Misappropriation???

Ran across this one yesterday that kinda made me to the old Labrador head cock…

The Army recently inked a $3.5 billion contract with Pfizer Inc. for the pharmaceutical company to produce 500 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine.

But those shots are not planned for soldiers’ shoulders.

Instead, the contract award states, they are for “international donation” and procurement is expected to be completed by Dec. 31, 2022, according to the Pentagon.

Even more interesting in light of this little gem in the article…

In June that scientists at the Army’s infectious diseases branch at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Maryland, had tested a “catch-all” vaccine that could protect against current and future strains of coronavirus.

Full article, HERE.

Didn’t the congresscritters scream about this last year??? Something about reallocating monies to the border???

For definition purposes, misappropriation is the intentional and illegal use of funds for another use or other unauthorized purpose than its intended purpose. (31 USC, Section 1301) requires that funds appropriated by Congress be used only for the programs and purposes for which the appropriation was made.

Somehow I don’t think buying vaccines was what the Army’s funding was appropriated for… And they sure as hell need the money for maintenance of equipment and upgrades!

Dammit… Kicking the soapbox back in the corner now and going to look for my BP meds.

TBT…

Almost 30 years ago I was doing some work off Diablo Canyon NPS with the Navy. There were blue whales transiting through the area. We were standing on the lower stern deck, maybe 6 feet off the water when a blue brought her calf up to look at me and a friend as we stood on the back deck of a ship off Diablo Canyon. Eerie… and intelligent as hell! And they were sounding back and forth.

How big are they, you ask?

Opportunity shot of a blue next to probably a 60-70 foot sailboat…

Blue whale, probably female, close to 100′ long and close to 150 tons, yes TONS. It was amazing to watch them ‘spy hop’ in the outflow from the plant to see where the spit of land and the little island were before they swam back into the open ocean.

The ‘crazy’ folks were the ones that went out in the 10M Zodiacs and attached Time/Depth/Recorders (TDRs) to those monsters. They literally had to ‘stick’ them on the whales up close and personal…

 

Posted in TBT

Book promo…

First up is Larry’s new MHI title- Monster Hunter Bloodlines

As always, click on the cover to get the Amazon link!

The blurb-

IN A BUSINESS LIKE MONSTER HUNTING, IT’S ALL ABOUT SETTING PRIORITIES

The chaos god Asag has been quiet since the destruction of the City of Monsters, but Monster Hunter International know that he is still out there, somewhere—plotting, waiting for his chance to unravel reality. 

When Owen and the MHI team discover that one of Isaac Newton’s Ward Stones is being auctioned off by Reptoids who live deep beneath Atlanta, they decide to steal the magical superweapon and use it to destroy Asag once and for all. But before the stone can be handed off, it is stolen by a mysterious thief with ties to MHI and the Vatican’s Secret Guard.

It’s a race against time, the Secret Guard, a spectral bounty hunter, and a whole bunch of monsters to acquire the Ward Stone and use it against Asag. For as dangerous as the chaos god is, there is something much older—and infinitely more evil—awakening deep in the jungles of South America.

Before you ask, yes, Larry kills me in this one, and no, I didn’t do anything to piss him off!!!

Next up is Alma TC Boykin’s next Familiars tale- Nominally Familiar

The blurb-

A quiet day in Riverton . . . may be a contradiction in terms.

Ned Oescher deals with a dangerous ruby and dangerous men.

Morgana Lorraine and Smiley review a new Potoo Brothers textbook that just won’t go away.

Mallory Jones and Rosie the giant skunk face a computer mystery (and a system update. On the full moon.)

And more, in this short story set full of magic, courage, and terrible puns.

I was happy to beta read this one, and it’s GOOD, as all of her stories are!

Next up is Laura Montgomery with the fourth book in her Martha’s Sons series- The Gear Engages

The blurb-

It takes more than a single terraformer to start a new world.

The human colony on the lost world of Not What We Were Looking For faces fracture and schism. On one side of the river, the settlers from Earth remember what it means to live in a free society. In the Marss-controlled city, the governor cancelled elections long ago and strives daily to cement his grip on the inhabitants.

Thaddeus Dawe and the Hudson cousins, including the one who agreed to marry him, save the colony’s last terraseeder from the governor’s political grandstanding, and head for the secret northern enclave started by Thaddeus’ brother. But all Thaddeus’ careful planning takes a wrenching turn when not one but two parties race in pursuit.

Thwarted in his original goal, faced with repairing the consequences of what he does to escape arrest, and besotted by the discovery of newspapers, Thaddeus wrestles with new ventures and roles in which he dare not fail. He must save not only Earth’s microbial legacy but its knowledge base as well. Not to mention, he’s getting married.

But when the governor’s chief of staff decides to weaponize Thaddeus against both the city’s farmers and the newspaper’s publisher, Thaddeus must fight the governor’s attempts to steal the farmers’ land even as someone destroys everything Thaddeus himself tries to build. In the end, he must do what he can to save those his own betrayal put at risk.

Picking up where Under the Earthline left off, The Gear Engages is the fourth book in the gripping science fiction colonization series Martha’s Sons. If you like action, political machinations, and a driven hero, you’ll want to dive in heart-and-head first.

Pick it up now to join the fight for a lost world!

Amanda Green writing as Ellie Ferguson had Witchfire Burning, the first book in her Eerie Side of the Tracks series picked up as a Books2Read promotion!

The blurb-

Long before the Others made their existence known to the world, Mossy Creek was their haven. Being from the wrong side of the tracks meant you weren’t what the rest of the world considered “normal”. Normal was all Quinn O’Donnell wanted from life. Growing up on the “wrong side of the tracks”, she had been the only normal in the family. The moment she was old enough, she left and began life as far from her Texas hometown as possible. Now she has a job she enjoys and a daughter she loves more than life itself. Their life is normal, REALLY normal, until her daughter starts calling forth fire and wind. Quinn knows they must go back so her mother can help five-year-old Ali learn how to control her new talents. But in Mossy Creek nothing is ever simple. Quinn’s mother has gone missing. Secrets from Quinn’s past start coming back to haunt her. And the family home is more than a little sentient. Can Quinn keep everyone — particularly Ali — safe? And will she ever get back her illusion of normalcy?

And last but certainly not least, the latest Baen anthology is out- World Breakers

The blurb-

Brute force. Intransigent defiance. Adamantine will. 

These are the hallmarks of the AI tank. Formed from cold steel and superpowered computing brains, these gigantic tanks with the firepower of an entire army have been the decisive factors in interplanetary battle. But are humans worthy of the extraordinary instruments of war that they have created? Are the World Breakers the greatest protector of human liberty, or its worst threat? For, while these World Breakers very definitely have minds of their own, the question remains: within their iron and superluminal quantum breasts, does there lie a faithful heart? Stories of world breakers and world makers in the great tradition of Keith Laumer’s Bolos from David Weber, Larry Correia, Wen Spencer, and more!

With stories by

David Weber
Larry Correia
Wen Spencer
Kevin Ikenberry
Patrick Chiles
Tony Daniel
Hank Davis
Kacey Ezell
Christopher Ruocchio
Monalisa Foster
Robert E. Hampson
Lou J Berger

Quite a few of our friends are in this one! Highly recommended!

Here we go…

Again…

This ‘battle’ has been going on for at least five years at this point, and it is getting beyond stupid.

Fighting for the Alamo means exactly that: preserving the structures that still exist, researching the history, telling its story accurately through means as varied as a museum, reconstruction, and living history, and making sure its story is remembered.

Fighting about the Alamo is about none of that. It’s about personal and group political agendas that often build their power at the Alamo’s expense, without any evident regard for the consequences to the Alamo. Such fighting has already broken one Alamo preservation project and it’s threatening the current one.

Full article, HERE.

The San Antonio Conservation Society and civic leaders seem hell bent on shooting themselves in both feet with their denigration of the Alamo and its history. If the Alamo goes down, San Antonio might as well roll up the sidewalks, because THAT is the draw that brings people to town.

And then there is this… From 2009, at a Texas Tech basketball game. Still one of the purest versions of the Star Spangled Banner I’ve ever heard. The video is lousy, but the girls range from 6 to 8 years old.

Range cards…

Does anybody else have ‘range cards’ for their homes?

And ‘anchor points’ you measured from?

Just curious. I plotted mine out right after I moved in.

North is 650 yards max, with intermediates at 300 and 100.

West is 175 and 75 as an intermediate.

South is 550, with intermediates at 300 and 150.

East is only 65, as it drops off the hill.

Anything other than the cardinals +/- 10 degrees is short range stuff…

Just curious…

By Jove, I think she got it!!!

From a friend’s wife… I can’t think of anything she missed in this rant!

“So he’s a dementia patient who is under a very public regime of elder abuse, with a brain dead wife who wants to be called doctor but thinks cardboard hearts will heal the country; followed by a clueless hooker who cackles when nervous…which is all the time because she has no clue what she’s doing; they have a doctor who is caught lying about everything, pretends it doesn’t matter, doubles down on debunked science to push experimental drugs for his own profit.

A bunch of pretend representatives who demand peons submit to national socialism while they are given free reign to spend insurmountable amounts of other peoples money; all while silently swapping national socialism for militarized dictatorship using “mostly peaceful protests” to prove the peons cannot govern themselves or the legal system. With a whole bunch of people who rigged elections, got caught, pretend it didn’t happen, then fight like it’s armageddon to keep people from seeing what is already known and when that fails start screaming about those evil, national terrorists known as white people.

Teachers are refusing to go to work until they can freely teach children that its okay for adult to groom them for sexual assault, to take life changing drugs before their bodies are fully developed, that only white people should be judged on the color of their skin and not the content of their character, that their parents should never be told what is being done and said to them, and that lowest common denominator isn’t low enough, we must aim lower because…race, 12 trillion “genders”, and more race.

Straight people are the devil. White people are the devil. Christians and Jews are the devil. Heterosexual family dynamics are the devil. Men (oh wait sorry, penis owning persons) are the devil. Americans are the devil. Capitalists are the devil. Hard workers are the devil. Free thinkers are the devil. People who know their rights are the super devil. Un-vaccinated people are the super devil murdering klan. People who believe the wrong science are the devil. People who ask questions are the devil. People who don’t want to “circle back” and demand answers now, are the devil. (I’m sure I missed a few). Devil people aren’t real people. We have no empathy for devil people.

Devil people should be locked away from real people, used for labor, for experiments. Devil people shouldn’t have rights. Devil people should be marked so real people know not to trust them, not to let them into schools, hospitals, public places, their lives. Devil people need to be removed from being a drain on society. Something quick, cheap and efficient.

All with the world’s most powerful propaganda wing proclaiming these are all good and right things. This is what America was meant to be, but those evil white men screwed it up, They even used the wrong birthday for the nation right? We’re all supposed to be okay with this, support this, bow to this, or we will be devil people.

But hey everyone, not to worry. The really mean orange guy who wrote all those mean scary tweets, and made you question how an outsider broke the establishment is gone. I mean really, how could we ever live with those mean tweets!”

Yes, this young lady is former military, yes, she is a wife and mother of a couple of young kids. She is NOT happy with the direction of the country…

Your thoughts on what (if anything) she missed???

Teh stoopid…

Is STRONG these days…

Six states, led by California’s fulltime climate alarmists, this week enacted a ban on the sales of high-end gaming computers.

Niche Gamer reports that Dell is already following the 2017 law that just went into effect. According to the gamer-focused site, Dell has “pulled the sale of seven of its eight Alienware gaming desktops” from California, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington.

Full article, HERE.

The real irony of this is that you can buy the ‘offending’ card and install it yourself!

Sad news…

Dusty Hill, one of the original members of the iconic blues/rock band ZZ Top passed away yesterday.

They were one of my favorite bands from the 1970s through today, a blend of various music styles, and hilarious music videos.

The cars were also iconic, owned by Billy Gibbons the lead singer. The Eliminator was probably the most well known one.

Dusty Hill played bass, driving the beat with his guitar and writing many of the songs the group was famous for with Gibbons. He jokingly called his beard a Texas goatee…

RIP sir, your music will live on and inspire more generations in time!

How about some humor???

Tired of the usual crap so… You get humor…

A man owned a small ranch near San Antonio . The Texas labour Department got a tip that he was not paying proper wages to his help and sent an investigator out to interview him.

“I need a list of your employees and how much you pay them,” demanded
the investigator.

“Well,” replied the rancher, “there’s my ranch hand who’s been with me
for 3 years. I pay him $1200 a week plus free room and board.

“The cook has been here for 18 months, and I pay her $1000 per week plus
free room and board.

“Then there’s the half-wit. He works about 18 hours every day and does
about 90% of all the work around here. He makes about $10 per week, pays his own room and board.

But, I buy him a bottle of bourbon every Saturday night, and he also sleeps
with my wife occasionally.”

“That’s the guy I want to talk to … the half-wit,” says the investigator.

“That would be me,” replied the rancher.

And since we’re talking about Texas/ranchers…

An Old Farmer’s/Rancher’s/Chuck Wagon Cook’s Advice:

* Your fences need to be horse-high, pig-tight And bull-strong.

*Keep skunks and bankers at a distance.

*Life is simpler when you plow around the stump.

* A bumble bee is considerably faster than a John Deere tractor .

* Words that soak into your ears are whispered…not yelled.

* Meanness don’t jes’ happen overnight.

* Forgive your enemies. It messes up their heads.

* Do not corner something that you know is meaner than you.

* It don’t take a very big person to carry a grudge.

* You cannot unsay a cruel word.

* Every path has a few puddles.

* When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty.

* The best sermons are lived, not preached.

* Most of the stuff people worry about ain’t never gonna happen anyway.

* Don’t judge folks by their relatives.

* Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

* Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get Older and think back, you’ll enjoy it a second time.

* Don’t interfere with somethin’ that ain’t bothering you none.

* Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.

* If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin’.

* Sometimes you get, and sometimes you get got.

* The biggest troublemaker you’ll probably ever Have to deal with, watches you from the mirror every mornin’.

* Always drink upstream from the herd.

* Good judgment comes from experience, and a Lotta that comes from bad judgment.

* Lettin’ the cat outta the bag is a whole lot Easier than puttin’ it back in.

* If you get to thinkin’ you’re a person of some Influence, try orderin’ somebody else’s dog around.

*Never fight with a woman.  You’ll lose.

* Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply.Speak kindly. Leave the rest to God.

  • Don’t pick a fight with an old man, if he is too old to fight, he’ll just kill you.

Hypocrisy much???

Sigh…

Several radical leftists who are members of the Squad in the U.S. House of Representatives — including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jamaal Bowman, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Cori Bush — are well-known for their rhetoric pushing for American cities to defund their police departments. And while it’s their right to advocate for what has already proven to cause a dystopian reality in American cities, they are not immune to criticism for being hypocrites. 

Full article, HERE.

And then there was this from Xiden…

The reporter asks Biden if any Democrats support defunding the police, after he insisted that none do. Which is an obvious lie, since Democrats did defund police in many cities and many Democrats in Congress continue to support defunding the police.

His answer???

“Are there people…who think we’re sucking the blood out of kids?”

WTH was that answer for or too??? Full article, HERE.

I want to see his handlers explain this one away…

And this ‘toon nails it… Polling is down on Voter ID racism, so…