The date is far enough out to give folks tie to plan. It also will be after the election and whatever post-election excitement we see (hopefully) but before Thanksgiving gets too close.
The range will charge $20 for a half day's shooting. There are 100, 200, and 300 yard ranges, plus a 25 yard pistol range. The Queen Of The World is planning to make some sandwiches. If we get enough people (15) then we can reserve a private range at the club which has 25 - 200 yard ranges.
Leave a comment if you want to come. TQOTW and some of her girlfriends are planning on coming, so bring your better half.
Old NFO has a hilarious read comparing the diary of a dog to the diary of a cat. There's much truth there to go along with the humor. It's funny because it's true. Interestingly, there is a funny classical music piece said to be by Gioachino Rossini (of "Barber of Seville" fame) where a duet of sopranos sing to each other - and ever word in the song is "miau" (Italian for "meow").
This is speculation on my part, based on my model showing Trump winning 355 Electoral Votes and 36 or so States next month. It basically takes the percentage of votes won by Hillary and Trump in 2016 and makes the following adjustments:
Incumbency benefit: +1% to Trump Minority voter outreach: +1% to Trump Biden dementia concerns: +1% to Trump Voter enthusiasm: +1% to Trump Riots/view of Democrats: +1% to Trump Virus lockdown: +1% to Biden
This give us a net 4% added to Trump's 2016 votes.
Now 2016 was won in the Battleground States, and this year will be no different. And so this is very interesting (via Don Surber):
If we want to quantify the amount of voter fraud the Democrats will have to engage in, we need to add +4 to that middle column (Actual 2016 Result). Breaking it down, we see the following minimum fraudulent ballots needed:
Michigan +5%
Pennsylvania: + 5%
Wisconsin: +6%
So I went and looked at what the percentages translated into in terms of actual ballots cast. Here's what's needed:
Michigan: 113, 442
Pennsylvania: 146,322
Wisconsin: 82,952
Total: 342,716
Note that this is net new fraud, on top of whatever was done in 2016. And this is the best case scenario - there's no margin of error at all for Team Biden here, and so it really needs to be 500,000.
It also looks to me (based on my model) that Trump will pick up States that he lost last time, particularly Virginia, New Hampshire, Nevada, New Mexico, Minnesota, and Colorado. Fraud will need to be spread around here to keep the votes from swinging in the "wrong" direction. That's a lot of States, and some of them are pretty big, so in round numbers let's call it another 500,000.
So Team Biden will need a million fraudulently cast ballots to win. That's quite a lot to keep secret. This isn't onesy-twosie fraud, this is industrial scale. I simply don't think this can be covered up. A million is a big number, and will require thousands of people to be in on the scam. The old saying applies: three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead.
Twitter has locked the account ofWhite Housepress secretaryKayleigh McEnanybecause she shared a story about Hunter Biden and Ukraine.
Now in all honesty, I haven't cared for the platforms for quite a while. I don't like Facebook because it has always been rotten about its user's privacy, and all y'all know that I just can't keep myself to the 17 character (or whatever it is) tweet limit. It's the same reason that I pretty much dropped off of Gab.ai.
But this underlines the fact that they own their users. Not cool. I'll stick with our little corner of the Blogosphere, thank you very much.
But probably the biggest objection that we've heard (and heard again, and again) about Donald Trump is that he violates long standing norms of behavior. What's interesting is that his opponents are the ones who are now the biggest violators of norms. Here is a media company censoring the White House Press Secretary. [blink] [blink]
Heck, even a lefty hack like Jake Tapper sums up the situation:
So no thanks. It's so bad that a raving libertarian like me is totally down with the Fed.Gov breaking up the Twitter and Facebook (and Google) monopolies and declaring them to be publishers, not platforms. Let it all fight out in the courts, but just those announcements will tank the stock prices which will make it hard for them to acquire new companies and executive talent. They're the modern Robber Barons and some Trust Busting is well past due.*
Note: blogger Ann Althouse looks at the story's provenance and is skeptical about the emails. It's an interesting read - not calling them "fake" but rather suspicious. But she agrees that Twitter and Facebook haven't covered themselves in glory here.
Simply put, there is not enough staff at Facebook & Twitter, and they are neither smart enough nor subtle enough, to censor ALL the “fake news” while also suppressing the politically sensitive (read “damaging to Democrats”) real stories. As a result, they are Ham Handed and focus on the “stuff that matters” (as all major corporation management does). The necessary consequence of this, much like the Streisand Effect, is that attempts to HIDE stores become advertising of the stories AND become strong evidence for the veracity of the Story. Essentially: Their actions are a negative indicator. The more they holler “Fake” the more we hear “Here Be Truth”.
UPDATE 15 October 2020 11:48: Lawrence has the second drop from the New York Post about Hunter's corruption with China. No doubt the Post is getting a lot more views today because of the Streisand Effect. Oft evil will shall evil mar, and all that.
Remember how the 'rona death count went from "death from COVID" to "death with COVID"? Remember the guy killed in a motorcycle crash who was listed as a COVID death?* The panic caused an inflation of the death count, with every death breathlessly reported. So what does it take to make sure a death is not reported as from COVID?
Rita Thomas was a victim of COVID-19, but she never had the disease.
The vivacious and outgoing 95-year-old, who lived independently until last year and celebrated her most recent birthday in February with friends at a Pasco County diner, willed herself to die two weeks ago because she could no longer handle the pandemic-imposed isolation.
“She said to me: ‘Linda. I’ve had a good life. I am ready to die. I don’t want to live this way anymore. I stopped eating,’ ’’ her daughter Linda Gardnersaid, recalling the conversation she had with her mother in August. Weeks later, her mother was hospitalized for complications from malnutrition.
The Miami Herald almost called it straight. She was a victim of Government Policy. I say that even thought I generally think that Gov. DeSantis has done a better job on this than most Governors.
Her cause of death was listed as "failure to thrive". In reality, the State killed her graveyard dead with their unreasonable lockdown. What's unusual about Mrs. Thomas' case was that her story got published. We should ask ourselves how many other people have died, not from the virus, but from the Government's reaction to the virus. We should ask if more people are now dying from the reaction than from the virus. An honest approach to public policy would strive to give us answers to those questions. Of course, we will never have an honest assessment of the Government's reaction.
When Rita Thomas finally saw her daughters after more than six months, “She wouldn’t let go of my hand,” said her daughter, Nan Thomas.
We had to destroy the village to save it. The bastards who did that to Mrs. Thomas have a lot to answer for, in this life or the next.
* Yeah, I know, Snopes. But even they say that this happened, although they try to spin it.
Monday, October 12, 2020
This is a Columbus Day post I wrote in 2008, but which seems evergreen. The words that you will not hear by the Usual Suspects today are the "Great Divergence". This post talks a lot about that. It's very strange that people interested in "Social Justice" don't seem to be very interested in getting - and keeping - poor people out of poverty.
Obligatory Imperialist Post
Because it's Columbus Power-Mad Dead White Dude Day. Insty posted about Admiral of the Ocean Sea (great book) which gives you a great Columbus overview, but entirely misses the Power-Mad Dead White Dude thing.
As a public service, here's something that you should read if you really want to make a liberal's head explode like the fembots in Austin Powers. Or understand why the world's economy is the way it is. The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, by David Landes. The title is intentionally taken from Adam Smith, but Landes focuses less on describing economics per se, and more on the constraints that a society puts on their economy.
It traces the history of economic development over the last 1000 years, and asks some very politically incorrect questions:
Why did China, the world's richest and most powerful country in 1000 AD not only lose her lead, but lose it so badly that it was dismembered by the European (and later resurgent Japanese) powers?
Why did India, fabulously wealthy and populous, not conquor the west, rather than vice-versa?
Why did England, an undeveloped backwater as late as 1500 AD, ultimately lead the Industrial Revolution and become the world's most powerful country?
What explains the vast differences in economic development between the USA and Canada, and other New World countries? After all, in 1700, Mexico's GDP per capita was $450, not far short of the colonies' $490 (1985 dollars). In 1989, Mexico's GDP per capita was $3,500, vs. $18,300 for the USA.
No, it wasn't "western imperialism" by dead white dudes. Landes' politically incorrect thesis is that society counts, and some societies foster faster economic growth than others. He uses many, many examples.
The quote for this [2008] election season, if we're smart enough to listen, is about the post-Cold War economies:
Among the heaviest losers in this period of record-breaking economic growth and technological advance were the countries of the Communist Socialist bloc: the Soviet Union at the bottom of the barrel, Romania and North Korea almost as bad, and a range of satellite victims and emulators struggling to rise above the mess. Best off were probably Czechoslovkia and Hungary, with East Germany (the DDR) and Poland trailing behind. The striking feature of these command economies was the contradiction between system and pretensions on the one hand, performance on the other. The logic was impeccable: experts would plan, zealots would compete in zeal, technology would tame nature, labor would make free, the benefits would accrue to all. From each according to their ability; to each according to his deserts; and eventually, to each according to his needs.
The dream appealed to the victims and critics of capitalism, admittedly a most imperfect system - but as it turned out, far better than the alternatives. Hence the Marxist economies long enjoyed a willful credulous favor among radicals, liberals, and progressives in the advanced industrial nations;
You'll hate this if you think that economics a la John Kerry and Barack Obama is the shizzle flippity floppity floop.
Contradiction between pretension and performance: nice phrase, that. For an example, see Patrick, Deval. For extra credit, compare and contrast Obama, Barack.
Dang, I think I must have just got my Hate Speech on, right there.
Florida Man shows up at beach restaurant - with the Stanley Cup:
Photo taken by The Queen Of The World at the Sandbar Restaurant on Anna Maria Island, last night. It seems that the GM of the Tampa Bay Lightening likes the restaurant. He was extremely gracious to the crowd of thrilled diners and everyone (including your humble host) got to have their photo taken next to it. It was quite something to touch it.
I remarked to one of the security guys who were watching everything that he didn't have to worry. If anyone tried to steal the cup the crowd would beat them within an inch of their life.
The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field. Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.
- Matthew 13:31-32
This is a little unusual for the regular Saturday country music, because it's not country music. But stick with me - folks who like country music will like today's story which starts with "Happy 100th birthday, Col. Gail Halvorsen".
He was a kid who liked to fly, joining the Civil Air Patrol in 1942 and then the brand new US Air Force when he was old enough to sign up. He missed World War II because of his age but found himself in the left hand seat of a C-54 in Germany, 1948. That's when Stalin cut Berlin off from the Free World and the Berlin Airlift started.
Lt. Halvorsen was at Tempelhof Airport one day when he saw some kids standing on the other side of a chain link fence. They told him not to worry if the weather was bad and he couldn't bring in food. You see, they said, they could live on very little food but if they lost their freedom they thought they would never get it back. Smart kids.
Halvorsen wanted to do something for them and told them that he'd drop some gum from his plane. They'd know it was him because he'd wiggle his wings. He and his co-pilot pooled their candy rations for the next day's flight. Because it was heavy, they made little parachutes out of handkerchiefs. Over the next weeks the number of kids waiting for his flights grew and grew. He tells the story about when his Commanding Officer found out about it:
On his return from Berlin, he was told that Col. James R. Haun, the commanding officer of Rhein-Main Airbase, wanted to see him in his office.
Here, Halvorsen, sitting in his Provo backyard and wearing the same uniform he wore back then, picks up the narrative.
“‘Halvorsen,’ the colonel asked when I came in his office, ‘What in the world have you been doing?’
“‘Flying like mad, sir,’ I told him.
“‘I’m not stupid. What else have you been doing?’”
Here, Halvorsen pauses for effect.
“That’s when I knew they knew. I got chewed out real good,” he says before flashing his trademark smile. “But at the end, the colonel said, ‘That’s a good idea. Keep doing it. But keep me informed.’”
The Berlin Candy Bomber had the clearance he needed to carry on.
They called him the "Candy Bomber" and when the word got to the Press it became a sensation back in the States. School children and candy manufacturers donated candy for the children of Berlin. In just a few months Lt. Halvorsen couldn't keep up with all the candy and handkerchief parachutes that were arriving in the mail. Pretty much everyone in his unit was now a Rosienbomber (as the German kids called them - "Raisin Bomber". Halvorsen himself was known as "Uncle Wiggly Wings" because of his signal that he was about to drop sweets.
Operation "Little Vittles" dropped 23 tons of candy in a quarter million handkerchief parachute loads. Halvorsen was awarded the Großes Bundesverdienstkreuz, Germany's highest award. He also got some marriage proposals via mail from adoring fans back home, but he went home and married his College Sweetheart. They had 5 children and 24 grandchildren.
In a very real sense, he represents what is best with America. Three years before we had been mortal enemies of Germany, now we were trying to take care of their kids because, well, kids. I'm not the only one who thinks this - he retired to his native Utah and in 2002 for the Winter Olympics there the German team asked him to carry their national standard into the stadium in Salt Lake City. Bravo Zulu, Colonel.
Like I said, Col. Halvorsen, happy 100th birthday. You make me proud to be an American. This song is for you because you've earned it 100 times over. Sammy Davis.Jr. didn't like it initially because it was too sweet. It became his signature song, and I think he's approve of it being played for your 100th birthday. Here's Sammy singing this song in Germany, back in the 1980s.
The Candy Man (Songwriters:Leslie Bricusse, Anthony Newley)
Who can take a sunrise, sprinkle it with dew Cover it with choc'late and a miracle or two The Candy Man, oh the Candy Man can The Candy Man can 'cause he mixes it with love and makes the world taste good
Who can take a rainbow, wrap it in a sigh Soak it in the sun and make a groovy lemon pie The Candy Man, the Candy Man can The Candy Man can 'cause he mixes it with love and makes the world taste good
The Candy Man makes everything he bakes satisfying and delicious Now you talk about your childhood wishes, you can even eat the dishes
Oh, who can take tomorrow, dip it in a dream Separate the sorrow and collect up all the cream The Candy Man, oh the Candy Man can The Candy Man can 'cause he mixes it with love and makes the world taste good
The Candy Man makes everything he bakes satisfying and delicious Talk about your childhood wishes, you can even eat the dishes
Yeah, yeah, yeah Who can take tomorrow, dip it in a dream Separate the sorrow and collect up all the cream The Candy Man, the Candy Man can The Candy Man can 'cause he mixes it with love and makes the world taste good Yes, the Candy Man can 'cause he mixes it with love and makes the world taste good a-Candy Man, a-Candy Man, a-Candy Man Candy Man, a-Candy Man, a-Candy Man Candy Man, a-Candy Man, a-Candy Man
Like I said, it's not country music. But I think the community can take a day to salute a veteran who represents the best of this country. Here's what looks to be an early 2000's documentary of Operation Little Vittles. It's long but well worth a view. If you aren't looking for a kleenex between 15:00 and 18:00 then I'm sorry, we just can't be friends. And the last line in the video hits the nail on the head, spoken by a now grown German kid who remembers catching the parachutes and knows that it meant that someone who didn't have to care, cared anyway: The world needs more Halvorsens. Amen, and amen
Like I said, Col. Halvorsen represents the best this country has to give to the world. He is a man who made the world a better place. Happy birthday, Uncle Wiggly Wings.
I'm struck by the similarities between the 'rona science justifying lockdowns and the whole Global Warming scare. Consider:
Both rely on unreliable model projections to scare the population. The climate models have been junk for a long time and even the "gold standard" science in the IPCC Assessment Reports shows that the models do not track reality. About Civid: remember the models that showed 2M people would die? Remember how amateurish the model was? But both climate and virus models got big headlines which galvanized policy makers into action.
Both rely on dodgy data. The Climate data have been fiddled for years and years, to the point that we simply can't tell whether the planet is warming or not. The same with the virus data: first it was deaths from Covid-19, then it was deaths with Covid-19 which added a whole lot more to the death toll (most notoriously a death from a motorcycle accident), and now all the talk is about the number of cases (not the number of deaths) because that's the only number that's going up. Deaths are way, way down and so using a different measuring stick is the only way to keep the scare going.
Research funding comes from the Government and so there is a bias towards research producing "useful" results - useful to the Government, that is. We've known about the buckets of government funding going towards climate research for a decade or more; there isn't good summary data on Covid funding but we have plenty of anecdotes: field hospitals set up in cities with infection clusters, hospital ships sent various places, virus vaccine funding spread to the four winds, heavy focus on CDC (want to bet what their budget request for next year looks like)?
Claims that people differing from the "approved" public policy choices are "Science Deniers".
As I said, the similarities are striking, and do not raise the credibility of people arguing for continued lockdowns. More on that later.
Well, it's the five worst tanks of all time that are in the UK Tank Museum. Still, there are some very unexpected entries of the list. But they do show their work, and I can't really argue with their criteria - unreliability, obsolescence on delivery, and an unwillingness by the design committee to prioritize features are all a pretty good way to kill a design.
Of course, next week is the tenth anniversary of when I posted about the German A7V and why the British and (especially) the French tanks were clearly superior. Dwight's video adds depth to that.
And this is a good time to ask whether you read Dwight every day. I mean, heck - I've linked to him twice in two days. Are you making me do all your work for you or what?
Game 1 averaged only a 4.1 rating and 7.41 million viewers on ABC, “comfortably the lowest rated and least-watched NBA Finals game on record (dates back to 1988),” Sports Media Watch reported.
But if the league thought things might improve for Game 2, it had a bitter pill to swallow because the second in the series did even worse than the first.
Game 2 cratered with just 4.5 million viewers and a dismal 1. 9 in the ratings. This embarrassing showing was down 68 percent over Game 2 in 2019.
Emphasis added by me. But hey, at least we have good sportsmanship to watch, right? Wait, what?
[Lebron] James was seen leaving the floor with 10 seconds left and off to the side before the buzzer sounded and the game officially ended.
Donald Trump just closed the deal with the American electorate.
Turn out the lights, the party's over
The only thing that the Democrats had going for them was the lockdown. The breathless hyping of the 'rona was intended to fan the flames of fear which would justify further lockdown and economic devastation. They then blamed Trump for all this, while the media shamelessly covered for them. That's all gone now.
They say that, 'All good things must end'
But stop and think about what they're selling. Fear. Who wants to buy that? Who would choose to live their lives in fear? People will only do that if there isn't a better alternative. Donald Trump just gave the American Public a better alternative. It's this: Sure, you might catch the virus. It's not that bad. I know, because I caught it. Now it's time to get on with things.
Miguel compares it to FDR's first inauguration address: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Miguel points out that Trump is not an orator like FDR was which is true, but actions speak louder than words sometimes, and Trump checking out of the hospital speaks really, really loudly.
What's even funnier is that the media simply can not not cover this. It will be front page news for the whole week. They won't be able to stop themselves, because this is something that people will want to hear about, because they really don't want to live in fear forever. It will drive ratings, which drive profits.
The end of this week is 24 days from the election.
There's been a cynical joke that the 'rona lockdowns will end on November 4. The handwriting is on the wall now for the lockdowns - people will start to look for justifications, because there is finally an alternative to the fear. The justifications are (as I have been posting for months and months) really thin tissues of exaggerations.
And Trump is ready to play his the next card: call out the overreaction by government officials. Name incidents, describe how innocent citizens were arrested. Name the officials responsible. Remember the guy out paddle boarding all by himself? Remember how he got arrested? Do you think that Trump can't shine the light of attention on that? Do you think he doesn't have dozens of other examples, like playgrounds being closed? Do you think that the electorate won't pay attention to him when he talks about that?
The Press will want to defend the Democrats against this attack but there's really nothing they can do. I mean, when you see a video of a Mom arrested because she let her kids play outside, who are you going to believe: CNN or your lying eyes? That's next week gone, too. Then there are only 17 days until the election. Does anyone think that Joe Biden will be able to turn things around in two weeks, especially when he's selling fear and Trump is selling hope?
He doesn't even need to talk about the lives and businesses destroyed by the lockdowns. That's there, and everyone knows all about it. Trump is going to paint the Democratic Party as the party of tyranny and fear and the Republican Party as the party of freedom and normalcy. As the song goes, he'll use the 8x10 color glossies with circles and arrows to make his case. Heck, he'll point out that the (Democratic) Governor is Michigan is ignoring her State's Supreme Court ruling to keep her thump on the public. There's your tyranny, writ large. And a whole bunch more, too.
I've said for a while now that Trump will easily cruise to a win next month. Now it's looking like the down race Democrats are going to get slaughtered, because they'll be selling fear and tyranny against hope. Good luck with that.
Remember last election with all the Republicans celebrating and the Democrats crying? Second verse, same as the first.
What a crazy, crazy party Never seen so many people Laughin', dancin' Look at you, you're havin' fun
But look at me I'm almost cryin' That don't keep her love from dyin' Misery, 'cause for me the party's over
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®
Today is the 438th anniversary of the Gregorian Calendar. Introduced in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII, it aimed to fix the slow drift in the seasons that was experienced under the older Julian calendar. The Julian Calendar was introduced by Julius Caesar, and had worked pretty well - its 3 years of 265 days and a fourth of 366 is very close to our current calendar (not bad for 2000 year old science). But 365.25 is not equal to the actual solar year of 365.24219. Over the course of 1600 years the solstices had drifed by around 10 days. The new calendar was designed to fix that.
It was immediately caught up in the wars of the Reformation. Protestants refused to adopt it because of its "Papist" origin, but eventually the desire for scientific accuracy in the dates of the seasons won out. In British possessions the Calendar Act of 1750 finally moved the dates almost 200 years after Pope Gregory. It's actually a myth that April Fool's Day was a day to mock people still using the old calendar. It's another myth that riots broke out on its adoption, although it gave us this nifty painting by William Hogarth: "Give us our eleven days!".
That's a long introduction to this morning's music which is said to date back to a different Pope Gregory - the first one. It may be somewhat later than that, depending on on you classify early liturgical chant styles. But since the difference is that later chants included newer verses in the liturgy (rather than a different style of chanting), I take a broader view and see the history going all the way back to Gregory I.
In the early Roman church the service was sung, not spoken. Well, chanted. This is much older than 1582, but a nice start to a Sunday.
The Queen Of The World and I went to some friend's house last night for a "Debate Party". This is Trump land and so the atmosphere was a whole lot different than back in Maryland. Trump threw lots of red meat to the home crowd, which everyone enjoyed. But Biden did the same for his supporters, which they no doubt enjoyed, too. Overall, I don't think that either candidate changed any minds at all.
This made me wonder what debates are all about. Way back in the day, it was really the only way for citizens to size up the candidates. The Lincoln-Douglas debates are justly famous for this, where the debate would go on for hours. It was really the only time that the crowd could get direct, unfiltered access in a pre mass-market media marketplace.
That's changed, but the debates continue. Why? What do we get out of this whole brouhaha?
Partly this gives us a chance to see the two candidates in a highly stressful situation. It may be the only time we see them in a highly stressful situation. Neither candidate has any control over the other and needs to react to unanticipated circumstances. Quite frankly, this is a pretty helpful insight into how someone ticks - especially someone who will have his finger on the Doomsday Button.
I'm not sure how many people realize how important this is, or pay attention to it. Certainly there are a lot of political analysts who are talking about how Biden didn't react well to Trump, and even asked moderator Chris Wallace for help controlling the President. There may be a lot of people who didn't consciously pick up on this but who got a bad vibe about "leadership" and "strength", but this is pure speculation on my part. As far as I can tell nobody is polling or focus grouping this so all we have is conjecture.
My scoring is that Trump did much better than Biden did on this point last night. He had to react not only to Slow Joe but also to Chris Wallace who was clearly trying to help Biden. His reaction is in stark contrast to Mitt Romney who rolled over to Candy Crowley in 2012. Now it didn't really tell us anything we didn't know - that Trump is much more adaptable and thinks better on his feet in unpredictable situations - but this is confirmation that we saw with our own eyes.
Anyway, I can't see anything else that comes from the debates, but this seems pretty valuable.
OK, people have been saying they might come to a blogshoot depending on where it is. So let me open the discussion with my gun club: Manatee Gun and Archery Club in Myakka City, FL.
It looks to be about an hour from Sarasota, Tampa, and a little more to Orlando. It has 25, 100, 200, 300, and 600 yard ranges. It's $15 for a half day (afternoon, 1:00 - 5:00). It also has a (small) campground if people want to bring their campers/RVs/5th Wheels.
If someone has a different venue please drop it in the comments. If you'd be willing to go to a blogshoot at Manatee, please leave a comment.
The weather is cooling off (soon now - real soon) and so who would be interested in a blogshoot in the Tampa/Orlando/Ft. Myers area? Some weekend in the next 6 weeks or so.
Every Red Sox fan recognizes the name of this musical. The Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees to finance this musical leading, triggering 86 years of baseball humiliation at the hands of the Bronx Bombers.Except it seems that this isn't actually true. Ruth was sold to finance a forgettable musical "My Lady Friends", not No No Nanette. Presumably the latter was included in the "Curse of the Bambino" because it was one of the most successful musicals of the 1920s (Ruth's glory days in pinstripes).
Vincent Youmans was a young man whose plans of becoming an engineer were derailed when he was drafted into the Navy in World War I. Rather than seeing combat, he found himself in charge of putting on entertainments for the sailors. After the War, he became one of the "Tin Pan Alley" composers, penning this song along with collaborations with Ira Gershwin and Oscar Hammerstein among others. He became one of the most successful composers for Broadway - and wrote all the music for Fred Astaire's and Ginger Rogers' first film, Flying Down To Rio.
Sadly, his career was cut short. After only 13 years he came down with tuberculous and died at the age of 47. You wonder what other music he might have written if he had been spared that fate.
Even here in Florida it's getting clear that summer is coming to an end. Days are getting shorter and nighttime temperatures are dropping into the (gasp!) 60s. You can (almost) feel the chill of autumn.
It's that time of day That we all knew would come To pay for all the rum And pull up anchor cause we're done It's that time of day I see a cotton candy sky So many colors in my eyes Proof again God's alive
This ain't a goodbye It's a "till I see you again" What a wonderful time We've all shared my friends Another day at sea Has come and gone away So adios to Jost Adios to Jost Adios to Jost It's that time of day
It's that time of day When we bottle up the sun Let our inhibitions run Feeling courageous and numb It's that time of day When we take a leap of faith Hand in hand as we pray In this moment we could stay
This ain't a goodbye It's a "till I see you again" What a wonderful time We've all shared my friends Another day at sea Has come and gone away So adios to Jost Adios to Jost Adios to Jost It's that time of day
Adios to Jost Adios to Jost Adios to Jost It's that time of day
I see sails in silhouette A sailor's sky turning red So many I love you's said Toasts are made It's that time of day It's that time of day It's that time of day
Adios to Jost Adios to Jost Adios to Jost It's that time of day
"Jost" is a reference to Jost Van Dyke island in the British Virgin Islands. Jost is a small island with only 298 inhabitants, but they seem like good folks. Hurricane Irma hit them hard but they took things in hand:
With little aid from the British or territorial governments during the week following the storm, Jost Van Dyke's 298 residents set up a recovery and command center Foxy’s Tamarind Bar and Restaurant.[4]Food from other restaurants and residences were brought to Foxy's, which housed the island's only major, surviving refrigerator and generators before others were repaired by the Royal Marines later that month.[4]Residents used a salvaged chainsaw to clear roads and connect remote parts of the islands.[4]
Chesney filmed an earlier music video there. It sounds like a fun place:
Included in the video were several scenes at One Love Bar and Ivan's Stress-Free Bar where it is common for patrons to mix their own drinks and leave their payment in the register.
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