Price gouging

John Stossel points out that price gouging is simply supply and demand...

Tequila

For the past few years, I have been a lover of Tequila. Many people's experience with Tequila is limited to either Cuervo, which in my opinion is as close to generic as you can get- and tastes horrible- or they drink Patron, which is far more expensive than its quality justifies.

Last night, I had the opportunity to sample one that I had not tried before. I like resposado tequilas, because they don't have the harsh taste of the blancos, nor do they have the aftertaste of the anejo tequilas.

This particular Tequila, Herradura Resposado, was actually pretty good. I had two small glasses of it straight, and then had three absolutely outstanding Margaritas.

A moderately priced $40 for 750 mL, not many people drink it because it is more expensive than Cuervo, and it doesn't have the big name that Patron has. I found it to be a very nice Tequila, and well suited to sipping and to Margaritas.

In order to appreciate Tequila, there are a few things a person needs to know:

1 Like anything else, quality costs more. Drink cheap liquor, get low quality.

2 Don't use the more expensive/higher quality liquors for mixed drinks. The more expensive liquors taste better, but those flavors are wasted when they are covered up by the taste of mixers.

3 There are different classifications of Tequila:

Blanco- Clear Tequila that is aged less than 3 months. It tends to be harsh and strong, especially in the cheaper brands. I do not like the taste of Blanco Tequila.

Resposado- Tequila that is aged from 3 months to a year in wood barrels. The type of barrel, and where it is sourced, changes with the distiller. Some use old Scotch barrels. Some old Bourbon barrels, and others. It has a light brown color. Resposado is the type I prefer, because it has less of the wood flavor, but is smoother and less harsh than the Blanco Tequilas.

Anejo- After aging for at least one year, Tequila can then be classified as an "Añejo". The distillers are required to age Añejo Tequila in barrels that do not exceed 600 liters. This aging process darkens the Tequila to an Amber color, and the flavor can become smoother, richer, and more complex.

Extra Anejo is a Tequila that is aged over three years. Anejo Tequila becomes much darker, more of a Mahogany color, and has a smooth flavor that can become as complex as a top end Scotch.

There are other sub types.

Gold Tequila is usually Blanco Tequila with artificial color added so that it can be sold at the more expensive Resposado prices. This is the type used by bars for mixed drinks. It can also be a mixture of Silver and Anejo Tequila.

Silver Tequila is Anejo Tequila with much of the color and flavors filtered out. What you get is a smooth, spicy Tequila, but without the barrel flavor that some people do not like. I don't prefer this type, but many people do.

Hypocritical Pope Francis, episode 112

Just 26 months ago, the Pope was telling his followers:

People who manufacture weapons or invest in weapons industries are hypocrites if they call themselves Christian

This has long been the position of the Catholic Church:

The Vatican's Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, in their document, "The International Arms Trade (2006),"emphasized the importance of enacting concrete controls on the production, possession, and trade in weapons, including handguns,calling for them to be regulated" by paying due attention to specific principles of the moral and legal order.”

Just seven months ago, the Pope was telling the world that there is no such thing as Islamic terrorism.

Just five days ago, he was saying that the human rights of Muslim refugees trumped national security.

That was before ISIS released a video, expressly threatening to kill the Pope. Now all of a sudden, Islamic terrorism is real, and the Vatican is using firearms to protect the Holy See.  Look at the following video to see how the Vatican is protecting the Pope with automatic weapons, body scanners, and the closing of streets to various types of traffic.



They say that an antigun pacifist is just a pro-self defense gun owner who hasn't yet been a victim of crime. It seems that the Pope is not exempt from this. Either that, or there is one set of rules for the Pope, and another for his subjects. Funny how his principles change when the threat becomes personal.

Trump approval numbers

There is a lot of press time, pixels, and ink being used by the MSM to talk about President Trump's approval numbers. The press is breathlessly announcing that his approval numbers are around 38% and falling, they say. they claim that Trump is polling lower than any other President, forgetting that GW Bush polled lower, thanks to them beating on him about the war that they fawned over Obama with.

The analysis from the experts is laughable, but one thing they ARE getting right: The Republican members of Congress are treating this as politics as usual, and are fighting him every step of the way, because poll numbers. That may explain why Republicans are fed up with Congress.

Remember this: During the last week of August last year, Trump had a 30% approval rating. On this date (August 24) of last year, the NYT had Trump at 11% to Hillary's 89%. I don't trust the MSM, I don't trust their polling data, and I think that the tail is attempting to wag the dog here.

Advanced notice

It seems that the former Marine who decided that he wanted to kill him some cops and then proceeded to do so, was known to the Orange County Sheriffs, because he had made a statement on Facebook that  “…No cop is going to get Glen Miller today…kill whitey…”.A copy of the notice can be read here. (PDF warning)

Again, we see that a significant portion of the American people have decided to declare war on the rest of us. What else can we learn from this? The lesson that I take away from this, is that all of this intelligence gathering doesn't seem to be doing anything. The government has the information, but are overloaded with so much of it, that they cannot or will not take any action based on that intel.

A clue bat

Do you think that recent polls showing that Republican voters are losing hope in Congress faster than the President will in any way cause the Republican members of Congress to take notice? If yes, then why are they still saying things like this? Or has that party become so enamored with the smell of its own flatulence that they will continue down the same path?

Life in the future

I recently had this conversation, and it made me realize that I am living in one of the science fiction universes that I read about as a child...

wife: What do you think about travelling to Barbados or Italy? Maybe spring break, or Labor day?
me: that would be nice.
wife: bye (leaves for work)
me: Computer, turn off the bedroom lights
computer: ok (as lights turn off)
me: computer, tell Roomba to clean the house
computer: OK (robot begins cleaning)

me: I rush off to notify the world about living in the future by typing this post...

Confirmation

There are those who may see my post the other day, where I claimed that we are seeing the early stages of an attempted communist revolution, and thing that I am being delusionally paranoid. The communists themselves are making my  point:

Here are some of the fliers that were being handed out in Boston on Saturday.

Gun buyer's paradise

Rural King, a chain of hardware stores, is having a rebate sale. Right now, they are offering pretty good prices on firearms. Some highlights:

DPMS AR-10 in .308 Winchester: $627
DPMS Panther Oracle AR-15: $368
S&W M&P 9 or M&P 40: $387

I am giving serious thought into picking up an AR-10, since I don't own one. Check out the sale prices. The sale is good through September 4.

Blue Lives matter flag is a White nationalist flag

At least according to the Boston Antifa, a group composed of communist agitators with an expressed goal of overthrowing the government.

If you are displaying a Blue Line sticker or flag, know that Antifa will target you and shut down your free speech, because they are opposed to "fascism" and apparently do not recognize free speech or irony.

I learned of this from the NYT, who did not provide a picture of the flyer, or of any actual racists at the Boston event,

(no Nazis or racists here, just Trump supporters)

but did provide lots of pictures of communists.

Of interest is the NYT claim that all demonstrators were disarmed, and that:

Marchers were banned from bringing weapons, bats, sticks, flagpoles or anything that might be used as a weapon or a projectile, and backpacks were subject to search

I'm guessing they didn't disarm the communists, who are plainly pictured carrying sticks and clubs, disguised as signs. That's OK, because the police consulted with the Southern Poverty Law Center on how to "deal with the hate groups" - completely ignoring that the SPLC is a hate group itself.

My friend has died

Initial reports were that both police officers shot in Kissimmee were dead. In incidents like this, it is common for initial reports to be a bit confused, and this was no exception. One of the two was dead, and the other was hanging on by a thread, thanks only to the efforts of their fellow officers, the personnel of the Kissimmee Fire Department, and of Osceola Regional Hospital's trauma department.
In the end, the second officer passed away this afternoon. I remember him from training sessions. What really bothers me about this, other than the fact that a friend was murdered in cold blood, is that Black Lives Matter is not only silent about this killing, but members of the BLM are actively condoning it. Why is THIS black man's life

more important to BLACK lives matter than THIS black man's

life? For that matter, what about THIS black woman's life?

Sergeant Deborah Clayton of the Orlando police department was murdered in January, gunned down in broad daylight. Why didn't HER black life matter? The second officer killed in last night's shooting was a man I didn't know:

However, he was known to be an advocate for the crime ridden black neighborhood that was part of his beat, and was often seen buying Slurpees and food for the people who lived in the neighborhood that he died protecting. 

I submit that any of the above officers did more to advocate and improve the lives of the blacks in the neighborhood than the racist, hate-filled man who changed to a Muslim name just a few weeks before he murdered them in cold blood. Here are some of the photos he posted to his Facebook page just before he became a murderer (click them to read his comments):

Quotes like this one

Confederate Nazis...i will hurt you all. You are the enemy. You can run but you cant hide.

If BLM doesn't protest the dead BLACK police officers, then they should be classed as a hate group, and as a terrorist organization that is sponsoring the killing of police officers. How can the politicians of this country take Trump to task for a killing performed by a neo-Nazi that had no ties to him whatsoever, and not hold BLM to task for what their members are doing to the police of this nation?

Things are about to get REAL sporty in this country. Be ready to stay out of the way of trouble, and if trouble still comes your way be ready to protect and defend you and yours. I believe that the first shots of the second American civil war were fired in Dallas on July 7, 2016. All of the clashes since have been minor skirmishes in a war that is gradually getting hotter. 

Close to home EDITED

Six police officers and two firefighters were shot in the past 24 hours. Four of the cops were in Florida, two of them are dead. One of the dead cops is a friend of mine. The suspect was known to the cops. According to a reliable source and friend, the two cops were ambushed, with their killer waiting for them to arrive, shooting them before they even knew what was happening, and then shooting them in the back of the head after they were down. Make no mistake, this was an ambush. Neither cop even had time to draw a weapon.

The coup and subsequent revolution that I wrote about recently continues. Things are going to get more and more violent as time goes on.

EDITED: The suspect in the Kissimmee shooting recently began calling himself Malik Mohammad Ali. Here is his Facebook page. It is filled with hate and racial propaganda, but one of the officers he killed was a black man. Go figure.

The end is near

What we are seeing here is an attempted coup of the legitimately elected president. Whether you like it or not, Trump was legitimately elected to the Presidency, in accordance with the US Constitution. Overthrowing the President for anything less than "high crimes and misdemeanors," for political reasons, or because you do not like the results of the election, means that you don't care about this nation, that you and your opinion are more important than the legitimate process that was put in place by the founders.
I fear that should this coup be successful, we are looking at the end of the Republican form of government that was put in place when this nation was founded. What follows will more than likely be some sort of dictatorship, but there will be bloodshed in the interim. The future is not bright.

Use of force

Last year, I was attacked in my classroom by a student. The student is a star athlete with a record of violence against staff. He will soon be signing with a division 1 college, and going on to a free college education, and perhaps even earning millions as a professional athlete.

I just received a letter from the state, saying that the investigation is complete, and that I committed no wrongdoing. Three lawyers, thousands of dollars, and a year later, I have been cleared. The student admitted that he attacked me first, and I had documentation showing that the reason he attacked me was because I was enforcing a policy of no cell phones in class, just as I had been instructed to do. The same supervisor that instructed me to do so was the one who pushed for my prosecution. She was angry that I "lawyered up" when the student attacked me.

The state immediately began an investigation into the incident, to see if I should be prosecuted for holding the student down to stop the attack. At any rate, the entire episode is over.

Leg Six: California and Oregon

We left Vegas and headed for San Francisco. We spent the first night of this leg about an hour from San Francisco in Lathrop, California. The next morning, we drove to San Francisco, and spent a few hours at Fisherman's Warf. We toured the maritime museum, and while there, we saw a dog and a large sea lion get into a bit of a territorial dispute. The dog was definitely on the losing side of that disagreement.

We then drove across the Golden Gate Bridge, and in the process got a few pictures:

We then headed up the coast, and arrived at Eugene, Oregon- where leg Six came to an end. The stop in Eugene also marked the end of our sixteenth day on the road. Sixteen days from Central Florida to Oregon, with a few interesting stops along the way.

Trannies?

It was only a matter of time. Here come the trans-species people. A person who is trans-species has just as legitimate claim at being a cat or a dog trapped in a human's body as does a man claiming to be a woman. That is, they both have the same mental issue.

The funny part is that South Park did an episode on this exact situation. EDIT: Actually, two.

Combat pay

Taking a break from my trip report to talk about a news story that appeared in the Orlando Sentinel back in May:

Carver Middle School is an F rated school in the middle of the Pine Hills neighborhood, located west of Orlando, in Orange County. This school's students tested in the lowest 3 percent of all students nationwide. In order to correct this, Orange county is attempting to lure the best teachers in the state to the school by offering an extra $20,000 a year to teachers willing to work there.

The problem is that the school is in a crime ridden, poverty stricken neighborhood. I have blogged about Pine Hills and its surrounding neighborhoods before. More than once. The school is 91% black, 6% Hispanic of any race, and less than 1% white. Seventy percent of the students receive free or reduced lunch.

Both the violent and non-violent crime rates in Pine Hills are double the national average. Police officers are shot and killed in the area of this school often enough that several streets in the area are named for fallen officers, and shootings happen there nearly every night. The local government repeatedly dumps millions of dollars into this blighted area in an attempt to "clean up" the crime problem, to no avail.

Currently, the teachers there are inexperienced first or second year teachers who transfer away at first opportunity. Teacher pay is tied to student performance, and combined with the crime in the neighborhood, teachers avoid the area like the plague.

Any teacher who accepts a job at this school is placing his or her life in jeopardy. A $20,000 bonus is not worth it, in my opinion. The plan likely will not work and be a waste of money, anyway. You cannot, no matter how good of a teacher you are, teach a student who does not want to learn. The crime problems need to be addressed, the gangs eliminated, the drugs under control, before you can convince the students to give up the thug lifestyle and learn.