Evil acknowledges no limits or boundaries

 

Disclosure: I have not confirmed this claim

Look at the blurb. That was during Obama 2.0  They have been doing this for a while. SOURCE

Last week, Afghanistan released new data showing opium production is surging, information that dovetailed with a widely circulated 2016 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report that showed similar findings. The primary problem is a new strain of genetically modified seed that comes from China, which allows poppies to be grown year round. The so-called Chinese seeds began appearing in 2015, according to the UNODC, leading to a massive 43 percent surge in production last year...

 

Wanna bet USAID financed the genetic modification of those seeds in China and then paid for the distribution? They funded viral gain-of-fuction research in China because it was illegal to do in the US.

Just add that to the number of lives the evil people associated with USAID killed and destroyed through drugs.

The good old days

Remember the good-old-days when we scoffed at the Blacks who claimed    fill-in-blank    drugs and HIV were invented and distributed by the CIA to destroy the Black community.

They weren't "good" because the CIA (or their surrogates) were not doing it. They were the good-old-days because we were naive and walked through a rose-colored fog and could not see the blood.

Top ten countries by prevalence of opiate use

Availability and affordability seems to drive the Top 10

Bottom 10

Lack of affordability and severity of punishment to dealers and users seems to drive the Bottom 10. Last time I looked Cote d'Ivoire and Brunei were very "black".

 

Demand and availability is a chicken-and-egg kind of argument. They co-evolve in a permissive environment.

I like this ad

 

Nothing negative. People dealing with their problems. People turning a "problem" into a social event.

I hope Meijers sells a lot of marshmallows, graham crackers and adult beverages.

Kristi Noem

I must confess that it is difficult to blog about the events surrounding Trump's incoming administration, primarily because everything is happening so danged quickly.

I want to jump out and say that I have been very impressed by Kristi Noem's leadership style.

She is a "Go and See" leader.

It is too easy for managers to start believing that the little squiggles swimming across the "dash-board" on your lap-top are reality. It is very seductive, actually. Precise. Unambiguous. No effort required.

If you ever raised animals on pasture, you know "numbers" have limitations. Your neighbor a half-mile to the south may have had 2" of rain and you might have only gotten 1/4". His cattle may be fat-and-sassy and your lambs might have barber-pole worms.

Go-and-See gives you a chance to hear "the rest of the story". Broken equipment issues?  Maybe your guy "Bob" has anger management issues. It is not an equipment or maintenance issue. It is a "Bob" issue. You can't fix it unless you really know what is broken.

And the return-on-investment is beyond calculating in the human dimension. Why should anybody care more about something than the boss cares about it?

I was working third-shift at "the factory" and was rolling out an unpopular policy change from management. After reading the policy to three of my "guys" in one of the far-flung corners of my kingdom, I slipped into the "Metrology" center to tread-water for fifteen minutes.

One of the minions in the Metrology center, a guy named Tony, snidely (I thought) suggested that I was "hiding".

I said "Nope. I am sitting here because there comes a point where any more 'attention' from management is like picking at a zit. Sometimes the best thing a boss can do is to become invisible for a while and let people 'process' the changes."

18 months later that "snide minion" was the Chairman of the Union Local and I found myself in an excruciatingly painful situation with my chain-of-command. I have no hard evidence, but I think Tony told the Plant Manager (two or three links up the chain-of-command) that he (Tony) would be unhappy if I was treated harshly.

Like I said, the return-on-investment of Go-and-See management is beyond calculating in the human dimension. I didn't reel my "guys" in from their jobs and roll-out the changes in my office. I went to their domain (next to the Metrology center) and unrolled it.

If any of my readers work for Kristi, and if you are comfortable with the task, please let her know that I think she is doing a GREAT job.

Lifting notes: 136 x 6. 185 x 6. 205 x 6. 225 x 4 (felt weak, dropped back). 205 x 6 x 4 more sets. Total of 8970 pounds

A little East of Paris: Power-tools

“My name is Gwain McCampbell. Thanks for showing up so quickly.”

The man on the other side of the door sounded surprised. “My name is Cletus Wagner but I go by Chuck or Chuck-Wagon” the man replied.

“Pleased to meet you” Gwain responded.

He looked over at Olivia and saw that she was starting to melt-down.

“Write that down. Write down his name, what time it is, what he says, what the tools sound like. Write down EVERYTHING!” Gwain commanded her.

She immediately put pencil to paper and started writing as if the devil was chasing her pencil.

“Can you tell us what you are doing, sort of give us a running commentary. Especially if you are going to use power-tools that might be noisy?” Gwain asked Chuck, glancing over at Olivia. “We are getting little bit jumpy in here and would appreciate having enough time to stuff our fingers in our ears.”

“Yeah. Sure. No problem” Chuck grunted. “I am scraping as much of the expanding foam out of the cracks as I can with a screwdriver. As warm and as humid as it is, it is setting pretty fast.”

“I am looking for a place to wipe off my screwdriver….I am going to wipe the foam off on the top of my toolbox. Getting the foam off of a painted surface is almost impossible to do without damaging the paint….Ok, I am scraping out some more foam…”

Part way through the evolution, Chuck used his cell-phone to call his boss. Chuck asked him to bring the security tool-bit.

“What is a ‘security tool-bit’?” Gwain asked.

“I need to pull the door-hinges” Chuck told them. “Our hinges have a set-screw to make it difficult for people to break into offices and the set-screw has a weird head you can’t just unscrew it with Allen wrenches.”

A couple minutes later, Chuck’s boss called back. Chuck put it on speaker. “Hey, how urgent is your project? The bit wasn’t in the drawer” the disembodied boss informed them.

“It is urgent” Chuck said in a matter-of-fact voice. “Some pranksters glued a professor and a student into one of the old offices in the Language Arts building.”

“I have you on speaker because the professor said knowing what is going on will help keep them calm” Chuck said.

“Crap!” is all the boss said. Then after a few heart-beats, “I am sending Bernie over with the angle grinder and a bunch of cut-off discs. Try not to set the building on fire.”

Chuck heard Olivia gasp. “He was joking. The cut-off wheel makes sparks but there is nothing flammable within 20 feet of here. It was just a stupid joke.”

Chuck didn’t bother to tell Olivia that the glue WAS flammable. He sent a text to his boss. “SEND SEVERAL FIRE-EXTINGUISHERS!!!” He also didn’t tell the occupants that the old offices had very little ventilation. They were never intended to be occupied for long periods of time with the doors closed. It was Chuck’s opinion that there were some things the people trapped in the room were better off NOT knowing.

Gwain looked at Olivia, thoughtfully.

“A lot of people who have anxiety issues carry a few ‘rescue’ meds. If you have some, this would be a good time to take them” Gwain offered.

Olivia looked surprised. “I think I might have something!” she said. 

She started digging around in her purse and pulled out some small, pink tablets*. “I forgot I had these. They put me right to sleep” Olivia said.

“You might just want to take one… just to take the edge off” Gwain suggested as he handed her an unopened bottle of water.

“OK, Bernie just showed up with the angle grinder. It is going to get loud in there” Chuck informed them.

“What I am going to do is every time I stop grinding, I will wait at least ten seconds before I start again. That way you can talk to me if you need to say something” Chuck said.

“I appreciate the heads-up” Gwain said as he stuck his finger tips into his ears.

Gwain didn’t think the grinder was that loud when Chuck started it. He quickly changed his mind when the cutting wheel touched the steel hinge and made the door vibrate like the head of a drum. The noise was harsh and grating and amplified in the small space.

It was really rough on Olivia.

Chuck stopped cutting after a half minute. “How are you guys doing in there?”

“Not so good” Gwain admitted. “Miss Benavidez just took a tranquilizer. Do you suppose you could just hang-loose for fifteen or twenty minutes so it has time to take effect?”

“Yeah. No problem” Chuck said. “I can get some fans while we are waiting. Oh, and I am getting a crowd of people who want to talk with you.”

The next voice Gwain heard was von Tersch, the Department Head. “How are you doing in there?” von Tersch asked.

“Not so hot” Gwain admitted. “Can you shoo-away the gawkers? There are some things we need to discuss privately.”

Mystified, von Tersch directed Violet to remove the small crowd of on-lookers.

“Ok, we are in the clear, what is up?” von Tersch asked, expecting Professor McCampbell to go high-maintenance on him.

“I am in the office with Miss Benavidez who is one of our Freshmen. Miss Benavidez is experiencing a mental health emergency. We are dealing with it for now, but as soon as this door is popped off, I NEED to get Miss Benavidez to the Student Health building for observation.” Gwain told him.

That was NOT what von Tersch expected, or wanted, to hear.

Gwain continued, “We are going to walk over there and we don’t want to run into anybody who is going to stop us and ask questions.”

“Wouldn’t an ambulance be faster?” von Tersch asked.

Looking over at Olivia, Gwain responded “I don’t think Miss Benavidez will want to be in confined spaces so soon”

Olivia vigorously nodded her agreement. Walking in the open seemed like a great option.

More quietly, Gwain asked Olivia “Do you have any friends you want to walk with. We can try and find them…”

Olivia shook her head “No”. She had no close friends at college, nobody she had confided in, nobody who she could trust to keep her issues secret.

“Miss Benavidez agrees with just me and her walking over to the student health center like it is not a big deal, but I WANT the skids to be greased. I want somebody over there waiting for her at-the-door and I expect her to get treated like royalty” Gwain said.

“Gotchya. Just you and her taking a quiet walk across campus...I might send along a couple of people to clear the path but…” von Tersch said…

“Oh shit! A television truck just parked in front of the building” von Tersch exclaimed.

Gwain looked over at Olivia and repeated his mantra "Who, what, how, where, when and why. Keep writing!"

Looking at the number of pages that she had written, Gwain added "Go back and number each page and circle the number. Put your initials at the bottom. Just do it."

(C) 2025 Eaton Rapids Joe, All Rights Reserved 

* One of the off-label uses for diphenhydramine (also known as Benadryl) in mental health situations is as an emergency sedative. It is commonly available in two-tablet, sealed, tear-open packets.

Just call me Smoke-stick Joe

The black dot was made by tracing around a dime and then filling it in. It is approximately 3/4" in diameter.

Some "groups" with the Remington 1858 replica.

The taped holes were shot on a sunny day. The not-taped holes were shot on a cloudy day and after the voluptuous curves aft of the rear sight were spray-painted with flat-black paint.

The glare from the sunny day resulted in the group being about 3 inches below the point-of-aim.

The cloudy-day had two holes at 1.2 inches below the point-of-aim and two more at about 2" below the point of aim. It is very easy to remove metal from the front sight to raise where the bullets hit, but it is difficult to add it back. So it pays to take it slow-and-easy and sneak up on perfection. If you have four pieces of information that tell you that you are 1.2" low, 2" low, 3" low and 4" low, the smart money bets on the 1.2" low because it is inexpensive (in terms of time) to correct. If you bet on 4" low and you guessed wrong, you have a tougher situation to correct.

Another thing to consider is that anticipating-the-shot can result in the shooter "pushing" the gun before it goes off and that usually lowers where the bullet hits the target. It pays to look at "low" shots as more suspect than high ones.

My math suggested that I needed to lower the front sight by 0.015 inches to raise the group 1.2 inches at 45 feet.

We will shoot it again on the next cloudy day.

Any guidance from my readers about the very least reflective brand of, "flat" black paint will be appreciated.

Fine Art Tuesday

 

Fritz Müller-Landeck was born in 1865 in Pinnow, Brandenburg Germany. He died in 1942.

He taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich starting in 1889.

His work spanned bright, airy spring-time scenes to dark, brooding forests. While some of his work seem repetitive, original works are a bargain running between $300 and $6000 at auction.

A tip of the old fedora to Lucas Machias

Sticking cuttings

 

I have a plastic tub on a 20W heating mat. I had to fiddle around to get it near 80F, which is optimal for callous formation in many plant species.

 

Sticking some cuttings.

I am trying the modified "fig pop" method. Most of the cuttings are figs with a few plums just for giggles.

The bases of the cuttings are re-cut and I vertically score the bottom of the cuttings for about 3/4". Then I dip them in diluted Dip-n-Gro rooting hormone.

2 cuttings of Florea. The first, ripe, mainseason fruit can be expected to ripen at 1950 Growing Degree Days base 50F SOURCE

3 Rondo de Bordeaux (supposedly a difficult fig to root) 1900 GDD

8 Mt Etna type cuttings 2070 GDD

12 Alma cuttings 2700 GDD (not sure what I am going to do with these. Roots are supposedly more resistant to nematodes than many other varieties.)

8 AU Rosa plums