Just a few things to take note of before I crash

Looks like the CT AG may be trying to take some pressure off Sen. Dodd(Corrupticrat-CT):
Since the Courant's reversal of fortune on a CT political icon whom they have supported for decades, the CT Democratic establishment did what it does best. Circle the wagons around their wounded leader. They've been doing a "dog and pony" show around the state where all the leading Democrats stand behind the embattled Dodd.

Including Attorney General Dick Blumenthal
Wouldn't surprise me. Hey, wasn't it the CT State Police that got caught illegally maintaining gun purchase records? Did Blumenthal every actually do anything about that?

A nice piece on the problem of pirates. And just why it is such a problem.
The navy of the British Empire, with some aid from other western navies, wiped out piracy in the first half of the 1800s. British sailing ships with muzzle-loading blackpowder cannons fought pirate sailing ships using the same technology. In a time without steam, radio, aircraft, satellites, etc. they tracked pirates down to their bases and brought them to justice.

Yet, today, in a world of universal. instantaneous, world wide communication, satellite surveillance and weapons of such reach and accuracy that the President of the United States can order a missile shot through a particular window in a particular building on the other side of the world, we can’t seem to prevent a bunch of Somali rednecks in bass boats from seizing giant container ships.

Clearly, we find ourselves paralyzed due to the collapse of our trust in international maritime law. In the past, broad international agreement existed on how to deal with pirates. Any naval or police power of any state could attack any vessel attacking a merchant vessel of any state. Any port that harbored pirates’ ships was liable to attack itself. Pirates disappeared from the seas because the swift and sure universal response to piracy made piracy suicidal. Today, when faced with piracy, we dither. Maritime law, once considered clear and long-established, suddenly now is viewed as ambiguous and unsupported.
And because, in large part, we've got a bunch of people in charge who seem to think that actually DOING is far inferior to talking about doing something, no matter the consequences of not actually doing. Witness the Navy having some friggin' FBI negotiators staging off a destroyer to talk to the pirates, instead of doing what the Navy well knows how to do; and if you don't think it's because of orders from the White House, well, I've got a bridge you ought to buy.

I'll also note that this, added to the bow to the Saudi king, is really screwing us up: "Look, Achmet, the Great Satan has this powerful ship, loaded down with weapons, and is afraid to use it." That's really going to help.

And last, Sondra says we really ought to watch out, as Somebody Is Watching And Will Fink On Us. Partial excerpt, with Clair's comments included:

"AMERICAN NETWORK MONITORING ANTI-OBAMA ACTIVITIES

A site dedicated for American citizens monitoring and reporting all anti-obama [ a Regular Person would Capitalize That, DumbAss. Or has it become generic, already—like kleenex?] activities taking place on the world wide web.

A site dedicated to the preservation of truth, justice and the American way. Where true American citizens can monitor and report [to *whom*?] all anti-obama activities taking place on the world wide web. [gonna fink on *report* the EUs giggling over ∏eh R∅∅b, too? Careful—they might wet themselves.]

This is a place where one [one what?] can post and report on all activities, web sites and or blogs that would be considered erroneous, slanderous or detrimental to the newly elected President of the United States. [*reporting* instead of, oh I dunno, *challenging* errors, slanders and detrimental statements? fine idea. for a three year old. a particularly slow and enfeebled three year old. but I guess ya gotta play to your own strengths...] There are those who go under the disguise of patriotism who seek to undermine the President by reporting false allegations as truth and there by starting a incendiary viral campaigns based on lies and innuendo. [like, I imagine, that whole lying video about bowing to a Saudi Cretin? That kinda innuendo?][admit it—you only used that word not cuz you actually know what it means but because it kinda makes ya hot, am I right?]
Effing Morons. You know what's scary about this crap? This clown actually believes he can 'report' us for not bowing down to The Obamessiah, Pres. B. Cartman Obama.

And unrelated to the above, you know those hot wax baths you can get to soak your hands in? They really do help.

'New surrender monkey on the block'

Updated: link is actually there, now


More on this later, but you can read it now. Anything that starts off
President Barack Obama has recently completed the most successful foreign policy tour since Napoleon's retreat from Moscow.
is worth looking at.

Further update: now that I've got time
Barack is not the first New World ingenue to discover that European leaders will load him with praise, struggle sycophantically to be photographed with him and outdo him in Utopian rhetoric. But when it comes to the critical moment of opening their wallets - suddenly it is flag-day in Aberdeen. Okay, put the G20 down to inexperience, beginner's nerves, what you will.
"All hail President Obama, one of Us! Wait a minute, you want us to actually do what you want? Screw that."

On to Nato and the next big objective: to persuade the same European evasion experts that America, Britain and Canada should no longer bear the brunt of the Afghan struggle virtually unassisted. The Old World sucked through its teeth, said that was asking a lot - but, seeing it was Barack, to whom they could refuse nothing, they would graciously accede to his wishes.

So The One retired triumphant, having secured a massive contribution of 5,000 extra troops - all of them non-combatant, of course - which must really have put the wind up the Taliban, at the prospect of 5,000 more infidel cooks and bottle-washers swarming into the less hazardous regions of Afghanistan.
Because while they know something desperately needs to be done, damned if they'll have anything to do with, you know, actually doing it. Remember the German specops team that had a Taliban bigshot in sight at close range, and let him go because the ROE from their government said they could only arrest him? And could only shoot if they were shot at first? Great way to lose a war, guys. And they're not going to change just because Pres. B. Cartman Obama begs themtells them to.

And on his reaction to the Norks launching,
"Rules must be binding," declared Obama, referring to the fact that Kim had just breached UN Resolutions 1695 and 1718. "Violations must be punished." (Sounds ominous.) "Words must mean something." (Why, Barack? They never did before, for you - as a cursory glance at your many speeches will show.)

President Pantywaist is hopping mad and he has a strategy to cut Kim down to size: he is going to slice $1.4bn off America's missile defence programme, presumably on the calculation that Kim would feel it unsporting to hit a sitting duck, so that will spoil his fun.

Watch out, France and Co, there is a new surrender monkey on the block and, over the next four years, he will spectacularly sell out the interests of the West with every kind of liberal-delusionist initiative on nuclear disarmament and sitting down to negotiate with any power freak who wants to buy time to get a good ICBM fix on San Francisco, or wherever. If you thought the world was a tad unsafe with Dubya around, just wait until President Pantywaist gets into his stride.

Wonderful piece. Except for the fact that Obama actually thinks he can word his way through/out of anything. And if he can't, he'll blame it on Bush/conservatives/anybody handy, because of COURSE it couldn't be his fault.

One Big-Ass Mistake, America.

Directly connected to the Mexican Gun Lie,

Kevin has this:
The gun shown here, a Webley, is up for sale in London for £150, one of hundreds of such weapons that are easily and cheaply available on the streets of the UK's big cities, a Guardian investigation can reveal.

The variety of weapons on offer in Britain is extensive and includes machine guns and shotguns, as well as pistols and converted replicas. A source close to the trade in illegal weapons contacted by the Guardian listed a menu of firearms that are available on the streets of the capital.

"You can get a clean [unused] 9mm automatic for £1,500, a Glock for a couple of grand and you can even make an order for a couple of MAC-10s," he said. "Or you can get a little sawn-off for £150. They're easy enough to get hold of. You'll find one in any poverty area, every estate in London, and it's even easier in Manchester, where there are areas where the police don't go.
...
But it is the arrival of eastern European weapons that, alongside a homegrown industry in converting them, has contributed to the firearms glut.
As Kevin notes, As I have noted previously, the argument you hear most often by The Other Side is that "lax gun laws" in adjacent jurisdictions are the reason that "reasonable gun control" laws don't, you know, actually work. It's too easy, they say, for people to just drive across the state, county, or city line and buy what they're prohibited from having where they live.

The UK is a FREAKING ISLAND, one with uniform, draconian gun laws - gun laws that the Million Mommies said they wanted to implement here, and THEY CAN'T KEEP THE GUNS OUT.
...
According to Dyson, the latest "weapon of choice" is a Russian 8mm Baikal self-defence pistol, originally used for firing CS gas. "They are legally sold in Germany and won't fire a bullet but they can be converted by removing the partially blocked barrel, and replacing it with a rifled barrel," he said. "After other small alterations, it can then fire 9mm bulleted ammunition. The replacement barrel is longer than the original, and is threaded so that it will accept a silencer, which is commonly sold as part of the package.

"There are hundreds of these floating around and hundreds have been seized," he said. "They look the part as they are based on the Russian military Makarov pistol. If you are a 20-year-old drug dealer and you want a gun, that is what you will get and it will cost about £1,000 to £1,500."
In, as Kevin notes, an island with nasty personal-disarmament laws. The silencer is 'commonly part of the package'.

Read the whole thing, including this part at the end:

You don't ever think a shooting will happen in your life. It's all down to guns, just guns."

The Guardian's source said that guns were becoming a first rather than a last recourse. "A gun used to be used as a mediator; now everything is revolved with a gun. It's brought the heat on everyone. Before you would get a two [years jail sentence], now it's a five. It's getting like the US now, like The Wire. It's like a prediction of what will happen here. I think they all think they're playing Grand Theft Auto. It's madness out there."

They seem to be catching on to something: that it's the mental attitude of the people involved that's behind this; and yet they still blame the objects involved, instead of the people. Just so much easier than starting to hold individuals responsible for what they do, I guess.

This has to be one of the more idiotic LE actions

I've heard of.
But here’s what really bothers me. In justifying the raid, Phoenix Assistant Chief Andy Anderson called Pataky’s site “an unaccredited grassroots Web site.” Um, Chief Anderson, who “accredits” web sites? This is the most chilling part of the whole thing to me, because the police and the courts in Phoenix have taken it upon themselves to determine who qualifies as “the press.” And here’s the thing: anybody with an ounce of ink in their blood knows that Pataky deserves First Amendment protection, but they’re unlikely to say it publicly, because “the (professional) press” thinks of itself as a special class of people and have railed for years against the likes of Pataky.

If Phoenix PD thought they had a public relations problem before... What moron thought this was a good idea, I wonder?


In the comments at knoxnews:

"Pheonix PD."

"Hello. I'd like to speak to your website accreditation officer."

"My what?"

"Well, your department's Obergruppenfuhrer, Andy Anderson, says that a blog's got to be accredited, or jackbooted thugs in executioner's masks, err, I mean 'devoted civil servants toting automatic weapons and wearing tactical balaclavas' get to kick in the door and grab everything they want to, and, well, I've got me a blog, and I kinda don't want that to happen."

"Obergruppenfuhrer?"

"Do I have to spell it out for you?"

Hopey Changey! Obama & Co. say you don't HAVE any privacy

where they're concerned.
Civilian libertarians were apoplectic over former President George W. Bush’s “warrantless wiretap” program, which sought to monitor communications from terrorist networks overseas. So why are they not screaming bloody murder now that President Barack Obama appears slated to receive unprecedented power to monitor all Internet traffic without a warrant and to even shut the system down completely on the pretext of national security? The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 - introduced by Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-WV, and cosponsor Olympia Snowe, R-ME - bypasses all existing privacy laws and allows White House political operatives to tap into any online communication without a warrant, including banking, medical, and business records and personal e-mail conversations. This amounts to warrantless wiretaps on steroids, directed at U.S. citizens instead of foreign terrorists.
Ah, but this is Pres. B. Cartman Obama wanting the power to know everything about you, and that makes it different! It makes it Good! After all, the Obama Youth will want to know who to lean onconvince to change their ways as The Obamessiah demands.

And note this from the article linked in the update:
“Again, the gulf between Candidate Obama and President Obama is striking. As a candidate, Obama ran promising a new era of government transparency and accountability, an end to the Bush DOJ’s radical theories of executive power, and reform of the PATRIOT Act. But, this week, Obama’s own Department Of Justice has argued that, under the PATRIOT Act, the government shall be entirely unaccountable for surveilling Americans in violation of its own laws. This isn’t change we can believe in. This is change for the worse.” Actually, it’s pretty much the change I expected.

So Pres. Obama's appointee for State Department legal advisor likes gun bans,

but we're not supposed to be worried...
In this article, Koh lauds the international gun control effort, and criticizes John Bolton's invocation of the Second Amendment at the 2001 UN small arms conference.
Yeah, I mean how DARE we bring up that our highest law notes a right to arms? We were supposed to bend over for the UN!

But Obama & Co. aren't out to ban things, noooooo.
2) You have argued in your writings that transnational legal processes can and should be used to develop and eventually “bring international law home” to have binding force within the U.S. legal system. Do you think it is appropriate as Legal Advisor to support such efforts to use litigation to incorporate international legal norms within U.S. law?
Which would allow Obama to say "International law says that guns like (fill in the blank) are banned from private ownership, so turn them in." And do we want this being used to force what the UN and 'international law' says about self-defense on us?
...
4) You have written vigorously in defense of the view that customary international law has the status of federal common law within the U.S. legal system. Do you therefore also believe that the President has the power to invoke CIL to preempt state law, as some scholars have suggested?
Which would mean, if he thinks so, that he wants the President to be able to use 'international law' to say "I don't care what your state law says, International Law say THIS, so that's what holds."
But don't be worried, no.....

"The Queen of England gets an iPod.

The King of Saudi Arabia gets iDolatry."

And other gems such as When it comes to deficit spending, Obama burns down your house and reminds you that Bush once lit a match.

The one thing the plains tribes feared above all else,

according to a lot of trappers, traders and explorers through this region, was wildfire. In their case it was because of four- to six-foot-tall grass; we don't have the grass, but with winds and dry conditions like these, we don't need them.
Wild grass fires are ravaging large portions of Mid West City including the
Wind Song, Turtlewood, and Oakwood neighborhoods. Evacuations of these areas are being ordered. In addition a large grass fire has shut down I-35 both North and South bound in Lincoln Country near the Stillwater Exit. In Sparks and Wellston evacuations are being ordered.

I will correct one thing: Lincoln County is a ways east of I-35 and south of Stillwater, I'm guessing they mean Payne and/or Logan county. Midwest City is on the east side of Oklahoma City, and is one of the areas largely flattened by the 05/03/99 tornado.

Right now, the humidity is 19-20%, with westerly winds at 26-30mph, gusting up to near 40. With those conditions, you don't need the tall dry grass. This is a first-class mess, with people being evacuated and highways closed due to either blowing smoke or the fire jumping them.

When he makes a point of saying

“No one’s told me to back off. I understand the Second Amendment. I respect the Second Amendment.” , it means somebody did. Especially after the last time he slipped and told the truth, and ammo and gun sales took off again.

Thanks to Uncle for pointing to this.

And the next time some moonbat calls us nuts

because "Obama and Congress don't want to ban guns", point them to this:
Roberts: Under the Bush administration, you pretty much said the ball was in their court when it came to reinstating the ban. Now, it's a Democratic President, a Democratic House. So, is the ball in your court where this is concerned?
Pelosi: Yes, it is. And we are just going to have to work together to come to some resolution because the court, in the meantime, in recent months, the Supreme Court has ruled in a very- in a direction that gives more opportunity for people to have guns. We never denied that right. We don't want to take their guns away. We want them registered. We don’t want them crossing state lines...
...
During his presidential campaign, President Barack Obama supported reinstating the federal ban that expired in 2004. In Mexico, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton supported a renewal of the ban.
...
Obviously, I am someone who supported the assault weapons ban which was passed in 1994, but it was passed with an expiration date and it expired ten years later. I, as a senator, supported measures to try to reinstate it. Politically, that is a very big hurdle in our Congress. But there may be some approaches that could be acceptable, and we are exploring those.

Yeah, they don't want to ban them, just register and license and control where you can go with your 'assault weapon'. And why, if they're not after them, do they want registration?
Even if Pelosi was only alluding to so-called “assault weapons” that the Obama administration would like to ban – as acknowledged earlier this year by Attorney General Eric Holder – she certainly did not make that clear. And even if she were, gun rights activists will quickly point to California, where first there was registration and then came the ban.
And we're supposed to trust these people. Pelosi did the same thing Holder did: slipped and let at least part of the truth out.

Lamppost, rope, politician...

Back to the subject of our miserable excuse for a President,

I've got to comment on his bowing to the King of the Oil Ticks; symbolically rolling over and offering his belly. I know I'm late on this, but A: I've been short on time and B: I just couldn't imagine any but the most rabidly partisan Obama worshippers making excuses for this. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

Aside from being mad as hell at this idiocy, I have two thoughts on it.
First, there's no way he did this out of ignorance of protocol; it was deliberate. Either his way of physically apologizing for the US being responsible for all evil in the world(such as the arabs not being able to defeat the tiny nation of Israel), or actually offering his neck in subservient manner. Either way, it's flat disgusting, and if the the man had any sense of shame he'd hide his face from us. He's shamed this nation by offering obeisance to a foreign king.

Second: This idiot just gave ammunition to every terrorist, muslim and otherwise, in the world. Especially to the islamists: the President of the Great Satan showed submission to a muslim king. Good God, is there any way this clown could not understand what this would mean to the enemy?
Among Muslim democrats and human rights advocates, utter dejection that the "leader of the Free World" has offered himself as a "subject" of the Saudi monarch; among Islamists, bliss over America's seeming prostration before Salafist Islam; among international bad actors, assurance that America poses no threat; and among our allies, depression about the new systemic instability of the most dependable superpower in history.

Such a busy past few days it's been

What with the Congressional Black Caucus kissing Castro's ass, and other things.
Lee and others heaped praise on Castro, calling him warm and receptive during their discussion. But the lawmakers disputed Castro's later statement that members of the congressional delegation said American society is still racist.

"It was quite a moment to behold," Lee said, recalling her moments with Castro.

“It was almost like listening to an old friend,” said Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Il.), adding that he found Castro’s home to be modest and Castro’s wife to be particularly hospitable.

“In my household I told Castro he is known as the ultimate survivor,” Rush said.
A dictator who imprisons librarians for handing out unapproved books, has imprisoned a whole people for decades, tortured and murdered, but they like him! He's a survivor, unlike so many people who have suffered and died at his orders. AND he wants to know 'how he can help Obama'! Isn't it just wonderful how they like him?

Let's see, a judge, in court, ripped the ass off the federal prosecutors in the Stevens case, and
He named Henry F. Schuelke 3rd, a prominent Washington lawyer, to investigate six career Justice Department prosecutors, including the chief and deputy chief of the Public Integrity Section, an elite unit charged with dealing with official corruption, to see if they should face criminal charges.
...
During the five-week trial, prosecutors were repeatedly forced to acknowledge that they had failed to turn over information to defense lawyers as required. “Again and again, both during and after the trial in this case, the government was caught making false representations and not meeting its discovery obligations,” Judge Sullivan said Tuesday.

A 1963 Supreme Court ruling, Brady v. Maryland, requires prosecutors to give a defendant all information they hold that might materially help the defense.

The Stevens case finally collapsed last Wednesday, more than five months after the verdict, when Eric H. Holder Jr., the recently installed attorney general, asked that all charges be dismissed because the new lawyers whom he had put in charge of the case had discovered yet another example of concealment.
It seems Holder doesn't want it coming back on him that he was aware of the bullcrap acts these prosecutors had committed, and that he did nothing. Which, at least, ends this case.
Judge Sullivan also criticized Michael B. Mukasey, the last attorney general in the Bush administration, saying it was shocking that he had failed to respond to letters from the defense team complaining about the Stevens prosecution. Mr. Mukasey’s office would not comment.
I imagine not; this bastard was apparently aware of what was going on and didn't do anything to stop it. And he should pay a price for it, too.

Gay Patriot notes Rep. Barney Frank(Evil Party-MA) attacking instead of answering a question, and has some thoughts on why the left so loves this miserable waste of skin.

You've probably heard about Somali pirates seizing an American ship; it seems Pres. B. Cartman Obama has been saved from having to actually do or say something by the crew taking the ship back. The word from the White House was Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the White House is "closely monitoring the apparent hijacking of the U.S.-flagged ship in the Indian Ocean and assessing a course of action to resolve this situation."

Well, isn't that nice? Now, I admit to being unsophisticated in such things, but I'd think the course of action would be fairly clear:
1. Get the ship and crew back, and
2. Stomp a bunch of pirates to get the message across not to mess with American-flagged ships. Preferably no ships, but "Do not screw with ours; we'll kill you."
However, that would require someone more concerned with actually solving the problem long-term than with looking thoughtful and considerate to the world. Which means Obama would have issued statements and made offers and screwed around for God knows how long. I wonder if he, or any of the weenies around him, really understand the problems this demonstrates? Or care?

Aw, shit. I just found this:
White House officials travelled to France at the start of March to discuss a visit by Mr Obama to Omaha Beach, the site of the American Cemetery, established in 1944 just after D-Day and where 9,387 American personnel are buried. Among them is Theodore Roosevelt Jr the eldest son of the 26th US President.

French officials and senior American military officers walked with White House staff through the cemetery discussing how the two presidents might follow the same route. But even before their trip, the White House had decided that Mr Obama would not travel there this week.

"It wasn't going to happen," said an American official in Washington. "We went through the motions to placate President Sarkozy but giving special treatment to France was not on our agenda.

"During this trip, we wanted to maintain a balance between the British, German and France". A White House spokesman in London declined to comment. Last month, White House officials briefed that a Normandy visit had been considered but it had not been logistically possible.
A 'balance'. He couldn't visit a cemetary for American troops because it might 'offend' someone? Might be seen as 'special treatment' to France?
A: miserable excuse
B: we have a miserable bastard for a President.
The White House rejected the offer, but Mr Sarkozy's most senior aide said Mr Obama had agreed to come back in June for the 65th anniversary of the June 6th 1944, D-Day landings. A White House spokesman declined to comment on whether Mr Obama would travel to France in June.
What, they expect The President B. Cartman Obama to show up and show respect for people who died fighting to save the world from the National Socialists? What do they think he is, a real Democrat?

Dammit, and it's too early to drink.

Since saying "Getting old sucks" would make me feel worse,

I'll just say I don't recover as fast as I used to.

If I hadn't decided before this fair to tell the director this was my last one, the way I feel now would make me call her. All I did yesterday was unload and put stuff away, but my hands are still aching. Combine the touch of arthritis with hammering & tonging and cold and high winds... damn.

You know, stop doing something because you're tired of it, you're done, whatever, is one thing; having to stop because the body doesn't handle the stress well anymore, well, that just sucks.

Yes, I am bitching and whining about it.

I'm going to keep doing some smithing, as time & conditions allow, but the heavy stuff is either going to be few & far between, or only if I can get someone to use the sledge to help out; which means no more damascus, unless it's little billets.

Back to the weather, it was a hard freeze last night. I think I've lost one pepper and maybe two tomatoes over the last week or so; one of the tomatoes may not be dead, I'll give it a couple of days to see. It warmed up into the low 60's today, and is supposed to be warmer the next couple of days; no more freezes in sight according to the weather weenies. And today some visitors showed up in numbers:
The hollies were flat alive with them. Last year didn't see many, but they seem to be back. Which is nice, since they seem to have a home somewhere that does not involve my house. In a hive out back, sure, but not in the wall or something.

I cleaned and oiled the leather yesterday, and wiped all the blades with Eezox, so I need to put all that stuff up. Amuse yourselves while I'm gone.

Under the heading of "Law Enforcement-

Sorry Excuse For" Tam points out a slight problem with the "Trust the cops to save you! YOU don't need a gun!" attitude: that the cops sometimes get there in time, but don't do the damned job. And points to some words by Steyn on the subject.

One receptionist was killed, while the other, shot in the abdomen, pretended to be dead and then crawled under a desk and called 911, he said.

Police said they arrived within two minutes...

Police heard no gunfire after they arrived but waited for about an hour before entering the building to make sure it was safe for officers.

'Safe for officers'. The ones with the guns we're supposed to trust to save us. Like the tactical teams at Columbine, armed with everything short of RPGs, standing around making plans until all the dying was over.

As Tam notes, if you don't want me to be able to shoot the bad guy, but you're not going to do it either, why the hell are we paying you? If we want spectators to a gory sight, the media does that for free.

By the way, if Al Gore shows his fat hypocritical ass around here,

I’ll light him up.

Global warming my ass. Usually, between about mid-March to mid-April we’ll have one or two real freezes to contend with; the hard freeze warning for tonight makes about six in this period this year. Despite being covered I lost some tomatoes and peppers in the garden, and I may lose the others tonight since they’re talking about mid-twenties in this area.

This keeps up, we’ll have to render him down for oil to keep the lamps burning.

Yes, that IS a dirk in my kilt

but I am glad to see you. (some of you, anyway)

Fair’s over. Yesterday being cold and windy enough to make me glad. Even for Oklahoma, the winds the last while have been downright nasty; I’m going to have to do some work on my carport when things calm down a bit(assuming they do; there’s a scary thought).

Some guy from Los Angeles, here for the first time, was setting up Thursday and went by the fair office to ask when the wind would die down; the look on his face when they told him “It may ease off some, but they’re predicting they’ll be like this through most of the weekend” was startling. We’re used to this crap coming around at times, but the last thing he said as he went back to finish setup was “And people talk about earthquakes in LA…”

The whole weekend, one of the big requests for every blacksmith out there was tent stakes, big ones. Problems multiplied because a lot of people had the pop-up tents/sunshades for their shop; nice when it’s mild but not rigid enough to stand up to bad winds. Stake them down well enough to not blow away and they just might pop rivets through the aluminum, or buckle and collapse. Not fun at all.

Most people made it through the weekend ok, but some did give up, either would not/could not keep set up without a tent or- on Sunday when it had turned cold- unable/unwilling to deal with the combination of 30’s & 40’s combined with strong winds gusting into the high 30’s—low 40’s. And be it said that was downright nasty, the winds strong and gusting enough that I didn’t even light the forge. And enough dust and grass in the air to screw with everybody’s sinuses and mess up the place.

I told the fair director Friday that this was my last Med-Fair as demonstrating smith; my hands are bothering me enough to make heavy or long hammering a problem, so it’s time. She, and the other people who make the thing run, have been very good to work with over the years, and I’ll miss doing this. I’ve flat loved it; having someone, patron or vendor, come by and say “Can you make/fix this?”, and turning to the forge and making or repairing or modifying it. Tent stakes, display stands and poles, small tools, a belt buckle, and other stuff someone needs.

Not too many pictures this time. I wrote a few months ago about Fenris having died; his people brought out one of his descendants, Mordred, to see how he’d like the place.
Pretty well as it turned out. Especially the introduction to Scotch eggs.

Rachel Lucas would like the place, because there's dog abuse

Some of the cultural exhibits are always nice

And the interesting contrasts: “Arrh, I be a fierce pirate
with a little bitty dog.”
So this year’s done. May be one of the volunteers next year, helping people set up and such. We’ll see.