NRA cuts another notch on its gun butt

Obama has given up on his surgeon general nominee, a Dr. Vivek  Murthy, who is anti gun, and considers gun ownership a disease.  NRA said a vote in favor of Murthy would be reported to the membership, a serious threat.  NRA has some 5 million dues paying members, it gets the word out to the membership via a monthly magazine, American Rifleman, and the membership takes a word from the NRA very seriously, far more seriously than they take a word from the MSM. 
   Anyhow,  nervous democrats from red districts decided that  voting for Obama's surgeon general might get them voted out of office in November.  There were enough democrats seeing the light that Obama has given up on the nomination. 

Aviation Week on Malaysia Flt 370

My copy arrived in the mail this morning.  Aviation Week reports a few details, like the aircraft tail number, how old it is, and it's last trip thru heavy maintenance (periodic inspection we called it in USAF)  All this was quite unexceptional.  They gave a map of radar coverage in the area.  They did not speculate on the cause of the loss.  They went on at some length about electronic reporting and tracking systems the could be installed, if there was funding, but are not present today.  That's about it.
   No speculation about hijackers, aircrew, Bermuda Triangle, terrorists, bad karma, etc.  Aviation Week just reports the facts, of which there are few.

Obama sanctions Russian officials

In return for invading Ukraine, Obama announced the US will sanction a few Russian officials.  Nine, or was it eleven of 'em. Of course he never names these officials, nor explains what they did, that puts them in the US shooting gallery, but Obama did get a lot of press coverage. 
   Obama has said nothing about increasing US natural gas exports,  bouncing Russian banks out of the world financial system, selling arms to Ukraine, offering Ukraine a trade deal as good as we give Canada, or anything else of substance. 

Beating up on GM, some more

The get-GM crowd is in full cry.  Defective ignition switches on a huge batch of GM cars.  The switches would occasionally fail and kill the engine.  This has been talked up as a lethal safty hazard with 12 deaths claimed over 10 years.  Wow!. 
   Now I am not a big fan of GM, they have done plenty of stupid things over the years.  But to call engine failure a lethal safety hazard?  Over the years I have experienced sudden engine failure on the road, maybe three times.  Last one, ten years ago,  was a Dodge Caravan that broke its timing belt on the way to Blind River Canada.  But you know, the engine just dies, and you pull the car over to the shoulder, and pop the hood, get out some tools, and try to fix it.  Twice before I got her going again, but the timing belt breakage was beyond my side-of-the-road repair abilities.  This sort of thing is a major pain in the tail, but I never considered it dangerous. 
   Oh well,  GM bashers have to get their kicks somewhere.

Scott Brown jumps into the race

You gotta love this guy.  He is electable with a capital E.  Any Republican who can win Ted Kennedy's seat in deep blue Massachusetts, has a way with voters.  Although he is a carpetbagger from Taxachusetts, he looks pretty good going up against Jean Shaheen for NH senate.  Coming from Massachusetts he is probably more liberal than hard shell conservatives in NH might like, but he is electable.  We could win with this guy. 

They still haven't found missing airliner

It's still missing.  We don't know anything that we didn't know a week ago.  But the TV coverage is non stop, every hour on the hour, and lots a time in between.  They don't have anything to say, but they are getting airtime.  They are even retelling old Bermuda triangle stories.  Pack journalism at its most packy.

They still do gun shows in NH

So my brother and I drove down to Concord to see what was what.  They drew a pretty good crowd.  Parking lot was full of pickups and SUV's.  Virtually no econoboxes.  The crowd was older, my generation, few young guys.  They had dealers dealing in rifles and handguns and shotguns.  Lot of ammunition for sale and being bought.  Lots of holsters and fancy knives, some WWII surplus stuff, including jerricans.  Did not find anything to buy, the few rifles I might have liked were way out of my price range.