And Herein Lies the Problem

 

When members of his own party begin to make statements like this, I don’t see how anybody should expect Republicans or leaders of other countries can be expected to do business with Obama:

 

 

Link to story and video is here.  (Real Clear Politics doesn’t allow embedding, apparently.)

Maybe Obama is doing some kind of amazingly brilliant counter-intuitive strategy.  Maybe he is doing the old “reverse psychology” trick that works so well on 4 year olds.  But we’re not 4 year olds, though he apparently thinks that we are all a bunch of rabble to be led into the wake of his magnificence. 

And when the New York Times begins to question his credibility and integrity, he is on the downward slide to Cartericity or maybe Nixonism.  Either way, this is a problem for all of us, conservative or liberal.  The US needs a strong, trustworthy, effective President and right now Barry is lacking in all of those things.

Just Damn….

Look at this damn thing:


That big red bar on the far right there looks like somebody turned on a spigot.  Courtesy of SayAnythingBlog.  I’ll be charitable here and allow that $800 billion or so of that is TARP money, which I agree was necessary.  If you were looking to invest in a business and you saw the revenues take the dive that they do in 2009 while the spending goes through the roof, you would run screaming from the broker who is trying to get you to buy this pig.  Jeez, the deficit is roughly equal to all of the tax revenue.

We cannot get out from under this any time soon and Unicorn One, along with Pelosi, will blow this thing up in 2010.  I don’t care if Obama has suddenly discovered that he is using Monopoly money, this is unsustainable.

When is a 10-foot shark just a snack?

When you are a 20 foot shark:

I am of the generation that stood in very long lines to see "Jaws".  For that reason, I never go in the ocean much over knee deep.  Silly, I know, but there it is.

Big Ass Hornets

If you go back a few weeks on this blog, you will see a couple of entries about some big ass hornets that I've had buzzing around.  We had a few weeks of cool nights and I didn't see any more, then we had a couple of very warm nights late last week.  Sure enough, I came home one night to find two of them buzzing the light on my back porch.  I got past them and into the house and grabbed my handy can of Raid Wasp and Hornet killer and cut down on them.  Usually, when I hit 'em, they fly off somewhere to croak. Well, these two dropped like rocks onto the porch.  One of 'em was big enough that I thought it might be a queen.   Have a look:

Not the best picture, but I only had a cell phone camera available.  I figure that when all the bajillion leaves I have here drop I will be able to finally find the hive and kill it, although supposedly the queen dies each winter and the next round of queens find a new place to nest.

OK, Maybe a Different bugger...

My local entomologist told me it was the Japanese Hornet, but now have it on good authority that I am dealing with the European Hornet, Vespa Crabro (do you think that is where Vespa scooters got the name? Bet it is.):

Not as big, not as dangerous but still a pretty good sized, nasty bugger, but not potentially life-threatening like the dude down below there. Man, I gotta move into the city!

Been Away for a Few Days...

...been dealing with these:

Meet Vespa mandarinia, the Asian Giant Hornet or the Japanese Hornet. According to Wikipedia, getting stung by one of these monsters is like having a "a hot nail driven into your leg". Wikipedia also fails to mention, though, that they are now found not just in Asia, but right here in the southern US, specifically here in central North Carolina. I have probably killed upwards of a hundred of them in the last two months, half a dozen in the last week. The really bad part, for me, is that the ones that I have killed this week were killed while they buzzed the motion-sensor light on my back porch. Six feet from where I go in and out of the house. How do you spot a flying insect at night, before the light goes on? Answer: You don't.

My local extension agent gave some ideas on how to get rid of them, the best one being to call an exterminator. I would do that if I had any idea at all where the nest is. So, I have set a trap for them and hope that I get all of them before they get me. So far, I haven't been stung yet, but if I do, you will know about it.