03312013 View From The Porch

Foreboding news over the weekend here.

Happy Easter

Despite all we have to be depressed about, Easter heralds God's triumph over the trivialities of this existence.  I truly wish that come tomorrow at least for a day, I can forget about the impending train wreck we are heading for.

However, I'm doubtful, I am becoming increasingly pessimistic about our future. As he usually does, the Diplomad eloquently sums up pretty much how I feel about unfolding events.

The western world continues on a totally unnecessary suicidal path. What was once common sense is no more. Everywhere one looks, the insanity is evident: The refusal to deal with real issues and the insistence on taking up marginal or even totally extraneous issues instead is stunning. Here in the USA, our economy remains stagnated for no logical reason. Instead, for example, of freeing up the exploitation of our vast fossil fuel resources, we continue to push money at phony green industries, throw road blocks in the way of our private sector's ability to get those fuels, block importation of fuel from our friends in Canada, and blather on and on about discredited, voodoo science global warming. Our leaders rulers take lavish vacations on our dime, push ruinous tax and spend policies, including the criminally destructive Obamacare, and avoid cutting even a bit of our bloated spending. A hypothetical "threat" to reduce ever so slightly the rate of growth in spending is declared disastrous and the equivalent of a nuclear attack. We get wrapped up debating gay "marriage," and "control" of mythical "assault" weapons when neither of those topics has any bearing on real issues facing the vast majority of real Americans, as opposed to Hollywood's fake Americans.

The entire post is worth reading. 

And if you think for a minute that it can't happen here, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you, for gold only, of course.

Finally, I'll leave you with this.

And this, to not end on a down note....

 

London Calling...

Possibly the westernmost phone booths in the United States, possibly North America.
Dutch Harbor, Alaska.
Anybody got a dime?

Owning A Home

= Never Ending Chores

A photo from a past project.  Presently, I've just finished remodeling our daughter's bedroom. Between work and work related travel.  On the plus side, it's off to Dutch Harbor today. I tried to get out last month but the weather wasn't cooperating. We should have better luck today. Though I'll be very busy, with luck, I can maybe get some good photos to post.

Concourse C

Anchorage airport

Breezy

Last week's trip to Dutch harbor didn't happen, unfortunately. After spending several hours at the airport waiting, the flight was cancelled due to weather. So, Friday morning, I find myself up at Deadhorse (Prudhoe Bay) instead.

Temperatures ranged from -30 to -25 and the wind was steady at around 25mph with frequent gusts well beyond that. I was to go up early, overnight and come home on the following evening's flight.

Again, due to weather, we were almost two hours late departing from Anchorage and I didn't get home until Sunday afternoon.

Sometimes, in our modern world we forget just how fearsome nature can be and that for all of our technology, we're not really in charge. This image doesn't really convey the intensity of the cold, but I'm posting it because the flag shows how windy it was.

Out to Dutch Harbor for a couple of days. If I have time and the weather cooperates, perhaps I'll get some good pictures.

Downtown Fairbault, Minn.

 

What Difference Does It Make?

Please take a moment to see what difference it does make....

Also from The Other McCain

The Chicago Way

Posted on | January 31, 2013 | 8 Comments and 10 Reactions

Her name was Hadiya Pendleton and she was only 15 years old:

The city’s 42nd slaying is part of Chicago’s bloodiest January in more than a decade, following on the heels of 2012, which ended with more than 500 homicides for the first time since 2008. . . .
About three blocks from Hadiya’s school, she and a group of 10-12 young people, including members of her volleyball team, had taken refuge under a canopy at a park to avoid the rain Tuesday afternoon. A man climbed a fence behind the park, ran at the group and started shooting, and then jumped back over the fence and into a white Nissan. The group scattered, but Hadiya was shot once in the back and a teenage boy was shot in the leg.
Police said Hadiya had no arrest record and there was no indication she was a member of a gang or was the gunman’s target. In fact, McCarthy said there are no indications that anyone in the group was gang-affiliated. He said the police suspect that the gunman may be a member of a gang that considers the park its turf and that he mistook somebody in the group as someone from an encroaching rival gang.

Chicago has very stringent gun laws. What Chicago doesn’t have is economic opportunity, honest government or enough law-abiding citizens to keep the peace, so that neighborhoods are effectively ruled by gangs like the Satan’s Disciples and the Latin Kings, who terrorize and intimidate residents. Witnesses will not testify against the gangsters, and the police — to the extent that Chicago police are not entirely corrupt — are unable to apprehend or effectively prosecute these criminals.
Hadiya Pendleton was murdered about a mile from the $1.6 million-dollar home that Obama purchased in a corrupt deal with Tony Rezko.
This is the future of corruption and criminality — “The Chicago Way” — that Obama is bringing to America as a matter of policy.

Finally, please check out this link of a 'legal' alien who became a naturalized citizen and his views on gun violence. 

WWII Veterans Memorial

A photo of the WWII Veterans Memorial in Mohican State Park in Ohio. I took this while visiting this past November. It was built and is maintained by the Ohio Federation of Women's Clubs and serves as a memorial to those who gave their lives in defense of their country in WWII. A beautiful little building, situated on a small ridge.

I saw this link over at Improved Clinch, during Bush's administration the fever-swamp left accused the Bush administration of all sorts of illegality. However, since Obama got elected, not so much.
Yet extra judicial killings of American citizens is more of a reality than it has ever been. See below.

James Taylor is Puke

James Taylor makes ok music. It's always been a little too self-absorbed, whiny, and self-pitying for my taste, but so it goes.  However, he has lately shown why nobody, and I mean nobody with an IQ larger than their shoe size should ever listen to what any singer/musician or actor has to say about anything serious. At the so-called inauguration, this genius was quoted saying, "...  we need to make some sacrifice[s] to our freedoms, if that’s the way to put it. We need to make some sacrifices to what we might want to have, in order to safeguard our children."

Here's one article about it. 

You go right ahead and give up your freedoms first bud. I plan to keep mine thank you very much.

Listen to the dummy...



One final word, please do listen...

As I have said here before, if you want to do something about the illegal federal attempt at curtailing American's second amendment rights, please go to this link by Ruger. It makes contacting your state and federal elected representatives easy. Via Instapundit.

Via Protein Wisdom...





And lastly, this. It's worth a few minutes of your time to read. Again, via Protein Wisdom