Well, the city of Jacksonville, FL tried to sneak one like this just under the passage of state laws to prevent just such a thing. They wanted a 60 acre waterfront property, and were willing to pay $17 million for the property. Evidently this is a rip off, so they went to court, and the jury "adjusted" the price to $67.4 million. Now, Jacksonville must decide if they want to pay the price, or deed the property back to the original owner. Of course, the city will probably raise taxes to pay for the property. After all, once the government get its hooks into you, they don't let go. But you never know. Hopefully the city will abandon its dreams of conquest.

But I wouldn't hold my breath on it.

I will be playing not one, not two but in three different tournaments over the three days. Friday will see me playing doubles with a friend, Saturday will be part one of a 5 battle Grand Tournament, Saturday night I will participate in a Battlefleet Gothic tournament as well. Sunday will finish off the last two battles of the Grand Tournament. Needless to say, come Sunday evening, I will be one tired and gamed out puppy.

What I am concentrating on right now is my Battlefleet Gothic space fleet. You see, BFG is a spaceship fleet kind of game, within the Warhammer 40k universe. It's how the different races move between the stars.

Anyhow, I thought I would share with you what I've been painting.

This first picture is of Thunderhawk assault bombers. In 40K, they carry 30 Space Marines, and are about three feet long in the regular 40k game. They are designed to be dropped from orbit to drop Space Marines on target. In BFG, they are used to carry Marines to enemy ships for Hit and Run attacks that cause critical damage.

Anyhow, here they are. Click on the picture for the full picture of detail:

Now, if you clicked on the picture to see the detail, you think, no biggie, I've painted on that level for years. Wrong. Here's the same ships, with my finger next to them for scale.

Now what do you think? And I did it without any magnifying glasses of any kind. Just my bare eyeballs. Did I mention that I have ten stands of those little buggers? That's right, thirty Thunderhawks. And I had to drill into each one and glue a section of a paper clip in the bottom of the Thunderhawk and then glue it to the base. Just about drove me over the edge.

Now to show you the ships that they will be coming from. This is a Strike Cruiser, which carries a company of Space Marines. Again, just to show you the scale, the second picture has my finger.

The Strike Crusier(s) (there are five of them in my fleet) still need work. This is the one that is the most complete, and as you can see there is no highlighting or anything to bring out the detail of the ship. That is what is delaying most of the production. Once I can come to a color scheme, the rest will go quickly.

It is most unlikely that I will walk away with any awards from the 40k tournament. I will be happy to finish in the top half, considering that there will be 70-90+ people playing in the 40K GT. Getting an award in the doubles is a maybe, considering what my partner has, and the fact that there won't be as many people/teams playing in the doubles. I am going for the best painted BFG fleet, if I don't win the whole shebang, like I hope for. I won the last BFG tournament I was in, but considering there were only four guys in the tournament, it wasn't all that it was cracked up to be. So like I said, I'm planning on winning the tournament, but as we all know no plan survives contact with the enemy.

T-Minus 79 days to The Big Waaagh!

And don't you know, but you're not out of the hole yet. Tax Freedom Day is another 8 days away. What is Tax Freedom Day? If all of your income from January 1 had gone to the government until all of your taxes were paid, it would take until April 23rd before you could start working for yourself. Chew on that for a while.

In a brilliant attempt to appeal to Mexican consumers, they have alienated the entire American populace. I wonder if this will hurt them in the long run. Probably, at least I hope so. Any company that does such a stupid thing needs to be penalized.

In case you're wondering exactly what I am talking about, anybody who condones such a violation of sovereignty of a country needs to be put out of business.

Now, I'm not under any illusions about my painting skill. It is a hair above average, but I put a lot of love into my models. My award did not come from my painting, but from the lack of painting of everyone else in the tournament. There is a scale that the judges go by, numbered one to nine. I always get 7 out of the nine, simply because I am completely painted, you can see who my HQ unit is, and several other points that I don't remember. I know I will never get the last two points, nor the 10th point if there is more than one player who makes nine points.

So, now I have two Best Generals, three Best Sportsmans, and now a Best Painted. Now all I need to make is the Best Overall award.

My first game was against Ben and his Orks, and it was a tough battle. It turned out to be a draw, but I was 4.5 points away from a solid win. You can't get any closer to a win and not win.

My second game was against a kid I don't remember his name, but he played Imperial Guard, oddly enough without any tanks or heavy weapons teams. This one turned out to be a draw as well, he wouldn't come after me and I couldn't get to him without getting shot up. This one turned out to be a draw as well, I managed to kill a couple of units and only lost a Rhino APC.

The third game was against fellow Adeptus Memphis member John and his Orks. This turned out to be a solid win, but a very hard fought battle. At the end of the battle I had a squad and a half, plus a tank and 3 Rhinos. All he had left was his Loota boyz. I was literally one die roll away from a victorious slaughter. I killed his only vehicle, and you have to roll on a unique table to see what happens to it. I wanted to roll a 6, because I thought it would careen out of control and possibly off the board. I rolled a 6! but then I found out the vehicle just dies. When I asked him what number I needed to make the truck careen, he said a 3 or 4. So, as an "what if," I rolled again, getting a 4! Of course, this roll didn't matter, but I rolled to see what direction and how far the truck would go, and it would have gone off the board, along with his command squad, which was over a 1/3rd of his total points. He would have given me the game at that point.

Any way, his big bad command squad got out, and proceeded toward my troops. I charged him, instead of letting him charge me, because when I charge in, I get several advantages, such as the ability to reroll misses on the charge. This one squad, whom I have faced before, ate my entire army by itself the last time I fought it. Well, revenge was sweet, because I decimated that squad, killing 8 models, where you had to hit and wound them twice each. The Warboss and one other model survived my command squad, but died when he charged into another squad already in close combat.

At this point, knowing how tough the competition was for this tournament, I was resigned to something like 8th or 10th out of 14 total players. When it came time to announce the winners, I got Best General! I was totally blown away. When I found out I got 2nd place and was only 4 points behind the guy who won, I was a little disappointed with myself. The one die roll against John, or killing a few more of Ben's Orks and I would have taken the whole thing!

This is now the fourth time I have come in 2nd, and only a few points like this away from the total win. With the difference being like it was with this tournament, every die roll counted.

When I started my first major tournament back in 2003, I thought I'd never win one. Now I can taste a win like Tantalus.

Present score of trophies now stand at three Best Sportsman and three Best Generals, plus one overall winner for SpecialistCon. I'm going to need more wall space!

I saw him on The Tonight Show a long time ago, and he did his "Modern Man" routine. I like it so much I present it here for your consumption.

Enjoy.

That being said, take a look at the image below:

Yes, that is a Cuban Flag with a picture of Che on it on the back wall. That's the whole object of the picture.

Please note that the disclaimer at the bottom. They wanted to make sure that you don't associate them with the Obama campaign, even though they are actively campaigning for him.

Obama is also campaigning for a single payer health care system. You can see my thoughts on that subject just two entires down.

Just thought you'd like to know.

H/T to Little Green Footballs and Rachel Lucas.

When will we get the association? "Gun-Free Zones" are nothing more than a target rich environment for those who want to kill.

From Luby's Cafeteria in Texas, to this latest shooting, a properly licensed and used weapon in the hands of an armed citizen would have made a difference. Even if only one person is saved by a licensed citizen shooting down a rogue gunman, isn't that enough? The anti-gunners keep saying "if it saves one life," well the armed citizen in the right place in the right time could prevent more than one death, as opposed to more "gun-free zones."

If you can, if you are able, if you have made the internal decision to end another life when it is necessary, by all means, arm yourself.

It is better to have and not need, than to need and not have.

Anyhow, the people running the meeting were proud that they had voted for either Hillary or Obama. They talked about Single-Payer medical plans, and how good it would be to have such things.

Let me explain the Single-Payer medical system. The government pays for everything, and if you try to pay a doctor for services rendered, then both you and the doctor will be in deep trouble.

Do we have a health care crisis in this country? Probably. But it's brought on by people going to the emergency room for colds, or other minor medical matters. But it will be a whole lot worse when we are talking about making medical care for "free."

First of all, it isn't "free." It's paid for by increasing taxes on you and everybody else. And when I mean increasing taxes, I mean a lot. The numbers that the present Presidential candidates are quoting are less than 1/4th of what it will really cost. Because there will be layers and layers of bureaucracy. As of today, when looking at transfer payments (money gathered in taxes that are paid to citizens, like Welfare), only something like *17* cents actually make it into the hands of the recipients. The other 83 cents is absorbed in bureaucracy.

Now, we only have to look at our Northern neighbor to see how well a Single-Payer system runs, just look at Canada. It takes months to get something simple like a CT scan, which you get less than in an hour at any American medical facility. Like the "Socialist Paradise" that Cuba is, all you have to do is look at what way the rafts are going. Canadians are flocking to the United States like migrating geese to get medical treatment in a timely manner.

Now, let's say we do elect someone who wants to enact a Single-Payer system, and they manage to pull it off. Everyone would then have equal access to health care, and it's fully paid for. Despite the massive tax increase, which would cause a recession (but I digress), suddenly, our system will be deluged with new patients. Unless there was a corresponding increase of capacity, then quality will go down.

Look at it this way. You have a field of land, that produces X amount of grain a year. After accounting for loss, and grain needed for replanting, you can feed Y people. You have a stable system. But then, due to some reason we now have Z people, and Z is more than Y. Either one of two things is going to happen. Either you find more land to raise more grain to feed the extra people, or some people will starve to death, until the number of Y is reached again, and the system stabilizes again.

With the incentive of being a doctor being taken away (you won't have doctors getting paid $100,000+ a year, that's too much), then we have no way to increase capacity. That means all of us will be going on a starvation diet of medical assistance. Care will have to be rationed, and even more people will get a substandard level of care than gets it today.

There are people out there that need care. The disabled need help, because many of them are not able to afford health care and have no way to obtain it. These people already have Medicare, so it will only get worse for them. The ones who do work, but are unable to afford health care need some help. However, if they study and improve their knowledge base, they can get better jobs and afford the health care they need. Those who do not work and do not want to work shouldn't get anything, but those are the people that will drain the blood from the system.

Consider this before you pull that lever for President.

They don't think that WWII was justified, they don't think Al Qaeda is a threat. Among other things.

Please don't misconstrue what I am saying, I don't want them to be shut up, quite the opposite. I think by exposing their beliefs to the general public, they marginalize themselves because of their extreme views. They show themselves as a bunch of tinfoil hat wearing nut jobs who have nothing in common with normal America.

Here's another example of this kind of person:

How can you reasonably communicate with a person that has this kind of world view? You can't. All you can do is shun them. Me, I like to poke fun at them, like I do here from time to time.

Poke, poke, poke.

When threatened with withholding $2.3 million by the Federal government, the Bezerkly City Council quickly fell back from their position, falling apart like a house of cards.

Another example of people who don't think through the consequences of their actions. They thought "free speech" was truly free and without recriminations. They thought that they could say or do whatever they wanted and piss on anybody who disagreed with them. Well, it turns out some of the people who disagreed with them had the power to yank something precious away from them. And so, in typical Liberal fashion, They traded their principles for money.

Way to go.