You'll find, as you go deeper down this particular rabbit hole, that guns cause friends...not crime. - Me

12/25/2014

Technology is wonderful, isn't it?

Think about it. I can sit at the house in my shorts and a t-shirt and send a message to a friend half-way around the world at the speed of light. Then (depending on the format) probably see an indicator while they are composing their reply. Once it is finished and they send it I get it immediately. Similarly here I can be sitting at work, as now, and compose a message to all of you and wish you all a Merry Christmas, without ever having met any of my fellows before. No need to, beyond adding a face to the screen name, or real name depending on everyone's individual tastes. Possibly to just share a personal conversation face to face and get an immediate response. Beyond that, oh well, no biggie. I never had many friends growing up out in the sticks like I did, now I have friends from coast to coast and beyond. So, thanks to all of you for another year on this big ball of dirt. Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah.

12/18/2014

Your enemy's OODA loop and you.

 The OODA loop, for those of you who might not know, is Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act. In essence it is the mental part of our fight or flight response. Anything you can do to disrupt enemy's is going to shift advantage in your favor. Anyway.

  I started having an e-mail conversation with a friend and fellow blogger earlier. (I won't name who.) Anyway, she had mentioned an exchange she'd had with a subject outside a court room. I thought that her reply was on the money and timely. I replied that my dad, being a corrections officer, has regularly gotten inside their minds and tinkered with their world view in similar fashion. At any rate, anything you do that disrupts the flow of events which your enemy/opponent has planned out (typically prior to making contact) is going to help. It isn't the be all end all of the encounter but every little bit helps. And surprise is a deadly weapon.

  For instance, a mugger steps out of an alley directly in front of you holding a knife, up and toward your face. What he expects to happen is for you to be shocked into immobility. What he doesn't expect is for you to turn that last step you were taking into a solid kick to his wedding tackle. He is now well outside his OODA loop. Matter of fact, his loop at this point more resembles a figure 8. The planned events didn't go the way he thought. You may now turn and run in the opposite direction and get to a location to safely call 911, or you have now given yourself adequate time to draw your CCW and you may now safely call the police to come collect the wayward miscreant. Or he may decide that without cowardice there is no such thing as courage and remember that he really should be singing hymns at church right now. Which ever way, you have now won this battle.

  Similarly if you have an unwanted verbal exchange with a half-melted, unlit candle of humanity. Anything you can say that is either off the wall or out and out hilarious is probably going to make them stop and have to think, or more often, them having to come up with something off the cuff (which doesn't work out so well when you are either slow to respond, or your IQ is around room temperature, even better is when it's both). One example of this comes from my dad. Him having to do random pat-downs of inmates on a regular basis is the start of some of his more hilarious stories. This one is no different.

Inmate: "So how does it feel to be touching a real man?"

My dad: "Dunno, go find one and I'll let you know."

Inmate: "Man, f*ck you."

My dad: "You're not my type. Go to your cell."

The inmate in question then became a subject of mockery to his fellows for sometime afterward. Mainly for being both new to prison in general, and my dad in particular. He also had the unfortunate luck of this happening in front of several of the "old hands" who have known Dad since he started. They both liked (as much as inmates like guards, but more importantly) respected him. They were not kind to that young man. The last dad had mentioned, the inmate was requesting a transfer to a different prison due to the ridicule centered around him not being a "real man." Sometimes it really sucks to be stupid. But then again as dad has always said, "If they were smart, I'd never meet them."

At any rate, always be ready to fight, even if it is just verbal judo. Because the best possible outcome is that you are able to walk away. Stay ready my friends.

12/16/2014

Tools of the Trade.

Low end tech and not much of it.




But make no mistake.


12/13/2014

So... I'm probably going to piss a lot of people off, but.

Obama was right about one thing, and one thing only. We do need a fundamental transformation in America. However, the one we need isn't what he and his socialist/anarchist colleagues had in mind.

1: Close the f**king borders. 

Simple enough but then you have people that complain about the cost of a head of lettuce is now going to be $20.00. No, no it isn't. Why? Because the pay stays the same for the work. "But Americans won't work for such low wages." You bleat. Yes, yes they will. Why?

2: End the welfare system, ENTIRELY. 

You want to eat, get a job or figure out how to produce enough food for yourself. And no, shoveling horseshit is not beneath you to do, nor is hauling slop buckets to the pig trough. I don't care that you were breast fed from the finest most voluptuous Scandinavian nannies until you were 20 when your parents finally had enough of your shit and tossed you out on your ear. Work or starve b*tch. But I also hear you say "But what about retirees?" I said end welfare, not Social Security. But, and this is a BUTT as big as Kardashian's. You get federal matching funds to what you paid in and no more. No pay in, no pay out. "But how is the government going to pay to match everyone's funds if everyone is working?" Simple.

3: All payments to foreign countries cease. All Foreign bases are closed and we don't step into shit that doesn't involve us unless a CLOSE ally is under threat and requests aid, which THEY pay for.

So simple a chimp could do it. But ACT NOW!!!! and get the added bonus of....

4: Re-instituted tariffs (and make em painful enough they'll question why they don't just do it here) on all goods coming into our market. 

We use the fact we are the largest single consumer market on this rock to our advantage. Quintuple the amount if the company ever operated inside the US and moved off-shore for cheaper labor, karma is a real b*tch. But you say, "That will drive the cost of everything we have to levels we could never afford." Maybe in a broken system but no. Because, being that I like companies competing for my dollar, any company that doesn't want to deal with having to lose money to our new tariff system will be given a tax deduction for moving production facilities to the US. And that's functioning production facilities not staff offices. However, only the goods they produce here are exempt from the tariffs and qualify for the tax exemption, not all their goods. So that part is a good win-win, the government gets money that it doesn't have to raise taxes on us to procure and We the People get a source of jobs.

Plus to insure its all not to big a shock to anyone, and to tap into my lonely-unloved-unused leftish side and prevent the inevitable $20b Christmas bonuses to top execs who're now within microseconds of retiring at the ripe old age of 29.

5: Price caps.

"But that's not capitalism." You're right, somewhat, that part isn't capitalistic but is a tactic that works in favor of the consumer, ie: you and me. It also solves the problem of price gouging, mostly by people who don't know how to manage costs properly and are only interested in maximum profits at the expense of everyone else, "Because f**k the little people, I'm getting a Porsche". Kinda like welfare queens in that regard. However, I never said they can't make a profit, only that the prices for goods and services will be tomorrow what they were yesterday. Up to them to figure out how to maximize profits in that whole grey area I left open for them. Especially since the .gov isn't going to be using banks or regs to shut down businesses it doesn't like. Namely because such an offense would be grounds for a firing squad at dawn, for both the politicians and the bank managers and anyone else involved that stood to gain anything. Anyway if companies are smart they'll cut the numbers of VP of Bullshit #1, #2 and #3 etc. that they are paying for doing absolutely nothing close to productive. I'm currently paid to sit on my ass in an office and do nothing. Why is my job not in danger? Simple, I'm a security guard. I keep them from losing money due to outside forces. Its cheaper to pay me than to replace computers, heavy equipment, tools and various and sundry other things that may grow legs in the absence of company personnel or even in the presence of company personnel. To get back to my main point, because companies obviously need a lesson where they are hemorrhaging money. Hint: it ain't the workers on the line or in the cubicle making $30k a year that would be bleeding them dry. Anyway moving on, I love me some competition so that brings us to...

6: Government grants on completion.

 Mostly because there is this whole risk/reward policy to get back into. For example: War material production. Used to be the government would send out guidelines for what they wanted, companies would risk money building prototypes for the .gov to test. Then a winner would be chosen and given a contract of a set amount for a certain number of complete units and sometimes a certain number of spare parts. Quite lucrative contracts too. However, usually a company wouldn't have the capacity to make what Uncle Sam wanted in the time allotted. Which is where the other companies in the process could recoup some of their losses. The runners up would sometimes be given a chance in adding to the production capacity. They get the plans and would build the winning design for a percentage of the contract. Not as lucrative as being the winner but they have to share that set amount of the pool and you also don't have entire companies folding because of one idea that while workable they still gambled on and lost, sometimes by a hairs breadth. However these situations didn't cost the taxpayer the current going rate of a $4B turkey or cancellation which seems to be the current DoD/private industry policy. As I stated, payment on completion with a fixed amount. You overrun the contract by a microsecond and we take the plans, tooling, completed components/units and hand em over to someone else to complete. Not to mention fine your asses for the full cost to us thus far for administering the trials, selection, and which includes the costs of taking all the stuff above and moving it around/storing it, plus interest. Not to mention firing, fining and incarcerating anyone at the Company/DoD/Congress/WH that allowed the BS to go on in the first place. Because after all We The People not The Company-in-Question nor the DoD/Gov are in charge of this military industrial complex and it is our money funding it, and I'd really like to see a 4+ billion dollar project show some sort of tangible result after 20 f**king years, even if it's just to watch it blow up a herd of baaaing future harem prospects goats in Buttf*ckistan. All of this is kind of a parallel to my next point.

 The biggest reason I can pin down that we have such stagnant development in medical tech the last couple decades (and probably beyond) appears to be due to the companies and labs doing the research are paid to produce nothing. They are given money without having to show any tangible results, only "progress toward a solution" or even worse "We developed a 'treatment' for ultra-deadly-virus-X2015Mk4 that only costs $mumble,000,000 per dosage and we hold the patent, So yay team us! Plus it only kills 3 out of 10 patients." I've got a simple solution to that problem, "I have a one time $2,000,000,000 check for the first person or persons who come out with a safe and effective CURE for cancer/AIDS/Ebola/insert random ailment here. You have 1 year to collect before the reward gets cut in half." I often wonder how many broken necks and sneaker fires would result in the rapid sprint for the finish line knowing this is the only money they are going to get for the project and every second wasted brings them closer to it getting cut by half, and then half again. That way they are looking at less money if they try to pull the same stall tactics as normal.

Either way, upon a solution and payout. The formula is then taken (remember it's already been paid for) and given to every supplier that can produce it and told "We'll cover production costs and assist in providing any raw materials to see to it that this gets to our citizens who need it in a timely fashion. And. Oh BTW, we know exactly what capacity you can churn out, so don't f**k with the numbers on it, unless you'd really like an open air jail cell in Alaska somewhere above the arctic circle for the next 400 years."

I haven't really found a solution to other, simpler medical costs other than to just do a massive price cut across the board and then cap them too. Then tell all the affected parties to "Pray I don't alter the plan further". Same with other areas that could use a monkey wrench to the testicles just for motivation. I'm pretty good with the whole Underpants Gnome system of;
Step 1:Collect underpants. 
Step 2:?
Step 3: Profit.
 
Anyway, just a mental exercise searching for workable solutions to current problems. Ones that don't involve immolating massive piles of our money and being told to look at the pretty colors that were "given" to us. You may disagree, that's ok, if you have a better idea please share. How the hell else are we gonna un-f**k this giant steaming pile?

9/03/2014

For the reason behind my last post.

And our loss of VFTP. Go over to RobertaX's blog and read through the comments here. This is a prime example of "delusional stalker-troll" in the wild. The ranting asshat can't get it through his skull that he isn't wanted around, well, anywhere.

And now it's time to not be nice.

  As everyone already knows, Miss Tam closed down VFTP thanks to a non-synaptic, syphilitic, fuck-weasel. While she only commented here a couple of times she was one of the reasons I started all this to begin with, me having been a humble reader of hers for sometime. In fact hers was the second comment I ever got here and that just impressed the hell out of me. It is also probably what kept me going at this despite being hit or miss on posting, since I lead a really boring life, however I rarely missed time reading. Even if I only had time for a couple blogs, Tam's was one of them.

  Now, to said shit-gobbler. Thanks for nothing you no-brained, dirt-sniffing, toe-jam eating, sack of snail-scrapings. I hope you slide down a hill of broken glass into a puddle of alcohol with your hair on fire, and a case of Mongolian herpes having a party in your sinus cavity you unbelievable fuck-stain. Thanks for nothing shit-licker, you cost us one of the best.

P.S. Go die in a crotch-fire.

P.P.S. FUCK YOU.

4/29/2014

Just an FYI.

  If you want to post a comment, don't be shy. I don't require verification nor do I moderate comments that are on posts newer than two weeks. I will however keep an eye on comments to see that they conform to my rules. I don't even mind differences of opinion as long as you can back up what you say and do so in a civil manner. I can be hateful and angry in my posts and often do, this is after all my little corner of the net. It is how I vent when I feel the need. However, this isn't just a journal for me. I do this as a way to connect with folks and seek others input on how I see the world. Granted I like some anonymity which is why I use the handle, It's a shortened version of one that I've used for over a decade.

                     Jeff W. "JRebel"

4/25/2014

I'll never understand women. Updated 4/27.

As some of you might have learned a week or two ago from my comment at Brigid's blog. I have an old girlfriend visiting from Europe. Fair warning. Some of the things I am going to talk about might make some of the more testosterone laden readers uncomfortable. Y'all are free to leave if you wish, no hard feelings.

For the rest of you, for the first few days that she's been here things were going along like we were still in high school and dating, except more talking. We couldn't seem to spend enough time with each other. Over the last few days though she's been keeping me at more of a distance, barely wanting to talk to me and not wanting to spend as much time with me. The only conclusion I've been able to arrive at is that something about me or my personality ticked her off on some level. Granted, I like to stay home and watch movies rather than go out partying. But last night I "thought" we had planned to go out to a movie, which coincidentally would have been our first "real" date, EVER. However she chose to go shopping with my sister and stayed gone too long for us to then make the drive to the cinema to see the movie.

Also rather than mention to me anything more about going out turkey hunting like she had mentioned earlier in the week. She never said more about it after that first time. I had told her I could take her out, that all I needed to do was pick up my tags. But her never mentioning more about it I didn't know what to do, I'm not a mind reader. So then she decided last night after not going to the movie that she would stay with my sister and brother-in-law and go hunting with him and one of our friends this morning.

I still have no clue how women think but I do however think they all hate me on a gut level and just enjoy seeing me suffer.

Update. 4/27.

We got things sorted out Friday evening. The miscommunication from earlier in the week for going hunting was the start of the whole deal. I was upset that she said nothing about going and then decided to go with my friends. No one had even thought to ask if perhaps I might wish to go along and it showed. She picked up on the fact I was upset and wanted to avoid me, thinking I was mad at her (that will never happen). But her avoiding me just made it worse. At least we got things sorted out Friday afternoon, then went to the Bar n Grill for dinner and drinks and had a great time.

But, I did tell her the one sure fire way to avoid this in the future. Something that has always worked before. Stop in front of me put her hands on my chest and ask me whats wrong. Granted this isn't something everyone can do when I'm upset. However, for the women in my life that mean the world to me, it's the fastest way to calm me down enough for me to talk. Why yes, I am a big brute but even I have a tender side. Even I have issues, I'm human, I get angry about simple things just as easy as I do the big things. But there are a few people out there that I love enough to do anything for. Even if I haven't seen them in over a decade. I'm going to miss her terribly after she leaves this evening.

4/12/2014

Cattle and Turtles and Horses and Tyranny. Oh My.

After the events of the past couple weeks I felt I would weigh in with a bit of natural science. This being learned by living on a farm, something the PETA panderers apparently never did.

My first point is this:

Their main argument seems to center around two species, one of them invasive to the region. The desert tortoise, and wild horses. Guess which one is the invasive species... Some have argued that horses are here naturally, they are not. The horses of today share a common ancestry from Asia, the Middle East and other parts of the Mediterranean region. The horses of Ancient America migrated to these other lands over the Bering Land Bridge or died off. Only to be reintroduced to the Americas by the Spanish. Which is why we still refer to the wild horses of the west as Spanish Mustangs, whether they have much in common with the old Spanish herds or not.

Now for my second point:

 My family has raised both cattle and horses on the same land. Now I'd like to point out this is in southern Missouri not the arid climes of the Southwest. As always I could be wrong depending on the location, but here it is anyway. I'd like to say, coming from my actual experience. Cattle are incapable of overgrazing land ahead of horses. Horses by nature of their articulating lips can draw graze into their teeth and are far more dangerous to future growth than cattle. We've grazed horses on ground that was eaten down by cattle to the point that they (the cattle) could no longer forage enough to continue on it and had to be moved to another pasture. Just ahead of us turning the horses into the former pasture to graze what the cattle couldn't for several weeks to a few months depending on time of year and rainfall. YMMV.

As for the tortoise, by the nature of natural selection of turtles and tortoise, they tend to outlive humans, cattle, horses and government agents (who I have doubts about being human), some have even outlived entire governments. While not the same species there is something to be said for living your life slowly. You don't have to fight your competitors if you can outlast them, and their great-great-great-grandchildren.

2/12/2014

Where there's Smoke...

There's barks and growling and general puppy mayhem.



This is Smoke, my new buddy. He's almost 3 months old. That massive bear paw and snout in the left of the picture is his brother. For reference, the board in front of them is about 5 inches wide. Smoke is the second smallest of the litter. I'm thinking we'll be going broke buying dog food sometime in the near future.

2/11/2014

My argument against Gun Control.

I know myself and just about everyone else in the gun blogging community have hit on all these points before in one way or another. However, they can bear repeating.

To the Gun Control Lovers:  
 
You teach others how to protest.
We teach people how to break up riots.

You take personal offense at being handed evidence that doesn't support your view.
We take evidence that doesn't support our view and drive aircraft carriers thru the holes in it.

You find a liar and parade them as a "bearer of truth".
We find "bearers of truth" and prove them to be liars.

You find useful idiots to prop up as heroes.
We have heroes that don't want the title.

You get a PhD in "Arts" and think you are a rocket scientist.
We teach PhD's in Rocket Science how to survive in the aftermath of an apocalypse .

And finally.

You tell people that they should surrender their dignity and be a victim.
We teach people how to make others surrender and not become a victim.