Oh nice

Maryland runs out of hospital beds on April 21st, and we disease peak May 1st.  But it's a gentle curve.  No f-ed like New York's. 

PA, VA, and WV do much better.  Neighboring states.

I have friends and relatives in Indian, Ohio, and Florida, and their states do pretty good too.  Cali as well.

So, don't come to Maryland for sanctuary.  We don't got it. 

Hoarding Strategies

Ok, one day, soon, this panic will end.  Now you have to prep for the next one.

Toilet paper was the item in short supply, this time.  When the next panic comes...  Will people make a run on toilet paper?  Because now it is in folks' head that that is a think you do.  Like with a blizzard.

Or will more of us in the general population have a stash to weather a future trouble because of this one?  TP doesn't have to be the go to next time.   We saw that in gun buying and ammo panics.  Depending on the threat from Obama.  Green tip 5.56?  GONE.  No wait, it's back.  .22lr that one awful 11 months.  Nothing.  Nigh everything ammo that other time and got me thinking about buying WWII surplus .45 with corrosive primers.

But I, personally, with have an extra 2 dozen rolls of Quilted Northern in a cool dry place, yessir.  

Can you imagine

If she had won and been president right now. 

He did promise "America First." https://t.co/bzks3hqCUE

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) March 27, 2020

I didn't so much vote for Trump as I vote against this harpy, and I think people of the same bent ended up putting him over, and, boy was that a serendipitous result.

You know who they'd be blaming right now for the pandemic is Hillary had won?  George W. Bush.

Such an awful person, and has been in China's pocket since the 90s.

Stimulating

So they passed a $2 Trillion Stimulus Package.  We heard a lot about all the pork it was larded with.

• NPR
• Kennedy Center
• Museum and Library Union
• Windmill

and so on.

I was wondering, how come all the pork goes to Democrat constituencies and never GOP leaning ones?  I mean, fair is fair.  $25 million for the Kennedy Center, why not a couple mill to the Second Amendment Foundation?  NASCAR race track spectator parking lot improvements.  History departments that teach history instead of SJW type Hyphen-Studies.  Throw money at Prager U.

Ammo Panics

Tam talks about Ammo Panics. 

As an aside she mentioned she worked a counter on New Years Eve, 1999, right before Y2K, and that was a wild time, she relates.  I wish I had been involved in the gun scene to see it.

You know...  That might have been the precursor to my first gun purchase.  Even back then I had my head screwed on at least a little tighter than some.  I didn't wait til the last moment to get a pistol.  I got it in the Spring or early Summer.  A .357,  my 686.  And maybe 2 boxes of ammo.  I was SET.  First real gun.  Oh, I had a Springfield .03, but the head space was suspect.  All I know was it was made after they sussed out the heat treatment issues with the receivers.

I felt a panic coming for November 2008, if McCain didn't win.  Bought my M1A you see at the top of this blog in the Summer of 08.  I'm not allowed to buy one of those now.  But I beat the panic then, got a decent price.  Bought a case of battle packs to go with it, soon after, too. 

Subsequent panics I've been lucky.  Only inconvenienced.  I had something, I just wanted more.  I wasn't going to run out.

The only time I was stampeded was the gun control push in 2013.  Was a little too anxious and online auctions are not what you want to be into then.

Cartography Dream

I dreamt the states of Oklahoma and Nebraska combines to become one big state.  I was confused in my dream because even there I, in dreamland without reliable maps, I was 99.9% sure the two states didn't share an inch of border.

They don't.

Anyway, they renamed the state, and, I swear I am not making this up, the new name was going to be Oklahomaha.

Well, I guess I did sort of make that up, it was in a dream.

Grocery Store Report

Yesterday afternoon.  The Trader Joe next to my beer place is still closed.  Suspect Wuflu case with an employee, corporate shut the store down.  But my beer was back in stock a few door down and I got into a Traders maybe once a decade.

Beautiful blue sky.  Parking lot a LOT less crowded than last week at the Harris Tweeter.  My regular grocer.

Canned goods have made a partial comeback.  Still no Underwood devilled ham.

All of the following was at half levels, where there was none last week:

• Lunchmeat
• Eggs
• Chicken and beef
• Marinera

Still no joy:

• Santizer
• Lavatory Tissue
• Flour or yeast

I figure we are getting back to normal when I can buy a 12 pack of Angel Soft.

My work is still report as if normal.  Everyone in the building is essential.  One guy stayed home last week because his daughter arrive d from staying at Mom's with a fever and a sore throat, but he is back.  It was just strep.  YES!  Virtual high five from a fathom away.

Yes, we celebrated the fact it was only a dangerous bacterial infection.

Soapy

You know, for decades I used Irish Spring bar soap for my personal washing.

Then I became wealthy and started using soap TWICE as expensive (don't hate.)

Mostly Pine Tar now.  The ingredient list is different than what I imagine pine tar soap was made from 100 years ago:

• Palm and coconut oil derivatives, mostly
• Glycerin, and water.
• Then pine tar
• Salt
• Sodium gluconate

So, oils, very little soda.  I guess that cleans as long as it rinses away.

Things in Irish Spring not in Grandpa's?

Hydrogenated Tallow Acid, Coconut Acid, Fragrance, Pentasodium Pentetate, Pentaerythrityl Tetra‑Di‑T‑Butyl Hydroxyhydrocinnamate, Titanium Dioxide, dyes

Anyway, I told you that to note this....  My skin on my flanks and legs doesn't dry out like it used to in the winter time.  I haven't used lotion in ages, and I think it is congruent to the soap switch.

Upside to the Panic

The gun buying panic that is.

LOTS of more first time gun buyers.  And not an insignificant number of anti-gun folks thinking they need a gun and seeing what it really takes to get one, especially in restrictive states.  Maryland, Virginia, New York, California...

Come November, the big gun control push at the polls is blunted just that much more.  Because of education and reality.

Also, people noticed Bloomberg was a gaping ass.  For other reason.  Maybe that will blunt his gin confiscation efforts

We Are the World II

Well the first We Are the World did a great job procuring machine guns and getting them into child soldiers little hands.  Maybe this time I, myself, will get a cherry Smith and Wesson M76 for free.  That'd be sweet.

Coronavirus Relief: Lionel Richie proposes 'We Are the World' remake for COVID-19 aid https://t.co/KgJhVN4BLM pic.twitter.com/PHJ81PbSMv

— Eyewitness News (@ABC7NY) March 24, 2020

Horror

obviously that should be legally mandated, and this is not a “not all landlords” tweet. i’m just saying we’re really lucky because lots of property owners are vicious and cruel and should be re-educated.

— isi breen (its pronounced ‘izzy’) (@isaiah_kb) March 22, 2020

"obviously this should be legally mandated"

"lots of property owners are vicious and cruel and should be re-educated"

Gun Panic

Firearm enthusiasts got complacent during the relatively good years of the W administration.  But a lotta folks, myself included, got caught up in the unprecedented buying panics after.  Those calmed down a bit.

But this Asian Contagion has knocked it all into a cocked hat.

Like many of you, I topped up when guns and ammo became more available years ago.  I can weather a panic, now.

I haven't gone near a gun store, but all reports is that it is a madhouse.  Chockablock with first time buyers.  Different from previous panics when it seemed more second-time buyers.  People with one AR getting a spare or whatnot.

It's shotguns, this time, at least in Maryland.  Easier to get permission to buy.  Heh, I should sell mine.   Naw.  I don't have the spares.  And while I am not a big shottie fan, a body does need SOMETHING.  In a different timeline I'd have  2 or 3 doubles and zero Remington Model 11s.

Anyway, I am wondering about the far end of this.  How soon before ammo companies cathc up again?  A year?  More?  Damned inconvenient, I say.  Ugh.  Drat.

Ya know what Ima do?   All the ammo I store away in 2008 to establish a floor.  The .45 mostly.  Magtech.  I'm swap fresh Federal for that and use the Magtech at the range.  It's only 10 years old, but rotation doesn't hurt unless newer stuff is substandard. 

----

Now, I don't want to add to their headache, so I am not going IN PERSON to the gun shop to get the real skinny from Tom.  Social distancings, avoiding panicky crowds, &c.  My info is from their social media announcments.  One day it is turning off the phone some and no self defense shotguns left, the next day is permanently disconnected and only 5 folks in the shop at once.  The next day is 3 people in the shop at once and zero ammo and zero shotguns.  This was last week. 

I dunno if people with handgun purchase permits are also cleaning him out.  They might be.  Which is good for me because I have a pistol on consignment at a reasonable no-panic price. 

If

If I was me, now, and it was 1910.

I remember 40 years ago, now.  1980.  First year I stayed up late enough to see midnight.  I was 11.  Carter was a peanut farming fool.  Inflation made my can of soda pop go from .25 to .45.

If it is was 1910, 40 years ago is 1870.  If I was German or I was French an event would be baked in my blood.  The Franco Prussian War.  It would be a part of 1910 me as much as Breznhev and Reagan is a part of 2020 me.  I still hate commies. I drove cars older than 1980.

I'd still be steamed about the Franco Prussian War, then if it was 1910.  So I can sort of understand how WWI started.

Census Mailed to me

The forms arrived on Pi Day.  A week after I asked y'all ifn you got yours.  I guess I am doing that this weekend. 

Not gonna lick the envelope to seal it though.  Just in case. 

I might answer Native American.  Because I was born here, and my parents were born here, and the grandparents were born here.  We're pretty native to this country.  And I am sick to death with all this granularity, like a Code Noir or some similar racial caste system that is only designed to oppress one group or another, whichever is favored at a given time.  It didn't do well for the US with Jim Crow, and it still hurts Saint-Domingue, after 230 years. 

Anyway, busybody census questions may get sabotaged.

Paper

Before now times, when I shopped for paper towels or terlet paper, I often left the spare big package in the car.  For many shopping cycles.  Doesn't hurt, and what if I am far from home and need something?  I got it?

I don't do that no more.  Not now.  Brought em into the house.

#YOLO

From the paper of record


Spring Breakers Arrange Scattered Corpses To Spell Out YOLO

Collapse is worse than that the WORST WuFlu death predictions

Before it is too late

1. go back to work if you aren't sick
2. keep isolating grandma that smoked for 40 years, and your cousin on chemo.
3. keep washing your hands good and hard
4. keep social distancing for a while in public, no handshakes, don't pack a movie theater, few tables in restaurants, fewer in person work meetings, half size classrooms, SAT tests.  But don't let it stop you.  
5. stay home when you get sick 
6. BUT GET BACK TO WORK or school

Preppers that stowed away 2 years worth of stuff?  If there is an economic Collapse they are gonna run out.  By then you will just call them Farmers.  If you haven't starved to death by then, that is.

"How cruel T-Bolt!  2.2 million Americans might die from Covid-19."

Better than 20 million, 200 million, from famine.  

"So what if a few casinos, and airline or two, Parker Brothers, the Olive Garden chain, and one of the big three automakers goes down, that's not the whole economy." 

No, but bet your boots a disruption that big in an economy as interconnected as ours will have wide ranging ripple effects that will sorely test society's robustness. 

"But we need to flatten the disease curve."

Yes.  We have, and we will continue to, but we gotta ratchet down a notch or two.  It's too restrictive. We are only this high because politician are erring on the side of caution to avoid blame so they can keep their phoney baloney jobs. 

I blinked a bit

I just saw online a young Millennial go "Oooo!  Dot matrix labels!"  Like it was bespoke artisanal letterpress printing done on linen parchment.  Or vellum!  Like it conjured a misty faraway land lost to time.  A forgotten epoch.

And in a way, I guess it is sort of. 

I can't describe how old this makes me feel.

Anyone that stays shut after April 1

Is a fool.

Too far

Yeah, they've gone too far with all the closures.  The graph is flattened already, now it is too much.

Worse?  No end date.  It'd be bad, but better, if they said "closed til March 31st.  The re-open with these precautions."

This cure is gonna end up being worse than the worst projections of the disease.


----

Also, went grocery shopping.  The stores are lifting mightily to keep normal, but the corner hasn't turned.  No TP.  But did find some Tylenol.  No canned good like soup or stew or tastier meats, but more fresh meats.  That will be a big barometer of a return to normalcy.  The store is back to January levels.

----

Well you’ve got about another week I’d guess. Maybe two at the most. Then people are gonna start going back to work BECAUSE YOU CANNOT JUST SHUT DOWN THE LARGEST ECONOMY IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD. https://t.co/gudJI7oYOZ

— Jesse Kelly (@JesseKellyDC) March 20, 2020

I work in a company town

One usually insulated from economic downturns in the rest of the country.

Not this time.

This town has a lot of workers working for The Company that aren't really essential and can stay home during quarantine.  The governor on the Maryland side of the river has been very aggressive shutting other venues down, like bars and restaurants. 

Even a lot of essential workers are going to half on half off.  Half the essential people in this division work this week, then take a week off.  The other half are off this week, work next week.  Defense type jobs. 

No, no pay when you are off. 

Traffic at rush hour has been GLORIOUS. 

Plus, we are a tourist town, too.  Cherry blossom season is NOW.  No economic activity there.

DC finally will feel what Pittsburgh felt in the 70s. 

You know...

There is still a halfway decent chance this chucklehead is right.  That concerns are overblown, that the deaths are no worse than any of the last 20 flu seasons we went through without buying all the TP and pasta at the Winn Dixie.  Now I'm not saying I or you should stop being thorough when we wash our hands, and I'm sick of you people so a little bit of social distancing is ok, and take some precautions and whatnot because we don't know for sure, but...  Being ordered about and crashing the economy?  Maybe that wasn't the best idea.

These are the same dumbass idiots that want us to pay for their health insurance & education pic.twitter.com/s1mA93Yshy

— Josh, Lifelong Social Distancing Veteran (@JoshsBurnerAcct) March 18, 2020

But yeah, I don't way to help any of them pay any of their student loans.

(I'm totally off base with my 'maybe it isn't as bad as the panic makes it' if we end up with people needing ventilators and there are literally none to spare with 1000 miles.) 

Advice of the Dead

The invention of the Weaver Stance

Watch closely



See that?  He grabbed his wrist.  To steady the shot.

The next shot, he changes his grip up, he goes Weaver.  This is shot number 3.  Maybe number 4.  I sorta lost track in all the confusion.

Shoulda called it the 'Callahan Stance.'

----

What?  You say Jack Weaver came up with it almost 15 years before this movie?  Pfff.  Pull my other one it has bells on it.

Ok, ok.

Maryland Red Flag Laws

Looked like it claimed another victim.  Maybe not red flag, but felon in possession.  Still no reason to shoot him while he slept.

Second one that I know of.

Similar MO.  Show up early while the home owner is asleep, then shoot them while they are groggy and confused, or unconscious.

"The officers later said he reeked of alcohol."  Suuuuuuuuuuuuure he was.

Like the Branch Davidian screw ups, the cops can't snatch the dude up by surprising him outside a house full of innocents?

Out of Guns

You can't get most guns in Maryland without first getting a Permit to Purchase.  Most useful home defense firearm at least.  Pistols.  Semi-autos.  You can get a bolt action rifle.  Not as useful guarding your giant horde of soft lavatory tissue.

But you CAN get a home defense shotgun in Maryland by just passing a couple background checks.  Take it home that day.

My local gunshop turned off their phone.  They were swamped with "do you have any shotfuns left for sale?" calls.  As soon as they hanged up it would ring again.  The answer was no.  Maybe later this week.  So they pulled the plug, announced that on Facebook, and let it be.

Zombacalypse

How a zombie epidemic would play out

Day 1: Zombies appear
Day 3: All toilet paper gone
Day 9: Are zombies racist? Tune into MSBC to find out
Day 13: Red Robin's swamped. Epidemic grows.
Day 24: Zombies overrun cities
Day 33: Dems push new abortion bill
Day 41: Civilization ends

— John Hawkins (@johnhawkinsrwn) March 15, 2020

Panic Buying

Doing this gun stuff since 2007, I've been through some panic buys, so gunnie-sense was tingling about this pandemic back in January.

I didn't beat the mask panic.  But I had some from back five years ago when there was another disease coming up and SayUncle gave me the inspiration.

I beat the hand sanitize panic by a couple day. Just one bottle.  I'm not doing a black market of the stuff.  Well, one regular size and 6 travel size.

I got the Terlet paper stocks topped off a few days ahead of bingo shelves of the stuff.  That means 2 dozen rolls in the house.  Plus I have a lotta paperbacks I can part with, if I have to.

I had the canned goods already.  Backpacking freeze dried food and MRE's too.  Not a warehouse of the stuff, but I can eat regular long after the fridge and freezer empties.  Hope stuff re-opens before mid July. 

Ammo?  Guns?  Please.

I bought an extra bottle or two of whiskey.  I might regret not getting a couple cases of wine.  But that's a luxury.

I drink a lotta soda, and that will run out first, but that's another luxury I can live without.

My big worry is I will be at work when the locusts come to my street and burglarize my house.  I hope to be ahead of that game and bunkered in by then, if hints start popping up.  It's nowhere near armed neighborhood watches keeping an eye out for bored looting teenagers.  Nor is it time yet to risk Maryland's wrath by carrying.  I hope civil breakdown is just a fantasy, and never happens with this. 

And Max Brooks would know about Pandemics

He told us about the zombie virus in WWZ

A message from me and my dad, @Melbrooks. #coronavirus #DontBeASpreader pic.twitter.com/Hqhc4fFXbe

— Max Brooks (@maxbrooksauthor) March 16, 2020

Good advice. 

Things, I wish...

Things I wish I had gotten last time I went to the grocery store.

Maybe amazon will help with one or more.

I did hit the likker store and bought that case of emergency wine.  Good thing.   All bars and restaurant closed about 30 minutes ago.

Don't Touch Your Face

Yeah, the only way I'd succeed at not touching my face would be if my hands were coated in a thick layer of something really foul, or I was wearing one of these:

Safety

Post a picture on a gun forum of someone posing with a finger on the trigger and not extended down the frame and you won't hear the end of it.

Pedants come out of the woodwork to point out the safety violation.

It's annoying, but it also means the safety training is working.  More and more know the Four Rules, and a subset of those follow them (wish it was a larger subset...)

L.S./M.F.T  Lucky Strikes / Means Fine Tobacco

Loaded, Stupid
Watch the Muzzle
Finger!  Keep it off the trigger until you mean to shoot
Target, be sure of it and the stuff behind it

or...

• Rule #1: All guns are always loaded. 
• Rule #2: Never point the gun at anything you are not willing to destroy 
• Rule #3: Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on target and you have made the decision to shoot. 
•  Rule #4: Be sure of your target and what is beyond it.

But what about other safety rules?  We don't get to use live grenades at the range, so we have no set of rules baked into the gunnie culture's DNA on those.  Or the pedants would be out in force over this cheesecake:

Daddy like!

So, what are the 4 rules for grenades then?  You know, in case there is a boogaloo and all us gunnies are going around with a bandolier of them like Randal 'Tex' Cobb in Raising Arizona?

1. Secure your grenade in an appropriate grendade pouch.  In fact, leave them in the crate as long as you can.
2. OH MY GAWD, BOOT, why haven't you taped down your spoons?  Did you even get signoff on carrying these?
3. Get this Boot some potatoes to carry, he's not ready to go anywhere near the live ones
4. Remember, after you pull out the pin, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend.

More for the rest, I guess?

Iraqi says 'no' to any Infidel sourced Wuhan Flu treatment.

Fine.  Whatever. 

Here's a Hypothetical

It's silly, I know. 

You have a time machine.  But it can only take you back to 1820.  200 years.  You can take 6 $20 gold pieces with you and what you are wearing.  After a short time you come back to the present, a week or so.  So don't kill your own 5 greats great-grandpa while you are back there.

If you invest that $120 at 7% you'd get $90,000,000 accrued in that time.  But how to arrange that principle to sit untouched until adult you in 2020 can come around and collect? 

You could bury the gold pieces in ground you know will be undisturbed for that time.  I can think of a bunch of places nearby I could pull that off, but what does that gain me?

I can buy something rare for $120, and bury THAT.  Something that people today would pay a lot for.  But what?  What object could I get that could survive being entombed that long?  A set of Washington's dentures?  You wouldn't get close to 90 million for them, but something.  His saddle pistols fetched 2 million.  I wonder if the Washington family would part with them for $120?  If they still had them 20 years after his death.  I doubt they'd be available.

11 year old Lincoln's school book?   Good luck proving the provenance of all this. 

Buy a $120 Faberge Egg?  Impossible.  The first one won't be crafted for 75 years, but you get the idea.  An object d'art.

G7

G7 Instant Coffee.

From Nam!

You can tell because it is called Trung Nguyen.

I tried some of the sugar-and-cream version last summer.  It's good, but I am a black coffee man.  Well, now I have tried the black version of G7 and can also give it a thumbs up. 

Now I wasn't in the Army, so I can't speak the C-Ration or MRE instant coffees.  But this guy is a connoisseurs of the type of .mil instant coffee through the decades and G7 comes out looking like the coffee powders he prefers.



It is a powder.  It dissolves almost instantly.  I was always turned off by the Folgers Crystals or chunky Taster's Choice.  I didn't think instant could BE good.  But G7 puts paid to that. Those standard American jars of instant are, to me, just awful. 

If you can't make real coffee, try having these.  You just need hot water. 

It's a little weak in a big cup.  Next time I'd do two packets.  It might also be good to add to a cup of regular Java to make it high octane.

Try it with Pie! It is Pi Day, after all.

New Favorite Knife

The CRKT CEO.

It just has a great form factor.  I like a pocket knife to be unobtrusive, and this is.  Yet it is still hand sized with a 'full size' blade of 3 inches.  (Normally, my 'office' knife is half that...)  A simple single blade, too, helps keep it compact.  Really good for the less permissive environment like the office.  It looks like a pen, and it sit in my pocket with my Lamy Al-Star.

It looks like another pen.  If a co-worker asks what it's for it's to open envelopes. 

I have been a fan of French Opinels since my boy scout days, and this one scratched a similar itch.  Simple and lightweight, yet not as bulky.  And the CRKT has one handed opening.

Price varies from $32 to $57, depending on the online site you go to.  I am very pleased with my purchase. 

Census Forms

I did my taxes.  Anyone get census forms, yet?  One federal chore out of the way, wanted to hit the next one. 

All the Preps

Like most of you reading this, I am a bit of a casual prepper.

I don't have a homestead in Idaho off the grid and self sufficient and ready for WWIII and then some.  That's not casual.

Nor do I have an oil rig off the coast to di-di to when the Zombacalypse happens.

But I am partway there.

If there was a Peking-Pox quarantine lockdown?  I could hole up for a goodly time, right now.  Like, boom, don't leave my house for a month?  Ok.  No grocery runs, just like now.

It wouldn't be fun.  No sir.  Especially if the utilities fail.  On lock down I'd fill every available container plus the bath tub with water.  Work as normal as long as the water flows out the tap.  Electricity would be bad, but doable.  I won't freeze without the furnace.  If the gas stopped, I can cook a bit on scrap wood.  Without electricity or internet service, that'd suck for information and entertainment.  Especially information.

But a lockdown would prolly keep the utilities up.  At least the first month.  And this COVID19 doesn't seem severe enough to kill the utilities.

So why lockdown?  It'd be a serious response, but it would truly slow the spread making it possible for hospitals to keep up with the cases on hand.  I don't believe we will get to that, or officials will make this happen.  But if it did, and there was cooperation and compliance?  It might work.

But there is no training and infrastructure to make it work.

"You work for the power company, this doesn't apply to you, do to work.  You cops, too, go to work, and somehow stop the non-essential folks and get them to do home and lockdown without catching anything from them.  And you non-existent as of yet new aid workers go to houses dropping off food and medicine for folks that aren't prepped as well as T-Bolt, meaning most of them."

I mean, it is easier to order stores and restaurants to close under penalty of law, that'll keep that incentive to go out.  Well, out to them.  You'll see folks eventually think about wandering around in groups and taking from others weaker...  UGH!  Bad bad!

Asian Ague

If a politician is scolding someone that calling the Big Kahunavirus "Wuhan Flu" is somehow racist, that pol is in the pocket of the CHICOM gummint and is assisting with their propaganda like a good little employee. 

Bernie Can't Win

He's like Romney.  But more indignant and Marxist.  Bernie has no fight to him.  Stalin laughs at Bern from deep inside hell.

Don't believe me?  Watch the next debate.  It's just Bern and Biden.  Bernie is way behind in the polls.  And Joe's cheese is slipping off his cracker...

Bernie really wants to be president, and not roll over again, he has to go for the jugular.  He has to provoke a bad scene where Biden looks like a drooling idiot, no longer up for the job.  He has to pressure him to the worst flubbing yet of Biden's 2020 campaign.  That way Bernie looks like the only Democrat choice.

What do you think Trump will do to Biden in the debates?  The same thing.

If Bernie does a grow a pair at the next debate, and it has to be then or never, he is running out of time.  He is not without other challenges he has to fight for.  The DNC doing convention shennanigans to push Bernie out and put a Dark Horse candidate in instead.  Like Oprah, or Hillary, or Michelle.  Bernie has to get through that.  Then he has to get through Trump.

Biden then DNC then Trump.  It gets progressively harder.  And I don't think the fire is there in his belly to even knock Biden.

(Heck, there not even BE a final debate, now.  Too late.)

Mitt, Hillary, Warren, Bernie... they all had policy ideas on how they would run things and told people about those policies and thought they'd get votes on quality of the stuff that would happen when they won.  Policy is not politics.  You gotta win first.  Obama knew that.  W knew that.  Clinton damn well knew that.  Reagan knew that.  Nixon had to learn.  Oh, you know LBJ knew it.  And JFK.

Goldberg, Ford, Poppy, Mondale, Dukakis, Kerry....  Didn't have the killer instinct.     

People Remember Roof Koreans

First of all, another race story.

Asian-Americans Terrified of Coronavirus Backlash Stock Up on Guns

Presumably an American sub-population that didn't have lots of guns already.  You'd never see a headline of "Hillbilly Rural White Americans Terrified of Coronavirus Backlash Stock Up on Guns". They already have guns. Maybe "Hillbilly Rural White Americans Terrified of Coronavirus Backlash Stock Up on MORE Guns". But then where do I find the money for sh!t-tickets? I'm not using corncobs like during that last terlet paper panic. No sir.

I joked with a co-worker that now is a good time to get a newspaper subscription.  Not for the news.  For the extra paper.  Then I saw in the news that some Australian paper is including extra blank sheets in their paper for just this reason.  Remember, when the stack of papers is taller than you, you are hoarding.

Anyway, back to the pepping Asians.  Why NOW the run on firearms?  I mean, welcome to the party and all...

"They worry about a riot or maybe that people will start to target the Chinese."

Ahh. Like 1992 Roof-Koreans.  Understandable.

If I get Come On Eileen, Covid-19 flu, I'm not really gonna blame Asians.  Except maybe the CHICOM gummint for poor procedures.  But I can't riot and target the Chinese gummint from here.  So, I won't be confusing my Vietnamese lawn mowing guy for a Chinese rogue virology department.

But I'm not everybody.  I don't think ornery Americans tend to scapegoat like this as bad as other countries, but sure, it does happen here, certainly.  Better safe than sorry, I totally get that.  Deter them Orneries, too.

Note, the link story is in southeast California.  Oh dear.  California regulations are onerous when you need a gun today, aren't they?  More voters discovering this for the first time.

I guess if it gets bad in Maryland I might see this here.  Good good, I have a pistol on consignment at my local gunstore.

Playing 3D Chess?

Well, no, not always.  A lot of times the opposition to Trump just plays itself.

Democrats Block Measure To Prevent Terrorists From Working At TSA

At the bottom of it, I am sure in some folks minds, is "Hey, we're blocking this, and if God forbid there is a terrist attack, well, Trump is in charge of TSA, he is closer to it than we are, the buck stops with him, HE will get blamed, Victory for Biden and Schumer"

Cruise Ship Passengers, Some Infected, Flown Back to U.S.

At the bottom of that, I am sure in some folks minds it is, "Hey, Trump wouldn't have let that happen, but if God forbid that is blamed for COVID19 spreading in the , well, Trump is in charge of CDC, he is closer to it than we are, the buck stops with him, HE will get blamed.   Victory for Biden and Schumer."

Except Trump didn't invent the #Resistance.  They invented themselves, and we quite vocal about it.  For years folks have been saying there is too much on .gov's plate and they have exceeded the Peter Principle.  And Trump runs and governs on streamlining regulations.

If you argue that Trump's executive branch is incompetent he just points to that and is immune.  The resistance sabotage and/or incompetence isn't in Trump, it's on them.  He CAN'T have a Katrina moment.  It's impossible.  It's not 3D chess, it's a gift from the other side.  They've sacrificed their queen for a pawn.  To mix the metaphor, they painted them ownselves into that corner.

Oh, if something goes really well, he can take credit for that, tho.  Brilliant.

Trump makes his enemies look ridiculous, but his enemies do a good job making themselves look ridiculous.

Now if he'd just throw us gunnies a significant policy victory bone.  Maybe the GOP gets the house, too, and by this time next year.  Who knows.

"I can't believe how incompetently the Trump administration is handling the coronavirus. This wouldn't be happening if the government ran healthcare!"

— It's still 2016 apparently (@jtLOL) March 7, 2020

New Jersey

You know, New Jersey could make all their gun laws a lot less complex if they just pass the one law they really mean, and get rid of all the others.   Because that's what this comes down to.

No guns for black people.

It's what this is, isn't it?

Lately they tack on "and you icky unwashed from the hinterland" but that's just tacked on. The part New Jersey gummint types really care about is the black people.

Injusticehttps://t.co/l2So3pN1pc

— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) March 7, 2020

This country need federal civil rights intervention.

Well this thread sounds too reasonable

Where's the fun in that?

If we reduce the spread, even if we ultimately have the same total number of cases, we 'flatten the curve,' which means that, at any given time, our health care system can cope with the COVID-19 cases, hopefully. 2/ pic.twitter.com/PlaRIyc94r

— Nicholas A. Christakis (@NAChristakis) March 3, 2020

Twitter isn't ALWAYS a dumpster fire

The best thing that’s happened to me on @twitter ⤵️ https://t.co/GDpJIosetO

— Ben Steel (@steel) March 5, 2020

Please be true.

Prepared

Freeze-dried food is the new .22LR ammo. https://t.co/CDc7pxBsK5

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) March 2, 2020

Lucky for me I have 2 dozen face masks and 2 dozen Mountain House freeze dried meals.  I am SET.

Wait, I should go buy a few dozen cases of wine....

Thursday the grocery was low on TP and paper towels, but not out. No hand sanitzer, but disinfecting wipes and bleach and rubbing alcohol was available. I think we are through that panic until a big wave strikes. In a few weeks you might get Prime deliver Purell. (Little tip: Maybe You Touched Your Genitals hand sanitizer is just relabled hand sanitizer, and has been freely available this whole time.)

Ooooo...

This is right in my wheelhouse.  So to speak.

I want to see this USN war movie more than I want to Top Gun 2.

Gov. Larry Hogan...

Is getting some bipartisan movement with his crime bill.  Gun laws that aren't execrable, target actual criminals, and are bipartisan.

PRESS RELEASE March 4th, 2020

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Hough Shepard's Bipartisan Effort to Pass Gov. Hogan's Anti-Crime Agenda

(Annapolis, MD) People say they want politicians of different parties to work together to solve problems and today we did just that in Maryland. I was proud to work together with Republican Governor Larry Hogan, Democratic Senate President Bill Ferguson, and Democratic Committee Chairman Will Smith to pass critical public safety legislation.

Tonight, the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee passed by a 10-1 bipartisan super-majority Senator Hough's legislation, Senate Bill 35, which closes a loophole that let drug dealers who use guns get lesser sentences.

Amended on to that bill are major portions of Governor Hogan's Violent Firearms Offender Act of 2020, which does the following:

-Making theft of a firearm a felony -Enhanced penalties for giving someone a gun to commit a crime -Giving prosecutors more tools to crack down on firearm offenders -Enhanced penalties for criminals who are caught repeatedly carrying guns
In addition, the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee in a bipartisan vote also passed legislation by Sen. Will Smith (D-Montgomery County) and Sen. Antonio Hayes (D-Baltimore City), which requires regional policing plans and more law enforcement resources for Baltimore City.-

It really is, tho.

I’ve had that. It’s no joke man. Allicobrabeebellyitis.

— Hellsite Denizen (@HellsiteD) March 5, 2020

Civilized Warfare

It is said that WWI ended so-called civilized warfare.  The Christmas Truce and  football games was no repeated the following season

But even at Verdun, one side refused to shell the road of the other sides supply lines.  It was just the ration train, was the justification.  Soup and bread and drinking water.  It would just bring reprisals if you did.

That's sort of the point.  Stop the logistics, stop the resistance, end the war.

But throughout it was like an understanding.  Here and elsewhere.  Don't rock the boat and make it hard on the other side. It just invites retaliatory misery.  But could extra misery have ended the horrible war 2 years sooner?

Ding Dong

So, apparently, my doorbell's batteries died. 

How do I know this?  I ordered Chinese food and the guy had to call me in order to say he had arrived. 

3 D-Cells later, up and running.  Hmmm.

I must have missed a lot of solicitors from before because they ring it every day it seems now.

Well, I happen to know a good solution and easy way to return to bliss.

And Census takers should be nosing around sometime soon...

Advertisement

Automotive supplies?  Why that looks like...

Oh, I'm not falling for THAT one, ATF!

Look at this monster

Look at it.

Severe tumblehome build for stability.  That means fat at the waterline, thinner at the gunwhale.  I like the lines, personally, but not so stable if you have some flooding damage.  12 inch main guns, but the think is bristling with varieties of arms.  Five+ sizes?  All before the HMS Dreadnaught changed the paradigm.

I love them.  But I'd hate to fight them.  Against other ships, much less Martian tripods.

Not my favorite book.  Too much anachronistic bits just took me out of the story.  But it's about HMS Thunder Child, mentioned in one page of War of the Worlds, and expands upon it's story.  I will admit the book gets a bit better in the middle.  Starts weaker, ends stronger.

Red Dawn

pic.twitter.com/PHIYp09SAJ

— The Engine (@ngintx) March 1, 2020

Revolutions

That History of Rome stuff I was into weeks back?  That was because of a podcast by Mike Duncan called...  The History of Rome.

His next set of history podcasts is on Revolutions.  Did the British one (the 1600s one, revolution, not the fake Glorious Revolution.)  The American one (good talk, but I was up to snuff on that one) and I just finished the French one.

Now I knew broad strokes of the English and French revolutions, but the podcast was a better way to get a more detailed survey of both.  Hammer down a lot more details. Put in perspective the Napolean timelines, etc.

Which is great about podcasts.  This Mike Duncan guy reads the books, and I get an oral Summae.  For a subject I like or am interested in, but don't want to get into the weeds on via the texts.

Speaking of texts.  It's hard to pick the texts to get the proper deep dive.  What is crap?  What is too simplified?  Too pop?  What is good but painfully burdensome to trudge through.  Duncan has a method of how he does it.  It's partly reading the bibliographies of books on a single subject first.  You get what THOSE people turned to, and you notice commonality so you figure out the important stuff that way.  He even did an episode on how he does it.  Twenty seven and a half minutes into the 250th episode, quick and dirty: "Google the topic you want to study and add the word HISTORIOGRAPHY." You get the OGRAPHY or the HISTORY that way.  Bam.  Good start.

Doesn't work perfectly for everything.  John Moses Browning Historiography, or Gunsmithing Historiography does return some interesting links, tho...

It's a good way to fill a commute.  But it does take me away from monitoring the kookies on NPR.  

The best is yet to come, however,  I am REALLY weak in my knowledge of the Haitian Revolution, the 1848 stuff comes soon after and I have may 3%.

But I like listening to History lectures.  If you do, or you have an interest in one of his subject, Duncan is a decent lecturers.  I've had much worse.  He is like a college professor, and could be one with THESE lectures.  All he'd need to add to his syllabus is required reading to go along with it, and tests to match.  And YOU'D have to take notes.  You don't here.  There is no test, and you still learn stuff just like college.  All the good parts of history class, without the onerous parts. 

Now lectures might not be your thing and you'd hate this.  But if you don't already hate history lectures, mainly because of boring lecturers, this is not it.