Palomino SS-550 softside truck camper

  Well the wife an I have finally pulled the trigger and bought a new RV a truck camper my third over the last 35 years or so. We have a 2003 25ft Nomad travel trailer but it is really to much RV for both of us. The hook-up and towing length would have been fine 20 years ago or so but getting to old and with my medical problems it just too difficult. So next week we pick up our new 2015 Palomino SS-550 camper. It will be cozy, code word for small but I think we can make it do.  It has electric lift for the roof and a AC that is being installed that is why we wait till next week. It has a 3- way fridge and 2 burner stove no oven but we have a small microwave that will fit an a outside shower + hot water. The fresh water tank only holds 16 gallons so not a lot to waste. Queen size bed on the over cab and a dinette that makes into a single so sleeps 3 . It is about the size of one I used back in the 1980's so the two of us can make do. Looking forward to going to some campgrounds and stuff we did when the kids were younger. Wish I had more pictures of those times but I don't think we ever took any, will take some this time. Its nice having a camera on your phone. The real excitement is going camping with our grandchild. Hope the truck gets descent gas mileage with the Camper hoping for 14 mpg on the freeways but will see.  

Reading other blogs to much

 Was looking at this chart by Dr Jerry Pournelle the author of many fine SF novels many with Larry Niven. Check out "Lucifer Hammer" a great book from the early 1980's.  The chart seems right but it also feels like a lose > lose type situation. I guess I'm trying to say that it doesn't seem to fit the real world views and beliefs of a lot of folks, myself included. I mean there is a need for some limited amount of Government at 3 to 4 levels ie City,County,State,National to protect an take care of human needs but it has always been the psychopaths and sociopaths who get in the way an smother the freedom loving souls who exist in every society. Yes people are the problem and they have different ideas about how to get from point A to point B. How to find harmony in that situation is the problem because almost all politicians want to keep their power an grow it. It is in their genes a personality trait if you will. Some are very focused on becoming supreme leader or the biggest fish in their pond and a few very evil types don't care how they get there. So I guess in one way the chart above does show a end result but it is not the big picture on what is really happening or how so many different governments come into existence. I also don't think that Socialist and Communist are just dangerous but good ? I believe that Fascist and Socialist are the same an just a different point of view, which is always dangerous and never good. A strong heavy handed government is never good and as always everything in moderation may be the answer but that never seems to remain static. My 2 cents.        

Despots and Evil

Something else that may be so. Just one of those things that we of the Libertarian mindset fear. The death of that last chance for freedom and liberty for mankind. I really don't see how this can be turned around. I know there are millions of freedom loving Americans out there but the system is fixed and momentum a bitch. Money an evil mixed with the apathy of the majority of the electorate will at best probably end in a slow spiral down to socialism the disease that has laid waste to the EU and Europe in general. But you never know things might change an there is always hope. That one thing that didn't escape from Pandora's Jar/Box, hope the prime example of theodicy. 

AR-15 Lowers

I have noticed quite a few really weird looking lower receivers for AR-15 recently, the picture above is one I stumbled across. Kind of freakish but in my somewhat disturbed moments I think it could grow on you. Colors and material changes as in the use of polymers for receivers is all the rage it seems so at least in the firearm industry change abounds.

World Peace and the War Room

On 12-26-91 Premier Gorbachev resigned and declared the USSR or Soviet Union extinct.What followed was roughly 10 years of almost World Peace. The consequences of peace were brushed aside by the terror of 9-11. War became America’s continuous preoccupation.This war on terror which followed 9-11 was a testing ground for all the new weaponry developed by Star Wars,Reagans method of driving the Soviets into bankruptcy. So with this method of warfare we find that most of the rest of the world has no defense,the US war machine is invincible at this time and defeats Saddam's army in Iraq in a matter of days  They "Iraq terrorist" find irregular ways to fight back. They blow the legs off our soldiers. They plant home-made bombs in crowded restaurants. They recruit children to serve as their guided missiles. They capture and slaughter innocent bystanders, while our side merely bombs the villages from high altitude. The victims do not see our way as pristine or preferable. Their suffering becomes their global recruiting. So our fearless leader backed away from fighting in Iraq which gave birth to ISIS at least indirectly. We have Putin in Russia trying to expand there reach back into the Ukraine and China is expanding into Africa and possibly South America. At least Brazil,Russia and China have become quite close,I hesitate to add Venezuela to the mix since the loss of their fearless leader a few years back has thrown that country in to turmoil recently. So World Peace think again things have become in many ways more dangerous in the early years of the 21st Century and this does not bode well for the rest of this century. Just my $.02     

Islamic State fighters are looting and bulldozing the Assyrian city of Nimrud

    One of the many crimes against humanity has been the active destruction of archaeological sites throughout the Middle East. If some site doesn't reflect the Islamist view of the World out comes the explosives and bulldozers and they wipe away and destroy all evidence of their history. Our history as in mankind's historical sites are what they are eradicating. It is very hard to give any credence to Islam even though the majority of the Muslim population is not involved with these kind of activities I've noticed there is a very small minority that ever raises a word against activity. Want some proof,try publishing a picture of Muhammed a man who at best is known as a prophet. Some very large percentage of Islam has decided that no man or organization may do this. They actively pursue and usually kill such people. This in my opinion is a religion that rules by fear and intimidation. All nations with a majority of Muslims in the population are not secular they use and embrace Islam and pass off ancient methods of control, known as Sharia Law to enforce these ancient some would call medieval ways of life. To sum up what is happening if you want to embrace a way of life similar to life before the Renaissance in Europe then let Islam flourish and expand around the World. This is not a way of life 21st Century mankind needs nor wants, the barbarians are at the gate and it is time to wake up.     

Black Elk's Account

The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Tanka i.e. the Great Spirit,God,the Great Mystery, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us. This is the real peace, and the others are but reflections of this. The second peace is that which is made between two individuals, and the third is that which is made between two nations. But above all you should understand that there can never be peace between nations until there is known that true peace, which, as I have often said, is within the souls of men.

    The Sacred Pipe : Black Elk's Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux (1953), as told to Joseph Epes Brown. The description of Wakan-Tanka is mine,for as we all know our views and perceptions are relative and that in truth is the great mystery.I might add in my experience there exist some men, some people, who have no soul an the evil which exists in this Universe is created by this evil the great mystery is why the Great Spirit or God make allowances for this evil. For if we accept God is part of all creation then Evil/Good Ying/Yang must be accepted. Do we as rational moral people fight this evil? I know no other way, my moral compass an being will not condone the actions of evil acts. That my friends is as it has always been, and most likely will always be.  FYI my 2 cents