The Night They Sent Dick Lugar Down

....He still didn't get it. Oh, he made a gracious-enough concession speech, but he's also said the victorious Richard Mourdock has embraced a partisan attitude that makes it difficult to get things done.

That was the point, Senator. See, the more Congress "gets things done," the smaller my paycheck, either directly through taxes or indirectly by inflation. And just what are those "things," anyway? Mostly taking money from person or entity A (who earned it) and giving it to person or entity B (who did not), usually for the benefit of the bozos in Congress and the rebozos they run with. Other than declaring and (more or less) funding wars -- an endeavor of which I am deeply skeptical -- just what is Congress good for any more? To pass new laws? The Code of Federal Regulation alone, in a tiny font, occupies over four fathoms of shelf space already! Nope, they need to stop playing Lawgiver and start repealin'. Dick Lugar wasn't willing to even consider that.

Meanwhile, Bloomie's minions are decorating their bloomers over the notion that Lugar's defeat has weakened the GOP in the Senate. Why, they huff, Mourdock even criticized Lugar for voting for the bank bailout! --Yeah, bankers are so popular with the electorate right now.

Remember, this is an NRA F-rated Senator being sent home, leaving the contest between two men with A ratings. Joe Donnelly might be a fairly typical Rust Belt Dem in other ways, but he's considerably better on the right to keep and bear arms than Mr. Lugar ever was; so even if Mourdock does lose in November (the pundits think not, though it could be close), it'll be a step up on some fronts. Heh-heh, Mr. Bloomberg. Heh-heh.

Gone Votin'

This year, they're reporting a very light turnout, no more than 20 to 25%. Wahoo! I'm voting for four or five!

"...The Rise Of The Oceans Began To Slow..."

Did the sea-level increase slow for you, too Mitt? --Oh, no, wait, it's just that you can (sort of) spin that the Obama administration "took your advice," if you cast the bail-out as a "managed bankruptcy" and therefore, you should get some of the credit.

Those who posit no difference between the GOP and Dems can now point to one: the grandiose claims of Republican pols are less grandiose than those of their brothers-in-oppression across the aisle.

And, Mr. Romney? Not everyone thinks propping up those dinosaurs was such a great idea.

Boy, wouldn't it be great if once -- just once! -- somebody made it through the primaries about whom you could say something more positive than "Well, he's better than a severe beating."

Voting

Looks like Og's been punchin' hard at the "Get thee out there and vote!" button and, as ever, non-voters are punching back.

Most of the half-wits you know are gonna vote and you, personally, can cancel one of them out. It ain't much, but it's something. Especially in local races.

I am of the opinion that primary votes are a fairly decent way to communicate to the Big Tent parties. The main thing (besides a chance to vote at local blogger Paul Ogden, who arrived on the ballot with the salient advantage that I already know how he thinks 'cos he demonstrates it right here on the Web) that has me voting in the primary is a chance to go color in the oval for Ron Paul. Yeah, yeah, Mittens has it allll sewn up (maybe) but I can still tell 'em I'd like to see more Wookies and fewer hairsprayed "statesmen." Will they listen? --Have you ever heard the lyrics of Alice's Restaurant? It only takes three!

Og, he talks about a chance to "fix it." Others suggest there might not be any fix. ("In the long run, we're all dead," John Maynard "Mary Sunshine" Keynes). Fix, no fix-- Doesn't matter. If you were drowning, would you struggle, or would you just close your eyes and sink quietly? You fight, dammit, or you might as well be a rutabaga.

Go vote. The yammerheads will. You want them to decide for you?

Dinner

I thought it was good. You might consider it a side dish: mushrooms sauteed in a smidgen of butter, "Southwest" frozen veggies (black beans, onion, red and green peppers) plus steamed-fresh broccoli, cauliflower and carrots, with a hardboiled egg chopped over it and served over steamed rice. Dee-lish! And just about hands-free -- rice and veggies all got quick-nuked, the egg practically boils itself, so all I had was washing and slicing the fungi and popping it in a covered pan with the butter. Everything else joined 'em as it came out of the microwave.

Doesn't need seasoning, instant rice being quite salty enough and the good Irish butter, a dab'll do ya.

Priorities

You can search local media websites in vain for primary election basics (like "who will be on my ballot?") but they're way too happy to tell you Goober Pyle is gone.

Indiana's primary is tomorrow. I'm on the state's website now -- it's a step up: they haven't given me the latest scoops from Hollywood! Downside, they do not appear to know who'll be on the ballots tomorrow, either. Aha, here it is -- with no link I can find from the site I started on; I had to do a new search.

Irony? Realism?

Seen on the same Washington Post web-page: A George Will Op-Ed on Congressthing Jim McGovern's (D-MA, soooo-prize) insane "People's Rights Amendment," which would deny any formal association of people the right of free speech -- yep, from the commies to the NRA, from WWF to WWE, Unk Sam could make 'em STFU -- and an online poll asking, "Is democracy still adequately addressing America's problems?"

"Democracy" as it is currently conceptualized certainly appears to be ensuring we don't run out of problems -- and allowing government of any sort too much freedom of action is the primary problem, not democracy, or whatever you'd replace it by. If there was some way to keep it bottled up and harnessed down, a frikkin' autocracy of vanishingly few, well-defined and strictly-limited powers might do just fine; but there ain't. We've got us a republic (with strong elements of a democracy) because the bunch of geeks who thunk it up could not dream up a better way to put reins on those who would try'n reign over us.

That doesn't mean puttin' every damn' thing up for a vote is such a red-hot idea. An overlapping set of geeks thought so, too, and came up with the Bill of Rights, which was supposed to keep a whole heap of listed and implied rights out from under the thumb of nose-counting -- and safely away from the greasy, grabby fingers of Senators and Representatives.

Clearly, one Jim McGovern (D-MA) did a lot of sleeping in Civics class. Or had they swept all that rubbish out by the time he was sent off to school? "Cradle"-- and grave -- "of democracy," indeed.

Not The Weekend That I Planned

But I'm not complaining. Sometimes that's how things go.

I was hoping to get up to the Indiana Historical Radio Society's big meet in Kokomo Saturday morning. I'd done a lot of running around (literally) in the last half of the week, trying to get some fixed satellite dishes -- the big ones -- either back in service (after a decade not!) or moved to a new bird (mostly by brute force, which is a pity, since they're all side-by-side-by-side in the Clarke Belt now and if you hiccup, you missed it). So when oh-dark-thirty hit Saturday ayem, I was fighting to wake up. I thought ahead and decided better rested than on the road muzzy, no matter how delightful the destination.

Got up late, puttered around all day and was just heading out for Sam's Gyros (ooo, I likes 'em!) when the phone rang: Mom X. Not feeling too well.

This, for me, outranks...everything. Got her into the Heart Hospital and they checked her over; my sibs showed up and eventually the tests came back...inconclusive. Didn't look too awful and she's pretty close to the place so after much discussion, they sent her home with, "Call us if you don't start feeling better." We got out quite late.

Me, I had to go into work about midnight-thirty: there's a light out at the Skunk Works North Campus. A light 1000' up in the air, on the far side of a hot antenna. So it's got to be shut down and the riggers climb in the "dark" (brilliant moonlight, one of the brightest possible full moons!) to swap it out. That went well, or well-ish (30 mph winds aloft!) and by 3:30 am Sunday, I was home and making for bed.

Now here's they thing. I've been a Skunk Worker for 25 years, all told, and they have a club for the long-term types -- a club that meets once a year, about a three-hour drive away, with a long afternoon dinner/meeting, with a special segment to welcome the years new members -- like me. To get there in time, I needed to get up at 7:30 am.

I managed that. I managed coffee (barely) and a shower (badly) and really, until I tried to brush my teeth with hair gel, I didn't think I was doing that badly; I'd only walked into a door frame twice.

But with Mom on a wait-see and me not tracking, I had to call and cancel attending that meeting. There was no way I was going to be out of state and too hazy to get back superfast and be anywhere near okay about it. I laid back down and was out like a light.

Woke up late this afternoon and weedwhacked the backyard, the second most virtuous thing I've done in the last seven days.

"No plan of action survives contact with sunrise."

Atlas Sequaled

Part II of Atlas Shrugged is headed for theaters this October! Website is in a very early beta state.

H'mmm. OWS. Shruggers. Bartleby, the Scrivener. One of these things is not like the others.

The Glamorous, Fast-Paced World

...of Television Journalism:Why yes, that is a backed-up combined sewer in the background.

(Image grabbed "live, local and late-breaking" in Downtown Broad Ripple.)

Range Report

Checked out some new and/or newly-repaired shootin' arns at the range today:

The Iver Johnson 8-shooter doesn't like cheap .22s. Sometimes it has doubts about CCI Mini-Mags, too. But -- it shoots to point of aim and though the grip angle is unusual, it's not at all bad. DA trigger pull is both longer and less smooth than the High Standard Sentinel 9-shooter, which I took for comparision, but it's not bad, either. I didn't clean the Iver Johnson revolver before taking it to the range, which may make a difference.

Between the two, I have decided .22 revolvers are about as much fun as you can have with your socks on.

Coal Creek Armory's gunsmiths worked over my reblued Colt Police Positive revolver in .32-20. I sent them a barely-functioning firearm -- whoever reblued it had bent the crane! -- and I got back a smooth-running Colt, more than typical of the breed. .32-20 is fun, too: it makes a nice loud boom and even a bit extra smoke, but the recoil is minor.

Last but a standout as well, the Colt Government Model .380 semi-auto. I mostly shoot .380 in short-gripped pocket pistols. This one has a full-length grip and it certainly makes a difference. I only put 40-some rounds though it (I misplaced one box, found it as I was packing up to go home) but it ran like a champ. The sights are good enough for me -- I know some shooters find them a little small.


After "teething difficulties" with the Iver Johnson, I wasn't unhappy with my shooting. Double-action revolvers are, in my opinion, excellent platforms for practicing grip, stance and control. As you learn to hold steady through the pull, you're building muscle memory and confidence that carries though anything you might shoot.

(It seems I have a rep at Eagle Creek as "the woman who brings odd guns," and most of the ROs wandered by to see what I'd brought today. It does make for conversation.)

Bobbi And The Marketdroids

Got another one. This one purports to be a quality-based search engine/listing service for blogs and they sent me a burbly letter with made-up words of either praise or slur (couldn't tell from context) for my little petroglyph-boulder of screeds with plenty of bizzaroid robotic-looking touches tellin' me to sign up now and expect scads, scads, scads of traffic. When I replied with a short note, the first paragraph of which read "No," in its entirety, why, they wrote right back with even more BS and puffery.

Okay, jerk: Get. Lost. You just set your bar to near-infinite height. I'm a big fan of capitalism but by Rand and Barnum, effing content-light salesmanship infuriates me. I'm not buying you, I'm not gonna be signin' up 'cos you are so effing charming or clever, or because I like the color of the product or even that it is a fridge or truck or vacuum cleaner with a leather-upholstered humidor; if I wanted a humidor, I would read up about them on the Web and go buy one. Prolly online.

Just gimme the info and step the hell back. Fine, fine, wear a nice suit; I'd appreciate it if you were well-groomed and if the brochure photographs were nicely-composed and on glossy, heavy paper, but gimme a chance to get good notion of the actual product; let me decide if it does anything I want at a price I'm willing to pay.

Or, shucks, go ahead, work your supersalesmanship on me. Schmooze and emote and prattle all you like.

And lose the sale.
-
My little, small-time blog is a little, small-time blog. Years ago, there was a big dustup over big ideas in Comments here and I was chided for choosin' friendship over ideological purity. A guy who should know pointed out this blog would never amount to much.

Well, tough. I'll continue to make the same choice the same way. It's a huge world, filled with people who (IMHHO) mostly have the wrong slant on things, but I can get along with most of 'em and when I am forced to chose, I prefer to stick with folks I know or have general reasons to like over persons with whom I have little in common other than aspects of our political philosophy.

If, as some Deeeeeeeeep Thinkers avow, "everything we do is politics," put me down as a member of the tolerating-your-weirdness-if-you'll-tolerate-mine party. --Or tolerating it as long as you leave off hard-selling me what I don't know that I want and doubt I can use, anyway.
-
Update: an excerpt from an e-mail received from another marketdroid this morning:

I think a guest blog post that illuminates the the advancement of our understanding of childhood development would be interesting for your audience. If you're interested, I would love to write something for you and perhaps start a friendly dialogue. What do you think?

I think that would be just peachy -- if you will let me redecorate your bedroom, on your dime, in, oh, "Early Spanish Inquisition." And do up your front garden to match.

This is my blog. I don't do "guest posts." Go getcher own, they're free. Y'know what ain't free? The few eyeballs that look at this blog -- who arrive here not expecting some blather on childhood development from a stranger. "Childhood development?" Not my baliwick. They're little monsters, savages, barbarians. I avoid them. I'm grateful some small fraction of parents (like you!) can rear 'em up so they become civilized but really, until they're like 25, 30, 35, if it was up to me, I wouldn't even bother to name 'em and I don't much care to interact with them unless they are really good at being proper Victorian children: quiet, well-behaved and out of the way, a bit less bother than a cat.

Fates alone know what kinda pre-version these people might actually be huckstering, that they want on my blog to do it. Surely it can't be anything proper or decent.