Posted 7:37 PM by Robert Ronald Smith

It's officially over

The ugly Xmas holiday is now past, at least most of it. We were at Bachman's today and they were removing the last of their Xmas decorations. Poinsettas are still available, but only a few artificial trees. I got a sales pitch on the newest sort of artificial trees, which come with tons of little white lights already installed. Afterward, the limbs just fold upward for easy storage. You can get a tree with a 25-year warranty (if that isn't long enough to last me, I won't need a tree).

I never cease marveling (and gagging) at the insanity of the holidays... the endless shopping, wrapping, obese meals, etc. I can't remember an Xmas I liked since the one I got my Red Ryder BB gun (yep, just like in A Christmas Story, and yep, I was told "You'll shoot your eye out". Guess I was just lucky. I guess I eventually outgrew that gun, but a few years ago I had a hankering and went out and bought another one. While I wasn't home, a boy friend of my daughter tried it out, and shot a hole through a window across James Ave. By the time I got home, the police had already been there and confiscated the weapon. Never saw it again.

Later still, I bought a BB pistol, to try to shoo raccoons out of my attic (a long story). This pistol looks like a military .45 so it freaks out gun-fearers as much as a real gun. No, it didn't work on raccoons... they're just too fat and furry... but it made me feel better to shoot at them.

Posted 7:25 AM by Robert Ronald Smith

18 years ago, a remarkable event

On Dec. 23rd, 1986, the experimental aircraft Voyager landed at Edwards Air Force base, completing the first non-stop, non-refueled flight around the globe. The flight took almost exactly 9 days of flying by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, and they were nearly out of fuel when they landed. The Voyager aircraft was designed specifically for the flight, which doubled the non-stop distance record.

The aircraft was designed by Burt Rutan... yes, the designer of SpaceShipOne. Virtually everything about the flight was remarkable, not the least of which is the performance of the two pilots. Here's a link to more about the flight.

Posted 2:31 PM by Robert Ronald Smith

Well! It's about time!

This blog has been dead for about 4 months. It was a technical problem that I was sure was Blogger's fault. After blindly blaming them, I finally did some checking and found that my ISP had changed the FTP domain naming scheme. If I hadn't been so bullheaded, I could have solved the problem myself in a few minutes, as I finally did.

So... if there are any readers left... my apologies. If not, I deserve it.

Meanwhile, it's been unusually busy here at the home of boBLOG. I'm now Pres. of the fledgling non-profit Liberty Education Fund. I created the website and am working on some business documents now. I've also redesigned and become webmaster for the website of Minnesotans Against Smoking Bans. I'm still doing updates for the Pink Pistols TC, Minnesota FAMM, and PATROL sites.

It's been great to hear from some libertarian names you may recognize... Joel Rauch, Cat Farmer, and Hardy Machia, and a number of fellow former residents of Midway Island.

No Force, No Fraud is getting an average of about 500 readers/day, and cumulative readership is over 160,000 after 20 months.