Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Pigs in the Blanket

I have a Mac Book Pro. There is a feature on it that allows me to hold down the "Command" button and hit the plus or minus sign. When I do, the text gets larger or smaller. I know there are similar features on Microsoft Computers but nothing as nice as the one on the Mac. As I get older and my eyesight dims, I find myself using this feature a lot.

I'm making slow progress on my camera drone. I took the basic design off my Anaconda model, which I have yet to fly and built my own version. I don't have a reputation as a great builder among the members of my club. They see me as some sort of a slapstick who doesn't pay much attention to detail and takes parts from old wrecks and slaps them together into flying models. Their view has some merit but I'm able to build my models at low cost and take the money I save and put it into FPV components.

FPV stands for First Person View and a modeler who attempts to fly in this mode flies from a camera inside rather than standing on the edge of the flying field, Third Person View. (TPV). Actually it's something like a writer who uses the "I" or first person to write about their Central Character rather than the more common "He, She or It" of third person.

The reason I got into flying model airplanes was to fly FPV. For the past three years I've been learning to fly model airplanes. In the process I've done some indoor flying in the winter, and dappled in quadcopters. With all the aids being used in "Quads" they are the easiest to fly. If you get in trouble you flick the "Return to Home" switch and it returns and lands in front of you. Still there has been a need, in my case, to devote plenty of time and resources into achieving the goal of becoming an FPV pilot.

The Federal Aviation Administration has been working tirelessly to impede the evolution and proliferation of FPV flying in model airplane clubs. They have their work cut out for them. The cat was already well out of the bag before they decided that FPV enthusiasts needed more supervision. They came up with a litany of restrictions some of which include....an FPV flyer must have a spotter, stay under 400 ft, not operate near an airport and not use immersion goggles. There efforts are designed to strangle the baby in the cradle have, so far been too little too late.

I have no doubt that some day, numbskulls, like the snipers in Dallas, will awaken to the possibilities of using "Hobby Drones" to advance some twisted anarchist terror agenda. When that happens the "Liberals" will see further restricting the use of Hobby Drones in the same way they try banning Assault Rifles and Handguns. Unfortunately, model airplane enthusiasts are not protected under the Bill of Rights. Rather than take on the cultural and societal issues that cause aberrant behavior they see the solution as taking away the means for conducting such behavior.

For example in the war on terror, instead of passing special legislation to deal with "Crimes against Society." and trying and shooting terror suspects on the spot, our society has resorted to elaborate electronic screening at airports. The cost of this approach is expensive and the effectiveness has been hit and miss. We have tried as a society to treat Terrorists as Criminals and use the Criminal Justice System as a process for dealing with it. The result has been totally inadequate. We need to change the way we think rather than trying to restrict the tools that only come into play in the last link of the chain of causation.

There is plenty of "Bad Shit" taking place out there, long before some idiot gets their hands on a firearm or a drone. Changing cultural norms of behavior is hard but these knee jerk answers offered by Liberal Politicians don't work. When it is perfectly OK for demonstrators to chant "Pigs in the Blanket, Fry 'um like Bacon" to ignite social unrest that not surprisingly explodes into violence... we have issues that go far beyond restricting the tools an anarchist uses.

Our President is a big part of the problem. Every time he opens his mouth, gun sales skyrocket, or he throws fuel on the racial tensions already existing in the Country. He has divided the nation and we are in worse shape now, by any measure, then when he took office. Soon we'll be rid of him but not soon enough. Waiting in the wings is a woman who's even worse. She lies, considers herself above the law, and has a proven record of being unfit for public office. "But I broke no laws," she laments, as if the law is some high standard of behavior. She has no moral compass and if elected, will continue the down hill spiral we've been headed in for the past six and a half years.