But I'm sure she'll pay her fair share.

Pelosi's wealth grows by 62 percent

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) saw her net worth rise 62 percent last year, cementing her status as one of the wealthiest members of Congress.

Pelosi was worth at least $35.2 million in the 2010 calendar year, according to a financial disclosure report released Wednesday. She reported a minimum of $43.4 million in assets and about $8.2 milion in liabilities.

For 2009, Pelosi reported a minimum net worth of $21.7 million.

A mere coincidence, I'm sure. Good financial planning is crucial. BTW, did Apple stock really double last year? Or just for her?

No more pencils, no more books...

Yesterday we worked latish, even though we only finished 120 units total. GC Guy insists on doing all the soldering (and I'm pleased to let him) and that produces a natural choke point in the operation so when we bring a batch to soldering that's normally when I go home. So the new day starts with packaging and shipping, and then we start a new batch. Yesterday we were down to our very last 40 circuit boards so we stayed around, soldered and packaged those 40 units, and we were outa stuff. Vacation! We're both heartily sick of wiring stuff together in the hot'n'stuffy GC Central.

It got hot yesterday - nearly 100 degrees - and the thought of doing anything after work more useful than watering M's trees never once occurred to me. I was collapsed in the relative cool of the scriptorium when GC Guy called and said, "you'll never guess what the UPS guy just delivered."

"Aw, crap."

"Yeah. So I'm just saying that if, before Monday, anybody asks about the circuit boards that should have already arrived from Latvia, what are you going to say?"

"'What circuit boards? I don' know nothin' 'bout no steeking circuit boards.'"

"Good answer."

This morning has that same breathless 'it's gonna get really hot' feeling to it. I've got several things I'd like to accomplish before the weekend's inevitable stucco, and I'm going to try to accomplish them this morning because I know damn well nothing's gonna get done this afternoon.

Sigh. This wasn't the change I was looking for. In fact it doesn't seem to be change at all.

War Powers Act doesn't apply to Libya, Obama says

“The administration’s theory implies that the president can wage war with drones and all manner of offshore missiles without having to bother with the War Powers Resolution’s time limits,” Mr. Goldsmith said.

I note that the people who were fer it during the Bush admin are agin it now, and vice versa. What a heart-stopping shock.

I'm so relieved.

Seriously, I've just been on tenterhooks for weeks, so afraid those brave, well-organized SWAT officers might be railroaded for shooting that evil, gun-toting villain in his own home...

But thank god justice has prevailed. I was so worried.

UPDATE: Linoge has more (and better) to say about it.

Fat Albert the Zombie Rat: or, All My Sins Remembered...

Okay, I admit it. I've disregarded - even been vaguely annoyed by - all the talk of zombie preparedness. I was wr not as right as I usually am.

Last week Fat Albert, the big packrat who for quite some time has been my pantry nemesis, went to meet Baby Jesus in the jaws of a big T-Rex rat trap. When I got around to cleaning him out of the trap I found that Click (Oh Please Let It Have Been Click) had eaten him, leaving a rat tail connected to a rat head by a bloody rat spine. I just took him out to the ridge and pitched him unceremoniously over the edge, thinking that was the end of the matter. What a fool I was!

When we met again yesterday morning, he was lurking in wait at the washing machine. I didn't hear him croak "Brains!", but it might have been in high-pitched rat language. The barn isn't far from the ridge: Over the side he went again.

This morning he was in the barn's breezeway, and succeeded in creeping me out pretty thoroughly. I think I'm gonna skip geiger counters this morning and spend a few hours chasing the search term "Good Load for Zombies."

I suppose it's possible Click or one of the boys is having me on. But it's better to be prepared.

"Keep digging. I'm sure there's a pony in there somewhere."

I'm not a big Sarah Palin fan, but I'm sure not gonna deny that Palin Derangement Syndrome does exist. It's been a busy couple of weeks so I mostly missed this in my surfing. But in this clip, Jon Stewart takes his own side apart for the recent syndrome outbreak.

The Daily Show
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Hard Assets

This is the sort of thing I wish I'd said.

Financial instruments (even cash) are ephemeral; digits backed by a system of ideas. Firewood is solid, real, and undeniable. The wood pile is mine and mine alone. It is on my yard and on my property. I don’t need a title and serial number to prove ownership. It won’t be taxed. It won’t be tracked. It isn’t likely to be stolen. It won’t be subject to late charges, administrative fees, or licensing agreements. It won’t depreciate, it gains quality as it dries, and it stores indefinitely. It is not subject to identity theft or lost paperwork. It’s not affected by inflation. If the stock market crashes it won’t vanish. If my credit rating tanks it won’t move an inch. War, peace, oil embargoes, elections, and unemployment won’t affect it. It’s a very hard thing to devalue and it’s impossible to deny it’s existence. Try that with a 401(k), Enron stock, or even your checkbook.

When you think about it like that, a simple woodstove is practically rebellious. How often do you enjoy the fruits of your labors without a middleman and taxes?

RTWT

Gulchendiggensmoothen to the rescue!

Some of our neighbors have shinier gear than we do. In particular, there are a couple of sweet Japanese tractors, with tools that swap out fairly easily and engines that start without complaint. I occasionally envy them that, and I'll even admit that one time I passed one on the road while driving Gulchendiggensmoothen, and was a little abashed at his beat-uplived-in appearance, as opposed to the shiny, sleek, and much newer tractor.

One thing G does have is size, and a low range that gives it old-fashioned power. And the biggest backhoe in the neighborhood. (Yes, size does matter.) And today, if the owner of that sleek little riceburner had been laughing, the laughter stopped.

There's a little seep (you could be polite and call it a spring) in a wash to the south of my usual stomping grounds. Since that wash points south, it's been getting a lot of wildlife traffic lately, no doubt refugees from the fire: You should see the tracks. J has been getting elk coming right into the yard and checking out his horses. Well, Shiny Tractor Guy got it into his head that he could dig out that seep so there's be an open pool to water the animals. A nice idea, I guess. But that seep is in a hollow filled with fine sand and clay and ash for who knows how deep. It's all saturated with water. Can you say quicksand?

The tractor stopped sinking when the frame hit the surface. He hiked home and drove his (shiny) F-250 into the wash to tow out the tractor. When he'd buried the truck to the axles, he hiked home and apparently never planned to leave it again.

GC Guy got a call from his wife. And a portion of his side of the conversation: "Hey, Joel's an operator. He's got a big tractor..." He looked at me for confirmation. I glared at him but nodded, then drove the Jeep home to get Gulchendiggensmoothen.

Praise be, he started right up. We went to the road, down the ridge, across a wash, up another ridge, down the ridge, and hung a left at the wash that has the seep. Shiny Tractor Guy was waiting there with his wife.

The truck wasn't even really stuck: There was no shovel work at all, and I just backed up till it was on firmer ground. But that shiny tractor was a sight. It was buried so deep I could barely see the wheels, and mud from top to bottom. I dug trenches for the rear wheels (and it's a good thing somebody thought to bring a shovel), but there wasn't much I could do about the front. I just connected the tow strap to the stuck tractor and G's bucket, and hoped for the best. ST Guy looked pretty dubious, but gamely waded out to his tractor and fired it up.

And Gulchendiggensmoothen pulled that thing out of that sucking mud like a cork out of a bottle. He never even strained.

When it's running, I like this tractor.

The Irony - It Burns

So the U.S. Government has dropped tens of millions of dollars developing "stealth internet" systems for foreign dissidents, for use when their governments cut off communications. Cool!

But...hey?

It's just barely possible you're missing an important point here, Barry.

H/T to Claire.

A failure to communicate...But he meant well.

So this morning both boys went galloping off into the boonies, in chase of who knows what. I determined not to worry about it, since I'm trying to relax about such things and there's now nobody around for them to pester. After a decent interval Ghost came back, which pleased me because separately they (almost) never get into trouble. Time passed - no Little Bear. Well, he's probably eating a rabbit or something, an activity for which he always prefers privacy.

More time passed. No Little Bear. I called him to treats - no answer. Even more time passed. Now I was getting a bit perturbed, because I had really wanted an early start and couldn't go till the boys were safe in Gitmo. It was already too late for an early start, and if I lost any more time I was gonna have to call GC Guy. I hate that.

I stood in the quiet, wondering where the hell LB had got himself, and heard a dog's quiet panting. Looked around, and there was a large black form in the shadow of the powerhouse. Inside Gitmo. My missing Little Bear was sitting in the enclosure, placidly waiting for his treat. He hadn't bothered to check in and let me know he was back.

Sigh. I called LB with a promise of a treat, and that always means "go to Gitmo." So he did. And he sat there for twenty minutes or so, not making a peep, while I fumed and watched for him to come home.

I dunno why I call him stupid. He got a really nice treat.

Maybe the Gen5 will be quicker to set up...

Via Tam, here's the ultimate concealment piece: The Gen4 Ninja Glock! I expect a write-up in Forgotten Weapons any day now.

I'm a Granddad!

Born early this morning, after (of course) a very long night for mom and dad. Her name is Kaelyn, she and Mom are fine, and that's all I know right now. Pix to follow, when I get them.

Alone at last...

M and Landlady's Brother just drove off into the smoky haze, leaving me alone for the first time in 40 days.

Ahhhh...

We got a lot done on the Meadow house this  weekend, and the only part without a layer of stucco is the rear, which is the easy wall.  No windows, no really high parts.  I schlepped all the bags of stucco and sand, and am now so sore I can barely walk.  I've been doing my shit-shoveling on Sundays, that being my only free afternoon lately, but today I had to call and beg off - there's no way I can pull the shit-wagon up hills six or eight times today.  If the work at Geiger Counter Central slacks off this coming week as I expect, I can go over and catch up then.

We used Gulchendiggensmoothen to load the last of the big cell tower batteries into M's truck, so now I can return the tractor to its rightful place, top off the hydraulic fluid, and get back to work hauling manure in the afternoons.  Uncle Joel: Horseshit Capo!  Whadaya think?

The boys often spend Sunday in Gitmo, until the last chasable car leaves.  The last one just left, and now I hear Ghost whining to get out.  Didn't get a peep out of them all day, but now they know it's time.  Smart dogs.  Well, Ghost is smart.

I'm gonna hobble down to the Meadow House now with a book and a beer and a towel, and take a very long, soaky bath.

Observations at the End of the Week...

• Fat Albert the packrat met T-Rex the rat trap yesterday morning. I discovered him on a sandwich fly-by, rejoiced, and determined to clean him up when I got home from work. When I did, I found a packrat head, spine, and tail. Click had the effrontery to demand dinner anyway.
• Geiger Counter Central has acquired a mascot. A small lizard got in and hung around for a couple of days. GC Guy got all concerned for him and went to a lot of trouble to catch him and escort him outside. Within an hour, he was back. So we named him Scary Larry the Lounge Lizard and decided he was welcome.
• Landlady's brother has been staying in the Meadow House. He had some trouble with the boys, who weren't sure at first what to do with him. Landlady suggested he feed them cheese. That worked - after a fashion. He's been overdoing it, and now I'm having trouble keeping them home. I told him it really wasn't necessary to put out a buffet every time they show up.
• For the past couple of weeks, it's like we've been living inside a chimney. I'm looking out the window as I type this sentence, and I can't see the big ridge at all. Everything smells like woodsmoke, which I kind of like but I'm glad I'm not an asthmatic.
• I've about decided that switching to the .44 is a failed experiment. I just can't get used to the Taurus. I don't shoot it well, and no matter how much I practice it doesn't feel right in my hand. Yesterday afternoon when we climbed under S&L's house looking for a bear, I had to climb through a tight hole and borrowed GC Guy's 1911 because my Taurus was full of snakeshot. For just a moment it was like coming home: That pistol felt like it belonged there. So now I'm carrying my old Springfield again, and I think I'll start looking for a replacement.
• It looks as though the geiger counter thing is finally getting ready to wind down. We're reaching the end of the big backlog, and running out of parts again. I'm really hoping we can keep it going on something like a two-day-a-week basis, or thereabouts. To my delight, GC Guy is of the same opinion. The money's nice, but damn.

It's 1994 all over again. Big surprise.

It's good to be king. As far as I can tell that's the first thing a new Congressmaggot learns as it slithers through taxpayer leavings, waiting to grow its committee member wings and get into the big bux.

They rode into Washington on an anti-spending wave, but some House Republican freshmen are already enjoying one of the perks of incumbency, spending their office budgets on everything from $1,000-a-month car leases to pricey online advertising contracts.

At least 15 GOP freshmen have shelled out tens of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money on mass communication — or franking — designed to boost their exposure back home, even as they call for budget cuts and pared-back government spending, according to quarterly disbursement reports released by the House.

Say anything to get into office. Anything! Tea partiers have a lot of votes and money? Then you're passionate against .gov spending. But once you're there, your priority is to stay there. At any cost? What the hell? You're not footing the bill.

Search and ... run like hell?

It's been a couple of days since anybody saw Ninja Bear, now probably wounded but nobody knows how badly. Lots of rifles in evidence, but no bear.

Yesterday was a long day. Move a bunch of stuff to M's Dome, then eight hours of geiger counters, then I took the trailer over to another neighbor who had a bunch of drainage gravel he wanted to get rid of. Shovel the gravel into the trailer, drive through the wash to the Secret Lair, empty the trailer into the leach ditch. Go home, let the boys out, write a promised piece for The Independent Spirit. (Note the subtlety of that plug?)

So it was sometime after seven, I'd just jacked in a movie and was relaxing with an adult beverage, and the phone rings. It's my neighbor D. "Just occurred to me, Joel. [Our weekender neighbors S&L] are coming up tomorrow evening. Have you checked around their place for signs of that bear?"

Well, no. I hadn't. When did I become the neighborhood bear warden? But it was a pretty good idea, now that it had been raised. I wasn't gonna do it at dusk, though. Come to think of it, they've got a big opening into their crawlspace. I wasn't gonna do it at all, without somebody at my back with a big spotlight. It just so happens that GC Guy bought himself a big spotlight, just the other day.

So this afternoon after geiger counters, GC Guy and I loaded up and drove to S&L's.

That's the house, and everything's quiet. The opening I remember is over to the left. Quietly, let's go.

Well, whadaya know? He bricked it up. I didn't have anything to worry about anyway. While we're here let's just do a circuit of the house...

There's a likely place. May as well be thorough.

Aw, crap. Double crap. Crap on toast. This episode was badly written. Why'd he leave that open?

Shine your light over to the left...

Nothing there. Time for the fun part.

Well, it was my idea. Stupid idea, but mine own. Time for Uncle Joel to play tunnel rat.

I put down my rifle, took the spotlight and a handgun, and did the bravest thing I've done in quite a while...

Whew.

If there'd been a bear in there, S would have owed me a pair of pants.

The description isn't even arguably hyperbolic any more...

This is the very model of fascism. And look who's talking up higher taxes...

[GM CEO Dan Akerson] is grateful for the government's rescue of GM — "I have nothing but good things to say about them" — but Akerson said the time for that relationship to end is coming because it's wearing on GM.

"It's kind of like your in-laws: It was a nice long weekend. We didn't say a week," Akerson said with a laugh.

And while he is eager to say goodbye to the government as a part owner of GM, Akerson would like to see it step up to the challenge of setting a higher gas tax, as part of a comprehensive energy policy.

A government-imposed tax hike, Akerson believes, will prompt more people to buy small cars and do more good for the environment than forcing automakers to comply with higher gas-mileage standards.

"There ought to be a discussion on the cost versus the benefits," he said. "What we are going to do is tax production here, and that will cost us jobs."

For the years 2017-25, federal officials are considering 3 percent to 6 percent annual fuel efficiency increases, or 47 mpg to 62 mpg. That could boost the cost of vehicles by up to $3,500.

"You know what I'd rather have them do — this will make my Republican friends puke — as gas is going to go down here now, we ought to just slap a 50-cent or a dollar tax on a gallon of gas," Akerson said.

"People will start buying more Cruzes and they will start buying less Suburbans."

Yeah, Dan. Just 'step up to the challenge' [possibly the ever-so-objective writer's words and not Akerson's] and 'slap on' a tax, as if gasoline isn't already so heavily taxed it's a wonder it remains liquid.

And for the extra hilarity point:

GM's failure also would have led to Detroit's collapse, Akerson said. "I have not seen a city in this bad a shape since I went to East Berlin in 1969."

Um...Dan? Might want to check the address in front of your building there, buddy. GM hasn't resided in Detroit in a long time. And as for collapse...too late. Way too late.

On Empowerment

GC Guy said something kind of startling this morning, while enthusing about his new rifle and spotlight. He said, “Thanks for talking me down and taking that trip yesterday. I was really freaked and out of my element, and you helped … empower me.”

That was nice. I replied something like, “Well, I respect anybody who moves here from the city and makes a go of it. Anything I can do to help that along, it's a pleasure.”

And I meant that and all, but thinking further on the subject I felt like kind of a fraud for having said it. I have no special qualifications for living happily out here. I'm from Detroit and lived most of my life in cities, same as most people. It's not like I moved here to get a break from my lifetime busting horses on Montana ranches or anything. If anything, I'm unqualified. There's a lot of work involved, and I'm the laziest guy I know.

So that got me thinking about the whole subject of 'empowerment.' Because that's really what I like about living out in the boondocks.

It always used to bother me that I was so dependent for my very life on structures built by other people. It just struck me as wrong that I didn't know how to do anything on my own. Isn't adulthood about growth and maturity? And isn't a part of maturity the ability to take care of yourself, your own needs, your own defense? Look, I'm not completely crazy, I like the comforts that come with modern living. Who wouldn't? But there's something infantilizing about it as well, if the only way to gain those comforts is to abandon self-determination and depend entirely on others.

Here, if you want a house you'd better be willing to build yourself one. If you want the wonders of modern living, like electricity and running water, you need to arrange those things for yourself. For some of the more fundamental things, like food, well, I could have picked a more congenial location. But even that isn't out of the question in the future. We're working on it.

Now we're looking at a … well, not a crisis, exactly. A challenge. The change in wildlife behavior is actually minor, compared to the fact that this afternoon we've learned that yet another town south of us is being evacuated. Shortly before quitting time I said to GC Guy, “When I got here there was some infrastructure built but not a stone on a stone. Now we've got a big barn and three houses, and I helped build every one of them. That's the first time I ever had that chance, and I'm not gonna drive away from it and pray it doesn't burn. So if they can't stop the fire in the forest and it looks like coming here, I'm gonna send Click and the boys to the city and get ready to fight fire.”

GC Guy had been thinking the same thing. “We've got access to at least three tractors. If we start with the southernmost houses, we've got time to clear the brush and trees from around everybody we know. I'm in.”

And that was what I wanted to hear, and it kind of settled my earlier question. What is 'empowerment?' It's power. It's adulthood.

It's not that I like it when a govguy gets his d*ck caught in a wringer...

Okay, you caught me...I like it a lot.

But mostly I just wanted an excuse to post this...

Remember: Safe storage is vital. Responsible parents don't let their children play with politicians.

Natures's way of telling you something's wrong...

That's not a raincloud.

It's wildfire season, and we've had one cooking about sixty miles away for some time. Until this morning it was a subject of no more than mild interest.

Then this morning I showed up at Geiger Counter Central to find GC Guy all in a tizzy. Seems he woke up in the middle of the night to the dogs' clamor, went outside, and at first thought Comet the colt had gotten out. Except he couldn't figure out how Comet had grown two axe-handles across the shoulders, or why he would be going through the garbage cans. It turned out to be an enormous black bear, and since GC Guy's shotgun was loaded with birdshot he wisely refrained from shooting it. It wouldn't go away when he yelled at it, but it left like a rocket when he fired the 12-gauge into the air. This morning he learned that one of our more distant neighbors had a bear break a window and try to come into his house. He drove it away with a 9mm: GC Guy's mom, watching the action from her RV, swore she saw a "red dot" on his bear's side. Those two locations are mighty far apart, and it's hard to believe the same bear would hit both - especially while carrying a couple of 9mm hollowpoints. But that's maybe not quite as unbelievable as two bears hitting two places on the same night, when bears are very rare here.

So I don't know if it was the same bear or not, but clearly the fire's got the wildlife on the move.

So GC Guy is suddenly interested in upgrading his bangsticks. He's got the shotgun and an AR: I told him he could buy some slugs for the 12-gauge, but that personally I prefer a .30 cal and that I'd be happy to lend him my bolty. He'd already gotten the same advice and offer from his ex-cop neighbor, but now he wanted to own his very own. He wanted to go gun-shopping right frickin' now, and would I mind coming along?

Lemme think: I can spend several hours wiring the insides of geiger counters together, or take a trip to the happiest place on earth and buy a rifle. Which shall it be?

They boresighted his new rifle, and after work this afternoon we took it out to the range and tweaked it in. He feels better now. Oddly, I'm sort of fixated on the fact that I live almost directly between the locations of the two incidents. Am I and my dogs now in the territory of a big, aggressive black bear? I think maybe it's time to put away the AK and bring out the M1A.