An open apology to Murphy

Sorry, buddy.

One of my biggest training goals here is to get Murphy to bark and alert when people come around the lair, but also to get over his obsession with the neighbor's damned cats outside. He's getting better with the former, but still goes ape when he sees a cat outside, even one at a considerable distance, and every day now I have to clean paw prints off my patio windows six feet off the floor because he's jumping up that high and hitting the windows in his frenzied attempts to...well I don 't know what he's trying to do other than annoy me with the barking and the pawing. It doesn't make the door open and the cats aren't really impressed, either; they're savvy enough to know that he can't get out.

Well yesterday, I was on the phone with my father when Murphy started it up again. Normally, I go through the motions with him and respond every time he barks, rewarding him if it's correct (person), and scolding him if it's not (cat). Well this time, I was on the phone. I just told him to quit and kept talking. But he was really insistent this time, running from the kitchen into my office and barking at me, then back into the kitchen to bark out the patio window. And honestly, I was getting pissed. I just wanted to talk on the phone to my father, who just got out of the hospital. But Murphy would not stop barking and trying to get my attention. I shut my office door. Murphy pushed it open and barked at me. I pushed it closed again and blocked it with a chair. Murphy forced it open and barked at me more.

Shame on me, but I chalked it up to jealousy, because Murphy has had issues with me talking on the phone in the past. I yelled at him and locked him out of my office.

Then as I hung up the phone, I looked out my window (Murphy was still barking in the kitchen) and saw that it wasn't a cat at all that he was trying to alert me to--it was a person. A neighbor who owns the property behind me--a neighbor that I never see because he's only a part-time resident--was down on the edge of his property clearing brush. He was way back in the woods and hard to see, but Murphy had picked him up several minutes ago and had been trying to cue me in without success all this time. And what did he get for his trouble? A good cursing out.

I'm sorry, buddy. You did exactly what you were supposed to do this time. For that you get my belated praise, a pig's ear, and a promise to pay more attention to your alerts, provided you agree to just give it a rest on the cats.
Dude, seriously...I'm not keen to schlep your ammo around, but I got mad potential as a spotter. And you know that those cats are all evil, right?

The Pig is Home!

On a whim today, I dialed up the nice folks at BATFE to check on the status of my long-awaited MG transfer. And as soon as I gave them the serial number and my name, I was told that the transfer had been officially approved this past Monday. YES!

So as I went into town today to run some errands and get a long, long, long overdue haircut, I stopped by my dealer's shop, coincidentally showing up there just as the mail lady was walking in with his mail. And it was there--the formal government blessing of my acquisition, in the form of a tax stamp showing that I was cool to own, possess and otherwise enjoy my new United States Machine Gun, caliber 7.62mm, M60.It took forever for the formal transfer because the seller was less than diligent about sending in the paperwork and actually shipping the gun once he got my money, but it's finally here and finally mine. So I've spent the last few hours doing what guys do with new toys--taking it apart and trying to figure out how to make it work, ideally without breaking it.

Naturally it did not come with instructions. But on the plus side, I already had most of it's manuals because I knew that eventually this critter would get here. Still, there's a difference between reading those dull field manuals and actually working with a 23lb. tool that has a tendency to snap shut on your fingers given the slightest opportunity. And no matter how many times I've read the commandment not to close the top cover on a belt of (dummy) ammunition with the bolt closed, I've already done it inadvertently several times. Cue the clown music.(Note to self: Do not close this top cover with the bolt in the forward position....again.)

Not it's just a matter of repeated disassembly, cleaning and reassembly until I get it down and get familiar with it. It appears to be much simpler than the old Browning 1919 that I traded for it, but it also appears to be more fragile.

I've also managed to stock up a fair bit of fodder for my hungry new toy.


And fortunately, I've got my faithful ammo bearer here, all set to carry belts of 7.62mm and a spare barrel.

Hey! Where'd he go?!


OK, I guess I'm not the only one here who's going to need some training.

Still, I'm happy.


Now I've just got to manage enough walking to get out to the range and test this puppy out.

Happy Anniversary!

On March 29, 1911, history was made when the US Army officially adopted a new semi-automatic pistol designed by John Moses Browning. That pistol remained in production until 1944 and served though two world wars and numerous other military deployments before finally being officially replaced in 1981 by an Italian-designed 9mm sidearm. Still, variations of the "US Pistol, Model 1911, .45 ACP" continue to soldier on today with US military special operations teams, law-enforcement entities like the FBI and LAPD SWAT teams, and countless civilians who take their target-shooting and self-defense ability seriously.

I am no exception, and to commemorate the occasion, I took my Springfield Armory 1911A1 out to the range and fired 100 rounds through it. I also took my neighbor out to the range--my non-nutty neighbor--and he brought his 1911A1.)

Here is my 1911A1 (top), pictured with it's much-older brother, a Colt-produced model 1911 made back in 1916.


As you can see, my Springfield sports different grips and sights and a left-handed safety--all added by me over the years--but other than that, most every part on these two is interchangeable, a testament to the success of the original design.

Oh yeah--the Springfield lacks that nifty lanyard ring on the bottom of the Colt's grip, too. But then these days, there's not much call for lanyards on pistols as we no longer field a horse-mounted cavalry.

It was a great gun a hundred years ago, and it's still the one that I choose to carry and rely on for my own safety today. Money says that people will still be crowing about it and carrying it come it's bicentennial anniversary in 2111.

More "Openness and Transparency", Obama Administration style

A reporter at a Biden event--the only one allowed inside--was locked in a closet and not allowed to ask questions, either of Biden or anyone else.

Staffers with Vice President Joe Biden confined an Orlando Sentinel reporter in a closet this week to keep him from mingling with high-powered guests gathered for a Democratic fundraiser.

Reporter Scott Powers was the designated "pool reporter" for the vice president's Wednesday visit to the massive Winter Park, Fla., home of developer and philanthropist Alan Ginsburg. The veep hadn't arrived yet but most of the 150 guests (minimum $500 donation) had. They were busy noshing on caprese crostini with oven-dried mozzarella and basil, rosemary flatbread with grapes honey and gorgonzola cheese and bacon deviled eggs, before a lunch of grilled chicken Caesar and garden vegetable wraps.

Not so for Powers. A "low-level staffer" put Powers in a storage closet and then stood guard outside the door, Powers told the DRUDGE REPORT. "When I'd stick my head out, they'd say, 'Not yet. We'll let you know when you can come out.'"

And no crustini for Powers, either. He made do with a bottle of water to sip as he sat at a tiny makeshift desk, right next to a bag marked "consignment." Powers was closeted at about 11:30 a.m., held for about an hour and 15 minutes, came out for 35 minutes of remarks by Biden and Sen. Bill Nelson, Florida Democrat, and then returned to his jail for the remainder of the event.

Powers' phone didn't work in the closet, but his Blackberry did, so he fired a picture of his impromptu prison to his editors, who posted a short blog item on the lack of freedom of the press under the veep's control.

Powers didn't mention his confinement in either of his pool reports that day, saying only that "press coverage was limited to a single pool reporter, filing on behalf of all local media, who was allowed to listen to the remarks but not given an opportunity to talk with anyone at the event."

On Friday, Powers said, the home's owner called him. "He said he had no idea they'd put me in a closet and was very sorry. He said he was just following their lead and was extremely embarrassed by the whole thing."

Can you imagine the uproar if this had happened at a Bush, Cheney or Palin event?
Want to bet that since this was just Biden, we hear nothing more about this?

Wow--look...A gun in the hands of a law-abiding citizen saves another life.

This is the sort of story that undoubtedly makes Sarah Brady and Chuck Schumer very sad, if only because it underscores the fact that guns in the hands of good people are beneficial to society.

A 53-year-old woman will spend 30 years in prison for participating in a home invasion robbery in December 2009 that left a Northeast Baltimore homeowner dead, the city State's Attorney's Office announced on Friday.

Bonnie Lee Lizor had pleaded guilty to a first-degree murder charge and was sentenced this week. Her accomplice, Austin Lassiter, 28, has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit robbery and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Police said the two suspects broke into a house in the 4700 block of Glenarm Ave., the same block on which Lizor lived at the time.

A friend of the victim, who was walking by, heard "unusual noises" from the house and went inside, prosecutors said. Police said that the friend took out a 9mm handgun he had been carrying and detained Lizor until officers arrived.The other suspect escaped but was arrested a short time later.

Authorities said they found 64-year-old David Monath tied up and unresponsive. Prosecutors said the victim had been beaten and then suffered a heart attack during the break-in. Lizor told police that she and her friend knew that Monath was "known to possess valuable items."

Gee, it sure is a good thing that that friend of the victim was carrying a 9mm handgun, isn't it? Maybe the Maryland legislature needs to think about this the next time they vote down a concealed-carry law in that state. (Yes, that means that the hero was more than likely carrying this handgun without permission of the state.)

Saturday morning man movie

In Five Card Stud (1968), Van Morgan (played by Dean Martin) confronts the mysterious Reverend Rudd (played by Robert Mitchum). It seems that people who'd played in a particular card game have been dying lately, and Morgan just figured out who the killer is.

And yes, that's character actor Denver Pyle with the beard in the end.

Moral of the story: Beware of preachers who hold their bibles upside down.

Aaarrrggh!

So tonight I put two choice thick-cut pork chops on the grill. To say that they were great would be an understatement. They were fantastic.

Now having finished with the meal, I saw that Murphy obviously wanted something, too. I had on my plate two pork chop bones with some meat still on them. Maybe I'm getting old but I honestly couldn't remember if pork chop bones are ok for dogs or not. So I did what any responsible dog owner would do--I set the plate on the counter and adjourned to my office to consult the computer. A Google search on the question of "Can dogs have pork chop bones?" produced countless answers, and they seemed to go both ways: yes, dogs can have pork bones, and no, dogs cannot have pork bones because they splinter. A variation of these answers indicated that uncooked bones might be ok, but cooked ones being softer were a bad idea. Yet another school of thought was that it was ok for little dogs who would gnaw them, but not big dogs who could devour the bones. So many different opinions on what should have been a simple question...

Of course while I was trying to be a good dog owner by diligently researching the issue, Murphy rendered the whole question moot by reaching up onto the counter and just taking them. By the time I'd finally decided to err on the side of caution and not give him the bones, they were gone.
"What? Why iz I a 'Damn Dog' now?"

Another tale of another time

Well here it is, that time when I need to blog something.
And since my leg's still messed up and I'm still housebound, (Yes, it was getting better, but...) I'm running short on things to talk about, since Murphy and I aren't getting out and doing anything and my ability to go to the shooting range is limited.

So another story about my time in New Orleans seems appropriate. Sorry, but there's no dogs in this one.

This one took place back when I was living in New Orleans and going to school there. Since it was so hot (it was summertime and I'd come from a northern climate) and since my third-world apartment did not have air conditioning, I'd adopted a nocturnal lifestyle that saw me asleep during the heat of the day, rising around sundown, and loitering in the French Quarter until dawn, at which time I'd head off to school for class. Classes started at 8AM and I was out by noon or so and on my way back to bed.

There was a lot of reading to do for class each morning but I usually wound up doing it while sitting in some bar or another well after midnight when things were starting to settle down. Surprisingly that worked well. I could read my criminal law statutes while savoring frosty cold mugs of beer, and without fail, someone or another in the bar would see me reading and ask me what the book was about. Of course as soon as I told them that it was a criminal law book that I was studying, I'd get questions from about half the other barflies, usually ones beginning with "I've got this friend who..." Usually I'd spend much of the early hours explaining my lesson to someone or other who was curious or who just wanted to ask questions for the sake of asking questions, but the end result was in my favor; after discussing my lesson material and applying it to countless scenarios posed by my drinking buddies, I knew it pretty well by the time I'd stagger into class in the morning, go-cup still in hand and my dark "Blues Brothers" shades covering my red eyes. I actually did well that semester, considering.

Well one night, as I wandered around in need of dinner, I'd decided to pop into a nice-looking restaurant that I'd not tried before because the food smelled good and the menu posted by the door had some stuff that even I could afford. And as I stood looking at the menu and trying to finish the beer in my hand before I walked inside, I realized that a guy standing by the door next to me looked familiar...really familiar. So, with the cheerful brazenness of a borderline drunk, I poked the guy in the arm and said: "Hey, I know you."
The man turned to me, no doubt sizing me up as a well-meaning fan who'd been drinking, and asked me who I thought he was.

"You're Harry Anderson," I said. (He was.) "I'm a big fan of you on Night Court."
"Well thank you," he said politely, as if he didn't get this from semi-intoxicated strangers every day."

But me being semi-intoxicated, I did not know when or how to stop talking. "Yeah," I told him. "In fact, I'm going to law school right now, because I want to be a judge just you are on that show!"
And I could hear the voice in the back of my head screaming at me to shut up, but at that moment, I really didn't know how.

However, Harry Anderson was gracious to a fault. He smiled and asked me where I was going, and I confessed that I was at Tulane as a visiting student. He asked me where I was from originally, and when I told him "Michigan", he told me how he'd grown up in Bay City for a while. We sat there and just talked for a bit. he told me that he lived in the French Quarter and owned a magic shop there. We shot the breeze for about ten minutes, and then some people that he'd been waiting for showed up and he excused himself, wished me well in my studies, and went to sit down. I also was seated in another part of the place and did not see him again. I ordered the po' boy or burger that had caught my fancy and had another beer or two while I sat and read whatever paperback was in my back pocket at the time. Finally, it came time for me to depart. I asked the waitress for my bill and she replied: "Oh, Mr. Anderson paid that already. He said to have a nice night." And of course by then, he was gone and I never had the chance to say "thank you".

Well thank you, Harry Anderson. That was a class act, greatly appreciated and not forgotten.

Are you freaking SERIOUS?!?

Obama now wants to appoint one of the most corrupt and incompetent women in America--if not on the planet--to head the FBI.

Jamie Gorelick--the woman who created the intelligence-sharing wall between law-enforcement agencies like the CIA and the FBI and who bears part of the blame for the Twin Towers falling on 9/11 as a result--is now one of Obama's short-list picks to run the FBI? This is the woman who moved on to run Fannie Mae, the giant mortgage association, and it was under her brilliant leadership that it crashed and burned due to mismanagement of sub-prime loans to people who had no ability or incentive to repay them. That crash took much of the housing market down, and thanks in significant part to her bungling and malfeasance, most of us cannot sell our homes for what we owe on them today.

In short, this woman has literally caused more harm to America's economy and national security than anyone I can think of, save Obama himself. If the old Soviet Union were still around, they'd have likely given her some sort of an award by now for all she's done to kneecap this country!

And Obama wants to give her the keys to the FBI now.

Shouldn't we maybe try her out on something a little smaller first, until she proves that she can run something--anything--without totally fucking it up? I'm thinking maybe we start her out on one of those little coffee and bottled-water kiosks down on the National Mall.

Hell, she'd just find a way to screw that pooch, too. But Obama thinks that she'd be a great choice to head the largest and most powerful law-enforcement agency in North America.

Not just "no", but "Hell no with gasoline and a match tossed on top of it!" Appointing that woman to any post would be an insult to America, but appointing her to that post would be a straight out declaration of war on America.

What's next from our Imperious Leader? Sarah Brady as head of the BATF? Rosie O"Donnell to head the CIA?

Seriously, folks. The joke is over. Bring Bush and Cheney back.

Career-criminal home invader killed by cute little pink pistol

Lucky for him he died, because there is absolutely no cell-block cred to be gained from getting pwned by a 25 year old beauty queen with a pink .38.

When a burly ex-convict forced his way into a posh Florida home last week, he had no idea what awaited him -- a 25-year-old beauty queen with a pink .38-caliber handgun.

Meghan Brown, a former Florida pageant queen, shot and killed 42-year-old Albert Franklin Hill during a home invasion March 12 at the 2,732-square-foot house she shares with her fiance in Tierra Verde, Fla.

Hill barged into the home at around 3 a.m. after Brown responded to a knock at the front door, according to a police report. He allegedly grabbed the 110-pound Brown around her nose and mouth and dragged her to an upstairs bedroom.

The woman’s fiance, Robert Planthaber, said in an interview that he was quickly awakened by the altercation and ran to Brown’s side.

"I attacked him and took a severe beating to the head," Planthaber told FoxNews.com. "But I got him off of her long enough for her to scramble to the room where she keeps her pink .38 special.”

Brown, who reigned as the 2009 Miss Tierra Verde, snatched her gun from a nearby bedroom and shot the suspect several times – hitting him in the chest, groin, thigh and back, her fiance said. Hill was pronounced dead at the scene.

Panthaber, a 42-year-old arborist, said he believes he and his fiancee were targeted because of their wealth. He claimed a pizza delivery man and possible accomplice staked out the home for three months before Hill attempted to burglarize it.

“We live in a very prominent area and my fiancee wears a $60,000 engagement ring,” he said. “The pizza man knew we had money because sometimes we needed change for a $100 bill when he came to deliver pizza.”

Hill had a criminal record stretching back nearly three decades -- including arrests for burglary, battery, drug possession and grand theft. He reportedly served a 13-year prison term in 1987 and was released in September after serving a fourth term behind bars.

Detectives with the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Robbery/Homicide Unit are still investigating the crime but believe the motive was robbery, according to local press reports. They say they haven’t yet determined the relationship, if any, Hill had with the couple. A police report said the ex-convict demanded money before the altercation between Hill and Panthaber ensued.

Panthaber, meanwhile, said he and his fiancee are lucky to be alive. He said he purchased the pink handgun for Brown last Christmas and that the two had gone to target practice together.

“She was not a good shot at the range,” he quipped.

This story just goes to show that guns are good and desirable for the simple reason that they allow even the most demure little ladies to triumph over big, bad ex-cons who mean to do them harm...and it doesn't matter if the gun is pink so long as the owner has the knowledge and the will to use it.

Good job, Meghan. Now if you're in the market for a new man, one who won't send you to see who's at the door at 3AM, e-mail me.

Darn...All I ever get is bills.

But some guy in Germany was on track to get some major-league love via the postal service.

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) - Lithuanian customs and postal officials say they have found a fully functional machine gun dating from World War II, complete with ammunition, in a package at Vilnius International Airport.

Officials said Tuesday that the German-made MG-42 machine gun was found after scanning a suspicious 20-kilogram (44-pound) package posted in Lithuania and bound for Germany.

Customs spokeswoman Asta Mikeleviciute says it was the first time that customs authorities had ever uncovered such a parcel and an investigation has been launched.

No evacuation of the capital's airport was ordered, but authorities were placed on alert.

More than 65 years after the war, Lithuania and other East European countries continue to uncover large amounts of weaponry and unexploded ordnance

I've seriously got to get on that mailing list.

I learned something today.

I learned how to anger one-half of a mother/daughter pair while making the day of the other, all with just one question.

Ask them if they are sisters.

Not that I personally did this or anything...

Well ok, maybe I did.

How he did it

I've had a few people ask me how Oliver the Shepherd scored so many beads down in New Orleans.
Well the night in question, it was St. Patricks Day and he and I had just walked in the French Quarter's parade. Beads were everywhere that night so he did well. But truth be told, that dog was always getting beads from some hot gal or another. Several times a night, it seemed that some pretty young thing would come up and want to put some beads around his neck, or else beads would rain down from some balcony with feminine instruction to me to "give those to the cute dog!"

That dog got all the loving, let me tell you. Girls always wanted to pet him, talk to him, or feed him something. Strippers and sidewalk bartenders were forever giving him water or ice cubes, and many of them called him by name, although few if any of them ever bothered to learn my name.

One day, even Sandra Bullock walked off from a film set and came over to me. For a minute, I thought that she was accepting my psychic marriage proposal, but all she said to me was: "Excuse me, can I pet your dog?"
Of course I said yes, whereupon she crouched down and began tousling him and baby-talking him. "Oooh, you're such a sweet puppy, aren't you? Yes, you're so sweet, I could just eat you up, I could."

Then she gave him a big kiss, stood up, thanked me, and walked back to her filming before I could tell her that I was with the dog.

Jealousy is an ugly thing, but I hated him like I've never hated a dog that day as he pranced along, occasionally throwing me smug looks.

Of course not everyone loved Oliver. On another film set, he barked at Melanie Griffith--just one "woof" after she gave him a look that he apparently didn't like--and about thirty seconds later, two NOPD officers who were working the set came up and told me that Oliver and I had to leave.

I asked why, and one of the officers told me that "Miss Griffith wants that dog gone, right now."

I protested and stated that this was a public street and I lived here and she did not, but all that got me was an apologetic look coupled with the promise of an arrest if I didn't take off.

"For what it's worth," the other officer said, "we don't like her either. She's a bitch."

No argument from me. I used to think that she was pretty hot, but that assessment changed right then and there. And yes, we left. It's never wise to argue with NOPD, even when you're right.

And Oliver had his detractors on other nights, too. One evening, some gals were up on a balcony baring their assets for the world to enjoy. A guy not too far from Oliver and I tossed one gal a pretty nice bead necklace--it wasn't one of the cheap ones. She caught it, then said "Give this to the dog!" and tossed them to me. I took them and put them around Oliver's neck, and just as I stood back up, the guy who through them shoved his way through the crowd and drunkenly confronted me.
"I didn't throw those beads up there for no dog to have them," he stated.
I looked down to see Oliver starting intently up at him, the hair on the back of his neck starting to bristle.
"Well that's between you and the dog," I said, stepping back a step and pointing to Oliver. I figured that the guy would see that Oliver wasn't amused and just go away, but he stupidly reached out for Oliver's neck as if to take the beads. With a loud bark, Oliver lunged at the guy, snapping his jaws shut just a fraction of an inch from his hand as I quickly hauled him back. The crowd parted as Oliver barked at the guy again.

"I think he likes his beads," I told the guy. "You should probably move along."

The guy disappeared into the crowd, and I dragged Oliver the other way very quickly, before the police could make an appearance. But we left with his honor and his beads intact.

Oliver was a French Quarter dog off and on for a number of years. Whether it was patrolling on Bourbon Street at night, lying in the shade while sharing my lunch in Jackson Square, joining in any number of second-line parades or shadowing me off-leash and watching my back as I roamed both St. Louis #1 and #2 cemeteries taking photographs (back when both were considered dangerous places), he's part of most of the memories that I have of that disgusting yet magical place. We had good times.

My buddy.

Smith and Wesson Model 642 joins the family.

OK, it's time for another gun post, mainly because I got another gun.

This one is a Smith and Wesson Model 642, a five-shot .38 Special. Made of aluminum alloy with a stainless steel cylinder and barrel, it's designed for concealed carry and is one of Smith and Wesson's best sellers.
I like the size of my little Ruger LCP, but I'm not a fan of it's sight picture and/or trigger pull and I'm less than impressed with the .380 round in general. It's still a nice pistol to have in one's pocket as a back-up, but by sacrificing just a bit of it's concealability, I can have five rounds of Corbon or Winchester Ranger .38 Special on tap in a pistol that's more accurate and more comfortable to shoot.

I used to have a Smith and Wesson J-frame revolver that I bought on Massad Ayoob's recommendation when we were in a gun shop together. That pistol was not rated for +P rounds, and it has a small butt and wood grips that made it very uncomfortable to shoot, even with standard rounds. I eventually needed money so I sold it but I've always regretted that. Now I have another one, and while it came used, I got it for the same price that I sold that old one for years ago, so I'm not complaining about a few scratches.

Here it is, side-by-side with my Model 66. As you can see, it's much smaller and more concealable, and the shrouded hammer means that it can be drawn from a pocket--or fired through a pocket--without snagging.


So how does it work, you ask?



Wonderfully. The soft grips absorb a lot of the recoil, and it's much less painful to fire than my old Bodyguard with it's tiny butt and wood grips. Once I got the feel for it's heavy but crisp trigger, I was able to put 32 out of 35 rounds in the black from seven and ten yards, and the flyers were the result of me doing a rapid-fire string from the supine position, lying on the ground as if knocked down. I need to work on that one a bit more. But then who doesn't? My only complaint is that the small ejector rod needs to be hit forcefully to ensure reliable extraction and ejection, but that's common to these J-frames with 1&7/8" barrels and can be dealt with as a training issue.

Da-Dum, da-dum...

Today, Murphy and I are over at the neighbors' house for dinner and a movie. These are the nice neighbors who have been dog-sitting him while I've been recovering.

And as we sit there, enjoying some incredible steaks, I see Murphy cruise past the table on the other side. Actually, from where I sit, all I can see are two big, pointy ears going by like twin shark fins.

Cue the them music from the Jaws movie.

A moment later, the two ears come back the other way. Then suddenly, a muzzle appears over the edge of the table, and a mouth full of sharp white teeth is visible for just a second as it clamps down on an unsuspecting piece of buttered bread on the edge of the hostess's plate. And then the bread is gone, carried off into the kitchen at a run by Murphy, who is pursued by the host's two dogs, each of which undoubtedly wants a cut.

Damn dog...Can't take him anywhere.

Murphy has a new buddy

Last night I took Murphy to Petco to let him pick a new toy out. I gave him his choice, with the sole proviso that I maintained veto power over his selection, which is why he's not currently playing with a live ferret, a kitten or the little Pekingese dog that some other shopper had on a leash. In due course, Murphy adopted a fuzzy duck that quacks when squeezed.

It's a hit. We've played countless games of "fetch" or "where's the duck?", and there hasn't been a quack-free minute since he walked in the door with it, save when I finally took it away from him and put it up at bedtime so that we could both get some sleep.

Ya gotta love dogs...what other creature can you make so happy for so long for less than ten dollars?
"You can has my duck when you pry it from my cold, dead paws..."

Japanese Steak House...West Virginia hillbilly style.

So last night, I decided to go try out a Japanese Steak House not far from here. It's one of those ones where they seat diners around a large grilling surface and the Japanese chef cooks your food at the table. They normally put 8-10 people at a table, so unless you have a group that large, you wind up sitting and eating with people that you've never met before.

Now I normally like that. It's kind of a neat way to pass the time, talking to people I don't know and will probably never see again. I try to frequent these places when I'm traveling just because I like the idea of some light conversation with strangers while eating.

Of course here in banjo country, it's gotta get messed up. I walk in and add myself to the batch of people waiting to be seated. Then I notice that the lobby is filled with kids, mostly between three and ten years of age. I didn't see a sign anywhere about a kid's party, so I'm kind of puzzled as to why this grown-up restaurant has all these kids in it. And as I stand there, I observe that the lobby crowd consists of one young couple, me, and three families, each with 2-3 young kids, about a third of which are high-chair age kids. One little girl, who apparently just got her first watch, is now timing the hostess, who promised to seat us all "in a minute". The precocious little girl is announcing to everyone that "she said a minute...it's been twenty-five seconds now...She's been gone 45 seconds now...it's over a minute now..." and on and on and on, with her parents making no effort to shush her. And I have to wonder what's up with these parents that they seem to think that the rest of us want to sit at a table with and eat with their kids. Who the hell brings little kids to restaurants with common-table seating, knowing that their kid is going to be sitting in a high chair, grossly smearing it's food all over it's face in front of everyone else? Do the parents of "little Miss Big Ben" really think that we want to have each minute dissected for us or want the chef timed on how long it takes him to do his Ginsu knife magic tricks? Kids that age belong in the play area at Burger King, not seated at a table across from grown-ups that chose to come to an otherwise nice restaurant for a relaxing meal. Maybe I'm funny, but my idea of light dinner conversation is to ask visitors to the area what they've seen or where they plan to go next, not ask a first-grader about what they did at recess or hear ad nauseum about Blues Clues or whatever else the current crop of little kids obsess over.

Needless to say, I dined elsewhere last night. Come on, hillbillies...take your damned kids to Pizza Hut, not adult dining establishments.

Saturday morning man movie

OK, we're stepping out of the Western/war movie genre to recognize another great guy movie...Hooper (1978), with Burt Reynolds and lots of other then-young but recognizable stars. Can you name them as they appear here?



1. The guy Reynolds is talking to in the bar: Brian Keith
2. The young man joining Reynolds in the fight: Jan Michael-Vincent
3. SWAT guy in striped shirt: Terry Bradshaw
4. The big bald SWAT guy: Robert Tessier (see Man Movie two Saturdays ago.)
5. Gal in the bar trying to eat: Sally Fields
6. Guy stepping out the barroom window at the end: James Best

Brought to you by the time when movies used to be fun, both to watch and to make.

Hat tip to my old man for this one.

Houston, the cookies have landed.

This afternoon, Murphy did his best to get hold of the UPS man as UPS man handed me a package from Brigidland. Fortunately Murphy was unsuccessful despite much barking and snapping, and the package got through. Ironically, it contained pigs' ears for Murphy, among other things.

Oh, and the other things? Much-needed relief supplies, in several assorted and delicious varieties, all home-made. Kinda makes a guy want to break out into song.



Thank you, Brigid!

More on Oliver

Yes, he was, as people have inferred, quite a character. He was probably my most free-spirited and mischievious dog I ever had, and the only Shepherd that I raised from a puppy.

And he was really good at getting me into trouble.

Take the time that we lived in New Orleans when I was a college student there. It all began as I walked him down Bourbon Street one summer evening.

Normally Oliver was very well-behaved and he handled himself well in the crowds. He was actually beneficial in that regard, because when the crowds were heavy, I just had to let him have a little lead and he'd get out in front of me. People would look down, see him, and usually move back, creating a pathway through which I could move without spilling my drink. He was also handy in that many of the Bourbon Street dancers would see him and come out of the bars in which they worked to pet him and give him ice cubes or water, thus allowing me to enjoy the view up close and personal for a few minutes without having to buy a ridiculously-priced drink. (Hey, I'm a guy...what do you expect?)

Now after a while, Oliver got to be very well known on Bourbon Street, to the point where if I showed up without him, everyone asked where he was. And as I said, he was well-behaved...usually.

This night in question, however, we were down near the Tropical Isle bar at Bourbon and Orleans. This bar was and is famous for it's signature drink, the Hand Grenade, which is a God-awful concoction of various rums designed only to be more potent then the New Orleans standard pathway to quick intoxication, the Hurricane.

And to promote their Hand Grenade drink, the bar has long had some guy out front dressed up like a huge hand grenade. The costume has gone through a few evolutions over the years but it typically looks like this---->

Oliver was typically a mild-mannered dog, but this night, he took one look at the hand grenade guy--a guy that he's seen countless times before--and barked at it, causing the hand grenade guy to visibly recoil several feet. Well Oliver just decided that he was going to have himself a piece of that, and to that end, he began trying to pull me over towards the seven-foot tall grenade that was starting to back down the street away from him. Naturally I told him "No!" and pulled back on his leash. At this point, he turned to face me and ducked his head, sliding right out of his collar. He was loose.
He looked at me for a second, his eyes conveying a silent "HA!", and then he spun around and went right for the hand grenade guy.

The grenade guy saw Oliver coming and did what any hand grenade with a fear of big, barking, charging dogs would do: He screamed like a schoolgirl and began running up Orleans street, knocking people aside. Oliver, with his prey drive fully engaged, happily chased him, barking and having a great time, all while making no attempt to actually bite him. (He was just enjoying the game with the big, green screaming ball.)

I called him a couple of times, but he wasn't listening to me. And then as I went to follow after him, I found my way blocked by two big New Orleans police officers, something that no one familiar with NOPD wants to have happen to them.

"Is that your dog?" one of them asked, pointing to Oliver, who was now leaping up against a door through which the hand grenade had run and slammed in his face.

And I did what comes natural to any semi-intoxicated New Orleans resident when asked a question by NOPD--I quickly concocted a lie.

"Why, no, Officer. I never saw that dog before in my life. I have no idea whose dog that is."

Both officers gave me a look that told me that they weren't buying it for a second; a look of total amused disdain that caused me to look down and see that I was still holding his leash and empty collar.

"Oh, but I, uh...found this leash on the ground, and, ummm....I was just gonna go find that stray dog and see if I could put this on him and get him out of here."

And of course as I was fumbling with this half-assed excuse, Oliver ran right back, squeezed in between us and sat down in front of me, staring up at his collar.

The officers were actually finding some humor here as I did my best to keep spinning.

"Why, this must belong to the dog," I said as I quickly slipped the collar back over his head. "Yeah, look...he likes it. I'll tell you what--I'll take this dog and I'll find out who he belongs to, and I'll make sure that you don't see him back here tonight!"

The officers just smiled that smile--the kind that makes you wonder if they're laughing at the joke or are about ready to snatch you up and commence to beating.
"I don't want to see either of you again tonight," the one officer said.

Well what could I say, except: "Yes, SIR!" I knew when I was catching a break so Oliver and I got out of Dodge as quick as we could.

We were back the next night, of course. And front then on, I made sure that his collar was properly snug.
Oliver on St. Patrick's Day, following the St. Paddy's Day parade through the French Quarter.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Busted, K-9 style.

Some years ago, I was traveling with Oliver, my first German Shepherd. Back then, few motels allowed dogs, and those that did charged extra. So naturally, me being the rebel on a budget, on those nights when I just had to stay in a motel, I snuck him in.

Usually this worked out fine, because Oliver was a very quiet dog. But one evening, not long after having settled into my room in some third-rate motel, I stepped out my door and found the hotel manager walking up the sidewalk, almost to my room. I quickly closed the door behind me so that he might not notice my "roommate".

"How are you?" I asked.

"I'm fine, sir. Is everything all right?"

"Oh, everything's fine," I replied.

Suddenly, before he could move on, the vertical blinds inside my room moved, and a dog's face came into full view on the other side of the glass as Oliver pushed the blinds aside to look out and see who I was talking to.
"Great," he said, without missing a beat. "I also wanted to let you know that there's a $25.00 pet fee, payable back at the office when you register your dog."

Damn dog.

So now when I call Murphy a "Damn dog", I have to remember that he's not the first. There have been plenty of "damn dogs" before him. And I'm thankful for every one of them, even when they do stupid stuff like that.

Oliver burned me another time, too. It was in Denver, Colorado. There's a mall there that's half open-air and half indoors. It's a two-level mall, and for some reason, I found myself there with Oliver on leash. So I was walking him around in the open-air part when I was accosted by two puffed-chest security guards, complete with Smokey-the-Bear hats and mirrored sunglasses.

"You can't have a dog in here," one told me, speaking as if he had absolute authority over all things.

"Sure I can," I replied, thinking fast. "He's a service dog."

"You're not blind," the other one told me, stating the obvious.

"I don't have to be," I retorted. "There are all sorts of service dogs."

"Well what kind is that?"

"I don't have to answer that," I said as smugly as a only third-year law student could. (And that's pretty smug. Third-years know everything...just ask one.)
I then bid them good day and walked off as they pondered this matter.

Ducking around a corner, I found an elevator and quickly took Oliver up to the second level, trying to put some distance between us and the toy cops. We walked around for a bit more, browsing and people-watching, and Oliver was in his glory as every kid wanted to pet him and every pretty lass wanted to fawn over him. And all was well with the world until...

I decided to talk us downstairs to go to a book store that I'd spotted. The quickest way was an escalator next to a big food court on the first floor. So I stepped onto the escalator, never once thinking about the fact that Oliver, worldly as he was, had never encountered an escalator before. And he quickly decided that he didn't care for this one.

I was already descending when he tried to avoid his destiny by digging his feet in and pulling back on the leash. Of course, me already heading down and the floor beneath him being metal, there wasn't much he could do to stop it. So like a big, tough German Shepherd does when faced with something new and scary, he began to cry.
And he didn't just whimper. No, he yelped, he wailed, he screamed, and everyone in the food court, and I suspect, much of downtown Denver, turned to look at the dog being dragged onto the escalator steps while going "Yiiiiiiiii! Yiiiiiiii! Yiiiiiiii!"

I've never heard a dog scream like that before or since.

Quickly, I ran back up the moving escalator and grabbed him, sweeping him up into my arms. But he continued to shriek, even though I held him cradled in my arms, paws in the air, like a 65lb. baby. And all the way down the escalator, that's all he did.
"Yiiiiiiiiii!"
"Yiiiiiiiiii!"
"Yiiiiiiiiii!"
"Yiiiiiiiiii!"

All the way down. As everyone in the food court watched, and as people were leaning over the upper rails to see.
And there, at the bottom of the escalator, was the two security guards, waiting for me with their arms crossed and scowls on their faces right below their mirrored sun glasses. They were both right at the foot of the escalator as I stepped off, still cradling Oliver.
"yiiiiii...."

"You and that so-called service dog need to hit the road," one said, pointing a finger at my chest.

"We were just leaving," I said. The jig was clearly up and now the goal was to get out of here before things got worse.

And Oliver, now that he'd determined that he was safely away from the escalator monster, reached up and began licking my face, taking away what little dignity that I had left.

Damn dog.

I sure do miss him.

Not just "no", but "Oh, HELL no!"

"Uh, we seem to be making people mad, so rather than change our ways, we need guns...but we're not willing to pass concealed carry for anyone else, especially the people dumb enough to elect us in the first place."

This is not a joke--it appears to be the actual thought process for members of the California state legislature.

Some California lawmakers are saying their jobs have become dangerous -- so much so that they want to be able to carry concealed weapons.

They are citing the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) in Tuscon and threats from constituents in California as grounds for them to have easier access to permits to carry weapons, the Times' Patrick McGreevy reports.

"I've had guys physically come up to me ready to punch me out," said state Sen. Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana), co-author of a new permit proposal.

Under current law Californians who want to carry concealed firearms must apply to their county sheriff or police chief and show "good cause" for permission. That can include threats of violence or a dangerous job. Under the new bill, being an elected state official or a member of Congress would constitute good cause. The officials would, like others, be subject to a background check, and a sheriff or police chief could still turn down the application.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca objects to the idea, noting that elected officials should have to go through the same process that requires them to show good cause for the permit. And, in an unusual show of agreement, both gun rights and gun control advocates agree that elected officials should not have special status.

First of all, someone needs to tell Sen. Lou Correa that you cannot shoot people just for wanting to--or trying to--punch you. That silly idea of his just goes to show why the members of the California Legislature are probably some of the last people who should be allowed to walk among us armed. But that aside, the idea that being elected as a "public servant" somehow elevates one to a special class that is entitled to perks and benefits denied to the rest of the citizenry is absurd.
(OK, we won't talk about US Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D)--CA and her concealed weapons permit...)

Sorry California public servants--you have to live just like the people that you rule over work for. You want concealed weapons permits? Fine. Just do what the legislators in most other states have done: pass legislation allowing concealed carry by every law-abiding citizen and share in the benefit with everyone else. Otherwise, you need to stay disarmed, too. After all, We, the People, really don't have any assurance that you're trustworthy with a firearm, do we?

Good for the goose, good for the gander, baby.

There's good, and then there's just showing off.

Nicely done. Nicely done indeed.

Brit sniper kills two with one shot.

The arrival at the newly-established Patrol Base Shamal Storrai (Pashto for “North Star”) in late August 2009 of Serjeant Tom Potter and Rifleman Mark Osmond marked the start of an astonishing episode in the history of British Army sniping.

Within 40 days, the two marksmen from 4 Rifles, part of the Welsh Guards Battle group, had achieved 75 confirmed kills with 31 attributed to Potter and 44 to Osmond. Each kill was chalked up as a little stick man on the beam above the firing position in their camouflaged sangar beside the base gate – a stick man with no head denoting a target eliminated with a shot to the skull.

Osmond, 25, was an engaging, fast-talking enthusiast, eager to display his encyclopedic knowledge of every specification and capability of his equipment. He had stubbornly remained a rifleman because he feared that being promoted might lead to his being taken away from sniping, a job he loved and lived for. Potter, 30, was more laid back, projecting a calm professionalism and quiet confidence in the value of what he did.

Potter had notched up seven confirmed kills in Bara in 2007 and 2008 while Osmond’s total was 23. Both were members of the Green Jackets team that won the 2006 British Army Sniper Championships.

On one occasion they killed eight Taliban in two hours, ‘I wasn’t comfortable with it at first,’ said Osmond, ‘you start wondering is it really necessary?’ But the reaction of the locals soon persuaded him. ‘We had people coming up to us afterwards, not scared to talk to us. They felt they were being protected’.

Most of the kills were at a range of 1,200 metres using the 7.62 mm L96 sniper rifle.

The snipers used suppressors, reducing the sound of the muzzle blast. Although a ballistic crack could be heard, it was almost impossible to work out where the shot was coming from. With the bullet travelling at three times the speed of sound, a victim was unlikely to hear anything before he died.

Walkie-talkie messages revealed that the Taliban thought they were being hit from helicopters. The longest-range shot taken was when Potter killed an insurgent at 1,430 metres away. But the most celebrated shot of their tour was by Osmond at a range of just 196 metres.

On September 12th, a known Taliban commander appeared on the back of a motorcycle with a passenger riding pillion. There was a British patrol in the village of Gorup-e Shesh Kalay and under the rules of engagement, the walkie-talkie the Taliban pair were carrying was designated a hostile act. As they drove off, Osmond fired warning shots with his pistol and then picked up his L96, the same weapon – serial number 0166 – he had used in Iraq and on the butt of which he had written, ‘I love u 0166’.

Taking deliberate aim, he fired a single shot. The bike tumbled and both men fell onto the road and lay there motionless. When the British patrol returned, they checked the men and confirmed they were both dead, with large holes through their heads.

The 7.62 mm bullet Osmond had fired had passed through the heads of both men. He had achieved the rare feat of ‘one shot, two kills’ known in the sniping business as ‘a Quigley’. The term comes from the 1990 film Quigley Down Under in which the hero, played by Tom Selleck, uses an old Sharps rifle to devastating effect.

Potter and Osmond’s working day would begin around 7 am and end a dozen or so hours later at last light. Up to about 900 metres, they would aim at an insurgent’s head, beyond that at the chest.

Often, Potter would take one side of a compound and Osmond the other. Any insurgent moving from one side to the other was liable to be shot by the second sniper if the first had not already got him. Each used the scopes on the rifles to spot for the other man, identifying targets with nicknames to do with their appearance.

A fighter wearing light blue was dubbed ‘the Virgin Mary’ and one clad in what looked like sackcloth was referred to as ‘Hesco man’, after the colour of the base’s Hesco barriers. Both the Virgin Mary and Hesco man were killed.

Others were given a nickname because of their activities, like Hashish man, a Taliban who doubled up as a drug dealer. Occasionally, insurgents got posthumous monikers. If one target presented himself, both snipers aimed at him simultaneously in a coordinated shoot.

“Everybody you hit they drop in a different way,’ says Potter. ‘We did a co-ord shoot on to the one bloke and he just looked like he just fell through a trap door. So we called him Trapdoor Man.”

Major Mark Gidlow-Jackson, their company commander, describes Potter and Osmond as the “epitome of the thinking riflemen” that his regiment sought to produce. “They know the consequences of what they’re doing and they are very measured men. They are both highly dedicated to the art of sniping. They’re both quiet, softly spoken, utterly charming, two of the nicest men in the company, if the most dangerous.”

Serjeant Potter and Rifleman Osmond are identified by pseudonyms for security reasons.

And the media wonders why America doesn't trust them

Could it be because they show their objectivity and express their political neutrality by partying with Obama and making fun of Republicans and Obama's critics all night?

Obama and media elites party the night away in DC.

And in the true spirit of that "transparency" that B.O. promised us all, journalists who attended were forbidden from later reporting about it and CSPAN was refused permission to record and broadcast remarks made by Obama and others.

So for those of you in the media who wonder why many of us in real America view you as an extension of the Obama administration, you might want to change your ways if you want us to change our minds. Obama will be gone soon, but your credibility as objective reporters won't automatically return when he goes. Keep that in mind.

Alaskan militia not so funny any more.

Alaska. I love that state. It's beautiful and some of my favorite people live there. However, some of the other people there seem to be bone-stupid, and I have to shake my head and wonder about them sometimes.

About eight years ago, some kid named Schaeffer Cox, then fresh out of whatever high school he'd attended in the lower 48, shows up in Alaska and starts running off at the mouth about Libertarianism and the so-called "Sovereign Citizen" movement (where the government doesn't have authority over you if you don't want it to). He runs for elected office a couple of times and loses handily. He involves himself in the gun rights movement and uses it as a platform for his weird ideas, including one where he starts traveling around the state setting up his own courts. And then he forms a militia and declares himself it's head.

Now Cox has never served in the military. But that's ok, because most people who flock to militia groups haven't either. Such groups are gathering places for underachievers who just want to belong to something and maybe feel powerful for once in their pathetic lives. These groups are filled with the fat, the lazy and the incompetent, but they have guns and they have anger at a society that doesn't let them run it, so without even asking the rest of us, they declare themselves to be our guardians and appoint themselves watchers over our lawful authorities, like Cox did. Cox claims that his group exists to watch the police and to serve as a check on the government and remind them that if they go too far, they'll encounter opposition from armed citizens. His group also pretends that they'll be there to step in and act as local law enforcement or security forces the next time a Katrina-type disaster strikes, a claim that many militia groups make. But the reality is that we already have trained professionals who will do that. If these militia jokers really wanted to be helpful in time of crisis, they'd be volunteering with the Red Cross or similar disaster-response organizations to help hand out food, water and basic supplies to those in need. A lot of dedicated people do that, but then most militia goobers aren't cut from that sort of cloth. They don't want to help people--they just want to stand around with guns and intimidate people, and claim some sort of power and authority over other citizens without it actually being given to them by the rest of us. They look forward to the day when they can start bullying and oppressing people and making others respect them at gunpoint. That's really all they are--cowards and losers fantasizing about the day when they can be somebody because they have guns in their hands.

Well every now and again, this sort of thing gets those people in trouble. They start acting on their fantasies and they wind up in trouble with the law. We just have to look at people like Ed and Elaine Brown, the Alabama Free Militia, the Welch family, and the Hutaree Militia. And now Schaeffer Cox is on that list, along with a few of his cohorts.

You see, Schaeffer, man that he is, punched and choked his wife when she threatened to leave him last year. Then he caught another case for interfering with police officers and failing to disclose that he had a concealed weapon on his person as state law requires when he showed up as police were checking a house following a domestic disturbance and began shadowing the police and trying to record them. He was supposed to show up in court on that case February 14th, but he skipped out on his bond and went into hiding instead. Now fearing arrest on this MISDEMEANOR charge, he hatched a plan with his buddies to kidnap and kill several local state troopers and at least one judge in retaliation for his own arrest. They apparently went so far as to map the locations of the troopers' homes and stockpiled weapons around the area in anticipation of their coming battle with the law, a battle which Schaeffer was all ready for as he reportedly told at least one trooper that his group could "wipe them all out in one night".
Tough talk from a boy barely out of his teens. But in this case, he's got a following of other people with guns and no common sense.

Well now his dumb ass is back in jail, along with a few of his minions. They've got high bonds set, so it's doubtful that they'll be released any time soon. But what gets me is that so many other Alaskans were so quick to jump onto this kid's band wagon and accept him as their leader. Grown men, many of whom have jobs and families, were coming out of the woodwork saying: "Hee-yuk! You kin be my general, Mister Cox...You ain't but a kid, and ain't never been in no military, but I'll take yer orders...SUH!" WTF?! Who does that? Even in Alaska. But there are a number of them, and the letters to the local papers seem to bear this out. The kid had and still has a following made up of people who you'd think would be smarter than that.

But the real victims here are the lawful gun owners of that state and the country. When people like Cox manage to snake their way into the gun right movement and pervert it for their own ends, it makes us all look bad and gives those who would take our guns away that much more ammunition. That's why we, as a pro-gun community, have to be wary of those who would rise to speak in our names, and we need to scrutinize them as closely as we would any candidate for public office. we don't need our cause discredited by people like Cox (and there have been others over the years) and we don't need the beliefs and the actions of crazies or criminals attributed to us as a group.

Anyone who has read this blog for more than a few posts knows that I'm all about guns and gun rights for every law-abiding citizen in America. But I will not stand with criminals who plot to kill our law-enforcement officers or other public officials, nor will I allow them to go forward in our name and take us with them even if only by association. Schaeffer Cox was never one of us, and I wish the government well in their case against him.

Saturday morning man movie

From the movie Kelly's Heroes (1970). Here Oddball, played by a young Donald Sutherland, earns his share of the gold.


Tanks are so cool.

But alas, these Shermans break down by movie's end, and a the Germans have a tank, too. One lone German Tiger tank stands between our heroes and $16,000,000 in gold that resides in the town's bank. Fortunately, Don Rickles has an idea, which he puts to Telly Savalas.



The climax sees Savalas, Sutherland and Clint Eastwood approaching the tank in true Spaghetti Western fashion to parley with the Germans.



I guess they were Republicans.

Who ate my Cheetos?

My money's on the dog with the orange teeth.

Can't we?

So far today, I've heard from two nay-sayers who claim that we do not have the military ability to unilaterally impose a "no-fly" zone over Libya. They claim that we don't have the resources to do this.

Well a man that I consider to be an expert on such things says otherwise.

Frankly, if Ed Rasimus, a man who has been the pointy edge of the spear for a long time, says that we can do it with what we've got, then we can almost certainly do it with what we've got. I'll take his word over that of some anonymous internet poster any day.

As for me, I'm thinking that it's way past time to turn off Ghadaffi's aerial "death and destruction" campaign and see what the people of that country can do about changing their own leadership. And any real president who truly believes in America's role as the defender of Freedom and purveyor of Democracy would have done it days ago.

Pathetically, it seems that the only "leadership" that Obama is willing to demonstrate is against American citizens in Wisconsin...and even then he's not man enough to own it.

REAL Leadership: Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker

Sometimes one man can make a difference.

Newly elected based in large part on his promise to get Wisconsin's bloated budget under control, Wisconsin's Governor, Scott Walker, stood up to the over-paid public employees of that state and told them that they were going to have to pay part of their own retirement (like most Americans do) and play by a new set of rules designed to stop their annual shakedowns of the public for more loot from the treasury by refusing en masse to do the jobs that they applied for and agreed to do.

Now the unions are powerful in that state. They own the Democrat Party both locally and nationally. (Actually they split it with the trial lawyers like some sort of corruption time-share.) So when Walker proposed these new rules for public employees--our employees--and when it appeared that they were going to pass through the new post-Obama, Republican-majority legislature, the unions told their Dem lackeys to abandon their posts and shirk their obligations and run off to hide, basically stopping ALL of the people's business until pressure could be brought to bear to force the governor and others to give them their way.

Well Governor Walker held fast. He wasn't swayed by protests made up of teachers who were fraudulently calling in sick to picket on the people's dime. He wasn't swayed by busload after busload of union thugs from other states showing up to scream, or college kids who don't even have jobs arrogantly telling reporters that this is their fight too. He ordered the Democrats to return to work, and when they refused, he had the bills that they were trying to block re-written so as to not require a full quorum and passed them without those work-skipping union sock-puppets even being there.

Hoo-RAH! Now that's leadership--doing the right thing even when it's hard, just because it's right.

Wisconsin won yesterday, and all of America wins as well. Anything that takes smacks union hands out of the public cookie jar is good for the country. If you want to be in a union and threaten strikes and slowdowns to extort more money from your employers even though you do crap work, then go to one of the Big Three auto companies. But if you want the security and stability of a government job, then you need to take what's offered to you by the people who pay the taxes and their elected officials and be grateful for what you're handed.

The unions and the Democrats both got their asses handed to them by Governor Walker, and life is better for everyone else as a result.

Leadership, and the lack thereof.

Libya is being torn apart as the world watches. Ghadaffi is killing Libyans with air strikes and attacking the oil refineries as the people trying to throw his dictatorship off call for help from the world--including the US--begging us to save them and their country.

But Obama's too busy to take that call. He's got a basketball-watching party to host.

Priorities, you know. As tough, potentially world-changing decisions have to be made, Obama just continues to vote "present". And as in Egypt and Iran, people in Libya who are fighting for their freedom are dying as they wait for help that's not coming.

If you voted for him, part of the blame for this is yours. And as much as B.O. tries to portray himself as Ronald Reagan's heir apparent, none of this would have gone down this way on Reagan's watch.

There was a time that America really stood for freedom and fought to expand it across the globe. But this is not that time.

Perhaps, in 2013, it will be again.

Paging Pavlov...

While I've been laid up, my neighbors from down the road have been coming by twice a day to walk Murphy and sometimes take him over to play with their dogs, including a cute little female Greyhound that I think he's taking a fancy to.

They call on the phone to let me know that they're coming, and the ringtone is different for them than for most random callers. I've noticed that Murphy has now connected the phone calls and that ringtone to their impending arrival and every time that I get a call, as soon as I hang up he runs to the window and sits, staring out, waiting for them to arrive.

"OK, that was the phone call. They should be coming down the road any minute now...any minute..."

"They're HERE! Oh, joy, Oh JOY!!! Let me out...Let me OUT!!!"


At least I'm still his favorite person at meal times.

The Walther P38.

So since I've nothing better to do today, having tired of whacking Murphy with a cardboard tube from the center of a paper towel roll (and being "playfully" bitten on the arm in return), I've decided to do a bit more gun-blogging.

The time was the late 1980's. I'd walked into a local gun shop to look around. I really hadn't planned on buying anything as, at the time, I already had one rifle, one pistol, one shotgun and a .22, and that's enough for any gun owner, right?

But as luck would have it, a couple of the shop employees were unpacking a box of guns that they'd just purchased from an estate. I was looking at them as they took each one out of the boxes and entered it into their inventory system and one of them caught my eye. At the time, being young and unfamiliar with most firearms outside of the westerns and war movies of the day, I did not recognize the gun set before me on the counter-top. I did, however, realize that it was a military pistol of some sort, and I was at least savvy enough to know what the little eagles on it meant--it was a German World War Two gun. I was intrigued.

As I pawed it over, I could see that it was in pretty good shape (excellent+, all-matching non-import actually) and I decided that I'd inquire about it.

"What do you want for this?" I asked.
The man at the other end of the counter barely looked up as I asked. "What is it?"
"Not sure," I replied. "It says 'P.38' on it."

He looked up briefly. "It's a P38."

"What do you want for it?"

He came over and looked at it for about ten seconds. "Eh. Give me $200 for it."

Now I did not know what, if anything, this pistol was worth. I just knew that this shop typically marked stuff up pretty high. "Hmmmm... Not sure that I have that much," I replied. "How about $150?"

We finally agreed on $175 for the pistol. I put a deposit down on it and ran off to the local police department, because back then, we had to have a police-issued purchase permit to buy a handgun. I got it and was back at the store in about half an hour.

"I came back to get my pistol," I announced.

"Sorry," the guy said. "The sale's off."

"What? Why?"

"The owner came in while you were gone and took a look at it. It's worth more than $175 so we're not selling it for that."

"But you already did," I pointed out. I gave you a deposit. I have a receipt. We had a deal."

"I'll give you your deposit back," he offered.

"No, you hang onto that," I told him. "And you'd best set that pistol aside, because this is going to go to court."

I was young, but I knew when I was getting hosed. Now I knew that I wanted this pistol.

"Calm down, calm down. Let me call the owner back."

A few minutes passed. Then a few more. Then the owner came out of the back. He tried to tell me that it wasn't a deal until I'd paid for the gun in full and said that a deposit wasn't good enough. I told him that I had a receipt that said "sold" on it. He asked to see the receipt. I almost handed it over to him, but at the last second it dawned on me that if he got hold of it, it was as good as gone. "Sorry, but this is evidence now. I'm going to need it for court," I said.

He sighed and looked at me as if I was the one trying to rip him off.

"Fine. Pay the balance and take the pistol. But don't come back here in a hurry." Then he turned and walked off, leaving me to deal with the original counter guy.

I rushed home with my new toy. On the way, I stopped at the library (This was back before we had the internet that we have now) and looked through books on World War Two until I found out what I had--A Walther P38. It was a 9mm double-action pistol with an 8-round magazine. This one was made at the Walther plant in Berlin in 1942, so indicated by the "AC 42" stamp on the slide. Already war shortcuts were starting to creep into production, which is why you can see machining marks on the slide, something that would have been unthinkable a coupld of years prior.

Now World War Two stuff wasn't particularly collectible back in those days, so I just treated it like any other pistol. I took it out and shot it quite a bit. When I got my first job as an armed security guard, I was told that I had to provide either a .38 special revolver or a 9mm double-action pistol. Not having the money to buy another gun, I just bought a holster for the Walther and took it to work every day. With it's tiny fixed sights and horrible trigger (I say that looking back--I had no idea how bad it was back then), I could manage to shoot "minute of fat bad guy" most of the time, but that was good enough for me.

Eventually I realized what I had and what it was worth and the P38 retired to a life wrapped in a Rig Rag on the top shelf of my closet. Now that I have a gun safe, it lives in there. And I think that when I get to be walking decent again, I'm going to take it out and shoot it some, just for old times' sake.

And here's how it field-strips. (For the record, it's not my video and I'm not responsible for the bad porn music in the background.)
Simple, eh?

Big sigh...

So I went to the doctor today to get my sutures out.

Lucky me--the site is now infected and I'm going to be on crutches even longer now.
That was the last thing I needed to hear after sitting in the doctor's waiting room for almost three hours as numerous fools beeped and booped away on their text-phones or checked their voice mail via their speaker-phone feature. Seriously--since when did that become the new norm for public behavior? I don't want to hear your messages. (And I mean YOU, Shanisha.) And how do people who look like they just walked out of a refugee camp always manage to have the latest gadget-filled ultra-trick phones? I work for a living and I can't afford that stuff, but the sixteen-year-old pregnant hill-billy girl sitting across from me has one somehow.

Then I'm in seeing the doctor. And because he wants to open my wound up a bit to encourage draining, he tells me "this might hurt a bit..." as he jams his little pair of surgical pliers about an inch into my leg wound. Now all the little kids there were out in the lobby waiting with their teen moms know a new word...and it's not one that I care to type here. Actually I think that and kid who was within a block or two heard that word. But hell, they were gonna learn it somewhere sooner or later.

The doctor apologizes only sort of sincerely, then he points to my "National Matches" t-shirt and says "I guess I'm lucky that you don't have one of your guns in here. Ha, ha, ha... This is one of those reasons why doctors don't want their patients carrying guns. Ha, ha, ha..."

Yeah. As if. I didn't want to spoil his "joke" so I didn't tell him about the Ruger LCP in my pocket.

Do I sound pissed yet? It only gets better.

Murphy, that four-legged asshole, bum-rushed me when I opened the back door today. I had just opened it enough to throw some bread crusts out for the birds when he dashed for the opening. Reflexively I tried to block it with my foot, but damn it--there isn't a foot on that leg any more! (I really and truly hate it when I do that...) He shot out past me and went right next door to the house of cats and began chasing the countless feral cats around. Hell, I can't go after him on crutches, so I called my neighbors down the block who have been walking him twice a day for me and asked them to help corral him.

Now Murphy loves these two and their dogs, so when they went out in their front yard and called him, it looked like a fait accompli, right there. However, he did to them the same thing that he's done to me in the past--he would run right up to them, and even sit in front of them, b ut as soon as they try to grab him, he'd zoom off. Then he'd run round and round them, getting as close as he could, all the while moving so fast that they couldn't snag him.

OK, it's funny when he's not doing it to me--I admit it.

Finally I had an idea. I hopped down to the driveway, got in my vehicle, and drove down the road to where the neighbors were. By this time, Murphy was nowhere to be seen.
"Where's he at?" I asked.

"There he is...on Cat man's roof." Yep. Murphy was back at my crazy cat neighbors' house, and he was up on their garage roof again, having chased another cat up there. He stood there, staring down at us with his tongue lolling out and his eyes flashing with adventure.

I should have gotten a damned parakeet.

I backed up to the neighbor's driveway and popped my tailgate open. "Come on, Murph! Let's go for a ride!"

Murphy scampered down off of the roof and ran to the back of my vehicle. He flung himself up inside and I slammed the tailgate on him. That was almost too easy.

So I gave him his ride--once around the block--and then I clipped his leash on him when we got back in my driveway and I took him in the house. Jerk dog. Someone tell me again why I like him?

Anyway, the next two days are supposed to be bringing a ton of rain, which means that my basement's probably going to flood--no, check that--it WILL flood. And as much of a pain it is normally to run the shop-vac around the clock trying to keep pace with the incoming water, now I have to do it on crutches.

Hell, I'm gonna start drinking now.

Mmmmmm.......

Magic sunbeam. So nice.

Guide to Hippie Hunting

So I have this neighbor not too far away who is an unapologetic unreconstructed hippie. He's old now, but still wears his gray hair in a ponytail, wears sandals, and has honest-to-God peace symbols on his SUV...right next to the Obama sticker that replaced the Kerry sticker a few years ago. Apparently he never grew out of the 1960's (although the SUV puzzles me) and he's not shy when it comes to voicing his opinions on anything political, from the evil that was George Bush to the lack of any need at all for guns. And to be fair, in true hippie fashion, he refuses to lock his doors or windows, and says that if anyone needs what he has bad enough to break in and steal it, they are welcome to it, because if he (the hippie) cares about the property enough to kill over it, then he doesn't own it, it owns him, and he can't live like that. He is a true believer.

I told him that I could respect that, and I'm putting limit-of-fire stakes up on the edge of his property so that when the zombie hordes or bands of post-Obamacalypse looters are in his yard trying to gain entry to the house, I'll know not to fire on them.

He then asked me why I own guns. I said that I hunt. He asked me what I hunt, and I said "I hunt hippies."
"How do you do that?" he asked. (He's genuinely gullible, too.)
Well it's simple. And I explained, giving him a brief overview of the sport. In response, he bid me good day and stormed back into his house to have a cup of tea.

And to assist all my other usual readers out who might wish to take part in this fun and sometimes profitable hobby, I am publishing here my Guide to Hippie Hunting, 2011 edition.


Habitat
Most hippies today can be found in run-down neighborhoods immediately adjacent to college campuses, or just about anywhere in liberal meccas such as San Francisco, Berkeley, Seattle, or Ann Arbor, Michigan. Look for them around old record stores, grocery co-ops, and head shops. Note that if your state recognizes the fiction of "medical marijuana", stores that sell such will likely be packed with old hippies, but these are generally considered off-limits to hunting as it's just too easy to find them there.


Bait
Hippies respond well to bait. Typically, the smell of burning marijuana or patchouli will draw them in like flies to dead stuff. Also effective: playing CDs of Janis Joplin, Jimmi Hendrix, Bob Dylan or Arlo Guthrie. If you play it, they will come.
Also, putting a sign out front of a store that offers free stuff. Be it free groceries, free clothes, free furniture, or free used toothbrushes, hippies are irresistibly drawn to stuff that they don't have to pay for.
Finally, Hippies crave causes. So if you're yelling "No Blood for Oil, Free Tibet, Free Mumia, or anything that starts with "Hey, Hey, Ho Ho...", you'll get hippies.
And don't overlook drums. If you just beat a drum, hippies will appear and sit in a circle. This makes them laughably easy to catch.

Bag Limit
As the hippie is considered a nuisance creature in every state except California and Massachusetts, there is no bag limit and many localities (usually in the west and the south) will actually pay you a bounty for your dead hippies. Take as many as you want with society's blessing and thanks.

Hunting tips
Remember that Hippies hate cleanliness. If you smell clean, the hippie will notice you and run away. As such, your best chance of success will come if you prepare for the hunt by not bathing for a week or so prior and rubbing some of those nasty hippie oils all over yourself. If you stink, most decent people will notice you but hippies most assuredly will not.

Sportsmanship
It is generally considered poor sportsmanship to drive through their neighborhoods in old multi-colored Volkswagen buses with 60's protest songs playing on the stereo. While effective, it's kind of like driving an ice cream truck through a neighborhood populated with little fat kids.

It's also frowned upon (but not illegal) to have a member of your party enter a known hippie hang-out and yell either "DEA" and "Draft Board Compliance" while other members of the party wait outside the doors and windows, guns at ready.

Catch-and-Release
Some people hunt hippies just for sport and prefer to trap them live then release them back into the wild, usually after forcibly washing them and cutting their hair. This is allowed but practitioners should be advised that it's often very hard for a hippie to regain his place in his former social circle if he shows back up clean with a flat-top haircut and wearing a pair of Dockers and a cardigan sweater. Such hippies are often shunned by former mates and driven out of the commune with cries of "sell-out" and "conformist". Some have been so depressed and disillusioned afterwards that they've actually gone out and gotten jobs and began acquiring material possessions for the first time in their lives.



I'm going over there now and sticking a copy of this under his SUV's windshield wiper.