Grrrr…

Posted on by November 20, 2025

This is the kind of ‘stuff’ that really pisses me off…

Do you know what Arizona, California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Rhode Island, and Virginia all have in common? Yes, they’re blue or blue-ish states, but they’re also using your tax dollars to send those who receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits out for a night on the town. According to Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), approximately $250 million worth of SNAP benefits is spent at restaurants, mostly fast food joints, each year in those states. 

When SNAP was first established in 1964, the goal was for those who couldn’t afford it to buy basics: meat, fruit, vegetables, etc., that one could cook at home. Hot food or food already ready to consume was not eligible. However, according to Ernst’s office, a 1977 loophole allowed states to opt into something called the Restaurant Meals Program. 

Full article, HERE from PJ Media.

It’s bad enough that they can get candy and soft drinks, especially candy ‘I’ can’t afford, but they can routinely go to McDonalds, Panda Express, and other fast food joints? WTH???

No wonder they are so obese! Hell, if I ate that much fast food, I’d weigh 400 lbs too!

One of the ‘real’ problems with the SNAP is that it was supposed to be supplemental aid to flesh to (so to speak), food that you cooked and served at home. Beans, rice, etc. plus the good old Government cheese (which wasn’t actually bad). I am now fully in the camp that the entire program needs to be restarted, including reapplying, a real approval process, and cutting the program back to its original intent.

There is no reason for people to be able to go spend $10+ on Mickey D’s for a Big Mac to feed one, when $10 will get beans and rice enough to feed a family. Yes, they’d actually have to not only have a pan, but know how to actually cook the rice and beans. Yes, I subsisted on rice and beans a few times in college when I got stupid, I’ll freely admit it. And potatoes and onions… sigh… Thankfully I learned how to save bacon grease as a kid, so I had something to give the potatoes and onions some flavoring.

What say you?

More quotes…

Posted on by November 19, 2025

These make a lot of sense, even if some of them are ‘old’, to put it mildly…

History never embraces more than a small part of reality. [French author La Rochefoucauld]

Folks keep talking about another Civil War. One side knows how to shoot and probably has a trillion rounds. The other side has crying closets and is confused about which bathroom to use. How do you think that would end? [unknown]

I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts. [Will Rogers]

When rich people fight wars with one another, poor people are the ones to die. [Jean-Paul Sartre]

Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time. [Steven Wright]

If you are unwilling to defend your own lives, then you are like mice trying to negotiate with owls. You regard their ways as wrong; they regard you as dinner. [John Farnam]

Dangerous things one can hear in the military: A private saying I learned this in Basic. [Unknown]

Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. [John Steinbeck]

A non-posthumous Purple Heart merely proves you were (1) smart enough to think of a plan, (2) crazy enough to try it, and (3) lucky enough to survive. [Murphy’s Laws of Combat, Marion F. Sturkey]

What this country needs are more unemployed politicians. [Edward Langley]

There are three kinds of men. The ones that learn by readin’. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves. [Will Rogers]

Those who have helped the poor the most have not been those who have gone around loudly expressing ‘compassion’ for the poor, but those who found ways to make industry more productive and distribution more efficient, so that the poor of today can afford things that the affluent of yesterday could only dream about. [Thomas Sowell]

How well I remember the smell of the tarmac, a mixture of cold air and decomposing dinosaur that hits your nose as soon as you get away from the lights of the hangar. [Brigid]

A young man who does not have what it takes to perform military service is not likely to have what it takes to make a living. [John F. Kennedy]

We don’t grow older, we grow riper. [Pablo Picasso]

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity. [Robert A Heinlein]

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. [Aesop]

Any ship can be a minesweeper. Once. [Naval Ops Manual]

The German armies will drain away their hearts blood into the icy plains of Russia, and after two years we shall never see them again. [German Admiral Canaris, before Operation Barbarossa]

College Campus: An academic retreat where sanctimonious apostles of political correctness outnumber men of principles and honor. [Murphy’s Laws of Combat, Marion F. Sturkey]

Dangerous things one can hear in the military: A lieutenant saying, In my experience… [Unknown]

I once tried thinking for an entire day, but I found it less valuable than one moment of study. [Xun Kuang]

You don’t get to pick the day that you need your gun. Someone else picks it, and they will only tell you at the last moment. [Tom Givens]

There is nothing like the sight of an enemy down on his luck. [Euripides, c 480-406 BC]

… offered me a choice of two entrees – neither of which I understood … she returned with stewed tomatoes. The first choice had been boiled fish. Prestwick taught me to confine my breakfast thereafter to the U.S. Army mess. [Omar Bradley, September 1943]

If you give someone a program, you will frustrate them for a day; if you teach them how to program, you will frustrate them for a lifetime. [David Leinweber]

The fatal fallacy of gun control laws in general is the assumption that such laws actually control guns. Criminals who disobey other laws are not likely to be stopped by gun-control laws. What such laws actually do is increase the number of disarmed and defenseless victims. [Thomas Sowell]

Oopsie…

Posted on by November 18, 2025

Soooo, the latest tranch of Epstein emails has revealed some ‘interesting’ things…

Last week’s Democratic attempt to weaponize Jeffrey Epstein’s emails against Trump backfired spectacularly. The supposedly damning evidence against Trump turned out to be a nothingburger, and the GOP’s subsequent release of 23,000 emails has already claimed its first casualty — though not the target Democrats had hoped for.

Larry Summers, the former Harvard president who also served as Bill Clinton’s treasury secretary and director of Obama’s National Economic Council, announced Monday that he’s “stepping back from public commitments.”

According to a statement he gave to The Harvard Crimson, Summers’s retreat is part of an effort “to rebuild trust and repair relationships with the people closest to me.”

Full article, HERE from PJ Media.

First, if you’re looking for a/the ‘list’, I don’t think it exists. At best, there are the records of who flew on Lolita Airlines, but that’s about it.

If you’re part of that ‘class’ of folks, you don’t keep records of who is providing what to who. That is a guaranteed way to get dead. Those folks don’t like things getting put on paper or any kind of media, as their ‘reputations’ are protected by ‘consultants’ to make sure there is no way for someone to blackmail their customers.

If you tried, you’d probably win the cement overshoes ‘award’, and a swim with the fishes…

What there will be are the email strings. That is already paying dividends in ways the Dems didn’t want or expect. Witness the fallout in DC already.

The other thing folks seem to forget is that IF there had actually been damaging information, wouldn’t the Dems have already used it? Also, how much of what is being released is ‘accurate’? How long have people been ‘massaging’ that dataset?

Personally, I’d like to see the original evidence from 2008 that went to the grand jury in Florida. That data is probably the purest, and probably included interviews from the girls he co opted.

I doubt the MSM is exactly being fair in their coverage either, slanting stories as hard as they can to pacify their Dem handlers and the deep state.

But folks will believe what they want, regardless of the facts… sigh

China is…

Posted on by November 17, 2025

Accelerating their ‘long game’…

TOKYO — The top U.S. admiral on Monday called China’s shipbuilding capability “impressive” as Beijing moves ahead with a rapid buildup of the world’s largest navy, and said America’s cooperation with Asian allies South Korea and Japan is essential for its own shipbuilding capability.

“How they utilize those aircraft carriers globally is, of course, a concern of mine,” Adm. Daryl Caudle said in Japan, part of his 10-day tour of the Asia-Pacific.

“We watch that very closely and see what they’re going to do there,” Caudle said of the amphibious assault ship. “That’s a large ship, very capable.”

Full article, HERE from Defense News.

ADM Caudle knows what he is looking at, having been both COMSUBRON 3 (Pearl Harbor) and COMSUBRON 11 (Point Loma), and the Chief of Staff and later Commander, Submarine Force Pacific. While that was submarine specific operations, the need to be ‘aware’ of bigger picture.

Plus years of experience in the Pacific theater makes him the right man in the right place at the right time.

Now the question is, will he get the support he needs from Congress? I have no idea…

Sigh…

A little humor???

Posted on by November 16, 2025

To start the week!

You know you’re from California if: 

  1. Your coworker has 8 body piercings and none are visible.
  2.  You make over $300,000 and still can’t afford a house.
  3.  You take a bus and are shocked  at two people carrying on a conversation in English.
  4. Your child’s 3rd-grade  teacher has purple hair, a nose ring, and is named  Flower.
  5. You can’t remember .. .is  pot illegal?
  6.  You’ve been to a baby shower  that  has two mothers and a sperm donor.
  7.  You have a very strong opinion about where your coffee beans are grown, and you can taste the difference between  Sumatran and Ethiopian.
  8.  You can’t remember … is pot illegal?
  9.  A really great parking space can totally move you to tears.
  10.  Gas costs $2.00 per gallon more  than anywhere else in the  U.S.
  11. Unlike back home, the guy at 8:30am at Starbucks wearing a  baseball cap and
    sunglasses who looks like George Clooney…… really IS George Clooney.
  12.  Your car insurance costs as much as your house payment, if you can GET insurance…
  13.  You can’t remember …is pot  illegal?
  14.  It’s barely sprinkling rain and there’s a report on every news station:  “STORM WATCH.”
  15.  You pass an elementary school  playground and the children are all busy  with their cellphones.
  16.  Or It’s barely sprinkling  rain outside, so you leave for work an hour early to avoid all the weather-related accidents.
  17. HEY!!!! Is pot illegal????
  18.  Both you AND your dog have therapists, psychics, personal trainers  and cosmetic surgeons.
  19.  The Terminator was your governor.
  20.  If you drive illegally, they take your driver’s license. If you’re here illegally, they want to give you one.

Book promo…

Posted on by November 14, 2025

First up is DJ Butler and Aaron Michael Ritchey with the third in his Cunning Man series, The Familiar Spirit

As always, click on the cover for the Amazon link!

The blurb-

A new novel in the Cunning Man series from Dragon Award-nominated author D.J. Butler and Aaron Michael Ritchey.

Cunning man Hiram Woolley and his son Michael carry an itinerant preacher across the border into Mexico. Hiram is haunted by the specter of a bloody-faced man that stalks him in his dreams, but also by doubts about what lies ahead in the Mormon colonies around Nuevo Casas Grandes—this is the country Hiram’s father fled to when he abandoned young Hiram and his mother.

In the colonies, Hiram and Michael are dragged into investigating an impossible murder. They track the killer across a land haunted by robbers, by its history of oppression and revolution, by ancient conflict and modern racial strife, and by the insanity that flows from loneliness and exile. They battle bandits and also an elusive ghostmaster who blights the land with the spirits of the uneasy dead.

But before the killer can be brought to justice, Hiram will learn that the most haunting thing of all is family.

Next up is Raconteur Press with a couple of new anthologies, first is Mercs and Mayhem

The blurb-

We’ve collected eleven stories of mercenaries, spanning a broad range of genres and settings. A group of raiders sneaks into an enemy stronghold to open the way for their fellows, and find it to be very filthy work. An indentured drop trooper stumbles over a treasure of incalculable value, which might still be more trouble than it’s worth. Five soldiers of fortune wonder if what their client wants them to do is too much to risk the stain on their souls. A hyper-corporatized mercenary conglomerate hilariously, and brutally, reduces everything in battle, even blood and souls, into a dollar value.

Enjoy these tales and lift a glass, or say a prayer, for those who wage war for profit. Whether long ago, far in the future, or just yesterday, these soldiers of fortune are honored in these pages.

And the next anthology is Bourbon and Lead

The blurb-

The dames were trouble. I knew that the moment I saw them. But they knew exactly the siren song that would get me to follow.

“Dime Detective Stories,” one of them said.

“And you can pitch it to the scribblers any way you want,” the other purred.

Yeah. I was doomed from the start.

And that’s more or less how this anthology happened. It was held special for me to edit, because my love of the hardboiled school of writing is well known to my friends. But since noir has been covered six ways from Sunday in various RacPress anthos, I chose both to open up the concept a bit, and to reference the kinds of crime and adventure writing I especially love, but which are disreputable and disdained by the same academy that acknowledges (long after his death) the value of Raymond Chandler.

Great reads, and a nice way to pass the weekend!

From a sidebar…

Posted on by November 14, 2025

Conversation we’ve been having in a little discussion group about Socialists/Communists…

Anyone who has studied Russian or Chinese history knows this…

And Seattle went the same way NYC did… They now have a socialist mayor, Katie Wilson, who has NO experience. Her speech is HERE, and if you go six minutes in, she starts talking about her ‘agenda’. And it’s truly scary…

Redistribution of ‘wealth’, food for all, housing for all, progressive tax options, new taxes on businesses making over $7M a year, etc. But some of the specifics echo what Mandami has said, like control of grocery stores (90 days notice to close one and ‘preventing’ closure of ones that are poor performers), among other things.

I’m just glad I’m not living out there…

I want to share what EL said in our chat about the differences between capitalism and socialism…

What these effete, moronic savants fail to understand is that wealth is a collective figment of human imagination driven by our innate avarice.  Scarcity does not make something valuable; desire, however, makes something scarce expensive.  Our collective desire makes something easily produced common and relatively inexpensive while also making the producers wealthy.  People say they will kill for a morning cup of coffee, but it’s only $3.95 at Starbucks (medium roast Pike Place).  The Starbucks market capitalization is $98.23 billion.

What is ironic is that the atheistic Marxist has a Biblical view of wealth: they believe the total amount of wealth in the world is fixed, and that the evil wealthy stole it. But the fixed wealth proposition is an easily exposed lie: at its peak around 150 AD, the approximately 70 million people in the Roman Empire were worth about $43.4 billion dollars  (2008 analysis by economists Walter Scheidel and Steven J. Friese).  Yet according to the renown scholar, Google, the 450.4 million people in the European Union, roughly the same land as the Roman Empire, are worth $80 trillion.  And the Romans didn’t have coffee.

Because wealth is a figment of the imagination, it cannot be redistributed; but it can be destroyed by crushing dreams and aspirations.  What can be distributed, however, is knowledge: the knowledge of how to recognize opportunities, of how to develop and manufacture products; and of building businesses to market and distribute products.   But the Marxist decree capitalism to be inhumane and reject learning and teaching its principles, means, and methods.  Then, in their utopian dreams and worldly ignorance, they propose seizing the means of production and placing it under state control.  Bureaucrats, however, get paid whether something is produced and put on the shelf or not, and the dream-denied populace, reduced to state controlled serfdom with worthless ration cards, starve in dark, cold, dingy state provided cells called apartments.

Capitalism exploits human desires, dreams, inventiveness, and energy to create a robust economy.  It’s potential excesses are tempered by another human, innate trait: altruism. 
Marxism, with what amounts to the economic paradigm of ant or bee colonies, rejects and crushes human instinct, with predictable and inevitable results.  Forcing an oversize square peg into a round hole leaves neither a square peg nor a round hole; both are irreparably damaged.

This in a nutshell is pretty much the genesis of the quote, you can vote yourself into socialism, but you have to shoot your way out of it.

What happens next in both places is yet to be seen…

The untold cost…

Posted on by November 13, 2025

Of a major city failing…

An iconic mall foreclosed for a fraction of the billion-dollar valuation it once commanded as Covid shutdowns and out-of-control crime left the seven-story behemoth a shell of its former self. 

Valued at $1.2 billion nearly a decade ago, the San Francisco Centre Mall, previously known as the Westfield Emporium, was sold at an auction on Wednesday to lenders Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase. 

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the mall served as a shopping hub in San Francisco, with residents and tourists flocking to its vibrant energy and big-name brands.

An appraisal at the end of 2022 valued the property at only $290 million, a 76 percent drop from its height before the pandemic.

Full article, HERE from the Daily Mail. h/t Stretch

I can remember when it first opened in the late 80s, and people flocked to the Nordstrom and Bloomingdales stores. We went down there just to wander around, not that we could afford anything they had…sigh…

This really hasn’t been covered by the US media, probably for a lot of reasons. NYC, DC, Seattle, and Portland are following similar trends, mostly with office buildings going for cheap prices as companies downsize, or move elsewhere.

The other thing that happens is the loss of tax revenue, which is critical to these cities maintaining services. As those services go away, the downward spiral just escalates. And what happens with those ‘service’ workers??? Where do they go, how do they afford to live?

I know in the DC area, most people in the service side of things couldn’t/didn’t live anywhere close to their work, because they could not afford it, unless they went into the really bad areas or racked and stacked way too many people in a house or apartment.

And don’t get me started on parking (lack of), or the cost of parking (through the roof)!

Friends in Philly don’t even own a car. They have no place to park one where they live in the Italian section, They either walk to shopping, or take the bus or transit if they need to get somewhere else in Philly. When they go on vacation, they rent a car for the vacation! They also told me about a friend who paid over $100,000 for a parking space in NYC! For a @#$%@! parking space!!!

I know SFO, Seattle, DC, LA, and Philly all suck for parking. BTDT… sigh

What happens next? Do they become the next Detroit? Or Cleveland? Or do they clean up their mess and reverse the losses? I don’t have any idea.

Your thoughts?

Stuff…

Posted on by November 12, 2025

Welp, it appears the House Dems caved too… Ironically, it appears 8 of them voted for the Pubs house bill. So the President signed it last night in the Oval, putting the government back to work, at least until January.

And he placed the blame squarely on the Dems for the shutdown, and they accomplished basically nothing, as far as I can see. Other than cutting off pay for a bunch of folks, and SNAP benefits. The President estimated the cost of the shutdown at over $1 TRILLION dollars… sigh

No, flights won’t be back to ‘normal’ anytime soon. The FAA has to get controllers back in towers and enroute agencies, and then the airlines have to rejigger schedules to get planes and crews where they need to be. I will be surprised if this occurs before Thanksgiving. OBTW, it appears the airlines lost appx $100M a day during the shutdown.

And as usual, Michael Ramirez hits it out of the park with his latest editorial cartoon!

He’s definitely NOT wrong!!!

I do have a question though. Why is Bernie Sanders considered a ‘leader’ of the Dems if he is an Independent? That makes NO sense.

Coming soon…

Posted on by November 12, 2025

To a state near you???

Mismanagement, corruption, and just plain stupidity have brought the nation of Iran to the doorstep of utter catastrophe. This, according to an extensive report by the Middle East Forum on Iran’s “terminal” water crisis.

“Thirst of a Nation: Iran’s Water-Driven Trajectory Toward State Failure and a Blueprint for Recovery” details more than 40 years of mismanagement and corruption by Iran’s clerical elites that have led to Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian calling for relocating the nation’s capital city, Tehran, due to the municipality approaching “Day Zero” water conditions. 

“The foundational condition is one of ‘water bankruptcy’—a permanent, structural deficit where national water demand far outstrips renewable supply,” write the authors of the report, Guy Goldstein and Rebecca Bar-Sef. 

Full article, HERE from PJ Media. Text of the report, HERE.

Even worse, the lack of water is impacting the hydro electric production, causing brownouts and blackouts nationwide. And this also impacts pumping stations that are supposed to move the water.

Israel, on the other hand, achieves water security through desalination and recycling, and a LOT less corruption. The Saudis are also working a water security plan similar to Israel’s with a goal of water security by 2030.

We’re starting, or I should say ‘continuing’ to hear about shortages of water here in the US too…

A subdivision in Arizona that is basically abandoned because they can’t get water. Wells in the Central Valley of California that cost $50,000 and up with no guarantee they will find water at any depth.

The battles over the Colorado River water. Either Arizona or New Mexico is supposedly ‘buying’ salt water from Mexico and pumping it into their state. And the aquifers are down, and not refilling quickly due to farm/city/subdivision use exceeding the aquifer’s capabilities.

And then there is Lake Mead… It is declining again after a temporary increase in 2023. Projections indicate that the lake is likely to reach its lowest recorded levels by 2027 due to ongoing drought and water usage.

Mono Lake is another California debacle, it is 350 miles from LA, but they take ALL of the feeders that feed the lake for LA.

It is ‘supposed’ to be maintained at 6392 feet, but as of 1 Nov it was at 6382.2 feet. The cutoff for LA is at 6380 feet, so it is estimated they will get there by April 2026 if not before, forcing LA to stop sucking off the feeders. So LA will probably have a ‘water shortage’ next year…

If you’re planning on moving to the Southwest or West, you need to take a hard look at the water availability where you’re looking at moving…just sayin…