The Russian space agency has hiked the amount NASA will have to pay them to ferry astronauts up to the International Space Station.  Beginning in 2014, the cost of moving one American butt from Baikonur to the ISS will go from $56 million to $63 million dollars per person.

The contract extension with the Russian Space Agency totals $753 million, which covers trips for a dozen astronauts from 2014 through 2016.

NASA blames the price increase on “inflation”.

Sigh….

Let me explain this to you, Sparky the NASA Spokesperson, and I’ll try to use small words.

Inflation?  Really?  Either you’re as dumb as a bag of hammers or you think we all are.  This is extortion, nothing more or less.  Either we pay them through the nose to get into space or we don’t go.

The Russians do not like us, never have and never will.  They spent most of the 1960’s and 1970’s watching us build shiny moon rockets while they perfected the art of putting cosmonauts in orbit on the cheap.  They will partner with us when it is profitable to do so, but don’t expect any “family pricing” from them for anything.  Since the Bush and Obama administrations decided to cut out our only way of getting real live American scientists into low earth orbit, the Russians are pretty much the only game in town.  Like any other large single-source monopoly, they’re going to charge as much as the market can bear with no worries as to what a competitive solution might cost.  Anyone who expresses surprise at this needs to come talk to me about some beach front property in the Ozarks.

The only thing I’m surprised about is that the Russians didn’t wait until we’d officially decommissioned the space shuttle fleet later this year before announcing their little price hike.  They’re usually much better extortionists than this.

Here’s an idea:  Why doesn’t the government cut all NASA ISS launch costs out of the budget, use the saved money to create tax incentives for private space launch businesses, and work towards cutting the Russians out of our business altogether?  I’d rather pay Richard Branson a few million dollars a seat than give Putin a red kopek.

And you guys who are trying to re-invent the re-usable space vehicle wheel?  How about you license the proven workhorse Soyuz capsule from the Russians or revamp the Gemini capsules for a few million dollars, team up with United Launch Alliance, and use Delta IV rockets to put a few people or a few tons of cargo into orbit on the cheap.  Use the profits from that to fund your “space tourism” research.  Something tells me it wouldn’t be that hard to mate a proven space capsule to a proven rocket design.

“Inflation” my eye.

A University of Cincinnati student staged a little bit of civil disobedience at a TSA checkpoint in Richmond by writing the 4th Amendment on his chest and stripping off his shirt before being groped by the blue-gloved TSA agents.  He was detained, questioned, and charged with “disorderly conduct”.  These charges were eventually dropped, and he even made his flight.

I’m just hoping that he refused to cooperate in the questioning by standing on his 5th Amendment right to silence. 

He’s since filed a lawsuit against the government for the detention and questioning, and I hope he wins, even though my tax dollars will be going to pay him.  I sincerely hope that he takes it to court rather than settle.  The judiciary needs to weigh in on the constitutionality of not only the TSA checkpoint procedures in general, but also the way in which the government trumps up some BS charge against anyone who dares to stand up to them and make it difficult to walk all over us.

Good luck, Aaron Tobey.  When you’re old enough for a beer, the first one’s on me.

Using the term “pigs briss” in a status report will get you a lot of individual attention from your supervisor.  It is, however, quite descriptive and accurate to several given situations.

“Clowns gather for New York convention“

March is the time of year when we are reminded that the predominant religions of Kentucky are Baptist, Catholic, and Basketball.  There appears to be a schism in the Basketball sect, though.  The wearers of the Red and the wearers of the Blue continually debate and argue over the fine details of their chosen faith.

For the next few weeks, what productive behavior that I encounter at work will happen in the break room, where Basketball devotees congregate to attend services each afternoon.

After this most holy of times for Basketball people, behavior will return to almost normal until next fall.  Luckily, once the universities of Louisville and Kentucky lose in the tournament, their fans will come to their senses and return to work.

This has been one of the fullest weekends I’ve had in a long time, and I thought I’d share.

Friday night found me at home playing with BooBoo.  Irish Woman and Girlie Bear had gone out for the evening to attend a program at her school.  It was fun to play with Boo and watch a new-to-him Disney movie, A Bugs Life.

Saturday morning we got up and out the door early so that Girlie Bear could attend a fitness class at the Y while Irish Woman and I worked out.  BooBoo went to the Y’s play area for the first time, and seemed to enjoy himself.  I repeated my workout of the other night by doing an upper body weight circuit and walking on the treadmill for 40 minutes.  Irish Woman did a quick warm up and did a much longer walk.   Girlie Bear enjoyed her class, and we all agreed that that was a great way to start the weekend.

After getting home, having a late breakfast, and cleaning up, BooBoo went down for a nap, Girlie Bear stayed home to monitor him and read a book, Irish Woman went over to a friend’s house to help her prepare for a party, and I ran over to pick up Little Bear from his mom’s house.  I was pleasantly surprised when he said he wanted to stay the night instead of just visit until the late evening.  It’s been a very long time since he stayed over, so I was overjoyed to think that we would get even more time than normal with him.

Upon getting home, it was time to do a bit of housework and laundry.  Just the normal stuff that doesn’t get taken care of during the week.  I must say, though, that the third time in an hour that I pick the same toy up in the living room and transport it to the toy box in Boo’s room I start to consider whether or not the toys are actually alive.

We got ourselves cleaned up and headed over to the pool house at our friend’s development for their party.  Imagine my surprise when I ran into my shooting buddy in the parking lot of the pool house.  I assumed that he knew our friends from some other association, and we walked in.  I was then shocked to see 30 to 40 of our closest friends and family there, all of them yelling “Surprise!”.  Irish Woman, being the devious woman that she is, had put my birthday party off from January to March so that I would suspect nothing, and her plan worked perfectly.  A good time was had by all, and I received many good wishes on my birthday, even if it was in January.  It was touching to see all of the people who turned out to celebrate with us.  A good feed was also had by all, and if anyone left that party hungry, it was their own fault.  Irish Woman, as usual, made enough to feed an army.  Even after sending a huge amount of food home with family and friends, I’ll be eating leftovers for days.

Side note – several incriminating pictures of me were taken wearing a viking helmet at this shindig, and re-publication of them will be considered an invitation for mayhem.  Also, I have several years to plan Irish Woman’s 50th birthday party, and it’s going to be a doozy.  Think hairy Lebanese belly dancers.  More on that later.

This morning, I got up and made a breakfast casserole using for the most part leftovers from the party (recipe to follow in another post).  We got ourselves together, and took the kids to the park so that BooBoo could work off some energy and the older kids could get some sun and fresh air.  Boo got his mother’s heart rate up by repeatedly attempting to go down the fire-pole type conveyance on the play set, but once I taught him to wrap both his hands and legs around it and kept one hand on him at all times, her blood pressure returned to normal.  We then went down to the lake/pond in the park to feed the ducks.  The geese, for the most part, were disinterested, but the ducks were more than happy to eat their share too.  Either the ducks at our park are overfed, or they’re getting ready to lay a few clutches of eggs.  I haven’t seen ducks that wide in quite some time.

After returning from the park, it was time to take Little Bear home.  He and I talked on the way, and we decided that the next time he came over we would take his sister to go see Rango.

Upon my return, BooBoo was down for his nap and Girlie Bear was nose deep in a book.  Irish Woman went out to start digging holes for our new fruit trees.  We’re putting in an additional two cherries, two peaches, and an apple.  We love our fresh fruit around here, and nothing tastes better than fruit that hasn’t had time to realize it’s not attached to the plant or tree again. In no time, Gopher Girl had used her mystic powers of earth moving to dig the holes for the two peach trees and the apple tree next to our driveway and the little trees seem to like their new homes.

While Gopher Girl, aka Irish Woman, did her digging, I got out a new air intake control valve that I bought a few weeks ago for the truck and installed it.  For once, Chrysler engineering didn’t make it as difficult as possible to remove and replace a component, and the work took less than 30 minutes.  No longer will I have to simultaneously hold down the brake, clutch, and gas when I come to a stop in the truck.  The old valve was stuck in the closed position and covered in carbon build up, which kept the engine from getting the correct amount of air.

The rest of the day and evening was spent doing the stuff we always do to get ready for the week.  Irish Woman is coming off of her latest primary support rotation at work, and I roll onto mine tomorrow.  At the moment, everyone but me is either in bed or preparing for bed.  The dogs are snoring in their crates, the cats are snoring on the couch, Boo should be asleep, but by the sounds coming from his room he doesn’t appear to be, and Girlie Bear is either reading or sleeping.

I hope everyone had as good a weekend as I did, and many thanks to everyone who came out to remind me that I do indeed have friends in Louisville!

I just finished reading President Obama’s editorial piece in the Arizona Daily Star on gun control.  I will try to list the high points of his article, and I’d like to share my thoughts on it and would love to hear your “reasoned discourse” as well.

1. First, the President discusses the Tucson shooting suspect, and opines on how unfortunate that a man that was judged too psychologically unstable to serve in the military and to study at university was able to purchase a gun from a dealer.
2. He then goes on to make the assertion that over 2000 gun related deaths have occurred in the United States since that shooting, and expresses his sorrow that “Every single day, America is robbed of more futures.”.
3. President Obama goes on to acknowledge that private gun ownership is a long tradition in our country, for “hunting or target shooting, collection or protection”.
4. The President expresses his belief that there is a middle ground in the gun control debate and that the majority of gun owners would not object to ‘common sense’ regulation of their right to keep and bear arms.
5. The president makes three proposals:

• Strengthen NICS data checks by getting better data from the states.  
• Reward states that already provide this data to NICS
• Make the NICS system faster.

My thoughts:

1. The criminal who shot Congresswoman Jeffords in Tucson lied on the NICS form by stating that he was not a regular user of drugs.  Also, the Army recruiter and university officials who decided they didn’t want to do business with him aren’t qualified to adjudicate someone as mentally defective. A court of law does that in our society, and rightly requires a heavy burden of proof to say that someone is not responsible for themselves.  Under current law, if the Arizona courts had judged him unfit, he would not have been able to purchase a gun through a dealer.  But they didn’t, and I don’t believe that a constitutionally guaranteed right should be taken from a citizen without due process of law.  In other words, I would not want my rights taken from me because someone who is unqualified to make a psychological diagnosis thought that I was too unstable to own a gun.
2. Unless the President is willing to point to the source of his number of firearms related deaths, I’m going to assume that it’s a composite of all deaths in which the instrument of death was a gun.  I want to know if it includes only murders and accidental deaths caused by either negligence or defective firearms.  My guess is that once you take away criminals shooting criminals for whatever reason, citizens shooting criminals to defend themselves, and suicides, the number is quite lower.  While every death is a tragedy to the family of those who die, I refuse to accept suicides and the deaths of criminals being used as a reason to make it harder for me to exercise my rights.
3. I’d like to thank the President for coming to the same conclusion that our Founding Fathers did over 200 years ago in that citizens of our country have a right to keep and bear arms.  One would think that a Constitutional scholar would have come to this epiphany earlier, but I’ll give him credit for coming to it at all.  One little quibble – the Second Amendment says nothing about hunting or target shooting.  It is there for no other reason than the fact that citizens need arms to defend themselves and the nation.
4. The President’s assertion of a need to enforce existing laws is OK with me.  No protests here.  I’m assuming he means getting better data on people who have been adjudicated as being psychologically unfit to own firearms, since criminal background information is already readily available to NICS.  The law of the land says that the states are mandated to report this information, so I have no problem with the chief law enforcement officer of the country wanting the law enforced.  Also, if he wants to reward states that already comply with the law, then I see no harm, although I’ve always seen complying with the law to be its own reward. As to making NICS faster and more responsive, I fail to see a problem with the current system.  I fill out the form, my dealer makes a phone call, and in 10 minutes or less I’m handing him my debit card.  Could he be talking about speeding up NICS determinations on those who for some reason have a “hold” placed on their purchase?  Or is he indicating that he wants to speed up the manner in which information is put into NICS, such as data on the mentally unfit or criminals?   I think before I comment on this one the Rhetorician in Chief needs to define his terms.

The President ended his piece with an appeal to the emotions of his audience, so I will do so as well.


My rights as a citizen to keep and bear arms are well, if not over, regulated:

• I already have to acquire a license from the government if I wish to make my living manufacturing or selling firearms.  
• I may not buy a handgun from anyone in another state unless I pay extra fees to have the gun shipped to a licensed dealer in my home state.   
• I have to pass a background check if I purchase a gun from a dealer.  
• In most states, I may not carry a gun under my coat without a license.  
• With very few exceptions, I may not enter federal property while armed.  

So let’s dispense with the fallacy that ‘common sense’ gun laws aren’t already on the books and enforced.  I think Law Dog expressed how I feel about new laws to keep me from exercising my rights best:

Let’s say I have this cake. It is a very nice cake, with “GUN RIGHTS” written across the top in lovely floral icing. Along you come and say, “Give me that cake.”
I say, “No, it’s my cake.”
You say, “Let’s compromise. Give me half.” I respond by asking what I get out of this compromise, and you reply that I get to keep half of my cake.
Okay, we compromise. Let us call this compromise The National Firearms Act of 1934.
There I am with my half of the cake, and you walk back up and say, “Give me that cake.”
I say, “No, it’s my cake.”
You say, “Let’s compromise.” What do I get out of this compromise? Why, I get to keep half of what’s left of the cake I already own.
So, we have your compromise — let us call this one the Gun Control Act of 1968 — and I’m left holding what is now just a quarter of my cake.
And I’m sitting in the corner with my quarter piece of cake, and here you come again. You want my cake. Again.
This time you take several bites — we’ll call this compromise the Clinton Executive Orders — and I’m left with about a tenth of what has always been MY DAMN CAKE and you’ve got nine-tenths of it.
Then we compromised with the Lautenberg Act (nibble, nibble), the HUD/Smith and Wesson agreement (nibble, nibble), the Brady Law (NOM NOM NOM), the School Safety and Law Enforcement Improvement Act (sweet tap-dancing Freyja, my finger!)
I’m left holding crumbs of what was once a large and satisfying cake, and you’re standing there with most of MY CAKE, making anime eyes and whining about being “reasonable”, and wondering “why we won’t compromise”.

No-one has to show that they are not mentally defective or a criminal before they can make a political speech or join a church in accordance with the 1st Amendment.  Descendants of African slaves do not have to acquire a license before asserting that they are not slaves or that they wish to vote, as protected by the 13th and 15th Amendments.  A suspect in a crime does not have to fill out a government form and undergo a background check before asserting his rights against illegal searches of his property, his right to not incriminate himself, or his right to confront witnesses against him, as laid out in the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments.


Only those of us who assert our rights under the 2nd Amendment have been told for almost a century that we need to go along with ‘common sense’ regulation of those rights. When the President or any other citizen is required to pass a background check in order to express an opinion in a newspaper, I will listen to his opinions on gun control.

A man in Orlando, Florida, decided to protest the service at a local Denny’s restaurant by touching off three rounds from his Ruger .22 handgun. While arresting this rocket scientist, police found marijuana in his Escalade.

Just how wrong can you be?

• First, a gun is not the tool used to protest bad service at the restaurant.  Your cell phone or computer will do a much better job.  
• Second, possession of a firearm by someone who uses marijuana is illegal as day old sin.  
• Third, who carries a .22 pistol in their car?  I can see carrying a .22 rifle  if the Escalade in question is a farm truck, which I sincerely doubt, but a .22 pistol?  What’s the guy doing, going to the local landfill to shoot rats?

I’d like to thank this waste of of a  good blastocyst for tarring those of us who responsibly own, carry, and utilize firearms with the same brush as will be used on his ignorant self.  There’s nothing like having crap like this thrown in your face when you’re trying to explain why private ownership and carriage of guns isn’t a bad thing.

In an editorial note, kudos to the UPI for correctly identifying the gun part as a “magazine” rather than as a “clip”.  Maybe we’re getting through to the press on at least using the correct terms.

The headline on Fox News read “Star Wars School for Kids“.   The story discusses a martial arts academy in Chile that is cashing in on Star Wars fandom.

But what ran through my mind in the moment it took for the page to load was a Star Wars themed boarding school.  In my mind’s eye I saw a glittering Jedi Temple for the school house and the Ewok village for dormitories.  J.K. Rowling meets George Lucas.

Imagine the faculty:

Principal – Yoda, who else?
Vice-Principal – Darth Vader.  Seriously, who’s going to act up in class when your school enforcer eschews the “Board of Education” for the “Force Choke of Education”?
History and Civics Teacher – ObiWan Kenobi, paired with Padme Amidala
Philosophy and Ethics Teacher – Quai Gon Jin
Math and Technology Teacher – Han Solo.  He’s the only character in the entire series who took the time to calculate his FTL jumps and has more than enough experience in the care and feeding of very fallible technology.
General Physical Education – Chewbacca.  He won’t make you do laps, he’ll just tear your arms off.  You will climb that rope when a 7 foot tall hairy carnivore is roaring at you from the bottom.  Also, he could be the Shop Teacher
Swim Coach – Admiral “It’s a Trap!” Akbar
Math Teacher – Mace Windu.  “Say “Square root of negative 3″ one more time and I will Force Push you through a wall!”
School Security – Boba Fett.  He could use that wrist rocket/lanyard thingie to catch rule breakers before they can run away.
Languages teacher – C3P0
Janitor – Jar Jar Binks
Maintenance – R2D2

Can you see the cover of the brochure?  “Give us your three year old, and we’ll give you a highly trained 18 year old ready to apply to any Ivy League university while choking out the competition”

What other things do thing such an institute of learning would have?

Since I appear to be the last guy on these here Interwebs who hasn’t done this, and Snarky asked nicely, here we go:

1. My last name isn’t my real last name.  When my mother remarried, she told me to start using my step-father’s name, thinking that if the oldest kid did it, the others would fall in line.  So I did.  One school move later, and my real name was a memory.  No adoption or anything like that.  We couldn’t have the money flow of child support messed up, after all.  I traded my original name, which was so Scandinavian that other Norwegians had to ask how to spell it, for something so bland you can’t tell what part of the old world it comes from.  By the time I was an adult and had figured out how screwed up telling a kid to stop using his real name is, I had a wife, a kid, and a security clearance with the new name, so I never traded it back.  Lawyers tell me that there’s nothing illegal about it as long as I don’t lie if ever asked about it and stick with the name on all of my documentation except for my birth certificate.  Ironic thing is that I’m the only kid who used my step-dad’s name, and I’m the only one who has nothing to do with him these days.
2. I love to travel, but I don’t want to go to any country where I don’t speak at least a bit of their language.  I hate going overseas and seeing English speakers, both American and British, getting mad at the locals for not speaking English.  Irish Woman said it was funny watching me talk to the people in Ireland and fall into their accent after a few sentences.
3. My special talent appears to be taking work from someone else that’s completely messed up, giving it a good look over, and straightening it out.  I’ve been doing that in one form or another for my entire adult life.
4. I used to go to a rock shelf up in a canyon in Arizona to read for a few hours every time I could get away.  Stretching out on a hot rock in the sun was the most luxurious thing I ever did for myself.  It was light colored limestone, so I was basically would have to slather myself in SPF 50000 before climbing out there or I would roast like a hot dog on a roller.  My final bucket list item is to go back there someday just to sit and listen to the wind.
5.  I got a reputation during language school of being a really good babysitter because I would volunteer to watch people’s kids on Sunday afternoons and take them to the beach.  To be honest, I did enjoy playing with the kids, but my ulterior motive was to meet girls who noticed me because I “liked children”. It was a winning strategy.
6. My guilty pleasure is watching Clint Eastwood westerns.  I’ll re-schedule a lot of stuff to sit and watch “High Plains Drifter”.
7. When I lived in a German neighborhood in Augsburg, we had beer delivery in the same way we used to have milk delivery.  I would leave a few marks and the rack of empties on the steps at bedtime, and be rewarded when I woke up with a rack of 24 1 liter bottles of beer just in time for breakfast.

So there you go.  Hope nothing there’s nothing to shocking in all of this.