Monday 15 September 2025 10:15:45 PM CST





Monday 15 September 2025 10:39:19 PM CST

I only see a couple of reissues that might be worth acquiring. One is a Japanese remaster from 2011 which supposedly has full versions of a couple of songs that were shorter on the original and the other is a remastered one I don't have a date for just now. You Get What You Play For is from 1977 and long before REO was hot - that would happen with Hi Infidelity in 1980 or so. The previous You Can Tune a Piano But You Can't Tuna Fish got pretty good airplay with a couple of tracks but HI scored big. It was just a little slicker and was just the ticket for the 1980s.

With the 1990s came the usual changing markets and personality problems and all that stuff and Gary Richrath left and sales of new albums were poor compared to earlier ones. Richrath had played with the band a time or three but never returned and died in 2015. Lately they've been touring with Styx and I haven't seen any of their shows but both bands are excellent and forty or more years of doing it they should be pretty good.

Obviously being as early as it was YGWYPF doesn't have the radio hits of the 1980s (Ridin' the Storm Out got more airplay along with the later stuff) but it's good early stuff and the version of RTSO here is one of the best. It was a favorite show closer for a long time but later Back on the Road Again filled that role later and it's a good one too. I see a few DVDs of live performances that might be worth checking out.

Whiskey of the day is Maker's Mark regular. That's the squarish bottle with red wax over the stopper. I hadn't had any in quite while and got a couple of bottles reacquaint meself. Leave them sitting around and there's some people that'll drink a lot of it and they're the ones that don't get invited back. People who drink a lot of anything don't come back and if they don't have a driver we ain't drinking adult beverages. Even I'm not gonna be driving I don't want guests driving away with likker in them.

Seegars are still Swisher 4x30 but I found a carton of Good Times 4k French vanillas forgotten on a bottom shelf in the office and have one of them now and then. Dunno what French vanilla is since it don't come from France and it's probably artificial anyway.

Cooled off and time to start cleaning up a few places that were let go during the heat. Couple of places are gonna get a different treatment next spring, mainly the small pond and a couple of small sumac groves nearby. Sumacs are fun to mess with and they grow like crazy which is not so good sometimes. Probably two dozen pecan seedlings need new homes but they're quick and easy when they that small. The new tractors are here and should be delivered next week and that'll be fun.

Jerry tapped a quick series of Ctrl-Ws and Ctrl-Qs to close the windows and a couple of Ctrl-Ds to close the terminals. Click the shutdown button and select restart. Pull the USB stick when the bios message appears. He dropped the stick into a pocket and went to the door.

"Hello Jerry. Long time no see."

It had indeed been a while since he had seen Agent Al Speer. His first name was Alfred and always made Jerry think of the Nazi war criminal which was a good reason for him not to use it. But a lot of Alfreds and Alberts went by Al. Still between FBI agents these days and Nazis there wasn't a good choice to associate them with.

"If you wanted to wait a little longer I'd be good with it."

"I was in town and thought I'd see what your inventory looked like. Couple of nice classic 'vettes."

"I don't sell stuff that ain't nice. You looking for anything in particular?"

"Not just now. I'm looking for people and thought you might look at some pictures."

"Mugshots?"

"Some. Some surveillance shots, some others."

"I don't know a lot of criminals these days. At least I don't consort with people I know are criminals."

"If you say so."

"I'm just an old man selling used cars."

"Pretty pricey used cars."

Stone Cold (2024)

Classic book of the day is Buying Time from Joe Haldeman in 1989. The 1990s don't seem so far away but that was... lessee, near forty years ago. I had read The Forever War when it was published in 1975 - the one buy in H section that was probably smarter than me - IQ-wise anyway - and I traded SF books since the seventh grade - we were seniors in '74. The Forever War and it's sequels are probably his best-known works.

I re-read it a few years back in light of the health care situation these days. You got enough money you can live a pretty long time, much longer than you have a statistical right to with senators dying in office in their nineties after having been mentally non-functional for years. Reportedly her fortune was in the 100 million range and they kept her in there when she was less cognizant than Biden. Anyway the way it works in Haldeman's late 21st century is if you have enough money (your entire net worth and it has to be at least a million) you can have your body reconstructed every ten years. As long as you can come up with the million you can do it for as long as you want unless your brain goes south and in that case you won't be able to the the money to it's over.

The protagonist has been around for a few hundred years and the story begins with him emerging from the latest renewal process and being invited to join a group of immortals (that's what they're called) that's up to something that the owners of the renewal operation don't like. So he's got bigger problems that just coming up with the money next time around.

Some of it didn't age well, like the societal effects of technology (people still use large wads of currency to buy stuff off the record) and a few other things but a good read.

Weird snack of the day is something called Beach Cliff herring fillets. I get'em at Dollar Tree but it's a supposedly respectable brand you can get at other places like grocery stores but usually they just have the sardines. The herring fillets are in a longer and slightly narrower can. I keep a couple of empty cans around like I do Vienna Sausage cans for mixing paint or adhesive or whatever or holding small parts.

One thing you gonna watch is where the stuff is canned. I prefer canned mackerel to canned salmon but finding mackerel that ain't canned in China is pretty hard to do these days. At least Vienna sausages are made in the U.S.A. for now. The herrings are packed in Canada.

Speaking of sausages there's non-Vienna kind you can get at Wal-Mart sometimes, the can is bigger than a Vienna can but the weight is the same because they're not stuffed in there as tight - just sloshing around. Only ones I've found are the Great Value house brand but I don't figure they're made special for Wal-Mart so I'll see if I can find any other brands like them. Package sez they a product of Denmark so they should be safe to eat. They make better canned ham there than they do here for sure.

There's enough kinds of sardines I could probably do sardine reviews, kinda like ramen. Ramen has a lot more variation though as sardines are pretty much the flat rectangular cans and either water or vegoil (olive oil costs a lot more) and sometimes mustard or Louisiana hot sauce which I ain't trying. They mess up perfectly crawdads by makin' them so hot you can't taste anything else. I tell meself some day I'll try boiling just like shrimp, maybe a little seasoning of some kind.

The big oval cans I generally can't eat more than half and the kitty cats get the rest. Fish are too big or something, Idunno.


Whatever he means to say is probably that Republicans are bad but that ain't the picture he drew. As others have observed (but he hasn't or doesn't admit) is that the Democrats have their states contorted to the max and getting any more seats will be near impossible unless a district or two looks like two earthworms holding hands. Some probably realized that but what can they do beyond hoping that some like Texas will be disallowed by courts? And they they got the problem of - when the next census comes - that they've lost more population through actual citizen flight to red states and loss of illegals. If the current estimate of over a million self-deportations is correct and the situation of both self and non-self exites continues some could lose bigly. So with the shoe on the other foot he sez we gonna burn down the country.

The TV station that ain't on DirecTV any more had a couple of things in the national news. The first is about the Arkansas National guard applying to participate in taking out the trash. That would have reqquired the governor to have them do it but the governor is pretty cozy with President Trump. With Arkansas affairs not so much but there you are. Other one is the trash taking itself out at the CDC. The funny thing is the newly confirmed director being fired. I recall there was some people upset about her appoinment but now there some unhappy with her being fired. Whatever anyone who believes anything the CDC had to say before hasn't got enough sense to come of of the rain so whatever they do under RFKjr should be an improvement.

If they only gonna spend a billion I guess that's not too bad and Arkansas ain't broke like some states but I wonder where people don't have internet. If you're in town somewhere you got it, even a little place like Hickory Ridge has a couple or three or more options. Fact is anywhere that got cable TV has internet. Both of my undisclosed locations are rural and at my primary one (OK, it's just a couple miles from town) has two fiber cables running by and one is buried and the other is on the powerline poles. And I got 5G phones and they're not too shabby. So I'm wondering who ain't got fast internet. I did read the other day about how AOL is finally discontinuing dialup but where else people might be using it Idunno. Anyway there's a few millions going to some towns and cities for essential stuff like water and sewer and stuff so I reckon that's good somehow or other.

Moving on to the latest found bodies and found body parts we got this one in Left Memphis. No manner of death was readily apparent so no idea if foul play was involved. This one was out in Virginia but KAIT had it on their website. You're biciclying around in a park and you find a body. Wonder how many other people saw it and looked around to see if anyone saw them see it and then got outta there. If it turns out the body got dead by the hand of another person or persons and they can't find them they might must blame the the hapless body-finder. I see there is legal advice available for those so unfortunate as to happen upon a body and be so unwise as to report it. Finally KAIT again reports the discovery of a body part and again it wasn't around here so it's not just something that happens here in NEA. It was a leg so that doesn't mean the owner is dead. In the otherwise spectacularly unmemorable Road Games from 1981 the two main characters have one of the more coherent conversations:

Hitch: I mean, you can lose an arm or a leg without necessarily being dead, right?

Quid: Yeah, but...

Hitch: But if you lose your torso, you are definitely dead. But...

Quid: Lose your torso, I think you've had it.

Hitch: But, one torso is pretty much like another that...

Road Games - 1981
People who had a crush on Jamie Lee when before she got old and became the usual celebutard crackpot will know that she was in demand and especially for horror flicks because Halloween. She was a cutie though and had a certain charm. She and Tom Arnold (another celeb crackpot) totally upstaged Schwarzanegger in True Lies. Arnold made it three celebutard crackpots. Want to see her in a really crushworthy mode check out Terror Train in 1980. For some reason or other Ben Johnson consented to have his name dragged through the mud in this one.

Miscellaneous from Memphis just because: there been talk of this but it's unlikely unless it gets about 50% worse. Same as then state being slow to take over the Memphis schools. They get the action slowed down so there's two or three fewer killings per week and they'll decide it's improving. The Maryland man in this case isn't the celebrated illegal alien thug but the actual Maryland man what got kilt a few days ago. Maryland man was reportedly a comedian I couldn't find any more info on him except he just got kilt in Memphis. Dunno why I thought this was important but it looks like two guys were racing Mustangs and caused an accident that kilt two people in a truck. Mustangs are among the ugliest of cars since about 2015 or so. They looked pretty good for a while before that. The other thing about crime in Memphis and perceptions of it could be here. I mean, you talk about having outsiders look at it could worry some folks.

I'm always a little suspicious of arrests made thirty or even twenty years after the event. Sometimes there's dead-bang proof that somehow wasn't known at the time and if it's good solid stuff and there's an explanation I'm good. Especially in a child killed by a bad person. They ain't saying yet what they have on this dude so I'll wait and see. But this bothers me just a wee bit:

In 2017, police identified William 'Ed' Smith as a suspect. He had died in 2014. Three years later, police named two more men: David Whipple, who died in 2022, and Fisher.

KAIT8
I don't want a child killer going free for even one more day than necessary but I don't want a non-guilty person being in jail even one day much less the rest of his life. To be sure they could have said they were pretty sure it was one of the dead suspects and closed it that way but I have zero faith in prosecutors to not do the wrong thing if it helps them get ahead.

So when this happens I get at least a medium shade of suspicious. Happens that I followed the events in real time back in the day what with it happening over in Tennessee not far to the right of here on a map with north at the top. Saw the movies with Joe Don Baker and all, didn't see the latest one. Like The Rock and all but according to most the title was about the only thing it shared with the originals and those probably had a fair amount of mythology in them. My own guess and it's just a guess is that Buford probably did take umbrage at the local law when he became a victim of its corruption and probably cleaned a bit of meanness but there was enough known about him for me to figure he was a bit dodgy and probably did some exaggerations and all that but he died.... lessee fifty or so years ago and his wife perished a bit before that. So they dug her up to see if there was evidence he hit her as sometimes happens a marriage that ain't all sunshine and roses and if so he must have kilt her and set it up to look like somebody tried to kill him. Some of the forensic evidence they describe has put more than one non-guilty man in prison from Sam Shepard on. And they say that the evidence of his wounds indicate he shot hisself with an M-1 carbine. OK, the Ruger Blackhawk in .30 was being made at the time but that is one bigass gun and shooting yourself in the jaw with a 2" snub takes some doing. As I say he seemed a bit of a dodgy character and may well have done some stuff he shouldn't have but that theory won't even let me get close enough for a sniff.

What, Chris?

Nah, never owned one. Owned a couple of single-actions but they never were my thing.

Jonestown about as usual in the crime department. It don't say where this one is from so could be a local. So many thieves coming over from Memphis to Paragould and Jonestown to steal you never know. Hope they don't decide to lower the murder rate in Memphis by murdering over here. This one was from Blytheville and I'm pretty sure they got Dollar General stores over there. Are they harder to rob or did he figure a Jonestown store would have more money? Hmmm.. anyway this dude hid in the bathroom in the store and waited until it closed before attempting unsuccessfully to open the cash registers. I expect the drawers would have been removed and put in the safe and left open so thieves could see nothing there. Way I seen it done most places. Give Jonestown Right Now and KAIT a couple of backlinks on the robbery attempt by the guy from Blytheville.

In government and politics we have the old Citizens Bank building thing probably about to wrap up. Given the apparent attitude of the owner they may let the place go for the three million the city sez they owe for tearing it down. It's probably worth about that much. Cherry Valley seems to have trouble fixing its roads but they annexed the solar farms south of town (not in the city) that's about as big as the city and they're supposed to maintain the roads there. Now it's just a bunch of bigass fields of solar panels and there shouldn't be much traffic but why don't the operators pay for their roads?

No, whatever housing crisis there is isn't a job for Congress. It isn't even a job for state governments even if some state seem to think so. If that Muslim dude gets to be mayor of NYC the property owners there may be in for a bad time. The only place this clown will have any power is in the city and that over a few things. He can destroy the police and other emergency services, cause infrastructure maintenance (already in a bad way) to get worse, and some other things. Even putting in government-run grocery stores probably would require the consent of city government and with the exodus of cash that will occur it should be fun to watch.


Dean is one of those guys like that doesn't give a fig what anyone thinks about him and especially entertainment industry people. Reportdly he voted for Slick Willie back in the day but went Republican. With his career not only does he have enough Foxtrot Uniform money but there is profitable work for those of his persuasion as those sorts of films do well financially. ~~ So dims are rejecting some of the insanity. Or pretending to long enough to get elected. Or at least win their primaries. ~~ They're talking about Prager U. Whatever the long-term (after Trump) prospects are is hard to say. More important is the increased independence of local schools and school choice. ~~ Attempts to scorch whatever earth they are talking about will be pretty feeble as I observed earlier. ~~ The Sydney Sweeney thing was probably unexpected by all including those of us on the right side of things. Still it was fun and the commie running Cracker Barrel still didn't get the message. ~~ The greatest album on any kind was not created by Bruce Springsteen. Expect Smithsonian to act like Rolling Stone but it does seem that the Smithsonian is being cleaned up. ~~ Can President Trump run a mile? Doubt it since most 79-year-olds can't do it and he ain't in the best shape but I know people half his age that can't run a mile. I probably can't but I walk three or four or sometimes more every day. How come they didn't ask if Biden can run a mile? ~~ Illegals and some despicable Americans try to prevent as many deportations as possible. ~~ Not sure how Medicaid "cuts" will reduce health coverage for ex-cons. Unless the ex-cons are illegals and in that case they can be deported.

In the town nearest my primary undisclosed location....

What, Chris?

That's a populated place according to Wickedpedia. Not a town. Anyway Wynne is technically a city but then so is Parkin. Anyway St. Barnyards runs the hospital there and I guess they do a decent job. With declining population there's always a risk of deterioration in services generally and Wynne seems to be doing well as they keep putting in new places besides St. Bernies. ARcare built a big new one and there one I never heard of before but they got a big new place.

The big wind farm here is gonna have a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Guess that means is open for business or whatever. It's scattered out over thirty or so square miles so where do they put the ribbon? Just kiddding - according to the article it will be at the Bill Thomas Tech Center in Wynne. That as briefly a K-Mart back in the day, I used to go in occasionally and chat with a cute gal that worked in the sporting goods department. I'd buy some stuff, some shotgun shells or a brick or two of .22s. One time I bought a Ruger 10/22 even though I already had one.

What, Chris?

You better believe she was, real sweet gal too. Actually I knew her before she worked there but that's another story for another time. Wal-Mart and K-Mart both used to put them little Marlin .22s on sale regularly at about sixty bucks. Bought a couple or three of them all at Wal-Mart. Anyhow K-Mart closed the store pretty soon and this was way before they was in real trouble so I guess it was doing really not well. Sat empty forever, big place like that nobody needed or had the money for. Eventually it was bought by some entity or entities and the East Arkansas Communiy College has some stuff there and I don't what all else. And they gonna have a tour of one of the windmills but didn't say which one. I would guess one close to town - some of them are ten miles or more away.

Wanna do some weighty pontification stuff from the usual suspects? The anti-Trump Labor Day protests went larely unnoticed by all except the participants and the news people. A supposedly reliable source says over a million illegals have departed from the labor force since the American Renaissance began back in January. I wonder how many non-laborers left and how many were removed non-voluntarily. Anyway it's a good start. When they say vaccine they want you to think about measles and stuff but there a couple dozen and for stuff like hepatitis and HPV and stuff even adults don't get unless they live carelessly or are extremely unlucky. So it's understandable that Florida is doing what they doing. And of course major climate angst prevails in the usual places. Haven't heard much from Algore lately but he got rich off it and maybe retired.

"That white 'vette is a '72 Stingray assembled from parts of three or four cars. Not preserved or a resto with matching numbers or low miles but the build is top-drawer. Thirty-four flat and if you look at the records - the driveline was about twelve thousand - you can see I'm making about four thousand. I get audited every year and if there was anything that looked like an excuse I'd be under arrest in about two minutes."

"A man in your situation would be careful. Most aren't."

"What situation is that?"

"Four armored car robberies that no one can figure out. Those poor crews got put through the wringer since it looked like they had to be inside jobs."

"Where do I figure in on that?"

"The total take was over eleven million in cash. That was twenty-something years ago. It was three years before you even began to move upscale and that was a little at a time. Most aren't that smart."

"Three years from the last one?"

"About. They were spread out over two years."

"That was smart. No clues at all on who did it?"

Speer never smiled. Probably some of it was training, kind of like the cop that stops you doesn't take off his sunglasses even when it's cloudy.

"None. You mind looking at those pictures?"

"Not at all."

Stone Cold (2024)



Dunno who that is or why what the pronouns are of why said pronoun thinks it is clever. The thing is that the FBI has had a lot of mall cop types in its ranks - all that was needed was to do the bidding of the director who to whatever extent he needed marching orders got them from the committee that controlled access to the autopen. Some of them are gone but not enough - probably some are keeping their heads down and hoping for a return to the old ways in 2029. I wouldn't bet on it.

Yeah, probably the only who don't think slavery was bad are the ones who practice it. Usually the people who bring it up these days are Democrats (the ones who went to war to keep their slaves) and their allies who accuse Republicans (the ones who freed the slaves) but in any X-formerly-known-as-Twitter...

What, Chris?

I know it's been three years but it's still fun to say it. Ain't done in.... a week or two anyway.

Anyway on X and other places like the commentaries on the news sites the (dim) trolls say something or other because slavey and somebody reminds them it was them as had slaves and so on and all. What upset this (pronoun) was that during past Democrat regimes big museums like the Smithsonian had become all slave grievance all the time and the Trump administration is making them back into museums again and they don't like it just because. The source of this article is one of the usual suspects. Everything is about race to them so somehow red states doing what the blue states have been doing for years is not good. The fact that if successful (the new district maps aren't canceled in court) and with a lot of deportations (even just a couple or three million) and flight to the red states the dims might indeed never win another presidential election or control Congress again. I'd like that.



Not sure how many people know what that means as long ago as it didn't last long. Come to think of I'm not sure the cartoonist knows - maybe he just thought it was clever. As usual it wasn't. Anyway you don't see a lot of Humvees in the pics from the cleanup operation. Mostly it's the National Guard guys walking around or standing around or picking up trash - plenty of that - and looking out for trouble. Yeah, I'm guessing he didn't.

Little Memphis news. Malls been going away for a while now but there still a few in Memphis. this one is going away. It looks like upscale stuff to replace it (no "affordable" housing) but I ain't been through there in a while so dunno how it looks. The guys and gal on Rock 103 used to tell jokes about Germantown because it was supposedly all rich folks.

Why don't Germantown women go to funerals?

Because black tennis dresses are hard to find.

The Memphis City Schools super that got canned - before or after the state took over I don't recollect just now - moderated a 901 day summit (901 day is some holyday in Memphis). Might be easier to just look for another super job but her resume don't look so good just now. In an usual case of looting cosmetic stores the perps were Romanian. Illegals - excuse me undocumented - so they'll probably be leaving the U.S.A. soon.


USAID is pretty much dead. Whether like the Deparement of Miseducation it remains extant because the Congressional action to extirpate it doesn't occur there is only the empty husk. Think of a snakeskin the snake has outgrown and left behind. ~~ The Bureau of Labor Statistics was useful only as a political tool. Democrat administrations used it to disinform and its stats were never that reliable anyway. Private entities with did it better. ~~ California might squeeze one more district out of of a new map or not but Texas is very likely to get its five and some other red states may do the same. Dims have been too elever by half too many times. ~~ I had never heard of Hasan Piker before and am unlikely to remember him five minutes after being reminded of him. ~~ The walls have been closing in on Alex Jones for almost as long as they have been on Donald Trump. I have no idea if his enemies realize how insignificant he is. ~~ President Trump invited President Putin to Alaska (sold cheaply by a Russia desperate for cash) and had a B2/F35 flyover) and Alaska is about as red can be so... ~~ Yeah, we know blue cesspools in red states have a lot of killing. The're run by Democrats. If red states eliminated welfare all the inhabitants of the pools would move to blue states and they would have the crime and the expense of housing and feeding them. ~~ To quote "They're turning their backs on a technology thought to have saved millions of lives - with the potential to save many more." Only the Covid "vaccine" didn't save millions (a possible 10% of the .2% that would have died). ~~ Life lessons from Monica Lewinsky and Amanda Knox? You can go places on your knees/back if things work well but sometimes they don't. And most of the time you can only get so far that way. The Knox case is weird and who knows what really happened but maybe she can tell us how to recover whatever happened.

Speer handed him the folder and Jerry looked through them. The mugshots had the name blacked out but he easily recognized Melvin Hunt even if the picture was recent and he hadn't seen him in years. None of the others looked familiar until the last one.

Billy Brawner. They never ID'd any of us but Billy just might have an idea where that loot from the jeweler came from. He never met any of us but he knew enough to maybe put it together. But what took so long?

"That looks like Billy Brawner," Jerry said. "I haven't seen him in years but he used to hang out with some guys that were rumored to be connected with the Harrisburg Mafia.

Straight up. They already know that, probably know the last time I saw him. If only because he told them.

"He was a fence. Did you know that?"

"Maybe, probably. It's been a while. I didn't fool around much with those guys - they did some crazy stuff."

"What sort of crazy stuff?"

"Dogfighting was the one bothered me most. Those are some mean people. Add liquor and drugs, prostitution with minors, I didn't want to be around them."

"Were you?"

"Once that I know of. I got out of there. I want nothing to do with them."

Stone Cold (2024)



Governments owning companies or parts of them is usually not a good thing (I rated it bad to very bad depending on who the government is) but I say no if only because the Trump administration and possibly some good successive ones won't be forever. First time the dims get hold of it is's bad news. Like everything else. So not a good idea.



KASU was getting some of that CPB money - not much but if folks figure it's worth giving them some money I'm good with it. I used to hear it some while driving and scanning for FM stations. Never did listen long, once in a while they was doing news and it was about what you'd expect.

Newsome is showing them exactly how not to fight but some of them are doing it. When Twitter became X and no longer an echo chamber for the left a lot of them went to Bluesky but there was nobody there but them and nobody was paying attention so they came back to X. From the looks of it there's a pretty small number of them trying to make some noise but it's probably doing more harm than good. Typically Newsom or Schemer will put something up and get a handful of approing responses followed by thousands of FUs.

Why do only LA students lose mental help health? If there were cuts to mental health facilities it wasn't just the ones in LA. It may be that LA has a lot more customers for that sort of thing I guess.

He'd probably know that. Knows everything else. Probably knows I went up there to get Mary Ann and that dude had taken her up there. Probably dumb of me, could've got killed but I had to get her out.

"Anything else?"

"As far as I know and it mostly just what I hear just the usual. Drugs and prostitution. Rumors of underage girls and some people with money from as far away as Memphis and Little Rock, St. Louis even. Are you interested in drug and human trafficking or twenty-something year old armored car robberies?"

"I'm working on several cases. I'm pretty sure those other matters are being investigated. Brian Stanley and Scott Baker are dead and Jimmy Clark is in a nursing home with dementia. You're the only one extant and lucid."

"Those are the ones you think did it? Them and me?"

Al Speer didn't change his expression. Jerry handed the folder back to him.

"The gold in one of those trucks was worth over two million," he said. "On top of the cash and other loot. So thirteen million in twenty-year-old dollars. By the way Billy Brawner is dead. He lived about a year after he got out of prison."

"I haven't kept up with that stuff," Jerry said, "but when you said he was a fence I figured it."

"He never told anything either. Someone took good care of him while he was in prison. Kept his commissary account topped off, he could bribe other inmates and the guards. He had as good a life as one can have in prison. He didn't blame you."

Never stop trying. And it wasn't my fault he got caught on something unrelated to us. But I took care of him to be sure. Apparently they were never able to trace any of the money or other stuff.

"There's someone I'd like for you to talk to," Speer said. "Tomorrow about nine or so. She will be carrying a duplicate of this card."

He'd like me to? No threats? Something up.

He handed Jerry a business card. An FBI agent card. Jerry turned it over. Apparently written with purple marker were the characters 'F-204'.

"Twenty-one-hundred or oh-nine-hundred?"

"In the morning," Speer replied. "Here."

Stone Cold (2024)



Drier forests in Canada - or California - are the cause of forest fires. Nope, fire control is a pretty well established science. But so is "carbon emissions" and all but the narrative has long been controlled by evil people and so carbon bad. What, only carbon emissions is bad? That stuff isn't just debunked, it was never bunked. Anyway carbon emissions from China dwarf those from the U.S.A. so there's that. Did I mention that to be funny a cartoon or joke has to have at least just a bit of truth in it? I suppose that having a Republican making the "accusation" is truthful as a Dim would never do it.

Couple of Wynne items. This one is just because it was in the Wynne Progress. Not a paper anymore, believe I mentioned that a time or three. Back in the day one of my two elder siblings - both female - worked at the paper and was a Linotype operator. Had to be able to type for that and both could and both were editors of the school paper. Little four page or so mimeographed and stapled in the corner. After the tornado banged up the office they didn't publish the paper (it was being printed by the Forrest City paper anyway) but threw up a Wordpress site and randomly stick stuff in there. So we get the story about the guy what died in Lee County (south of St. Francis) 48 years ago. Seems like it might be a sad story as it was a young guy who may have had some legal or mental or substance problems and died under unknown circumstances. It was on some of the other sites too - they all do about the same thing.

Work on the school that got smacked by the tornado a couple of years ago seems to be getting serious. Well over two years, close to two and a half. That the one that hit my place. If it's as ugly as the pics they showed I hope it ain't where I gotta see if every time I drive through.

Jerry watched Agent Speer walk to his grey Chevy Trax and drive away. Looked down at his Explorer. Almost noon and he was pretty sure that Speer had seen it peeking out under the cuff of his shirt sleeve. He didn't know if FBI agents were necessarily knowledgeable enough to tell if a Rolex was real.

Whatever. He knows I'm loaded but has no idea how much. The government knows about over ten million in cash and property but the gold and silver and buried cash they know nothing about. What they knew about was so legit that going after him would cost more than they would recover. Unless the satisfaction of putting him in prison became more attractive.

He didn't like to think about that but there was always the last-ditch option. He could disappear and live off-grid for as long as he wanted without giving up any of the luxury he had become accustomed to. One of the benefits of being part of a League Freehold. A special part - he was a deep-cover agent and had minimal contact with his outfit. One of their contingency operators.

The Explorer said it was 1039 and that was good enough. What else was he going to do for the rest of the day? If a prospective customer came by - a rare event when it was known that thirty thousand was the low end of his inventory. And Miranda could handle those. Time for a smoke and a drink.

Drinking before noon wasn't something he did a lot but the visit by Speer had irritated him. He went into his office and buzzed Miranda.

"I'm out for the day," he said, "unless something important comes up."

Not that anything important would come up. Speer represented the only interest anyone important had in him. Anyone at Silver Lake that needed to get hold of him had his number. The wet bar in one of the back rooms was well stocked.

Turkey? Nah, Jack neither. Ezra? Yeah.

He poured three fingers of Ezra Brooks 99 into a highball glass and added four fingers of vanilla Coke. The stuff was only available in small bottles but that was probably just as well as it would go flat in the big ones no more than he used. Four ice cubes filled the glass to the rim.

Stone Cold (2024)

Couple of opinion pieces from the Jonestown paper. This one is from the UAMS site so actually localish. Thing about vaccines that got whatever the conservative equivalent of woke is, that is smart people who pay attention, is the fact that if you get all the vaccines they say you supposed to you'll get about 80 by the time you're 18. A couple of dozen right after you're born HPV and hepatitis and other stuff you don't need unless you live carelessly. Anyway what people doing where they don't have to they get the old ones - measles and diptheria and stuff - and say screw the rest.

Seems Google going to build a data center in Left Memphis. I wonder if the exprience xAI had in Memphis had something to do with that. And as bad as Left Memphis is it ain't noways near as bad as Memphis. They'll have to build new instead of taking over abandoned sites in Memphis but that's probably better. Not like money is likely to be a big deal. And people can live over in Arkansas and while I don't wanna live any closer to Left Memphis than I do now (about 40 miles) it's not too bad if you get out about ten miles and not in the city.


Not sure where we are on replacing people with robots. Been doing if for a long time with manufacturing bots that put things together and I reckon vehicles that go around delivering stuff with no people in them probably will continue to increase. It was back in the 1980s I saw things rolling around in office buildings delivering mail and stuff. Dunno where we are on the ones that walk and look like people. If you could make them that could could pick fruits and veggies it would be nice. Actually they working on machines that can recognize the fruit on the plant and that's probably what you gotta do first. If you know what it is and where it is you can probably make a robot hand to reach out and grab it. Maybe people have personal robots to clean up the house.


John Bolton seems kinda like Jim Comey - he just keeps poking the bear and doesn't seem to relize that if the bear decides to take a swipe at him he won't last long. ~~ Newsom seems even dumber than Bolton and Comey - this guy - alright, it's probably his staff - is leaving miles of digital rope to hang him with if he runs for prez. And it's hard to see him not doing it. ~~ Cracker Barrel is hardly worth commenting on. I was surprised that someone there had the good sense to backtrack but they may have done some serious damage.


That one is a little subtle in places. The dims still got a problem as the serious nutjobs ain't ready to give up. The primaries should be interesting. Not that the old guys actually believe any of it but wish the new ones would shut up and pretend but some of them aren't controllable.

Okey-dokey, time to go. Catchalater.