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A moment of Silence

I just learned that Tam over at View from the Porch just lost her kitty, Mittens. Please stop by and leave a note of sympathy for her.
Posted by aepilot_jim at 22:03 No comments: Links to this post 

House vote on the Bail Out Bill

House Roll Call: emergency rescue for the nation's financial system

Because I belive it's one of the most important votes in a looonnnggg time and everybody should know how his/her representative voted below is the roll call of all the congresscritters.

The 228-205 roll call Monday of the vote by which the House rejected a $700 billion emergency bailout for the nation's financial system.

A "yes" vote is a vote in favor of the bailout package.

There is 1 vacancy in the 435-member House.

Democrats - Cramer, Y; Davis, Y.
Republicans - Aderholt, N; Bachus, Y; Bonner, Y; Everett, Y; Rogers, Y.

Republicans - Young, N.

Democrats - Giffords, N; Grijalva, N; Mitchell, N; Pastor, N.
Republicans - Flake, N; Franks, N; Renzi, N; Shadegg, N.

Democrats - Berry, Y; Ross, Y; Snyder, Y.
Republicans - Boozman, Y.

Democrats - DeGette, Y; Perlmutter, Y; Salazar, N; Udall, N.
Republicans - Lamborn, N; Musgrave, N; Tancredo, Y.

Democrats - Courtney, N; DeLauro, Y; Larson, Y; Murphy, Y.
Republicans - Shays, Y.

Republicans - Castle, Y.

Democrats - Barrow, N; Bishop, Y; Johnson, N; Lewis, N; Marshall, Y; Scott, N.
Republicans - Broun, N; Deal, N; Gingrey, N; Kingston, N; Linder, N; Price, N; Westmoreland, N.

Democrats - Abercrombie, N; Hirono, N.

Republicans - Sali, N; Simpson, Y.

Democrats - Bean, Y; Costello, N; Davis, Y; Emanuel, Y; Foster, Y; Gutierrez, Y; Hare, Y; Jackson, N; Lipinski, N; Rush, N; Schakowsky, Y.
Republicans - Biggert, N; Johnson, N; Kirk, Y; LaHood, Y; Manzullo, N; Roskam, N; Shimkus, N; Weller, X.

Democrats - Carson, N; Donnelly, Y; Ellsworth, Y; Hill, N; Visclosky, N.
Republicans - Burton, N; Buyer, N; Pence, N; Souder, Y.

Democrats - Boswell, Y; Braley, N; Loebsack, Y.
Republicans - King, N; Latham, N.

Democrats - Boyda, N; Moore, Y.
Republicans - Moran, N; Tiahrt, N.

Democrats - Chandler, N; Yarmuth, N.
Republicans - Davis, N; Lewis, Y; Rogers, Y; Whitfield, N.

Democrats - Cazayoux, N; Jefferson, N; Melancon, Y.
Republicans - Alexander, N; Boustany, N; McCrery, Y; Scalise, N.

Democrats - Allen, Y; Michaud, N.

Democrats - Cummings, N; Edwards, N; Hoyer, Y; Ruppersberger, Y; Sarbanes, Y; Van Hollen, Y.
Republicans - Bartlett, N; Gilchrest, Y.

Democrats - Conyers, N; Dingell, Y; Kildee, Y; Kilpatrick, N; Levin, Y; Stupak, N.
Republicans - Camp, Y; Ehlers, Y; Hoekstra, N; Knollenberg, N; McCotter, N; Miller, N; Rogers, N; Upton, Y; Walberg, N.

Democrats - Ellison, Y; McCollum, Y; Oberstar, Y; Peterson, N; Walz, N.
Republicans - Bachmann, N; Kline, Y; Ramstad, N.

Democrats - Childers, N; Taylor, N; Thompson, N.
Republicans - Pickering, Y.

Democrats - Carnahan, Y; Clay, N; Cleaver, N; Skelton, Y.
Republicans - Akin, N; Blunt, Y; Emerson, Y; Graves, N; Hulshof, N.

Republicans - Rehberg, N.

Republicans - Fortenberry, N; Smith, N; Terry, N.

Democrats - Berkley, N.
Republicans - Heller, N; Porter, Y.

Democrats - Hodes, N; Shea-Porter, N.

Democrats - Andrews, Y; Holt, Y; Pallone, Y; Pascrell, N; Payne, N; Rothman, N; Sires, Y.
Republicans - Ferguson, Y; Frelinghuysen, N; Garrett, N; LoBiondo, N; Saxton, Y; Smith, N.

Democrats - Udall, N.
Republicans - Pearce, N; Wilson, Y.

Democrats - Butterfield, N; Etheridge, Y; McIntyre, N; Miller, Y; Price, Y; Shuler, N; Watt, Y.
Republicans - Coble, N; Foxx, N; Hayes, N; Jones, N; McHenry, N; Myrick, N.

Democrats - Pomeroy, Y.

Democrats - Kaptur, N; Kucinich, N; Ryan, Y; Space, Y; Sutton, N; Wilson, Y.
Republicans - Boehner, Y; Chabot, N; Hobson, Y; Jordan, N; LaTourette, N; Latta, N; Pryce, Y; Regula, Y; Schmidt, N; Tiberi, N; Turner, N.

Democrats - Boren, Y.
Republicans - Cole, Y; Fallin, N; Lucas, N; Sullivan, N.

Democrats - Blumenauer, N; DeFazio, N; Hooley, Y; Wu, N.
Republicans - Walden, Y.

Democrats - Altmire, N; Brady, Y; Carney, N; Doyle, Y; Fattah, Y; Holden, N; Kanjorski, Y; Murphy, Patrick, Y; Murtha, Y; Schwartz, Y; Sestak, Y.
Republicans - Dent, N; English, N; Gerlach, N; Murphy, Tim, N; Peterson, Y; Pitts, N; Platts, N; Shuster, N.

Democrats - Kennedy, Y; Langevin, Y.

Democrats - Clyburn, Y; Spratt, Y.
Republicans - Barrett, N; Brown, Y; Inglis, Y; Wilson, Y.

Democrats - Herseth Sandlin, N.

Democrats - Cohen, Y; Cooper, Y; Davis, Lincoln, N; Gordon, Y; Tanner, Y.
Republicans - Blackburn, N; Davis, David, N; Duncan, N; Wamp, N.

Democrats - Matheson, N.
Republicans - Bishop, N; Cannon, Y.

Democrats - Welch, N.

Democrats - Boucher, Y; Moran, Y; Scott, N.
Republicans - Cantor, Y; Davis, Tom, Y; Drake, N; Forbes, N; Goode, N; Goodlatte, N; Wittman, N; Wolf, Y.

Democrats - Baird, Y; Dicks, Y; Inslee, N; Larsen, Y; McDermott, Y; Smith, Y.
Republicans - Hastings, N; McMorris Rodgers, N; Reichert, N.

Democrats - Mollohan, Y; Rahall, Y.
Republicans - Capito, N.

Democrats - Baldwin, Y; Kagen, N; Kind, Y; Moore, Y; Obey, Y.
Republicans - Petri, N; Ryan, Y; Sensenbrenner, N.

Republicans - Cubin, Y.

Posted by aepilot_jim at 19:30 No comments: Links to this post 

Another Good Read

Okay, first off, I'm in an insomnia state of mind. It might be because of the downstairs neighbors stereo usage at 12:ohmygod30 in the ayem, but I've had it for a couple of days now.

Anyway, Anthony has another excellent post up on the RKBA, "You are the first and last line of defense".

This paragraph though is especially to the point.

When someone kills an innocent person who could not defend themselves because of a law the blood of that person is on the hands of the people who helped to pass it.

That says it all. Pelosi and Kennedy and Obama and both Clintons and even Bloomberg would take this right away and then bemoan the results, yet ultimately bear no guilt themselves. They are all fired to take the gun manufacturer to court for some critters act, how eager are they to go to court for the laws they create? I'm talking about their being sued in civil court for the results of their mandated defenselessness. How photogenic are they going to look standing opposite a women who's been raped and robbed because she lacked the means to even the field against her assailant? Or the child whose lost his mother, father and siblings to a home invasion turned murder because their means of protection was locked up, unloaded, and disassembled while the police were still minutes away?

Let's face it, the goblins aren't the "deep pockets" the civil liability attorneys are looking for. Those politicians are. The first time their bank accounts are threatened, their tune will change.

On second thought, they'd only enact liability limits.

Ha! How's that for a touchy-feely emotional appeal you liberals!
Posted by aepilot_jim at 01:36 No comments: Links to this post Labels: concealed carry, guns, Opinion, self-defense



The lengths people will go to to exhibit their idiocy astounds me. Breda has a post up about the confusion someone has between jewelry and self-defense. Go read it.
Posted by aepilot_jim at 20:02 No comments: Links to this post Labels: guns, self-defense, Wha???

The muses

They can haz time off.

I got nothing. I'm having one of these days: Posted by aepilot_jim at 18:17 No comments: Links to this post Labels: blogging, lolcats



Sadly, today I learned via Squeaky that Paul Newman has passed away.

Actor, Producer, Director, Philanthropist, Popcorn Mogul

As John Donne said;

My sympathies go out to his wife and family.
Posted by aepilot_jim at 12:30 6 comments: Links to this post 

Friday mind game.

After a smashing sucessful tour of Europe, the friday mind game is back!

I command you to hear this over and over!

Posted by aepilot_jim at 19:07 No comments: Links to this post 
The facts today and Ayn Rand.

I've been watching the state of the union lately and I'm trying to decide if it's seems to be following Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged because it's that prophetic or because I read it recently and it's just in the forefront of my mind.

I don't mean the work stoppage by the intelligentsia and actors in our society. I mean the creeping socialism and growth of the entitlement society. Right down to the charity-chic that seems to be running through the liberal rich.

On the one side we have the mass that believes that whatever they want, they deserve. That just struck me. Look at that first sentence. "What they want, they deserve." Not what they've earned or what they've saved for or what they've worked for. All it takes, it seems, is the merest suggestion that there is an entitlement for something and suddenly we've got screaming mobs demanding it now. It doesn't matter what, be it a $500 FEMA Walmart card or a $700 billion bail out of a loan system that was created by the same entitlement attitude.

On the other side we have a class that's been raised to believe that money is bad and should be given away. Only, not theirs. Everyone else's money is bad and should be "redistributed", but I've got to support 20 Chihuahua's all named Mr. Barky Von Schnauser, so you can't have mine.

Caught in the middle? We'll that's most of us. That shrinking middle class that more and more has had to bear the onus of the economy, the society, the civilization.

Remember, the middle class is a relatively recent invention of society. Most of civilization can be characterized by a Ruling Class/Serf Class system. Whether it be plutocracies and serfs or theocracies and peons or oligarchies and slaves. Really, of the 10,000 years of human civilization, only the last 600 to 700 years have seen a real middle class.

With the .gov taking over Freddy, Fannie, AIG and all those other home loans, we're back to a ruling class that owns it's subjects again. Oh well, middle class was nice while it lasted, wasn't it?

But back to my original thought. Are we watching Atlas getting ready to shrug? The parallels are there and all too obvious to ignore. I just wish I knew where John Galt was, I'd build a house next to his.

And finally, what I feel about this proposed "bail out" was best said by a greater man than I. I posted it before, but here's the link, go back and read it, copy it and email it to others, send it to your congresscritters, if that would do any good.
Posted by aepilot_jim at 00:17 3 comments: Links to this post 


Shootout at the Highroad.

This has been posted by Oleg over on his LiveJournal blog:

UPDATE: Derek's reaction was to disable The High Road forum all together. He also removed most of the staff who opposed him.


To see this sort of thing going on at the HighRoad of all places is shocking. Please help Oleg in any way you can.

There's more over at The Armed School Teacher
Posted by aepilot_jim at 14:37 No comments: Links to this post Labels: blogging, teh interwebz


Comments on the speach

I watched Bush's address tonight. All 15 minutes of it. My thoughts...


He seemed to be blaming the banks and lenders and not the politicians that forced them to make the iffy loans.

He called for more .gov control to fix the situation, while in the same breath saying he opposed more government. Wasn't their sticking their fingers in the banking arena that caused this fiasco? And way to cover both sides there, dubya.

On the other hand, he read the teleprompter good. Hardly any stuttering or mispronunciations.
Posted by aepilot_jim at 23:28 No comments: Links to this post 

Wow, did I miss something?

In the news today:


I just loved this little excerpt:

Republican John McCain said Wednesday that he wants to postpone Friday's debate to deal with the nation's financial problems, but Democrat Barack Obama said "it's more important than ever" that the country hear from its next


It's important that he calls dibs on the oval office, doncha think?

He goes on to cry that he started it.

(Again Emphasis Mine)

Honestly, if you boys don't settle down back there, I'm going to pull this country over. Don't think I won't do it.

Posted by aepilot_jim at 18:04 No comments: Links to this post 


For all you IDPA'ers out there

And by IDPA, I mean International Defensive Pirate Association. I give you the AAarrrgghhh15 lower. Click to Embiggen..

Posted by aepilot_jim at 22:18 1 comment: Links to this post Labels: guns, Tehee


It's really just an excuse...

Sorry for the silence over the weekend. Friday around noon-ish, my phone rang for a pop up trip. The conversation went something like:

Me: hello?
Dispatch: I've got a pop up trip to Wichita ASAP.
Me: Okay.... When do we get back by the way?
D: 4 a.m.

So, off I toddle. I grabbed the first bag I saw on my way out the door, which fortunately was my "long trip" bag. You'll understand why that was fortunate in a sec.

After I fight my way through lunch traffic to the airport and get the airplane staged for fueling, I finally struck me as strange that we were spending so much time in Wichita. This is when the trip started getting weird. The response I got was something along the lines of "didn't I mention it, you're picking up in Wichita and going on the Phoenix. Then back to Wichita and part 91 it home. (By the way, "part 91" is pilot speak for we're exceeding your duty day, but we get to use this excuse to make you do it.) Oh, and by the way, you're still on the trip Saturday, but because you're mandatory 10 hour rest period is getting in the way, just do a late show then and try to get everything ready in 15 minutes instead of 1.5 hours. Kthxby.

At this point, I run a mental check of what's in the suitcase. I've got my shaving kit. I'm relatively okay still.

But it goes on and gets better.

When we get to Wichita, dispatch calls and says the customer has changed his mind and wants to overnight in Phoenix and hop over to Las Vegas with a return on Sunday. At this point I realize I don't have an extra uniform in my bag, it got used on the last pop-up-out-and-back 3 day trip. Okay, that's why febreze is a pilots best friend.

When the customer finally showed up, an hour and a bit late, he had another change. Instead of just hopping from Phoenix to Las Vegas, he has to fly back to Wichita and then back west to Las Vegas the next day.

I'm so glad I got up early that day...

Anyway, Friday ended around 4 a.m. and then with just the legal minimum rest we flew out to Vegas for a quick meeting and a 12 hour sit then flew back to Wichita and home.

3 days on a out and back. Not bad. My record is still 10 days on a half hour hop. That trip was... a trip.

But, anyhoo, that's my excuse for not posting all weekend. You see I don't normally grab my laptop on a quick out and back. It's just too much hassle. I may change that though.

What really gets to me is I missed International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Is it too late for an Aaarrrrgggghhhh?
Posted by aepilot_jim at 19:45 3 comments: Links to this post Labels: Aviation, Job, Whinging


Breda's post

I just read Breda's I'm fed up post. I watched the vid and all I could think was, "way to avoid answering a question". It's not even a hard question. It's wasn't a policy question. It was a "make my feelings feel good" question. And I guess even that's too hard for a lib.

Can they only handle questions about their own feelings? Are they that disconnected with reality that they've created a universe of one?

He spouts off a basically canned response and the applause light goes on and like the good little drones they all stand up and cheer. It doesn't matter that he's confusing patriotism with communism. He's asking us to cast off the entire ideology that this country was founded on and embrace the Marxist/Socialist ideology that hasn't worked for the last 150 years.

By the way, the definition of insanity in this case is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.
Posted by aepilot_jim at 20:45 1 comment: Links to this post 


I didn't realize how much of a project it would turn into. But I finally got my CD's imported into my new piece of crap computer.

Yeah me.
Posted by aepilot_jim at 20:45 2 comments: Links to this post Labels: blogging, Whinging


I'm just sayin....

So, when they designed the Lear jets they figured the best way to do pressurization was to pump the air in the back and place the outflow valves below the feet of the pilots. So, when, say, someone, oh, I don't know, farts maybe, in the back seats, for instance, the flow will 100% of the time waft past the crew on it's way out.

Ah, the glamorous life of a pilot...

Posted by aepilot_jim at 03:10 2 comments: Links to this post Labels: Flying, Job, Tehee


Thoughts at 40,000 ft.

Yesterday I found myself sitting in the back of a Lear. Something I've never done before. It was at once an odd and serene feeling. It was a long flight back across most of the country flying between the remains of Ike to the south and a massive system stretching from New York to Colorado to the north. It was an unusually calm flight, neither turbulence nor traffic to intrude on our little universe in the sky. And in the tradition of countless men through the ages, I turned to bad prose to express my thought.

To dance and play among the thermals and winds near the earth is to know a joy only other fliers can grasp. The seeming effortless gliding at 40,000 ft., with no sense of speed and very little sense of time brings one to the alter of thought. With the feeling of unlimited possibilities of the mind and the one pure thought just tantalizingly beyond ones grasp. Crying for just one more fleeting instant to finally place it on your tongue. To be spoken maybe with the air of an afterthought to the ether around you.

Looking out at the cities below, creating odd shaped galaxies of light among the scattered isolated stars of farms and rural towns. I find myself gazing inward. A sense of stillness filling me like one sometimes finds laying on a grassy hilltop pondering the points of light set up in the heavens.

Below the ponds and lakes creating darkness's in the city/galaxies like motes in the eye of God.

Looking down or looking up, it doesn't matter. Both will find the minds eye turned inward. A quiet contemplation urging me to examine a life never fully understood.
Posted by aepilot_jim at 00:46 2 comments: Links to this post Labels: Flying, Ramblings



Right, back. Sort of. Still setting up this bloody computer and Outlook isn't cooperating. I'm considering waterboarding it.
Posted by aepilot_jim at 18:27 3 comments: Links to this post Labels: Computers, Ramblings


I expect to be back posting Friday sometime. I hope

Posted by aepilot_jim at 01:34 1 comment: Links to this post 

and the fun continues...motherboard is fried

Posted by aepilot_jim at 21:05 No comments: Links to this post