Orleans on Friday.

Yet, somehow, it is a surprise that Elon Musk had a "surprise tete-a-tete" with Macron in New Orleans.

A surprise meeting between French President Macron and Elon Musk happened Friday in New Orleans. On the agenda was a “clear and honest discussion” about Twitter. Just days ago, a top European Union official warned that Musk must do more to protect users from harmful content.

Macron may have been surprised, but I doubt that Musk was.  The man didn't get to be a billionaire by happenstance. There are coincidences in life, but I doubt this was one of them.

Happy Sunday.

 Couple of things.

Jonathan, the tortoise, is celebrating his 190th birthday.  That's cool.  190 years.  And, he doesn't look a day over 180.

Toyota may be bringing the Land Cruiser back to the US.  I bet it won't be an EV.

Sunday Morning Dawg

 

Two Things

 First, the Air Force get a new bomber, the B21 Raider.  It looks a lot like the B2, but form follows function, and what we know about stealth technology drives the design.

I wonder what the purpose of the grand unveiling was.  Certainly, Russia and China knew we had it. Did the unveiling support a larger strategic purpose?  Or was it just grandstanding to prop up the Biden administration?  One wonders.

Speaking of bombers and politics, it seems that Elon Musk is carpet-bombing the Democrats with his release of internal Twitter docs that show unholy alliance between the DNC, the FBI, and Twitter on suppression of free speech.  I have no problem with a private company deciding what to cover or not to cover, but when the government gets involved, the First Amendment comes into play.

Those 50 former and current intelligence officials should be metaphorically drawn and quartered, their carriers ended, their pensions forfeit.  Those un-named FBI officials, likewise.  The Constitution is too important to allow the government to violate it for political purposes.  Any government functionary who violates it on this basic level should be stripped of all protections.

Forensics

 I caught a glimpse of this at Instapundit, then followed the link to Tam's place.  Clicked over to the Daily Beast about a cold case that suddenly had gotten warm again.

An unspent .40-caliber round discovered between the bodies of two young girls found dead on an Indiana hiking trail in 2017 led investigators to their alleged killer half a decade later, according to a probable cause affidavit unsealed Tuesday.

 A forensic examination showed the still-live bullet had been “cycled through” a Sig Sauer P226 owned by Richard Matthew Allen, who was charged last month with murder in the deaths of Delphi teens Libby German and Abby Williams.

I read through the article, and it didn't tell me how the girls had died, but a single .40SW cartridge was found between the bodies. Examiners say that they can match to a gun owned by the suspect.  They can show that it was cycled through the action.  I'd love to see that report.

Lunch

 I had to run to Guillory's today for some tasso, and I looked in their cooler for ideas for lunch.   A pair of little stuffed pork chops caught my eye.  Stuffed with pepperjack cheese and wrapped in bacon.  I asked the butcher and he said about 45 minutes in a 350 oven.  That sounded reasonable.

I had a few potatoes I needed to use, so when I got home I peeled and sliced them, then made an easy au gratin sauce to pour over them.  I put them in the oven about fifteen minutes before the pork chops.

Belle thought it was pretty tasty, and my belly is full, which was the whole idea of the exercise.

Credit Mobiliere

 So, if you've been paying attention at all, you have heard of Sam Bankman-Fried, who had a crypto company and a side-hustle of hedge fund.  He was also the spawn of a couple of well-known Democrat donors, and he himself gave a lot of money to Democrats. This guy was the darling of the liberal elite, because he gave away a plot of money and espoused all the correct liberal memes.

Then one day it all came crashing down.  His company funds got tangled up in his side-hustle and his investors lost all their money.  Now, he's doing an apology tour, telling anyone who will listen that he never had the intent to defraud.  Never mind that his investors were defrauded, it was just an accident.

Kind of like the Alec Baldwin defense.

Sam is a well-connected Democrat.  Very well connected.  I would be extremely surprised if he ever sees the inside of a jail.  High profile Democrats don't go to jail.  Unlike us lesser mortals for whom the laws were written.

Not Much Thursday

 It's the first of December, and this month, like every other month, I took my don-driving buddy to do his banking, and his grocery shopping, and to run some errands.

Came home, made some lunch, and checked my email and the web. Nothing much happening today.  I am neither amused nor outraged.  If I were a younger man, I might be tempted to get into trouble, but whereas I have the knowledge, the wherewithal, and the time, I simply don't have the energy.

Maybe something interesting will happen tomorrow.