• Your Guns and Your Car By Richard C. Young
• Churchill on Socialism, Jealousy, and Misery By Dave Hammer
• Anticipating Experiencing Considerable Precipitation—RIP William Zinsser By Debbie Young
• Hallowed Ground: Cote de Nuits, Burgundy By Richard C. Young
• Presidential Abuse By Richard C. Young
• The Miracle of Extra Virgin Olive Oil By Debbie Young
• Food Horror By Richard C. Young
• Reaper Tip: Mil or No Mil By E.J. Smith
• Insane Blue Angels Video By E.J. Smith
• The Worst President in American History, Part I By Richard C. Young 
   

Debbie and I put in over 4,000 miles a year traveling by car from our official residence in Key West, 90 miles from Cuba, to our summer home Newport, RI. We never hit the road without a full compliment of firepower. First, I do not want to leave behind a stash of guns that could fall into unfriendly hands. Second, I want to be prepared for any emergency on the road. We also travel with two meticulously assembled Navy SEAL survival packs loaded with about five pounds of goodies selected from Cabela’s and Strunk Ace Hardware in Key West. The two survival packs provide a maximum degree of comfort and safety while we are on the road.

While traveling, my rule is to keep all guns unloaded and cased. Ammo is stored separately. For handguns, I use a lockbox that can be opened only by the safety code. You must travel with the knowledge that the rules of the road for handguns are much different than for long guns. Many states have arcane laws that apply specifically to ammo and to specific guns (like the AR-15). I always travel with ammo and usually either my .223 or AK-47 or both. Debbie and I also take along our Henry Survival rifles.

OK then, how do you best prepare for the road given the multitude of different laws in our 50 states? First, get a concealed weapons license for your state of residence. Many states have reciprocity rules that will honor your out-of-state license. Debbie and I long ago passed the NRA handgun safety course that was required to obtain a Florida license. There is no downside to being legally armed and licensed. We also have made certain that that our grandkids are knowledgeable on gun safety. We have given a Henry .22. to each.

Leading up to WWII, tiny Switzerland prepared meticulously to fend off the Wehrmacht. Every able-bodied man enrolled in the militia, and even youngsters and old men were issued rifles to keep at home. The national sport then, as is the case today, was shooting, not skiing. I would adopt this exact Swiss model in the U.S. as a replacement for our standing Army, which is deployed almost exclusively by the political elite and the military/industrial complex to drag America into nation-building exercises with a zero record of success. And, by the way, our Constitution does not allow for a standing army! See Article. I. Section.8.

The final chapter of your road travel defense preparation strategy is to order today your copy of Traveler’s Guide to the Firearm Laws of the Fifty States. Turn initially to the section on interstate transport and read up on your rights under the McClure –Volkmer Act of 1986.  I was shocked yesterday to find that my own dog-eared copy was dated 2010. My 2015 copy is on the way, Amazon Prime style. Pay special attention to the rules in N.Y., New Jersey, Massachusetts, and California. New Jersey, by example, does not look kindly on hollow point ammo. And Massachusetts is hardline against the AR-15, which the state authorities have somehow sold to the populace as being an assault rifle. Ask any vet you know how he would like to go into combat with a semi-automatic weapon like an AR-15. I doubt you will hear much enthusiasm.

You are now prepared to hit the road with the comfort, knowledge and safety that comes with thinking ahead. There is never a downside in being prepared for your family.

Dave Hammer’s Wealth Creation Postulate

“If through one’s individual endeavors, that person becomes wealthy, such person creates a bigger economic pie from which we all benefit.”

It is not so important that someone’s share of the wealth of an entire economy gets bigger when that person earns a good fortune; because in the creation of such wealth, the well-being of all constituents of the economy are benefited. The pie gets bigger. The benefits to all include one or more of the following: everyone else’s share of the federal and state tax revenue decreases, factories are built with jobs being created, new products are produced, charitable contributions rise, total economic demand increases, international trade improves, and so on. Plus, there is a multiplier effect on much of this.

To paraphrase Churchill, socialism is more about jealousy and spreading the misery than it is about spreading the wealth. Liberals want the top 5% to share their wealth with America’s other 95%.  Did you know that the average American family has a higher income than 95% of the rest of the world’s families?  Why don’t the liberals, therefore, want to share the wealth of the average American family with the rest of the world?

Bill Gates (who gets a “pass” from the liberals) may be worth $80 billion. But, the other Microsoft shareholders made several times that amount collectively, increasing our national wealth accordingly. There are well over a 125,000 jobs at that company alone.  Now think about all the other companies and millions of jobs that have been created because of Microsoft. The economy has become more productive. A major charitable foundation has been created. The government has collected more taxes.

Yet, there are millions of smaller entrepreneurs who, in total, benefit the economy in the same way. So why the class warfare? Churchill said it’s jealousy. But, what if the middle-class knew the whole story? A worker who retires at 65 with a $25,000 annual pension has an unrecorded asset of $500,000; whereas the entrepreneur who wants the same size pension has to create savings (a recorded amount of wealth) of $500,000 at today’s interest rates. The self-employed buy their own insurance, pay for their own business travel, and pay a self-employment tax of over twice the rate at which the average worker pays to Social Security and Medicare with no greater benefits. If medical costs are based on ability-to-pay, then why not other necessities like fuel and automobiles? We already have food stamps, so someday maybe there will be car stamps, clothing stamps, water and electricity stamps, gasoline stamps, etc.

Does the average person understand the Alternative Minimum Tax? Above-average earners, get no deductions from income other than charitable contributions and home mortgage interest. They get no deduction even for real estate taxes or state/local income or sales taxes; and the very first dollar earned above the standard deduction is taxed at 28%. Their investment income reduces the standard deduction. It is possible for moderately wealthy people to pay more income tax than they receive in compensation from their jobs if they have sizeable savings (which they may need to be able to retire).

The current system does not adequately reward creativity, ingenuity, willingness-to-take-risk or savings/investment. The liberals say the wealthy need to pay their fair share, without knowing how much even the moderately-wealthy are taxed already. The current system rewards borrowers, not savers.  It encourages a person to buy a bigger home than they can afford and to spend like there was no tomorrow.

Dave Hammer, CFA

Also from Dave Hammer, Hambone's Boogie:

 

William Zinsser died this month at the age of 92, at home, in his own bed, in his sleep. Does it get much better than that?

Mr. Zinsser wrote 19 books. His most famous, On Writing Well, sold a million-and-a half copies, with the 30^th anniversary edition issued in 2006. Mr. Zinsser’s clear, concise advice is for everyone. Here, in no particular order, are a few gems:

• Keep it short and don’t use jargon.
• Read everything you write out loud.
• Verbs are the strongest tools a writer has.
• Take the mush out of concept nouns; instead use active verbs.
• Passive verbs have no energy or precision; use active verbs.
• Leave the reader thinking that you had fun while writing.
• Be humble.

And perhaps the best:

• There’s not much to be said about the period, except that most writers don’t reach it soon enough.

Mr. Zinsser thought that one of the saddest things he encountered were people wishing they had asked their parents about their history. He advises us to interview parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. Record the past by writing your family history. It’s important work and great practice whether anyone sees it or not. “You’re not required to tell everybody’s story. You only need to tell your story. If you give an honest accounting of the important people and events in your life, as best you remember them, you will also tell the story of everybody who needs to be along on the ride.” As tribute to Mr. Zinsser, The American Scholar has republished Mr. Zinsser’s “How to Write a Memoir.”

Read more here from the WSJ’s “Notable & Quotable” on William Zinsser who, in On Writing Well, advises the reader to say what’s on his mind with simplicity and clarity. And with brevity. “Writing improves in direct ratio to the number of things we can keep out of it that shouldn’t be there.”

The Great Domaines of Burgundy leads off by noting that geographically the Cote d’Or is subdivided into some 25 different villages or communes, in effect, small parishes. Those comprising the northerly sector (about 10 miles), from Marsannay to Corgoloin, are collectively known as the Cote de Nuits. Surrounding each village is an area of vineyard, which is relatively small and heavily divided into individually named sites. For example, clos (a walled vineyard) de Vought has some 82 individual owners.

“The vineyards themselves differ significantly in quality potential, a fact reflected in the Appellation Controlee system, which grades each vineyard into one of four catagories: in ascending order,” Regional (labels will simply read Borgone), Village (by example Gevrey Chambertin), Premier Cru and Grand Cru. Unlike, by example, California wines, you will find no mention of the variety of grape such as Pinot Noir, the thin-skinned, fragile and capricious grape from which all red Burgundy is made.

Debbie and I have biked, walked or driven by car through all of the tiny wine villages of the Cote de Nuits and will return this fall for another “on the ground” research trip. After many years, visits and hundreds of hours of reading, as well as a not insignificant amount of tasting, I now consider myself to have risen to the level of perhaps a sixth grade education in the understanding of the complexities of French red Burgundy from the Cote de Nuits. The word complex is an understatement in the realm of understanding French Burgundy. In that my interest is primarily red and not Burgundy’s world class white wine made from Chardonnay grapes, I have spent somewhat less time in the southern half of the Cote de Or, the Cote de Beaune.

From the dozen or so little wine communes in the Cote de Nuits, I have narrowed my focus to seven villages. In order of importance, my list includes Vosne-Romanee, Flagey-Echezeaux, Chambolle-Musigny, Morey-St. Denis, Gevrey-Chambertin, Fixin, and Marsannay (coincidentally listed from south to north).

To get started with a first class initial understanding of the renowned red Burgundy of the Cote de Nuits, I would concentrate on not only these seven communes, but also wines imported by Kermitt Lynch, Rosenthal or The Sorting Table. There are other excellent importers, but my long experience with these three allows me comfort in advising each for you.

As for a retailer for “in shop buying” or UPS delivery, I rely on my friends Jacques Cariot and his well-informed sons Clement and Kevin at Blue Provence in Naples, Florida, and Maria Chiancola and her first rate team at Newport Wine Cellar, Newport, RI.

There are far too many Cote de Nuits growers for me to even touch the surface in terms of broad-based initial recommendations for you, but here is a handful of names that I seek out with devotion. The list includes Harmand-Geoffroy, Armand Rousseau, Arlaud,  Dujac, Ponsot, Georges Roumier, Ghislaine Barthod, Comte Georges de Vogue, Anne Gros, Michel Gros, Liger-Belair, Leroy, Meo-Camuzet, Georges Mugneret-Gibourg, and Bruno Clair.

President Barack Obama, as well as Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, have tortured and abused the Constitution beyond any feasible recognition. Here are the explicit duties of the President, as laid out in Article. II Section. 2.

It is hard to believe that Americans have not long ago revolted against such tragic abuse.

Section 2.

The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.

He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law: but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments.

The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session.

The only olive oil worthy of your consideration is extra virgin, but even the extra-virgin label doesn’t necessarily mean the oil is any good, writes Nancy Harmon Jenkins, perhaps the leading American authority on olive oil. In her latest book, Virgin Territory, Ms. Jenkins disputes the myths, half-truths and outright lies about this “good fat that is even better than you think.”

Using her four-plus decades of researching olive oil (and producing it on her farm in Tuscany), Ms. Jenkins gives tips on what olive oils to buy, to store, and to use in your kitchen:

1. Buy olive oil in dark containers or, better yet, tins.
2. Like good wine, price matters. Hand-harvested, quickly pressed XVOO costs a lot.
3. Read the label. DOP, DO, DOC and PDO denote a certification (“protected denomination of origin”) controlled by the European Union. An “organic” label is also a good guarantee that the oil is what it claims to be.
4. Check for freshness. Don’t be swayed by “best by” date. The most recent harvest, which is 2014-2015, is best of all.
5. “Cold pressing” is a marketing ploy. XVOO must be pressed at ambient temperatures that do not exceed, ideally, 85 degrees Fahrenheit.
6. Turn up the heat. XVOO remains stable up to at least 410 degrees because of its high polyphenolic content. And using olive oil in baking produces moist rich textured baked goods.
7. Hope that there are no Omega-3s in your olive oil., which would indicate contamination from another oil, like the dreaded canola oil. That peppery, slightly bitter taste means that your XVOO is loaded with antioxidants.

Read more here on XVOO and Nancy’s three recipes using this versatile, healthy fat. Better yet, get your own copy of Virgin Territory: Exploring the World of Olive Oil.

Animal Factory starts readers off: “While human sewage is treated to kill pathogens, animal waste is not. Hog manure has ten to one hundred times more concentrated pathogens than human waste, yet the law would never permit untreated human waste to be kept in vast ‘lagoons’ or sprayed onto fields, as is the case with manure.”

“Manure can contain pathogens, antibiotics, drug-resistant bacteria, hormones, heavy metals, and other compounds that can seriously impact human health, aquatic life, and wildlife when introduced into the environment, according to the U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).”

“The eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay produces one million tons of manure a year, enough to fill a football stadium to the top row, including all the concourse, locker rooms, and concession areas.”

“Feedlot odors contain some 170 separate chemicals, many of them known to cause respiratory ailments, diarrhea, depression, violent behavior, and other health problems.”

“Animal factory proponents say that confined animal feeding operations (CAFO’s) are the most cost-effective method in the world of producing meat, milk, and eggs.”

“Consumers demand cheap, lean, uniform cuts of meat, and using CAFO’s is the only way possible to deliver that.”

I have written in the past that the three biggest buildings in many small towns and cities are the big box food store and drug store and the hospital. One leads inexorably to the other. Mass-market consumers shop for CAFO-raised beef, pork, chicken, milk and eggs, as well as noxious farm-raised fish, from the big box food chains. Such CAFO raised “foods” with high fructose corn syrup, polyunsaturated oils and additive packed packaged foods that form the basis of the American diet are piled high in shopping carts. Sickness and disease, naturally follow, leading to a stop at the big box drug store for ill-advised prescription medicines followed by the not-unexpected-stay at a hospital. Your health is in large measure determined by what you eat!

The key to better health is to stay out of the big box “food horror” traps and CAFO-raised foods and limit your shopping to local farmers market or natural food stores. The two small cities Debbie and I live in offer ample options on both fronts. It has been many years since we have purchased CAFO-raised food or shopped at the big box food market. And neither one of us takes prescription drugs or has been to a hospital since we had our tonsils out in the 1950s. And for that matter, neither of us has a doctor, and I will be 75 years old this year. Hard as it is for me to believe!

To get off on the right foot to a healthier life style check, out Eatwild.com, order a copy of Animal Factory, and Shane Ellison’s Over the Counter Natural Cures and watch the DVD Food Inc. Good luck.

The scope you choose for your rifle comes down to personal preference. There really is no right or wrong. One choice you’ll need to make is whether to use an MOA MIL-dot scope or a MIL/MIL one. I like this brief explanation by Reaper Tip at The Loadout Room:

One of the most common questions I get asked is, “What scope should I use?” It seems that the world of precision shooting is shifting from the MOA MIL-dot scope to the MIL/MIL scope, a scope that has MIL adjustments with a matching MIL reticle. For those shooters who are used to the traditional MOA-adjustment scope, it may seem like a “new world” of math and re-training, when in fact, it’s not.

Let’s think about a typical shooting situation. You start off by sighting in your rifle at a distance of 400 yards, applying all the fundamentals of marksmanship to the best of your ability. Your bullet impacts 6″ low. Being that you are 400 yards away, you would divide 6 by 4 and get the answer 1.5. You then come up on the elevation approximately 1.5 MOA or 3 clicks on a ½ MOA scope. The next shot you fire hits your target. Not too bad for an MOA scope; you simply do a little math.

 

Now let’s take a look at our MIL/MIL scope with 0.1 MIL adjustments on the same 400 yard line. You fire a shot and you see that the round impacts .4 MILs low. Instead of doing any math in your head, you simply reach up and dial up 4 clicks (0.4). The next shot you fire is dead on. No math involved, what you see is what you get. This can be applied at any distance. If you see that the bullet impacts 0.7 MILs low at a given distance, you simply dial in 7 clicks on your 0.1 MIL elevation turret.

What scope is best for you?

This is, in my opinion, a personal shooter preference. Having said that, let’s take a look at the benefits of both, and apply them to a shooting scenario.

Let’s say you’re a part of a sniper team deployed to a hostile environment. You and your spotter see a target of opportunity and are given permission to engage from your sniper position. Your laser range finder (LRF) was destroyed during your infil, so you resort to doing some basic MIL-dot range estimation based on his height.

You send your first shot downrange and your spotter sees the bullet impact. He quickly calls out to you, “.6 MILs high, .4 MILs right.” Without doing any math as you would with the MOA to convert it to inches, you simply dial down the elevation 6 clicks and hold for the wind .4 left. In such cases where distances are unknown, you do not have a LRF at your disposal, or your MIL-dot range estimation is off due to various environmental factors such as mirage or angle to target, the MIL/MIL would be best for you.

This weekend the Blue Angels are coming to The Rhode Island National Guard Open House and Air Show at Rhode Island’s Quonset State Airport.

The air show’s website states:

The airshow offers the finest aerial and static dsplays along with activities for people of all ages. We are proud to be celebrating our 23rd anniversary and will be featuring the USN Blue Angels on 30 & 31 May 2015.

From its inception the show has operated with a simple creed; put on a world class show featuring only the best aircraft and pilots and operate the show totally for the benefit of the community.

Barack Hussein Obama is certainly a top-four candidate, joining FDR, and Lyndon Johnson on any worst American president short list. But it is Woodrow Wilson on the top rung of the ranking ladder as the worst president in American history.

Wilson gave America the income-redistribution-based, progressive income tax as well as the Fed, a private banking institution originated for the benefit of international bankers and the Washington political elite.

Woodrow Wilson, as historian Jim Powell tells readers in Wilson’s War, committed “the fateful blunder that radically altered the course of the twentieth century—and led to some of the most murderous dictators in history.”

Jim Powell notes, “President Woodrow Wilson famously rallied the United States to enter World War I by saying ‘the nation had a duty to make the world safe for democracy’.” But as Mr. Powell demonstrates in his outstanding book, Wilson instead opened the door to murderous tyrants and Communist rulers.  No other president has had a hand—however unintended—in so much destruction. “Wilson surely ranks as the worst president in American history.”

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