Several Quick Points and Some Housecleaning

Mosin - Nagant 1891 Infantry
Imperial Russian Army

El Gringo Viejo wants to call attention to the right sidebar that now is headed by El Zorro's website and blog linkage.   You can enter a wonderland of firearms and 2nd Amendment matters, in an understandable and easily navigated setting.  We prepare to enter the 7th decade in a few years, becoming evermore the curmudgeon.  Among those curmudgeonly characteristics is the wisdom of knowing how to play at least one instrument well.

     Another is knowing how to catch, clean, and prepare a fish for human consumption. A third is having, caring for, and knowing how to use at the very least (obviously) one effective firearm....for private and personal defense.   It is my intention to dial 911, not for the police to arrive to help me, but to advise the CSI and the Coroner's Office to come and bring the meat wagon.   There is no rush.

       Review the site Mosin Guy Guns and read about "The Encounter", and the overtones and complexities of moral inputs, training, conditioning, and the realities of what can happen from one second to the next.    And having the emergency number of the 101st Airborne Division would have no impact because they could never arrive in time to help.   One can also wonder, with all the millions upon scores of millions firearms that are held by NRA, collector, self-defense, self-reliance, hunters, and sportsmen types....how very few transgressions and accidents occur among those people.   Too many...to be sure....but way, way, way below the actuarials for simple household accidents like falling off'n a ladder.
      It is a fact that 99% of all firearms casualties are caused by criminals;   the kind of people who have no catechism and no intention of abiding by any firearms laws.   The slaughter of humanity by firearms in the United States of America is....in its overwhelming majority, and in these days....a gang, pandilla, inner-urban, cultural rot problem.
      And, yes, Virginia...I mean the gaggle-toothed, pallid, rashy-skinned, scrawny, wasted, aged 28 going on 70 white-patty,  too.   The one using, making, and selling methamphetamines.   Yes, that guy over there who is 6 feet tall and who weighs 125 pounds.
 

 

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TOTALLY FALSE STATEMENT


"Most of the guns used to commit violence here in Mexico come from the United States," President Obama said during a speech at Mexico's Anthropology Museum. "I think many of you know that in America, our Constitution guarantees our individual right to bear arms. And as president, I swore an oath to uphold that right, and I always will."

"But at the same time, as I’ve said in the United States, I will continue to do everything in my power to pass common-sense reforms that keep guns out of the hands of criminals and dangerous people. That can save lives here in Mexico and back home in the United States. It’s the right thing to do," Obama added.

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FIREARMS, AMERICA, and MEXICO:

 

One of the veritable wonders of Mexico.   The National
Anthropology Museum.  900,000 square feet of display
and 2,000,000 visitors/annum.   Totally impressive and
and worth the half or whole day for a good introduction.
 

     Now, although Rush droned on...kicking sleeping dogs  after Barak Hussein Obama's stupid, vapid, Tommin' speech to the "Mexican College Students who wear Che Guevara T-shirts" gathered at the Museo Nacional de Antropologia in Mexico City....he apparently did follow up on concise and detailed emails (2) that were sent to his attention by El Gringo Viejo.    With well deserved humility, it is certain that Rush (and others who repeated the Obsolete Press 'common knowledge' misinformation) received several hundred concise and precise emails with evidence and certain knowledge from other AAA minor league bloggers and Mexicophiles....proving to his satisfaction that the overwhelming majority of the armaments that are moved into Mexico for and by the drug cartels, came from eastern European and Red Chinese sources.  As we have stated many times the last handlers were known to be Cuban, Venezuelan military, FARC, and brokers in Nicaragua for such weapons that arrived on the south and east sides of Mexico.   The deliveries on the west coast came principally from Red Chinese freighters....which have been repeatedly found to be carrying ingredients for making methamphetamines, and containers full of knock-off AR-16s and AK-47s, round hand grenades (WWII vintage and Warsaw Pact, usually).

 

     FOR BARAK HUSSEIN OBAMA TO BE LECTURING ABOUT AMERICAN ''RESPONSIBILITY' FOR THE SUPPLY OF FIREARMS TO THE CARTELS IS THE HEIGHT OF HYPOCRISY.  OBAMA, ERIC HOLDER, AND A NUMBER OF, let us say "personalities" in the ATF and E, conspired to transfer firearms from established firearms dealers, especially in Arizona.

    They then allowed....specifically directed .... the firearms into the hands of known operatives of various Mexican Cartels.  Unlike the Bush-era Wide Receiver project, the firearms used in Fast and Furious DID NOT HAVE CHIPS AND TRACKING DEVICES OF ANY KIND.

      The old Mexican press saw about all the American guns in circulation suddenly...in 2010....became a reality in certain parts of Mexico, especially the far northwest.   But, repeated efforts to bring this to the attention of anyone who would respond to the problem fell on deaf eyes and blind ears.   During all this time, and even up to these days, the count of dead and wounded innocents grew.   Those killed and/or wounded by weapons involved in Fast and Furious number to slightly less than 500 innocents.  By innocents we mean men, women, and children caught in a crossfire in senseless shootouts between contending cartels or during Military vs. Cartel confrontations.  By innocents we mean soldiers and naval infantrymen killed and wounded in combat with cartel elements.  By innocents we mean honest to mostly honest cops killed and wounded while standing their ground against the vermin.
     The attempt to "frame" the firearms business by Obama, Holder, and the ATF failed...but at horrible cost.  But, no sweat for them, because they, like all democrat Marxist hypocrites don't give a damn about Mexicans anyway.   They just serve for cannon fodder and demagoguery.

     And like the fallen at Benghazi, according to the White House, "....that was a long time ago".   According to Obama's executive branch ".....what difference does it make, now?"  and according to Eric Holder, "....we are investigating this and we have turned over all relevant documentation to the appropriate committee."  Liar, liar, pants on fiar.

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Most of the housecleaning is done now.  Back to my somnambulant state.

El Gringo Viejo 

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Nancy and Hillary, Thelma and Louise, American Tragedy

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Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton
both members of the elite
 National Women’s Hall of Fame
(Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post)

 

      Pelosi, D-Calif., speaking in Little Rock about current affairs in American politics, said she had no inside information about whether Clinton will run. But, she said, she considers Clinton the most qualified potential nominee.

     "I pray that Hillary Clinton decides to run for president of the United States," Pelosi said, drawing loud applause from the crowd of several hundred at the Robinson Center. "... Nobody has been first lady and senator and now secretary of state. Putting everything aside that she is a woman, she'd be the best qualified person that we've seen [in recent years]."

Pelosi said Clinton getting elected would be "such a lift for our country" and the world.

     "Think of the message it sends to women in the world," she said. "The most powerful figure in the world is a woman, and she also happens to be the most qualified for the job."

 

 

Yes, Nancy, just think of the message.  Especially when the woman is a woman.  And when she is the most qualified for the job....of taking a free ride on Air Force I.    Her qualifiers?  Here's how anyone can do it:

 

      (1)   Ride a white-trash, misogynist, rapist, dullard into the White House and keep trying 'til you get back in....and if any of the other little people come too close,  have your SS Agents taze them. Set the tazer on EXTRA HIGH.

 

     (2)    Learn how to sell pardons signed by your pervert husband, so as to gain votes and contributions for your New York US Senator campaign.

 

      (3)    Master the art of bald-face lying.

 

      (4)    Kill all unborn babies.

 

     (5)     Throw everything and everybody overboard, under the bus, in front of the train first.   Then say you are sick, have a concussion, have a backache, permanent PMS, whatever.

 

     (6)     Have "nobodies" write pointless, preachy little books destined for Coffeetable Cemetery, put your name on the dust-ruffle, and gloat about how your book was one of the top 99% sellers.

 

     (7)     Make certain to be snarly and insulting...use lots of profanity....it makes a girl seem tough and manly.

 

     (8)      Always go on camel-rides in Morocco after your husband is caught again in "inappropriate" involvements with interns, rapes and beats up women, assaults a woman on the same day her husband commits suicide because of some involvement with a Clinton breach of the law, or when Vince Foster's widow loses a second husband in three years because he has some information concerning illegal activity on the your part and/or your husband's part of some illegal activity.

 

    (9)      Always remember that great axiom about "It take a village" and repeat frequently, "ME FIRST!"

 

 (10)        Always put Craig Livingstone in charge of your personnel selection committee.

 

     El Gringo Viejo has done a lot of thinking.   In 66 years, he has known from a distance 2 persons who committed suicide, and he has known 2 people from a distance who were murdered.    The Clintons are in triple figures if one counts associations of the 1st and 2nd level of relationship.   But at least they are Marxists.

El Gringo Viejo

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Ghosts of Benghazi

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(Facial provided by ACME Sandblasting)

 

When (Sir Edmund) Hillary stridently shot back a return question, instead of answering that which had been submitted to her, she was following the time tested Marxist tactic, "Always assert, never deny".   Her posturing, flourish, and at times weepy testimony was well calculated and practiced.....designed entirely for the dull and the committed who trundle along behind Hillary as if she were some kind of a religious icon in an outdoor procession  in Italy.

 

     The gauntlet was "....What difference does it make, now?"   The politicians sat dumbfounded that anyone could possibly be that calloused and self-centred.....which, of course, has always been her forte.   She has always been disposed to bald-facedly lie, to throw other people in front of the train, and/or seemingly evaporate in the face of questioning or well-founded contention.

 

      The notion that the woman who came up with the "....telephone is ringing in White House at 03:00 in the morning....who do you want answering that phone?" ....advertisement was somehow disposed to leap over tall buildings and stop speeding trains in defense of her nation...was of course a sham.   Hillary Diane Rodham cares about one thing...and one thing only.   There are 114 (conservative count) dead people, not counting the casualties at Mount Carmel, Elk City, McClennan County, Texas....who wound up dead while simultaneously being peripherally, indirectly, or directly involved in some nefariousness that included Hillary Diane Rodham. 

      This linkage provides "the short list"....http://www.preventtruthdecay.com/mainmiscbodycount.htm .

     This explains, as well, the almost hysterical nervousness of Mrs. Web Hubbell when she was begging that her husband "roll over one more time" with false testimony taking the blame for illegal billing at the Rose Law Firm.  It was billing that credited Hillary's account of charges for legal services....for work that she had not done.....for clients that were not on her client list.   Such "laundering" normally results in disbarment, but in Hillary's case it resulted in a sort of promotion, and Hubbell left his 3rd highest position in the Department of Justice to go make license plates for Uncle Sam.

     The hysterical, nervous call was taped, as a matter of pro forma procedure at the prison housing Web Hubbell, and subpoenaed by the House Judiciary Committee.  It was then stupidly played for public consumption, instead of being held in reserve to play at Hillary's deposition or possible open testimony.   It was a foolish move by the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, who was thinking, perhaps, that the Mainstream Media would have to get on board against the Clintons, after hearing Hubbell's assurance to his wife that he would roll over one more time so as to avoid having to bury his wife.

     These charges are so outlandish that any reasonable person cannot possible take them seriously.   That is Hillary Diane Rodham's protection.   That is William Jefferson Blythe's protection.  They thrive in the slime of extreme, and over-the-top mendacity.   They move in the realm of the outlandishly brash.   For instance, can anyone here imagine what the Obsolete Press would have done had George W. Bush availed himself of  the services of an intern half his age...for whom he had the implied and certain responsibility to protect and not use?   Can anyone imagine how long it would have been before he would have been sitting in prison?  All the Skulls and Crossbones in the world could not have saved him.   Mon Dieu!  Think of the Women's Movement....Gloria All Red and all the Saints of Beelzebub...!

      So, here we are with Benghazi coming back to the surface.   After (Sir Edmund) Hillary's "stomach flu" episode....sudden emergency real live Secretary of State duties taking her to the opposite point on the Globe to the location of Washington D.C. ....  and then, of course, an extra three or four weeks to recover from the Immaculate Concussion.....lo and behold...voila' and shazaam!   Wunderwumon  descends from the clouds and deigns to contaminate Her presence with the commoners.  She tells one bald-faced lie after another, and then exits, stage left.

 

     There may be a bit of karma left.   It is clear and demononstrated that Hillary Rodham was lying under oath....serious business for dumboes such as El Gringo Viejo and most OROGs.   She is the same type of stuffed suit...Straw Man's wife in the Wizard of Oz, nothing more, and certainly something less, as was her husband and as is this horrid Marxist we have occupying the White House at these hours.   We shall see if the karma can work up enough gumption to  bring natural order back into the precincts this disgusting woman has striven to rend asunder.   It would be a daunting task.

 

El Gringo Viejo

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1,000 pound battery? 80 mile range? Red Chinese parts and platform?

ATTRIBUTION: BLOOMBERG

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Bankruptcy to Seek Sale

By Michael Bathon & Kit Chellel - May 1, 2013 5:07 PM CT

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Coda Holdings Inc., parent of the electric-car maker backed by billionaire Philip Falcone, filed for bankruptcy and will seek to sell its assets to a group led by a Fortress Investment Group LLC (FIG) unit for $25 million.

The Los Angeles-based company, whose Coda Automotive unit also sought court protection, listed assets of as much as $50 million and debt of as much as $100 million today in the Chapter 11 filing in Wilmington, Delaware. The company said it intends to sell its assets within 45 days.

Enlarge image

Electric-Car Maker Coda Files for Bankruptcy to Seek Sale

Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

The closely held company’s Coda Automotive unit listed assets of as much as $50 million and liabilities of as much as $100 million in the Chapter 11 filing in Wilmington, Delaware, today.

The closely held company’s Coda Automotive unit listed assets of as much as $50 million and liabilities of as much as $100 million in the Chapter 11 filing in Wilmington, Delaware, today. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

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ATTRIBUTION:  BLOOMBERG

Coda’s bankruptcy is at least the third by an electric vehicle-related company in just over a year. A123 Systems Inc. (AONEQ), a battery supplier to Fisker Automotive Inc., another California-based maker of electric cars, filed for bankruptcy in October. Ener1 Inc., also a maker of batteries for electric cars, entered bankruptcy in January 2012.

While A123 and an Ener1 unit received U.S. government funds, Coda didn’t. The company applied for a $334 million loan in May 2010 and withdrew the request in April 2012.

“After two years of uncertainty, we needed to move forward with our business plan independent of the loan,” Matt Sloustcher, a Coda spokesman, said in an e-mail today.

Production Delays

Coda was forced to seek bankruptcy protection because of production delays, insufficient capital to market and sell its sedan, and slow growth for the electric-vehicle market, which it blames on the scarcity of charging stations, according to a declaration by Chief Restructuring Officer John P. Madden. Coda will focus on its energy-storage business, Chief Executive Officer Phil Murtaugh said in a statement today.

Sales of the Coda sedan, built off China-based Hafei Motor Co.’s Saibao platform, fell short of expectations, with fewer than 100 units sold since entering the market in March 2012, according to court papers. Complications adapting the sedan to an electric platform and meeting U.S. regulatory standards delayed production until a year after originally anticipated in November 2011.

Closely held Coda, which counted former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson as an investor, pitched its vehicle as a “real world” car with better range, battery-pack life and acceleration than competitors such as Nissan Motor (7201) Co.’s Leaf, Ford Motor Co. (F)’s Focus EV and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. (7211)’s i-MiEV hatchbacks. The compact, which cost $37,250 before a $7,500 U.S. tax credit, averages 88 miles (142 kilometers) per charge and can travel as far as 125 miles, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates.

Shrinking Market

About 87,000 electric and plug-in hybrid cars have been sold in the U.S., with two years left to achieve President Barack Obama’s target of 1 million sales for the industry.

While sales of battery-only and plug-in hybrids are rising, the pace trails optimistic goals set by advocates, including Nissan and Renault SA (RNO) Chief Executive Officer Carlos Ghosn, who predicted electric vehicles would be 10 percent of global sales by 2020.

U.S. sales of rechargeable autos totaled 50,288 last year, led by General Motors Co. (GM)’s Volt plug-in, up from 17,805 in 2011, based on data compiled by Bloomberg. Sales for the segment totaled 17,842 in this year’s first quarter. Electric-only vehicle sales totaled 13,542 in 2012, a 34 percent increase over the 10,104 sold in 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

A U.S. congressional committee is investigating the Energy Department’s loans for alternative-fuel vehicles after the manufacturers have been plagued by financial problems.

A123, based in Waltham, Massachusetts, used $132 million in federal grant money to build two plants in Michigan. Fisker fired three quarters of its work force last month and missed its first payment on a U.S. government loan.

Equity Investors

Coda raised about $344 million in equity investments since its founding, according to court documents. Investors included New World Strategic Investment Ltd., Indus Capital and Och-Ziff Capital Management Group LLC (OZM), Aeris Capital, Angeleno Group LLC, Falcone’s Harbinger Capital Partners LLC and Riverstone Holdings LLC, Coda said in 2011.

The company owes about $77.5 million in notes and loans, according to court papers. Coda owes Hafei, its biggest unsecured creditor, $2.7 million. Coda and its affiliates collectively owe about $17 million to their 30 largest unsecured creditors.

A group led by a Fortress affiliate agreed to provide a $5 million delayed-draw loan to help fund operation through the sale process, according to court papers. The Fortress unit will act as the lead bidder at a court-supervised auction and will buy the company for $25 million if no other competing offers surface.

The group may bid debt rather than cash. Coda requested a May 16 hearing to set guidelines to govern the sale process. The company wants a deadline of May 31 for competing offers, a June 3 auction if other bids are received, and a June 6 hearing to seek approval of the sale.

California Assembly

The Coda sedan’s chassis is built in China through a partnership with Hafei, with final assembly in Benicia, California. Lithium-iron-phosphate cells for its 1,000-pound (454-kilogram) battery pack are from LIO Energy Systems, a joint venture of Coda and China’s Tianjin Lishen Battery.

Coda said last year that it would produce battery-powered autos with China’s Great Wall Motor Co. (2333) that would be sold under the U.S. company’s name starting in 2014.

The case is In re Coda Automotive, 13-bk-11154, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Delaware (Wilmington).

To contact the reporters on this story: Michael Bathon in Wilmington at mbathon@bloomberg.net; Kit Chellel in London at cchellel@bloomberg.net

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THIS ACTUALLY NEEDS NO FURTHER EXPLANATION.  OROGS CAN READ.

Thanks for your kind attention.

El Gringo Viejo

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An oddity...co-incidence...a question



One of the more than 40 injured
in the Prague blast.
(Picture David W. Cerney, Reuters)

     It truly seems odd.   In the Prague, Czecha Republic a huge downtown explosion, supposedly of an ignition of a natural gas leakage.   That explosion occurs on 29 April 2013 in the gentrified, very elegant part of the city.   It is the part that fills the tourists' cameras, the Czech visitors and foreign as well.

     While it is the official, and probably the truthful, line, it seems really, really eerie that such an event would occur in a place where correct handling of such plumbing has long been second nature to the populace. Of course, we even have such problems here in Texas where we use natural gas to brush our teeth and to make sticky note.

     The double-down on the eerie part is that in another Czech capital....in Texas...there was an explosion in this same April, on the 17th to be precise.   Almost 20 people were killed and almost 200 were injured to lesser or greater degree.   And yes, Virginia, it occurred in another Czech Capital....the Czech Capital of Texas.    A little place named West, Texas.

     The AMTRAK Texas Eagle goes almost through the due middle of the little town, which is situated more or less midway twixt Austin and Dallas.   It is little north of Waco....in pleasant country, rolling hills, farms, thickets, and small villages.  The northbound Eagle, heading for Fort Worth and Dallas, Texarkana, St. Louis, and Chicago went through a little the fire had started at a fertiliser plant.  The southbound Texas Eagle would have gone through a couple of hours before the fertiliser plant finally exploded...and shook seismographs throughout the entire Republic of Texas.   The folks sitting on the right side of the train would have clearly seen the fire, and certainly commented upon the event.

     And why is West, Texas the Czech Capital of Texas?   Well, Texas is everything the lore has it to be, and it is also a composition of things that might astound a lot of folks.  For instance, the entire area of Central Texas has a rural population (the last generations are substantially urbanised) that is drawn from Germans of different sorts, Polish, Czech, Bohemian, Alsatian, Wends, and Ukrainian/Russian in that descending order.   The area to the east of Interstate 35, that connects Laredo, San Antonio, Austin, Waco, Temple, Ft.Worth/Dallas, is involved with immigrations of Polish and Czech and Bohemian folks  shortly before the War Between the States and continuing on through the earliest 1900s.   There were probably 300,000 of such folks who arrived in the descending order above.  They stayed west of Houston and East of Austin in the land purchases and settlement.   The different types of Germans settled to the West of that line that is now marked by Interstate 35.

     These ethnic groups are still identifiable by their surnames, their numerous Roman Catholic or Lutheran churches  (some quite elegant....look up on Google - Painted Churches of Central Texas).   These groups are very traditional, very typically Texian, agrarian in personal outlook, usually well educated and/or trained, very patriotic to Texas and also loyal to their ethnic past...conservative, primarily Republican voting;    Also clean, productive, communitarian, and anti-socialist.

     This town, West, Texas holds a huge Czech Cultural Celebration every year at Memorial Day with polkas, beer, kolaches, sausages and other barbeque, fancy native costumery, lots of accordions...and really good times.   And above it all are banners, placards, and other types of notice reminding one and all that West is the Czech Capital of Texas.   Simply Google that term and see....West, Texas, the Czech Capital of Texas.

Very Strange.   Two Czech capitals with severe explosions a few days apart.
El Gringo Viejo

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