Battleship U.S.S. Texas afloat today

And back at dock after an extensive repair and refit.  Don't mess with Texas' battleships.

This is a very long video of this morning's short voyage.

Constitutional Crisis

The bustard's a fortunate fowl
with almost no reason to growl.
Saved from what would be
illegitimacy
by the grace of a fortunate vowel

Via Aesop comes news that the Republic is now in a full fledged constitutional crisis.  The short version: Texas put up razor wire along the border, the Federales cut it down, Texas sued to stop the Fed interference, and the Supreme Court sided with the Feds.  Now Texas has told SCOTUS to pound sand and the Texas National Guard is putting up more razor wire.

It is unreported whether Texas Gov Abbot echoed Andy Jackson's famous words that the SCOTUS has issued its ruling, now let them enforce it.

This is an enormous blow to the prestige and legitimacy of the Supreme Court, and demonstrates just how fragile that sense of legitimacy is.  Good grief, what an unholy mess.

May God save this honorable Republic.

Go for a stroll underneath a battleship

Dwight visits the dry-docked USS Texas.  He also buys a souvenir bit of USS Texas steel.  Somewhere, #2 Son has some souvenir deck teak from the USS North Carolina.

Best Governor in the Republic

Ron DeSantis is sending Florida Law Enforcement to help police the border in Arizona and Texas:

Gov. Ron DeSantis pledged to send Florida law enforcement to the southern border in response to calls for help from Texas and Arizona as they try to manage the record-breaking number flow of migrants.

Florida law enforcement officials including Highway Patrol, nine different sheriff’s departments, and members of the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, will travel to the southernmost counties of Texas and Arizona to secure the border. 

Boy, he's making the current Administration in Washington D.C. look pretty useless.

Everything you need to know about the Texas power blackouts

Lawrence does the research so that I (we) don't have to. 

Is Texas really about to turn Blue (or Purple)?

Lawrence looks at the huge TV ad buys that Silicon valley billionaires are making for the Democratic Senate candidate - something like $28M in the last 2 weeks of the election.  He picks this apart and says that no, Texas is not turning blue.

It's an interesting read.  Recommended.

Notes from a Texas Gun Show

 Old friends from Austin Lawrence and Dwight (You do read them every day, don't you?  Thought so.) went to the Saxet Gun Show.  I went a few times when it was in Austin and had very cool stuff like a table where the guy was hawking a free tank school.  Don't mess with Texas, baby - they'll teach you to drive and shoot a tank.

But Austin is weird, and not in the happy fun way.  The City Fathers* banned the gun show, so it went off to San Antonio.  Lawrence has a report from the show which has both good news and bad news for folks looking for guns/ammo/reloading supplies.  It's detailed and I encourage you to read the whole thing.

Oh, and I didn't even know that Beard Oil is a thing.

Man, I need to get back out there for a visit and take The Queen Of The World with me.  Maybe stop in Lockhart for some BBQ as well.

* I just phrased it that way to annoy the Usual Suspects®

Terry Allen - Amarillo Highway

Real Country music isn't dead in this day and age of Nashville crossover pop-rock.  You just have to look around for it.  "Texas Country Music" is a genre of Country music from (duh) Texas that is still true to its red dirt roots.  Terry Allen is from Lubbock, son of a Texas League coach.  He began writing songs in High School and had an album by 1975 - one that Rolling Stone called an "outlaw classic".

This is maybe his most famous song, and Robert Earl Keen's rendition may be the most well known.  But lots of big names have covered his songs, including Willie Nelson, Little Feat, and David Byrne.  But the roots go deep in west Texas.  Country Music is alive and well, and if you look around you can still find it.



Amarillo Highway (Songwriter: Terry Allen)

I'm a high straight in Plainview
A side bet in Idalou
An' a fresh deck in New Deal
Yeah some call me high hand
And some call me low hand
But I'm holding what I am the wheel
'Cause I'm panhandlin' manhanlin'
Post holin' high rollin' dust bowlin' Daddy
I ain't got no blood in my veins
I just got them four lanes
Of hard Amarillo Highway 

I don't wear no Stetson
But I'm willin' to bet son
That I'm big a Texan as you are
There's a girl in her bare feet
Asleep on the back seat
And that trunk's full of Pear beer and Lone Star 

'Cause I'm panhandlin' manhanlin'
Post holin' high rollin' dust bowlin' Daddy
I ain't got no blood in my veins
I just got them four lanes
Of hard Amarillo Highway 

Gonna hop outta bed
Pop a pill in my head
Bust the hub for the Golden Spread
Under Blue Skies
Gonna stuff my hide
Behind some Power Glide
Get some southern friend
Back in my hide 

'Cause I'm panhandlin' manhanlin'
Post holin' high rollin' dust bowlin' Daddy
I ain't got no blood in my veins
I just got them four lanes
Of hard Amarillo Highway 

As close as I'll ever get to Heaven
Is makin' speed up old eighty-seven
Of that hard Amarillo Highway

Not all heroes wear capes.

The caption reads: A Houston Policeman collapses after working rescue for 48 hours straight. 

There have been more and more times lately when I think that the Republic is going to Hell in a hand basket.  But this is not one of them.  Boy, howdy.



It got a little misty when the reporter stopped what he was doing and (properly) folded Old Glory.

God bless the first responders and all the volunteers.

Peter Dawson - It Ain't Texas

The Lone Star Republic was born on March 2, 1836 which quite frankly is a darn good excuse to celebrate.  It's certainly a party in Texas, and will be seen in the 49 lesser states as well.

Texas is unique among the states in that it established its own independence before joining the Union a decade later.  That conflict forged a sense of identity that is qualitatively different than you find in other States - to this day if you visit San Antonio you can go to the Alamo: the Shrine of Texas Independence (so says the sign; it also requests that Gentlemen remove their hats).

So wear your Tony Lamas and hoist a Shiner Bock.  That will take you home to Texas, at least in spirit.



It Ain't Texas (Songwriter: unknown)

Well take me home to Texas,

It’s where I’m meant to be

like a cowboy on the prarie wild and free

where the Grand Ole Oprey is a dancehall down in Gruene

Well take me home to Texas, it’s where I’m meant to be

I’ve been up and down this highway,

a hundred times before,

but i don’t recall it ever being quite this long.

One night to go on a two week run of one night stands,

till I get to take some time off for the road.

I can see that Lonestar guiding me back home,

Nashville's nice, it ain’t Austin Texas,

the Tennesee river's nothin’ like the Rio Grande.

The sunset on the Smokeys is quite a sight to see,

but nothin’ like blue bonnetts in the spring.

To tell the truth, I like both places.

Tennessee's nice, but it ain’t Texas.

I like the Memphis blues and the big ole hills of Knoxville,

but my heart’s around New Braunfels and ole Gruene Hall.

I got the pedal to that floor board, just to see how far it'll go.

I gotta keep these wheels a turnin, til they carry me back home.

Everything's bigger in Texas

Even the Gun Safes:

I remember shortly after moving there, asking an employee at Cabella’s if he had any recommendations for a gun safe. “Well, son,” he said to me in complete seriousness, “m’boy moved away to college a few years ago so I reinforced the door frame and just turned the whole guest room into a gun vault. Have ya thought ‘bout doing sumthin like that?” Good God, I thought. And then, when we moved into a new house this year, it had a walk in closet turned into gun vault. Welcome to Texas.

Yeah, yeah: fire protection, are the walls reinforced, yadda yadda.  Don't mess with Texas, especially they're causing cerebral hemorrhages in East Coast Progressives.

Hat tip: Isegoria, who always finds cool stuff.

Jihad, Texas style

Lone Star Parson tells it like it is.  Not everywhere is as tough as Texas, I guess.

Reminder: Austin blogmeet Wednesday evening

Venue.

I've heard from:

That Guy
Lawrence Person
Cap'n Jan and Mr. Cap'n Jan
Dwight

If you're in the Austin area, stop by.  Also, please leave a comment so I can get us a big enough table.

And the problem would be what?

Christopher Hitchens on Texas

I hadn't realized that he had done a TV documentary about the Texas of George W. Bush, back in 2004.  While I don't agree with everything here, it's pretty fair, and certainly not frivolous.



We learn a lot about ourselves by observing how other people see us.  It's in a sense like having someone hold up a mirror so that we can better see our own nature.  We may or may not agree with what they reflect back, but we'll get a new and different perspective.

Tab clearing

Pielke on Faith Based Science Policy.  Scientists tell us that funding for basic research (vs. applied research) is required.  There doesn't seem to be a lot of empirical evidence for this, although the policy dovetails quite nicely with scientist's financial interest.

Stares at the World on Dostoyevsky on modern Progressives.  It's astonishing how long ago people were on to the fallacies of progressivism, and how progressives simply ignore this.  Maybe they don't know.  Or they know and this is why they don't want to have the classics taught anymore.

Lawrence Person on Texas vs. California.  I hadn't realized that part of the superior Texas business climate is lawsuit reform.

Robert Langham is doing his annual Alamoblogging.

MSgt B finds what looks like the world's best bacon.

Sean is keeping the list of who to buy your guns from.  And who not to.

How we beat two races of Supermen

The beginning of the 1940s was a fearful time for those who loved freedom.  France collapsed in a matter of weeks, falling to the German Blitzkrieg.  Britain was only saved by the astonishing valour of a tiny group of aerial Knights, charging their noble steeds (Spitfires in particular) into the teeth of Hermann Goering's Luftwaffe.  Churchill put it in typically Churchillian terms when he said that never had so many owed so much to so few.  As with most things said by Sir Winston, they were very well said indeed.

But the darkness continued to pour forth, with the end of 1941 seeing the fascists at the gates of Moscow, the American Pacific fleet smouldering in Pearl Harbor, and the seemingly unstoppable Imperial Japanese going from victory to victory: Thailand, Hong Kong, Guam, Wake Island, Burma, the Dutch East Indies, the Philippines.

In both theaters, races of Supermen looked down on their opponents.  The Germans, lost in the heady brew of victory, saw their Soviet opponents not just as lesser menchen, but as barely human.  The soldiers of the Rising Sun looked upon their American opponents as undisciplined and ripe for a comeuppance.

They were half right.  Americans have always been undisciplined.  An old story from Colonial America describes a visiting English Lord. Looking for the local gentry, he happens upon a man hard at work at his forge. Frustrated at being ignored by the man, he exclaims, "You, there. Where is your master?" The man looks him up and down, spits tobacco not quite at the Englishman's feet, and growls, "That sumbitch ain't been born yet."

And so it was in the 1940s.  The undisciplined Americans joined together to drive two races of Supermen to their knees.  That "lack of discipline" was a creativity that showed itself under fire, as GIs took charge, adapted and improvised, and out thought the over confident foeman.  It was a typically American response, one that lives today.

I am proud to say that I know someone who has built a .50 BMG rifle in his garage.  I sure would have liked to be at the Dallas Area Blogshoot 2.0 to try the new and improved model.  The tinkering by what the "elites" might very well miss in their typical too-smart-by-half cursory glance is precisely why we clobbered the enemies of freedom, these seventy years ago.  Don't Mess With Texas, indeed.

And I'm also proud to say that I know someone who has built a cannon in his garage.  Sadly, I missed both blog shoots, but he too represents the Live Free Or Die American exceptional spirit that saw us through those dark days, and which will serve us well in these dark days.

Because if we could stare down two fanatical races of Supermen, Barack Obama and his Harvard crowd are nothing.  Bravo Zulu. Gentlemen.  Bravo Zulu.

Dallas Area Blogshoot

Mark your calendars for September 15 and 16.  Bob S has the details.

What? Climate Change legislation applies to Progressives?

Who'd have thought?

SACRAMENTO – Large campuses in the University of California and California State University systems are bracing for the implementation of new state rules that will force them to cut carbon emissions or pay as much as $28 million a year to offset their greenhouse gases.

...

"The University supports the creation of a greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program, but is concerned that it is being disproportionately impacted by the proposed cap-and-trade rule and that its compliance costs will ultimately be borne by students, researchers, and patients to the detriment of teaching, research, and healthcare activities," wrote Anthony Garvin of the UC Office of the president in a 2010 letter to the California Air Resources Board, the entity responsible for implementing AB 32.

Come on, lefties!  Welcome to your Green nirvana, now pay up.  Sure, it's a regressive tax that will disproportionally impact students, researchers, and the sick.  But well crafted Progressive legislation never has unintended consequences, so quit yer bitching.

And the article delightfully slips the knife in to the hilt, in paragraph 2:

For years, businesspeople have been complaining that the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, also known as Assembly Bill 32, will decimate California's economy and force companies to move out of state.

Maybe the University of California system can move to Texas like all those businesses are.  And the absolute best part of the whole hoist on their own petard thing?

At this point, no one knows what the going rate for carbon credits will be because the market hasn't been established yet. But assuming a cost of $10 to $40 per credit, several public campuses could face multi-million dollar bills.

Six years after the statute passed, nobody knows what it will cost.  That's one righteous display of Progressive Intelligence, right there.

(via)

Drivin'

Or not, actually.  I've been feeling guilty lately, thinking that I'm a month behind on changing the oil* on the Jeep.  I mean, the last time I did this was in Texas, and I've been home for months and months.

And so I looked at the data.  What was my mileage when I last did the deed?  2,783 miles ago.

This is a meditation on being home with your family.  A couple hundred miles in Texas, and then 900 miles home, and then a lot of not much adds up to a lot of time home with the family.  I must confess to a sense of discombobulation every so often, as I don't live George Thorogood's song.



I actually think that the longest trip I've taken in the Jeep since April was when #2 Son and I went to an Appleseed shoot, which was only an hour anf a quarter from home.  Some day, I may even get used to this.