Guard Dog

John Young, the US longest serving astronaut has passed away at age 87: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/john-young-moon-walker-and-nasas-longest-serving-astronaut-dies-at-87/2018/01/06/5ef1d15c-f313-11e7-b390-a36dc3fa2842_story.html?utm_term=.7252ebe8f89a Young joined NASA from the US Navy. He started out as a Fire control Officer on a destroyer during the Korean War. Later he went to flight training, became a fighter pilot, and eventually a squadron commander. He retired from the Navy as a Captain and joined the Astronaut Corps in "Group 2" for Project Gemini. He flew as the pilot of Gemini 3, the Commander of Gemini 10, the Command Module Pilot on Apollo 10 and finally he landed on the moon as the commander of Apollo 16. Later he commanded the first Space Shuttle flight and then STS-9 two years later. God Speed Captain Young. We thank you for your service.

An acquaintance suggested I join a Facebook group dedicated to off grid living today. Let that sink in for a moment. I laughed long and hard about that. Irony is my favorite form of humor!

When are you going Shady? If it's March/April/May time frame you might consider Miami and the Florida Keys. Spend day or two in Miami. Go to South Beach or Coconut Grove for the food and night life. Go to Everglades National Park or even better Big Cypress for air board rides alligator encounters, etc. The Miccosuke Indians run a really nice operation out there. Then rent a car and go south to the Keys. Islamorada is great for snorkeling or scuba diving. The best parts of John Pennekamp are there. The Christ of the Deep is worth seeing. Then head south to Marathon. The middle keys are all about fishing. The best drift boat charters are there but to tell the truth you can catch Amberjack, Black Drum and Snapper right off the old bridge sections. Then head down to Key West for a day or two. That is a.... different kind of place. Definitely the coolest city in Florida though with the possible exception of Cedar Key. You can fly out from there when you're done. The Keys are the BEST place for seafood as long as it's a Florida fish. What you order at night was literally swimming that morning. Plus fried alligator tail is a really, really good Flordida delicacy.

California is an easy target for this type of action though. It's basically held up as representative of all things liberal, so where typically conservatives would be uncomfortable with federal powers running roughshod over state rights, it is ok if it is happening to the villainous California. Exactly why I won't vote Republican again. They love big and oppressive government as long as they are in control of it. As abhorrent as the aims of the Democrats on the left are to me, at least they are up front and honest about what they want to do to you. The Republicans talk a good game about liberty and small government but that is not what you get from them.

Hawaii. Specifically Kauai. It's a bit more out of the way than Oahu, Maui, or Hawai'i. To me that makes it so much nicer. It's less hustle and bustle if that appeals to you and it costs a little less too.

Agreed. The day will come... probably sooner than later they will rue that decision. As will we all. I am convinced the United States as a political institution is going to break apart some time in the future. And I strongly suspect the hammer that will strike the fissure in on 1st Street in Washington DC.

I laugh when I hear Republicans fretting the Trump Train Derailment. I asked one "What in this man's history and personality led you to believe any other outcome was possible?". His answer is "He's still preferable to Hillary Clinton". I can't argue with that. When someone offers you a pile of cow s--t on on plate and a pile of horse s--t on the other and tells you you have to eat one of them it doesn't really matter which you choose. You're still eating s--t. The tragedy is 120M + people licking their s--t stained fingers still don't realize they had other options. Tell me, would anyone swap Donald Trump for Gary Johnson right now? He wouldn't have been exciting. He probably wouldn't even have been effective. But I can guarantee you he'd have stayed off twitter, not bombed Syria for no reason, and still rolled back Obama's big brother bull**** and picked a good supreme court justice.

Cold Creek froze this morning. Completely iced over. Now that is impressive. And only the second time it's happened since I lived here.

Hmmmm.... flying aircraft carriers. http://www.nasdaq.com/article/air-force-could-test-flying-aircraft-carriers-as-early-as-next-year-cm898778 Would that make them Battlestars?

Best wishes for 2018 for each and every one of you. However 2017 leaves you I hope 2018 treats you better. For my part 2017 was just f-----g awful for the most part. I'm happy to bury it in my favorite glass tonight. I'm not really into making resolutions. Or even celebrating the change in years actually but if you are and are making any let's hear them.

For all the fans of your big benevolent governments out there remember this: there is no crime so minor or infraction so small it's agents will not happily kill you to enforce. Right here in the Good Ol' USA the penalty for missing a court date is the summary execution of your entire family by FBI snipers.

Completely agree with this. If I were in charge I'd give all the police agencies in the country a choice: 1) Give up your firearms while on duty 2) Give up your qualified immunity. You cannot keep both. That's when you'll see police using non lethal means.

There has never been a time when there were no "big personalities" in the NBA. No marketable superstars. There certainly are several now but perhaps not as many as 20 years ago in the era of Magic, Bird, Jordan, Abdul-Jabbar. But the NBA seems to be waxing where the NFL is waning. Does anyone thing the NBA is in a new "golden age"? http://www.realclearlife.com/sports/nba-ratings-soar-nfl-flounders/

Vegas has a great HC. I'm still pissed the Panthers fired him for no good reason. What part if the success they were enjoying did they find so objectionable I wonder? Because it went in the toilet after that.

I got a liter of fine 10 year old single barrel bourbon. I'm sipping a glass of it now.

Merry Christmas everyone. Another year of being entertained with light (and sometimes serious) discussions and marveling at the antics of the collection of characters that has somehow gathered on the WoT forum of a small game developers web site. I hope it's a happy time for all of you. Because you all deserve it!

It's a festivus for the rest of us.

Diversity walls! Now THAT's funny!

see, this is what I meanSymbolism wields tremendous power Actually, it does not. Edit: Sun Tzu would agree with you by the way. He wrote "War is a moral contest won in the temples before ever being fought on a battlefield". In all due deference to both the great general and yourself, I disagree. Symbolic gestures that change nothing are meaningless. Outcomes and results are the only things that matter.

Drop a stone in a pond and the ripples spread: http://dailycaller.com/2017/12/22/australian-government-worried-us-will-take-jobs-after-massive-tax-cut/

RIP **** Enberg. He called the "The Drive", and he called "The Fumble" and the "Greatest Game of All Time" the 1979 NCAA Men's championship game with Johnson & Bird meeting the first time. He brought us Montana's big comeback in the Superbowl against the Bengals. He told Joe Cater to "touch them all Joe" when he walked off the 2nd World Series Championship for the Blue Jays. If you had to live a different life, his would have been a good one to choose. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5rQmdKKQgI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSRfwJlnuBM

By rooted in reality I was more referring to acknowledging that things that are facts, as facts. Something diplomats don't really do.

Well, the bills are all paid, the grocery shopping is all done. All the packages have been mailed. I've got dog food, chicken feed, and two cases of Sam Adams Winter Lager and a new bottle of Four Roses. I don't see any reason why I'd leave my home until 2018. I think I'll buy Fallout 4 off Steam and give that a try now that all the DLCs are out.

OK, on the whole Jerusalem thing. I could never be a diplomat because I'm too rooted in reality. Choosing not to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is just asinine. It is. The President is there, the Knesset is there, the treasury, defense ministry, etc are all there. That sort of makes Jerusalem the capital. Saying it's really in Tel Aviv does not make it so. So, that's that. As not this being an impediment to peace negotiations, how is that going anyway? The US, the UN and others have been trying to broker a permanent peace there since the Six Day War ended. Not going so good is it? At what point do we realize no matter what concessions are offered half the parties (and sometimes ALL the parties) involved are not going to accept it? You know what the definition of insanity is. Israel isn't evil. It's just a country. An artificial made up country that probably should not have been created since it was done so by third parties and at gunpoint. There was a lot of that going on after WWII. Well, you can't put toothpaste back in the tube. It's been 70 years and three major wars. It's not going anywhere. It is going to, like ever country does and should do, act in it's best interest for it's own survival and that of it's citizens. Failure by half the world to "recognize" it did not make it go away. So the whole recognition thing is stupid anyway. The sun didn't set just because you closed your eyes. Nikki Haley gave a speech at the UN that seems to have pleased a lot of people here. I don't see why. Are we going to kick the UN out of the country? Are we going to withdraw? Are we going to stop footing the bill? No? So that great speech was really just a bunch of BS wasn't it? Bluster without leverage (or at least the willingness to use leverage) is just empty and they all went ahead and condemned us anyway. Our cause would have been better served if she just got up there and read my first three paragraphs of this post. (Nikki if you need a speech writer PM me. My rates are reasonable). So now we've been "overruled" by the UN. Does that change anything? No. Are we supposed to feel bad or something? If you guys have not figured this out by now let me enlighten you; Americans do not sit around pondering what the rest of the world thinks of what our government, or the rest of us fore that matter, are doing. Usually we don't think of you at all unless we're talking to you or doing business with you or watching you kick our soccer teams ass. We're too busy trying to pay our bills and take care of our families to worry about that crap. I'd hate for you guys to think I'm telling you the UN is irrelevant. I'd hate that because I'd hope you'd figured that out a long time ago. It's a polite fiction, a lie we all tell ourselves. Wars still happen. Genocide still happens. Human Rights abuses happen and not only does the UN look the other way they put abuses in charge of committees to investigate abuses. Of course it really was conceived as a means to prevent another World War. But I think Robert Oppenheimer and company have done a much better job of that than the UN has. Just my $.02

Epaminondas are you liking what the Angels are up to signing Ohtani & Zach Cozart?