Detour Ahead

Here in the Land of the Free, the Oklahoma Highway Robbery Patrol just got a helping hand to further their efforts at collecting the largess of others into a more easily distributed package.

It used to be the crooks were the one's without the badges.

I hear New Mexico is scenic.

What Next, A Delivery By Tom Hanks?

I live at the rear of the apartment complex I have called "home" for the last 13 years.  Fed Ex and UPS delivery vans are a normal weekday occurrence.  I just saw the second Fed Ex van make a drop-off at this end of the complex today - and Saturday delivery isn't all that regular an event normally.

Hey Morons; It Ain't About You

In yet another display of You're Doing It Wrong,  more would-be political activists who apparently claim affiliation with Open Carry Texas have made a public nuisance of themselves in support of our civil rights.  Again.  

When members of Open Carry Texas visited a Sonic location, they were once again asked to leave or leave their weapons behind before returning.

“Man, we can’t do nothing!” one of the protesters says in the video. “I feel like I’m a kid again, my mom won’t let me do anything.”

Not true, Nimrod, she obviously lets you go out in public without appropriate adult supervision, and is pissing off the rest of Texas as a result.  Not to mention every other gun owner in the country.  Yes, openly carrying a firearm ought to be an ordinary and commonplace activity; the need to demonstrate for political change in that regard ought to make it glaringly obvious that doing so now outside of an obvious political demonstration setting makes getting to that point less likely, which would be the opposite of what you claim to want (because this apparently really does need to be pointed out to you).

Demonstrating in support of civil rights is a storied tradition in the US, one that is fraught with opportunity to play into the hands of those who wish to deny us all the opportunity to exercise our rights.  If you aren't willing to make the effort to find out the right way to go about doing that sort of activity, how about you just leave the guns out of the activity all together, huh?

The idea here is to positively influence those in a position to increase the opportunity all of us should have to exercise our 2A rights and nothing about you at all.  If you can't do it that way, stop doing it at all; you're only making things worse for all Texans by your insistent displays of childish tantrums because you "can't do nothing".  It's entirely about all of our civil rights, not whatever stupidity you want to get up to today.

Update:  Not quite sure what I did wrong in the original.  The links all work now and the text says what I intended.  I've got to start using the "Preview" function before putting stuff up for scheduled publication.

XP-less

Spent much of the day moving out of WinXP.  Well, sort of and mostly - if some casual passerby should happen to point out where/how I can put my established email account (Outlook Express) (don't judge) onto Win7, I could complete my escape and would snivel much less in coming days.  I resorted to the (temporary, damnit!) measure of moving most of my favorites/bookmark list onto the blog, so there's some added content to wade through.  Maybe you'll find something of newish interest.

It was a terrible day to go outside anyway.  Thunderstorm(s), inches of rainfall, the day's high temp was 51F and only got there after the wind dropped.  Can't say I'm actually excited to go back to work Monday, but my banker is looking less nervous and I have to pay for all this new technology I'm likely mis-using. 

Dum Ass Duz Dallas

From the Dallas Observer, the alternative newspaper/blog of events in-and-around Dallas County, comes this story:

"Two neighbors hear gunfire coming from the alley in the 10300 block of Plummer Drive. They round the corner to find a man with a gun standing over another man [subsequently identified as convicted tweeker and suspected burglar Jerry Wayne Hale]. When the neighbors announce that they've called 911 ..."

 That's not the dumb ass part:

"The first two officers to arrive saw [57 y/o William] Hall standing over a body. They order him to drop his gun, but he moves behind a privacy fence and out of sight. One thinks he sees him go into the adjacent house.
 

Three other officers, Joshua Wilson, Daniel Summers, and Julian McDaniel, arrive. They see the body lying in a pool of blood in the alley and move to provide aid. As they approach, one of the first pair of officers to arrive runs toward them, yelling that the gunman is behind him.

They turn to see Hall emerging from some overgrown bushes. They tell him to drop the gun. He racks the slide on the weapon and points it at the cops. Wilson, Summers, and McDaniel open fire."

And there you have it.  Even though the cops likely didn't roll up in their new armored assault vehicle (because a war on things-people-do-that-the-rest-of-us-really-don't-like-very-much is such a trivial and pointless distinction after all this time - crime always deserves the Catholic Option), stepping out of the bushes and racking the slide of your pistol is always the preferred option when approaching police.  Dumb ass.

In case there was any remaining question or ambiguity regarding the outcome of events:

"Both Hall and Jerry Wayne Hale were pronounced dead at the scene."

Clearly a failure to abide by gun control rules 2 and 4 because sometimes your target is willing and able to shoot at you!

Law? It's For The Little People

So, will this little incident disqualify Tarrant Co. from participation in the court jury process as it does for Texas citizens? Not only is this multiple counts of "fraud by check", it's serial attempts as well. As we all hear every time we appear for jury service, even instances when the check writer doesn't actually receive trial is the equivalent of conviction for the purposes of jury duty qualification.

So, is the court above the law it exists to adjudicate?

14F

That's what it read on the digital thermometer in my truck this morning on the way home from work. I don't suppose it's actually against the law, but it's definitely against The General Rule Of Life In Texas for it to ever get this cold! It's too damn cold to snow even. All the normal humidity has frozen out of the air and onto every available surface, to the point that spontaneous combustion is a real possibility if it warms back up enough for fire to actually ignite.

This just ain't right, I tell you, I stay in Texas because it's in the South; it's unconstitutional for the weather to get this cold here - or ought to be.

I'm trying to be flip about all this, but folks in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex area don't think it's so funny. So far power usage hasn't risen to this level in the N. Eastern part of the state where I live.

Global Warming My A$$

WTF? This is Texas; it's 21 Fargin' degrees outside!

Which is actually the start of a heatwave. Yesterday at this time it was 17 degrees and all of 26 degrees at 10:30 am!

Is Al Gore somewhere in the area?

Crap! It's Snowing

It's been cold and rainy most of the morning; a few minutes after local noon that changed to snow.

This should be good.

Let's see, yup it's already panic city out there (where it's not a completely outdated business model).

Remember, this is PC Texas, where everything is a threat that's not already a disaster.

Snark aside, I do expect the 5 minute commute to work tonight will run to more like 10 or 12 and the drive home in the morning will be by the much-less-steep-but-three-times-as-long back route. Still, even without Tamara Tyres (note the Roseholme Cottage spelling :)), the pick-up ought to do well enough with a bit of common sense applied to the throttle and brake pedals along with the ankle.

At least there oughtn't be much other traffic to waltz around.

What Border Violence?

Nice.

UTB/TSC Emergency Warning #5
The campus is closed and evening classes have been canceled today and Saturday, Nov. 6 because of gunfire taking place across the Rio Grande.

A fence is nice and all, but when your neighbor's troubles start shooting up your place as well that tends to make his business your business too. And when it comes to international border violations, the US Army and Marines do our business for us.

Just sayin'.


Via Instapundit.

Damned Global Warming

Here's something to look forward to:

Temperatures dropped into the upper teens and lower 20s this morning and even with abundant sunshine this afternoon, they will struggle to reach the lower to middle 40s. Tomorrow we will see increasing clouds with a chance of rain late in the day with highs reaching the upper 40s.

Things begin to get interesting tomorrow night. As bitterly cold moves in, rain could change to snow/sleet/or even some freezing rain before ending. Right now we are not expecting any accumulation as most of the moisture should be off to our east. During the first half of our Thursday we could see a few snow flurries as the arctic air moves in...but the big story will be the cold. Temperatures Thursday afternoon will drop into the lower to mid 20s with wind chill temperatures near zero at times. Wind chills could be quite dangerous through the day on Friday as NW to N winds continue to blow.

The coldest temperatures we have seen in nearly 14 years will greet us Friday, Saturday and Sunday mornings as lows bottom out in the middle, possibly lower teens. [local ABC affiliate KLTV]

Friday's projected high? 29F

I live in the South, dammit, the land of cotton not ice floes! Now, where'd I put that pea coat? Good thing I bought myself one of these for Christmas, eh?

Is Al Gore In Town?

It's Global Warming here now. It's not quite cold enough for it to stick to the ground yet, but the roof and car tops are all turning white. I doubt tomorrow will actually qualify as a Snow Day, but even an inch or two is unusual around here.

Happy Christmas to all two of you (assuming Alvis is still extant :)) and anybody else who happens to wander through.

The Apocalypse Descendith

School children all over this county are wailing in frustration at the mid-day hour appearance. Town drivers are appalled in their anticipation of the near-universal panic they can anticipate during their commute this afternoon and evening. Store shelves are emptying as I type.

It has begun to snow here in the proto-urban environs of E. Texas.

'Ware away, traveller.

Update: Apparently, this may be a somewhat more atypical event then I initially thought.

Retail Roulette - Updated

Tamara didn't say what the ammo situation is in the Indianapolis area (which is in itself a clue that nothing too dramatic has changed yet), but here in Tyler there seems to be a definite shudder of recovery underway.

I don't patronise the Mound of Goose Quills (with it's fluffed up price structure), but Academy had a modest selection of most handgun calibers that I could see. Other than .22 nothing that I shoot of course, but there seemed to be at least a few boxes in all the slots except for .45 and .380 (and like most general sporting goods retailers, no .32 H&R ever). Fortunately the Walton family corporate dynasty had a renewed supply of .45 for US$14.97/box of 50 rds, so I bought the limit (six boxes/day - keeps the trailer stalker depredations subdued). I feel better now; I'm back over my 1k personal supply baseline now.

An added note about my Academy experience; the store environment was pleasant and seemed well laid out and I bought a BLACKHAWK! Serpa holster for US$29.99 (a regularly stocked item to my surprise), but I have to say that the selection of footwear I found available was truly impressive - if you wear a "D" width shoe; otherwise you're barefoot. And, while I realise it was mid-afternoon on a pleasant Sunday, a few more employees actually working in the various departments instead of wandering around the store would likely contribute to an improvement on the P&L financial statement up to corporate headquarters.

So, the ammo frenzy seems to be coming to an end finally as does the dearth of guns from which to select. All in all, it seems the national economy is still swirling the financial-ruin-drain as strongly as it has for the entirety of my lifetime. The big flush is gonna happen sometime, I agree, but somethings going to have to shut off the water completely for it to end (to escape a really bad analogy). The trick, as they say, is not to panic 'till it does.

Updated to note that now she has said. With any luck, the fearful and the foolish will latch on to some other commodity or activity for a while instead.

Consumer Watch Update

I'm wondering what might be driving gas prices to rise by $.21 over the last 48 hours? Can't think of any particular incident that might be the cause.

Ike!

Noon having well and truly cracked, and being near to drowning in any case, I decided to make the commitment and get up out of bed. I've now had some coffee and a quick troll around some of the internet, and even a brief trip outdoors, and can report that I am in fact still upright and breathing on my own. As standards go, that's my personal measure for basic fitness. As long as I achieve that, how bad can things really be?

First off, a look at the most recent storm track map has Ike north of Huntsville - maybe up to Crockett (as near as I can tell) - and continuing on it's projected path in the general direction of Mt. Vernon, TX, at which point it's expected to hook right and head for Hoosierland (see this page for a map by counties of E. Texas). So, pretty much as expected there.

I've gone through a couple hurricanes before (one of them aboard the old USS Midway in 1972 - that one right through the worst effects of a major typhoon in the relatively shallow waters off the coast of some SE Asian country). My point being that I do have some personal experience with extreme weather. As Ike approaches the wind speed should increase, but as the storm continues to transit land it's overall severity should continue to decrease. It's a tough judgement call, but I'm beginning to suspect that sustained winds in the 50 to 60 mph range are the most likely possibility for us in the Tyler area. There is, of course, this brief National Hurricane Center guidance to counter any urge toward relaxation:

ALTHOUGH IKE IS SPINNING DOWN AS A HURRICANE IN TERMS OF MAXIMUM WINDS…UNFORTUNATELY…ATMOSPHERIC CONDITIONS WILL GRADUALLY BECOME MORE FAVORABLE FOR TORNADOES TO DEVELOP ACROSS MUCH OF EASTERN TEXAS…WESTERN LOUISIANA…AND ARKANSAS THROUGH TONIGHT. LOCALLY HEAVY RAINFALL WILL ALSO BE A THREAT…AS WILL CONTINUED HIGHER THAN NORMAL TIDE LEVELS ALONG MUCH OF THE WESTERN LOUISIANA AND UPPER TEXAS COASTAL AREAS THROUGH AT LEAST THIS AFTERNOON.

It's beginning to feel like an old Morton Salt ad around here.

As you can also no doubt tell, TXU has been doing a sterling job so far also. And on that note, I will post this and update later in the evening.

Update: It is now later. Looking at the most recent storm track map it seems Ike weakened even faster than anticipated which, I speculate, caused it to veer East earlier than anticipated. In the event, the storm passed to the East of Tyler rather than to the West which caused the windblown rain to quarter around the sky quite rapidly. Within the space of perhaps 45 minutes the rain went from a strong ESE direction to virtually due West. Fortunately the wind velocity dropped along with the directional change so electricity wasn't effected for more than a couple of brief occasions during the afternoon.

In any case, the storm front is well past Tyler and, at this point, I'm not at all certain Tam and Roberta X will even notice Ike's arrival in their neighborhood late tomorrow afternoon or early evening.

Vageries Of The Weather

It's always a bit hard to determine with any exactitude, but I suspect the many thousands who elected to "stand their ground" on Galveston Island would agree that Hurricane Ike has well and truly come ashore right about now.

Not that they'll have much attention to spare for such niceties of description. The storm surge and rising tide will have seen to it that they will have been doing very well indeed to still have their heads mostly above water by this point in the proceedings. See here for why and scroll down for more.

Here in Tyler (visualise basically a straight line drawn between Dallas, TX and Shreveport, LA on a map and Tyler is almost exactly halfway in-between the two along I-20), the wind is only occasionally gusting with upper winds moving bands of cloud across the moonlit night sky at a clearly visible pace. No rain as of yet. As can be seen from this NOAA storm track map, it seems the eye of the by-then probably very strong Tropical Storm Ike will pass just barely to the west of Tyler about 2PM today. Winds 65 gusting 75 with a possible six to eight inches of rain is nothing to make light of, but the speed of travel Ike is expected to develop as it progresses inland has the storm essentially clearing this portion of E. Texas by midnight or so Saturday night.

I expect electrical power will go out at some point during the morning and can only hope TXU (my electrical service provider) will be able to have it restored reasonably quickly. Their past performance here within the city limits has been quite good in this regard so chances seem good at this point. Not to worry, I have the latest offerings from Steve Stirling and Neal Stephenson to wend away the entirely-too-windy-and-rainy daylight hours with and an ample supply of battery powered reading light(s) as well.

Given the dietary restrictions my diabetes imposes upon me I've spent the last couple hours baking a week's worth of chicken and slicing it up for sandwiches. Not that I'm in even the remotest proximity to it you understand, but starvation isn't going to be a concern whatever Ike still has to offer. 3 dozen bottles of diet iced tea and several quarts of Crystal Light should keep the inside of me as well hydrated as the outside looks to get. So, I'm adequately well fed, well watered and (need I even say it?) more than adequately well armed. Presuming the entire building doesn't head for Oz (the kitties will not like that), the weekend promises to be pleasantly adventurous (you know, it's actually you involved, but the really deep shit part is still comfortably off in the distance - maybe you can see it if you squint real hard).

I hope the ladies of Roseholme Cottage will think kindly of me when Ike gives them a gentle (if still sloppily wet) kiss the following afternoon. :)

New Addition

Thought I'd take this opportunity to point out a new link in the blogroll: The B J Norris Blog. BJ shoots IPSC competitively and is (or has been) the National and World Junior Champion. Just for the exercise mostly, he also shoots Steel Plate, where he most recently split top honors with two members of the US Army's Marksmanship Unit Action Pistol Team.

Since he doesn't wear a hat when he's not shooting anyway (so it doesn't matter if you get a bit of a swelled head, BJ :)), the boy is scary good.

Having a conversation with him can be err, a bit disconcerting. By way of example, BJ has the habit of spontaneously assuming a shooting stance and practicing his draw-and-target-acquisition drill - without missing a conversational beat.

Let's face it, if the rest of us understood how champions really functioned there wouldn't be anything special about it would there? They have different, and so much higher, expectations than do the rest of us because they actually live what the rest of us only work or play at.

Still, it's a bit off-putting when you first experience the thing - he's really not throwing some kind of firearm-related spastic fit, it just looks that way until you've trained your eye to follow events closely enough to see what he's actually doing. Champion competitors really are different from the rest of us, I don't care how much they might like to think otherwise.

Oh, and that's the other point of this post; BJ works at Lock and Load so I get to take a regular customer's advantage of his good nature and expertise whenever he happens to be able to show up for work (ie: when he's not travelling to someone else's town to show them up instead).

So, when it comes to matters gun related on this blog, from now on you'll have to ask yourself, "Is it BS, or BJ?"

Good Luck in San Antonio next weekend stud. Show 'em how it's done.

Don't Mess With Texas

Perhaps more to the point, don't mess with Texans.

According to the Galveston County The Daily News newspaper, Galveston Island resident Sandra Tetley has well and truly gotten up the nose of the School Board superintendent and Board of Trustee's members. To the point that these worthies are threatening criminal action against Ms. Tetley for her and others exercise of public speech on a blog Ms. Tetley maintains.

Coming from California as I do, I'm well aware that other states support their public schools differently then we do here. Briefly, the local school district within which your real estate is physically located appraises your property and levee's that amount against your property each year. This is in addition to the county/state property tax also assessed against the property every year. There has to be some system in place to fund government endeavors and this one at least has the explicit intention of expending locally collected funds on local activities - like the schools. Well enough, I suppose ...

Whatever the system within which it exists, any bureaucracy is at best inefficient; the precise demarcation between that and outright criminality can be a fine one indeed and very difficult to determine to everybody's satisfaction. In addition, local entities that dominate the lives of their neighbors tend to excite heightened passions in the most convivial of times, how much more so when the school board and administrator are publicly accused of just such criminality as well as abuse of their authority? Add further to the mix their apparent attempt to intimidate an accuser into censoring herself and others and you begin to get an idea of how Texas politics works even on the sunny beaches of Galveston Island. No, that last was not a deliberate pun, sorry to say. It's not that I'm above throwing gasoline onto a fire, I just haven't figured out who all's tied to the stake so far ...

It's hard to tell at this remove just what evidence Ms. Tetley and others commenting on her blog might have to back up their opinions and suspicions. I think it obvious that they all are well within their rights as citizens of Texas and the USA to express themselves as they appear to have done so up to now on Ms. Tetley's blog. So far, all I've read there are a bunch of admittedly uncomfortable and leading questions regarding past actions of the board and superintendent. Sorry Charley, that's political speech at it's most basic; if you aren't prepared to deal with that level of critical discourse, you need to find a different avocation. Quickly. And since it apparently needs to be said, seeking civil and/or criminal action to suppress such discourse is a real good way to convince your other friends and neighbors that you need to be soundly encouraged to do just that come the next election, too.

Galveston Island, a great place to get away from school, but apparently not so good a place to go to school.

I've got 5 bucks says the GISD hasn't the stones to follow through on it's threat. Any takers?

What's wrong with people today?

Local news.

I'd seriously consider moving, but I'm fairly certain this sort of weirdness goes on pretty much everywhere. At least here it's easy keep an eye out for the loonies, they're so eager to self-identify.

Here's a tip, dude; get a pair of scissors and use 'em. Then you can submit your name for inclusion in the "self respect" and "dignity" categories instead.