You can take the dog out of policework, but you can't take the policework out of the dog.

Lagniappe is enjoying a pig ear tonight. Pig ears are one of his favorite treats and he gets them on special occasions.

Today he earned one.

I was working around the house earlier today, pretty much lost in what I was doing, when the little neighbor boy across the street somehow got himself stuck in one of those predicaments that little boys always seem to get into. The boy began crying loudly for help.

Initially it seems, no one heard him. I certainly didn't. But Lagniappe, out on the deck, did hear him. And with that special sense that good dogs have, he knew that there was a problem this time, and that the little boy wasn't just shouting and carrying on like he normally does. Lagniappe ran back into the house and began whining to get my attention, like he always does whenever he wants anything. I ignored him for a bit, but then he barked at me and I knew that he really wanted something. So I got up, and he ran back outside onto the deck, then turned to make sure that I was coming. Curious, I went out there, and when I did, I heard the little boy crying for help, too. I was on my way over there when his father also heard him and came outside to get him unstuck from whatever he was caught up in. Crisis solved and I returned to the Lair. And when I got back, Lagniappe got his reward.

Sure, he didn't actually do anything, but he recognized that something needed to be done, and he brought it to my attention, making sure that I responded even after I tried to blow him off because he knew somehow that whatever was going on was important.

As much as I pick on this dog and make jokes about him, I have to credit him for being perceptive and intuitive when it counts. He knew that something wasn't right and he knew enough to come find me and work on me until I took action. And even though I wasn't needed this time, I could have been. However I would not have been aware of it but for this still keen ex-police dog.

Good job, buddy.

America...where'd your spine go?

There was a time when Americans could justifiably take pride in their Presidents, because America has had, at times, some serious bad-ass Presidents who stood tall, spoke their mind and meant what they said. These were men who made the world spin just a little differently on it's axis, and no one wanted to mess with us when they were in the White House.

President Andrew Jackson was such a man. He began his career as a militia officer who excelled at solving "Indian problems" in the American South. Basically, when Indians got out of line and killed settlers, Jackson went down and whipped their asses until the survivors had enough and promised to behave or move west. Then he led a volunteer band from Tennessee and Kentucky down to New Orleans, assembled a pick-up crew that included farmers, shopkeepers, riverboatmen, naval sailors whose ships were sunk, freed blacks, and even pirates, and he cleaned the clocks of a professional British invasion force at Chalmette, Louisiana, killing over 2,000 of them for a loss of about 12-14 Americans.

When not killing Indians or the British, Jackson fought duels with pistols, suffering two serious gunshot wounds himself as a result of these fights but also killing one his opponents in return. He was also the subject of the first assassination attempt against a US President with a crazy house painter by the name of Richard Lawrence ran up and tried to shoot him with two pistols, both of which misfired. Jackson then proceeded to beat Lawrence near to death with his hickory cane before others intervened. How do you not admire a man like that? Even his inauguration was such a rowdy affair when his former soldiers and other frontier supporters showed up at the White House that the White House was nearly destroyed after the free booze caused things to get out of hand. Old Hickory was a President that no one here or abroad ever wanted to mess with.

A bit later, we had Theodore Roosevelt. He was an accomplished big-game hunter, a boxer, and a military man who, among other things, assembled a volunteer cavalry unit made up of cowboys and the upper-crust of Yale and Harvard's sports teams, and led them to Cuba where they kicked Spanish butt all the way up San Juan Hill and back down the other side. "Speak softly but carry a big stick," he said. And America did just that. He brought a lot of Central America under control and got the Panama Canal built. He was a man's man and no one wanted to mess with him. Like Jackson before him, he was the subject of an assassination attempt while campaigning in 1912. A man named John Schrank shot him on the chest, but Roosevelt decided that he was not in any danger of dying from the wound since he wasn't coughing up blood, so he went on to deliver his campaign speech, speaking for 90 minutes while bleeding.

Following World War Two, America elected it's former Supreme Commander in Europe, Five-Star General Dwight D. Eisenhower, to the Presidency. Again, this man knew how to take care of business. Graduating West Point in 1911, he rose to the General Staff by the time that the US entered the Second World War and his decisions helped bring it to a successful conclusion. He went on to become the first Supreme Commander of NATO, and as President, he was responsible for the development of both our nuclear weapons program and our rise to the challenges of the Space race. He gave is the interstate highway system that we all know and use today (Originally intended to help move military traffic across the country quickly) and he implemented the Eisenhower Doctrine, under which the US would be prepared to respond with force against any aggression committed by a communist country. And the world understood that he wasn't playing.




And then there was President Ronald Reagan. He started out playing tough guys in the movies, and he ended up a real tough guy on the world stage, serving two terms as President. His credentials, like those before him, were not questioned by America's enemies. The Iranians had been punking America's prior president, Jimmy Carter, by holding our embassy staff hostage for 444 days. But they released them on the day that Reagan took office, because they knew that Reagan, unlike Carter, was a man who would have rolled up his sleeves and settled that Iranian problem with military muscle.

The eight years of the Reagan Presidency were bad years for communists and assorted bad guys everywhere.

He suppressed a communist-launched coup in Grenada, he called on Russia to tear down the Berlin Wall (and they did), he authorized US combat aircraft to intercept terrorists who had hijacked the cruise ship Achille Lauro and murdered US citizen Leon Klinghoffer, and he sent other combat aircraft to bomb targets in Libya in retaliation for Libyan President Khadaffi's support of other terrorist acts in Europe and the Middle East. Reagan's policies brought the Cold War with Russia to a stunning end as the Soviet economy collapsed, and he also brought about the fall of the Nicaraguan Communist government despite the best efforts of the Communists and the Democrats in Congress to stop him. Because of President Reagan, millions of people around the world knew freedom by the end of 1988.

America lost her way for a bit, as demonstrated by the election of Bill Clinton. Under Clinton, terrorists and dictators like Iraq's Saddam Hussein felt free to constantly kick our country in the nuts abroad and even here at home. The World Trade Center was bombed in 1993, and when nothing was done about it by the Clinton Administration, Osama bin Laden came back for another whack at it on September 11, 2001.

But he erred grievously, because America had just elected another President who was cut from better cloth. George W. Bush, a former military fighter pilot, took decisive action like a real man would. Afghanistan's terrorist-supporting Taliban was hit hard and Saddam Hussein was removed from power, brought to trial, and executed by the new democratically-elected government of Iraq.

I may not have cared for much of what President Bush did domestically during his time in office, but as Commander-in-Chief, he rocked.


So what do we have in office now, during a time when real leadership is required and our military is fighting two wars? Do we have a Jackson, a Roosevelt, an Eisenhower, a Reagan or even a Bush to make the tough decisions and support our troops? Do we have a man with a backbone, a firm jaw, and the first-hand understanding of what it means to fight?

No, we don't. We just have Obi Wan Ke-dopey:
















God help us.

So what's news?

Today, all of the news services seem to be up in a tizzy because two scammers, Tareq and Michaele Salahi, conned their way into Obama's first White House state dinner and had their photos taken with numerous actual guests, including a grinning Joe Biden.

Like the good Obama lapdogs that they are, the media services rush to state that although these two made it into the same room as the Obamas, there was no possible threat because they had passed through the security magnetometer (metal detector) like everyone else had. Yeah...ok. (Insert rolling eyes here.)

But aside from the fact that they could have been hostile foreign agents with mad ninja skills instead of just two sad losers in search of a TV reality show, I'm not seeing the issue here.

Yes, they lied their way into the White House, but then so did Barack Obama. They did not belong there, but neither does Barack Obama. Perhaps we should have just let them stay and given them a chance to run the country for a while; I'm thinking that they probably couldn't do much worse. And unlike Barack Obama, I'll bet that they'd both be willing to quickly show us all copies of their real state-issued birth certificates, too.

EDITED to add this new photo:One of these two people is a fraud and a phony who repeatedly lied to get into the White House.
The other one just bluffed her way past a few Secret Service agents.

They call it "dope" for a reason... yet another example.

So police in Mansfield, Lousiana executed a raid on a dope house, only to find the suspect who owned the house coming out of the bath room, no doubt grinning like the Cheshire Cat. The toilet was still running and it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the dope had been flushed.

But all was not lost. The dope house wasn't connected to the municipal sewer system; it has a septic tank, meaning that the drugs hadn't gone far.

So the police brought a backhoe in and tore up the septic tank. A bag filled with meth, used needles and urned tin foil was quickly recovered, resulting in the arrest of the home's owner, Paul Fuller. Fuller, 49, of Frierson, was booked into the DeSoto Detention Center on one count each of possession of methamphetamine, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of a firearm with a Controlled Dangerous Substance.

But the good guys scored even better. A second doper, Joshua D. Verhoef, 27, of White Oak, Texas, just happened to be present when the raid went down. He was taken into custody and charged with possession of methamphetamine, possession of drug paraphernalia and parole violation.

And if that wasn't fortuitous enough, a third knucklehead, Curtis Raye Tisdale, 58, of Greenwood, drove up to the scene as deputies were there. He consented to a search of his vehicle and wound up getting arrested along with his pals after drugs and a weapon were found in his vehicle.

Hint to dopers: Flushing dope doesn't work if you're on a septic system. Hint to dopers #2: if you're on parole, hanging around a dope house probably isn't a good idea, and hint to dopers #3: If you go over to your buddy's dope house and see the police all over the place, you might want to just keep driving, especially if you have dope and guns in your vehicle.

Yeah, folks, these guys perfectly represent the sort of brain trust that keeps telling us that drugs should be legal.

Another post about a time when movies were great...and machine guns

And speaking of television, and the good old days when Hollywood was patriotic and made great movies, I happened to catch the 1970 classic Kelly's Heroes yesterday.

Aside from the fact that the movie features Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas, Donald Sutherland, Caroll O'Connor, Harry Dean Stanton, Gavin MacLeod, Jeff Morris and Don Rickles all in the same movie, it's got lots of machine guns and tanks--tanks that run lots of stuff over and blow a ton of stuff up. How do you not like that? And adding to the cool factor, Don Rickles--one of my favorite comedians--spends a fair deal of time toting around a Browning 1919A4 machine gun and using it to whack about a score of Germans.

And looking for a clip to post up here, I found this fantastic one that even shows Rickles with the Browning.
How cool is that?


Now after watching Kelly's Heroes and seeing Don Rickles toting that Browning 1919A4, I felt the desire to blog about mine again. I own this wonderful piece of military history, the Browning 1919A4 .30 machine gun. It's an air-cooled, belt-fed gun that weighs about 28lbs by itself and about 41lbs with it's tripod and T&E mechanism, both of which are pretty well required.

It fires 550 rounds per minute of either .30-06, .308 or 8mm ammunition (very versatile guns, these Brownings) and the ammo feeds from either cloth belts or metallic links. Here's a can holding 250 rounds of .30-06 ammunition, and this can weighs about 20lbs all by itself.



So what does 250 rounds linked together really look like?



Well here's a linked belt taken out of the can and laid out straight. It's about twelve feet long and the gun can burn through this in about 30 seconds if necessary, but it's much easier on the gun to just fire 5-6 round bursts and keep the rate of fire down to about 120 rounds a minute so as not to burn the rifling out of the barrel. So at that rate, this belt lasts about two minutes. Obviously, more than one can is going to be needed for any practical employment of this gun.

In actual military use, a gun team would have one or two ammo bearers--soldiers whose main job is just to carry extra cans of ammo for this gun. That's in addition to any ammo carried by the gunner and assistant gunner and that assigned to other soldiers in the squad to carry. Many soldiers would lessen the weight by removing the belts from the can and draping them around their shoulders. This wasn't always good, because it allowed the links to get dirty and sometimes knocked rounds out of alignment--both of which could cause the gun to jam--but it was often done nonetheless, and it's still even done today by our troops as they field the Browning's successor guns, the M60 and M240.

I, of course, am always in the market for ammo bearers. In a perfect world, I would have ammo bearers who looked like these two patriotic ladies, each of whom seems to have exactly what this machine gunner needs:




















Sadly, I just get this guy:


Life can be so unfair.

Anyway, here's a nice clip of my Browning 1919A4 in operation. I just found this clip on Youtube, and apparently this guy filmed me and a couple of my cop pals, one of whom is fellow blogger Roanoake Cop, while we were shooting it at the state range near his place a couple years ago.

I thought that set-up looked familiar!

Oh--Well-deserved credit to The Sniper for the ammo bearer babes.

Burn Notice boycott is OVER!

OK. After reading this great post on Blackfive, my self-imposed boycott of the show Burn Notice is at an end.

Some of you may recall a post a few months back where I expressed a great deal of disappointment over something that lead actor Jeffery Donovan did off the set. It was enough to make me give up watching what had been one of the very few modern shows that I ever watched. But that's all in the past now as it has been more than atoned for by his recent action--traveling to Iraq with co-star Bruce Campbell to visit our troops serving there.

That's the sort of class that we used to routinely see from our Hollywood celebrities back in the day that Hollywood was patriotic and actually supported America and our troops. (That would be "pre-George Clooney" for those who don't remember those days.)

Here they are shooting with our troops at Combat Outpost Meade on November 13th.Yeah, Jeffrey Donovan needs someone to teach him how to actually hold that Beretta M9. No one uses that old "cup-and-saucer" hold any more. But Bruce Campbell (below) seems to be enjoying that M249 SAW and making good use of it.




And here, Bruce Campbell and Jeffrey Donovan hold the U.S. flag as Spc. Peter Jank re-enlists on Nov. 12, at Joint Security Station Nasir Wa Salam, Iraq. (Spc. Jank is the one on the right, standing ahead of Donovan.)

Jeffrey Donovan and Bruce Campbell did not have to go to Iraq. They could have done as most of the rest of Hollywood has done and is still doing and just ignored our troops. But they went, and they gave our troops a much-needed boost. So because they did that, Burn Notice is once again back on the TV here. Good job, guys.

And Hey Aaron, how about shooting me Season Three on DVD?

Someone call the Wah-mbulance. Spoiled rich kids mad that school costs are rising

Remember when college kids at least pretended to protest significant things like civil rights (good) and an end to the war in Vietnam (bad)? Now they are protesting because tuition is rising.

That's right. A bunch of angry kids--most of whom are no doubt there on scholarships or their parents' money anyway--are now tearing up the campuses of the University of California in both Los Angeles (UCLA) and Berkeley (UC Berkeley), aided by SEIU union thugs who are fighting to prevent some unnecessary janitors from being laid off.

Well I can understand part of the student's anger. Tuition is being raised 32% in one bite, and that is a lot of money. However I cannot be sympathetic to the university after perusing it's 2009/2010 list of offered classes. If they are as far in the red as they claim to be, why aren't they eliminating some of the stupid-ass courses that they offer which have absolutely no value to anyone trying to obtain a paying post-school job in the real world?

Just to highlight a few:

African Studies. What is this? All I know is that it has eleven tenured professors and it's own building on campus. Are we in Africa? Are we training students to go work in Africa? Whatever it is, it is apparently separate and apart from it's Afro-American Studies Department, which has sixteen professors. Are you telling me that the University can't afford to pare any of this stuff back?

Then there's the American Indian Studies Department, with eight more professors. Last I checked, you were born an indian; you didn't go to school to learn how to become one (unless you're Ward Churchill, of course.)

So that's thirty-five professors there, each of whom makes well over $100,000 per year. Are you telling me that the school can't cut even a few of these positions?

But there's more. There is a Latin American Studies program, A Chicano and Chicana Studies program...in fact there appears to be a whole department set aside just to study pretty much any different culture or self-described interest group, including (of course) Women's Studies, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies, and one that really has me scratching my head: Ethnomusicology. Whatever the hell that is, it has more than fifty professors pulling down paychecks. Seriously--who gets a degree in "Ethnomusicology" and goes on to do anything except perhaps teach ethnomusicology at some other institute of useless learning?

If the University of California is really doing that badly financially, perhaps they should eliminate some (or all) of these fluff programs and focus on teaching students practical coursework like medicine, law, science, mathematics, computers, robotics, engineering, advanced writing, physics, and other things that will actually help them get real jobs with cutting-edge firms where they can make money and actually produce things that will make life better for everyone? That's what colleges used to be for, back before they decided to water down the curriculum with junk classes so that even stupid kids could get (basically worthless) degrees that wouldn't even qualify them to manage a McDonalds. And coincidentally, it's students of this sort today who are locking themselves in campus buildings and sitting in trees to protest. The students enrolled in the practical coursework are noticeably absent from their little unwashed mobs. Those students are too busy studying and getting ready to go out and succeed on the world.

Hopefully when they make their mark on America and have a comfortable life, they'll remember their former peers--the Ethnomusicologists or the Transexual Studies students--and when they see one bagging their groceries or just standing around with a "Will Work For Food" sign, they'll toss them a few coins just for that old school tie.

Lagniappe's first houseguest

Several years ago, back when Lagniappe was still a fairly new addition to our pack of two, I was asked by a neighbor in my apartment building that we lived in at the time if I would watch her dog--a German Shepherd puppy named Tyler, for a week-end.Now Lagniappe and little Tyler had become pretty good pals since this gal had brought Tyler home a few weeks ago, and because I wanted Lagniappe to have a playmate, and because I was trying to score serious points with this gal who, as far as I could tell, had only one flaw--a long-distance boyfriend that she talked about way too much--I agreed to take the little fellow into my apartment for a few days. I even naively figured that if Lagniappe had a buddy to play with, he'd leave me alone for a few days.

So the week-end came, and my neighbor brought little Tyler over. Now keep in mind that Lagniappe and Tyler played very well in the hallway every day, and at the dog park. I knew that they got along fine. What I hadn't realized was that all of this play had taken place in neutral territories, and how much the dynamic would change once the puppy set foot into Lagniappe's domain.Oh. My. God.

The first few minutes were fine. They sparred a bit, and Tyler sniffed around. But then the fussing began. Tyler would touch one of Lagniappe's toys and Lagniappe would go into a barking frenzy. The pup would touch Lagniappe's dishes, and more barking...the K9 equivalent of a spoiled two-year old screaming "MINE! MINE!" over and over again. It got worse instead of better when Tyler started grabbing Lagniappe's toys up and running around with them and the ensuing chases virtually destroyed my apartment. Even toys that Lagniappe never played with were off-limits to Tyler. And of course Tyler, being a mischievous little puppy, had to try to take anything that he knew that Lagniappe liked.And if that wasn't bad enough, Lagniappe was barred from climbing on the furniture. He knew it and had no problems with it. Tyler, however, was not under similar restraint at his place, so he would jump up onto my couch, and Lagniappe would go nuts, not only barking at him, but running into the other rooms to find me and barking at me until I followed him back to discipline the offending trespasser.

The problems went away as soon as I took them out into the hallway to play, and when we went to the dog park, all was well and they were fast friends again. But as soon as we went back into the apartment, Lagniappe came unhinged at the slightest violation of whatever protocols that he'd established, or any attempts by Tyler to cozy up to me. He was still a pretty insecure dog back then and the whole week-end was one agonizingly long string of dog fights, characterized with much barking, yelping, chasing, growling, tattling and other displays of dog schizophrenia and taunting. They finally settled down and started getting along without difficulty sometime on Sunday, just a few hours before his owner returned. I was never happier to see that week-end come to a close when my neighbor returned and retook possession of little Tyler.

Of course after he was gone, Lagniappe spent the next few hours whining and looking around for his buddy.Dogs...

PS: He's much better now.

TSA follies

Traveling down to New Orleans a few weeks ago allowed me to add yet another story to my growing collection of TSA tales of idiotacracy. This latest encounter with the slackers and fools that the Transportation Security Administration still makes me smile and Nicki fume. Remember that these baggage screeners were once condemned by our government as being unfit and unable to secure our airlines when they were working for private companies at minimum wage, so a new bureaucracy was created--TSA--and most of the same slackers and losers were immediately hired by the new agency, paid five times what they'd been making before, and given union representation and civil service protections. So now we have the same poor security, just at a higher price tag.

Anyway, as we were departing Baltimore Washington Airport, Nicki's bag was opened and her container of toothpaste was confiscated, supposedly for her protection and ours, as the TSA goon claimed. As absurd as that was, what was even better was that I, being a special case by virtue of my leg, went through a different screening process with a different screener, and I was allowed to keep my tube of toothpaste, a fact which only added to Nicki's outrage and sense of personal persecution.

Fortunately for her, I was nice and I shared mine with her.

But this lack of a set standard, evenly applied and tempered with common sense, is why many of us still don't believe that we have any sort of credible airline security. Israel has airline security; America has a system that basically just inconveniences and annoys travelers.

A prime example of the foolishness of some of these rubes was the time that I flew out west a few years ago. I was authorized to carry a sidearm on board the aircraft--which I was doing--and the TSA nimrod still insisted on confiscating the small set of scissors in my shaving kit! A brief discussion between me and his supervisor yielded no joy, and I permanently lost the scissors. Not a big deal actually, but what's the rationale there? Did they thing that I was going to give someone a manicure without their consent? I mean, damn--I was carrying a 9mm pistol and two extra magazines on my person, and that was ok, but the tiny scissors in my travel bag was somehow presenting a clear and present danger. My head still hurts when I try to figure that one out.

Every time I have to deal with these clowns, I'm reminded of that priceless scene in the movie "Home Alone 2", where the angry mother asks the hotel concierge (played masterfully by Tim Curry)what kind of idiots they employ there, and Curry responds smugly: "The finest in New York!"

Curry should consider becoming a spokesman for TSA. He's got it down perfectly.

A new gun

And this one really is new--as in "never before owned or fired by anyone else".

I can't remember the last time I bought a brand new gun. I think that it might have been back in the 1980's. I bought three new guns back then, and I still have them. Other than those, since my tastes run to historic arms, every gun I've ever bought has been used.

But then I stumbled across this one--an older First Generation Glock 22 in caliber .40 S&W that was initially delivered to the Detroit Police Department back when that department used Glocks. (They now use the Smith and Wesson M&P .40.)This one was never handed out to an officer and when Detroit switched, they traded this one in or otherwise disposed of it, along with the rest of a small batch of never-issued Glocks. I got this one, and my friend Aaron over the The Shekel got one, too. In fact, our guns have consecutive serial numbers.

After giving it a virtually unnecessary cleaning and basic lubrication, I took it out to break it in today. Like many police-issue handguns, this one has the heavy New York 1 trigger that Glock installs at the request of agencies who fear liability more than they do poor accuracy. Granted, Mas Ayoob shoots his Glock 22 with the NY trigger in competition, basically just to prove that it can be done and done well with enough practice, but I like light, crisp triggers such as the ones on my H&K P7's or my 1911, so I will be switching out this pistol's connector out for one of the excellent 3.5lb. connectors made by Lone Wolf Distributors.

But shooting it today, I was pleased to see that it kept every round fired on the paper plate targets. The sight picture is excellent, as is the norm with Glock sights, and I actually found myself liking the longer sight radius of this full-sized pistol, which was noticeably different from the compact Glocks that I'm used to shooting. It sits in my hand nice, points well, goes "BANG!" every time and has the Detroit Police Department's property stamp prominently rolled into the slide.What's not to like? And the best part is that it fits the same holsters that I already have for my other Glocks, so I don't need to run out and buy new stuff for it. I even had a number of Glock 22 15-round magazines in storage, so I didn't even have to buy any of those.

One thing that did irk me though. The dealer that we got these from sold them with two magazines (also each marked "DPD") but on the Glock tupperware box that the pistol came from the factory in, the label clearly indicated that it had left said factory with one Glock pistol and THREE magazines. Obviously, either the dealer or they City of Detroit held one back--a minor sore point, but a sore point nonetheless.

Still, it's a nice pistol that came at a fair (but not fantastic) price, and besides being a totally serviceable sidearm that I can shoot for recreation or rely on for self-defense, it fits into my collection of police guns quite well. I'm sure that it will become fast friends with my District of Columbia-marked Glock 19.

I keep trying to tell people that I'm not a Glockaholic...I just happen to own a few. Don't think less of me because of it.

EDITED: After reading this article by Mas Ayoob about the Glock with the NY1 trigger, I think I'll keep mine stock, at least for a little while. We'll see how it goes.

In honor of our veterans.

Yes, it's long. But watch it once, and you'll likely watch it a few more times.

Happy Dog

Sometimes I really go against my best interests. Today was one of those days. I bought another one if these infernal things:It's a plushie hedgehog from Petsmart. It squeaks and grunts when squeezed--noises that just drive me to drink, especially when I hear them non-stop for days.

So why did I buy one, you ask? Because this guy loves them more than breathing. Just look at his face when he saw me holding it. This was, of course, taken just a second before he leaped up and grabbed it. He knew that it was his, just like the previous two hedgehogs that he loved and played with and slept with and carried around constantly, tossing them and squeezing them until finally the squeakers broke, and then loving them all the more in their silence until finally they just fell apart. Happiness, for Lagniappe, is measured in hedgehogs. And he's now a happy, happy dog.






So now I have to endure the squeaking and the grunting, as well as having this toy trust into my lap--or my face--every time I lay on the couch. You see, this toy was meant to fly, at least in Lagniappe's mind, so it's constantly forced upon me or anyone else who might possibly throw it for him, allowing him to chase it, catch it, squeak it, and bring it back to be thrown again...and again...and again...and again.

Of course, as you can tell by his pose here, if he doesn't hand it to you to throw, you're not allowed to touch it. It is his, after all. One of the few things that he can actually claim ownership and control over. And he guards it zealously.

But this display of K9 mania aside, he's my buddy. And if all it takes is this hedgehog to make him happy and content, then the least I can do is shell out seven bucks or so every few months to buy him one.

US Government caves again and writes check to deported foreign law-breakers

Many of you may have missed this story in the wake of the terrorist murders of our troops at Ft. Hood, but it was reported last week that we're actually paying cash money to a group of muslims who were deported for violating our country's laws after 9/11.

Five men who were detained and deported following the Sept. 11 attacks have reached a $1.26 million settlement with the U.S. government.

The men sued the government over the roundups that put them in federal detention and the abuse they say they suffered while they were there.

They were among more than 170 Arab and Muslim men jailed for immigration law violations at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

A 2003 Department of Justice report found "significant problems" with the treatment of detainees there, including physical abuse and mistreatment.

An attorney for the men said she hoped the settlement would deter the government from similar roundups in the future.

The Department of Justice did not immediately comment.

So let's recap this:
1. 170 men who were in violation of our immigration laws--the laws that they agreed to obey when they asked to come into our country--were rounded up after the 9/11 attacks and deported.

2. The men happened to be muslims (just like the terrorists who killed so many Americans on 9/11).

3. The men were held in detention because they challenged our right to deport them and under US law, they were entitled to their day in court. They could have just left voluntarily, but they refused to do so.

4. They were finally ordered deported based upon whatever violations of our immigration laws that they had committed. Once they were deported, five of them turned around, found some scum-sucking lawyers, and sued, claiming that they were not treated like rock stars while in detention.

5. Rather than stand up and fight this on principle and send a message to the other 165 criminal deportees and other future deportees, the Justice Department just sent the five criminals (and their scumsucking lawyers) big checks.

Am I the only one who has a problem with this? And does anyone think that if they were anything other than muslims (or possibly hispanic), this lawsuit would even have been brought, much less settled? But only in America do we allow criminals and foreigners to set up lobbying organizations and pressure OUR elected officials and government agencies, usually with great success and to our collective detriment. My question to you--especially in light of recent events--is "Why?"

And another story on this issue sheds a bit more light on the "innocence" of these deported muslims:

Ehab Elmaghraby, a detainee who made similar claims in another lawsuit, settled his portion of that case for $300,000. He was held at the center for almost a year, and was deported in 2003 after pleading guilty to credit card fraud.

So much for the claim that they only got deported because of their religious beliefs. But it's still an abomination that this guy comes into our country, commits fraud (and probably identity theft as well, since the two crimes almost always go together) and when caught, he just gets sent home and paid three hundred thousand dollars.

If that's how it's going to work, someone please tell me where I can get a set of robes and a koran, a fake ID and a few credit card applications?

Reporter asks Pelosi about constitutionality of her health care scheme

And Pelosi responded on Thursday...with an arrogant sneer. "Are you serious?" Pelosi replied. "Are you serious?" She then walked away, leaving her press secretary/toady, Nadeam Elshami, to tell everyone that it wasn't a "serious" question and therefore did not deserve an answer.

I can't make this stuff up, folks. This nasty little creature has deluded herself into thinking that we just exist to serve her instead of the other way around like it's supposed to be.

(CNSNews.com) – When CNSNews.com asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday where the Constitution authorized Congress to order Americans to buy health insurance--a mandate included in both the House and Senate versions of the health care bill--Pelosi dismissed the question by saying: “Are you serious? Are you serious?”

Pelosi's press secretary later responded to written follow-up questions from CNSNews.com by emailing CNSNews.com a press release on the “Constitutionality of Health Insurance Reform,” that argues that Congress derives the authority to mandate that people purchase health insurance from its constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce.

The exchange with Speaker Pelosi on Thursday occurred as follows:

CNSNews.com: “Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?”

Pelosi: “Are you serious? Are you serious?”

CNSNews.com: “Yes, yes I am.”

Pelosi then shook her head before taking a question from another reporter. Her press spokesman, Nadeam Elshami, then told CNSNews.com that asking the speaker of the House where the Constitution authorized Congress to mandated that individual Americans buy health insurance as not a "serious question."

“You can put this on the record,” said Elshami. “That is not a serious question. That is not a serious question.”

When pressed later by the reporter, Pelosi's office replied in an e-mail that Pelosi believes that the Commerce Clause gives Congress the power to force us all to buy health insurance, basically because just they've used it for so many other things.

Later on Thursday, CNSNews.com followed up on the question, e-mailing written queries for the speaker to her Spokesman Elshami.

“Where specifically does the Constitution authorize Congress to force Americans to purchase a particular good or service such as health insurance?” CNSNews.com asked the speaker's office.

“If it is the Speaker’s belief that there is a provision in the Constitution that does give Congress this power, does she believe the Constitution in any way limits the goods and services Congress can force an individual to purchase?" CNSNews.com asked. "If so, what is that limit?”

Elshami responded by sending CNSNews.com a Sept. 16 press release from the Speaker’s office entitled, “Health Insurance Reform, Daily Mythbuster: ‘Constitutionality of Health Insurance Reform.’” The press release states that Congress has “broad power to regulate activities that have an effect on interstate commerce. Congress has used this authority to regulate many aspects of American life, from labor relations to education to health care to agricultural production.”

The release further states: “On the shared responsibility requirement in the House health insurance reform bill, which operates like auto insurance in most states, individuals must either purchase coverage (and non-exempt employers must purchase coverage for their workers)—or pay a modest penalty for not doing so. The bill uses the tax code to provide a strong incentive for Americans to have insurance coverage and not pass their emergency health costs onto other Americans—but it allows them a way to pay their way out of that obligation. There is no constitutional problem with these provisions.”

Pelosi then compares it to forcing people to buy auto insurance, only she omits the fact that auto insurance, unlike her "Pelosicare", is not required of people who don't own or drive cars. If the Democrats' legislation is passed however, it be the first time in the history of our country that every single person is required to buy something as a condition of being a citizen of this country. Worse, it forces us all to buy something that they, Congress, will regulate and control.

And of course let us not forget that they still want to keep their own, better insurance. They have voted down multiple amendments which would have required them to joins us in this national heath care nightmare. Typical. Good enough for us, but not good enough for them. "Public servants" my ass.

This is not the America that our founding fathers set up. Nancy Pelosi and everyone else in Congress who have just voted to pass this bill without ever letting us read it, and in most cases, without reading it themselves, need to be dragged out of the Capitol, coated with tar and feathers, and kicked out of the District of Columbia permanently.

Obama gives shout-outs and congratulates staff while soldiers lay dying at Ft. Hood

Every day I find another reason to dislike this guy. No matter how many times I try to give him the benefit of the doubt, he always finds some new way to highlight his arrogance and narcissism.

The latest example: Him taking the stage after being informed of the massacre of 12 Americans at Ft. Hood, Texas by a deranged muslim, only to congratulate his staff and give a "shout out".

President Obama didn't wait long after Tuesday's devastating elections to give critics another reason to question his leadership, but this time the subject matter was more grim than a pair of governorships.

After news broke out of the shooting at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas, the nation watched in horror as the toll of dead and injured climbed. The White House was notified immediately and by late afternoon, word went out that the president would speak about the incident prior to a previously scheduled appearance. At about 5 p.m., cable stations went to the president. The situation called for not only his trademark eloquence, but also grace and perspective.

But instead of a somber chief executive offering reassuring words and expressions of sympathy and compassion, viewers saw a wildly disconnected and inappropriately light president YouTube- Fort Hood Tragedy -- Barack Obama Gives Odd "Shout-Out" Before He Comments on Massacre -- FOX News. At the event, a Tribal Nations Conference hosted by the Department of Interior's Bureau of Indian affairs, the president thanked various staffers and offered a "shout-out" to "Dr. Joe Medicine Crow -- that Congressional Medal of Honor winner." Three minutes in, the president spoke about the shooting, in measured and appropriate terms. Who is advising him?

Anyone at home aware of the major news story of the previous hours had to have been stunned. An incident like this requires a scrapping of the early light banter. The president should apologize for the tone of his remarks, explain what has happened, express sympathy for those slain and appeal for calm and patience until all the facts are in. That's the least that should occur.

Indeed, an argument could be made that Obama should have canceled the Indian event, out of respect for people having been murdered at an Army post a few hours before. That would have prevented any sort of jarring emotional switch at the event.

Did the president's team not realize what sort of image they were presenting to the country at this moment? The disconnect between what Americans at home knew had been going on -- and the initial words coming out of their president's mouth was jolting, if not disturbing.

It must have been disappointing for many politically aware Democrats, still reeling from the election two days before. The New Jersey gubernatorial vote had already demonstrated that the president and his political team couldn't produce a winning outcome in a state very friendly to Democrats (and where the president won by 15 points one year ago). And now this? Congressional Democrats must wonder if a White House that has burdened them with a too-heavy policy agenda over the last year has a strong enough political operation to help push that agenda through.

If the president's communications apparatus can't inform -- and protect -- their boss during tense moments when the country needs to see a focused commander-in-chief and a compassionate head of state, it has disastrous consequences for that president's party and supporters.
All the president's men (and women) fell down on the job Thursday. And Democrats across the country have real reason to panic.

Here he is, folks. Take a good look at him.


And I don't ever want to hear another word about President Bush's reaction to the 9/11 attacks again. Obama's response was a hundred times worse. He actually had time to prepare his comments after being advised of the situation, and back-patting and a "shout out" was still more important to him than the deaths of a dozen Americans.

What some of you have been waiting for

OK folks... here they are: Pictures that we took on Halloween on Bourbon Street. (Next year I promise to get to Frenchmen's Street, too.) I've made it a complete freestanding blog, and more pics will be added as I get the time. Feel free to peruse and enjoy them and comments are open.

Tricks and Treats on Bourbon Street!

Disclaimer: If you are offended by hot chicks or kissing lesbians, you should probably not click on this link. (It is completely work safe, however.)

Well the elections are over.

Virginia just saw a massive rout of Democrats and is now a red state again after electing a new GOP Governor, Lt. Governor, Attorney general and several new GOP Delegates. Bob McDonnell is the new Governor after positively trouncing Democrat Creigh Deeds, who basically just ran a months-long smear campaign against McDonnell which grew so tiresome that even Obama backed away from him, fearful of going down with his sinking ship.

New Jersey was even sweeter. A solid blue state just went red with the defeat of incumbent Democrat Governor Jon Corzine and his replacement by Republican Chris Christie, who picked up the support of many of the state's independent voters who had backed Obama just a year ago, and this despite Obama practically living in New Jersey these past two weeks, begging those people to vote for Corzine.

Smack. That's going to sting for a while.

The only sour note was the loss of Doug Hoffman by a narrow margin up in NY-23. He was the solid conservative who came from nowhere in the last month to unseat the GOP's hand-pick for the open seat, Dede Scozzafava, a liberal with ties to the labor unions and ACORN who was running as a Republican with the support of the state and national Republican parties. And when Hoffman pulled ahead of her in the polls due to the grass-roots support of many of us across the country, Scozzafava showed her true colors by dropping out and endorsing the Democrat, Bill Owens, basically slapping the GOP hard after they gave her over a million dollars in campaign funds. But that's gratitude for ya.

And it's noteworthy that Owens only trumped Hoffman by about five percentage points, while Scozzafava still received six percent of the vote despite not being in the race on election day. Bascially, she still siphoned off enough GOP votes to keep Hoffman out of that seat and thhat seat in GOP hands, and that's without figuring in the number of her supporters who actually did as she did and cast sour grapes votes for Owens. But I congratulate Doug Hoffman for his run and his impressive climb in the polls, and I only hope that the GOP learns a lesson--we don't want RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) representing our party. Personally I'd rather see a Democrat in a seat than a Republican who votes with the Dems on the issues. But now it just remains to make Scozzafava pay and pay big for her treachery. She needs to hit the unemployment line, never to darken the door of a GOP event again.

But we still won two of the big three races last night, and to quote Meatloaf: Two out of three ain't bad.

And then there's this gem from overseas

Proof that our Air National Guard flight crews haven't lost their sense of humor.
Click on it to enlarge if you can't read it.

My friends in New Orleans

I have a history in that city going back about eleven years now. I lived in the French Quarter for a bit, and over in the Garden District too. I kept touch with my friends over the years until, sadly, most were displaced, either by Hurricane Katrina or Hurricane Jackie Clarkson, the doyenne realtor who became City Council President basically so she could turn the French Quarter into a clone of Colonial Williamsburg and increase the value of her properties there by driving out all of the "undesirables" (people who have less than a million dollars or so to their names).

Two of my oldest friends are Detrick, or "D", and Melanie, shown here. D is one of the French Quarter's oldest and most well-known street entertainers, and I've known him and Melanie since I first lived in New Orleans back when I was going to school there and they're great people.

Most nights, D can be found just off Bourbon Street (because sidewalk performers aren't allowed on Bourbon Street anymore per one of Queen Jackie's edicts) and he engages passers-by with his wit and invites them to pose for pictures in return for a bit of financial consideration. Here he is, doing his thing:
Also, I had the pleasure of meeting up with Glenn, who has been blogging from the French Quarter for years. He pulled the plug on his original blog not long ago, but he still has this one where he posts some fantastic photos of things around the Quarter. Although we probably agree on very little politically or philosophically, We've enjoyed each other's blogs for quite some time now and this time, we managed to get together for drinks. Here he is with Nicki.
Glenn, you're truly a gentleman and a scholar, and it was a delightful evening.




And then there's this guy: I don't know his name but he's been doing this in Jackson Square forever. He plays music on a bunch of glasses filled with varying amounts of water. He's teaching Nicki to do it here, and like all performers, naturally expects a few bucks for his efforts. But he was a fun guy, and no one was disappointed at the conclusion of her music lesson.

Music in New Orleans

One thing that New Orleans is famous for is the variety and quality of music that originates there. Granted, the French Quarter is still under assault by the dance clubs that just seem to want to play Lady Gaga noise or bad cover bands trying to re-do Skynard's Sweet Home Alabama, but there's still a ton of great Jazz, Blues and some Zydeco music to be enjoyed. Some of it comes from strictly amateur but still great sidewalk musicians like these guys who play on the corner of Bourbon Street and Canal most nights.They may look like a bunch of kids, but they play fantastic jazz, and they do it while fending off drunks and hustlers and trying to keep the traffic on the street flowing. (If the traffic gets obstructed--even by the audience--the police shut them down.) Their horn section in particular packs a punch.
Then there's the band that gathers in Jackson Square in the daytime. It may range from half a dozen members to twenty or more, and I've even seen a piano on wheels brought in to accompany the horns and drums. Like the kids above, they play for tips, and seem to do pretty well because they're good.



And then there's even groups like these guys we saw on Royal Street, who are clearly getting into the Halloween spirit.
But the music's inside, too. And it's everywhere. Most places on or near Bourbon Street have some sort of sound coming out of it.

A welcome surprise was the piano player at Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop.
Normally I go by this bar to show people who have never seen it because of it's history. Built in 1772--when America was still a collection of thirteen British colonies and Louisiana was a French possession--it was reputed to have been the front for pirate Jean Lafitte and his smuggling and slave-trading enterprises. Today, it's a bar (one of the oldest in North America) and it's lit solely by candles inside, in keeping with it's history. Over the years, I've dropped in frequently simply because the darkened interior allows one to sneak in and make use of the bathrooms without the formality of actually being a customer.

They've always had a piano player, but in my opinion they've never had a good one until now.
A dynamite singer and piano player named Mike Hood plays in there now a few nights a week, and he's got a way of taking a song and making it his own with a style that's kind of a combination of Dr. John, Professor Longhair, and the Rolling Stones. He sure knows how to rock that piano, and he's worth seeing if you're down there. My only complaint: He wouldn't do "Free Bird" no matter how many times I yelled it out.
Damn.

Oh, and Mike...Just a suggestion: Think about losing the Myspace page and getting a real website. It'll be worth it, believe me.

And after a few (or more) Vodka drinks, Nicki was definitely making friends with random strangers and having a good time.

Running in New Orleans

One of my real pleasures. I love to get up right around sunrise and go out and run through the French Quarter and Marigny streets and down along the river.

I had to take it easy this trip because I'm coming off of a foot injury, but I still got out every other morning for a nice run. The typical run wove through the Quarter and into the Marigny and then down to the Governor Nicholls wharf.(Click on the pictures to make them larger.)Gotta love Governor Francis Nicholls. Before he fought in the Civil War, he was a lawyer. Fighting as an officer for the CSA (Confederate States of America for you yankee readers), he lost his left arm at Winchester. But he kept fighting and went on to lose his left leg at Chancellorsville. After the war, he returned to the practice of law, and in 1876, he ran for governor as a Democrat, but a good one--one who championed smaller government and lower taxes.
He won the election, served two terms (1876-1880 and 1888-1892) and then became Chief Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court and held that position for 19 years, from 1892 until 1911. Not bad for a guy with one arm and one leg. Now he has a street named after him and in 2009, another lawyer with one leg runs on it whenever he gets the chance, just because.From the Governor Nicholls Wharf, I ran along the river to the ferry crossing at the foot of Canal Street.Then I ran up the neutral ground on Canal (that middle strip between the traffic lanes, where the street cars run) to Dauphine St. and back into the Quarter for a return to our hotel, the excellent Hotel St. Marie. (I cannot say enough good things about this hotel.) All told, I put about ten more miles on my running foot, and it now sports it's own French Quarter Parking Permit.

I like to think that Governor Nicholls would be impressed.

And of course, once the healthy activity for the day was out of the way (and after I showered), we spent the rest of the day dining, drinking and sightseeing. I think Nicki will be writing a review on the various Bloody Marys served at each bar in the area. She typically started drinking them at breakfast and finished up around midnight or so.

She also ate oysters, both raw and broiled, something that she once said that she'd never do.

Nice to see good things happening while I was gone.

I was pleased to return and find out that extreme liberal RINO (Republican In Name Only) Dede Scozzafava had bowed to the pressure (likely the pressure from that National GOP, who apparently bowed to the pressure of conservatives like me and many of you) and withdrew from the race for New York's 23rd Congressional seat, clearing the way for true conservative Doug Hoffman. Now the party flacks who once blew Hoffman and us off and told us to vote for Scozzafava and keep quiet are now sheepishly coming over and getting behind Hoffman, who, I suspect, will now sweep this race.

I hope that when he gets to Congress, he maintains his conservative positions and tells the moderates (traitors) in the GOP to bite him when they start trying to pull him to the left. Hopefully he remembers that they weren't there for him but we conservatives were, and we're the ones who made this happen.

And I'm proud to be able to say that I was a vocal (and financial) supporter of Hoffman before the GOP belatedly got on board. I put my time and money down behind real conservatives and if the party wants any more money from me next year, then they need to get behind more Hoffmans and walk away from liberal sellouts like Scozzafava or John McCain.

Oh--and I have to note that Scozzafava, in what was either a glaring example of sore loser-ship or a revealing display of her true colors, has endorsed Bill Owens, the Democrat in that race, instead of Hoffman. With Republicans like her around, who even needs a Democratic Party?

Edited to add: It appears that the National Republican Party and it's state arm gave Scozzafava over a million dollars for her campaign, according to a report on Michelle Malkin's site. And she still repaid them by endorsing the Democrat when she quit. This woman seriously needs to be tarred and feathered and led around the country as an example of what an ungrateful traitor really looks like.

Back from vacation

OK, I'm back, and with enough pictures and tales for a dozen blog posts.

Nicki and I went down to New Orleans for a week, culminating in the massive Halloween bash that takes over the French Quarter and the neighboring Marigny neighborhood. It's been a year to the day since I was last down there (previously blogged here) and it's what it's always been--an area with it's own distinctive culture that's unlike anywhere else in the country.

We did many things on this trip. We ate good food, we heard great music, we traveled by cab, by riverboat and by streetcar, and Nicki got to work on her irrational fear of mules.Here is Nicki, encountering a gentle, docile carriage mule and recoiling in fear. Poor mule. He didn't even do anything but turn to look at her. How can ANYONE be scared of a mule?
But finally she was persuaded to pet the mule, and the carriage operator even gave her a treat to feed the mule, and the two parted friends.

Scared of mules. And horses. Seriously?

Been away for a week. Back now. Will resume posting in the morning.