Ummm… errr…

Notable quotes…

There are two ways to go to the gas chamber: free or not free. [Viktor Frankl]

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]

When immigration is done by single individuals, it is immigration. When done by groups, it is invasion.” – Nassim Taleb

But test and prove all things until you can recognize what is good; to that hold fast. [1 Thessalonians 5:21]

I would sooner be governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than by the two thousand members of the faculty of Harvard. [William F. Buckley Jr]

In politics, never assume that because something is insane, it will not be done. [Thomas Sowell]

If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. [Carl Jung]

Brains never yet moved the masses, but emotion and earnestness will not only move the masses, but they will remove mountains. [Admiral of the Fleet (British) John A. Fisher]

You should never forget that the airplanes don’t fly, the tanks don’t run, the ships don’t sail, the missiles don’t fire unless the sons and daughters of America make them do it. [General Norman Schwarzkopf]

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. [Arthur Schopenhauer]

There is one phrase in the Bible repeated 365 times. 365 is no coincidence. Be not afraid. [Richard Grenell]

Even the smallest things ought to be directed toward a goal. [Marcus Aurelius]

When we try to pick out anything by itself we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. [John Muir]

I got nothin’ against mankind. It’s people I can’t stand. [Archie Bunker]

Carry On: Verbal order which means, resume doing nothing. [Murphy’s Laws of Combat, Marion F. Sturkey]

Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to lying! [Falstaff, in Shakespeare’s Henry IV]

I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure. [Clarence Darrow]

If it’s worth doing it’s worth doing with class. [Bob Fiegel]

If every Jewish and anti-Nazi family in Germany had owned a Mauser rifle and twenty rounds of ammunition and the will to use it, Adolf Hitler would be a little-known footnote to the history of the Weimar Republic. [Aaron Zelman]

Remember that the people that hid Anne Frank were breaking the law and the people that took her to the camps were enforcing it. [Your conscience]

The weak grow strong by effrontery. The strong grow weak through inhibition. [Henry Kissinger]

The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks. [Mortimer Adler]

Those whom God would destroy, He first makes mad. [Sophocles’ Antigone]

The Second Amendment makes more women equal than the entire feminist movement. [unknown]

NOT about to say anything about this one…

Women are simple.

Their yes means yes, no means yes and no means no & no means maybe.

But maybe means yes & maybe means no.

YMMV, selected individuals may differ significantly. Handle with care at all times. See last quote above…

Very not good…

It appears Artemis STILL has issues…

NASA’s acting inspector general, George A. Scott, released a report Wednesday that provided an assessment of NASA’s readiness to launch the Artemis II mission next year. This is an important flight for the space agency because, while the crew of four will not land on the Moon, it will be the first time humans have flown into deep space in more than half a century.

The report did not contain any huge surprises. In recent months the biggest hurdle for the Artemis II mission has been the performance of the heat shield that protects the Orion spacecraft during its fiery reentry at more than 25,000 mph from the Moon.

Although NASA downplayed the heat shield issue in the immediate aftermath of the uncrewed Artemis I flight in late 2022, it is clear that the unexpected damage and charring during that uncrewed mission is a significant concern. As recently as last week, Amit Kshatriya, who oversees development for the Artemis missions in NASA’s exploration division, said the agency is still looking for the root cause of the problem.

Full article, HERE from Ars Technica.

NASA has obviously become more ‘political’ than they were back in the day, and quite honestly that scares the hell out of me.

Also, the ‘brute force’ use of computing power to ‘fix’ issues rather than try/fail with actual hardware doesn’t bode well for the folks that will be flying in the can. Of course, the administrators et al WON’T be…

Gee, where have we seen ‘that’ mentality before???

Book promo…

Raconteur Press has another one out! Space Cowboys #5 

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

The blurb-

When every inch of our planet has been explored, from the depths of the sea to the top of every mountain, Space and her untamed frontiers will still be beckoning us, calling us to go beyond the farthest star and see what there is to see.

Old Sam Clemens once said that History don’t repeat itself, but it do rhyme. In Space, we got a vast, unexplored, mysterious, and dangerous frontier. We’ll have herds of some kind to watch over and to drive to market. Most times we’ll be far and beyond the reach of “civilization,” with their myriad of laws, lawyers, and politicians. Those tough enough to carve out a living will need the independent, rugged spirit of the cowboy to survive. There will be leeches and villains, for sure, heroes and anti-heroes, and some folks just trying to eke out a living. If we choose to tell their tales draped in the lingo and trappings of the cowboy, that’s just another rhyme, with form following the function.

If you’re new to the Space Cowboy series, you’re in for a treat. These ten stories, from ten different authors, are where you’ll find Explorers charting new frontiers in space, Trailhands and Drovers watching over their cattle on alien plains, and Lawdogs of every stripe meting out frontier justice, and doing their best to make sure scallywags with evil intent don’t win in the end. These cowboys and cowgirls don’t back down from a challenge. It’s not in their nature.

Next up is James Copley with a new series, Path to Freedom- The Path, Book One

The blurb-

Not all paths are equal…especially the path of the Kin. Genetically engineered human – animal hybrids, the Kin are good enough to fight and die in Terra’s wars, but not good enough to be full citizens or escape human racism.

Nearly broken and at the end of his rope, former scout pilot and Prisoner of War, Rodrick “Red” Vulkeshson, a Fox-Kin, has finally accepted the inevitable. He has no future in the Human Confederation of Worlds. Helped by his friend, Goose, he flees the star nation of his birth to an alien world to chase the dream which once captured his soul; becoming the captain of his own ship.

Red hopes to accomplish in the wider galaxy that which proved impossible in Corporate-dominated Confed space. However, his past will not let him go so easily, as he finds unexpected obstacles in his way. Nor are Terrans very popular outside the human sphere of influence, and he’s finding it difficult to navigate the byzantine alien regulations and cultures. It turns out that it isn’t just human Corporations that utilize legal warfare, and not all of them are content to limit themselves to just legal means.

And that’s just the beginning of his troubles…

And last but not least, my friend Ben English has a paperback version of Out There: Essays on the Lower Big Ben (Hiker’s Edition)

The blurb-

When one opens the pages to this book they step into another world and place, and even on occasions, another time. No matter what you may know about the lower Big Bend or think you know about the lower Big Bend, here are thoughts, maps and photographs that bring together a heretofore unachieved mosaic of this rugged, lonesome land. In effect, ‘Out There’ is a work that others simply cannot compare to. Whether you might be a first-time visitor or have made many a journey into its more remote environs, there is so much contained within to both see as well as savor. It is a book meant not for sitting on a shelf and gathering dust, but one to be read and re-read time and again. If home is where the heart is, even the first few paragraphs leave no doubt as to where the author’s resides. And that is only the beginning…

This one doesn’t have the color pictures, only B&W, but it is small enough to carry in the field!!!

I’ll highly recommend all three of these for your reading enjoyment!

TBT…

Haven’t done one of these in a while…

Back in the day, this is how we let everybody know we’d gotten the ‘job’ done!

Used to piss off certain COs, but what the heck, our maintainers loved it!

It was always a team effort, and without the maintenance support we had, we could not have succeeded as often as we did!

Fond memories!!!

Posted in TBT

Here we go again!!!

Looks like we’re going to get more weather tonight!

This is a ‘classic’ dryline fire up, albeit starting a little early. But at least last night it was in the ‘right’ place and not slopping back and forth like last weekend. I’ve included the doppler radar overlays the orange box is mesocyclonic activity, blue diamond is hail, green circle is rain/cell and red triangles are tornadic activity or debris.

As of 2000, we were lucky, as we ‘watched’ the storms build north and east of us, but my guess is it was going to get ugly to the east and further up in the plains states!

The bloom is…

Off a rose or three…apparently!

Electric vehicles are becoming an unprofitable boondoggle for multiple motor companies. It turns out that woke virtue signaling is not the wisest business strategy.

There are, no doubt, multiple factors that feed into the drop in electric vehicle (EV) sales for companies including Ford, Tesla, and Mercedes-Benz. I would, however, mention one: EVs are too expensive and too unreliable for most Americans to purchase. They are a pricey and impractical choice. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if EV sales continue to drop for companies with EVs in America and Europe for the foreseeable future.

Full article, HERE from PJ Media.

And the Gaza protests are not being well received in certain schools… HERE

Much less at UGA… HERE

It seems that many are getting quickly fed up with it, and universities are taking steps including dismissing participants, cancelling scholarships, kicking them out of dorms, etc. GOOD!!!

Oof…

Well, another Foolzcon is in the books… 50 of 65 invited made it…

Some of the folks who were there! Pic courtesy of Cedar!

But it DID get a bit exciting last night…

Tornados (2 reported), hail, lightning, and RAIN (OMG RAIN) for over 6 hours! We got 5 inches of rain!!!

So needless to say, folks were glued to their phones/weather radar sites. Thankfully, where we were stayed safe, and mostly dry, but getting home was ‘interesting’!

Going up 287, I hydroplaned 4 or 5 times going under 50 MPH, and there was flooding!

Who are you talking to???

Back in the day, some of the airlines used to let folks listen to the pilot’s audio for free…

An often asked question was why are we ‘here’ talking to somebody else over ‘there’ or behind us?

Welp…

This is a fairly good map of the ‘centers’ that pilots talk to for inflight routing, updates, altitude changes, weather warnings, etc.

So yes, you can be over Biloxi, and still talking to Houston center. Or flying from Chicago to LA and talke to Chicago, Minneapolis, Denver, Salt Lake and finally Los Angeles centers in that order. OR you could divert north for weather and never talk to Denver at all.

The other question often heard on the translant or transpac flights is why are we talking to Jacksonville or Oakland and we’re still over water?

There is this ‘thing’ called the Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ). Picture below, and if you compare the two, the areas over water track pretty closely with the ADIZ map.

EVERY aircraft that enters the ADIZ from overseas is required to contact the appropriate center prior to entry. If they don’t, there are USAF fighters on 24/7/365 alert to launch and come ‘talk’ to the airplane…

And yes, we used to occasionally be tasked to go ‘bust’ the ADIZ to give the Air Force practice… sigh…

For the next few days, I’ll be at Foolzcon, so light to no posts, probably until Monday. Enjoy the weekend, and go read the folks on the sidebar!!!

By hook or…

By crook…

The war on guns continues with this administration!

This morning, a briefing will be held by the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) for “the Hill” regarding their interim rule regarding the “pause” on the issuance of new government licenses for firearms, related components and  ammunition for “nongovernmental end users.” 

The Outdoor Wire has learned the Commerce Department plans to make that “pause” on the issuance of new export licenses for firearms, related components and ammunition permanent.

That announcement, we’ve learned, could come as soon as tomorrow and “most definitely” by the first of next week.

More than a few United States Senators are  already less than thrilled at what they call yet another example of Biden administration bureaucratic overreach, but there’s little they can do at this point.

If Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo presses forward with the change and Congress can’t reverse it, the costs to the gun industry could be as much as $238 million in annual revenues. 

Full article HERE from Shooting News.

What is the true potential? IMHO, it’s running a lot of small operators who make custom stuff out of business, along with specialty manufacturers of parts/equipment. This will also impact foreign sales of ammunition as the BIS will be determining ‘who’ is government and who is not on the end user (receiving end).

Another view…

From a Town Hall article, yesterday…

There have always been radicals on college campuses – tenure exists to protect professors from being fired for doing pretty much anything, from espousing the virtues of violence against the United States in the name of “justice,” to screwing a new co-ed every semester. It’s the key to what is happening now on campus with the attacks on Jews and anyone else who isn’t a terrorist sympathizer, and it’s what is going to get people killed. Democrats just hope the people killed are on “their side,” as they are more than willing to sacrifice a few young people for the “greater good.”

Full article, HERE.

Kinda mirrors my post from yesterday…

Nuff said.