Wolves, Again!

 

Wolves

The Montana  solution.

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Health

Not complaining, simply reminiscing. Over the years, I’ve driven many poorly performing vehicles.

 One, a Ford Courier purchased in Kent, WA was running on three cylinders.  I drove to it 1,400 miles  to Brighton, CO. Top speed, 50+ mph. Crossing 1-80 in Wyoming, got behind a bull hauler and drafted him 180 miles at 85-90 mph. There are dozen more examples.

 Now 81, I’m down to 1/3 of my teeth. My gums won’t tolerate dentures. My knees are shot, my left shoulder has a separated tendon, and I’m having problems with my left hip. Conclusion? All those years of nursing along old crappy vehicles were preparation for the mental challenges of a body long past usable service date.

Pigs Fly

A bill introduced again in Congress by two communists, excuse me, Democrats that I can applaud.

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The devil will be in the details. Since (P)regressives are sponsoring it, some details will likely be “gotcha”.

Wyoming Trivia

The Cody mayor might not use her booking photo for a campaign poster. Will her arrest hurt her re-election chances? Likely no, in Wyoming.

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2^nd Amendment

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Something I wasn’t aware of. 1,000 a week? To be clear, I’ve never fired any of their product. Revolvers are what I prefer.

Buying Vehicles

The internet is awash with, “how to buy a car” videos.

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Many, for a small fee, will help you out!

In 1986 I started selling Suzuki Samurais as a stop gap until I could find another construction management job. To my surprise, I started making big dollars and was home in my own bed every night. I started reading every book on the subject of buying cars, from the consumer’s point of view. Dirty pool? Tough shit. Today, the amount of information available on the internet is over whelming.  

 These experts all seem to dwell on the “out the door price”. Good advice.

 The flaw in all this strategy is this; the seller/dealer isn’t obligated to sell to you, the consumers, on your terms. They own it, you want it, and the strongest “weapon” the seller has is, NO! The seller knows there is an ass for every seat. If not yours, someone else. Likewise, they will negotiate their way, not yours, if they want. Go along, or walk away, is your choice.

 So do your homework and make an effort to be prepared. Consider the amount of time you need to work for the money in the first place against the time you spend preparing.

 Extended warranties? Just say no. Just as a seller can say no, a repair facility has no obligation to accept a third party payer and that payer's terms and stipulations.

Pro tip. Unless you are paying in dead Presidents, the dealer has two customers; you and whoever is financing the purchase. On your own, visit your bank or credit union first, to find out what kind of loan you will qualify for.

In my personal life, I deal with credit unions. The only bank I have any dealings with is Chase for the Amazon credit card.

 As always, YMMV

SSDD -Life

Colorado centered bloviation.

 Democrats Nefarious Schemes

The “Colorado Way” is being touted as a way to win back the country for the Democrats. Long, boring article. 

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What not mentioned is the “Colorado Way” isn’t what the natives want; rather, in migration. In 1998, the population was about four million. Politically, the state was “Red” with shades of purple. In 2024 the population was about six million, and politically “Blue”.

Since 2015 migration into Colorado has declined over 50%, with the biggest impact along the Front Range, notably metro Denver.

Nationally, the “Colorado Way” depends on large in migration, i.e. Biden open borders, IMO.

Denver is rapidly becoming a basket case under successive  Democrat mayors and city council.

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The Colorado GOP hasn’t helped; they can fuck up a cup of coffee. Infighting, the country club set vs rural, etc.

I’ve supported Weld County, WY. Not that Wyoming wants us. Wyoming, with a population of fewer than 600,000 absorbing Weld County’s population of 300,000, makes about as much sense, to them, as annexing Haiti.

Don’t care – you may

Buying an EV in Colorado. Soon to be market driven, IMO. Sorry, environazis.

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Too bad there is no help buying an OBS Ford 250 4x4 7.3 Powerstroke. Supercab, with an 8’ bed and no rear fender well rust.

(P)regressive Values –Corrections

The Colorado prison system, along with roads, is evidentially a nuisance for the ultra liberals in Colorado. Legal executions haven’t been carried out for years, but at least twelve inmates have died riding in rickety, poorly maintained, transports. Why do I care? I’ve sold many cars to correctional officers over the years and heard firsthand how needlessly dangerous their jobs have become.

Currently, the game plan is to stick it to the county sheriffs. They leave recently convicted prisoners in the county jails. While in Weld County the daily cost to feed and house an inmate is about $118, the state reimburses the county $71. The county jails only house the inmates. They have no rehabilitation or mental health programs for the inmates stuck in limbo.

 The Trump administration’s fiscal policies will likely force a Legislative Special Session to deal with the budget short fall. Got to save all those woke programs, no? Solve real problems? Hah hah.

Epstein Fatigue

Personally, I’m tired of the prominence of this story. Important? Yes. Critical? No.

This involves wealthy people. While they may have been stupid with a dash of assumed privilege, to get themselves in a vulnerable position, they have, by now, lawyered up. The DOJ may look at the resources needed to go after the assholes and have concluded the low hanging fruit, like mortgage fraud, may be a better investment.

Other considerations may be in play. The island was not in the USA, but in a USA Territory. Not being a lawyer, I don’t know how that might play in prosecutions. The minors involved, while not of legal age of consent, may have been willing participants.

Likely there is a lot of resistance within the entrenched DOJ employees to any and all Trump efforts that needs to be dealt with first.

Lastly, the evidence may have lead to much deeper crimes, sedition, foreign involvement, etc. that will require a lot of time to sort out.

Or, just another government cover up.

Yes, a bit grumpy today. Stumbled and went down face first a few days ago. No visible damage but a lot of aches and pains. The body is well past usable service life and healing is slow.

 As always, YMMV 

Not my circus, but I pay to feed the monkeys

 

Wolves

Show my shocked face! The wolf debacle has doubled in cost.

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Should you care to read 23 pages, here is the State’s official report.

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Ranchers are going their own way seeking solutions. The State keeps gas lighting them.

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I doubt any of the environazi wolf fans had the courage to attend this meeting. Just state employees who had no choice.

Blue State Politics

Cronyism is so common in Colorado Politics the public now shrugs.

Consider the case of profiting off non-profits.

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Perhaps some of these non-profits actually do some good. Certainly, some employees do very well for themselves. All are reliable Democrat voters.

Southern Preposterous Lie Center echo chamber

Just what is a hate group? Just about any conservative group according to these self important buffoons.

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Montgomery, AL is their home. A few years ago, as a pre-production test driver, I spent some time there. Hyundia builds cars there and Kia at West Point, GA not far away. Whenever I mentioned this organization to locals, the usual response was an eyeroll.

Trust Fund Snot’s Drama

Nothing serious; just makes me smile an evil smile.

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 Update: After five days on the run, the bull has been captured.

True Believer

My neighbor across the hall is Democrat. I avoid any political discussion. He is fanatical in his beliefs. Trump is the devil, and our country is in deep trouble. Nothing original, just well learned talking points.

Another resident in the building is a Messianic Rabbi. He and his wife are extremely conservative in their political beliefs.

 The big difference is the Rabbi can disagree without being disagreeable.

Trump Haters Never Stop

Video going around blaming him for the Texas flood loss of life. The area meteorology office had one person responsible for alerting local authorities. Said person took early retirement and wasn’t replaced. Hah, we got you, Bad Man Orange! Never mind all the deaths. Scum!

 That excuses the local NOAA managers who didn’t reshuffle the deck and assign someone to that function. “Oh, the position was open”. Bullshit bureaucracy at it’s worse.

 USPS

They are losing billions each year. A small example of why.

Using their own tracking system.

   6/28 placed an order with a company in Ft Lupton – 38 miles away

   7/2 Arrived in Greeley – not delivered

   7/3 Sent to the Denver Distribution Center – 167 miles

   7/4 Sent to Aspen – 167 miles

   7/7 Sent to Grand Junction -129 miles

   7/8 Sent to Greeley – 304 miles

   7/8 Out for delivery

Just another day in Wyoming

Drug runners being stupid. Oh, illegal aliens – surprise!

How many were on the road that day that weren’t caught?

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  Firearm Confiscation

A daily read for me is William Kirk’s Washington Gun Law. I find he presents complex issue with a level of clarity this lay person can understand.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usX61R1fh2c

 He often points out, while Trump 2.0 is pro 2^nd Amendment, the future may bring some version of Lightbringer 4.0. What works for us today, can work against us in the future, aka, be careful what you wish for.

As always, YMMV

Older and Meaner

 

De-escalation Tactics

A recent encounter with a neighbor while delivering a mortgage company letter got ugly. Seems the neighbor is a retired policeman and has taken upon himself to be a neighborhood watchman.

He confronted me, demanding to know my business, and I politely told him to fuck off. Upon reflection, I didn’t use good de-escalation tactics. Upon further reflection came the realization I don’t give a fuck. He was still in the street making threats as I drove off.

Yeah bitch, lay hands on an “at risk senior”. Felony in Colorado.

Frugal

Indifferent to what people in general think of him is my second son. Who else drives a 2001 Ford Focus with 200,000 miles on the odometer?  He would rather spend $1,500 to $2,000 a year on repairs and tires than work overtime and Saturday to make the payment on a new car, like many of his contemporaries. The car gets regular oil changes. He uses a shop that is willing to work on an “old piece of shit”.

He makes his cheapskate father proud! What really makes his father prouder is his nearly a decade of sobriety.

Tools

                                                                                                         

Over the years I wonder how many “borrowed” tools I’ve replaced.

https://www.chickenwingscomics.com/

Idaho Co-ed Murders

Seems the perp now will plead guilty. Seems everyone has an opinion. Here is mine. He will be going away, forever.

 Yes, we won’t have a trial circus and endless appeals for years to come. That is a bad thing?

 Lastly, high praise for that small town police department doing their job so well the prosecution had a strong hand.

As always, YMMV

Dark Thoughts

 

Wolves plus Dark Money

Lurking in the background of “change” in this country is a money machine, the Tides Foundation.

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They played a part in the introduction of wolves in Colorado.

This is just one of many dark money groups with enormous financial resources. DOGE has exposed the ways they get taxpayer money.  To re purpose a Nikita Khrushchev rope saying, we are paying these people to make the rope they will hang us with.

Editorial Opinion

These types of organizations have one overriding purpose, control. Control of our lives, control of our country, and they have no moral values. Having a free society, I suppose, means we must tolerate these cancerous cells. When does free speech become sedition? 

Murphy in charge – police

To be clear, I admire the State Trooper.

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 Cynic – Iran Edition

Over the years I’ve became increasingly cynical about any and all news reports and pundits. Do I believe President Trump that we bombed the hell out of Iran? Emphatically yes!  Now reports circulate that Iran was able to move much of their enriched uranium prior to the strike. Maybe not, maybe so. I can hear the war hawks saying we need to go in on the ground and verify. Any damn excuse to get us involved in another ground war, IMO. Say Iran did move the uranium. What do they have left to fabricate/further enrich the stuff? Think Mossad isn’t on that like stink on shit?

 Current Popular Music

Grumpy old fart here finds current popular music to be shallow – just a few stanzas repeated over and over. What happened to songs that told a story or made you think? Two examples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsS9NJ36tnQ

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-yduDnvsj0

Note how clearly both ladies enunciate each word. No “lazy lips” here.

Disoriented

Banner is staying with my sister for, hopefully, just a few days. I’ve developed a muscle pain in my left buttock that makes it hard for me to walk. This makes attending to his needs difficult. It isn’t fair to him.

My sister has a fenced yard, roommates/renters who love Banner, and other animals. He isn’t suffering. I’m so accustomed to having him that I do routine things, and then realize he isn’t here. Add, the interrogation by his fan club in this building, and guilt creeps in.

 Getting old ain’t fun!

 As always, YMMV

5th Generation Warfare

 

WSF attempts to be profound

Disclaimer: I’m a digital Latter Day Luddite and not the one to get into the electronic weeds.

Aaron Cohen’s You Tube posts push my thinking. He talks about 5^th Generation warfare being waged constantly using the internet. He explains how it is done and what it accomplishes.

 Recently it occurred to me that Saul Alinsky’s 1971, “Rules for Radicals”, has been adapted for the digital age.

The Rules

1.     "Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have."

2.     "Never go outside the experience of your people."

3.     "Whenever possible go outside of the experience of the enemy."

4.     "Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules."

5.     "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. There is no defense. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage."

6.     "A good tactic is one your people enjoy."

7.     "A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag."

8.     "Keep the pressure on."

9.     "The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself."

10.  "The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition."

11.  "If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside; this is based on the principle that every positive has its negative."

12.  "The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative."

13.  "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it."

Does anyone else see what I think I see?

Wolves 

A subject more in my lane.

A regional agriculture focused weekly publication, The Fence Post, published an informative opinion by a local rancher.

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A Yellowstone tourist story.

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A rural Wyoming wolf story.

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I emphatically don’t approve of Cody Robert’s actions. 

Why do virtue signaling outsiders need to get their noses in a local matter?

Trivial  bitch

Seeing four stars on the collars of every chief of police and sheriff. They aren’t the military and shouldn’t assume a military look, IMO.

What I would rather see.

PDJT’s Gift to Blue  State Politicans

“Trump’s disastrous tariff taxes continue to wreak havoc on our economy and the erratic trade policy is projected to continue hurting our economy, slowing job growth and increasing chances of a recession. These national circumstances present a difficult economic environment for the state.”

— Gov. Jared Polis

See, it isn’t our feckless spending. No, no, Orange Man Bad. If not for him, we would have a balanced budget.

As always, YMMV

Colofornia Dreaming

 

Who benefits from “woke”?

With Colorado ranked #2 as the most dangerous state in the country, some reasons are glaringly obvious.

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The question of who benefits, IMO, are the ultra wealthy like George Soros socialists who want to destroy our culture and freedom coupled with rulers in countries that hate us. They fund the campaigns of the (P)regressives running for office. Not a new or profound observation on my part.

At the moment, six Democrats have announced they will run for the CO 8^th Congressional seat. Already I get weekly flyers attacking the Republican incumbent with broad accusations, but no verifiable facts.

Last election public records show over $40,000,000 was spent on this one piss ant seat. 

 Colorado’s New Gun Laws

For those who have the stomach, here is an overview of the new Blue Turd restrictions on lawful firearm owners. Should keep lawyers full employment for months to come, while giving sheriffs in deep blue counties draconian control over who can own a firearm.

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Along the lines of the devil is in the details, several of these will be dependent on receiving “grants” to fund them.

Most of these won’t survive the court process but while that is happening we have less freedom.

How do we make these gun grabbers feel some financial hurt? That is one way to stop them.

The Irish, obstinate beyond belief

The news out of Northern Ireland recently has been more ‘Troubles’. This time it is the natives against the state sponsored Muslim immigrants.

 Obstinate: Consider this song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25MSWIz6vag

Key lyric, “We’ve fought you for 800 years, and we’ll fight you for 800 more”. More South than North, to be true.

Who knows; perhaps the combination of EU socialism and unrestricted immigration might result in a Unified Ireland where both the North and the South kick out the overbearing tyrants.

Stellentis declares bankruptcy

The first casualty of Trump’s tariffs declare the American Mainstream Maggots (h/t BZ). Tariffs may be part of it but shitty product made it inevitable. How do you ruin brands like Jeep, Dodge, Nissan, Ram, and Chrysler in the USA? Try saving pennies on an HVAC air system actuator, cost around $50, that takes $4,000 in labor charge to replace? The list goes on. Nissan/CVT transmissions. Fiats rebadged as Jeeps and “Trail Rated”.

The total brands they own are:  

Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Citroën, Dodge, DS Automobiles, Fiat, Jeep, Lancia, Maserati, Opel, Peugeot, Ram, and Vauxhall. 

Ancient history now, when Henry II checked out and Donald Petersen became Ford President, he instituted, “Quality is Job One”. He got the UAW on board. The design team that brought the next generation Thunderbird in at 600 lbs overweight got fired. Unprecedented in the car biz, Ford went on to make more money in one quarter than the rest of the USA industry combined.

I was selling Fords at the time. The Escort, Tempo, and Taurus were nearly bullet proof, had decent performance, and the trucks were solid. Happy times to be selling Fords.

Both GM and Ford are not far behind Stellentis. GM has a disaster with their 6.2  truck engines falling apart. Ford has their EcoBoost problems and problems with the turbos on the diesel engines failing because of emission blunders. Both have more truck problems with the ten speed automatic transmission they jointly developed.

I can keep my 2002 Ford Taurus going for a long time for less than the first year deprecation on anything new. Bonus: What  is more anonymous than a gray Taurus without a single bumper sticker or dealer logo?

Follow the money

Glen Valley Foods, Omaha, NE  

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 was served a search warrant by ICE. Over 100 illegal’s were detained. The owner was recorded claiming all had been E-Verified before they were hired. Who helped all these people get fake IDs and SSN? Odds are, they didn’t do it for free. They need to be found and prosecuted, IMO.

 Wolves

My sympathies will always align with the ranchers.

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Alberta

Canada politics seem even more convoluted than ours. I have a passing interest but no dog in the fight. Any speculation on what Trump may do at the G-7 Summit 6/15-17 in Alberta? Will he play nice?

As always, YMMV