Thursday, February 28, 2013

Just when you thought you had heard the last of Maxine Waters’ dumb remarks …

She ups and adds 26.7 million people to the workforce.

“’We don’t need to be having something like sequestration that’s going to cause these jobs losses, over 170 million jobs that could be lost ...’

“Per the BLS, as of January 2013 there were 143.3 million people employed in the US. The total civilian workforce is 155.7 million people.”

http://ace.mu.nu/


Oh, well. She fits right in the Democratic Party part of Congress, right there with Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who talked about First Amendment references to gun ownership.

I joined the Army with the condos and private rooms**

(A sergeant I know, after completing a service academy, said, “There is TRADOC, and then there is the Army.”)

FORT EUSTIS, VA – A former U.S. Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) soldier was surprised to find the Army has evolved much in the last twelve years. After immediately requesting a transfer to TRADOC on September 12, 2001 and spending over a decade instructing in numerous Army schools, he decided it was time for much needed change.

“Something was missing from my life,” said Sergeant First Class Will Travis. “Even though I had the most important job in the military, training those who fight, I knew it was finally time to deploy overseas when I was passed over for promotion.”

SFC Travis was eager to reintegrate into the Army after being out for so long. He was assigned as the scout/sniper section platoon sergeant with HHC 1-160th Infantry Battalion.

“I knew I would immediately earn my soldiers respect due to my extensive teaching experience,” said SFC Travis. “The platoon even welcomed me with a heartfelt nickname — Sergeant Va-Jay-Jay. Whatever that means.”

The excitement soon wore off when Travis discovered everything he knew about the Army was wrong. Upon showing up to formation for his first field exercise wearing a LBE (load bearing equipment), woodland kevlar helmet, and wielding a M-16A2, Travis knew he had much to learn.

“The terminology and equipment was so foreign to me,” said Travis. “I was confused when told we were taking plate carriers to Afghanistan. Do they not have food trays in the dining facility over there?”
Luckily, SFC Travis found a mentor and only friend in his new platoon leader, 2nd Lieutenant Mark Ching.

The young officer, a 2011 Cal State Fullerton ROTC graduate, took pity on his platoon sergeant.

“You have to feel for the guy,” said 2LT Ching. “I know how difficult it is to be thrown into a leadership position with having no creditable military experience.”

The two quickly bonded during the long hours Lieutenant Ching taught Travis how to properly clean a weapon, turn on a radio, and read a map.
However, within days of deploying to Afghanistan, Travis had a change of heart.

“I went back to TRADOC,” Travis admitted. “I’m happy being surrounded by E-7 and E-8 slick sleeves. Granted, some soldiers have deployed and hate being here, but we’re a happy family regardless.”
In a moment of self reflection, Travis told the Duffel Blog he would leave the military three years shy of retirement.

“I honestly love the Army,” Travis said. “But not this Army. It makes no sense and quite frankly scares me. I was trained to fight a standing military using tactics and equipment from the 90′s. I don’t belong here. I really, really don’t.”

http://www.duffelblog.com/2013/01/former-tradoc-soldier-confused-scared-after-discovering-army-changed/#ixzz2MEb1oyhc


** From Private Benjamin.

Hudson, NY, alderman replies to gun control opponent

“Its [sic] really neat that all you gun toting tea party psychotards are so interested in the goings on of our little City,” Hudson Alderman David Marston wrote to Joanna Johnson-Smith — the New York state organizer of Gun Rights Across America — on February 22.

“On the other hand, I guess its [sic] not surprising, considering you ideologues aren’t interested in actual policy, but rather grandstanding on mythical narratives of victimization,” Marston continued.

Marston referred to advocates of adhering to the Constitution as “gun nuts,” “radical lunatics,” “barbarians,” and even “Eagle Scout God Worshiping Patriots,” possibly the worse insult a moonbat could imagine.

http://moonbattery.com/

(If I lived in Hudson, I would sell T-shirts: “Eagle Scout God Worshiping Patriot.”)

“My great-grandmother was sent to a camp and did not come out.'

K our exchange student said, “Priscilla said you have written a book?”

“I’ve written three,” I said. “They’re all in the computer.”

“You haven’t had them published?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t know how.”

“You send a letter to publishers,” she said.

That part I know. “I guess I could shotgun letters to publishers.”

She said, “You shotgun a letter to publishers.”

She said she did not know anyone who had written a book. “Except for my grandfather’s older brother, and it was a small book.” She held her index finger and thumb half an inch apart.

Her great uncle’s book recounts the journey made by him and his six brothers and sisters during World War II. They walked across Poland and to the country where they and K’s family now live.

“My grandfather was 2 years old and 3 years old, so he does not remember much,” she said. “They had a big house and then many people were sent to live in the house and they had to leave.”

Her great-grandfather “was involved in the war,” she said, but she does not know where or in what capacity.

“My great-grandmother was sent to a camp and did not come out.”

There are many stories like K’s. Thousands, perhaps. Hearing one somewhat near firsthand gives importance.

Some people do not care about what happens. Others intend such things will never happen again.

Rodman meets the other Lil' Kim

“SEOUL, South Korea — Ex-NBA star Dennis Rodman met North Korea’s Kim Jong Un on Thursday on the third day of his improbable journey to Pyongyang, telling the leader ‘You have a friend for life,’ a delegation spokesman said.

“The encounter makes Rodman the most high-profile American to meet with the young North Korean leader since Kim took power in December 2011 …” – Associated Press

http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2013/feb/28/dennis-rodman-tours-north-koreas-monuments/

‘Man, it is so easy today to just not-give-a-damn-about-anything.’

Comment to: "If schoolteachers were overwhelmingly male and girls were suffering as a result..."

http://www.althouse.blogspot.com/2013/02/if-schoolteachers-were-overwhelmingly.html

And in the same neighborhood:

“It has been many months since and after an internship and a deferred paying job I didn't see a cent for, I'm back living with my folks. I'd go elsewhere for work, but I honestly can't afford it. I'd take the terrible, boring jobs so many of my contemporaries accept without complaint, but I'm so depressed over my state in life I can't seem to find the energy to care enough to survive. I have been so very lucky and blessed to have parents that support me both financially (though I wish so hard I could finally be totally independent) and emotionally. But my dad (very reasonably) said he won't continue to help after I turn 26. I know it's supposed to give me initiative to get my life together, but even with this date looming I just can't find the energy to care about self-preservation.”

‘Unemployment Stories, Vol. 28 …’

http://gawker.com/5986713/unemployment-stories-vol-28-im-inclined-to-simply-disappear-into-silence

Both stories linked from www.maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com


The beginning of the first day of Basic Combat Training

September 12, 1964. A company’s worth of Private E1s stood or sat and leaned against tall pine trees just outside the reception station at Fort Polk, La.

The afternoon was hot and humid, the combination of heat and humidity pushing the Wet Bulb Thermometer into the Danger area. Because of that temperature, every private wore his green fatigue trousers cuffs outside his combat boots. The privates looked like a bunch of civilians dressed like sloppy soldiers.

Talk among the privates was the same as the day before and the day before that. Drill sergeants would beat a soldier for the slightest infraction. Some of us would die from physical training or while in hand-to-hand combat training or from an accident on a rifle range. Privates who made those predictions had been told by an older brother or a cousin, who knew somebody who knew somebody … Rumor was 10 soldiers in one company died from meningitis a month ago.

There was talk, too, of sports and cars and girls back home, stories that would be inflated even more in the weeks ahead.

The Spec. 4 who had sort of marched the mob from the barracks to the trees called “At ease!” Talk stopped. The real soldier said, “You may now blouse your boots!”

Cheers erupted. Every private unlaced his boots and stuffed trouser cuffs inside his boots and relaced his boots. Everybody suddenly felt like a soldier.

Then the buses arrived, four, shiny green and with “U.S. ARMY” in yellow letters. The buses stopped. Doors opened, and from the first bus stepped a staff sergeant. His fatigues were ironed stiff, with sharp creases down each trouser leg and shirt arm. He wore a polished black helmet liner pulled down so his eyes barely showed. His combat boots held a mirror shine. He was the meanest looking man I had ever seen in my life, and perhaps the blackest.

My mind said, “Oh, lordy, what have I got myself into?”

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Earning his princely salary

Aug. 12 -- The RAF search-and-rescue captain (Captain Wales) successfully piloted two girls, aged 13 and 16, to safety last night when they were left stranded off the Welsh coast.

http://www.eonline.com/news/338791/prince-william-saves-schoolgirls-in-helicopter-sea-rescue

Feb. 27 -- On Tuesday, Prince William swooped in to help save a pair of hikers via helicopter after the two were reported missing earlier this week while trekking the mountainous north Wales region of Snowdonia.

http://www.eonline.com/news/392585/prince-william-rescues-hikers-stranded-in-perilous-mountain-region

Hovered over at www.fark.com

White House v. Bob Woodward

Or, Obama tries to outdo Kerry on the right to be stupid.

First, Woodward says “Oh, yes, you did, too!” when Obama says those evil Republicans, “not me,” came up with the sequestration idea.

Then Woodward says a White House staffer says he “will regret” challenging the Chosen Ones on sequestration.

Now, Woodward says Obama “is exhibiting ‘a kind of madness I haven't seen in a long time’ for a decision not to deploy an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf because of budget concerns.”

http://www.businessinsider.com/bob-woodward-obama-sequester-republicans-2013-2

Linked from http://ace.mu.nu/

Didn’t anybody in the White House watch All the President’s Men?

Greif counselors will be available

That’s always a line in a news story after people die from a bus or train accident, tornado, earth quake, airplane crash, school shooting.

And I always ask the television: For what reason?

I wonder, too: How does it work, this counseling of grief?

And: Why do the TV people who announce its presence never report on the number of participants?

And: What goes on in grief counseling?

“Bereavement counselling (sic) can help you to explore your feelings and come to terms with your grief by talking one to one with a trained counsellor (sic). You will probably attend a number of sessions with your counsellor (sic) spread over weeks or months, until you are ready to stop. During these sessions you can talk about how you feel and your counsellor (sic) will listen and comment, rather than giving you advice. Bereavement counselling (sic) can help to support you through this very difficult time.” (Note: “Counseling” and “counselor” were misspelled in the article.)

http://www.friendsatrest.com/bereavement/what-happens-at-bereavement-counselling/


I do not intend to “explore my feelings” or “come to terms” with my grief. When something bad happens, I will do whatever I do. As far as coming “to terms,” time does at least place a Band Aid © on emotional wounds.

What you do is live with it. What you do is get over it. The world turns and the sun will come up tomorrow.

Others believe the same.

‘Doing More Harm Than Good’

“Shortly after the attacks, (researchers) offered participants an opportunity to share their thoughts. Some did, some didn’t. Two years later, the scientists found that people who kept it inside were better off than those who let it all hang out.”

http://drx.typepad.com/psychotherapyblog/2013/02/doing-more-harm-than-good-by-pathologizing-grief.html

I have to wonder: In the times before analyzing every event and every emotion, how did humanity survive?

Psychotherapyblog link from maggiesfarm.

Another thing: These days, everybody knows how to cry on camera.

It’s not fair and the government should pay

In a writing last week, somebody mentioned a fact no one has brought up in the debate over banning assault rifles (whatever those are).

Some sort of ban is necessary, don’t you know, because the favorite American assault rifle – the AR-15 -- is so prevalent. You see them all the time, right? People walking down a sidewalk, AR-15 on a sling; drivers on the intestate showing off that evil black rifle.

Every one has an AR-15.

Except, as the writer pointed out, only people with some otherwise not needed cash can afford an AR-15.

I did some checking.

At Guns America – New Frontier AR15, $1,100. LWRC M6, $2,199. Core 15 M4 Scout, $1,150. JP Enterprises AR15 Super Match, $2,450.

At Gun Broker – Bushmaster AR15 $1,475. Olympics Arms 5,56 Gamestalker AR15, $1,699.99.

Those are just two of the hundreds of places the average American can buy an evil black rifle. If the average American has $1,100 - $2,450 to toss across a counter.

And then there is the 5.56mm ammunition, assuming one wishes to sling lead downrange from his/her purchase.

At Ventura Munitions, 1,000 rounds cost $601.30 - $704.89.

At Lucky Gunner, 20 rounds cost $21.50. Five hundred rounds will hit your credit card for $485. One thousand rounds, $900.

So you can see, owning an AR15 is an expensive undertaking. Firing the thing adds a lot of dollars.

Now, what about those Americans who don’t have $1,500 to trade for a rifle and ammunition? We have a right to keep and bear arms, so why shouldn’t the government pay us to maintain that right?

Does the Constitution say the federal government shall send billions of dollars overseas every year? It doesn’t?

Sounds as though a lot of foreigners have unconstitutional rights. Maybe a few thousand AR15s would fix that problem.

No one knows better about the right to be stupid

“In America you have the right to be stupid.” – John Fitzgerald Kerry, speaking in Germany.

The right to be stupid

http://thisainthell.us/

(I can’t begin to count the times I’ve heard somebody say, “I’m stupid, Man. It’s my right.” Since anybody with half a brain is going to California, the right to be stupid has to be a real right.)

Just be quiet and do as we say. We know what's best for you

Cass Sunstein: “(P)people make a lot of mistakes, and … those mistakes can prove extremely damaging.”

Thomas Sowell: “Professor Sunstein is undoubtedly correct that ‘people make a lot of mistakes.’ Most of us can look back over our own lives and see many mistakes, including some that were very damaging.

“What Cass Sunstein does not tell us is what sort of creatures, other than people, are going to override our mistaken decisions for us. That is the key flaw in the theory and agenda of the left.

“Implicit in the wide range of efforts on the left to get government to take over more of our decisions for us is the assumption that there is some superior class of people who are either wiser or nobler than
the rest of us.”

http://www.rightwingnews.com/column-2/shepherds-and-sheep/

(Sowell writes a good column, pointing out decisions by the “superior class of people” during the Depression, of that same class support for communism and fascism. And now, that same class of superior people intends to make cradle to grave decisions for all of us in the mere masses.)

Link from www.maggiesfar.anotherdotcom.com

Kidnapped French family forced to make video

http://tundratabloids.com/

From the site: “The reason I felt this was worth posting is because I think its is extremely important that Western nations as well as Western people take a new attitude towards going to Islamic areas or areas under heavy threat by jihadis.

“1. People should not go there. If they do, they should go with the attitude that if they are kidnapped they should expect to die in their custody and probably be tortured in the process.

“2. And much more importantly. governments simply must stop funding jihad by paying ransoms for naive morons who go to these places to ‘help’ or for whatever reasons. Thomas Jefferson himself started the Marines because the costs of paying ransoms to Muslim kidnappers was beyond sustainable, not to mention morally repugnant and it was just being used to fuel more jihad against us. We seem to be right back in that exact situation with France, England, Canada and the US paying these bastards to attack us again.

“This has to stop.”

(Correct all the way around. Don’t go to a Muslim country. Governments and companies, don’t pay ransom. Instead, send people to free hostages and kill kidnappers. If you kill enough, kidnappings will stop.)

Link from www.gatesofvienna.net

Speaking of government

“In spite of last week's kidnap of French tourists in the Far North Region,Tourism and Leisure Minister on February 22, 2013 in Yaounde reassured the public of Cameroon's safety.

“The Minister of State, Minister of Tourism and Leisure, Bello Bouba Maïgari, accompanied by Communication Minister, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, on Friday February 22, 2013 in Yaounde underscored the fact that Cameroon remains an ideal tourist destination in Africa.”

http://allafrica.com/stories/201302250679.html

Yeah, Bouba … You just keep on believing that.

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Why the Romans won

Josephus: Their drills were bloodless battles; their battles were bloody drills.

This happened in Texas?

Texas public schools have come under fire again. This time, a teacher allegedly encouraged high school girls to dress up in full-length Islamic burqas and then instructed the entire class that Muslim terrorists are actually freedom fighters.

The incident occurred in a world geography class at Lumberton High School in the small town of Lumberton, Texas. The general topic of the class that day was Islam.

An unnamed student informed WND that the teacher said, “We are going to work to change your perception of Islam.”

“I do not necessarily agree with this,” the teacher also allegedly said, “but I am supposed to teach you that we are not to call these people terrorists anymore, but freedom fighters.”

The controversial lesson came from a lesson plan provided by CSCOPE, an all-embracing, online K-12 educational curriculum used in 80 percent of the school districts in Texas. A rapidly growing chorus of critics charges that CSCOPE is a radical, backdoor way for progressives to circumvent both the Texas legislative process and the desires of local school boards and communities.

A student in the class told WND that the burqa-related lesson focused mainly on the lives of women in Muslim countries. The enveloping outer face and body covering was treated more or less as a fashion accessory.

Apparently, no mention was made of the fact that women in Saudi Arabia and Iran must wear the garment under threat of arrest and criminal punishment.

At the end of class, the teacher assigned a paper about Egypt. A student explained to WND that the topic of the paper was “how Egypt was a good country until democracy took over, and that things were finally corrected when the Muslim Brotherhood came into power.”

State Sen. Dan Patrick, chairman of the Texas state senate’s education committee, told Fox News that he found the photograph of the burqa-clad female students disturbing. Patrick was also concerned that the CSCOPE lesson apparently blames democracy for turmoil in Egypt and paints the Muslim Brotherhood as some political savior.

“Parents are very sensitive to any issue that seems to be anti-American — that blames democracy for some sort of trouble in the world,” Patrick told Fox News.

The CSCOPE curriculum seems to be inherently agenda-driven — particularly in history and social studies courses. The curriculum provider has foisted some hilariously biased coursework on public school students in The Lone Star State.

For example, CSCOPE has given students material suggesting that Christianity is a cult that parallels the death and resurrection in the story of Osiris, the Egyptian god of the dead. The same material takes pains to point out that early Christians were accused of incest, cannibalism and other atrocities.

There’s an infamous chart that innocuously describes communism as “the idea of living together in a ‘commune’ where all people work together for everyone.”

Another notorious CSCOPE lesson (now ostensibly removed from circulation) depicts the Boston Tea Party, the famous protest against taxation without representation, as an act of terrorism.

As WND notes, CSCOPE also defines Republicans as lovers of “big business over labor unions.” Warm and cuddly Democrats, meanwhile, “will spend more tax dollars on education to benefits [sic] each individual.” (The grammar error is CSCOPE’s, not WND’s.)

CSCOPE labels fascism and Nazism as “conservative,” despite the fact that both ideologies prescribe that the state should control everything and own all resources.

http://news.yahoo.com/texas-public-school-students-don-burqas-learn-muslim-063126528.html


(I've been gone six years and the whole damn place is falling apart.)

Women who know what they're doing

Girls with guns.

Proper training, for the most part.

The 9-year-old, firing pistol, reloading, firing more? -- Nobody will mess with her. Ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQAc8JAiLcc

Dumb(whatevers)

And I don't just mean the VP. Dumba$$es have wives/girlfriends fire shotguns with no preparatory training. Anybody with sense knows “I do, you do.” These dumba$$es then drink beer and talk about "Girls can’t shoot guns."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jafkVM-jnbE&feature=player_embedded

War among the savages

Anthropologists adept at ambush, throat cutting.

“In the introduction to 1997’s War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage, University of Illinois Professor Lawrence H. Keeley discusses how anthropologists have 'artificially pacified the past.' He explains how easy it is to get grants when your hypothesis involves Rousseau’s 'noble savage,' but when you tread near the Hobbesian idea of an innately savage savage, the doors slam shut. One of Chagnon’s most basic observations was that violent tribesmen tended to have more offspring. Women are attracted to tough guys in the safest of environments. This is the jungle. Of course violence pays off. This notion is considered taboo because apparently there’s a risk we won’t want to preserve a tribe if it’s known as violent.”

(O, long have I argued against the “noble savage” promulgated by white, educated Victorian middle-class meddlers and picked up by 20th and 21st century “We’re all equal, all ideas are equal” socialpersons. All the folderol of Indian/Native American oneness with the land is simply part of the noble savage Mary Shelly Frankenstein type.)

http://takimag.com/article/anthropologists_gone_wild_gavin_mcinnes#axzz2M0w6IJDg

(Just to show you can enjoy Wagner’s music but disagree with his racial ideas, maybe Taki knows more than I do, but I question the assertion that Marxist Jews controlled anthropology.)

Monday, February 25, 2013

TN po-leece doesn't know buckeye from a hole in the ground

"A Texas couple were on a return trip from Ohio when a cop pulled them over and ordered them to remove a bumpersticker. He thought the bumpersticker image of an Ohio buckeye leaf – the state symbol and a term of endearment for the pioneers on the Ohio frontier – was a marijuana leaf. He ordered them to remove the bumpersticker, although there is no law against displaying such an image.

"The incident once again underscores how control freak and power tripping cops think they are entitled to tell citizens what they can do. It also reveals that a lot of cops have no clue about the First Amendment and the Constitution they are supposedly sworn to uphold."

http://www.infowars.com/cop-harasses-couple-for-ohio-buckeye-leaf-bumpersticker/

Link from www.gatesofvienna.net


Interesting "Not our fault" from TN state police and Shelby County SO, both of which say since no citation was issued, no report is on file. We don't know nothin and we don't intend to know nothin else.

Why people who don’t know stuff shouldn’t write news stories and editors who don’t know stuff shouldn’t edit

“Now Beretta is weighing whether the rifle line, and perhaps the company itself, should stay in a place increasingly hostile toward its products. Its iconic 9mm pistol — carried by every U.S. soldier and scores of police departments — would also be banned with its high capacity, 13-bullet magazine.”

(Emphasis added to indicate the reporter's lack of knowledge of things military. Every U.S. soldier does not carry a Beretta; only a small percentage does.)

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/24/berettas-dont-bluff-major-gun-company-threatens-to-leave-maryland-over-new-gun-control-proposals/

It's the grammar, Stoopid!

Headline for taking a look at booking pictures on Yahoo news: “Whose been Arrested in Little Rock.”

Whose what? Whose dog, whose husband, whose wife, whose son/daughter?

I would like to contact the ir-responsible person in charge, but I would first have to click the mug shot, and that gives me worry. If someone makes that kind of grammatical mistake, what else lurks only a click away?

Enduring women of Texas


By: Aaron Brand - Texarkana Gazette

DeKALB, Texas—Anyone fortunate enough to take a slow drive through the Sulphur River Bottomlands with Shirley Shumake as tour guide can easily sense her love for the land.

Even on a relaxed Friday afternoon following a winter morning rain, a feeling of peace pervades the landscape as the river noses and bends its way between parcels and plots of land, oaks of all sorts stoic against the sky.

Easy to sense, too, why someone would settle here to make a life for themselves and for family, or even preserve life here for others now and in the future.

Reverence for the land inspired Shumake’s participation in the fight against establishing a Marvin Nichols Reservoir in the area where her family has farmed for generations. They’ve worked the land here for about 175 years.

Her family, truly, has endured, farming and ranching the land for years. She took up as her cause making sure the land itself endures.

Shumake has now been honored for her dedication to preserving the land as part of a new exhibit at the Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin.

“Enduring Women” honors several contemporary women who show a deep commitment to maintaining Texas’ land, their stories told through oral history and photography.

Shumake, one of a dozen women honored, went to Austin early this month to participate in festivities honoring these women important to Texas life and history.

“St. Edward’s University was commissioned by the Texas State History Museum to do an exhibit on women shaping Texas. They had people in the political field, people in the environmental conservation field, and what I’m in is women enduring on the land,” Shumake said. “Women ranchers is what the 12 mostly were.”

They’re women who’ve maintained ties to the land for years, persisting through “the hardships and the trials and tribulations of keeping their land,” Shumake said. Being included in this group surprised her.

“What’s this all about?” was her first reaction, she admits, then noting the attention the Marvin Nichols issue raised in Austin. “We realized in 2001 that we were about to have a lake built on top of us. We immediately became politicians.”

To Shumake, not only is the Sulphur River important to her livelihood and family’s history, but she understands water is a valuable resource now. She also has a keen eye for the politics of it all.

“Water is the oil of this century,” she says. And here’s her take on the efficacy of building a new dam right in the middle of this land: “Reservoirs are designed to hold water. They do not make water.”

The “Enduring Women” exhibit grew from a project that partnered St. Edward’s University with the museum. Charles Porter, a history professor, and Mary Brantl, an art history professor, worked with undergraduates to tell the stories of how each chosen woman influences Texas life.

“As part of their course work, students conducted extensive research related to the women’s history, relationship to the land, and individual challenges that ranged from drought to eminent domain,” Brantl said.

Two students visited Shumake. They took photographs and gathered oral history, both of which are included in the exhibit.

Her history here stretches way back. It’s like following a river to its source. Shumake says her family came here from Alabama and established themselves in the area by the third decade of the 19th century.

“They had two land grants—each, the son and the father, got a land grant. The land grant was in ‘41, and the land office in Austin told me if the land grant was in ‘41 that means they were there in ‘38 because you had to be on it and do improvements to it for three years before they’d give you the grant,” Shumake said. “We know they were there in 1838.”

She believes they cut timber and had a sawmill, plus the farming. She says they would have cut roads, too—wagon roads. The promise of free land was enticing to folks, as were the watery resources to be found.

“The reason they stopped in that part of the country was a good supply of water,” Shumake said, adding, “The 21st century comes on here. We get going in it good and the same thing that caused our people to stop here could be the same thing that takes us away.”

As someone dedicated to preserving the land, she’s mindful of these resources. That extends to the trees, species such as white oaks, red oaks, willow oaks, sweet gum and elms.

“Of course, our dad was the go-to man in this part of the country if someone wanted a horse or a mule,” Shumake said. Her family’s involved in horse racing, and at one time she was a horse identifier at Louisiana Downs.

She still brands her cattle with her granddad’s branding iron. He died in 1922.

To endure on the land, “you have to multi-task. You have to be able to get something from your timber. You have to be able to get something from your cattle. You have to do some side jobs in between, if you need to,” Shumake says.

She studied at Texarkana College and then worked for an agricultural engineering company for a little while. She did some substitute teaching.

But more than anything, she enjoys being out on the land, saying, “I just love the outside, always have.”

Jane Morris, a member of Friends United for a Safe Environment who spoke at Marvin Nichols hearings and meetings, is among those who stood with Shumake in opposing the reservoir. She appreciates Shumake’s relationship to the land and her grass-roots role leading the fight to preserve the area’s ecology and water resources.

She calls Shumake a “true Texas woman who lives her Texas heritage.”

Morris points out that Shumake farms the land her grandfather farmed and lives in the 100-year-old home he built. This year is the home’s centennial.

“She loves the land and the people of the land and she is devoted to her family, her friends, her neighbors and her community,” Morris said. “She carries on a multi-generational tradition of living on and serving the land.”

Jim Presley, president of FUSE, believes Shumake and her pioneer spirit are a “fitting symbol of the best in Texas women who made the state and the region remarkable.”

He sees her as a proper role model for contemporary times.

“Shirley is not only an enduring—and endearing—person, she comes from an enduring family that stretches back to the days of the Republic of Texas and, I’m sure, beyond,” Presley said. “She has the tenacity of a frontier mother protecting her young—and her turf. Her turf—that land around the Sulphur River in both Bowie and Red River counties—is precious to her. She does not take kindly to unwarranted encroachment on it.”

“Enduring Women” is displayed in conjunction with a larger exhibit, “Women Shaping Texas in the 20th Century.” They are on display at the Bullock Texas State History Museum through May 19.

To see Shumake’s oral history piece for the exhibit, search for the Bullock Museum page on YouTube.

(On the Net: TheStoryofTexas.com)

Published: 02/24/2013

Video of Shirley and her land: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6qt26z23uM

(Sgt Bob Note: I first met Shirley in 2000 when covering the proposed Marvin Nichols Reservoir. Shirley and her brother Max were instrumental in fighting the reservoir, which was backed by Dallas-Fort Worth interests and most elected officials in Northeast Texas. Big-city water users and politicians paid no attention to land owners whose family farms, ranches and woodlands would be flooded, 62,000 acres plus mitigation land. Save Our Sulphur (SOS) won the fight, for now. But you can bet your boots Dallas and Fort Worth people who want nice green lawns in the hot summers will continue to try and flood parts of Northeast Texas.)

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Grades bad? Don’t apply for concealed carry

University of Iowa gives private information to sheriff’s department.

“Mark Braun, chief of staff for U of I President Sally Mason, said that in some cases the information speaks to a student’s perceived status as a ‘troublemaker,’ but could also include information on failing grades or signs of depression or anger.”

http://collegeinsurrection.com/2013/02/u-iowa-discloses-private-info-of-students-who-apply-for-gun-permits/

Mass. town decides Federal government knows best

“WESTFORD (MyFoxBoston.com) -- The Westford Board of Selectmen voted unanimously on Wednesday night to withdraw a potential ban on assault weapons and magazines.

“The decision was made without debate or discussion. Some of the selectmen tell FOX 25 they feel this matter is best left to the federal government.

“Last week, residents packed Town Hall to discuss the measure that would have banned certain weapons deemed to be ‘dangerous and unusual’ within the town, the Lowell Sun reports. The ban would have extended to large-capacity weapons and feeding devices. If the bylaw passed, residents would either have to remove the weapons from the town or surrender them to police.”

http://www.myfoxboston.com/story/21291888/2013/02/20/westford-officials-vote-down-assault-weapon-ban?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GoalNews-GunOwnersActionLeague+%28GOAL+News+-+Gun+Owners%27+Action+League%29#ixzz2Lrd6Vgyr

Loaded from http://ace.mu.nu/

I am always amazed at Mass. local governments that have forgotten Lexington and Concord, where the Revolution began when redcoats arrived to grab guns. And selectmen saying a decision on the Second Amendment “is best left to the federal government” ...

Obama lied! Dollars died!

For a few weeks now the president has gone from state to state, telling Americans how Republicans in Congress will take a meat cleaver to dollars keeping other Americans fed. The fact is, sequestration was Obama’s idea.

“[T]he automatic spending cuts were initiated by the White House and were the brainchild of [Treasury Secretary nominee Jack] Lew and White House congressional relations chief Rob Nabors -- probably the foremost experts on budget issues in the senior ranks of the federal government.
“Obama personally approved of the plan for Lew and Nabors to propose the sequester to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). They did so at 2:30 p.m. July 27, 2011, according to interviews with two senior White House aides who were directly involved.”
-- Bob Woodward, ‘Obama’s sequester deal-changer,’

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bob-woodward-obamas-sequester-deal-changer/2013/02/22/c0b65b5e-7ce1-11e2-9a75-dab0201670da_story.html

Linked from http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/02/the_bating_game_obama_doubles_down.html

Obama has said, “The sequester is not something that I’ve proposed. It is something that Congress has proposed.”

Well, not so true.

But, Republicans can’t dump the idea solely onto Obama any more than the president can make the GOP father of sequestration. Republicans helped pass the idea through Congress. Both parties have to take a share of responsibility. National media, though, tend to give Obama a break.

Muslim barber refuses to cut woman’s hair, so she files civil rights complaint

Faith McGregor said she entered the barber shop “on a whim.” Omar Mahrouk said he could not cut McGregor’s hair, because his religion forbids him to touch any woman other than his wife.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/02/22/rights-complaint-against-muslim-barber-who-refused-to-give-woman-haircut-quietly-resolved/ called the incident “a textbook example of competing rights — his, the right to freedom of religion and hers the right to be free from discrimination on the basis of gender.”

No. No. No.

Let’s use a little common sense here. (Although I think Ms. McGregor lacks any.) If I go into a barber shop and the barber says, “I will not cut your hair because (whatever),” I say “OK” and go somewhere else. I do not want to anger somebody who will be standing behind me with a handful or two of sharp things.

Mr. Mahrouk has the right not to cut anyone’s hair. He has a barber shop, not a restaurant or a movie theater.

Also, Mahrouk has no experience cutting a woman’s hair, although judging from Ms. McGregor’s picture, she has had a manly hairstyle for some time. (Anti-LGBT comment? Sue me.)

Story linked from www.gatesofvienna.net

Meanwhile, back in Gungrabber Land

Legislators in at least five states are considering a requirement that gun owners must buy insurance to keep their guns.

“I believe that if we get the private sector and insurance companies involved in gun safety, we can help prevent a number of gun tragedies every year,” said David P. Linsky, a Democratic state representative in Massachusetts who wants to require gun owners to buy insurance. He believes it will encourage more responsible behavior and therefore reduce accidental shootings. “Insurance companies are very good at evaluating risk factors and setting their premiums appropriately,” he added.

And in Oregon: “HB 3200 not only bans most modern guns and magazines, it allows warrantless searches of your home, requires background checks and registration for a firearm you already own and as-of-yet undefined storage requirements. We say ‘a firearm’ because even if you comply with the restrictions in this bill you may still only own one [assault weapon].”

Two stories at http://thisainthell.us/

Heartbeats and ending global warming

I read somewhere, some time ago, that everybody is born with a certain number of heartbeats, and when you reach your number – Boom. Game over, lights out, Do svidaniya, so long it’s been good to know you.

Applying that idea, I decided: Exercise causes an increase in heartbeat; that is, the more you exercise, the more heartbeats you use up. If I get X number from my Day One until my Day Last, why use any I don’t have to? I’ve used a great many in stressful situations already – being shot at, shooting back, running, writing newspaper stories at deadline, carrying a 75-pound jack hammer and then using it … the usual things.

Why waste any?

Somewhere in that, maybe this fits:

“The U.S. should adapt to a European model in the workplace in order to halt global warming, a study says.

“By working less hours per week and take longer vacations the American people could reduce carbon emissions, think tank Center for Economic Policy and Research claim.

“If the ‘Western European’ working model was to be adopted in the U.S., it could reduce up to 50 per cent of the addressable global temperature rise expected by 2100.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2273887/How-stop-global-warming--work-Liberal-think-tank-claims-American-workers-European.html

Makes sense, doesn’t it? If we don’t drive as much, if we don’t air condition or heat offices as much, if don’t breathe as much … That last one would be the real cure, the one RadicalEnvirowhackos want … “Die human, die!” (Except for True Greens, of course. After all, what’s the use in being a prophet if you don’t live long enough to see your prophecies come to pass?)

A couple of things: First, never trust “a study says.” Studies are like numbers – In the right hands they can sit up, beg, roll over and change a diaper. Second, the study was by the Center for Economic Policy and Research. Just search its founders, Dean Baker and Mark Weisbrot.

Saturday, February 23, 2013

That girl can shoot

K, our exchange student who had never fired any kind of weapon before this afternoon, shot a three-inch circle out of a silhouette target, just above center mass, at a bit longer than 10 meters.

That’s a three-inch hole in the target. Did I mention she had never fired any kind of weapon before this afternoon?

She shot the three-inch hole using a Glock 26 and a Smith and Wesson Model 586, four-inch barrel and firing .38 Special ammunition.

My daughter Kathleen and I did OK, but we were far from matching K’s talent.

We started with a .22-short Beretta, but the little pistol jammed on every other round. K’s first shot ever was a head shot with the Beretta. She made a surprised noise when the pistol fired and jumped in her hand. Each of us fired three five-round groups. At short distance, the Beretta was accurate, but not to be trusted for reliability.

With a .32 Savage Model 1907, K was a little jumpy on the first couple of rounds, but she put five close to center mass. Kathleen and I did well with the Savage. The thing shoots straight, but we had a bad jam problem and then moved onto the Glock.

K came into her own with the Glock. She commented on its recoil, much greater than the Savage. But she put the first two rounds in an area above center mass, and then the next five connected and made a hole. Five more made the hole larger. She finished with two sessions with the S&W, on the second session shooting out the paper connections between other hits and making the three-inch hole.

Right after the first Glock shot, her demeanor changed. She assumed a shooter’s stance that most people get only after many sessions on a range. It was neat, watching the change from apprehensive girl to self-assured shooter.

Must have been the coaching.

Nah. The girl can shoot.

Reading between the lines in De-troit City

Owners of almost half of Detroit’s taxable land and building parcels have not paid their 2011 property taxes.

“Some $246.5 million in taxes and fees went uncollected, about half of which was due Detroit and the rest to other entities, including Wayne County, Detroit Public Schools and the library.”

Why are owners not paying their fair share?

One property owner: "Why should I send them taxes when they aren't supplying services? It is sickening. … Every time I see the tax bill come, I think about the times we called and nobody came."

City government is trying, though. Trying to get more money than it is due.

“Detroit has the highest property taxes among big cities nationwide and relies on assessments that are seriously inflated. Many houses are assessed at more than 10 times their market price, according to new research from two Michigan professors.”

http://reason.com/blog/2013/02/21/detroit-property-owners-voting-with-thei

By way of www.maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com

This headline is so screwed up

And so is the story

‘Consumer Spending Plummets After Payroll Tax Increase’

“When President Barack Obama and Congress agreed to increase the federal payroll tax by two percent to temporarily avert the so-called fiscal cliff in January, Americans were left with less money to spend.”

(There was no “federal payroll tax increase.” The payroll tax holiday was a temporary measure. For the period of the holiday, no one paid Social Security. Clueless are those who bitch and moan about the sudden 2 percent “tax increase.” )

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/02/22/Consumer-Spending-Plummets-After-Payroll-Tax-Increase



Friday, February 22, 2013

Not much better to do today

This is a dude thisainthell calls “Fatboy.” The man behind the gun apparently claims to be a USMC 1LT. I have been on gunships when miniguns cut loose, and there was more than a foot of flame from the barells, unlike the picture, which has a goodly amount of empty brass, but nothing else. Nobody firing a minigun would have a blasé look like s**thead does. Just saying.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.101540086693216.1982.100005116742088&type=3#!/photo.php?fbid=126209900892901&set=a.101540086693216.1982.100005116742088&type=3&theater

By way of www.thisainthell.us

Wonder if di(r)k got his BDUs at a surplus store?

I would like to see a real Marine kick this guy’s ass. I mean until he cried like a girl stood up on prom night. Maybe Gunny R. Lee could get him in an empty room somewhere.

How many Americans does it take to screw in a light bulb?

I don’t know. Let me check with the government.

Are we allowed to do that? Don’t we have to call a union electrician?

Do you mean one of those bad old fashioned iridescent ones, or the new energy-saving kind?

(This is to indicate my belief many Americans have swallowed a dumbassitis pill.)

It was the last time I did it

“Falling into a covered water tank behind a locked door on top of a roof would be an unusual accident.”

http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/21/us/california-hotel-water-corpse/index.html?iref=obnetwork

Maggiesfarm by way of cnn.com.

Look, we have the po-leece on our side

‘Dunkin’ Donuts Pushes White House to Amend Obamacare’

“Dunkin’ Brands, which owns Dunkin’ Donuts, is trying to get the White House to change the definition of a full-time worker from 30 hours per week to 40 under ObamaCare.”

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/02/20/Dunkin-Donuts-Pushes-White-House-To-Amend-ObamaCare

(A story three weeks ago said the IRS is combining part time workers to make them full time workers for accountability purposes. If a business has six 20-hour workers, the IRS sees three full time employees, and then company has to abide by rules concerning full time people.)

T-y-p-i-cal Liberal

Scarborough: It’s a sad story. Harold, you served with Jesse. As did I.

Harold Ford: I know Jesse. It’s sad. I know the family well. My prayers go out to his kids and to the entire family. And I hope there is another chapter in his life.

Mika: I hope they can turn it around.

Scarborough: Yeah.

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/02/21/video-msnbc-hosts-really-sad-about-jesse-jackson-jr/

Sad, sad. So sad. We really feel for the family.

What? How about this: “At what point did this become a ‘sad story’ exactly? The criminal was caught and brought to justice. The system worked. … (T)his guy stole nearly a million dollars from the people of his district, many of whom live below the poverty level!” (Same link.)

Maggiesfarm.


Thursday, February 21, 2013

1917 -- We'll be out of oil in 12 years

“Years ago they told us that we’d have to find a substitute for oil. Yet year after year the United States goes on producing more than sixty percent of the world’s oil, and digging gold and other metals at an undiminished rate.

“How can this go on? The slogan of oil men and ore miners gives the answer: ‘Let’s go deeper!’

“In 1917 we were told that all the oil in the United Staets would be exhausted by 1929. Ironically, 1929 saw the greatest year’s production of oil up to that time. Since then production has averaged a billion barrels a year, yet on January 1, 1938, there were proven reserves of 15, 500,000,000, enough at the present rate of production to last about 12 years.”

http://books.google.com/books?id=RdwDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA827&dq=popular+mechanics+aircraft+carrier&hl=en&ei=NLCyTMG-BtHPngf_ru2oBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CEQQ6AEwCDgy#v=onepage&q&f=true

June 1939 Popular Mechanics.

Hey, union idiots!

Whaddaya think you’re doin’? Did’n ya read the man’s name? Ya think he doesn’t have, I don’ know … connections?

“[I've lost] hundreds of thousands of dollars. I’m not losing another nickel more. This union thinks they can tell me what to do — they can go f–-- themselves!” – Joseph Fazzia.

http://www.jammiewf.com/2013/hero-of-the-day-this-union-thinks-they-can-tell-me-what-to-do-they-can-go-f-k-themselves/

Linked from http://ace.mu.nu/

We don’t need your family anymore

“The family has been displaced and replaced. In some places it is even repressed. Like an old station wagon, it idles by the side of the road, while its former owners drive away in their new sleek electric government compact car built for two or a micro-car built for one into a wonderful childless future of unfunded pensions, social collapse and death panels.”

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2013/02/who-needs-family.html

Linked from www.maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com

(Back in the ColdWar/StoneAge days, high school civics and history teachers told us Communists would replace family with the State. This was already done in Russia and its satellites, we were told. Such a thing would never happen in the US of A, as long as we had Constitutionally respectful people in the Federal Congress and state legislatures, as long as we had freedom of speech and freedom of religion, and as long as we had a strong military. Now, the idea of we don’t need no education is more than just another brick in the wall – the idea is the wall.)

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Craig Ferguson on voting for a new pope:

“Actually, when the voting’s done, the cardinals burn their ballots. People wait outside the Sistine Chapel to see what color the smoke is. If it’s white smoke, they’ve agreed on a Pope. If it’s black smoke, no decision’s been made. If it’s green smoke, Willie Nelson has somehow gotten into the Sistine Chapel.”

http://floppingaces.net/2013/02/17/sunday-funnies-226/

I would really like to have that armory

And money for ammunition.

Actresses with guns.

http://2ndamendmentguncontrolnews.blogspot.com/2013/02/actresses-with-guns-action-shots-of.html

Linked from http://www.helenspage.com/

A different place

On Monday, after buying about 300 rounds of handgun ammunition in Little Rock, I took K, our exchange student, through Woodson and Hensley, two small communities about three and five miles east of our house. K needed to see another side of Arkansas not in the status of those who are host families to exchange students.

Appropriately enough, the road to Woodson is called Woodson lateral. The road is raised after crossing to the east side of I-530. Thick forests extend several miles either side of the road. Trees are around six inches in diameter; the area must have been clear cut, or the trees grow on what once was cotton land. Houses near the raised road are priced, I would guess, at $150,000 and up.

After a mile or so, the road begins several curves. As you near Woodson, value of houses drops considerably.

We drove past a burned-out house trailer. K said, “That is terrible!” My guess is, she had never seen a burned house. She said, “What will the government do about that?”

“Nothing,” I said. “It’s the homeowner’s responsibility. If he has insurance, then the insurance company will pay for removing the house and maybe buying another.” Another guess – More than a few homes in Woodson are not insured.

In the last three-plus years, I have seen half a dozen burned homes in Woodson and Hensley. Most have been cleaned up, and superseded by weed-covered vacant lots.

We drove by several unkempt houses and trashed yards.

“In (her country) this would not be allowed to happen,” K said. “Why do people allow their houses to become like this?”

That took some explaining; an inadequate amount, I think. I talked about income, jobs, how a person was raised. I mentioned growing up poor – although not as poor as some families here.

“But,” I said, “I knew I could get out. I knew I would not have to live like that forever.” For me, the Army was the way out. My brother and sisters got more normal jobs, and they made it out.

“Some people,” I said, “do not have the family background that lets them see a way out. They think things will always be what they see every day. Their parents thought that way, and their grandparents.”

We drove to Hensley. The community is about the same as Woodson.

I looked up Woodson at Wikipedia. The population is around 450. Demographics say the population is around 74 percent black or African-American and 25 percent white. I also learned that the community is named after Ed Wood, Sr., who after buying land in the 1880s became the state’s first black plantation owner.

Hensley has a population around 150 – 65 percent black or African-American, 34 percent white. Of those older than 64, 29 percent have incomes below the poverty line.

In K’s country, income tax rate is 40 percent. She said everybody gets free medical care and free college education. That is all well and good in a country where people expect to work and are expected by everyone else to work, and where everyone anticipates education.

There is a world of difference between there and here. Sometimes the differences are not pleasant, sometimes the differences are good.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

360-degree backflip

In a car.

http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2013/02/19/finally-the-worlds-first-360-degree-backflip-in-a-car/

Link at www.ace.mu.nu

Washington gun law mandates search of some homes to ensure public safety

“In order to continue to possess an assault weapon that was legally possessed on the effective date of this section, the person possessing shall … safely and securely store the assault weapon. The sheriff of the county may, no more than once per year, conduct an inspection to ensure compliance with this subsection.”

Veil slips on gun control in WA

At www.thisainthell.us

I doubt the US will ever become this stupid

(Not in my lifetime, anyway.)

Mother of 11 gets brand new $620,000 house built by town council because she’s ‘struggling’ in her current two homes

A jobless mother of 11 is celebrating today after her local council agreed to build her a six-bedroom, £400,000 home to accommodate her massive brood.

Heather Frost, 36, currently lives in two separate houses knocked into one, which she describes as a ‘nightmare’ because it is so cramped.

Now after years of complaining, her local council has arranged for a 1,850 sq ft property to be built for her as part of a new housing development.

The two-storey eco-home has three bathrooms, two lounges and a huge 355 sq ft kitchen and dining area.

A local estate agent who studied the plans for the new home believes it could be worth up to £400,000.

But yesterday Frost, who first gave birth at 14, vowed to demand an even bigger house if she doesn’t like her new property.

She said: ‘It’s being built especially for me. If I go there and I say to them I don’t like it or it’s too small, then they will just have to build me a bigger one, won’t they.’

http://gatesofvienna.net/2013/02/gates-of-vienna-news-feed-2182013/#more-27102


Hindu American Foundation follows Obama, not traditional Hindu teachings

“The idea that society must defend itself has been celebrated for thousands of years in an annual festival called Vijaya Dashmi (the day of victory). On this day many Hindus perform an important ritual called Shastra Puja (Sanskrit for "honoring weapons") which is a celebration of the day when the Hindu hero Arjuna emerged victorious in a just war after retrieving his weapons that he had hidden away. The weapons used during this festival have changed over time, and today, the weapons in a typical Shastra Puja include not only swords, but also guns of all types. Honoring them as part of a festival publicly demonstrates the underlying desire for self-reliance of individuals in society.”

“HAF describes itself as a ‘progressive’ Hindu voice and demands an invasion into the privacy of law-abiding citizens who have purchased weapons by asking the government to maintain the records of ‘buyers whose NICS background checks were approved.’ It also calls for outlawing weapons capable of inflicting ‘widespread harm’ using language that can be used to justify a complete ban on the possession of weapons. This call for a ban on gun ownership in society is an eerie reminder of the disarming of India and the oppressive English rule that followed. Hindus should remember that the infamous Jallianwala Bagh (Amritsar) massacre of 1919 took place after India was disarmed. It was ordered by an English general on an unarmed public gathering that included men, women, senior citizens, and children, and over a thousand people were killed in a matter of minutes.”

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/02/hinduism_calls_for_an_armed_and_vigilant_society.html#ixzz2LM8vR8Hk


Differences between Progressive & Constitutionalist

When a Progressive/Democrat delivers a speech laced with bumper sticker slogans – save the children, end violence, who needs an ak-47, etc. & etc – other Progressive/Democrats chuckle and say, Oh, yes, that is telling those Neanderthal right-wingers.

Of the same speech, Constitutionalists say, “WTF?”

Monday, February 18, 2013

News people think the US runs the word

“Confiscating the arms of those that will dutifully surrender them will obviously reduce the amount of weapons to which civilians have access. One needs to believe in the Easter Bunny’s ability to lay eggs to conclude, that such a measure will significantly reduce crime.”

The writer’s bias toward gun ownership “comes from running in Budapest bearing a pistol with six shots in the magazine with a Soviet T34 tank in pursuit.”

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/5029


Further proof pencil pushers don’t have sense of humor

Or sometimes not even a clue.

Crown prosecutor asked for a statement from PC Peach. PC Peach is a police dog.

A human-type officer completed an witness statement, complete with a dog print: “I chase him, I bite him, bad man, he tasty. Good boy, good boy Peach.”

CPS officials “are believed to have complained to police that their mistake has been turned into a very public joke.”

Seems the witness report fond its way to Facebook.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2279789/I-chase-I-bite--crime-report-dog--Police-investigate-completing-witness-statement-written-force-dog.html#ixzz2LGtzzu7G

PC Peach has not issued a statement concerning the new CPS request.

ATVs and pistol shooting

Yesterday Priscilla, our temporary exchange student and I took a four-hour, 15-mile ATV cross-country tour at Mount Magazine State Park. Sunday’s ride was the third in the last 18 months Priscilla arranged with Kevin Schluterman. (http://www.schlutermanatvtours.com/Home.htm)

Our exchange student (we’ll call her K for personnel security reasons) had driven an ATV on level ground (a back yard) in her home country, but never cross-country. Priscilla checked with a person in her civic club and was told exchange student insurance does not cover such hazardous activities a driving an ATV cross-country. I suggested we just ignore what the club person said, but Priscilla did not go along with that. So, K rode on the back of a two-person ATV, with Priscilla driving.

K has been amazed at the amount of country here, both in the United States and in Arkansas itself. She expressed surprise, too at the amount of food served at restaurants, and the low prices. The amount of food is a part of the reason so many of us are overweight. Priscilla and I have long held that restaurants should cut down on the size of servings, and a concurrent reduction in prices. If restaurants did cut serving sizes, bulk food purchased would go farther, and in the long run bring in the same amount of money.

Kevin runs a five-hour, 25-mile ride, too. I am not up for five hours on an ATV. The four-hour tour is advertised as three hours, but I don’t think anyone would be upset at the extra hour. Maybe the five-hour tour is really six hours.

Most of the ride is on rocky trails, uphill and down. A couple of places the ride is on Forest Service roads, gravel, and you can open up to around 30mph. The other trails, you’ll average 5mph.

K was enthralled with the ride. When we stopped at the overlook and the beaver pond and the 100-foot rock bluff, she was all smiles and “I can’t believe this! It is amazing!”

She has been amazed at a lot of things here. On Saturday she, Priscilla and I went to an outfitters down the road and bought a box of 9mm and a box of .38-caliber ammunition. The outfitters had one box of 9mm and two boxes of .38.

After we left the store, K said, “I am amazed you can just go in to a store and buy ammunition.”

This coming Saturday, K, my daughter Kathleen and I are going to a range in North Little Rock. Kathleen recently bought a 9mm Glock but has not yet fired it. K has never fired a weapon. I think she will be amazed.

And for me, I’ll get a chance for some range firing, plus I’ll use some of that for a time unused NCO knowledge and teach preliminary marksmanship instruction and range firing to a couple of youngsters.

America. What a country.

Swedish man arrested in Spain as Kurdish agent

Or, Terrorism travels the world

“A 65-year-old Swedish man was on Friday remanded into custody by a Madrid court on suspicion of terror crimes connected to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PPK).”

http://www.thelocal.se/46228/

From www.gatesofvienna.net


Gun ownership

“The European Union has called for every member country to bring in a central weapons registry before the end of 2014. According to per capita data, Germany comes in fourth place behind the United States, Switzerland and Finland for private gun ownership, ahead of Mexico, South Africa and Russia.”

http://www.thelocal.de/society/20130217-48015.html

Link at www.gatesofvienna.net

Kill a chicken to scare the monkeys

“Some hawks take the aggressive rhetoric to an even higher level: .’“Since we have decided that the US is bluffing in the East China Sea, we should take this opportunity to respond to these empty provocations with something real,’ wrote Air Force Colonel Dai Xu in China’s Global Times last August. ‘This includes Vietnam, the Philippines and Japan, which are the three running dogs of the United States in Asia … We only need to kill one, and it will immediately bring the others to heel.’”

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/#post-51932

(China’s domino theory. And, “running dogs of the United States?” I thought that term died with Mao.)

From the same link:

Iranian on the street wants nuclear weapons

So says a Gallup Poll.

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/#post-51932

Caveat: Poll was taken in Iran.

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Friday, February 15, 2013

Texting

First time tonight, probably the last.

My wife and I were driving to Little Rock to pick up our newest temporary exchange student, who was at a basketball game. Priscilla said she had received a text from Katrina, saying that a friend and the other girl’s mother were going out to dinner. Did we want to come along? Priscilla had texted we would pick up Katrina and we all would go out together. All this happened before we left the house, so I was not aware of any of it. Katrina texted back, asking where we would go? My wife was driving, so she asked me to answer with Loca Luna. I entered “Loca” and auto correct changed that to “Love.” I can’t send that to a 16-year-old girl, nor to any female-type person other than my wife, so I back spaced, taking out the “ve” and entering “a.” Auto correct changed that, so what I wanted as “Loca” became “Locan.” In trying to back space, I pressed “Enter” two times. Back spacing again, I got to the right line, and then somehow pressed “Send.” That sent the text “Locan.” That’s when I gave up. My fingers are too wide and the texting area too small. Alexander Graham Bell did not text. I see no reason to do so, either.

Addendum to the murder

Red River County Sheriff Bob Edrington lost his 2000 bid for re-election partly because his department could not solve the Peek murder. I don’t remember who won that election, but I do remember the new sheriff saying he planned on contacting producers of Unsolved Mysteries. At the time, I covered Red River County for the Paris, Texas, newspaper. I contacted Unsolved Mysteries and was told by a junior producer that the case was just what the program was established for, and that investigators would be going to Red River County.

Things rocked along for a couple of months. I checked with the new sheriff now and then, and he said he was still determined to get Hollywood into the investigation.

Then I heard the TV people had backed away. People backing away from investigations in Red River County is not unknown, but for an outfit in California to retreat … That sounded funny.

I contacted the junior producer, who said the case was taken out of the program’s schedule. I asked why. The producer said investigators were unable to find any credible witnesses. (There were only two witnesses to the murder, and one or both were dead.)

The producer said everybody seemed to be a suspect. I said I had heard that, too.

He said, “(Name) was seen driving by the murder scene several times before the shooting.”

I said I had heard that.

He said, “Do you believe (Name) is capable of shooting someone?”

I thought, “Everybody I know is capable of shooting someone. This is Texas.” I said, “Yep.”

The producer was shocked. “Really? You really think he could shoot someone?”

“Yep,” I said.

The conversation ended right after that. I thought, “Hollywood meets Red River County … and blinks.”

A murder that just won’t go away

On Nov. 11, 1996, someone shot Alton Peek near Boxelder, Texas, in southeast Red River County. Peek, 34, was found lying facedown near a barn, where he had been feeding cattle. By the time EMTs and sheriff’s deputies arrived, people had tromped all over the site, wiping out any footprints or other evidence.

At first, people said, “He must have had a heart attack.” Then somebody turned over the body and saw the bullet hole in Peek’s chest.

Peek was a county commissioner, popular as a hardworking man, honest. People said he didn’t have any enemies. A former Red River County judge, though, said, “He had at least one.”

Just about every elected official in the county was mentioned as a suspect or accomplice in killing Peek. Red River County is that way. Nothing is allowed to be simple. Every act is brought about by conspiracy or double dealing. The county’s motto should be “Suspect everybody.”

Frankly, the sheriff’s department was not capable, through expertise or personality, of conducting a thorough investigation. Investigators did, however, understand the concept of “Look at the simple answer first.”

The simple answer was a man named James Humphries was rumored to be in an affair with Peek’s wife, Michelle. Investigators questioned Humphries, but could not get any hard evidence. In December 1996, Humphries killed himself, in what some residents said were “suspicious circumstances.” To conspiracists, though, everything in the murder and investigation was suspicious.

Everybody had an opinion on who did what, or two opinions … Not an unusual circumstance in the county.

Opinion 1 was Peek’s widow hinted to Humphries of a possible marriage if her husband was out of the way. Holders of that opinion said Humphries did the killing, but then killed himself when the widow backed out, or because the law was closing in.

Opinion 2 held the killing a conspiracy of other county commissioners, the county judge, the sheriff, the county constable and persons unnamed. Holders of that opinion said Peek planned to blow the whistle on illegal dealings by other elected officials.

No one was arrested in the case until 2008, when a county grand jury returned a conspiracy indictment against Peek’s widow, Michelle. After 12 years, someone would face a jury.

Or maybe not.

On Nov. 29, 2012, Bill Hankins of The Paris News reported, “A 16-year-old murder case will finally reach trial in February 2013 in Red River County.

“Red River County Commissioner Alton Peek was found shot to death Nov. 11, 1996, on a farm in the Boxelder community southwest (sic) of Clarksville. He had been feeding livestock when he was shot.”

The trial was scheduled for Feb. 19. But The Clarksville Times reported on Feb. 13: “At press time, the jury trial of Andrea Michelle Boswell McClure for murder of her former husband and former Red River County Commissioner Al Peek is still on the docket for the 102nd Judicial District Court, February 19th, with the venue of this trial moved to Bowie County.

“However, Tuesday, the district’s clerk’s office reported that a motion to dismiss had been filed by the prosecution. A judge could dismiss the trial before the court date.”

http://www.clarksvillenews.net/articles/2013/02/15/news/doc511b9f45de481225714775.txt




Thursday, February 14, 2013

Do you give permission to search your car?

No, no and no. Never give permission.

Former soldier arrested near Watertown, N.Y., for possession of empty “large capacity ammunition feeding” devices.

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2013/02/11/decorated-soldiers-arrest-raising-bloggers-ire.html?ESRC=army-a.nl

Attorney: “This is why, even though one is a law-abiding citizen, never talk to police officers and never give them permission to search your vehicle without a warrant describing in detail the area to be searched and the things to be seized."

Speaking of clueless media …

Why do newspapers and TV news readers think the US matters in things Catholic? Look at the size of the Catholic Church worldwide. Fewer Westerners and more Third Worlders attend services, even personally identify with a religion, and yet US news people seem to think that what they say matters.

Pope Benedict resigns, and American natterwaulers go into “Do this!” mode.

The New York Times: “The resignation sets up a struggle between the staunchest conservatives, in Benedict’s mold . . . and those who believe that the church can broaden its appeal in small but significant ways, like allowing divorced Catholics who remarry without an annulment to receive communion or loosening restrictions on condom use in an effort to prevent AIDS.”

Who said so? Why, the NYT writer.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_clueless_media_iffMrxsFiaRnRykuYhNY4K

(Link from maggiesfarm.)

As the Post writer says: “It never seems to occur to the critics that the church’s explosive growth outside Europe and North America is precisely due to the steadfastness of its moral teachings — and that its decline in the West is a result of a loss of faith in those very principles among intellectuals. You see the same decline in Reform Judaism and liberal Protestantism.”

(Most media persons consider themselves relevant. Not so. Not so, not so, especially in things they are incapable of understanding. Like religion.)



Wednesday, February 13, 2013

DOD university now tool of Islamists

“On October 19, 2011 a letter to signed by 57 Muslim organizations to John Brennan, Presidential Assistant on Counter Terrorism and Deputy National Security Advisor, with a copy to the Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, demanded that all training materials offensive to Islam be ‘purged’ and instructors ‘effectively disciplined.’"

So say the Muslim organizations, so says the Pentagon. (Make a sign, cross, salaam, lay on hands, whatever.)

(A USMC LTG ordered a negative officer evaluation report against an instructor at the National Defense University. If the case filed is accurate, the Pentagon prostrated itself before Allah the Beheader.)

"The final bastion of America's defense against Islamic jihad and sharia, the Pentagon, fell to the enemy in April 2012, with the issuance of a letter from General Martin E. Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, re-issuing his earlier order that all Department of Defense (DoD) course content be scrubbed to ensure no lingering remnant of disrespect to Islam.

“All U.S. military Combatant Commands, Services, the National Guard Bureau and Joint Staff are under Dempsey's Muslim Brotherhood-dictated orders to ensure that henceforth, no U.S. military course will ever again teach truth about Islam that the jihadist enemy finds offensive (or just too informative). To all intents and purposes, DoD Secretary Leon E. Panetta likewise has acquiesced to a Muslim Brotherhood takeover of U.S. military education."

--Claire Lopez, former CIA agent

http://www.thomasmore.org/sites/default/files/files/Complaint%20Letter%20to%20MSCHE%20Final%201-14-2013(2).pdf



Yeah, we poisoned the land and then moved jobs to Mexico, so don’t drill water wells, OK?

FORT SMITH — Whirlpool Corp. wants Fort Smith to make it illegal to drill water wells near the site of its former factory.

Representatives of the company explained to city directors Tuesday that a spill of a degreasing solvent in the 1980s left contamination in the groundwater.

The Southwest Times Record reported that the company wants to prevent people from tapping water contaminated with trichloroethylene, which is believed to be a cancer-causing chemical.

City Attorney Jerry Canfield said the proposed ordinance would not block residents’ from pursuing Benton Harbor, Mich.-based Whirlpool for compensation.

Whirlpool closed its Fort Smith refrigerator plant last year and moved the work to Mexico.

--Associated Press

http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2013/feb/13/whirlpool-wants-water-well-ban-around-former-site/

State, Union, speech

I was at the computer playing solitaire during the president’s talk last night. Oh. SOTU? No, I will not succumb to EUA (Excessive Use of Abbreviation) as do TV people and much of the twittering & texting GP (General Public).

The house office room is close enough to the living room that I heard the president’s rhythm, but not all his words. I heard applause from the Party Faithful, more applause, greater applause, thundering applause, and I waited for SEIG HEIL! SEIG HEIL!

I have heard that you lose a debate at first mention of Nazi, but this is not a debate, only opinion.

From the New York Times:

“Inside the White House and out, advisers and associates have noted subtle but palpable changes in [President] Obama since his re-election. ‘He even carries himself a little bit differently,’ said one confidant who, like others, asked not to be identified discussing the president. He is relaxed, more voluble and even more confident than usual, these people say, freer to drop profanities or dismiss others' ideas--enough that even some supporters fear the potential for hubris. . . .

“As the president prepares to outline his second-term agenda, it is clear from these personal accounts as well as his public acts, like his bold Inaugural Address, that he has shown an assertiveness, self-possession, even cockiness that contrasts with the caution, compromise and reserve that he showed for much of his first term.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/us/politics/watching-a-victorious-obama-for-signs-of-change.html?_r=0

By way of http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324196204578300131285647290.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion

(I do not recall any “caution, compromise and reserve” from his first term.

(The really bad thing about the state of the Union speech – TV talkers will spend a week telling us what the president said.)




Tuesday, February 12, 2013

NYT writer takes one of those cars of the future for a drive

But he did not know about the not-so-friendly relationship between batteries and cold weather.

“The thermometer read 10 degrees and the display showed 25 miles of remaining range — the electrical equivalent of someone having siphoned off more than two-thirds of the fuel that was in the tank when I parked.”

http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/2521080

Linked from maggiesfarm.

Far out car! 416 horsepower, 1,000-lb lithium battery, $101,000 price tag.

The story: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/automobiles/stalled-on-the-ev-highway.html

Interesting: “The federal government has invested in the effort to find a solution. Three years ago, Steven Chu, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist and secretary of energy, proudly announced a $465 million loan to Tesla as part of an advanced vehicles program intended to cut fossil fuel use and address global warming.”

And: “To give those cars family-vacation capability, the company plans to have 90 Supercharger stations built across the country by the end of 2013.”

(With a 265-mile estimated range, will 90 electrical outlets get you every place you want to go? I would like to see a truly affordable electric car run on electricity provided by something other than natural gas, coal, land-covering solar panels or bird-and-bug-killing windmills. It could be called … I don’t know, maybe The People’s Car.)



Saturday, February 9, 2013

The dumbest TV newsperson ever. E-V-E-R.

He asks: What do people want with AK47s and grenade launchers?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fQYCXhIeajI


Linked from moonbattery.

Some satire is more than a bit out of place

Or maybe not, given the idiocy of the targets

“(PP)- As an ex-Los Angeles police officer killed three people and went on a deadly shooting rampage in a vendetta to punish those he attributed for his firing, California Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer pleaded for calm, and asked both law enforcement and civilians to lay down their weapons.”

Said a Senate communications intern, “When the gunman realizes that nobody else is armed, he will lay down his weapons and turn himself in…. that’s just human nature.”

http://www.palookavillepost.com/2013/02/07/feinstein-and-boxer-ask-californians-to-lay-down-their-weapons-during-statewide-manhunt/

They don't like chinks or japs or gooks in general

“According to many observers, a crucial factor in the original (University of California vs. Bakke) 1978 ruling may have been the amicus brief filed by Harvard University. America’s oldest and most prestigious academic institution emphasized that its “holistic” admissions process allowed for the creation of a racially diversified student body while avoiding any “quota system.” In fact, Justice Lewis Powell’s majority opinion cited Harvard’s approach as exemplary, suggesting it demonstrated that well-intentioned and determined university administrators could achieve ethnic diversity without using quotas.”

Well, maybe not so exemplary. Using a percentage for “Asian-American” enrollment, Harvard has managed a 50 percent reduction in Asian-American enrollment, based on population growth.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/339778/racial-quotas-harvard-and-legacy-ibakkei-ron-unz

Come on, folks. We’re talking about Northeast liberals here. None of us who read Dinesh D’Souza’s Illiberal Education 22 years ago is anywhere near surprised that Ivy League colleges continue long-held practices of discrimination. If they could, the Ivies would allow in only those who aspire to speak to the Cabots and the Lodges. Those be white folks only, for anyone unsure.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

A kimche Western

The Good, the Bad, the Weird on IFC. Gun fights … lots of gun fights. Mile upon mile of horseback chases; a train robbery; and some old fashioned patriotic Korean, anti-Japan-imperialism for good measure.

Seattle Times movie reviewer Jeff Shannon mentions "astonishing stunt sequences filmed with breathtaking ineptitude” but then praises director Kim Jee-Woon for “honorable avoidance of digital trickery,” which means “that every stunt was accomplished with genuine bravery in the old-school tradition of Hollywood legends …”

http://seattletimes.com/html/movies/2011797541_mr07good.html

It was a decent flick.

Yahoo movies says the film was shot in China, Los Angeles and South Korea. China and South Korea – lots of space for no particulars. Dazeddigital says one location was “the Manchurian desert.”

http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/1778/1/the-good-the-bad-and-the-weird

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Radio

Driving from the East End recycle place this morning, I turned on the radio and punched up the Little Rock classical music station, got the usual finger-tip-touching, tippy-toe ballroom stuff, violins and harpsichords, not a hint of real people music of blaring brass and thundering timpani, no cavalry charges or Volga boat workers. I pressed “Seek” and when another station came up a woman was saying, “I wondered if she really felt that way or if she was depressed and sad.”

Holy … whatever. “… felt that way,” “depressed” … “sad.”

Without looking at the frequency readout, I knew it was the NPR station.

NPR works on “feel” or “felt” or “feelings.” Nobody ever says “believe” or “think” or “conjecture” or “deduce.” On NPR, everybody “feels.”

One day in 1980 at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram while editing a story for the local pages, I read once too many times (and I am not making this up; a reporter actually wrote this), “She said she feels that …” I turned to the city editor and said, “Would you please tell your reporters to stop feeling? They can feel this,” and I slapped my hands together, really hard. Besides, look at the waste of time and ink writing “She said she feels that …” rather than “She said …”

I heard a caller to a talk radio program say, “I just want to say that I feel that …” Good grief! Do such people not know the amount oxygen they steal from the rest of us? Just say it! Dive in!

The NPR talker reminded me of yesterday when driving from the East End Harvest grocery and I punched up the local talk radio station and heard a voice and then an over-voice: “You are listening to President Clinton at the funeral for Ed Koch. Geraldo is there, on the third row of pews. He’s got a good seat.”

I turned off the radio. Geraldo had good seats. Courtside, ringside … whatever.

Yeshua ben Joseph said something about not giving inordinate importance to the men who are on the front seats at the synagogue.

Or on radio, too.

Monday, February 4, 2013

A public service link

Maggiesfarm says that if you are of a certain age, you can find your first car, your parents’ first car and maybe your grandparents’ first car here:

http://www.lov2xlr8.no/broch1.html

Here is the law. Do we need another?

(g) It shall be unlawful for any person—
(1) who has been convicted in any court of, a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year;
(2) who is a fugitive from justice;
(3) who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 802));
(4) who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or who has been committed to a mental institution;
(5) who, being an alien—
(A) is illegally or unlawfully in the United States; or
(B) except as provided in subsection (y)(2), has been admitted to the United States under a nonimmigrant visa (as that term is defined in section 101(a)(26) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1101 (a)(26)));
(6) who has been discharged from the Armed Forces under dishonorable conditions;
(7) who, having been a citizen of the United States, has renounced his citizenship;
(8) who is subject to a court order that—
(A) was issued after a hearing of which such person received actual notice, and at which such person had an opportunity to participate;
(B) restrains such person from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner of such person or child of such intimate partner or person, or engaging in other conduct that would place an intimate partner in reasonable fear of bodily injury to the partner or child; and
(C)
(i) includes a finding that such person represents a credible threat to the physical safety of such intimate partner or child; or
(ii) by its terms explicitly prohibits the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against such intimate partner or child that would reasonably be expected to cause bodily injury; or
(9) who has been convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence, to ship or transport in interstate or foreign commerce, or possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition; or to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce.

18 USC 922 (g)

From http://ace.mu.nu/

And, if I may add: “No provision of this chapter shall be construed as indicating an intent on the part of the Congress to occupy the field in which such provision operates to the exclusion of the law of any State on the same subject matter, unless there is a direct and positive conflict between such provision and the law of the State so that the two cannot be reconciled or consistently stand together.”
18 USC 927 Effect on State law

Part 1: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/part-I



Sunday, February 3, 2013

‘Plain and not honest …’

“A skeleton found underneath a car park in Leicester is expected to be confirmed as that of Richard III.

“The remarkable discovery of the remains, entailing a curved spine back and wounded skull, was made last September.


“Philippa Langley, who initially funded the excavation of what is now a Leicester City Council car park, said she was '99 per cent certain' that the remains are those of Richard III - one of England's most controversial kings.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2272653/Human-remains-Leicester-car-park-DO-belong-Richard-III-scientists-prepare-reveal-results-DNA-testing.html#ixzz2JqgbImOl

Link from:

http://lucianne.com/thread/?artnum=721831

(Had he found a horse, might not there have been that band of brothers, nor Good Queen Bess.)

Two poodles

0309. Charlie (the poodle) said he and Victor (the poodle) needed to go outside. I got up and let them out, obviously, or I would not now be writing this.

Priscilla and I learned early that Charlie does not lie about needing to go outside. About a month after we got the dogs, Charlie around 0400 one day said he wanted to go out. He and Victor were in their cages in another bedroom. Priscilla and I both told Charlie he was crazy, it was too early, he should go back to sleep. Charlie barked a couple more times. We repeated our admonitions. Charlie stopped barking. When I got up at 0630 to let the dogs out, I found Charlie had gone through an episode of diarrhea.

Some things you learn unpleasantly. So when Charlie says he and Victor need to go out, I believe him.

(If you wonder why two big poodles – 90 pounds and 65 pounds – are named Victor and Charlie … Priscilla and I were driving home from near Joplin, Mo., with our newly bought 8-month-old and 7-month-old dogs in the back seat. Priscilla said, “How about Charlie for the red one? You know, the irresponsible one who grows up to be Charles?” I said that was a good name. She said, “What about the white one?” I smiled sardonically to myself and said, “Victor.” In my long ago experience, if you have a Charlie you have to have a Victor.)


Saturday, February 2, 2013

‘Go ugly early’

When the bad guys absolutely, positively need killing right now.

Call in the Hog.

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-a-10-thunderbolt-ii-is-the-plane-that-saves-soldiers-lives-face-of-salvation-2013-1?op=1

You aren’t smart enough or rich enough to know what’s best …

… so these organizations and people are out to make sure everybody realizes that if you own a gun you are a threat to civilized peace and security. The list contains an amazing number of actor-type people and movie/TV-making people who have made millions of dollars by dramatically killing thousands and destroying numerous towns and villages.

http://www.nraila.org/news-issues/fact-sheets/2010/national-organizations-with-anti-gun-po.aspx?s=&st=&ps=

Link from Ace of Spades HQ http://ace.mu.nu/