And we have winners!!!

Posted on by December 1, 2017

As as usual, I don’t have an email for one of them… Paging Doug Dewitt, Doug Dewitt to the white courtesy phone please…

And an ‘oddity’ of truly random draws is you get truly random results, hence we have two double winners…

Having said that, here are the winners in the order they were drawn. As we contact folks, we will move down the list and list of remaining prizes.

Jim Hambleton

Doug Dewitt

John Sage

Brian Dumire

Paul Neubauer

Larry Lambert

David Brehmer

Roy Zesch

Lois McArdle

Larry Lambert

Pat Patterson

John Harrison

John Amdor III

Kirk Conover

Roy Zesch

And a special thank you to William Simons, he was actually drawn 4th, but said in his email to draw someone else if he came up. Kudos to you, sir!

Thanks again to all who donated, we had 154 individuals enter the raffle with a total of 1551 entries.

Doug Dewitt, white courtesy phone… Need your email! 🙂

$18,517 of $25.0k goal!!!

Posted on by November 30, 2017

74%, we definitely gave it the old college try…

We have closed the gun raffle, but the Go Fund Me for Andi will remain open, HERE.

As a reminder, the raffle packages are as follows:

Note: All guns are used, with the exception of package 15 which is new.

  1. Taurus .44 Magnum pistol
  2. Ruger MK-II bull barrel .22
  3. Custom sub-MOA AR-15, two new P-Mags, one Colt 15 round mag.
  4. Remington 870 pump in 20ga
  5. Chinese copy of a 12ga coach gun
  6. Springfield Range Officer .45 with 7 magazines and custom holster
  7. Springfield Range Officer 9mm with 7 magazines and custom holster
  8. Lawdog’s personal Rock Island 1911 9mm, reworked by Joe Speer with 6 magazines
  9. A ladies package consisting of a ring (late-Victorian-style design with either high-quality glass or mid-grade garnet stones. The mount is jeweler’s metal, size 6 3/4 or 7).  A unicorn necklace, late 1980s-early 1990s James Avery sterling silver charm on a silver chain. A coin necklace, an 1904 Indian Head penny, silver dipped in a gold-plated mount with a gold-plated silver chain. And a handmade necklace and earrings from Phlegmmy. And a very nice Damascus knife.
  10. Signed copies of Lawdog’s, Peter Grant’s, Dorothy Grant’s, JL Curtis’, Ambulance Driver’s, and Tom Rogneby’s books
  11. Two sets of custom 1911 grips from Rimfire Designs, you can also work with Mark to design your own!
  12. Beretta 92FS, with six magazines.
  13. Gen 3 Glock 19 Trijicon tritium sights. Two 15 round magazines, which are included. If the winner is in a 10 round state I will find some and substitute them. Other goodies include the usual mag loader, a Streamlight TLR-3 weapon light, and a Bladetech range holster and mag carrier.
  14. A full polish on a stainless or nickel plate on a blued handgun. This is a 600-800 dollar value from Reflections Chrome Plating up in Maine!
  15. A NEW Ruger Precision Rifle in 6.5 Creedmore, with 4 magazines.

Winners will be notified in the order their numbers are pulled, and they will have their choice of the prizes (or remaining prizes) based on the drawing order. Winners will be announced as soon as we contact everybody.

Thank you to all who donated items for the raffle, and especially thank you to all of you who donated for this good cause. You folks continue to amaze me with your generosity!!!

And a special thank you to Jenn, for once again doing the back office ‘stuff’ to manage the spreadsheet of donations and receipts, without her this would not have been possible! If you’re of a mind, drop by In Jennifer’s Head and give her a thank you.

Moral bankruptcy???

Posted on by November 29, 2017

Who’s next???

Weinstein, a senior executive at Amazon, O’Reilly, Tambour, Halperin, Rose, Franken, Spacey, Conyers, more Hollyweird types, Clinton redux, another NPR executive, Garrison Keillor, and now Lauer…

And Moore’s accusers are no longer on the front page, but the fallout is ‘rather’ interesting.

The Dems leadership (Pelosi) are continuing to ‘excuse’ the behavior, BUT…

A bill was introduced today to expose all the secret settlements, and get that information out.

“Enough is enough,” Hawaii Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, one of the bill’s sponsors, said. “For far too long sexual predators have roamed freely through the halls of Congress — the people’s house  — while survivors of sexual harassment and assault have essentially been isolated, bullied and shamed into silence.”

Full article, HERE. Interestingly, this effort is being led by a young female Dem!

And apparently there is/was yet another set of hush funds, HERE.

The oddity is that the pedofile cases seem to have ‘disappeared’ from the news, but I’m betting they will be back, and Hollyweird will have some house cleaning to do in short order.

It seems the swamp is a LOT deeper than anyone knew… Personally, I think there should be some recalls starting up, and the silent majority voting them out. As the old saying goes, absolute power corrupts absolutely…

And it’s sadly being proved true, yet again,  not only in politics, but the MSM, the entertainment industry, and big business.

Personally, I find the behavior abhorrent, and I think every damn one of them needs to go to jail for their actions, regardless of who they are, where they are from, or who they represent.

Yea???

Posted on by November 29, 2017

SECDEF is making some moves in conjunction with the Navy to move forward on the shipbuilding front… And it’s NOT LCS!!!

The RFI states that one of the FFG(X)’s two main purposes is to “relieve large surface combatants from stressing routine duties during operations other than war.” It goes on to say later that “this ship will reduce demand on high-end cruisers and destroyers that currently conduct [anti-submarine warfare], [surface warfare], and theater security cooperation missions, allowing for an increase of more capable assets to maintain a stabilizing presence in regions where tensions with nations that have highly capable naval forces may exist.”

Full article, HERE at USNI.

This is not a recapitulation of the requirements that generated LCS, but a follow on to FF(X)21, e.g. a ship that can actually defend itself, and still do ASW and surface missions, albeit in a smaller, shallower draft ship than the current DDG/Cruiser configuration.

If you’re really bored, HERE is the actual solicitation for information. This is literally a ‘sea change’ from the previous administration and the continuation of the Little Crappy Ship design, that should have died a quick death many years ago, after the first cost overrun and underperformance…

As a reminder, HERE is a link to the last ‘real’ Frigates the US Navy had, The Oliver Hazard Perry class. The ‘FIGS’ as they were known, were damn good ASW platforms, with tails and helo dets, they worked ahead of the battle groups, and also on independant ops with ‘other’ assets when required. At 29 kts, they were pretty quick, and they had no problem going ‘in harms way’ to get the job done.

GRRRRRrrrrr…

Posted on by November 27, 2017

Yesterday was Monday all #%_*]{^ day!  Went out and got extra Christmas lights to fill out the front of the house, and of course, with my luck the new ones don’t blink!

And the Internet went down about 10 o’clock in the morning, and when I went to bed last night it still wasn’t up. So go read the folks on the sidebar, and maybe I’ll have a real post tomorrow!

Well damn…

Posted on by November 27, 2017

Sorry, scheduler didn’t go on time this morning…

That nice ‘clean’ yard I had on Saturday…

Yeah, now… Not so much…

The wind came up Saturday, and boom… And the Oaks are getting ready to drop even more leaves…

So yesterday was up and down the damn ladder, pressure washing the downspouts out, and putting leaf guards on the gutters… What a PITA! And of course Lowes didn’t have enough of the good ones, so I’m about 6 or 8 short…

Interestingly, seems like kids no longer rake leaves, I guess it’s ‘beneath’ them…

I know I’m old, but damn, I made good money raking leaves in the fall, to go with mowing lawns! I bought my first car that way!!!

And I’m sure as hell NOT paying $50 a month for somebody to come rake leaves. Grumble…

Go Fund Me/Gun raffle update…

Posted on by November 25, 2017

Five days left… We will end the gun raffle at midnight on the 30th, with the drawings to be held December 1st, but the Go Fund Me WILL CONTINUE. Right now we’re at about 61% of our goal, not as far along as we wanted, but at least this should give Andi a good start on the therapy she needs.

Andi, a member of our Blogorado family, has suffered a stroke, which was misdiagnosed initially, leading to complications.  She doesn’t have medical insurance, and is having to fund her rehabilitation on a pay-as-you-go basis.  Several of us have pooled our resources by donating guns from our personal collections, and we’re offering them as an incentive to raise funds for her, along with some non-gun prizes (jewelry, books, etc.) for those who’d prefer them.  The Go Fund Me is HERE. Jenn as a personal post up on Andi, HERE.

You’ll find photographs of all the prizes in three parts:  here, here, here, and here. There is an additional package it’s number 14!  A full polish on a stainless or nickel plate on a blued handgun. This is from Reflections Chrome Plating up in Maine! Remember, donate to the Go Fund Me, HERE, and email your receipt to  [email protected] in the raffle!!!

The drawing will be via a random number generator on 1 December. First number drawn gets their pick, second number gets their pick, and so on.

Thank you to all that have contributed both packages and donations!

Erf…

Posted on by November 24, 2017

Okay, I’m turkeyed out…

Yesterday was a second tryptophan coma, courtesy of a ‘team’ effort on the food and desserts…

And there was a Honeybaked ham, not pictured… Plus the leftovers from Thursday (about 1/3 of each dish was left). 

And dessert- A trifle, cheesecake, and a pecan pie… Groan…

Yesterday, I ‘had’ to do something… So it was the battle of the leaves… 2 1/2 BIG trash bags full…

Round 523, and I won ‘this’ round, but those three Oaks are going to be dropping another butt ton of leaves shortly. But at least for today, the yard looks good! 🙂

And hopefully, I’ve mowed the yard for the last time this year.

This is ‘interesting’…

Posted on by November 23, 2017

Tens of thousands of people wanted by law enforcement officials have been removed this year from the FBI criminal background check database that prohibits fugitives from justice from buying guns. The names were taken out after the FBI in February changed its legal interpretation of “fugitive from justice” to say it pertains only to wanted people who have crossed state lines. What that means is that those fugitives who were previously prohibited under federal law from purchasing firearms can now buy them, unless barred for other reasons.

Since the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) was created in 1998, the background check system has prevented 1.5 million people from buying guns, including 180,000 denials to people who were fugitives from justice, according to government statistics. It is unclear how many people may have bought guns since February who previously would have been prohibited from doing so.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions sent a memo Wednesday to the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives instructing them to take several steps to improve NICS. The system, he said, is “critical for us to be able to keep guns out of the hands of those … prohibited from owning them.”

Supposedly, for more than 15 years, the FBI and ATF disagreed about who exactly was a fugitive from justice. The FBI, which runs the criminal background check database, had a broad definition and said that anyone with an outstanding arrest warrant was prohibited from buying a gun. But ATF argued that, under the law, a person is considered a fugitive from justice only if they have an outstanding warrant and have also traveled to another state.

Full article, HERE.

Now this is really interesting, considering the current ‘issues’ with background checks, and how they have been handled (or not) in the past. It’s not just the mental adjudications that aren’t getting in there, a number of blue states don’t provide any inputs on mental or domestic convictions, from what I’ve been told by people in the know.

In other news, Walter Williams has a column up at Townhall.com on diversity, and it’s worth the read…

The bottom-line question for black parents and black people in general is:

Which is better, a black student’s being admitted to an elite college and winding up in the bottom of his class or flunking out or being admitted to a less prestigious college and performing just as well as his white peers and graduating? I would opt for the latter.

Full article, HERE.

Personally, I believe Mr. Williams hits a home run with this one, pointing out the pretzels colleges/college presidents twist themselves into…

 

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Posted on by November 23, 2017

Thanksgiving Day is a unique American holiday that brings together this nation of all faiths and cultural backgrounds around a common theme of thanks. Traditionally, we gather with family and friends to reflect on the year past, and give thanks for the blessings and freedoms we enjoy. It’s a time when we stop for a moment in our busy schedules to share bounty, food and fellowship.

We need to be mindful that for lots of Americans it has been a tough year. Hard times can serve to remind us to be more thankful, and if you have a chance, reach out to someone less fortunate this week.

Also, many of the Soldiers, Airmen, Sailors, and Marines are away from home on Thanksgiving Day. I ask that we all keep them in mind as we gather around the table on Thursday. Please include a thought of gratitude in your grace for the freedoms they defend, and those we enjoy as a result of their dedication and sacrifice.

I want to thank those who take the time to drop by and read my chicken scratchings, I appreciate every one of you and all of your comments. I also appreciate the chance this blog has given me to meet both literally and figuratively so many outstanding people, whom I may not always agree with, but that I know I can have an intelligent conversation with!!!

I learn something from y’all every day…

Take care, be safe, drive safe, and have a Happy Thanksgiving!