A Tea Party in Tulsa

On February 27, the old country girl and I went to a tea party at veterans' park in Tulsa. Although Thursday had a high of 80, Friday, the date of the party, it was in the 20s and 30s. We are not people that go to protests, or even know how to protest. We showed up to see what was going on.

AM radio was there.

TV was there.

The old country girl was there. This whole thing was very much grass roots. It was put on by amateurs, as it should be. No professionally trained marxist/democrat community organizers; just grass roots Oklahomans, goose bumps and all. No bull horns, and the microphone didn't work very well. I counted about 250 - 300 people there, but I left an hour early, and people were coming and going all the time. It is possible that over the whole two hours, there could have been a throughput of up to 450 people. Of course, at least 50 of them were reporters and politicians. A good time was had by all.

In this weather, these were definitely NOT sunshine patriots, and not "neopatriots." These were the real thing. In Tulsa, it is hard to get this many people out for anything, even with advanced notice, except to gun shows and basketball games.

The Claremore Progress Bird Cage Liner

I have to retract my previous statements about the new editor of theClaremore Progress bird cage liner, about the idea that he stated that he wanted a newspaper that reported all sides of the news. So much for that. Mr. Randy Cowling is a typical liberal/socialist/democratic hack.

In the first three-fourths of his illiterate rant, he derides the new Republican majority in the Oklahoma statehouse for passing a new rule that legislations defeated in a previous session can not be reentered verbatum in a subsequent session. Seems like a good idea to me. It is only not a good idea if you subscribe to the techniques that all marxist gains are racheted. If they don't get what they want now, they keep going through it and hiding it in other bills until it passes. Then it can never be rescinded. However, he makes sure several times that it is the dirty dastard republicans that are doing this (Their first time in the majority in 100 years).

The last fourth of his rant is devoted to complaining about the proposition that a party (un-named) in congress has the gold and should make the rules, but another set of obstructionists are keeping the trillion dollars from being passed and denying good Americans jobs and housing. What a stench. I don't know whether the stench is from the Progress or is the smell from Ol' Will coming down from the hill to teach this POS editor how to run a newspaper.

Idol With Feet of clay

It looks like our new president Barak Obama (PBHN) is establishing his new administration, heavily incorporating hope and change. The hope is that every political crook in the country hopes to come to work for him; the change is what they don't have to pay their taxes. Maybe the new stimulus plan needs to give funds to these tax cheats so they can pay their taxes and get the good jobs in the Obama (PBHN) administration. This would also reduce the crime rate!

Since nobody reads this blog, these postings make me feel good. I don't really care how they make you feel, if you accidently stumble into here.

Groundhog Day

Today is groundhog day. Having been schooled in western Pennsylvania, this day has a sacredness all its own. After daylight this morning, I went out in the yard to consult my groundhog. The little critter showed his head, but before any decisions could be rendered, my English pointer Wellington snapped it up and ate 'um. After the last two ice storms and the AGW prevaricators, I'm not sure I want any more weather or climate predictions anyway.

September 11 Memories

This will be rambling post about my observations of events that happened seven years ago on 9/11/01.

Seven years ago, I was giving a poster presentation on standardizing electromagnetic sensors before the FAA-NASA-DOD Ageing Aircraft Conference in Orlando, Florida. The conference was the usual stuff with all the Government wonks wanting all the free handouts from the Peddlers. The talk of the conference was the recent appointment and promotion of a FEMALE officer to head up Air Force Labs (who was at the conference). Mind you, most of the attendees were first rate military and civilian scientists, but many were Logistics Officers (Loggies). Loggies are often the ones that give the Military Industrial Complex a bad name on the government side; none are combat command types.

The XXX intelligence people had a new, huge plasma flat screen television going off in the corner. Suddenly, there was a stir on the floor with people whispering to go look at the TV the XXXs had. There was a world trade center tower on fire. Immediately, the FAA folks made for the exits. The Military held a meeting and made some announcements to return to their units (just like in a John Wayne movie). Then they realized the Brigadier was a woman; to their credit, they followed the star, regardless of gender.. I will admit, for the most part, the most of the military instinctively turned to her for command. She contacted her chain and generally rescinded the return to their units directive, but they were to secure the conference. The universal thoughts were how we were going to get revenge or destroy the country that did this (except for one dude from Maryland that thought we should find out why they did this to us).

To provide relevant background, I was in the Army at Sheridan Kaserne in Germany when the SOFA was signed. I had been living out of a jeep for 3 months, in the winter, on c-rations and no shower. I had permission to return to Augsburg, and but I had no money. I went by the O-club on the way back and was amazed with the spit shined howitzers sitting outside the doors. I entered to a room full of generals, politicians, and diplomats, and nonchalantly walked over to the office window to cash a check. The secretary asked me what I was doing there. I turned around and found a putzfrau was mopping up after me, I really stank; and the generals were surrounding me and looking at me like I was vermin.

In a conference full of Colonels, a captain, LT or SGT were like me at the SOFA conference. Anybody who knows the military knows that Cols, navy Captains, etc do not stand guard. It was interesting watching the COGO and NCOs standing guard. Yet, they were all serious and proud to do it. I was interested in knowing who they were guarding against.

As events ensued , were told that some Middle Easterners had hijacked some heavy aircraft and flown them into the World Trade Center. This conference had people representing civil and military aviation from all over the world. I found no sympathy from anyone for the hijackers.
We did wind the conference down, but nobody could get back home. There is a law that states that Government personnel can not take trips paid for by contractors - a good law in normal circumstances. There were two rental cars in the contingent trying to get back to Tinker AFB. My daughter had one (she is another contractor) and one of the government people had one. So we and a college professor from Oklahoma City went back in a nice comfortable car, and the g-people crammed themselves into a compact. We heard on the radio there was gas gouging, but we did not see any. Everybody we met on the way was shaken up and wanted revenge. Twenty three hours later, we drove into the return at TUL to see a guarded and empty facility. There were cars from California, Ontario, and Florida there. It is amazes me that today, the philosophy from the Maryland dude so permeates our society. Seven years ago, we all were ready to bear any burden and undergo any hardship to punish those that did that to us. Today, the Liberal/cosmo/marxists just want to hold their hands and sing Kumbyah.

A healthy helping of crow!

I need to eat two healthy helpings of crow. The first concerns the post on Trashy Tulsa. Apparently, I244 accumulated a lot of trash awaiting a final major cleanup before resurfacing. Although this was not obvious to me at the time, I withdraw my Trashy accusations.

The second helping of crow concerns the Claremore Daily Progress newspaper. I am not really sure the crow is really deserved, but it seems they have a new publisher within the last month; a Mr. Bailey Dabney. He is apparently trying to run the newspaper like the ethics of journalism require. He admits the national media is very biased, and he wants the 30% of news, not of Claremore origin, extensively vetted. He has publically chastized the executive editor for passing on a national column that was evidently viscious, politically biased , and untrue. He says it won't happen again.

I think I am going to give them a call and resubscribe after a dozen years. You can contact them at: http://www.claremoreprogress.com/homepage. They might eventually make Will Rogers proud of them.

Trashy Tulsa

I had to make a trip to Oklahoma City a couple of days ago, and when I returned to Claremore, I took I244 through downtown Tulsa. I have been all over the world, and in some really trashy countries (such as Saudi Arabia), but Tulsa has to be the trashiest place on Earth. The trash along I244 is continuous from downtown to past the airport. In some places it is knee deep. It is on both sides of the interstate. If you drove over some of the things in the trash, you could have serious injuries.

I think this is the some old Oklahoma problem. The governments get tax money (city/state/federal) to maintain roads and infrastructure, but the glitter of new construction is more mesmerizing to the politicians than maintaining what they have. Is it any wonder that the people of Tulsa county keep voting down bond issues for new stuff. The politicos do not spend the bond money for what it was voted, let alone maintain what they have.