We stopped briefly in Quartzsite, Arizona, for gas and some bottled water (the desert makes you very thirsty). While we were parked there, this road runner walked across the parking lot. I took this picture of him from the truck just before he ran off into the field. For a moment, he was a “parking lot walker,” before becoming a “field runner.” At no time did he say anything like “beep, beep.”

No larger size image available.

James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal posted this item today about MoveOn.org’s attack on Fox News:

MoveOn.org, the ghastly people who brought us “General Betray Us,” have joined President Obama in his war against Fox News Channel. Yesterday we received an email from MoveOn’s Noah T. Winer that begain:

“All year, FOX has worked 24/7 to block President Obama’s agenda—repeating lies about “death panels,” promoting Tea Party protests, and whipping up fake political scandals.

Now, President Obama is fighting back. The White House communications director said FOX is a “wing of the Republican Party . . . let’s not pretend they’re a news network.” To draw attention to its biased coverage, President Obama will not appear on FOX for the rest of this year.

It’s about time Democrats stood up to FOX! Can you sign this petition asking Democrats to support President Obama’s stance by staying off FOX as long as he does?”

We think Fox is too left-wing, so we signed the petition in the hope of remedying that.

Seriously, though, we are of two minds about this, and we should begin by disclosing our direct interest in the matter: We have been an employee of Fox’s parent company, News Corp., since it acquired Dow Jones & Co. in December 2007, and we own some News Corp. stock.

Of course it delights us to see the president and his most unsavory supporters promote Fox as the only TV news network that isn’t in the tank for the administration. Although this isn’t entirely fair to the other networks–in particular, ABC News’s Jake Tapper has shown a strong independent streak–it is well-deserved recognition for the work Fox has done in bringing to the fore such stories as the Van Jones and Acorn scandals, which many other news organizations ignored for as long as they could.

On the other hand, we are an American, and Barack Obama is our president too. It cracks us up when MoveOn.org cheers on the president for “fighting back” by “not appearing” and “staying off.” “Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about, and gallantly he chickened out.”

But it scares the hell out of us to think that this also seems to be Obama’s approach to dealing with America’s enemies.

Emphasis mine - Obama seems unable to face his enemies, political or otherwise.

Fox Hunt cartoon via the Patriot post.

We paused for a few minutes at the General George Patton Museum at Chiriaco Summit, right along Interstate 10 in the California Desert. When Bob and Bear paused at the twice-life-size statue of Patton and ‘Willy,’ I thought ‘a man and a dog and a man and a dog.’ >click<

It was almost a religious experience. The grandeur of a giant department store devoted to all things outdoors and shooting. Damsel wanted to camp in the parking lot. Her eyes glazed over with the faraway look of a shopaholic who sees something shiny. Me? I was drooling on the seemingly endless display cabinet of hand guns with lower-than-expected pricing. Oh, and there was that S&W M&P 15-22 that flirted with my brain - I had to avert my glance to avoid being totally mesmerized.

California needs stores like this, but we know the creeps in Sacramento and the idiotic Governator will drive stores and revenues like this away from the Anti-Midas state government - everything they touch turns to sh*t. The “Golden State” paradigm is now a fond memory from the past.

Only a couple more nights out on the road and we’ll be home again. But not to worry, we’re already planning our next excursion to the North. More on that later.

The Catalina Mountain Range, just outside of Tucson, AZ.

Very pretty. I also love the little red-bird of paradise flowers like the one that got into the edge of this view of the mountains.

We may be intermittent today . . .

Dear Customer:

On Saturday October 17, 2009 at 10:00 am PDT we will be migrating all MySQL databases to a new server. The new server is to alleviate recent issues caused by high load on the current server as well as to upgrade to MySQL version 5.1.

The procedure we will use to migrate will ensure the least amount of downtime per database.

The window for this maintenance is 2 hours. During this time there will be periods of intermittent connectivity errors to MySQL.

Thank you,
Omnis Network, LLC

Taken near Tucson, AZ. The photo says it all about its beautiful mission . . .

This weekend is “Heldorado Weekend” in Tombstone, AZ. The costumes and pageantry are in celebration of the 128th anniversary of the famous “Gunfight at O.K. Corral.”

Check out this panoramic image of an actual derailment we passed near Globe, AZ, today. Workers were busily working to fix this mess. Click on the image to enlarge.

It made me wonder who is going to fix the derailed US Government? The House of Reps, Senate, and Administration in Washington are seriously off-track. It will have to be the American voters over the next several election cycles that will vote the idiocy out of office. Hopefully, ACORN and other subversive organizations will have been fully exposed for the frauds they are and sanity will prevail.