Missive #546

BULLETS RAIN DOWN UPON A PACKED FOOTBALL STADIUM, killing dozens, and triggering a panic stampede which leads to a thousand more deaths. A police marksman kills the sniper, a mentally unbalanced Desert Storm veteran holding a smoking assault rifle. It’s an open and shut case, or so America is led to believe… In the aftermath of the stadium massacre, an outraged public demands an end to the threat posed by assault rifles,This is a novel that reads like historical fiction. It is the first in a trilogy which I’ll continue to read. This is not a book that anti-gun supporters will like so they should avoid it, gun rights supporters will enjoy it. and Congress passes emergency legislation banning their private possession. American gun owners have one week to turn in their semi-automatic rifles, or face mandatory five year federal prison terms. Jimmy Shifflett, the alleged stadium sniper, is linked to a shadowy “gun club” in southeastern Virginia, which the FBI believes is a cover for a secret right wing militia terror group. Those who knew Shifflett the best don’t believe he was a member of any militia, or that he was guilty of the horrific mass murder. But if he didn’t fire the “assault rifle” into the stadium, who did, and why? A small band of Virginians, thrown together by fate, is forced to undertake a desperate odyssey through a minefield of government blackmail, official deception and covert death squads, to discover the truth behind the stadium massacre, and save their own lives. — Book promo @ goodreads.com

I’m back in my space at the Apache RV Park. Got back here around 15:00 on Friday with a new replacement engine in Desperado. The mechanics got the parts that they needed on Thursday after someone drove to Show Low to pick them up. By the end of that day they had the new engine on the engine mounts and bolted up to the transmission and a few other things done. Then on Friday they completed the install by adding all the auxiliary parts to the engine and I took it for a test drive at noon. After the cool down I drove back to Cruzeville. The engine needs an easy drive for the first 500 miles but the steep grade out of Reserve that had the old engine laboring in 2nd gear was an easy climb in 3rd using cruse control set at 45mph. No sound of engine strain and the speed never dropped below 40mph.

I go to the garage in Reserve on Wednesday and get the A/C recharged plus transmission oil changed. Then pay the final bill and maybe I’m finished, for now, with what has turned out to be an expensive summer. My checking account is bare bones again so I sure hope I’m finished!

Starting on 3 August through 9 August the lowest high temperature at Cruzeville was 99.7°F. The highest was 106.3 on Friday, the day that I returned from Luna where I think the high temperatures were about 3-5 degrees cooler and I got a better cross ventilation breeze. Six day out of seven with high temperatures over 100 at an elevation of 6,371′. I’m sure glad that I finally got the new A/C.

I have updated my Virtual Walk maps showing my Current Location and the monthly progress locations. You can find the maps in the Text Widget directly below my Camp Map in the sidebar.

Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, among many other nations, are showing a resilience and defiance to U.S. imperialist bullying that would have been thought unlikely only a few years ago. Their commitment to mutual development and a fairer world order is making the U.S.-dominated elite Western capitalist system less relevant and less viable. The enormous trade deficits that the U.S. has accumulated over decades, in line with its monstrous national debt of $37 trillion, mean that it needs the rest of the world to keep its essentially parasitic position intact. The integration of the multi polar global economy under the leadership of the BRICS is showing that U.S. power has become increasingly redundant and indeed something to repudiate. It is hitting a wall of solid BRICS.
On the ominous side, however, that is why the U.S. rulers are becoming so insanely warmongering. Will they try to blow up a dead-end? — Trump Trade Tantrums And Bullying Hit Wall Of Solid BRICS Editorial @ Strategic Culture