“We’ve been looking for the enemy for some time now. We’ve finally found him. We’re surrounded. That simplifies things.”

Lieutenant General Lewis Burwell “Chesty” Puller

So was the message by the Obama administration regarding cleanup help for the oil issues in the Gulf of Mexico.

“We don’t need no help from you cheeseheads!”

Besides, the Jones act prevents it. And Mr. Obama isn’t willing to waive the rules for an unprecedented situation.

So how many miles of beaches have been damaged, how many acres of marsh have been contaminated?

Look: I blame BP for the issue. But the FedGov should remove bureaucratic roadblocks and help with the mitigation of the damage.

And that they haven’t done.

So are you an energy pig?

Or are you a hypocrite? ( like Al the Gore and his ilk)

“cause if you decry the drilling which has led to this “disaster” in the gulf, yet you use petroleum in any way (gas to heat your home, gasoline to run your car/transportation, eat anything which requires energy to transport or fertilizer, Was your food grown locally? was it harvested by farmers using  horses? Was it delivered by a man on a horse? Or was it delivered using a truck?  How about your clothes? Were they made locally or did they arrive by truck.?….).Well, read THIS…. Me, I am part of the problem. Unashamedly. While my carbon footprint is about 1/3 of most city dwellers, and 1/4 that of the average suburban dweller (seriously), I am still part of the problem. I like the easy life that oil/petroleum brings.

So rather than bitch about the “Evil Big Oil Companies”,  stop or reduce your use of energy, and consumption of petroleum products (this includes plastics and such….). Or accept that your bitching makes you a hypocrite.

As I said, me? I am part of the problem.

Natog gets it.

Do you?

Read his post, think about  it. Plan.

Or not. And then deal with the lack of planning.

Or hope someone else pays for your lack of planning.

lunch with friends.

Thanks Brigid. (and yes, the food tastes as good as it looks!) Venison pasta with BREAD baked with Rosemary…..DAMN, it was good.

Good to talk to you OG.

(god, I love name dropping!)

and met, for the first time, Rich.

Good food, good treats, and, of course, great conversation.
Who could ask for a better way to spend a Sunday?

I am better for the experience. 

66 years ago today, Allied soldiers began storming the beaches at Normandy, in the quest to oust Germany from France.

Betcha few Frenchmen born after that day care very much. I doubt that many who are adults today care that nearly 10,000 soldiers were killed or wounded in order to make sure that the French didn’t grow up speaking German.

Remember those who were lost.

The right to free speech does not, as it happens, include any guarantee of an appreciative audience. Heh.

I have seen this guy at the gun show as well and wondered the same thing. It puts a lie to the statement that we gun folks are racists. This guy induces .000001% of the attendees to come any closer to his table than is necessary to pass by to other tables, yet he is there each and every show…..One wonders why?

It is his right to believe what he wishes, but it is also the right of each attendee to ignore him as much as possible. And, of course, we do.

So I had to go to a bigger Post Office today…Normally, I go to a post office in a small town, where they are polite and courteous and efficient.

Not so in this larger post office. There were three people at the windows. A line 15 people long, which grew quite a bit while I was in it. All due to the lack of efficiency of the 3 postal workers.

I’ll list them as the dwarf, the gimp and the corpse.

I had a great deal of time to observe these three as I spent 20 minutes in line.

The gimp was just that, a polite man who was frail, appeared to be of indeterminate gender (although the slight beard indicated a likely male). He was soft spoken and, as I said, polite. He did not have a sense of urgency. If I had to guess, I would say that he was recently recovered from a serious car accident. Sadly, he was the most efficient of the three, moving at nearly half speed as compared to a person employed in a non government job.

 The dwarf was just that, a dwarf. With terribly arthritic fingers. So terribly arthritic that she was unable to input information correctly despite trying multiple times. God only knows how many pieces of mail are now labeled incorrectly and will spend the next week wandering about the country in a vain search for their destinations. I am fairly certain that she was standing on a box behind the counter. Apparently, the concept of dong more than one thing at a time was beyond her comprehension. Generally, it took 2 trips to get anything done.

Lastly, we had the corpse. Wavering somewhere between unconscious and dead, she was barely able to find the stamps or to take packages. Her speed was something slightly faster than a corpse, but not quite to the level of a coma patient. It was apparent that she was aware that her retirement date was (at that time) 9 years, 4 months, 2 weeks, 4 days, 1 hour and 16 minutes away, and she was unwilling to work any harder than she had to before that time came.

These folks were like caricatures of government workers come to life. 

God help us if the Obamacare system hires folks like this. People will die waiting in line. Babies may well be conceived, gestated and delivered while their parents are waiting for health care decisions.

Why do government service jobs collect such inefficient misfits? 

Tam does a compare and contrast,

and Borepatch has commentary on where we are going.

I think both are encouraging. While things may not be great for a while, the facade is crumbling and things will get better eventually.