What Did I Miss?

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The Captain and First Mate just returned from a weeklong vacation in “sunny” Southern California, joined by a little guy named “El Niño”.

Record rainfall set in on Tuesday, plus lots of snow in the mountains...

Great for the residents of SoCal suffering under an extended drought...

Not so great for the Captain on vacation…

Nonetheless, it was a good week filled with family visits, ample seafood, and abundant booze!

We made it to the beach twice before the rains set in, and even did the tourist thing at Disneyland… in the rain! (Thanks to a friend on the inside!)

But now we’re back at the home port and trying to catch up on what we missed.

And boy, did we miss a lot!

A New Movie

Just before we left the home port, Disney released a new movie that they think will be big. 

A lot of people got excited about it, so we went to see it.

Unfortunately, the Captain is among the very few who have admitted we are not impressed.

SW:TFA was like a big sentimental reunion of people you haven't seen in 30 years... Oh look, it's a 73-year old Han Solo and the Wookie... Oh look, it's C3PO and R2D2... Oh look, it's... 

Oh who cares! Where's the plot?

Oh yeah, it's the same plot as the first movie: Blow up the Death Star and save the universe... SMH!

The flaws in the movie are too numerous to mention here, but let me point to a few that bugged the Captain:

      1-Another "Death Star"? Is that the only thing the bad guys know how to build? This is the third one! And they're so easy to blow up! Time to try something else.

      2-Do you understand what would happen to the solar system if you sucked all the energy out of the Sun? That is, if you could... You wouldn't need to convert the energy into a planet-killing laser beam. The solar system would die on its own.

      3-After 30 years, "Death Star" technology has advanced, but they're still dog-fighting with "TIE Fighters" and "X-Wings"?

And yet the movie has already broken box office records and the end is not in sight. 

And there are two more episodes on the drawing board... Sigh.

Militants Take Over Bird Sanctuary in Oregon

Wow. You just can’t make this stuff up.

From what I have read so far (Yes, the Captain can read. Why do you keep asking that?), a group of armed militants have taken over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Burns, Oregon.

One of these yahoos threw down the gauntlet early on: “We’re ready to kill or even be killed.”

Captain’s Note: Had these armed militants been Muslim, Black or most anything else, I’m pretty sure they would be dead by now.So far, the U.S. government has largely ignored their little protest.

Although birdwatchers in the area are pissed!

So what is their beef? (Pun intended.)

They want the Federal Government to return federally-claimed land to its original owners.

No, not to the Paiutes. To the Ranchers. (Duh.)

Wait. But wouldn't that be a government hand-out? Surely not!

The dust-up goes back to the 2014 standoff between government agents and Cliven Bundy. When agents arrived to repossess Bundy’s cattle – because he hadn’t paid his grazing fees to the government since 1993 – armed militants showed up ready for a firefight. The government backed down.

This time, the match that lit the fuse was the imprisonment of Dwight Hammond and his son Steve, who set a fire to cover up deer poaching; the fire spread to federal lands, which carries a mandatory 5-year minimum prison sentence. The Hammonds turned themselves in peacefully last week as the judge ordered.

But that’s when “Y’all Qaeda” / “Vanilla ISIS” / the “Yee-Hawdees” (they’ve been called a lot of things) showed up.

Almost all of them are outsiders.

Two of them are Cliven Bundy’s boys.

Two more pretended to be Marine Corps veterans.

So far, they have:

            -posed for the press

            -asked for donations of “snacks”

            -blown cash donations on a beer binge

            -whined that no one is taking them seriously

Although the press has published their real names – and most everything about them – they go by codenames like “Moroni” (from the Mormon faith, not the root word “Moron”); “Captain O”, the guy responsible for the beer binge; and “Fluffy Unicorn”.

I’m not sure that last one is true, but it could be.

Here’s the thing. Ranchers say the government is trying to drive them out of business. But the truth is, the government is leasing federal lands to the ranchers for $1.35 per animal unit per month, where leasing from a private landowner averages $20 per month!

In fact, the American taxpayers are subsidizing the ranchers by more than $100 million per year.

Perhaps there is a reason the people of Burns, Oregon, want these cuckoos to leave!

More as this story unfolds.

No, not really. It’s not worth following.

But it is important to note that this foolishness is receiving very little public support. Perhaps the American public is finally beginning to see through all this right-wing, knee-jerk, anti-government foolishness.

O Captain, My Captain

The owners of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers fired head coach Lovie Smith on Thursday after only two seasons at the helm of the flagging football team. Apparently the Bucs – who have made it to playoff games only twice since their 2002 Super Bowl win (and those were wildcard positions) – weren’t improving fast enough.

In his first year, Lovie led the team to a “strategic” 2-14 record, which garnered a first-round draft pick, quarterback Jameis Winston. In his second year, with this talented rookie quarterback, Lovie took the team to 6-10.

Winston broke all kinds of rookie records in the process.

But the Buccaneers want to win… and win now!

So Lovie is out, the 3^rd head coach in five years.

People in the know think the Bucs’ offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter is the likely successor, but the management is going through the formalities of interviewing others just to prove they did due diligence.

C’mon, Bucs! Get your act together! Don’t let your cheerleaders be the best thing about you!

Banana Winds Approaches 200,000 hits

Who would have thunk it!

When the Captain started writing this blog back in 2007, I had no idea where it would go, or if anyone would ever read it. It has evolved and changed over the years – anyone remember the lime green background I first used? – and yet you are still reading it!

I hope you click on some of my blogger friends as well. Most of them write some pretty good stuff. As this new year unfolds I plan to remove the bloggers who just aren’t writing (If you are one of those and reading this, you’ve been put on notice!), but I will replace them with some good stuff. In fact, I just added Ed Fox’s blog; he’s a well-respected pirate historian.

But, wow! 199,285 hits and counting!

This calls to mind a famous and favorite passage from William Faulkner:

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

With that admission, this idiot says, “Thank You!”