“Houston, WE HAVE INTERNET!”

Those who read this blog know that I am something of a “bi-coastal” person; that is to say, I stay at my wife’s house in Elk Grove (otherwise known as Baja Mack Road or Ghetto Centrale) and also at my house at the 4,000-foot elevation in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of Fornicalia.

I’ve had my house since 1993 and it’s a two-story open-loft cabin surrounded by trees and a landscaped, fenced terrain.  I own it now, outright.  It is a stone’s throw from the original Central Pacific Railroad line built in the 1860s — now owned by the Union Pacific.  Because of this, I found a reinvigorated interest in history, video and photography (I was, at one time, a paid stringer for The Sacramento Bee).  This interest also spawned my train blog (which I highly recommend), Milepost154.

That said, my only connection to the internet at the cabin was via — no, I’m not kidding — a “dial-up” connection.  For those who wish to relive their horrible dial-up past, click here.  Because that was the story of my internet life for many years.

Of course, I tried alternatives.  Hughesnet and SkyBlue were an incredibly expensive abomination which penalized you at the first sense of pressured bandwidth.  ColfaxNet was simply incompetent.  DigitalPath couldn’t make things work.  Luckily, AT&T came through the area with the offer of their U-verse.

So, roughly an hour ago, AT&T left my cabin, leaving behind a vertical black plastic monolith with little winking green lights, hooked directly up to my Toshiba DX-735  “all-in-one.”  I’ve disabled the wi-fi until I can figure it out.  However, I’m “on the net” to the tune of up to 12 mbps.

At this point I’m listening to Hugh Hewitt over streaming radio, watching YouTube train videos, creating this post and clicking between seven open tabs.

A few minutes ago, I set fire to the tin cans and twine I used to access the internet.  Because now — holey moley — I may not have the fastest internet connection known to Man, but it’s infinitely faster than eastern red-backed squirrels, carrier pigeons or this.

I’m a lucky guy.

BZ

 

 

Mark Owen’s “NO EASY DAY” — Barnes & Noble can’t keep it on the shelves

And I know this from personal experience.

It is Sunday night as I write this post.  My wife and I had a couples’ massage at our therapists, shopped for some clothes for her at work, and then ended up at one of two local Barnes & Noble Booksellers.  Borders was once much closer but the chain went bankrupt and has since disappeared.

I ended up buying the science fiction paperback HELIX by Eric Brown, and she purchased some books about the paranormal.  My ears and radar are always “on,” so to speak, and I view product placement in major bookstore chains with curiosity.  Naturally, Conservative books don’t always measure the topmost prominent spots in chains such as Borders and Barnes & Noble.

That said, I heard two female employees answer the queries of two separate customers at two separate points this Sunday afternoon.  Both said: yes, we are OUT of “No Easy Day” by Mark Owens.  We receive shipments twice a week of this book and within one day we are sold out.  We can put you on a waiting list to receive the book, or we can mail it to you.

And they were correct.  There was NO place in the store where the book could be found.  Not on display kiosks, not in the aisles, not filed on the shelves.

Not found on the primary tables displayed directly in front of the two main entrance doors — where high-selling books are customarily placed.

Because they were OUT.  Let me make this clear: they can’t keep NO EASY DAY on the shelves due to DEMAND.

60 Minutes interviewed Mark Owen this Sunday.

They did not reveal his true name.  And they disguised his facial features.

[Go here for the 60 Minutes take of the first SEAL to get in public trouble, “Demo” Dick Marcinko in 1992.  Video below.]

I admired Richard Marcinko then, and I admire him now.  Just as I admire John Boyd, and those who tell the Truth about our military in order to make it better.  A bit of a relapse: according to John Boyd — in the military you can “be someone” or you can “do something.”

I have predicated my life in my own department on “doing something” and not, clearly, on “being someone” as I am still a lowly little ancient Sergeant.

Since the release of NO EASY DAY by Mark Owen, he has been attacked by the Obama Administration and other sources.

Check this link.

Check this link.

Mark Owen’s book isn’t about secrets or tactics or strategy or “insider information” or arcane intelligence.  It’s about the truth.

Read it for yourself.  I have.

I leave you with this: perhaps, once again, UK news has the actual grasp on events whereas the US media sorely sails behind.  Because it’s the DEM/MSM.  And purposely so.

BZ

 

Pushing The Envelope, Part XI:

The human being has always pushed the envelope into and beyond the realms of danger. This is the eleventh of various weekend postings displaying how restless Man is with the mundane and how he purposely crosses the threshold into danger willingly — and sometimes unwillingly.

In my very callow youth, I climbed what is known as the Walnut Grove tower whilst I worked for radio station KFBK.  I only got a portion of the way up the tower, until I began to howl and glow and vibrate with the RF emitted by the tower itself.

Let me be blunt: I have no children.  I climbed this tower and also worked security for a nuclear power plant in my 20s.  I spread my seed “far and wide,” shall we say, with little if any “protection.”.

In reflection, I’d always wondered if I made myself essentially sterile at a very young age with the various exposures I encountered.

BZ

 

 

Barack HUSSEIN Obama saved the American auto industry?

Mr Obama saved all of America from total collapse:

Jobs saved: billions and billions, like the number of McDonald’s hamburgers served.

With one slight glitch: the actual truth.

First: the Volt is a LIE.  To the point where Euro advertisements regarding the Volt have been taken down.  The Volt is NOT an “electric car.”  It will run, perhaps, from 25 to 50 miles on one charge.  From that point it relies upon a GASOLINE ENGINE to recharge its batteries.

That said, the Volt’s production was already suspended in March of this year.  It was suspended again in August.  Might a logical person ask: why?

Easy answer: it’s not selling.  It’s a LIE and American consumers smell a lie at a greater depth and distance than Detroit imagines.

Despite EVERY possible advantage CONTRIVED by the Obama Administration at the behest of YOUR American Taxpayer cash.  Otherwise known to Mr Obama as FREE MONEY.  Or Free Cheese.  Because, after all, his ideas cost him nothing.

Some TERRIBLY INconvenient bullet-point truths about GM:

  • $26.5 billion of the loss was a straight payoff to the Democrat-apparatchik United Auto Workers (UAW) union.
  • During the bankruptcy process, President Obama illegally paid off the UAW first and in full – before secured bondholders who should have been made whole before anyone else got a dime.  Which was incredibly disruptive and destructive of the entire bond market.  Economic uncertainty, anyone?
  • Meanwhile, President Obama cut the pensions of non-union GM-subsidiary Delphi’s employees by up to 70%.
  • President Obama illegally carried forward through the bankruptcy the ridiculously exorbitant UAW contracts.  Which were a hay-yuge contributing factor to GM going under in the first place – and are again, predictably, helping to wreck the bottom line.
  • Why has the stock tanked so precipitously?  Because GM is no longer a for-profit car company – it is a Leftist ideological entity.  To wit:
  • We the Taxpayers pay $7,500 per Volt sold in bribe money – I mean incentive.  And in President Obama’s latest unanimously rejected budget he wanted to up that to $10,000 per.

Again, the terribly inconVENient truth is that which is written by Michelle Malkin:

GM is once again flirting with bankruptcy despite massive government purchases propping up its sales figures. GM stock is rock-bottom. Losses continue to be revised in the wrong direction. According to the Detroit News, “the Treasury Department says in a new report the government expects to lose more than $25 billion on the $85 billion auto bailout. That’s 15 percent higher than its previous forecast.”

The claims that GM paid back its taxpayer-funded loans “in full” — a story peddled in campaign ads narrated by Hollywood actor Tom Hanks — were debunked by the Treasury Department’s TARP watchdog this summer. GM still owes nearly $30 billion of the $50 billion it received, and its lending arm still owes nearly $15 billion of the more than $17 billion it received. Bailout watchdog Mark Modica of the National Legal and Policy Center adds: “In addition to U.S. taxpayers anteing up, Canada put in over $10 billion, and GM was relieved of about $28 billion of bondholder obligations as UAW claims were protected. That’s an improvement of almost $90 billion to the balance sheet, and the company still lags the competition.”

Imagine the lies.  Imagine the sense of outright betrayal.  Check this.  And this.

Still and all, despite BILLIONS of YOUR American Taxpayer dollars, GM may go bankrupt again.

Then mix with psychotropic drugs and hallucinations and peyote and the DEM/MSM and the purples skies of Demorats and Socialists and the Religious Left.  Stir.  Then serve cold and with great emotion.  Emphasize the emotional part.  Because — absent facts — one is only left with but emotion.

Further: we have all forgotten about the dealerships purposely closed by the Obama takeover of the auto industry and that — of GM and Chrysler, the total effect on unemployment due to dealership closings was over 100,000 people.  Courtesy of your Mr Obama.

The dealerships closed were targeted as such because they were owned by Republicans with money.

How we so tend to forget the TRUTH.

BZ

 

 

George Stephanopoulos’s vigorous refutation of bias in the media:

MRCTV’s Joe Schoffstall (MRC = Media Research Center) asks “Good Morning America” host George Stephanopoulos a question.

MRC: “Do you think there’s liberal bias in the media?”

S: “I don’t.  Who are you?”

MRC: “We’re with the Media Research Center.  You don’t believe there’s any media liberal bias?”

S: (slaps on shoulder) “Take care, man.”

And there you have it!

A vigorous and emphatic refutation, from a professional, that bias does not exist in the media.

Don’t you feel assuaged?  I know I do.   .   .

 BZ