Fifi! And Friends

The Commemorative Air Force's B-29 Superfortress came to Oakland County International Airport this week.

I managed to go see her today, along with the CAF's Stearman and a T-6 Texan that came for the event.

This was not a mere static display. They flew!

First the T-6 Texan took to the skies, taking off from Runway 9R.

She passed above Fifi on the way:

Then wheels going up, she headed off for the tour.

The Stearman was next:

Then the Grand Dame of the show taxi'd

Then Fifi was told to line up and wait on Runway 9R to start her two outboard engines and do the run up.

Then clearance to take off:

Fifi was purchased from the Air Force in 1971 and transferred to the Commemorative (then Confederate) Air Force and restored to flying condition. The restoration then took three years. She's one of only two flying B-29s.

So she took off this morning and at 8:16 am, directly over Detroit's City hall she opened her bomb bay does and serious urban renewal took place. Just kidding. Although, much of Detroit still looks worse than if it had been bombed, just saying.

Fifi took people on flights yesterday and today and she'll be wrapping up her visit here.

An awesome visit by some mighty historic aircraft.

Legal Phrasing Questions Abound

Legal Phrasing Question: How does one tactfully asks an opposing attorney on a contract deal:
"Who pissed in your Cheerios this morning?"

Normally the guy comes across as a reasonable and friendly guy getting a transaction done, which is as it should be, this morning not so much.

Here's the thing, he drafted the purchase agreement, which stated 60 days for due diligence and a closing 30 days after that.

Simple to read, simple to do, we agreed to it, no problems, and my client as seller has done their part.

He recently asked for an extension of both dates and my client agreed to extend the closing but not the due diligence date, mainly because the buyer is already occupying the building and has for years, and thus knows all about the building, so any diligence has been more than due and has really been done before he exercised an option to buy it and we don't want this going on forever.

Opposing counsel is rather testy by that response and claims we're being technical and that since the deal is based on an option the numbers and dates in the purchase agreement shouldn't matter. He follows up that he didn't even really need to ask to ignore the dates.

I point out that's not how a contract works, and it is his own document and his own numbers, and we're giving him an extension on the closing date, so what's the real problem?

He then threatens that since we're taking a "hard line" (by following his own document) he's going to get "technical" as well.

Ok then. My bet is they're looking for an excuse to get out of the deal. We'll see where he goes technically from here.

Happy Independence Day!

243 Years Ago, the Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Independence that the thirteen colonies were no longer subject to Britain but were united independent states.

Since then, while our country hasn't always lived up to the promise of the Declaration, nor been perfect, we've done pretty darn well, and America remains the greatest country on earth and, for all its faults, an example to the rest of the world.

Happy Independence Day!

The Woke Eat Their Own, Expensively

Progressives must always keep the wheels of progress moving, even if that means eating their own.

The New York Times: San Francisco Will Spend $600,000 to Erase History

The best part? They're spending $600,000 to destroy a mural painted by a communist back in the day as a critique of America as an evil, slave ownin', Indian killin' colonial country, but that critique is too "triggering" for the delicate progressive sensibilities of today:

Victor Arnautoff, the Russian immigrant who made the paintings in question, was perhaps the most important muralist in the Bay Area during the Depression. Thanks to President Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration, he had the opportunity to make some enduring public artworks. Among them is “City Life” in Coit Tower, in which the artist painted himself standing in front of a newspaper rack conspicuously missing the mainstream San Francisco Chronicle and packed with publications like The Daily Worker.

Arnautoff, who had assisted Diego Rivera in Mexico, was a committed Communist. “‘Art for art’s sake’ or art as perfume have never appealed to me,” he said in 1935. “The artist is a critic of society.”

This is why his freshly banned work, “Life of Washington,” does not show the clichéd image of our first president kneeling in prayer at Valley Forge. Instead, the 13-panel, 1,600-square-foot mural, which was painted in 1936 in the just-built George Washington High School, depicts his slaves picking cotton in the fields of Mount Vernon and a group of colonizers walking past the corpse of a Native American.

A Communist mural designed to denigrate America, ironically paid for by American taxpayers, is now too triggering for the left to endure.

Just like the Taliban, for the progressives left this can't just be covered up, this affront to the modern day progressive religion must be utterly destroyed:

Mark Sanchez, the school board’s vice president, later told me that simply concealing the murals wasn’t an option because it would “allow for the possibility of them being uncovered in the future.” Destroying them was worth it regardless of the cost, he argued at the hearing, saying, “This is reparations.”

That $600,000 could have gone a long way for the School Board to use for educating students, but instead, the proggy left must waste it by destroying an anti-American mural while claiming the destruction of admittedly crappy commie art, previously paid for at taxpayer expense of course, with the destruction paid for at taxpayer expense, is somehow an act of "reparations".

Happy Canada Day!

It's been a very long day at the office and court, so I'm finally getting to some rec time to make this blog post.

Happy Canada Day, Eh!

Government Efficiency: Your Call Back Time Will Be In Approximately 1,144 Minutes

1,144 minutes is about 19 hours and that's no mistake, that's the waiting time for a Tier 2 call.

Tier 2? Well friends, I'm dealing with USCIS hell.

I have a client applying for an H1B Masters's cap opening.

In short, the kid is an engineer, has a master's degree from a US University, he's a sharp, good and clean kid from India, and his employer here for his apprenticeship wants to hire him as he's good at what he does and they've trained him up.

So I do the I-129 process, including getting a labor certification, and he's actually going to be paid more than the company's American workers due to a very screwed up average wage calculation required by Department of Labor for the area. Stupid as hell, but that's the law.

I submit it with premium processing and send it via express mail on April 3 to their Premium Processing address in California.

USPS shows it was delivered to Premium Processing on April 4 at 11 am.

Then it disappears.

USCIS can't find it, and the fun begins.

First I have fun just calling the USCIS help line - 800-375-5283.

After being on hold for 30-45 minutes per call, I get to Tier 1 support. Half the time Tier 1 just drops the call and I have to start in the queue all over again.

Finally with Tier 1 going through the same maddening script every time and refusing to move it to Tier 2 until we go through the script, they then send me to Tier 2 phone waiting hell. How much hell? It's so bad you do not wait on the line, instead you enter your number and they tell you when a Tier 2 officer will call you back. That call back wait time can be rather extreme.

On a prior Tier 2 call, I was told to email Lockbox support which I did. Lockbox support acknowledged the email and said they would reply within 30 days.

They Didn't. I waited over 30 days before bugging them, but no contact from them, because that would be too easy, right?

Back to calling, starting with Tier 1 hell again. I get connected to Tier One and they tell me to call Premium Processing support and give me a phone number.

There's a little problem with that number. It requires you to enter a receipt number that I don't have because the package was lost so they never issues a receipt number. No receipt number - the call disconnects.

Back to call Tier 1, and after going through the same script tell the next helpful idiot that suggests that I call Premium Processing support that that will not work.

Then I finally get a call actually completed to route to Tier 2 and the time to get the call back?

That's where the 1,144 Minutes comes from. That was the latest estimate.

Then 1,144 minutes later, Tier 2 calls back at 8pm tonight and I have to explain everything again because no one has kept any notes on this issue. At all.

Tier 2 agrees with me that this is getting ridiculous and offers to send me to Tier 3.

I know what is about to happen so I politely ask for the number so I can call myself....

Nope, they won't gove that out, nor the direct number to even get into the queue for Tier 2, but she'll transfer me to Tier 3.

And she drops the call.

This means I need to start all over again with getting on hold to get to Tier 1, to get to be put on hold with Tier 2 to get put on hold with Tier 3, al the while hoping some functionary doesn't have a malfunction and drop the call.

At this point I am beginning to develop rather strong anti-government feelings and a vocabulary to go with it.

So in short, USCIS has lost an application, refuses to do anything about it, refuses to connect me to anyone who can do something about it and this should in a normal world not take this farging long and this much time to even get to the point to find someone to fix their mistake, and we're still not there. And all this for a simple I-129 application that should have been granted over two months ago now.

Meanwhile, Illegals can waltz across the border and work illegally with fake social security numbers have no such troubles.

I halfway want to tell the kid to change his name to Sanchez, have his employer pay him under the table, move to California so he gets free healthcare, and everyone will be happy, unfortunately that's just not good legal advice.

Just wait until government controls your healthcare, expect your service times and levels of customer service to be similar.

The Democrats' Cognitive Dissonance On Reparations

Democrats in Congress and elsewhere demanding reparations for slavery, to be paid from people who never owned slaves, indeed whose parents never owned slaves, and in almost al cases whose granparents never owned slaves, to be paid to people who were never slaves because history.

Nevermind the reparations would go, as reported by Sultan Knish to millionaires who aren't exactly in need of "reparations", the rationale for such is incredibly eak but makes a great campaign talking point to get some votes in exchange for the promise of other people's money .

Yet, these very same progressives in Congress and elsewhere argue the DACA kids should not be blamed neither for themselves being here illegally, nor should they be blamed for their parents immediate illegal actions in bringing them here illegally. Verily they should not be blamed nor accountable for their own acts and indeed should be awarded citizenship for illegally crossing the border, but for reparations, everyone else should be held collectively responsible for the acts of others long ago.

The cognitive dissonance is most impressive.

When A School Has Been Failing Its Students For Years, Only Racial Considerations Can Keep it Open

The standard leftist approach to failure of a government program is to reinforce it, and do it harder.

Eventually, the failure reaches such an extent it can't be ignored.

So Democrat Governor Whitmer, in reviewing the failure and impeding bankruptcy of the Benton Harbor School System has faced a hard choice and proposed closing the High School to preserve the rest of the school system. This is not going over well, especially as this happens involve some core Democrat constituent groups.

Bridge: Whitmer faces some backlash over Benton Harbor High closing

Interestingly, the backlash is not over the abject failure of the schools, but that a Black run school in a Black majority district might close. No one is disputing that the Benton Harbor's school system is a bankrupt dumpster fire leading kids to be not exactly educated. Unsurprisingly, the student level of performance is as lousy as its financial state.

For example, in the past 5 years, the High School produced three, yep count 'em three students that were ready to go to college.

3 Students in Five years.

That's a level of failure for a High School that would be hard to comprehend, much less defend, and should be considered completely unacceptable.

Yet, many are protesting the closure and are defending it on the grounds that closing it would force students to go to other schools where they might just get a shot at a decent education, or something. The argument is seriously being made that closing it would not help the students being failed by it.

The Detroit Free Press: Closing high school won't help Benton Harbor, or the city's students

Would this have even been an issue if it was a white-majority school failing this badly?

Interestingly enough, the school closure is causing a split among Democrat party constituents. The Governor is for the closure, as it, almost surprisingly, the Michigan Educational Association, and much hilarity is thus ensuing: The Detroit News: Bankole: In Benton Harbor, labor’s interests run counter to blacks.

This makes some people upset (See Bankole and his article above) because race issues trumps educational performance and its apparently better to have a Black-run school with failing educational performance and under-served students than daring to close it and send the kids off to surrounding schools to get a better education.

Get your popcorn ready, as this one could get interesting if the Governor will continue with the plan, or instead back down and leave the students in their current failed high school.

Ah, Michigan Government Bureaucracy Liquor Licensing Division

So I'm doing some work for a client that involves a liquor license.

Here's the instructions on the form itself, with the form very recently updated in June 2019, this very present month, so it's rather recent indeed:

Please return this completed form along with corresponding documents and fees to:
Michigan Liquor Control Commission
Mailing address: P.O. Box 30005, Lansing, MI 48909
Hand deliveries or overnight packages: Constitution Hall - 525 W. Allegan, Lansing, MI 48933

So I send it Fedex to Constitution Hall - 525 W. Allegan, Lansing, MI 48933. Simple right, I can follow instructions, easy to get this done, right?

Not so much.

Turns out Fedex contacts me with a delivery exception that MLCC will not accept it there and it has to be sent to another address (not on the form) because they do not accept the deliveries there even though their form says to send it there.

So I call MLCC directly and after being on hold for awhile, find out that yes, in fact they will not accept it on the address listed on their own forms but will only receive it at the other address (not on the form) and then they will transport it themselves to the 525 W. Allegan.

I asked then why they don't specify sending it to the other address on their forms considering they just updated them and they really didn't have an answer for that and their final answer was a brusque "Just send it to this other address (not on the form), not the one the form".

Ok, then.

Just A Passenger Ahead Of His Time On Security Screening Technique

You know how some wags suggested that TSA would soon require everyone to disrobe before getting on an aircraft?

Sumdood decided to put this security screening method to the test before it was bureaucratically approved.

The Detroit News: Naked man tries to get past security at Detroit Metro Airport

In short, TSA is not ready to adopt naked passenger security screening at this time.

Cambridge's Progressive Double Standards

Verily, If A progressive person or institution didn't have double standards, they'd have no standards at all.

Cambridge University, the rather historic British institution got very woke and earlier this year and rescinded an invitation to Jordan Peterson over protests at allowing him to speak on their hallowed grounds.

That was met by applause by the the Cambridge Student Union who said

“We are relieved to hear that Jordan Peterson’s request for a visiting fellowship to Cambridge’s faculty of divinity has been rescinded following further review. It is a political act to associate the University with an academic’s work through offers which legitimise figures such as Peterson.

Meanwhile, the very same Cambridge University yesterday hosted and feted Malaysian Prime Minister and antisemitic moonbat Mahathir Mohamad, who used the opportunity to speak to make at least one anti-Semitic joke, to the delight of those attending the Cambridge Union Speech.

The Telegraph: Cambridge Union audience laughs at anti-Semitic 'joke' by Malaysian prime minister

Note how Cambridge defended inviting Mattahir:

Dr Mohamad's invitation to speak had already proved controversial, but Cambridge University said he should not be banned because they respect freedom of speech.

Ah, so Cambridge is all for free speech for anti-Semitic progressive scum -- and applauding it no less -- but not for a world-famous rather centrist University professor that disdains and demonstrates the fallacies of leftist cant.

And That Will Be Counted As A "School Shooting"

The Detroit Free Press: Charge dismissed against officer whose gun fired at Fowlerville wrestling meet

Note that most people in such an incident likely would not have received a resolution of adhering to plea conditions, whatever they were, and then having the charge dismissed and erased from your record.

This event will, I'm sure, be included in Everytown's database and other anti's sets of statistics as a school shooting, even though not only was no one injured but it was a negligent act by a police officer. But no matter, even as calling it a school shooting is one heckuva false impression. it will increase the count of the emotionally laden term "School Shooting".

Father's Day 2019

Father's Day was off to a rather rainy start.

Leah and Natasha were out of town so it was up to Abby to wish me a happy Father's Day.

She did so, and even walked the dog which is my typical duty, which was nice. I also called my dad and wished him the best of the day as well.

Then she made me breakfast:

Then there were some presents:

Yes, the socks are a gag gift. The Two Left Feet brand may refer to my dancing skills, but girls do think it's hilarious to have their dad wear pink socks with green toecaps and diamonds on them, go figure.

After that I got to work on the ribs I had prepared and covered in a rub the night before and got the smoker going.

There was quite a bit of rain going on.

The chorus from Singing Smoking In The Rain was heard.

But with all that I got the smoker going and then did some stuff around the house, including working on a project I'll blog about later when its done, and after about 3 hours on the smoker I tucked the ribs into the oven covered them in foil and with some water and apple cider vinegar to keep them company, at 225 degrees for awhile.

Then Abby drove me to lunch which didn't cause any coronary health checks, even as we drove through a roundabout that happens to be declared Michigan's most dangerous intersection. The kid did good.

Then she drove me as we did some errands and shopping for the house, including through the same roundabout again, then back home.

Leah and Tash soon arrived and we had dinner.

The ribs came out great.

So good they didn't even need a sauce, but there was sauce for those who wanted to add it.

I had mine with a Moosehead lager I had brought in the duty free store when I came back from last weekend's Toronto trip. A rather perfect pairing.

An excellent dessert followed, and then a nice long night drive with Abby just to have her drive around in the dark for awhile to get some hours in. She's certainly improved in quite a short time.

It was an excellent Father's Day indeed.

I hope all you dads out there had a great Father's Day day as well.

Perhaps The Best Example Of Fallacious Journalism You'll See Today

Journalism used to be about getting to the facts and reporting on them. Now it's far more about political correctness and feelings, and the facts be damned.

Here's a lovely example of a journalist looking at facts and imposing her ideological world view with a whopper of a logical fallacy right off the bat, never-mind the facts, she had an agenda to push, facts be damned:

The Toronto Star: Blowback to the word genocide proves the national inquiry report was right

Basically a progressive, politically-driven report by the "National Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls" was recently issued that named violence against Canadian indigenous women over the years to be an act of genocide.

Analysis of the facts indicate otherwise, and many people pointed out the facts and how these varied and separate acts of violence, while reprehensible, simply do not amount to any actual established definition of genocide.

The journo decided the existence of opposition to the report's findings proves the report's findings was correct.

It really doesn't work that way.

The argument is sort of a combination of the Fallacy of Opposition and Kafkatrapping - any denial of the assertion apparently proves the assertion.

Instead of declaring if others oppose her position that must mean its right, simply by virtue of the existence of people opposing it, she could have looked at the facts, which are pretty well known.

Instead of acts of genocide, indigenous women over the time period looked at were almost all killed or murdered in either of the following situations:

1. Killed by their domestic partner, which while reprehensible and plainly wrong, isn't genocide, it's spousal abuse that the government of Canada does in fact prosecute and punish the murderers when possible; or

2. Killed by an unknown sexual partner/opportunistic killer. Most of those who were killed were murdered while working in the sex trade, which unfortunately exposed them to potential killers by nature of the fact that they were plying an illegal trade that involved getting into vehicles with unknown persons, going to unknown places, not letting other people know where they were going or who they were with, and being in an extremely vulnerable position all the while and unfortunately being murdered. Again, reprehensible and wrong, but still not an act of genocide, nor does blaming colonialism work for either situation, but since leftists now believe Canada is a colonial nation and therefore bad, it's better to blame the nation collectively than the wrongdoers themselves, many if not most of whom are indigenous peoples.

Considering the fact that Canada's indigenous population is growing and expected to almost double by 2036, if this is genocide, Canada has done a piss-poor job of it, because well, Canada is simply not committing genocide against its indigenous population and these women's murders are not acts nor evidence of genocide no matter how much the progressives wish to believe them to be.

While its an important act to seriously prosecute those who commit crimes against indigenous peoples and devote resources towards prosecuting such crimes, to call random acts of murder and spousal abuse leading to death genocide is simply inappropriate and an attempt to mischaracterize a very real problem to get attention, and it completely devalues the word genocide and victims of actual genocides.

This Needs To Happen

In Edmonton Alberta, the City is about to redidicate some land downtown to make a new park.

Edmontonians have come up with a petition to name it, in a rather clever, awesome, and whimsical way, after one of Edmonton's famous native sons.

The proposed name: The Nathan Fillion Civilian Pavilion.

CBC News: Could 'The Nathan Fillion Civilian Pavilion' come to fruition?

If you're a fan of Nathan Fillion, and after all, you really should be, you can sign the petition at Change.org.

It's a most worthy effort, and I wish them success in this honorable endeavor. It sure as heck beats Parky McParkface as a name.

Detroiters And Car Insurance, Part Deux

Got a call from a Detroiter today who has, yes you guessed it, outstanding tickets and warrants in my jurisdiction.

First she figures since marijuana is now legal, her open warrant for failing to appear for sentencing for possession of a decent amount of the electric lettuce in 2009 should just go away.

No, it really doesn't work like that.

Next, of course, she has an outstanding warrant for failure to appear on driving without a license, no proof of insurance, and no proof of registration charges - the Detroit Driver Trifecta.

Her explanation for it is something else indeed, and I quote:

"I didn't do anything wrong - the lady who loaned me the car, she knew I didn't have a license, and she shouldn't have had expired plates on the car that caused me to get pulled over, it's not my fault."

So much was wrong with that emotionally declarative sentence that I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or ask her if she's still smoking the good stuff when I heard it.

She honestly and vehemently thinks she did nothing wrong by driving without a license or insurance, and it's all her friend's fault for giving her a car with an expired plate.

She was then surprised that she needed to pay a retainer to a lawyer up front to fix this problem and the only reason she wants to fix it is the outstanding warrants are giving her issues with her benefits and preventing her from getting even more government assistance.

So no, she won't be retaining me 'cause she don't want to pay up front. This of course means she wouldn't be paying when it's done either, I do know how this works by now and sorry, but this just doesn't qualify for a pro bono case.

There really is no need to wonder why auto insurance is so high in Detroit.

The University of Toronto Soldier's Tower

I had a nice visit this weekend with the family in Toronto.

The weather decided to be pleasant for a change, so we went for a stroll along the grounds of the University of Toronto, which is located in the heart of Toronto itself.

The University grounds were rather quiet and uncrowded in the green space set in the middle of downtown, as most of the students have departed for the summer.

Amongst the fine architecture, along the walking path, we first approached and then walked under this large bell tower.

At base if the tower was an alcove with a chain running across it. Within the alcove were inscribed the names of all those from the University of Toronto who had died in the First World War.

The first panel has In Flander's Fields inscribed upon it (click to embiggen).

Then come the lists of names.

A closing panel contains a final admonition:

628 University of Toronto students, faculty, staff, and alumni, 627 men and one woman, Nursing Sister L.D. Keys CAMC, who died in World War 1.

As I found out later, there's another archway that contains a memorial and a list of names of the 557 members from the University of Toronto who died in World War 2.

The 143-foot tall tower with its bell carillon was built in 1923-1924 with donations from the University of Toronto Alumni. The money raised back then is in an endowment and is still used for scholarships and tower maintenance expenses, and continues to stand today as a monument for those who gave their lives in the service of their country from the University of Toronto.

The Real Reason Why Detroit's Auto Insurance Is So High

One of the hot-button issues for Democrats in Michigan and Detroit is the complaint that Detroit's auto insurance rates are incredibly high, as in on average $4,000 a year for insurance high. Of course, the Democrats tend to claim this is due to racism.

There's a reason for the rates being so high, and it isn't racism.

Lets take Y for an example.

Why Y? Well, why not? Y is a female Detoriter I've come across in my legal journey in court recently who has a little issue.

You see, Y has been driving with her license suspended.

How long?

She's been driving suspended continuously for 15 years!

Y's license was suspended back in 2004 and she's been driving on it suspended ever since.

Prior to that she's had her license suspended and restored multiple times from 1999 until 2005, when it got suspended and stayed suspended as she never bothered resolving the 2005 suspension, she just tacked a series of more suspensions on top of that one.

Why? Because she doesn't pay tickets when she gets them and had been driving often without insurance. This has not however stopped her from driving all around the Metropolitan Detroit area.

She's unfortunately not a particularly good driver and tends to get pulled over. When she's and when she is pulled over, the police tend to quickly find out she's driving on a suspended license and then charge her yet again for driving suspended along with the reason why she was pulled over, she doesn't pay the tickets and it stays suspended

These episodes of her being caught speeding and improper lane changing and going through red lights mainly take place outside of Detroit and she complained that clearly, she's being ticketed and pulled over because she's being "profiled".

No, Y is bring ticketed not due to profiling, but because she's driving, and driving badly enough to warrant police attention, on a long-suspended license.

Oh, and Y's driving record goes on for 10, yes ten pages worth of charges and convictions for driving while license suspended and related charges that she keeps getting pulled over for and ticketed by the police.

Insurance costs are high in Detroit not due to racism.

Insurance costs are sky-high due to the fact that insurance companies don't like risk and due to Y and people like her driving around without insurance and with suspended licenses, and causing accidents without the slightest care, Detroit is a very high risk and high cost area.

In short, the real reason for Detroit's high insurance rates can be summed up in one word - Detroiters.

D-Day And The Liberation Of Europe - 75 Years On

75 Years Ago, beginning 10 minutes after midnight, the invasion of Europe began when hundreds of C-47 transports and gliders headed across the English Channel began to deliver their loads of paratroopers and glidermen onto continental Europe.

This was followed by thousands of men in landing craft arriving at the five invasion beaches in the greatest amphibious invasion in history.

The greatest invasion succeeded in gaining a foothold and breaching Hitler's "impregnable" Festung Europa, and it was the beginning of the end of the Third Reich.

Something To Tok About - The Cugir TTC

The box brought by UPS requiring an adult signature contained something to Tok about.

The TTC made by Cugir of Romania is the Romanian version of the Russian Tokarev TT-33 Pistol.

A variation of the Browning design, it offers a slim grip, weighs 1.8 pounds, and carries 8 rounds of the zippy 7.62x25 Tokarev cartridge - the world's fastest production pistol cartridge at the time, eclipsed when the .357 Magnum came along.

The sights on this TTC are tall and remarkably decent sights for a handgun of the time period, especially as a Tokarev's main function at the time was to use it to gesture heroically:

Frequent alternate uses included shooting dissidents in the head at execution range, or shooting conscripts fleeing the battlefield, and the sights are more than adequate for all three tasks.

While the Tokarev originally had no external safety, as it would be carried with the hammer half-cocked which was considered sufficient, import regulations required a safety be added, and thus a small but reasonably usable safety switch was added above and to the right of the trigger:

This pistol came absolutely slathered in oil. Oil that coated the magazine, the barrel, the slide, the grip, and which quickly dripped off and migrated to the table, my hands, everywhere. Certainly there can be no complaints about the pistol being shipped dry.

This Tokarev was manufactured in 1953 and comes with a single magazine and a rather decent surplus leather holster and metal cleaning rod.

The Romanian Tokarev may very well be one of the last affordable Curio and Relic firearms to be imported in large numbers. Now being sold at AIM Surplus for $220, it's an easy and relatively cheap acquisition of a very historic and still useful firearm.

Once I get all the oil wiped off and give it a good cleaning, I'll take it out to the range to try out.

Not From The Onion: Hillary Clinton To Keynote Cyber Defense Summit

No, this is not a joke. It's apparently 100% tone-deafly, headshakingly, very, very real.

Well, she can, I suppose, relate a cautionary tale of how not to run an insecure email server and then how to run Bleachbit on the same server when you're caught to try and cover your tracks.

UPS Is Pronounced OOPS

So I'm expecting a package to arrive today, the contents of which may merit a blog post later.

UPS sends a helpful email yesterday that notes the arrival time should arrive from 10:15 AM - 02:15 PM today and since I have to sign for the package someone better be at the home to sign for it.

So I figure I'll work from home in the morning so I can get the package and then go to the office.

They send another helpful email this morning that I can track the location of the delivery truck online.

So I do, with a window open on the computer as I get some work things done.

Viewing their site I can see the truck icon on the moving map. I watch the truck happily roll along, getting literally two streets away from me and I begin to expect seeing it pull up in my driveway.

Then its one street away to the north, so this should be good and I can get the package and head into the office and all is well.

Then it suddenly turns away and bypasses me to the south, traveling along a parallel street right past my house. WTF?

I then at that moment get a new email that the delivery time is now changed to 1:45 to 5:45. That's rather annoying.

It's now, per the icon, a mile south and heading more southerly as it goes. I have half a mind to go chase after it. Whoever came up with the route certainly messed up their delivery efficiency, and my plan for the day is now a bit askew as well.

Update: As of 2:28 the UPS truck icon on the map has quite literally and illustratively gone in a circle around my house, carefully avoiding it at all times, but happily chugging along adjacent streets, including streets that lead to my street.

Last Update: it finally arrived, after circumnavigating the neighborhood at least 3 times.

Stupid Criminals: Learn To Quit While You're Somewhat Ahead

The Detroit News: Mich. man charged with robbing same Walmart three times in one night

Yes he stole from a Walmart on three separate times in the same night.

While the headline is incorrect in that he didn't commit robbery, he instead committed larceny.

He wasn't using any force or threats of violence in his multiple thieving attempts so that's not robbery, but robbery sounds cooler than larceny to the headline writer I suppose.

However, committing three separate thefts from, and then returning to, the same location on the same night after the first and even seconds acts of theft qualifies for a special kind of stupid award. This is especially so as Walmart is pretty good about catching criminals in their stores, so of course he's on video for all three separate felonies.

Flying - Memorial Day Flight To Saginaw

I had panned to fly with Leah to Jackson today, but Leah wanted to see some water on this flight. So off to Saginaw Bay we went. The weather promised nice solid VFR and high clouds that wouldn't be in the way and only moderate winds.

A solid preflight, a good start and we were off from Runway 9L, heading north.

Soon we were 20 miles away form Saginaw's TRSA so we gave them a call, stated out intentions to tour the bay and then land at Saginaw and we got a transponder code and then could fly around the area with no problems.

We flew over Bay City airport on the way:

We soon reached Bay City itself.

Yes, that's the USS Edson below.

A fitting flyover for Memorial Day.

Then up the river to Saginaw Bay itself. You can see from above very clearly where the swollen and muddy river empties out into the blue of the bay:

Then we flew out into the Bay, and over the rather large and impressive Shelter and Channel Island.

After that we headed to Saginaw, landing on Runway 14 after being directed into a left base entry, with a bit of crosswind as the very large Runway 5/23 is out of service for maintenance until August, but the 6,000 feet of Runway 14 more than sufficed.

Then we took off and headed back to Pontiac.

On the way back I was flying so smoothly my passenger actually fell asleep for awhile.

Getting flight following all the way through Flint's Class C airspace. I was instructed to maintain 4,500 feet throughout their airspace and that's what I did. Radar services were terminated once I was 12 miles from Pontiac so I contacted them, was told to ident and setup for and report a left base entry for 9L.

Then to Pontiac, landing on 9L with a 13 knot crosswind, but no issues and it was a very sweet landing, with compliments from my passenger.

After that we taxi'd back to the hangar, refueled the plane for the next pilot who was coming at 2 for a flight and then we had a picnic lunch at the airport, watching planes land and takeoff.

These planes included N73455, the first plane I ever flew solo:

And N8428S, The plane I now fly solo and own a share in:

That's 1.8, 2 landings, and some more great memories in the books.

Things You Didn't Know You Needed, And Probably Still Don't

The Detroit Free Press: New Detroit store has psychic readings, raccoon penis bones

Ok then. Neither of those items make my shopping list, just saying.

23 And Us

23 years Ago today, Tash and I got married.

While many things change, we've remained together throughout, not remained the same mind you, but we've gotten better as life goes on and we've grown together.

This also marks the rather unbelievable milestone that I've now been married for 50% of my lifespan to date. Hard to believe, but true.

If you told me 23 years ago that I'd be where I am today, with the life I have, and the great family that has made it so, I doubt I would have believed it.

It's been quite the good life together, and I'm looking forward to the next 23 years together and beyond.

Driving By Miss Abby

The cardio health stress test continues apace, as Abby has decided she likes driving my car more than Tash's car, so I've been with her for the majority of her practices.

Today she drove to her high school, which is and will be the man reason for her getting a driver's license in the first place. We made it there no problem, not too much traffic on a Sunday aside from a bit of a jam near a church, and iut got her on some main roads and doing left turns in traffic and changing multiple lanes.

Thence we took an alternate route home so she could try merging onto a highway. Yes, my circulatory system is strong.

She did fine, traffic was light enough, and I was able to talk her through it ok. Lots of neck cranking on my part during the merge and lane changes. No permanent indentations in the armrests.

Then down to Best Buy to pickup an SD card that I had a rewards coupon for, so a 64GB SanDisk Pro card instead of costing $28 cost only $10, which is a nice bargain for a very nice and fast memory card for the camera.

She did good and parked reasonably well by the store.

Then back in the car and thence up and through a roundabout that is ranked the 2nd most dangerous intersection in the entire state, because roundabout plus traffic light - yes, really.

She did fine but did need some help on getting into the roundabout safely as it was kinda hair-raising. Again, I passed this stress test with flying colors and did not even try to curl into a ball and drop onto the floorboards, as tempting as that was.

It's interesting the things she doesn't know that she doesn't know.

For example, she was getting set in the car and I was still in the house with the keys. She got her seat adjusted, mirrors set and had the headlights full on without the car running.

I explained that wasn't a good habit to get into as it drains the battery when you leave the lights on with the car off. She didn't know that, but does now.

Other things included how far should you get over when the police have a car stopped on a road that is one lane in each direction, and traffic lights that are only flashing yellow.

I talked her through these and she did just fine. She's certainly coming along as a driver and getting smoother and more confident, which is a good thing. We spent over an hour on the road, and then to top it off, she drove herself to a friend's house in some heavy rain, which was good experience, so she definitely got her practice in today.

I figure the next driving mission will be to have her drive the gas station to teach her how to fill the car up.

Progressives on Mass Transit: Not Working? Do It More And Harder.

Yet again, the advocates while at the same time claiming that the Q-Line would be the future for mass transit are now admitting that its failing, and their solution is to double down and do it again.

The Detroit News: Opinion: Detroit can still make transit succeed

She notes that already predicted reality: Ridership is down to about 2,490 beow what is required to sustain it and its down, especially from when rides were free - who could have guessed? On top of that, the streetcars are delayed and not reliable, and the system isn't exactly up to spec maintenance-wise.

Again, who could have seen that coming?

But reality never dissuaded mass transit enthusiasts.

Her first proposed solution? Free rides during the time it would be in highest demand for people to pay for rides, to show people will ride it . . .so long as its free. Yes, really.

First, its private-sector benefactors should declare a four-month holiday from the fares, just as when the streetcar first launched operations — and just in time for baseball season, and for the streetcar to take travelers from downtown hotels to the ballpark.

If your system depends on it being free in order to work, there's something a tad wrong with your system, especially when you need rider fares to sustain the system.

Then, after bemoaning that the current payment system is difficult and often malfunctioning, for the poor people who can't afford cars, she claims it can be fixed with credit card readers on every streetcar.

Second, the QLine should install credit-card payment infrastructure onboard, with options for people who don’t have credit cards to pre-pay their fares at shops alongside the route.

Using credit card swipes for a $1.50 fare is a bit much, not to mention the time it takes to process each swipe transaction as a passenger boards and pays over the 3.3 miles that Q-Line travels. Of course, she somehow expects the payment system to be better maintained than the operating history of the system with its current broken payment systems that she has indicated it will be so far, right?

Note how these proposals still won't increase the streetcar rate from the current 20 minutes or more to the 8 minutes that was promised. Bit she does recommend losing a lane on Woodward in each direction to jam traffic in favor of a slow moving streetcar, because, mass transit.

Remember, this is all for a 3.3 mile long system that moves at best at about the speed of a normal walk.

What In The Counter-Factual F Was That Tlaib?

Rep Tlaib (D - Dearbonistan) never fails to enliven up the news.

Her latest faux pas that she's now claiming she was "misquoted" about was her feeling calm about the Holocaust and the hilarious and impressively counter-factual claim that her ancestors the "Palestinians" created a "safe haven for Jews"

The Detroit News: Tlaib says critics are 'twisting' her words as Trump attacks in tweet

Kinda hard to twist this any other way than how she said it:

"There's always a calming feeling, I always tell folks, when I think of the Holocaust and the tragedy of the Holocaust in the fact that it was my ancestors, Palestinians, who lost their land and some lost their lives, their livelihood, the human dignity," Tlaib said.

"Their existence in many ways have been wiped out and some people's passports. All of it was in the name of trying to create a safe haven for Jews — post the Holocaust, post the tragedy and horrific persecution of Jews across the world at that time. And I love the fact that it was my ancestors that provided that in many ways. But they did it in a way that took their human dignity away, right? And it was forced on them.

Yes that's exactly what she said and what she believes, or or at least would have you believe she believes.

Her statement is both rather shocking to those who don't know the Arab mindset about Jews and the Holocaust, and otherwise pretty hilarious as it omits the plethora of anti-Semitic massacres and attacks by Arabs of the region against Jews - so much so that the claim that her people "created a safe haven" is beyond laughable. On top of that, there never was a state of Palestine, so no passports would have existed that said Palestine on them.

The amazingly counterfactual claim that her ancestors provided Jews a safe haven is rather amazing and shows a deliberate distortion and rewriting of history on her part. With her ancestors palling it up with Adolf Hitler and planning to kill all the Jews in the Palestine mandate had the Nazis won, it sure promised quite a safe haven. Such a safe haven they gave, with features like the Hebron massacre even before World War 2, and then countless acts of violence afterwards all the way up to and beyond the founding of the state of Israel.

Of course once she's exposed she tries to claim her statements were twisted is the standard trope of "Who ya gonna believe - Tlaib or your lying eyes and ears?"

Between Ilhan Omar and Tlaib, the Democrats are sure positioning themselves heading into 2020 as the leaders in anti-Semitism and revisionist history.

Doom, Now With Subterranean Gloom

You know Australians live down under, but one Australian at least in advocating everyone lives deep down under.

Yahoo News: The only way is down: subterranean survival warning

In short, no, not just because this is the typical earth is doomed nonsense we've been hearing since The Population Bomb, but also, because Morlocks.

Get That Art In A Burqa, Stat!

The Times: Saatchi Gallery covers up SKU artworks after complaints by Muslims

The artwork itself is now covered in what very well looks like a burqa, as can be seen in the linked article.

The art, being a critical commentary on Islam and its interaction with the west, had Arabic script overlaid on some nude images. If you couldn't predict what was going to happen when you did that. . .

Well, just like the real life interaction between Islam and the West, there's been a rather fractious and vociferous uproar of blasphemy and offense from the Muslim community.

Rather provocatively, the artist included the Shahada, or Muslim declaration of faith, on the image and that's where the outrage began, including comparison to the Satanic Verses. Note the author of the Satanic Verses got a fatwa and multiple and very real death threats and attmepts on his life, so the artist in this case is likely also in a bit of trouble too.

Offensive? Most certainly.

However, clearly no more offensive than for example Piss Christ or Mary in Elephant dung, and Banksy's anti-semitic art display at Art Basel in Miami -- all of which were on prominent display in art galleries without fear, nor were they ever covered up. This is because Christians and Jews, while they may get annoyed and consider it offensive, and even write letters to the editor complaining about it, in the West they don't kill people over offensive art these days.

If you're going to display provocative art, knowing it is provocative, retreating after there's a reaction to the provocation is rather weak indeed, and it tends to reinforce and reward threatening behavior. Setting a policy that offensive art is ok, just as long as it doesn't offend Islam, has some very bad consequences.

Good Morning Guv'nor, Department Of Pre-Crime Calling

The city of London's pre-crime unit must be having to work overtime with the latest news on the results of the facial detection system installed for London's surveillance cameras:

The Independent: Facial recognition wrongly identifies public as potential criminals 96% of time, figures reveal

Facial recognition technology has misidentified members of the public as potential criminals in 96 per cent of scans so far in London, new figures reveal.

The Metropolitan Police said the controversial software could help it hunt down wanted offenders and reduce violence, but critics have accused it of wasting public money and violating human rights.

Is the 96% false positive rate a bug or a feature? After all, in the United Kingdom's new and improved Orwellian surveillance state, it's not that the system is misidentifying the public as criminals, it's just they haven't been caught in the act on camera yet.

Sunday Flyday

After the rigors and drama of the forensics competition over the last two days, it was time to hit the sky.

Not having flown since February, I headed to the airport and preflighted the club's Archer. Peter had finished flying it a half hour before I arrived, so it was nice and warmed up for me.

It started up without any hesitation, and then I did the run up, and headed off of Runway 27R for some pattern work.

It was like I had never stopped flying the aircraft. Even with the PAPI lights out of service, I was doing some nice stabilized approaches and landings. Crosswinds were light to non existent with wind blowing from 310 to 270 from 8-10 knots so no problem at all.

Landings were good.

Lots of other planes were in the pattern, even the Civil Air Patrol came out to get some pattern work in.

DCT's 3EJ was in the pattern as well.

It was busy, and the tower did a great job managing traffic. On my last pattern I had to extend my downwind, following a Cessna Cardinal that also had to extend and we got a pretty good distance away before we could both turn base and head back in to really nice landings.

In short, it was a beautiful day to get legal again to take passengers and good to knock the rust off my wings.

Forensics - Missed It By That Much, But Won In Many Other Ways

Unfortunately, Abby didn't make it into finals.

She placed 7th, missing the 6th place required for finals by 3 points - out of 1,100 possible points.

At State Finals the difference in competitor's scores and performances really is measured in millimeters.

7th in oratory in the whole state is nothing to sneeze at. Quite an accomplishment for someone who only started forensics in November and had never done any public speaking before.

She took not advancing to finals well, and it will give her something to work towards next year.

She made lots of new friends, enjoyed the effort required to compete and really came out of her shell, so it was a highly positive experience.

She's sad its done for the year and already misses the friendly competition and how the competitors, while all trying to win, still support each other and almost all have really good camaraderie and sportsmanship.

Judging these competitions is hard. At the state level the talent of the performers is amazing and it does become rather subjective. Most of my assessments through the competition were typically in line with other judge's perspectives of the competitors, and sometimes not so much. You always want to be fair and its hard to always pinpoint exactly what it is about a performance that really is better than another, especially when both are outstanding.

I judged the Duo finals and to say the performances were all stunning would be an understatement. Incredibly well done, and I had to ask all the competitors at the end how the schools all happened to bring in professional actors as ringers. Not kidding, these kids could take these performances to a professional stage and the audience would be well satisfied.

Again, differences in performance came down to millimeters. I was consistent with one of the of the other two judges as to which performance came in first, and that one won the entire state competition on points throughout, so I was at least assessing the performance in line with all the other judges as to how it was really outstanding. I had swapped places for 2nd and 3rd with the other judge, and was pretty consistent on 4th, 5th and 6th place. The third judge was very different in perspective. Note that we don't discus our ranking with the other judges and it is all independently decided on, so it is interesting to see where we all agree and disagree.

After the awards ceremony, the team all went out to a restaurant together and this is a really good bunch of kids - bright, learned, well-mannered and quite a few will be going on to college next year, and the rest returning to compete in forensics again.

The coach, a teacher at the school who does this on a voluntary basis, puts in a ton of work all year to make this happen - talk about a teacher making a real difference for a lot of kids. She did a fantastic job indeed and the team did quite well with many placing in the finals.

And She Breaks into Semis

After the first 4 rounds,the semi final match-ups have just been released.

Abby made it to the semi-finals, so she's now in the top 12 competitors in the state for oratory.

Regardless of whether she breaks into finals or not, as a freshman doing forensics for the fist time, she's come a very long way in a very short time. We'll know soon.

Fun With Forensics - Michigan State Finals

Today I get to put the mental in judgmental.

Abby made it to the state finals for forensics in the category of oratory, so that means I get drafted to judge the state final competition. Happily, its being held at Oakland University so it's close and convenient enough at around 45 minutes or so away in traffic. Luckily I was able to keep y schedule clear today so I could judge, I'm now a certified judge for forensics having passed the certification test, which is nice, I guess.

Downside, today I get two sets of two rounds back-to-back, in different buildings, with a trip to the statistics office and a prep room between each to drop off the evaluations and grab the prep sheets for the second time limited event, with not enough minutes in between the rounds to get it all done. In short, I'm getting some exercise in.

Further downside, it's from 9am to 9pm today and it runs through tomorrow all day as well.

So far I've judged Storytelling and Broadcasting, with some very talented high school kids from all over the state putting their best performance forward. Yep, these kids are all alright.

On a very high upside, the Oakland University Center that is the headquarters for the competition has a food court, and in that food court:

One of only two Chik-Fil-A restaurants in Michigan.

Very, very tasty chicken (spicy chicken sandwich, if you please) and waffle fries makes up for all the inconveniences of running around the campus from building to building. Chik-Fil-A seriously rocks.

The line up for it is super long as its a very popular item indeed, and its worth it.

So I have prose and extemporaneous coming up in a couple hours and going late tonight and then dramatic interpretation and unassigned semi-finals and finals tomorrow. Going to be a very long weekend, but kinda fun.

Ladybird Deeds, Done Dirt Cheap

I'm a listed attorney for a prepaid legal service. As part of the deal, I get referrals from the service, and the customer gets 25% off my legal fees for being a member of the service. Not a bad deal, and it does bring in quite a range of referrals from absolutely insane people, to those with an incredibly strong and unearned sense of self-entitlement, to time wasters, to decent clients, to really good clients.

So, I had a referral six months ago for a potential client who wanted some ladybird deeds done.

Ladybirds are a special kind of deed that, to put it simply, if done right, lets you bypass probate with the property, name who is going to get the property when you die, and still give you complete control over the property including the right to sell it up until you die.

Basically, the deeds are good to avoid probate and can be used in some circumstances for Medicaid planning. See your attorney for details to see if it works for you or not - it is really not the right solution for everyone.

So I chat with this client and she wants 6 Ladybird deeds. Kinda unusual, typically one for the person's residence is the request as that typically works for Medicaid, and if you own more properties you may want a trust and/or LLC structure to handle that.

She insists she wants ladybird deeds and doesn't want a trust or anything else. She insistently wants ladybirds and nothing else will do. It is the first case of complete Ladybird fixation I've ever come across. Fine, I outline the advantages and disadvantages and then quote her the discounted price on doing and recording all 6.

She then hangs up and doesn't call back and I figure she was either kicking tires, or just didn't want to pay for the service.

The provider service calls me three months ago asking if I had dealt with her. I noted I had had a conversation with her 3 months before then, but she didn't retain me or pursue the matter. They then refer her to me again as she apparently wants to do it.

So she calls again, I quote her the price again, and she faxes me over the current deeds to look over. I quote her the price yet again, she doesn't retain me and actually asks for a further discount as, according to her, since I would be doing 6 deeds she should be entitled to a bulk discount. I calmly explain that she's already getting a 25% discount off the cost and if she can find it done as well for cheaper she's welcome to go do so. Then she hangs up and nothing happens for a couple more months.

She then calls last week, deciding she wants to do 4 deeds and wants to meet with me after hours, because she works. Fine, I stay later one night last week and she comes in, she asks lots of questions about the process, again asks for a bulk discount on 4 which I again explain isn't going to happen as she's already getting the 25% discount. She hems and haws, I expect her to leave after wasting my time yet again, but finally she writes a check for the 4 deeds - At this point I know to demand the full fee upfront for the deeds as I can tell exactly what will happen if I don't do so.

So, I get the deeds done, and actually correct an error in the legal description on one of the deeds that has crept into it, and they're ready to go.

She called me yesterday in the late afternoon wanting to come in immediately to get them done, after hours of course, because she be working.

Well, the first after hours day I can fit her in is next Tuesday, as I'm booked solid yesterday, and Friday and Saturday and not available due to other things going on, and even if I was, not sure I'd be inclined to make a special trip to the office and set aside Saturday time for this person after all this nonsense and attitude.

I note she can see me during normal hours on Monday or normal hours or later on Tuesday.

She states she's very concerned, because what if something happens and she dies over the weekend?

I tell her that the deeds aren't effective until they're signed and notarized. I then state to her in a rather deadpan manner that she should avoid unnecessary risks before coming in.

She's very insistent though and all wound up about doing them before Monday, because after her delaying doing anything for over 6 months, she wants them done quickly just in case, and I should drop everything to make that happen and arrange to meet her at her convenience.

I calmly point out she's waited over 6 months to do anything and odds are that she should statistically should survive until Monday to sign the deeds.

After a fair bit of carrying on, she then agrees to meet Monday during the day, we will see when she actually shows up.

She then actually asks that if she dies before she signs them, will her heir get a refund of the legal services?

Yes, seriously.

I explain that no, the heir would not get a refund as the work is done and awaiting her signature. She gets all wound up about that.

I tell her to be careful, drive safe, and I'll see her Monday.

NRAAM - Honor Guard Pistols

Wandering around first with DaddyBear and Drang, I soon met up with some attorney friends and we then unfortunately got separated from DB and Drang.

Moving around the show floor, we met and chatted with Michael Bane by the Honor Defense booth and chatted with him and the Honor Defense rep.

Honor Defense is a US company located in Alabama making a nice compact Shield-like pistol, the Honor Guard.

Some differences from the Shield include a modular chassis approach similar to the Sig 320, so you can change grips and slides on the same firearm and customize it to your own preferences, including adding a manual safety. Honor Defense also claims the pistol is more accurate than the Shield and comparable compacts such as the Walther PPS and Glock 43.

Overall, the operation is very Shield like and it is of comparable size, while the grip feels a little thinner and fits better in the hand and the trigger felt nicer, but that's rather subjective wihtout taking ti to the range and trying it out. Seems like a nice pistol if you're looking for a compact carry 9mm.

It's at a price point comparable to the Shield and Walther PPS. You can also customize one direct from the factory for shipping to your FFL.

The Honor Defense rep noted the market in compact handguns is rather soft currently, but he expects the market is going to heat up come election time in 2020.