Good to hear...

... all is well with Baddboy, the High Standard, and life on the Coast. Tell the man we all want to see him back into the Bund.

If the pistol wasn't clean... it was you that didn't clean it. I had it completely cleaned after the storm, but that was a long time ago now, and I know you have handled the pieces since then. I left in May of 2006, remember... and I haven't been back since. I'm not worried though, those are solid, dependable firearms that are made to last. I knew it would fire each and every time.

Wanted to post THIS article showing the latest news from Gaza. Seems my prediction that, even when Israel lets the supplies and fuel into the territory, the Hammas-controlled authorities can't keep the station running. So, because Hammas has failed to fund the PA's coffers with collected fees and taxes, the power is again OFF for more than 1/3 of all Gaza residents.

Now, I'm going to watch the news today and tomorrow very carefully, to see if anyone is going to try and blame this on Israel or the IDF. The PA has the fuel needed for the power plant (a mixture of coal and processed oil) ready to be delivered to the plant... but Hammas hasn't sent the required taxes and fees they have been collecting all year, so no fuel can be delivered. There is no blame to be spread around here... the fault is completely in Hammas' hands. In the mean time, Israel is focusing all its attention on making the peace talks work, and walk away from this joke looking like pros to both the international community and the residents of Gaza, who are sitting in the heat with no electricity (and probably no running water).

This is what I was confident Hammas would fail at... actually running a government. They have gotten pretty good at murder, suicide and violence against innocents, but they were elected to govern the people of Gaza... and any credibility they may have gotten from that elections is fast evaporating each and every time they fail to govern. That was the lesson that was learned the hard way in Ireland in 1922, and again in Northern Ireland in 1990... its way eaiser to make things "not work" than it is to make them "work", and terrorist organizations (reformed or otherwise) are not shown to be good at the latter.