Yesterday, Barb and I visited Prosser Washington to see the Prosser Balloon Rally.
At 6:00 AM it was a little cool and Barb was prepared:
I had often wondered how they got hot air in the balloon without burning them. Once they are inflated, sure, not really a problem.
They inflated them on the ground with a fan. Then, they poke the burner (they probably have a different name for them) in and put hot air in until the balloon lifts off the ground.
Via a posts on X by Chuck Petras @Chuck_Petras and Bryan LaFonte
@bryanlafonte:·
There are few other situations where you would need defensive weapons more than when the social structure has been ripped apart. Either this is either mind boggling stupid or deliberate enabling of criminals.
I hope he enjoys his trial.
Last month my daughters arranged a family reunion/”camping” trip at the Freeman Creek Campground at Dworshak State Park. Xenia had a cabin, Barb and I stayed in a cabin, Kim, Jacob, and their son stayed in a tent. We went on a boat ride, a hike, and spent a lot of time sitting around talking.
Today I downloaded the pictures Xenia took.
This is a map of the area. As per Xenia’s request, I’m pointing to the place where I shot the rattlesnake when backpacking with her and her siblings back in the mid 1990’s. I mentioned this years ago on this blog.
These are the leaves of a plant my Grandmother Huffman called Mountain Tea. I found some along the trail and showed it to Barb, Kim, and Xenia. I suspect it belongs to the mint family. It is very aromatic and does make a pleasant tea. It can be brewed either green or dried with a completely different taste in the two forms.
Continue readingThe U.S. in late 2024, IMO, is one lit fuse away from societal collapse–and there are multiple fuses, all lit. You can take your pick.
So, yes. Know your friends, neighbors, community. As the meme says, “Local, local, local.”
And prep like your life depends upon it.
TakeAHardLook
September 20, 2024
Comment to More Evidence of Astroturf – Area Ocho
I cannot find fault with this.
And have you seen the price of gold (buying power of the dollar)? It is up (down) over 45% (nearly 40%) compared to a year ago.
I want to be in an underground bunker in Idaho before the November election.
JPFO is issuing a travel warning to Jews and other 2A supporters and urging an economic boycott for Middlesex County, Massachusetts after Newton Police arrested Scott Hayes for defending himself from a violent, antisemitic attack.
Scott Hayes was peacefully exercising his rights protected under the First Amendment with a small group of people in the town of Newton, MA. A person in the group was carrying an Israeli flag when a man began yelling antisemitic remarks at the group from across the street, calling them “sick” for supporting Israel.
After a few words were exchanged, the man charged across the street, tackling Scott Hayes to the ground and attempting to wrap his arms around his neck in order to cause even more harm than he had already done. At that point, Mr. Hayes exercised his natural right to defend himself, pulled out a gun and shot the assailant in the abdomen. After freeing himself from the man’s clutches, Scott retreated and attempted to get his assailant medical attention. The assailant is expected to survive.
Mr. Hayes was arrested by the Newton Police who sought and obtained a criminal complaint against him for assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. The District Attorney is pursuing charges against Mr. Hayes for having defended himself against a violent antisemitic attack. While many state officials in Massachusetts have, for years, been enemies of the Second Amendment, this latest event is a record-breaking atrocity even for them. State actors actively defending violent antisemites while leveling criminal charges against those who defend themselves against them, sends up a warning for all Jews to steer clear of Massachusetts, if at all possible, especially Middlesex County. Antisemitism is on the rise and now we have state officials in Massachusetts formally and proudly defending it.
Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership
September 19, 2024
Middlesex County, Ma. Defends Violent Antisemitism (jpfo.org)
I think it would be easier to just stay out of all of Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York City until Federal prosecutors start charging and convicting the rights hating police and local prosecutors. Without prosecutions it is going to take a new generation to change the mindset of the criminals running these locations.
Looking at Earth was obviously very, very special. But when you look off to the side, you look out into the darkness of space, and you see your spaceship there, and how gritty it looks, it gave you this sense of, like ‘this isn’t going to be easy.’
Jared Isaacman
September 17, 2024
Jared Isaacman, first billionaire to walk in space, says it wasn’t peaceful (qz.com)
Do you remember what William Shatner said after going into space?
October 13, 2021 William Shatner’s flight on Blue Origin | CNN Business
You look down, there’s the blue down there and the black up there … there is Mother Earth and comfort, and there is, is there death? I don’t know, but is that death? Is that the way death is? … It was so moving; this experience, it was something unbelievable.
Establishing colonies on the moon, other planets, and perhaps ultimately in other star systems is going to take some very special people. The immigration to North America two to three hundred years ago and even the migration from the eastern states to the western territories in the early and mid 1800s was a harsh filter and resulted in a different type of people from their original stock.
It is difficult to imagine the type of person which will result from those willing to engage in space travel and the deprivation of a world so hostile there is not even any atmosphere to breath, a livable temperature range, water to drink, or food to eat. Every essential of human life will need to be brought with them or scratched out of the rocky, dust, surface of the giant rocks they intend to call home.
I would go into space (I attended Parent-Child Space Camp three times and once applied for a Mission Specialist position in the Shuttle program) but that would be knowing I was probably going to be back on earth in a most a few days or weeks. Going to some hostile rock will little chance of ever coming back is a much bigger decision.
She pointed to some state laws that protect individual privacy as obstacles preventing law enforcement officials from adequately responding to background checks, and said her office was currently working with state legislators to push for changes that would lift such restrictions.
Haley Bull
September 22, 2024
President Biden plans to sign new executive actions aimed at reducing gun violence (msn.com)
Of course! Since they are infringing upon one specific enumerated right, they may as well infringe on two at the same time. Shoot, why not infringe on a bunch more at the same time. Why not throw people in jail if it is rumored they are thinking of buying a gun. Presume they are guilty and give them “due process” by an opportunity in court to prove they were not going to buy a gun to use to murder babies in hospital nurseries.
Also note this item from the same article:
In 2024, the gun background check system helped block more than 4,600 gun sales to people convicted of misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence, according to the report. To date, the Department of Justice has charged more than 500 defendants with violating provisions under the law, and the expanded background check provision has kept guns out of the hands of nearly 900 young people who shouldn’t have them, federal officials said.
Notice the metric they use for the usefulness of the law. It is not a reduction in the crime rate. It is the number of people prevented from purchasing a gun from a FFL.
Their object is not making the general population safer. It is preventing the general population from purchasing firearms.
These people have zero respect for individual rights of the people.
Prepare appropriately.
More than 1,000 zombie knives and machetes have been surrendered to one police force as new legislation banning them becomes law.
Avon and Somerset Police said the weapons had been handed in to 15 surrender sites across the region and urged people who still had them to turn them in.
Sarah Turnnidge
September 24, 2024
More than 1,000 zombie knives surrendered (msn.com)
We have “ghost guns” and in England they have “zombie knives”.
As brought to my attention by Hannah Hill @hannahhill_sc this is incredibly on point:
The right of self defence is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction. In England, the people have been disarmed, generally, under the specious pretext of preserving the game: a never failing lure to bring over the landed aristocracy to support any measure, under that mask, though calculated for very different purposes. True it is, their bill of rights seems at first view to counteract this policy: but the right of bearing arms is confined to protestants, and the words suitable to their condition and degree, have been interpreted to authorise the prohibition of keeping a gun or other engine for the destruction of game, to any farmer, or inferior tradesman, or other person not qualified to kill game. So that not one man in five hundred can keep a gun in his house without being subject to a penalty.
St. George Tucker
Blackstone’s Commentaries 1:App. 300
1803
England and the US have certainly lost much of our liberty, and we are in danger of losing more. It is time to take it back.
With news continuing to filter in about the second assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, the nation’s prominent Democrats expressed relief that Hitler was OK.
Following a busy weekend of making public statements and social media posts clearly identifying Trump as “literally Hitler” and telling the country that he posed a grave threat to the existence of the United States, Democratic leaders quickly made it known how glad they were to find out he was unharmed.
“We’re just glad the greatest threat to democracy is safe,” said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. “I know just an hour or so before he narrowly avoided a second attempt on his life I posted online about how he was leading the charge to destroy America and had to be stopped, but I’m relieved to hear that he wasn’t harmed.”
The Babylon Bee
September 16, 2024
Democrats Express Relief That Hitler Is OK | Babylon Bee
To me, The Babylon Bee sometimes is a little bit lame, but this is funny as well as making a great point.
Barb and I recently visited Central Europe. In Vienna we were walking from our Air B & B to some sort of public transportation to visit Schönbrunn Palace (the main summer residence of the Habsburg rulers set on what amounts to a 400-acre park) when I saw this and did a double take:
What? Oh, yeah, Freud was from Vienna!
In high school there was a psychology class, and I heard other students talking about the Id, Super Ego, Oedipus Complex, etc. I read a little about it and was not impressed. It wasn’t like so many other classes I took, like the math and science stuff which once the teacher introduced a topic it “just made sense”. Of course this was right, it fit in with everything else I knew. This psychology stuff was something different. Did the human mind really work like this? It just didn’t make sense to me and I didn’t take the class.
In college I had to take some “humanities” classes and in what I think was my second or third semester I took Psych 101. One of the first things the professor said was, paraphrasing:
Freud created the science of psychology. Other than the existence and importance of the unconscious mind, we have painstakingly proved everything he said about the human mind is not true.
Freud was such a powerful figure it had taken two generations after his death to finally reach the point where people called B.S. on his work. And to this day we still have remnants of his legacy with Markley’s Law.
I loved that psychology class. It wasn’t the “this makes sense” type of stuff to the extent of the of math and the hard sciences but it was based on decent research and did make a certain amount of sense. I took numerous other psych classes throughout my undergraduate years and probably was close to having a minor degree in psychology. It was really easy and I got A’s in all of them.
Now here I am, a two-minute walk from Frued’s office and residence. Whatever I think of Freud’s work, I have to see this museum. The next day, on September 1st, we visited the museum.
It was a little disappointing, but I’m glad I did it. Here are a few pictures:
Barb reading about the family tree:
This is an art exhibit at the museum, it is not his real couch:
Broooooooo y’all proving u have small dicks. I know how to stop gun violence. Pay for trumpnecks to get penile enlargement.
Inmate #P01135809 @iryterong
Tweeted on June 9, 2022
It’s not only another Markley’s Law Monday, it is another science denier (see also here)!
Interesting projection. In prison, peopled identifying as Democrat outnumber all others combined by a factor of 2:1. And a huge percentage of violence crime is committed by people using a gun is in deep blue cities.
One has to wonder if the small dick insult is also a projection.
In any case, as Dan recently wrote:
Expecting logic, facts and reason to be part of the “gun grabbing” agenda is a fools errand.
Is that law evidence that [the] government has the power to ban dangerous people from possessing firearms, because people thought that African Americans and other racial minorities were dangerous?”
Adam Winkler
UCLA Law Professor
September 21, 2024
The Supreme Court expanded gun rights. That could complicate the Trump assassination attempt case. (msn.com)
Or is it evidence the gun banners are going to face and admit the racists origins of the laws they want to inflict upon us? Interesting questions.
It will be entertaining to watch their tap dance.
Harris and Walz can tout their status as gun owners and tip their hats in false homage to the right to keep and bear arms as often as they wish. It’s all subterfuge.
They’re still gunning for the Second Amendment.
Amy Swearer
September 19, 2024
Commentary: Harris and Walz: Gunning for the Second Amendment (msn.com)
Anti-gun people lie. It is an integral part of their culture.
Another tidbit from the same article I found interesting:
In 2008 Harris joined an amicus brief defending complete bans on the possession of handguns and advocating for a 20th century revisionist view of the Second Amendment that renders it little more than a superfluous authorization of state National Guard units.
A complete ban? I wonder if that was before or after Heller. The distinction may be important at her trial.
During cross examination of Ronkainen, the state drilled into the difference between military spec and civilian firearms when considering pounds of pressure to pull the trigger. For military, Ronkainen said the pounds of pressure is higher, or around 6 lbs of pressure, to ensure there is no unintentional trigger pulls. For civilian firearms, the pressure could be as low as 2.5 lbs of pressure.
When the state asked if that means it would take 90 lbs of pressure to fire a 30 round magazine from a civilian firearm, the plaintiffs objected saying that was wrong. The state said it wanted to show the difference in level of fatigue in rapidly firing a civilian firearm versus a military firearm. Ronkainen said that is immaterial.
“I’m not sure the defense understood what a trigger pull was, but overall with what they got I think they did as well as they could,” Maag said.
Greg Bishop
September 17, 2024
Distinction of military, civilian firearms made during Day 2 of IL gun ban trial (msn.com)
If I had been asked that question while on the stand, I would have been tempted to ask for a higher IQ idiot to do the cross examination. I would further explain that this lawyer had just demonstrated such a profound level of ignorance and/or stupidity that I doubted there was sufficient common ground for me to realistically establish communication.*
This is the level of ignorance and/or stupidity that we are up against and yet they manage to win many of these battles.
It’s like debating an idiot. It is an unfair contest because they drag you down to their level and win via having vastly more experience.
* Once, at a party, I witnessed two friends of mine meet each other for the first time. One was a multimillionaire from numerous successful startups with a PhD and currently working on creating a state-of-the-art quantum computer. The other was a sweet lady who had a little too much to drink and even when sober was… not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
I kept as straight a face as I could as the PhD tried to establish some sort of communication. It went on for several minutes without a connection and he finally gave up.
As Barb and I went home after the party I told her I had watched as PhD and the lady talked to each other. Barb’s response was something like, “OMG! I would have loved to have seen that.”
I’m pretty sure there have been studies done which show that when the IQ difference is more than about two or three standard deviations apart, without sufficient training of the higher IQ person, it becomes almost impossible to communicate.
Does anyone want to take a guess on the voting preferences of this guy?
An Alaska man was charged and arrested Wednesday for sending numerous graphic and violent messages through a public Supreme Court communications portal that threatened to injure and kill six justices, according to court filings and the Justice Department.
Some of the messages, according to court filings, used the N-word in threats to “lynch” a justice – identified in the filings as “Supreme Court Justice 1” – while also threatening the justice’s “insurrectionist wife.” Other messages refer to shooting another justice – identified “Supreme Court Justice 2” – and killing his wife, and another alleged message threatened six justices total, saying that they should “be AFRAID very AFRAID to leave their home and fear for their lives everyday.”
“WE NEED MASS ASSASSINATIONS. If you’re corrupt you’re corrupt,” said one of the messages, one of more than 465 that Anastasiou allegedly sent to the Supreme Court.
…
The references to Justice 1’s wife and the racial slurs in those messages suggest that justice is Justice Clarence Thomas.
See also:
Alaska man charged with making death threats against Supreme Court justices (nbcnews.com)
An Alaska man has been indicted on charges that he sent racist and violent threats against six Supreme Court justices and their family members.
…
They became increasingly more menacing this past January, including threats to assassinate the judges. Anastasiou also allegedly made lynching threats and used the N-word in statements aimed at a justice identified as “Supreme Court Justice 1” in the indictment, apparently referring to Clarence Thomas, who is Black.
The messages also included racial, homophobic and misogynistic slurs, the filings show.
Racist: Check.
Fan of Lynching: Check
Violent Threats: Check
Sounds like a Democrat to me.
To be fair, there are bad actors who make threats against Democrats. But my impression is there are lot more coming from the left rather than the right. Violence is their language.
None of it is good. Civil war is not the answer. If we really can’t get along, then a national divorce would be much preferable.
The next time you see a social media post from a military veteran who claims to support banning certain firearms or any other infringement of our civil rights, realize they may be getting paid to violate their oath.
An email obtained last week by the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project revealed that the “precision micro-influencer” marketing firm People First is hiring veterans to serve as paid social media influencers for the Harris-Walz campaign.
Lee Williams
September 9, 2024
HARRIS-WALZ CAMPAIGN RECRUITING MILITARY VETERANS TO INFLUENCE SOCIAL MEDIA – Second Amendment Foundation (saf.org)
Paying people to lie? You should not be surprised. Lying is in their culture. It is what they do.
Through Dec. 31, 29,357 people had registered about 69,000 prohibited guns and over 42,000 accessories, according to Illinois State Police data. A little over 2.4 million Illinoisans have firearm owner’s identification cards, meaning only about 1.2% of FOID card holders registered guns or accessories subject to the ban, the statistics through 2023 show. However, the true degree of compliance with the law is not possible to determine, since residents with a valid FOID card may not own guns or accessories that are subject to the ban.
Jeremy Gorner
September 16, 2024
Downstate federal trial poses latest test for Illinois gun ban (msn.com)
As it should be, and almost always is, the demand to register guns is mostly being ignored.
My new favorite music video.
He let them burn it down
— No Neck Joe (@NoNeckJoe1) August 8, 2024
She helped bail them out
America's domestic terrorism ticket pic.twitter.com/FurjfaYGeZ
Pape surveyed more than 2,000 Americans in late June, before the first attempt on Trump’s life on July 13. The survey found a disturbing willingness, across the political spectrum, to say that violence was warranted to eliminate political foes.
The poll, from the Chicago Project on Security & Threats, released in June, showed that 6.9% of Americans — or the equivalent of 18 million adults — believed that it was justified to use force to restore Trump to the White House. In another question, 10% of Americans — or the equivalent of 26 million adults — said they believed political violence is justified to prevent Trump from becoming president again.
James Rainey, Kevin Rector
September 15, 2024
A second assassination attempt against former President Trump raises new questions (msn.com)
The ratio of people on the left willing use violence compared to people on the right in consistent with my hypothesis.
With 26 million people believing violence is justified to stop Trump from reaching office we should expect assassination attempts every few weeks. And every attempt against Trump increases the likelihood of an attempt on Harris.
Remember, the spark that started WW1 was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. A civil war could easily be sparked by a political assassination in this country.
Prepare appropriately.
