Thumb On The Scale

It seems that social media giant, Twitter, is putting its thumb on the scale by restricting all political ads beginning November 22.

In a series of late afternoon tweets Wednesday, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey announced the social media giant will be banning all paid political ads, minus voter registration campaigns, effective Nov. 22.

I've never used Twitter myself, finding it hard to make a cogent political statement in 280 characters.  The platform seems to limit itself to cheerleading and snark, rather than reason and logic.  I admit that some folks manage to use it effectively, but it's not my platform of choice.  I use this platform for politics and use Facebook for snark and keeping up with the grandkids.

But, it's no secret that President Trump is a master-user of Twitter, and it's also no secret that he's been hammering his opponents on Twitter for years.

However, one of the most evergreen Tweets ever is credited to Jim Treacher, who  said:

Modern journalism is all about deciding which facts the public shouldn't know because they might reflect badly on Democrats.

It appears that Twitter is follwing in that same mold.

Net CO2 Emmitter

We've all heard the trope:  CO2 is bad, causes global warming climate change.  And, forests are goo, they use CO2 to make oxygen through photosynthesis.

According to an article in Forbes magazine, California's forests are now net CO2 emitters.

This is California’s big secret: it’s not climate change that’s burning up the forests, killing people, and destroying hundreds of homes; it’s decades of environmental mismanagement that has created a tinderbox of unharvested timber, dead trees, and thick underbrush.

And, when all that crap catches fire, as it so regularly does, it creates massive amounts of CO2.   So, not only is California's regulatory regime causing massive property damage and loss of life, along with rolling electrical blackouts, it's also advancing carbon emission.  This is an example of well-meaning regulation gone horribly wrong.  It should be a cautionary tale for the rest of us.

No, Senator, It's Your Politics

Senator Kamala Harris believes that sexism ad racism are responsible for her poor showing in the race for the presidency.  Yeah, really.



No, Kamala, it's your politics.  There are lots of failed politicians in the United States, (and I count myself in that population).  Sour grapes is never a good reason to show your ignorance.  America is not ready for a socialst who engages in race-baiting.  America wants strong, positive leadership and you haven't shown any.

There are several black women I would vote for, and I hope that I get the chance to do so.  I"d vote for Condoleezza Rice in a heartbeat.  In another cycle or so, I'd be tempted to vote for Candace Owens.

The one thing that Senator Harris forgets is that she's not trying to cinvince me.  She's running in the Democratic primary, and I don't get to vote in the Democratic primary.  She's trying to convince fellow Democrats, ad she's undetectable.  Evidently, he message is all wrong, even for Democrats.

Hunters Are Conservationists

It's true, but it bears repeating.  The majority of American hunters are staunch advocates o wildlife conservation.  And, most America hunters work to preserve the land, the habitat, and the animals that they hunt.  Large organizations like Ducks Unlimited, or the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation play a part in conservation, and their members are in huge part, hunters.

Locally, at least in this part of the country, we have small individual clubs, called "leases", where hunters band together, lease a tract f land, and make improvements t the land so that they can enjoy the outdoors and hunting.  Many of these clubs have been around for generations, and have more restrictive rules on the taking of game than the state regulations.  They invest time, money, and effort to insure that the game populations are healthy.  Many leases that I know about have fies for members who take game that are outside of their harvest rules.

Politicians should remember this.

Almost $1 billion each year goes to state wildlife and natural resource agencies courtesy of checks written by firearms, ammunition, and related manufacturers. It is the result of an 11 percent excise tax on firearms, ammunition, and related goods known as Pittman-Robertson, or the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act of 1937.

Hunters are often vilified in the shooting -related press as "Fudds", bu the hunters do more for wildlife conservation than any group of "environmentalists" groups than I've ever seen.

C'mon Joe

Our racist ex-vice president says that white girls don't get puled over by the police.  Yeah, really.

During the Second Step Presidential Justice Forum at Benedict College, a historically black college, on Saturday, Joe Biden was asked by an African American woman in the audience, “If I were your daughter, what advice would you give me the next time I am stopped by the police?”

 “If you were my daughter, you’d be a Caucasian girl and you wouldn’t be pulled over,” he said.

Really, Joe!  Cops don't conduct traffic stops on white girls? That would come as a surprise to a lot of women I know.

One of two things in play here:  Either he's so out of touch with common Americans that he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about, or he's a stone-cold racist that doesn't understand that he's a racist.    Or, a third choice.  He's an idiot.  Take your pick

Only In Louisiana

Only in Louisiana could we have a cold front move through on the same day as a tropical depression. Sure enough, we had a cold front move through this morning.  A tropical depression (TD 17) came out of the Gulf and slid along the cold front, increasing both the drama and rainfall from the cold front.

Hurricane season will be over next week.  Thank God.

Busted My Ass

Coming out of the shop today with an armload of gunfighting gear, I slipped in mud and went smooth t the ground.  Mud is soft.  The gear is okay and I believe that I'm okay too.   Just wet, and muddy.

There is a big gunfight in Texas tomorrow, and I've been so busy over the past six months I haven't been to any out-o-state gunfights.  Belle and I will get up a the butt-crack of dawn and head out.  The gunfight is only 3 hours away, but it will still make for a long day.

Great Advise

Great advise from a sitting Sheriff.



Do you carry every day?  If not, why not?

What is Schiff Doing?

That nitwit Dem Congress-critter from California.  Evidently he's holding some sort of sooper-seckrit show trial in the House, where news media and Republicans are not allowed, It reeks of Stalin, or Mao's People's Courts, where dissidents were convicted secretly, without benefit of counsel, and taken away to re-education camps.

Schiff's way of doing business is decidedly un-American.  It reeks of unfairness, ad I'm not sure what his end-game is, but it has no basis in American law.  It's absurd theater.

Ben Shapiro said that the only thing the Democrats needed to do to beat Trump was to not go insane, and it appears that they are unable to project the illusion of sanity.

Pot Roast

Evidently, it's been two years since I made one of these.  It was a family favorite for many years, indeed, my grandfather made one every Sunday for a couple of decades.  It took center stage at this table on Sunday.

I decided that it had been too long, and stopped at the butcher's today to get a five-pound chuck roast.  Came home and pu it on at noon, let it do it's thing until 4:00, when I put on a pot of rice.

Now, my belly is full, and the boys have pushed away from the table.

The recipe is here!

Beto's Conundrum

Recently, ABC News aired footage of what it called a slaughter in Syria, but had to retract it because it was actually footage of range enthusiasm at a legal range in Kentucky.

"CORRECTION: We’ve taken down video that aired on “World News Tonight" Sunday and “Good Morning America” this morning that appeared to be from the Syrian border immediately after questions were raised about its accuracy," the network tweeted. "ABC News regrets the error."

Those of us who love the 2nd Amendment were mirthful  that ABC knew nothing about Knob Creek.  However, halfwit presidential hopeful Beto has had a moment of clarity.

If we were the problem, Beto, you'd know it.

Fonda Arrested

The traitor Jane Fonda was arrested yesterday in Washington D.C. while protesting global warmening climate change.  It seems... I dunno... that the ice caps are receding or something.  Maybe it's about the polar bears.  I can't keep track anymore.

A day earlier, the actress appeared with Waterston in a video focused on a discussion of a Green New Deal, a Congressional proposal for comprehensive legislation about climate change. 

So, she's going to protest climate change after flying across the country, burning hundreds of gallons of jet fuel?  If she wanted to make an impact, she could have walked across the country to the protest, rather than the craven hypocrisy of burning fossil fuels to protest the use of fossil fuels.

I'll start believing it's a problem when they start acting like it's a problem.

Bonded Whiskey

In the mid-to-late 19th century, there were weird things going on in the whiskey industry in the United States.  There were these folks called Rectifiers who took whiskey and did things to it to make it different.  Some of what they were doig was pretty sketchy, like adding tobacco, or arsenic, or other vile substances to give the whiskey a particular flavor.  Even today, the license required to product alcoholic spirits is the Distillers and Rectifiers Permit.

In 1807, Congress got enough of this nonsense and passed the Bottled in Bond Act.  This was one of the very first consumer protection acts, and predates the Food and Drug Administration by a goodly margin.  This act required that if a distiller wanted to take advantage of this law, that several things must occur.  1) The whiskey must be distilled by one distiller, 2) during a single distillation season, 3) be aged at least four years, and 4) all under the supervision of the US government.  This law gives the consumer confidence that the product in the bottle is legitimate whiskey.

Bottled-in-Bond is quickly becoming my go-to house whiskey for mixing with coke.  At 100 proof, it holds up well to mixing and it is very inexpensive.  Just this morning I was at my local retailers and picked up this 1.75 liter bottle of Evan Williams for under $30.00.

It's pretty good hooch for not a lot of money.  Evan Williams is a product of Heaven Hill Distillery our of Louisville and Bardstown, KY.  It has a mash bill of 78% corn, 10% rye, and 12% malted barley.

Chicken Bowls

KFC makes one, but the boys and I were plundering around this afternoon and found some chicken nuggets in the freezer.  We heated the oil, then got out a box of mashed potatoes and cooked them while the oil heated.  Fried those chicken nuggets, then opened and heated a can of corn.  Then, I took out a skillet and made a quick cream gravy.

Layered it all in a bowl, and sprinkled it with cheese.  The boys got really quiet, because they were eating.

It was pretty durned good for a throw-together supper, if I do say so myself.

Whoa: Cummings Dead at 68

The news is everywhere.  Elijah Cummings, the powerful Maryland Democrat and chair of the House Oversight committee, is dead at age 68.

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee and a key player in the ongoing impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump, died early Thursday of complications from longtime health issues, his office said in a statement. The Maryland Democrat was 68.

That is unexpected, although it's a trip we will all eventually take.

Autumn

It finally feels like autumn around here.  The weather has moderated, and today promises to be just exactly the kind of day that never lasts long in these latitudes.

I have a few errands to run this morning, but this afternoon, I'm going to open the big roll-up door and let the shop air out.

Reaction

So there's this genre on YouTUbe called Reaction video, where someone who has never hared a song watches it on YouTube and reacts to it as it's being viewed.  One of the most powerful I've seen is Brroks and Dunn's Believe.  It's been a favorite o mine for a while, but watching people who have never seen it (or don't know about country music) is fun to watch.  Like the reaction of this young lady.



Personally, I believe that this is a powerful video, and it's one of mmy favorites (along with two dozen others).

Campaign Finance

I've spent all morning wading through campaign finance reporting.  I think, and fervently believe that I have met all the requirements for campaign finance reporting as required by Louisiana law.  I was running a one-man campaign, and even though I have a degree in Business Admin, it was a exercise in accounting, a subject I've always abhorred.  I know how to do it, I just don't like it.  I was never cut out to be a bean-counter.

Yet, there are ethical campaign requirements and I believe that I have fulfilled my obligations to my contributors, my voters, and the State Ethics Board.

I can't imagine what the other candidates are doing, especially those with small campaigns.  Yeah, I can imagine it.  I just went through it.  It cost me approximately $6.19 per vote I garnered in the primary election.  That might be a good estimate on what a campaign has to spend to get one vote.  So, if you are thinking about running for office, do your homework.  I ran a shoe string campaign, and if I'd had to pay rent on a campaign headquarters, the per-vote cost would have gone way up.

Nothing New

The Army Times is reporting on a proposal to align National Guard units into division-sized units to provide deployable divisions to the US Army.  This is nothing new.  We've been doing this for years.  During my career, I was variously assigned at one time or another to the below units.

90th Infantry Division - Comprised of various units from Texas and Oklahoma, it was first activated during WWI and has been serving ever since.

95th Infantry Division - Activated, but not deployed during WWWWI, the division saw combat in WWII and earned the nickname Iron Men of Metz.  It is currently a training division of the US Army Reserve, headquartered at Fort Sill.

256th Infantry Brigade - probably the most storied unit of the Louisiana National Guard, it traces it's lineage back to the War of 1812, where it served Jackson at the battle of New Orleans (Washington Artillery).  Various infantry units were combined during the Civil War and assigned to the Army of Northern Virginia. Known as Lee's Tigers, the unit has battle streamers colored both blue and gray.  I am retired from this brigade.  At the time, the brigade was a mechanized infantry brigade and I was assigned to 1st Battalion, 156th Infantry (Armor), a unit outfitted with M1A1 tanks.  It is now designated as 2nd Squadron 108th Cavalry.

This same thing happened in virtually every sate in the union, and the point is that the Guard and Reserve formations have long been assigned to division level units.

Daddy's Maybe

There is an old saying:  Mamma's baby is Daddy's maybe.

Insty talks about a story where a father bought is now 15-year-old daughter a DNA test and they found out to their shock that the daughter is not biologically related to the father.

Earlier this year, after buying his now-15-year-old daughter an AncestryDNA test, Christopher found out that he is not her biological father. His wife had an affair.

That's a problem, but it leads us to the question of fatherhood.  If a man raises a child from birth, doe it make him any less a father than if he had biologically conceived the child? Or, is a step-dad who marries a woman with children any less a father than the fellow who abandoned her?

It's an horrific tale, but DNA testing is a genie that can't be easily put back in the bottle.  From a prominent senator who's DNA test invalidated her ancestry claims, to the nameless, faceless people who find out that they are not related to the people that raised them.  The revelation must be a terrible event, with aftershocks of betrayal and self-doubt.

Still, it's not the child's fault, and The child is blameless in any of these scenarios.  We've gotta love the children that they bring us, regardless of the science behind the conception.