philoshop

Watching the leftist media reaction/spin yesterday and today has been truly educational. It's helped me a great deal in my attempt to sort out the 'reasonable Democrat supporters' from the absolute 'goats'. I dislike Van Jones and Chris Wallace and their overall positions on most everything, but even they acknowledged the fact that the speech was a home run. And they both did so with a great deal of respect and even, dare I say, praise in their words. The message is getting through! Ann Coulter made an excellent point on Hannity last night about the Dem's immediate reaction to Trump's VOICE (Victims Of Immigration Crime Engagement) plan announcement. The groans, hisses, booing and general negativity were instantaneous and Pavlovian even before the words and intentions were considered. Think about it.

Excellent speech! Trump will never get support from the Democrats because they hate HIM as a person. He could adopt every idea put forth by Obama and they still wouldn't support him. It's personal, petulant, and petty that way.

A late update: 26 dollars for the the headlight assembly at the local pick-and-pull yard, but that buck did a lot more damage than just the light and a wrinkled quarter panel. It took me an hour to bend the metal parts back into a shape that would even take the new light assembly. The impact also pushed the quarter panel rearward about 1/4" and now the passenger door won't open. I briefly tried a small pry bar between the door and panel but nothing was really moving. Started life as a six passenger van, and now it's basically a single-seater.

You might want to look into a used mini excavator to just get your close-in work done like the leach field and drainage around the house. They can often be purchased at very reasonable prices and with generally low hours. Contractors tend to keep them on hand just for tight-space jobs, but they'll do a lot more 'work' than a backhoe accessory on a smallish tractor when it comes to trenching and backfilling and you'll probably get your money back when you sell. Then you can buy a tractor without having to spend for the backhoe accessory which is likely not inexpensive. As far as the financing concerns go, you may able to do the work that needs to be done with a small dedicated machine and resell it before you even make the second payment. Then you can work on the wish list of tractor & accessories for the other jobs and decide on a size. I guess my point is: buy the right tool for the job. It's just my two cents on the matter. PS. You'll probably fall in love with the mini excavator and won't want to sell it anyway. Your neighbor with the bigger equipment might even steer some work your way if you decide to go the business route.

Bolt guns have rights. Semi-autos, not so much.

If I'm not mistaken that's where the term "the whole kit-n-kaboodle" came from. There are various origins but I like this one.

The alliance that's been formed against American energy independence has absolutely nothing to do with the environment. It's entirely about preventing the American people from ever becoming energy independent and prosperous. The sooner we understand this the sooner we can kick the Climate Scientologists to the side.

It just won't do to have citizens capable of opposing the whims of their government. That's been the downfall of Socialism across the globe. Do you not see that, man? Are you blind, man? C'mon over to my place tonight where we'll sit around a cow-dung fire eating algae cakes while we pick parasites off each other and discuss the future of a Guatemalan water snake, man. /sarc off/ ;-}

Actually he connected with the front end of my work van. We both survived the incident, but I'll have to search the junkyard for a new headlight housing before the next inspection. The dent doesn't bother me at all. I can't believe that heavy-racked buck ran away from the collision without even losing so much as an antler in the 55 mph zone. Tough critter for sure. It's certainly not the first time I've had a deer-truck incident, but holy crap that was fast. I grew up racing motorcycles, cars, and karts, and I've been told I sometimes drive like an old lady, (no offense to the gals here), but I learned early on to always pay attention to my surroundings. This guy was on me so fast it's like he just dropped out of the sky.

Welcome to HNY, John. I don't mean to derail the thread here, but I happen to have a 12 Ga Remington Express with a slug barrel that I would part with. Scoped of course. It's kinda heavy, it kicks like a mule, and I'm just getting too old for it. But it shoots like crazy and I'll give you a heck of a deal on it. PM me if interested.

This is exactly what many people don't get. The Constitution does not grant rights. It prohibits the government from taking away those rights that were deemed to be God-given and inalienable. It's only a problem when someone believes that the government is the lord God and savior. 200+ million dead people in Germany, China, Russia... might disagree with those theories regarding the benevolence of government.

Doin' my best Growie. Stay strong my friend.

A clear case of judicial activism, judicial legislation, and judicial overreach.

I've dropped a number of guns into swamps, creeks, rivers and lakes over the years. I managed to immediately retrieve them all but still have scars from the frostbite and memories of the hypothermia I endured. It's not fun jumping into the water in January, and especially not when you're solo in a canoe. What the heck was I thinking?

Classical Liberal values are still held by modern Conservatives, myself included. There was never any shift in 'values' per se. The only shift that occurred was the appropriation by modern Democrats of the term 'liberal'. The concept of a shift in ideology was created to support that shift in terminology. A great deal has been written over the years about the fallacy of this supposed 'shift in ideology' between Democrats and Republicans. In the end, it never actually happened.

I didn't say I had no party affiliation, just that I had no official party affiliation. I am, in fact, an 'individualist' as opposed to a 'collectivist', which would generally make me a conservative.

If the bureaucrats don't make it overly complicated, then the bureaucrats don't need to be employed to interpret the overly complicated nonsense created by other bureaucrats. It's become a fundamental principle of government work at every level.

The 'collectivists' in our country have a problem with everyone not getting the same results from life. The 'individualists' realize that equality of results is far different from equality of opportunity. Put in place rules and a mindset that enforce equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity and eventually you'll have neither. We've been watching this happen for over a hundred years now and the end-product has been some 200 million people killed by regimes who thought that equality of outcome is the way to go. Some people just don't learn.

You seem to forget that it was the Republican Party that ended slavery in the US. And that fought against the racism of the Jim Crow era. And that fought against LBJ's ideas of 'voter plantations', (which have worked, BTW). And that welcomed Dr. Martin Luther King into their party. Oh, and welcome back Uptown. I recognize you're writing style.

The term "your party" is pretty vague considering I'm officially registered as "not associated with any party".

I always worry a bit about the fruit and nut trees, but overall I'll take the early warm weather any day.

This is wrong in so many ways. Milo Yiannopoulos is not "sponsored" by Breitbart News. He works for the organization as a senior technology editor. He is not "sponsored" by Steve Bannon. Bannon stepped down from Breitbart when he accepted his position in the Trump administration. The "Coretta Scott King" spiel from Elizabeth Warren was stopped because it was against the parliamentary rules of congress... This woman is truly frightening.

...supposedly teaching children how to think. Is there any question about where and why this country has screwed up?

...winning the country back from the Socialists." Too many articles to mention.

I don't think you'll be disappointed, grampy. There's something about having the proper equipment that makes one focus and do a better job, and have more fun doing it. I have a machinist's vise with silicone rubber jaws at the end of my reloading/smithing bench. Once I clear away all the empty winter beer cans I'll remember what it looks like.