The very first part of this month, a beautiful, intelligent, and usually insightful young friend posted a "Worst President Ever" sign, with currency.
I was mortified. I amassed statistics to show the ruination of our economy, from Reagan, Bush, and Bush again, noting the late years of the Clinton Administration, where a Democratic Congress and President worked to not only balance the Budget, but began to pay down the debt.
I ended with statistics enough to bore the most dedicated, stat-loving reader, and declined to collate them. If you care to review what your Presidents have done with Our Budget since President Carter, visit the US Treasury website at www.treasurydirect.gov/ . One item not to miss: When Bush 43 took office, the interest paid for assuming a portion of our National Debt was 6.594%. When he finally (I had doubts he would) left office, the interest paid to investors was 3.811%
Not only was the debt effectively doubled in those eight horrific years, from $5.73 trillion to $10.63 trillion, the incentive for the private sector to reduce it was cut in half.
Too much stats? One more set, please: when Reagan, The Antichrist, the 5th Face on Mt. Rushmore, took office, the debt was $997 billions. After 12 years of Reaganomics, the debt was $4.19 trillion.


Hope you waded through this enough to be amazed, as I was.
If not, by all means visit the US Treasury website and sort it out for yourself.


My sister, who is much (100+X) more in touch with young people than I, pointed out the young are particularly disenfranchised.
How could anyone who endured The Reign of Idiocy that began 1/20/01, when Reagan and the Stooge Bush 41 - appointed Justices named the Stooge Scion Ruler Without a Clue, not be disenchanted?
But to blame President Obama for this shitstorm is both myopic and moronic.
Now you know where Republicans come from.



Here's a heartfelt suggestion. Anyone who doesn't agree with the President and his policies and accomplishments, who do not consider him the First true Leader in the White House since John F. Kennedy, who are concerned with what you suspect is the President's "Real Agenda", please do this: take off your tin-foil hat, turn off the shitstream that is AM talk radio, and, for the love of all that's holy, turn FOX "news" the fuck off.
Think about it for a day or two, then send me what in your heart of hearts are any valid concerns about Your President.
DO NOT mention benefits for our poor. More stats: 13% - 17% of Americans are living below the poverty line. 40% fall under the line at some time during any 10 years.
These numbers are absolutely astounding, and emphasize beyond all doubt the inability of the Nation's poorest to "help themselves".
So many people in poverty are a shitstain on this, the richest in the world, Nation's soul. You got a solution that doesn't involve Federal Monies? No, you don't.
Reagan's "Trickle-Down" economics only widened the massive gap between rich and poor. (See "Federal Debt", above.)
Also, nothing from the "Zygote is Viable" idiots, please. You fucking ignorant bastards have ruined countless lives, and driven even more into a lifetime of poverty and need by forcing your half-shit morals on others.
Please. Find a rock and crawl back under it. Bake in the sun. Freeze in the ice. Either is better than you wasting more air and resources, destroying even more opportunity.
So help me. If you have a real reason to dislike President Obama's vision of an America for Americans, tell me.
If you are one of the 6.7+ billion who don't read this stuff, or would never admit it to anydamnone, I'll post the same question to my FaceBook directly.



The phograph shows hoe the Bureau of Land Management "rounds uo" wild horses. They drive them for up to 20 miles over the roughest land, into pens. It's a wonder only eighteen (or more) died in the most recent attacks on our netional heretaige. You have every right to be totally pissed. Contact Madeleine Pickens, see how you can help, at www.madeleinepickens.com/ .

Saw something Sunday I've never seen before. Know that doesn't mean it doesn't happen all the time. A Great Blue Heron was perched on a bridge rail over a ditch, facing away from the water.
Of course it flew as I passed.
That always makes me so sad, to disturb a being more beautiful, wonderful, and meaningful than some dud in his rusted out pickup.

All Our Raptors Are Overdone

As has been mentioned here several times, the "Solunar Tables" are very useful in predicting when wildlife is moving about, on land or in water. The "Tables" are singular, in that they give you the best times for days better and worse, and, barring extraordinary circumstances (you know, howling summer or winter storms, forest fires, high winds blowing on-shore, very low or high pressure, and such) are almost sure predictors for times to look for wildlife.
These tables are meaningless to a hunter with the time to spend dawn-to-dark in the woods, or the electronic angler. The former will just be there, and the guy with the depth-finder and a fish-finder will drop enough hardware on the snouts of otherwise don't give-a-shit fish to keep some pace in the day.
Oh, yeah, and the crankers, the guys who emulate the Pros (yes, Virginia, there are pro fishermen. The fact there are professional recreational ((what the fuck?)) fishermen is why we are all going to hell. Even you, Virginia. Especially you.) The crankers try to cover every inch of the lake, casting and reeling furiously (cranking) for hours on end, until their arms need ice and cortisone.
I'm a cranker of some note, although not in this pursuit. Every "1-900" operator in every English-speaking country knows me as "Uncle Cranker".
Okay, this points up the fact many things are better left unsaid.
Driving east on Howard (Kokomo) Co. road 400N, I passed a large red tail atop a low pole next to the road. I went back and came past again, and she watched me closely, intently, but made no move to fly. None. I was awestruck by how close together her huge eyes were, like falcon, perhaps from a "knitted" brow. Magnificent.
That afternoon I came upon a red tail hanging by one talon from a wire next to a pole, macrowaved.
It is amazing, with all the superanal regulatory attention paid to even fucking raptor feathers, that utility companies are permitted to operate power poles that are not grounded.
I risk a fine for picking up a red tail feather and sticking it in my hat, but Duke can operate sub-standard equipment and bake that same red tail to a crisp without reprisal.
Never think for a second this is a country of the people.

Buckle Up

Okay, all you bible whores - the antichrist has been and gone, and we're still here, although we're much the worse for it.
Ronald Wilson Reagan was born with the infamous "666" in red numerals an inch tall just below his adult hairline. Make-up (the epitome of his public persona) covered it in his life, as boot-black colored his hair for over 40 years. The country was dealt a sure death blow by his eight years of horrible and destructive policies.
Any chance of even a last-gasp recovery was smothered by G. W. Bush, known sodomite, who so ruined the economy that only about 250 million dead Americans could revitalize it. He was well down this road when his terms came to a blessed end.
Too late. The antichrist, followed by not just the worst president, but the worst leader of a first-world nation in 2000 years, has buried America, and covered the mound in coal overburden.

My heat-of-summer rule of thumb was, if you made the middle of August, things would turn the corner.
No more.
Coal is Big Money. Enough big money to keep Bill Clinton from signing the Kyoto Accords to reduce emissions (read: coal-fired byproducts) worldwide.
And W Bush: born with a birthmark very similar in size and placement to Reagan's but reading "For Sale", wouldn't have pissed off all that cash and signed even if god had told him to.
(God talked directly to him. For anyone but the over-moneyed, that's called "hearing voices" and indicates one is dangerously delusional. Our president.)
So now it will probably be 90 into November, until the thermometer bulb is smashed, and a freezer door is opened across the Midwest that would close roads in Alaska.

The other leg for my logic is the nights would lengthen enough to allow for evening cooling. Not now. Mitch Daniels ("It's MY state, goddammit!) took care of that. In a move as stupid as Class Basketball, in the face of overwhelming support for the status quo, Mitch ushered in DST. How we survived without it for over 35 years beats the shit out of me.
The only people who had trouble determining the time in other states were republicans. Go figure. Buy a man a watch and if he still doesn't know what fucking time it is, he's a republican.

I saw my first (for sure) red shouldered hawk Monday.
Like this: driving north on SR 13, towards Mississinewa Lake, and I saw this big bird standing face-on about 30 feet from the road in a yard. That behavior, size, dark breast - positive ID.
I'm not just a glass-half-empty guy, there's a hole in the bottom, too. But all the things that could have been better about this sighting must take a backseat to how the picture was just perfect. Even, at highway speed, noting the feathers on the legs.
A most wondrous sight.

Lots of raptors about. I thought I had seen an Osprey above the car through the windscreen. But it was the anti-moment. Know how you are driving down (any) road at the speed you need and someone comes flying up from WayBack (Thank you, Mr. Peabody) and then decides your rate is right and locks in about 40 feet behind you? Which made checking out the big guy impossible.
Years ago, I was on a gravel road up near Markle, looking for pollution, when a woman glued to my bumper. I sped up, I slowed down. Ditto. Finally I pulled over and stopped. Again, ditto. If given to such things I (like any normal person) might have been worried. Of course I was just angry. I was unbuckling so as to get out and eat her fucking car when she floored it around and on.
Hope her story was better than mine. She has an ad: she at least knew what one of us was thinking.

Please - A Shotgun

Bird watching tip: do not look straight up for a bird while chewing tobacco, unless you want to re-examine your most recent repast.

Goodness. Quality information like this for free.

Driving the shore road to Pearson's Mill SRA yesterday, and a fox crossed the road from the lake to the woods.

I have seen few in my life, and regard them as the most beautiful mammals in America. All have their finer points, from the sheer enormity of a moose to the audacity of a squirrel, but a red fox is the whole package.

There is a shady gravel road on the upper east end of Mississinewa Lake I like to walk on hot days. Very little traffic, and about forty yards of woods on either side bordering a narrow strip of row crops, an edge break that attracts tons of birds I can't find and a doe that crosses the road most every day behind me.

There is a model plane airfield about a quarter mile up the road, where some really odd, unfriendly people fly loud droning models that drown out the birdsong. It is a hobby I do not understand.

I have a habit: whenever I see a "gazing ball" I want to shoot it. Now, I've added a desire to shoot one (or more) of these little planes down. Realistically, I need a shotgun. A 20 ga. would be ideal, and a 28 ga. an esoteric marvel. Even a 16 ga. would be just ducky. I don't need a 12 ga. They only really have two uses: deer hunting, which I would never do, and home protection. Except I see a guy with sleep-crusty eyes and one of those magazines like on a tommy gun, shooting up the inside of his house until it collapses on him. The only other use is clay sports, and I can't afford the shells or the clays.

A .410 caliber is great to kill rabbits or squirrels, and I'm not interested, thank you.

So if you have a 16, 20, or 28 gauge you're tired of dusting, I am prepared to give it a damn fine home. And I'll make sure you get photos of the wreckage.

Many years ago out west of Phoenix there was a guy flying a giant seaplane model around a big pond. The wingspan must have been eight feet. I stopped my car and watched for about fifteen minutes, but the guy kind of got hinky and left. At the time I was seeking religious and spiritual enlightenment and guidance from some popular hallucinogens, and the sight of a bear standing next to an ex-taxi brush painted hugger orange with substance drooling from his agape mouth might have been reason for some of the flier's disease.

Another time, a similar soul-seeking mission, and I was hard concentrating to keep the car on the pavement at a blistering 8 mph. I looked out the passenger window, and there, 200 yards away and 50 feet up, was the Goodyear blimp.

Sand slows you down quickly, and I had several minutes to clean myself up and recall that Goodyear, AZ was 4 miles down the road. At that time there were at least two blimps there, for promo use on the Gulf and West coasts.

Even without the awareness aids, the blimp that close is bigger than Dallas, and I probably would have been well startled in any case.

A guy out there trumped my story, saying he was driving and tripping and lightning struck a tree about fifty feet away, but he was so full of shit his breath stank, and I'm sure it didn't happen, just as I'm sure he told the story enough he really thought it did.

If you have ever been anywhere near a lightning strike, you know you damn sure feel it, uncomfortably so, car or no.

Trick of the Light from "Who Are You" by The Who rocks.

So when the geeks weren't flying the little buzzy toys, I heard plenty of birdsong, and it occurred I only know one bird song, the northern cardinal, and the only reason I know it is from the scramble light at Riverside and McKinley on BSU campus.

Oh, yeah, I know the mourning dove. And the bobwhite quail, and the catbird - unless it's really a cat, as the bird apes it that good. And I heard a whippoorwill once, unmistakable. And a peacock, which screams like Sasquatch with his pecker in a rat trap. And crows...

Okay, got it.

There was a pair of screech owls hanging out in the maple in my backyard last summer, but they never screeched.

Plus I'm tone deaf, so when I do hear a new song, I can't repeat it for ID help. I could as easily remake the Pieta from Play-Do.

My grand nephew is doing well, is out of IC, and will go home in a day or two. Thank all who helped.