Friday, March 30, 2018

STILL ON THAT KIND OF A DAY

My mother's grandmother came over when she was sixteen. A long time ago. They got lucky in many ways, They came over almost a half decade before the Titanic set sail. We crossed the Atlantic on the Queen Mary 2 and one of the speakers who entertained us had a real animus against the White Star Line. He was Executive Vice Director in Charge of the Cunard in charge of blacking the name of White Star (currently owned by another firm) and he despised White Star. You should too.

The funny thing for me was that there was a cute young lass (two to be honest) on the DC deck as we left the ship in Southampton and I talked to her. We both did. The little placard in front of her identified her as the representative of the White Star Line who, handles luggage and baggage for passengers on the ships of the 'not' White Star Line. I really could not walk at the time and I was a little worried at outrunning Southampton's overpopulation of rats on the way to dinner.

One of the other amusing things about the ship was the captain. I would gad about and every place I went, there he was, in the spa, in the lounge, in the office the bookstore, the library, every where I went. The grace of my life met him for the first time at the Captain's dinner.

She has a blog post of a pencil that appears to be rolling back and forth in the gale force winds we enjoyed the entire trip. 80 knot winds. It's on her blog. I was maladroit and pointed out that the pencil wasn't actually moving. 90,000 tons of ship with giant underwater wings was actually moving under the pencil.

A long time ago, the people the navy used to call OS (God only knows what they're called today) thought they'd amuse themselves at my expense as we sailed to Diego Garcia with massive storms off the coast of India. Their clever plan was to dangle a tennis ball on a string from one of the pipes in the overhead in combat and point out the same relative motion thing to me.

I sail. Boats and motion are part of me since I was 10. I nudged the Chief as I came into CIC and bummed a cigar off him and told him I was tired of the the damage they kept doing to the Countermeasures Washdown Piping in CIC. They were a big part of the people that tried to make my life miserable by saying there wasn't enough air conditioning or blaming the DCA's pipes for leaking on them. In February all 18 AC machines were fully functional. The OS had "cut down" on their 'maintenace' requirements by pulling the inline steam heaters from the air conditioning vents and throwing them overboard. They threw them overboard so they would no longer have to clean them.

I ran all 18 AC units......and it is still, the Persian Gulf. I had the temperature in there down to 42 degrees. I was utterly deaf to complainst from anyone. I also created the hole in the Ozone layer but you're supposed to forget that. We're talking about an awful lot of freon.

A VAMPIRE DAY

A totally unexpected vampire blood sucking day. I don't think I'll die of my wounds today but the day is young. This author did a magnificent job of giving the history of both stand-off and defeat. It's been that kind of a day.

HEART

I don't think I heard them anywhere after I left Seattle. Heard them tonight. There is this girl who does the "just look at me and do what I do" thing where we now pool. I heard tonight she is 25. She looks 17 and she does what she does. I've seen her twice and heard her when she thought she was mostly in private. What she is is a dynamo. No, I've never seen one either. This girl went for an hour and after just half an hour watching her I was utterly exhausted. Mind you, I wasn't doing the stuff she was, it was just my eyeballs watching her. It took me almost an hour to think who she reminded me of. It was this young lady.


Thursday, March 29, 2018

SILENCE

As I think about it, that's a staggering number of times I held my hand and didn't blog. On the gripping hand, my daughter, who is of very tender age, now knows about this place.

I saw today that the Penningtons are blogging. I'm glad I kept the link to Buck alive all these years.

WHAT KIND OF DAY HAS IT BEEN

We actually watched that on West Wing. For me? I dug out the journals, found the last one and wrote in it just now. I had to make an important note. I have 4 of those books. They cover 1984 through 1999. Tonight was the first entry since 2016 and before that the entries ended in 1999. It's funny. That predates 9/11 and getting married and a daughter and getting not married. One would almost think making a note was important. On the gripping hand, some things are remembered.

The last thing I would do at night was write in those books but after I got back from the Persian Gulf I stopped. I need to write more. To a little girl and a man I never ever thought of us as the old man.

We went to an Estate Sale. We go to see the houses and I go to read the books. I regret leaving one book to the book whore of metroparkcentralis. It was the lady's diary and she talked about meeting her friends and neighbors when they took a steamship to Paris and they bumped into each other. One almost can't do that anymore. I was standing there in the bedroom reading a day from 1963. If you write it down accurately, it happened and the instant can be recalled by the reader.

I am, at the end, a man who reads history. Close readers may have noticed.

END OF A DREAM

I was sitting and looking at emails from the last 2 days and nights. My eyes closed and I started to dream. In the dream I went through every variation of possible outcome from the mail and then I woke up. Dream over. It was wonderful while it lasted but dreams end.


Wednesday, March 28, 2018

TOMORROW IS POOL DAY

It was called to my attention by the person who didn't swim 142 laps yesterday and who can barely raise his arms. I have sore muscles on muscles I never had before. 

I think I'll add Ace of Spades to my blogroll since he writes things perfectly and gets all the important stories I otherwise miss since we don't watch the news and if it's not in the Wall Street Journal we are both prepared to never hear it.

I greatly like the story in the Orange County Register. They were one county north of the good county and well south of the hellholes created by democrats along the coast. Every ten years or so, in my experience the county is just barking mad and so it appears again today where they told California kleptokrats and all the other NAZIs to just fuck off.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Department, whose leadership opposes the new California sanctuary law that limits cooperation with federal immigration officials, announced Monday that it is now providing public information on when inmates are released from custody.
As of Monday, March 26, an existing “Who’s in Jail” online database includes the date and time of inmates’ release – a move agency officials say will enhance communication with its law enforcement partners.
And then Ace had this guy who somehow manages to be both a very convincing NAZI and a Borg.


The first Captain I had in the Navy was a member of the Hitler Youth. He and his mother were on the last ship to leave Danzig before the Russians rolled over it. They were White Russians and I can practically here the voice, "so, if we're being attacked by commies and nazis, who do we shoot first? Slap, "business before pleasure! Shoot the German.

Tuesday, March 27, 2018

HATE AND RAGE

I believe that one has to have a personal relationship to really climb the summit of hate and rage.These days if one writes anything it lasts forever. I'm sure there are quite a few people roaming the planet and muttering please please please hit the internet with a nuclear weapon and EMP blast that will wipe out the words I just wrote. Not me. OTOH, there are two days missing out of my journal because I decided I didn't want that documented and ripped it out a few months later. I can't recall what it was, which I find humorous.

Memory isn't a weapon and nobody should treat it so. If I let them, my right hand fingers can still dial the phone numbers for Mine Group ONE in Seattle everytime they get near the phone. I called them a lot and usually at times of great stress. I called them almost everyday and told them that I was ready willing and able to report aboard any mine sweeper in the Persian Gulf in any job and they explained as how there was a long line ahead of me and to wait my turn.

I remember a man, he was a brother, who went around the house and kicked in every single window. He wasn't shy or bashful and when I asked what the hell he was doing he told me. His girlfriend had made a decision and taken action without informing him. It was a matter of life and death. Since the child was his, he thought he should have been consulted. She was a pretty blue eyed blonde who played first violin in the orchestra and I never laid eyes on her again.

That was the first time I saw literal rage and hate. I am sure that if I give it another hour or two the feeling will pass. I hate dealing with evil and there is no other name for it but evil.

Monday, March 26, 2018

IT'S A BLUSTERY NIGHT

It has been many years since I watched Winnie The Pooh but this has been the first blustery night since then. I remember her as she was and now she is almost 15. I don't remember growing up so fast. I think I stayed young for eons. It felt like forever.

RIFLES

I see that my old home town has a squirrel problem. Darn squirrels. My mother's family had an active hatred for them. I don't know why. The old house had 5 doors to the outside and by every one there was a rifle. When I visited and stayed with one of my uncles he had rifles by the front and back door. This was the uncle who despised bow hunters. The first time I visited his new house outside of Carlisle there was a leg sticking up out of the ground out back by the river. A bow hunter had put an arrow in a deer but didn't follow it up and so the deer suffered to death on my uncle's land. His neighbor had a machine for digging holes, plowing snow, defeating Martians and so on but the water table is so high they couldn't get the entire deer under ground. Some remained above.

We went to his 80th birthday party and it was a family reunion. All the brothers were there, and their sister and an awful lot of their kids (pushing 50) were there with their kids. The rifles were not in evidence. I think his daughters hid them for the 2 day party since there were an infinite number of little kids dashing around and rifles are damned near irresistible.

On my first ship we had a captain. He kept an M14 on the bridge with 5 or 6 fully loaded magazines and he would step out on the expanisve bridge wing to shoot sea snakes. National Geographic had a story about how sea snakes have no natural predators. We sent them a picture of Captain Julian shooting them. One of the perks of being Officer of the Deck was taking the rifle out and shooting sea snakes which the Persian Gulf had in great abundance. Any job where shooting a rifle is a perk is a damned good job.

Sunday, March 25, 2018

A LONG WALK IN THE DARK

I spent some time looking on the web for a man I used to know. My blog features pictures of me and Lex and Dave. Lex went west long ago but I thought I could find Dave again if I looked.

Saturday, March 24, 2018

A BOAT OF CEMEMT

I stepped aboard, cautiously. It belonged to a young couple and their daughters. It was moored at the dock near mine. Mine was a wooden ship of ancient time. It had a hull number of 464. The cement boat was bound for Mexico and maybe Tahiti. It was the young lady who invited me to step aboard. I had never been aboard a cement boat before. What I remember is the laundry. Full size washer and dryer.

On 438 we washed our own clothes. Tucked away there in the starboard side aft behind the Chief's mess was a washer and dryer. There was a hundred guys doing wash but never the CO or XO. I used to call the skipper off the bridge to relieve me in Combat so I could shift my clothes into the dryer.

Friday, March 23, 2018

Thursday, March 22, 2018

THERE WAS SO MUCH LIGHT

This was taken at one in the morning. There was no moon. I was amazed that there was so much light in the dark. And no, the streetlight we have is leaning Marxist-Leninist and seldom lights up the dark.

SPEAKING FOR BOSKONE

We are watching the West Wing, again. Because we like it. I get a kick out of the little tricks they play with apple. In the show, somehow, the apple is always shown upside down. I think they have some sort of animus for apple. Heaven knows why. Still, it took some effort on somebody's part to keep showing the apple upside down on different laptops.


Wednesday, March 21, 2018

ENGLAND WANTS WAR WITH RUSSIA

We are not in favor of war but if Twit May wants it with Russia, I agree that we should step aside and hold her cloak. Let Putin shut off the gas pipelines and let England know what it really means to be green. When we use the quote that the lights are going out in Europe we didn't really mean that they had made themselves 100% vulnerable to some lousy Russian udelnye krestiane, we knew that they had slammed the door on the Enlightenment and slammed it with a vengeance.

We're a little over 250 years since the English did anything right. Given the deep pit they're in now, they should pause to reflect and then gut their government root and branch.

Read just a little history of Russia. One really doesn't know a society until one learns about it. England is just recreating the Tsar's Russia.

I miss the old England.

Tuesday, March 20, 2018

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF SAUD

Many Americans rejoice at what they perceive as a liberal wave sweeping over the Arabian Peninsula and are glad to see that once again Saudis can go to movies and women can drive cars and that the new Crown Prince seems to be open to liberal and progressive thoughts that first swept the world 200 years ago. I'm not so sanguine. This same sort of liberal outbreak occured once before in another Kingdom bordering the Persian Gulf and it did not end well for the people, the ruling elite or the country. You can read about it in Paved With Good Intentions by Barry Rubin

It looks like the Crown Prince has disciplined the House of Saud but I don't really see any sign that he has revoked the powers of the Mutawa or in any way, shape or form reduced the militant demands of the most militant and intolerant religion on the planet. He has, perhaps, won the war over family but it is not yet seen that he has even engaged in the war with the mullahs and unlike the West, religion is the ONLY thing that matters in the Kingdom.

The Crown Prince has acted as the bottom has fallen out of the petroleum industry and reduced OPEC to a floundering helpless wreck of its former self. The floor price for a barrel of oil needed to keep the Kingdom solvent is history and won't be seen again for decades, if ever. Even as he brings the family to heel and starts to round up the money he is faced with external revolt and war in Yemen and external rebellion and war in Syria and a grasping Egypt who needs billions of Saudi petrodollars in subsidies every year to feed its massive population. It doesn't look good now and that doesn't count what happens when his shiites go up in flames next year and lay waste to the oil producing parts of Saudi Arabia.

While some are getting optimistic about Arabia I sense doom closing in. Their repeated and failed efforts to put Saudis to work in the workforce have largely been in vain for nothing. They do not produce anything and if they did they couldn't compete with the rest of the world.


Sunday, March 18, 2018

THE TYRANNY OF THE PROGRESSIVE LIBERALS

There is a lot of truth out there and the left is making it harder and harder to find it and publish it. They hate truth, facts, and people who point out that the left treasures ignorance and works hard to maintain it. H/t Traditional Vibe.


Saturday, March 17, 2018

A WEE DISPARAGEMENT

I recall a noted professor addressing the Naval War College at one of the 'meet the speaker' events. He was also a professor at the Naval War College and took a certain amount of gentle and amusing heckling as he was introduced. One wag in the audience, a Marine LtCol, shared how long and boring the professor's latest book was and what a pain it was to read.

The professor paused to look at the Marine and said he was surprised that the officer read the whole thing and asked, "didn't your lips get tired?"

All this in note of President Trump misspelling Corps in a twit and Marines reacting like somebody stabbed them in the eye. I was wondering to myself and I didn't know that many Marines could read...
And then there was the last Commander-in-Chief who thought it was pronounced corpse. The core of the Marine Corps is making corpses of our enemies. There. Fixed it.

Friday, March 16, 2018

I FOUND MINE

In this, the new nuclear era, it is good to know where your local fallout shelter is. I found mine across the street. I doubt it has any water or crackers left over from 1962 but at least I know where to go to be safe from the fallout and radiation and we have plenty of cookies and water.

Only Fallout Shelter I've seen in years and it's right across the street

Thursday, March 15, 2018

ANOTHER FRAUD EXPOSED

Elizabeth Holmes, founder of Theranos, made it in the Wall Street Journal and New York times almost 10 years ago. She was widely touted for her expertise and business savvy by the pundits. Even my father was impressed by her. Sadly, she turns out to be a complete fraud. There was never anything there after all. It was an enormous ponzi scheme to get and keep getting investors to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into the scam she ran. In 2014 it was estimated that the company was worth $9 billion.

Some people are a little outraged that the SEC has only fined her $500,000 for the massive fraud she perpetuated. On the other hand she still has to face the various attorney's general and other private litigation but many are repelled by the leniency of the sentence awarded her by the SEC. They should not be. Let's see why.

Theranos Board of Directors included:

George Shultz former Secretary of State
William Perry   former Secretary of Defense
Riley Bechtel former CEO of Bechtel
William Foege former Director for U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Richard Kovacevich former CEO Wells Fargo
James Mattis Current Secretary of Defense, retired 4 star general
Henry Kissinger former Secretary of State
Sam Nunn former U.S. Senator and about the only respectable democrat
Bill Frist former U.S. Senator, Majority Leader and heart surgeon
Gary Roughead former Chief of Naval Operations, retired 4 star admiral

Ms. Holmes had little difficulty it seems in pulling the wool completely over the eyes of her hapless and inept Board of Directors. I wonder that anybody retains any respect for any of them now.

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

THE DEFIANT SQUIRRELS

A sort of stream of conscious day.

I read a number of people who were appealing for President Trump to stand with the pipsqueak May in response to the killing on British soil of some 'well regarded' Russian oligarchs and their patrons by what some claim to be Russian agents. I just wondered to myself as I saw some people demand Trump align himself with May and denounce Putin, how many of our rogue intel agents does President Trump actually command or control? It seems to me that most of our intel agencies and agents work for the Clintons and the DNC and certainly not for the one they call Mr. Orange.

What if Putin had as much control over his rogue intel agents as President Trump has over his?

I don't know the ins and outs of DC the way some do but I strongly suspect that President Trump has an outer perimeter, an inner perimeter and a perimeter made up of men he trusts to protect him and his family. I don't know how they work it with the SS but I'm sure they've reached an accommodation that suits the President. After all, so far it appears that the intel community works for everybody on the planet except Americans and Republicans and President Trump.

I see somehow they just gave Clapper a pass for lying in his testimony to Congress. The man hasn't breathed without lying for over 20 years but I'm surprised that there has been nobody left alive in the wings waiting to finally tear him down and rid us of him after all these years.

Can you imagine being on Bill Clinton's SS detail after all these years? They must have been witness to some truly amazing and bizarre crimes Clinton business deals. I'm not exactly sure how a federal agent can witness a crime and then fail to report it but I'm sure they worked something out for the Clintons decades ago.

After watching the video of Hillary attempting to slalom down the steps in India, I wonder just how long it will be until we wake up to the sad news that she 'fell down the stairs last night and broke her neck in the fall' and no living person saw who pushed her.

Monday, March 12, 2018

NEWS FROM ORTHANC

Bernie, the oldest orc in the world, was heard pushing for raising taxes on the Shire and Mirkwood.


Saruman's great orcs used the white hand with the S of Saruman as their mark. Clearly the great orcs of socialism use the Red Hand with the S. You'd scarcely believe that anybody so close to the Shire as Bernie would not see the symbolism of the sign he stood behind as he argued for increased taxes on the Shire and the elves with both fists raised in challenge to the Fellowship. (It helps if you're familiar with The Two Towers)

Socialists are pretty stupid.

IT IS WITH REGRET

That we announce that the USN has killed the green destroyer program. I was looking forward to seeing them under sail.


Friday, March 9, 2018

TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCES

Ruthlessly ripped off from Maggies Farm. It's absolutely true and rather vile.


Democrats suck.

Thursday, March 8, 2018

MOVIE MADNESS

We've been watching a few movies at home recently. Last night we watched Oceans 11 (2001) and a few days before that we watched 2 Weeks Notice (2002).  (see the numbers theme?) Anyway, what struck us in both movies was the appearance of the Donald. Trump makes a cameo as himself in Two Weeks Notice and actually has dialog with Hugh Grant. In Oceans we see the HUUGGE TRUMP marquee on the casino in the background while some of the robbers are discussing their plans.

I wonder how many other Trump movie appearances there are in filmland. I'm sure I could google it but why bother, they'd only blame it on Harvey.

Wednesday, March 7, 2018

WHAT AM I SEEING

Because people need to walk around blinded by science and Japanese craftsmen



THEY DON'T KNOW HOW TO LIE

So between them the New York Times and NPR just make up fantasies and cite only the sources that believe in them as strongly as children once did in Tinker Bell. I've mentioned my distaste for the New York Times and I was once an avid reader who would arise early on Sunday to head to the neighborhood bookshop and then head over to the patio deck at Stratford Court Cafe where I would grab a table in the shade and spend the next couple of hours reading the paper and drinking endless coffee. They never cared how long one sat there and it was probably nowhere near as well known  back then as it is now.

In short, while I viewed the information gained from both the NYT and NPR some credence and took with huge grains of salt anything they commented on that fell into my bailiwick back then: money, guns and war, I thought they probably got the rest of it right. With the internet and access to all the news and sources from all around the world, the scales fell from my eyes. Damned scales. I can no longer bring myself to even touch the NYT's other than the magazine/puzzle section and listen to NPR now they way I used to listen to Pacifica Radio on long drives down the California coast from Emeryville to San Diego just to keep awake and mutter, "what a pack of absolute idiots."
On March 13, after weeks of rumors, Pacifica Radio's board of directors voted to fire its executive director, Summer Reese, during what was essentially a conference call. But nothing is as simple as all that in the oldest and oddest public radio network in the country.
”We desperately need adult supervision.” -Ian Masters
Four days later, Reese sent an email to the entire Pacifica staff announcing that she was not recognizing the board's authority: "I want to assure you that I am in possession of a signed and valid contract for three years of employment from the board of directors and that I fully intend to complete that contract." 
And so it was that Reese marched to the Pacifica national office in Berkeley on March 17, bolt cutters in hand, removed a padlock placed on the front doors over the weekend, and essentially occupied the building. When newly appointed interim executive director Margy Wilkinson showed up, Reese and 12 of her compatriots — including Reese's mother, a longtime anti-war and civil rights activist — refused to let Wilkinson, her husband and two of her allies pass. 
"You're all going to be personally liable — and I'm going to enjoy your houses!" Reese shouted at them, according to former board member Sasha Futran, who backs Wilkinson.
Later Reese read for all the staff, in her deep and booming voice, from the Book of Joshua: "Whosoever he be that doth rebel against thy commandment, and will not hearken unto thy words in all that thou commandest him, he shall be put to death: only be strong and of a good courage." 
"I feel like I've ended up in an insane asylum," Futran told L.A. Weekly a few hours later, still in disbelief.
I could pick up their signal for hours as I headed south and down the coast and I would fight fatigue with listening to absolute nonsense. Northbound I got hours and hours of Art Bell from his secret bunker. The AM signal used to cover the entire distance from the Grapevine up to San Jose.

Sadly NPR has come to resemble this pack of clowns and the NYTs shows no signs whatsoever of simply accepting reality as it is. Both of them now stick to asking questions and comments from each other and their primary and secondary sources are all full blown partisans. It's not that news is foreign to them, it's just they wouldn't know it if it bit them on the proboscis.

Look closely at what these people actually believe as their sole truth from the highest authority.
"Whosoever he be that doth rebel against thy commandment, and will not hearken unto thy words in all that thou commandest him, he shall be put to death: only be strong and of a good courage."

They all believe you better hearken to their words or they're going to kill you.

Tuesday, March 6, 2018

IT'S ALAMO DAY

On this date in 1836 the Mexican Army finally overwhelmed and slaughtered the entire garrison thus ending The Battle of the Alamo in Texas. It was an ugly day for Texas. Hopefully things will be better tomorrow.


Friday, March 2, 2018

ALL THINGS CONSIDERED

Priorities. It read OK the first way. Because.

Thursday, March 1, 2018

INTERIM COSMIC

Here's how security clearance goes. I myself personally grant you an interim top secret nato cosmic security clearance. Just like that. No national agency check, I just decide. It's good for six months but just on a whim I can extend it another six months. Not kidding. How did you think that worked? Do you know how long a BI takes? Guess how long an SBI takes.

25 years after my time on USS Connole where I got the TS NATO COSMIC, the guy doing my SBI told me he had retired with my package on his desk and a year later came back on the job as a contractor and there was my SBI still on his desk.

I'm like other people. I lived in 45,000 places. Good luck doing that background investigation.