I'm still swamped but it's easing up a bit. I decided to send someone's kid(s) through college drop my bike off at a shop to have the rest of the mechanical work done to it instead of knocking it out myself (though I'm still going to figure out how to rig a mount for long gun cases around the luggage racks.). Work has only required a little less than 50 hours of my time this week, but a co-worker is expecting a baby so I don't see such a leisurely pace continuing for long (I blame the government shutdown of course). I'm still months behind on personal projects (loading ammo, a little 'smithin', running away from home, etc.) but hopefully this weekend I'll make a dent in some of that. Course now that the .gov is only running at 80% to 87% capacity, I may have to resort to spying on myself should the phone ring. In the meantime, here are some things I found interesting enough to save.
Denver PD response times ain't getting no better.
Colorado GOP will attempt to repeal gun owner laws passed in 2013. Hopefully they won't stop there, though with Bloomie the Hut still owning a majority of the assembly it'll be tough to get enough votes to override Bloomie's veto.
Colorado has two new senators as of yesterday. Hopefully the dems will realize why that is and start repealing laws (as well as showing some contrition for their attitudes) accordingly.
Chewbacca 1 TSA 0. Yet another reason the TSA should be disbanded and anyone convicted of having received a paycheck from that agency should be imprisoned.
The brokest nation in history can't afford to raise the debt ceiling.
Strippers sue club for upholding their employment agreement. The gist is stripper don't get paid per hour by the club - they subsist solely on tips, and have to split a portion of those tips with the bartenders, bouncers, etc. Also they're charged nightly for the shifts they take (similar to booth rent at a hair salon).
I assumed it was part of being a musician (though it's continued since I hung up my axe) but I've had friends and acquaintances in the adult entertainment business since I was 15. A lot of them were (and are) strippers. To keep it brief, I'm not a fan of strip clubs, but A: the ladies choose to work in that profession in that environment - they contract to do this sort of work, and B: while some markets are slow, I know in myrtle Beach, S.C. the dancers are still walking away - after tipping out, club rent, etc. - with $1,000+ per night during the season and in Denver, Colorado a Friday or Saturday still yields $300-$500.
As I said I don't really like strip clubs for a multitude of reasons, but using the courts to make a club pay a dancer to work for them when the club has upheld their end of the deal (that they and the dancer agreed to) is unethical.
The state legislature in NC is trying to take away control of Charlotte-Douglass International Airport away from the city of Charlotte. I haven't kept up with NC politics as much as I should have, but being a native of Charlotte, methinks the legislature smells money and power. Plus Raleigh has been successfully infiltrated by hordes of Yankees (and not the good kind either - I mean the ones who screw up a place, like NY or Mass, then abandon it only to try to screw up the place where they're seeking refuge from their destructive culture by making it just like the place they left.) and I fear parts of the Eloi culture have made inroads. I'd hope Charlotte retains control if that was the only option. Of course, completely privatizing would be best.
In Florida, a group is giving away shotguns at no cost to qualifying residents.
Dog vs. mountain lion. Almost. A guy and his dog went hiking. The dog was unleashed and the guy was unarmed. They stumbled upon a mountain lion. A big one. That was crouched, roaring and hissing. The guy took some pics and video. Only later did he realize how helpless he would have been if the kitteh had pounced, and still didn't mention (or the news channel edited it out if he did) that maybe he oughta pack a hog leg next time he tiptoes through the tulips.
I forget where I stumbled on this, but here's a list of 9 potential mass shootings that were stopped by a non-government owned firearm. I was disappointed that they didn't mention Mark Alan Wilson.
Maths R Hard. "Shutdown will cost u.s. economy $300 million a day". (note that's a bloomberg link - such foolishness is to be expected form any enterprise Bloomie the Hut runs.) Governments do not create wealth - they typically steal it. The money that's bemoaned to be lost by non-essential federal public servants was taken from the economy in the first damn place with nothing of value exchanged (see that "non-essential" part). So according to my calculator, having the guy gal non-gender-specific-person-being that used to tweet for the FLOTUS scale back on the triple frothy cappuccino latte smoothie w/ non dairy organic creamer at the local Starbucks ain't exactly eroding my consumer confidence, since I didn't want to pay for his/her/their overpriced coffee-ish drink to friggin' begin with. Sadly, this won't benefit the economy like it should, as they furlough is only temporary, and even if it was permanent the bastards in congress would find more ways to increase the budget, rather than decreasing it (as it should be along with giving me my damn money back and apologizing for the inconvenience).
(If I recall, [and I wonder if Colorado democrats cringe every time they heard that phrase...] Will Rogers once said "Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for". That was without knowing that the Office Of The First Lady of the united States was paying someone to tweet "Drink more water!" on a daily basis.)
Rep. John Larson (D-Plorable) went on a scathing tirade about the .gov being kinda sorta not entirely open for business. A note to public servant Larson - the country and the government are two entirely different things. For example, in the country, we don't usually pay other folks to tweet for us, nor do we defend out texting, tweeting and web surfing whilst on the job. Also, public servant Larson, you said that we, the American people, deserve to have their government open. Why? What did the American people ever do to you?
Posted by Publicola at October 4, 2013 02:35 AM | TrackBack