Mess with old guys at your peril

Got this from a cop friend today. This is alleged to be what happens when today's "useless generation" annoys a couple of retired cops who were just out for a nice game of golf.

WARNING: Language not safe for work or kids.

Excuse me for not feeling sorry for him.

A 16 year old punk kid was throwing rocks at people's cars when the passenger of an SUV that he'd targeted returned the favor and shot him with a crossbow bolt.
Call it karma, call it justice. I'm pretty much good with it regardless. I've had it with punks like this and their enabling parents who sit around waiting for the chance to tell some reporter that their child "was a good child...and just getting ready to turn their life around."

The only sad part of the story is that one punk got away unscathed and the crossbow vigilante wasn't able to make a solid center-mass hit and keep this punk from re-offending and eventually breeding.

I know...shame on me.

Here we go again.

Another one of Obama's illegal alien relatives surfaces, this time getting nabbed for drunk driving in Massachusetts. Naturally a high-priced immigration lawyer in Cleveland, Ohio immediately crawls out from under a rock and claims to be representing him even though he, like Obama's infamous Aunt Zeituni, has no known job or means of support. (Wong also represented her, again without disclosing how much she was getting paid or where the funds came from.)
Well as of this writing, this Kenyan uncle of Obama's is being held on an ICE immigration detainer. We'll see how much improper political pressure gets brought to bear on ICE to release this illegal alien back into society so that he can either disappear again or be granted a stay and eventual citizenship just like Obama's public-housing-dwelling, welfare-collecting illegal alien aunt was.

And I gotta tell ya...for a guy who keeps talking about the rest of us needing to "sacrifice" to help others, it's pretty hypocritical of Obama to let his own relatives continue to fester in poverty and live off of the taxpayers when he has more than enough money to help them out himself. Granted, none of them should even be in our country, but if Obama is going to pull strings to allow them to stay, am I the only one who thinks that he should be supporting them personally 100% instead of letting you and me pay for the food, rent and medical care of these foreigners who have never worked or payed taxes into our system in their lives?

I also note for the record that this story only spread when FOREIGN news services got hold of it and published it. It seems as if the American news services weren't going to tell us until the Australians and the British ran with the story (Thanks, mates). Is there still any wonder whatsoever why most Americans don't trust our domestic media any more?

I hate him...

So Murphy is outside on the deck this morning. It's raining outside, but that should not pose a problem because much of my deck is covered by an overhang that allows man and dog alike to sit outside in a rainstorm and not get wet.

Murphy's a duck of a different color, though. He spends his time over by the rail on a section of the deck that's not protected from the elements. He's hunting cats and that's more important than staying dry, I guess.
Eventually I let in and then I go back into my office to finish an e-mail. He follows me into my office and stands in front of me and for the first time I see how wet he is. Water is beaded up all over his coat. I figure that I should go get a towel to dry him off, but before I do, I scratch his head and say: "Awww... Look at you! Who's a wet dog?"

In response, he shakes vigorously, flinging a considerable amount of water all over me, my computer, my papers, and my fresh cup of hot tea.

I hate him. I SO hate him.

Awwwww...look at you! Who's a wet human?

Cat Neighbor Car Trouble

Well he's at it again. My crazy cat neighbor came over and asked for my help because his car was "hit and run" and the "damned police won't take the report". He knows that I have a law-enforcement background and once or twice a year he comes begging for free legal advice when he's gone and done something stupid.

Morbid curiosity caused me to inquire further. Cat man claims that his car was just parked in a parking lot when someone hit the front end of it and drove off. He reported it to his insurance company the next day, but they wanted a police report. So the next day (two days after the alleged hit-and-run), he took his car to the police department where he claims this happened and they refused to take the report. Now his insurance company is refusing to pay for the repairs.

Well I wandered over and looked at his car and I immediately saw why the police refused to take the report: the whole front end of his car was smashed in on the right side. parking lot collisions where a stationary car is bumped by another by nature take place at low speeds and consequently produce slight to moderate cosmetic damage. But this car--it's got major damage on that corner. The headlight bucket is smashed in, the bumper corner is bent, and the whole right front fender is crumpled clear back to the door. Whatever caused that, there was some velocity involved. Furthermore, the damage on the car along the side is heaviest below the bumper line, indicating that whatever did this, it was something low to the ground, like a large rock, or the edge of a ditch. Another vehicle would have almost certainly put the damage higher on the car than whatever dig this. Also, the front tire's rim is torn up about three-quarters of the way around it's circumference, suggesting that the wheel was turning when this happened. That didn't happen in any parking lot. Also there's no paint transfer from another vehicle like you'd get if painted metal impacted this car hard enough to cause the damage that I was looking at. In sum, it was obvious to me that this vehicle, while moving at a decent speed, left the roadway and struck one or more solid objects, most likely a high curb, a rock, and a post or some other immovable object. No freaking way this happened while the car was sitting in a parking spot. Absolutely no way. It was obvious to me, and undoubtedly to whatever police officer looked at it and refused to take the report. And the delay between the time it allegedly happened and the time that he finally reported it? Well that's suspicious too, but knowing what I know about this fellow's history of prior DUIs (plural)... Even Ray Charles could see what had happened here. I just shook my head.

"So how do I make them take the report?" he wanted to know. "I can't get this paid for without a police report."

I told him straight out that the damage doesn't match his story and the delay in showing up at the police station coupled with his insistence that it happened in a private parking lot in the first place means that he's probably not going to get a report. I also let him know that if his insurance company was to send an investigator out to look at this car, they'd likely see it the same way that the police officer and I did. In sum, I told him, he was probably going to have to eat this one.

"Why do I always have such bad luck?" He moaned.

I so wanted to send him this clip, because Red Forman answers him perfectly:

Saturday Western (man movie)

The year was 1967. The movie: The War Wagon. Here, enemies turned allies John Wayne and Kirk Douglas narrowly avoid a shootout due to a fortuitous bar fight of the sort which always used to break out in bars back in them days.

My Friday

Twenty miles on the bike, fish on the grill for dinner. I'm going to get healthy if it kills me. I've also got the Lair about as ready as it's going to get IF we get any hurricane rain. Now it's time to swap out a front sight on my FAL then spend a bit of time on the deck, reading a book by evening's light while Murphy lays beside me and plots the destruction of all of the cats next door. One of us will be drinking Bushmills.

The book thing...

OK, just like every other individualist on the internet, I'm doing the sci fi book meme. I'd credit it to someone but I don't know where to start since about half of you seem to have done it already, each citing a different source.

Anyway, this is the NPR's Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy novel with the ones I have read in bold:

1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
3. Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card
4. The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert
5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin
6. 1984, by George Orwell
7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov
9. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
10. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
11. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman (I saw the movie, does that count?)
12. The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan
13. Animal Farm, by George Orwell
14. Neuromancer, by William Gibson
15. Watchmen, by Alan Moore
16. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov
17. Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein
18. The Kingkiller Chronicles, by Patrick Rothfuss
19. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
20. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
21. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick
22. The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
23. The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King
24. 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke
25. The Stand, by Stephen King
26. Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson
27. The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury
28. Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
29. The Sandman Series, by Neil Gaiman
30. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
31. Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein
32. Watership Down, by Richard Adams
33. Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey
34. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein
35. A Canticle For Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller
36. The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells
37. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne
38. Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keys
39. The War Of The Worlds, by H.G. Wells
40. The Chronicles Of Amber, by Roger Zelazny
41. The Belgariad, by David Eddings
42. The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
43. The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson
44. Ringworld, by Larry Niven
45. The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin
46. The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien
47. The Once And Future King, by T.H. White
48. Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
49. Childhood’s End, by Arthur C. Clarke
50. Contact, by Carl Sagan
51. The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons
52. Stardust, by Neil Gaiman
53. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson
54. World War Z, by Max Brooks
55. The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle
56. The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman
57. Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett
58. The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson
59. The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold
60. Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett
61. The Mote In God’s Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
62. The Sword Of Truth, by Terry Goodkind
63. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
64. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke
65. I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson
66. The Riftwar Saga, by Raymond E. Feist
67. The Shannara Trilogy, by Terry Brooks
68. The Conan The Barbarian Series, by R.E. Howard
69. The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin Hobb
70. The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
71. The Way Of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson
72. A Journey To The Center Of The Earth, by Jules Verne
73. The Legend Of Drizzt Series, by R.A. Salvatore
74. Old Man’s War, by John Scalzi
75. The Diamond Age, by Neil Stephenson
76. Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke
77. The Kushiel’s Legacy Series, by Jacqueline Carey
78. The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin
79. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury
80. Wicked, by Gregory Maguire
81. The Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series, by Steven Erikson
82. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde
83. The Culture Series, by Iain M. Banks
84. The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart
85. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson
86. The Codex Alera Series, by Jim Butcher
87. The Book Of The New Sun, by Gene Wolfe
88. The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn
89. The Outlander Series, by Diana Gabaldan
90. The Elric Saga, by Michael Moorcock
91. The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury
92. Sunshine, by Robin McKinley
93. A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge
94. The Caves Of Steel, by Isaac Asimov
95. The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson
96. Lucifer’s Hammer, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle (Should be a Prepper's guide.)
97. Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis
98. Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville
99. The Xanth Series, by Piers Anthony
100. The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis

I've only read 26 of them. I guess I'm unsophisticated and uncultured per NPR. I guess I'd better stop by the snobby grocery and get some brie cheese on the way home, just to make amends.

Or maybe I could buy a couple of the above books...just as soon as I finish my H. Rider Haggard reading binge. Oh, that whacky Quatermain....

New rifle!

Got a new rifle yesterday, I did. Well not exactly "new"...it's one hundred and twenty five years old. It's a Martini-Henry MK. IV, a single-shot breech-loading rifle that took a black powder cartridge in caliber .450-577. It's old but tight and it appears to still be fully functional. (They built them good back then.)
I've wanted one of these for a long time, ever since I first saw the movie Zulu. These rifles were the backbone of the British Commonwealth military for quite some time, although this particular one is a bit too young to have been used during the Zulu War in 1879. (The Mk. II was the issue version back then.)

This was a military arm, as evidenced by the Royal Cipher (the crown) and the initials "V.R.", which represented "Victoria Regina" (Latin for "Queen Victoria"). Below that is "ENFIELD", which is where this one was made. Below that is the dtate of manufacture, 1886, followed by a lock inspector's approval stamp, placed there by the expert who inspected all such military arms upon his approval of that particular rifle: This one is interesting in that the Mark IV was produced for two years, in 1888 and 1889, yet this one is clearly dated 1886. This indicates that it was converted from an earlier Mark I pattern, as many were. Further proof for that comes from the fact that the Mark Number ("IV") is off-center. The receiver was originally stamped as a Mk. I and the "V" was added later when the rifle was converted to Mk. IV specs.
For those not in the know, in the mid-1880s, the British developed a new cartridge, the .402, which was superior to the .450 round. Accordingly, they began building martini-Henry rifles in this caliber, designating them EM Mk. I models. But about the time that they got going with this project, along came the .303 Medford cartridge, which was vastly superior to even this cartridge, and the Brits switched to that round instead. Since it was a serious logistical pain to try to stock the new round, plus the old .450-577 round plus this .402 round, about 64,000 of these .402 rifles were converted back to the older, less-effective .450-577 cartridge and used to arm the troops of British colonies. This is one of those rifles.The "KK.A" stamp on the lower edge shows that this rifle was "Sold out of service" or surplussed out from the Kirkee, India Arsenal, apparently in November of 1908. Like most of it's kind, this one was sent to the then-British colony of Nepal (The stock bears a faint Nepalese acceptance stamp dated 1908 as well) where it was stored and forgotten for many, many decades. The buttstock is a mish-mash of Nepalese markings and older British and Indian markings that were stamped out, most likely when it got to Nepal.According to the seller, a great guy whom I'd do business again with in a heartbeat, this particular rifle has been in the country well before IMA imported the bulk of the Nepalese guns,so it was almost certainly brought in as part of the first batch of Nepalese arms that were imported in the 1970's by Interarms, that great company built and run by the legendary Sam Cummings. (Thanks, Sam!) Now it's here at the Lair and it'll assume a place of honor in my gun room, waiting on the arrival of some vintage .450-577 ammunition and/or the tools that I'll need to reload ammunition for this old veteran. The breechblock is open, the barrel and chamber look great, and this rifle's voice will be heard again before too long, count on it.



Meanwhile, if you want to see Martini-Henry rifles in action, you can watch some being used here, in "Zulu".


I guess if I had a couple dozen equally-armed friends standing next to me, this rifle could come in handy during the next flash mob or London-style riot. Since it's likely to be just me and one or two others though, I think I'll echo the sentiment of poet Hilaire Belloc:
"Whatever happens, we have got
The Maxim gun, and they have not."

Granted, I don't have a Maxim gun (darn it...), but I do have an M60. It'll do in a pinch, I suppose.They should have had a few M60's at Isandhlwana. Maybe then they wouldn't have gotten shellacked so badly. (On second thought, courtesy of Lord Chelmsford's incredibly poor tactics, they'd have probably still been massacred even if every soldier there had been armed with a Minimi.)

Guess who I saw this morning.

The first thing that I saw when I looked out my window was a big buck eating the deer corn that I'd put out last night. I watched him for a bit, wondering. Could it be?
Then he moved off, and I saw that he was limping and moving like he was 90 years old.
Yep. Gotta be. The one that I hit two days ago. It happened less than a mile from here so it's gotta be the same one.

Half of me wants to put out even more corn just to help him along and make him feel better, and the other half of me--the half that likes my SUV and has to try to fix it today--wants to shoot him now just to keep that from happening again.

And he is a beaut. Looks like an 8-pointer and pretty good sized. No wonder my grill guard gave way.

Sigh.

Earthquake redux

So where was I when the earthquake hit?
I was in my office, doing some nonsense at my desk.
I noticed that the desk started shaking, first a little, then a lot. My water cup on my desk shook, too, not quite hard enough to spill the water out.

My first thought was: "Who the hell is doing that? And HOW?" Then it dawned on me after a few seconds what was going on. I got up, went into the hallway, and yelled "EVERYBODY OUTSIDE! NOW!" I then put the same message over the building PA system. Other people in the building, almost all of whom worked for me, quickly filed out. I went down the stairs into the parking lot and turned around to see almost everyone else standing outside on our building's patio, right under the big patio roof which is supported by some cheesy huge columns. It didn't take Albert Einstein to figure out which part of that structurally unsound building was the most unsound. It was that patio roof hands down.

"Hey you retards," I yelled. "Get out from under that roof before it falls on the bunch of you!" They quickly came down to where I stood like a bunch of chagrined sheep and I did a quick head count. All there.

Then the calls for service started coming in and I began sending them out to handle things. As I did so, my boss's boss, who also happened to be in the building (and on the patio) came up to me. "Retards?"

Yeah, I'm sure that I'll pay for that later. But I've managed to duck her all day yesterday and today though so life's still good.

Martin Luther King Memorial--Washington, DC.

I got a chance to see the new Martin Luther King memorial today. Lucky me--allowed to walk in and see it a bit before the "official" opening thins week-end...the official opening that's scheduled on the same day as Hurricane Irene's possible landfall in the area. (Should be a fun crowd event, eh?) Sorry that I don't have pictures to post. I didn't have a camera with me.

Anyway, I thought that it was nicely done, even if the Chinese sculptor and artists did give him faint but distinct oriental features, making him look a bit like an "angry asian guy" as some critics have stated.

It's true.

But the overall layout was nice. I liked the monument as a whole, what with the statue, the allegory of King emerging from a "mountain of despair" and the fountain and inscriptions of some of his speeches. However my reaction is still mixed as I can't shake off the sense of revulsion and disgust at the King family shaking down the Foundation for over $800,000 for permission to use Dr. king's words and likeness. Seriously, what other memorialized icon's family has ever been so greedy? In my opinion, they should have told the family to take a hike and scrapped the plans for the memorial if they didn't want to let it happen without the baksheesh payoff.

I'm also admittedly troubled that it was the last space for a memorial on the entire national Mall and this one was the first and only one ever dedicated to a single private citizen--the rest are to former presidents or veterans of entire wars (WW1, WW2, Korea and Vietnam). Frankly, without denigrating Dr. King or some of the ideas that he stood for, I'd have much rather seen the space used for a memorial to former President Ronald Wilson Reagan, a man who made life better for every American and millions of people in other countries around the world. But that ignores the political realities, namely that, in 1996 when the initial go-ahead for the memorial came from the Park Service, a Democrat president named Clinton was in office, and there was no chance at all of his administration honoring a better man like President Reagan with that prime slot. And a cynic like myself also has a hard time overlooking the possible political correctness and overt pandering aspects of the decision, but I won't belabor that point today. I'll be nice and just say that it's a nifty statue and it's plaza offers a nice view of the Tidal basin and the Thomas Jefferson Memorial across the water. At least President Jefferson's statue was made in America and his family wasn't trying to put the arm on anyone in exchange for the right to "honor" him.

ZOMG! The deer gods must have been angry

At least that would explain the earthquake.

Sorry folks. I'll drive with more due care from now on. I had no idea.

Bagged a buck

What a great way to start out the day. Driving down the road, minding my own business, and all of a sudden freaking Bambi runs right out in front of my SUV.

WHAM!!!

I thought that the bucks were supposed to be the smart, wary ones.

Well he got up and staggered off, and now I get to try to bend my grill guard back out again. But better that then replacing a whole front end and a radiator.

Just another happy, happy, joy, joy morning here in Banjo county, WV.

Sigh...

How do I always manage this?

So today, courtesy of a mutual friend, I was introduced to a young, attractive single gal who allegedly loves running and dogs. "Perhaps my luck is starting to change," I thought.

Then she showed up. Wearing a "Free Mumia abu Jamal" T-shirt.

Nope. It surely has not. Sigh...

Saturday Morning Man Movie

In 1967's Tobruk, Rock Hudson and George Peppard (the latter with a bad German accent) show the British how to deal with a minefield while driving German-marked American half-tracks.


Still, an "A" for cool goes to both the stars and their machines...including the Korean-war-era GMC deuce-and-a-half and even newer M35 trucks in the background.

I'm dead...

It was just a little 20 mile bike ride today. But it was 20 miles of hills, and mostly in direct sunlight as temperatures crept up towards the 90's. By the time I got back, I was wiped out. I'm still wiped out. Please just talk amongst yourselves today.

"Excuse me, Sir. How much for this snake?"

Some people find all the cool stuff at garage sales.

Snake bites man in vehicle

A community organizer and others object to police teaching kids about guns

And in California, what was supposed to be a nice friendly event where local kids met and interacted with police officers went sour when neighborhood loons protested the fact that the police officers had...wait for it...GUNS!

Oh, NOEZ!!! Who would ever have expected that?

Here were the police officers, trying to establish a good rapport with the kiddies. Who could ever object to that? Well crack dealers, perhaps. And local fruitbats who got so bent out of shape over the presence of firearms that they tried to kill this event and any future ones like it.

Photos of officers from the Santa Rosa Police Department letting kids handle the department’s SWAT team weaponry at a community event has sparked a debate over how much exposure to guns is healthy for kids.

Community organizer Attila Nagy, who took the photos, told FoxNews.com that he was concerned it might encourage kids to use guns in the future.

"My main concern is for kids who handle these things. They're fascinated by them, and it makes them familiar with guns," he said.

Yeah, let's make sure that kids never become familiar with firearms, except of course those on TV and in the movies or video games. Let's treat real guns as "forbidden fruit" and make kids even more curious about them. Geez. That's an idea so dumb that I really wasn't surprised to hear it come from a self-identified "community organizer".

But wait--there are more idiots in this tale...even an elected one.

One city councilwoman, Marsha Vas Dupre, told her local paper that she was “alarmed and devastated” by the photos.

Fortunately for the side of right, the police department is standing by their decision.

"The weapons are rendered safe and are unloaded. We ensure the safety of those weapons," Santa Rosa Police Capt. Gary Negri told FoxNews.com, adding that the police attend the event to build ties between the police and the community.

"Our goal is saying to people, ‘hey, don't be intimidated by the police.’ We want to break down that barrier… Once these events are over, people will be more comfortable having conversations with officers.”

Another goal, Negri said, was to educate kids about guns.

“Education and gun safety is a component of what we do… We teach kids the difference between a real gun and a Toys R' Us gun.”

But the crazies in the crwd weren't convinced.

One woman, Elaine Holtz, was so concerned by the SWAT team's weapons that she approached the police officer at the community event and asked what was going on.

"I would not want my child to be involved with something like that... Those guns, they should have been behind glass -- to teach the kids that you don't want to deal with this gun, because it kills." Holtz told FoxNews.com.

"I am coming from the heart of a woman, a mother, a grandmother," she added.

No, you're coming from the heart of a Dingbat. Police have guns for a reason--to protect themselves and other citizens from the bad guys that seek to prey on the community. But apparently Holz and the others would prefer that the criminals keep their monopoly on access to deadly weapons. And they'd obviously like to ensure that kids never learn how to safely handle guns--hell, that might actually prevent one or two of them from getting shot someday. We wouldn't want that now, would we?

Even the Justice Department says that giving kids supervised access to legal firearms helps cut down the delinquency rate.

"A U.S. Department of Justice study showed that children introduced to firearms by their fathers had a lower rate of delinquency than children who learned about guns on the street, or even children who had no experience with guns at all," Dr. Tim Wheeling, of the group Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership, told FoxNews.com.

The 1994 Justice Department report concluded: "Boys who own legal firearms... are even slightly less delinquent than nonowners of guns." Specifically, 14 percent of kids with legal firearms committed street crimes, compared to 24 percent of kids with no guns at home.

Still, Holz isn't buying it.

"I did not see any education going on; it looked like it was just fun,"

God forbid that our kids should have fun with the police. Oh, the horror!

Obama to American Citizens: "BITE ME!"

Notice that he did this just before running out the door to start his latest 11-day vacation in Marthas Vinyard.

Once again, Barack Obama gives American citizens the middle finger and refuses to abide by the laws of our land...or at least the laws that he and his political supporters do not like.

Defense of Marriage Act? "Don't care if it is the law," Obama said. "I personally think it's unconstitutional so I'm not defending or enforcing it. Screw the Supreme Court. I'm smarter so I'll decide."

"Fast and Furious" investigation? "Don't care if there is a lawful congressional investigation in progress. My Justice Department won't cooperate and we'll fire whistleblowers."

And now we have this one:
"Don't care if they are in the country illegally. I'm not going to allow them to be deported any more."

Since the Congress that was elected last year to stop Obama's march towards Socialism refused to pass the DREAM Act (the legislation that would have allowed most any illegal alien under the age of 35 to remain in our country simply by expressing an intent to go to college or join the military), Obama has been telling illegals and their special interest groups that it's the Republicans' fault that they can't get legal status in our country. Of course he says this despite the fact he refused to even allow such legislation to be brought up during the two years that his party had total veto-proof control of the entire government. And now that he's managed to frame it as a "The GOP hates brown people" issue, he turns around and simply orders the Department of Homeland Security to stop doing it's job in cases where the illegal alien would have been eligible for that DREAM Act that our Congress killed, basically saying that it doesn't matter what the People's elected representatives do. And he's also suspending deportations in cases where the illegal "just isn't a high priority" because they've been here for a while and never been convicted of anything other than "minor" crimes. All those drunk drivers who kill our citizens? No problema any more if they happen to be illegal. Obama just prevented any of them from being deported. And he did it not by passing a law, but by refusing to enforce or obey laws that were already passed.

Oh--and they may be getting work permits, too.

The move means that those who are in deportation proceedings will have their cases reviewed and, if they are set aside as low-priority, could possibly be given work permits. Low-priority individuals will also be less likely to end up in deportation proceedings in the first place, officials said.

Isn't that great? nearly a fifth of Americans out of work and Obama wants to allow millions of illegals to compete with those Americans for what jobs still exist after nearly three years of his policies killing off our economy.

When we get leaders that pick and choose which public mandates they'll obey, we no longer have a government "of the People, by the People, for the People." We have a tyranny and despotic rule by the minority as they see fit. This is not what our nations founders or subsequent generations of Americans had in mind as they were shaping this country.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm pissed off and I've got a machine gun to clean and oil and some ammo to link up.

Because someone wanted to see him...

Here he is...By special request.

And here he is again. What a ham.

What the heck? Pry open our wallets and let's just feed everybody.

Detroit, Michigan, that paragon of fiscal responsibility, has now decided to give free breakfast, lunch and mid-day snacks to every kid in the school system just to spare kids from low-income households from being embarrassed about being seen accepting "free" food.

That's right. Courtesy of a new Obama Administration Dept. of Agriculture program that you and I will be paying for, Detroit Schools will now feed EVERY kid for free (to the kid and his/her parents) just so that a few kids can get free food without feeling ashamed that their parents don't work.

“One of the primary goals of this program is to eliminate the stigma that students feel when they get a free lunch, as opposed to paying cash,” said DPS Chief Operating Officer Mark Schrupp. “Some students would skip important meals to avoid being identified as low-income. Now, all students will walk through a lunch line and not have to pay.

Ironically, this means that people who do work and struggle to pay their bills will now get to pay more in taxes so that they can buy food for the kids of much richer families, because no kid is exempt from this latest welfare give-away.

But hey--if it coerces just one more welfare mom to vote Democrat in the next election, it'll be worth it, right?

Hell, welfare should be embarrassing, if only to help motiviate it's recipients to get off of it. Like Benjamin Franklin once said, "If you give the poor just enough to keep them comfortable, they'll stay poor." And they'll vote Democrat in order to keep the free cheese coming.

Bizarro world...

Only in America do foreigners illegally in our country stand up before our public officials, waving the flags of their own countries while complaining about our immigration enforcement policies and demand that our legislators resign.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/15/2360736/task-force-eyes-fingerprint-sharing

More than 200 people, many wearing signs reading "Terminate Secure Communities" and carrying flags from countries including Mexico and Brazil, packed a conference room in Los Angeles Monday night to recount their experiences with a program they say is making immigrants reluctant to report crime to police out of fear of getting deported.

"Every day I live the nightmare of this program," said Blanca Perez, 38, who said she was arrested in February for street vending without a permit. "Now I am facing deportation for the simple act of selling ice cream in the street."

No, illegal. You're facing deportation for being in our country without our permission. American laws mean things, which is undoubtedly one of the reasons why our country is so much better than the one that you left.

What I want to know is why Blanca Perez isn't back in her own country or sitting in a detention center right now. I also want to know why there wasn't a big ICE detention bus parked outside that meeting and several enforcement agents on hand to check ID's. I guarantee you that if ICE does that once or twice at meetings like this, we'll see an end to the repeated spectacle of foreigners who are unlawfully in our country loudly and arrogantly making demands of our elected representatives.

Any Presidential candidate who promises to take such an action will have my vote in 2012.

In other news...

I had the pleasure of briefly meeting Expatriate Owl today. Definitely nice to be able to put a face to the name.

Then I came back to the Lair only to be told by my neighbor (the Crazy Cat Guy, one-half of the Crazy Cat Couple who feed and provide breeding space for untold masses of feral cats) that Murphy barks too much and too loudly for their liking.

I explained to him that Murphy only barks at trespassers on his land, and this is pretty much limited to the UPS man and cats, most all of which come from the Crazy Cat Couple's yard. Of course he did not believe this. He accused Murphy of just barking at "birds, trees, the moon and the stars."
I told him that if those were the names of his cats, he's probably right.

Word of advice: If you plan on buying a house, go meet the neighbors first.

Flash Mobs come to Maryland

This time in Germantown, MD, just outside of Washington, DC. Clearly organized, with no shame or guilt displayed, two to three dozen fools who probably don't have a job between them laugh as they steal from a small business owner who actually does contribute to society.

You have to wonder how many of these fools and their friends would be apt to repeat this act if half a dozen or so of them were just shot as they strutted defiantly out the door with other people's property in their hands. Maybe it's time to look at extreme remedies for crimes of this sort, especially since the police don't appear terribly interested in dealing with this.

Child-beater claims he's not safe in jail

Meanwhile up in Alaska, we have the case of Byron Syvinski. This fine, upstanding citizen ran up and savagely beat a 7-year-old girl in a vicious unprovoked attack as she rode her bike down the street, putting her in the local hospital's intensive care ward.

But now he's claiming that he is the one in danger, saying that other inmates (who apprently don't like scumbags who attack children any more than the rest of us do) are now beating him, and that the only way that he can be safe is if the judge lowers his bond and releases him from jail.

Fortunately for all concerned, the judge said no.

Pity. I think that people like Syvinski should be released...but only after the victim's family members have been notified and provided with shiny new baseball bats and 15 minutes' worth of transactional immmunity by the Prosecutor's office.

Britain's out of control welfare state

While elements of the British government now protest the decision to cut convicted rioters off from lavish welfare benefits that all too often support able-bodied young men and women at a rate higher than that obtainable by many who actually work full time, we now see a ridiculous example of the British largess in the form of a family from Somalia who arrived in that country three years ago. Neither adult in the household has ever worked since arriving in England, choosing instead to jump right on the benefits wagon. They were living in a taxpayer-funded apartment but decided that it was "too far away from friends and relatives" so they moved into another home in a neighborhood that they liked better...and a house that cost 2 million British Pounds (or $3,200,000 US) and just slugged the British taxpayers with the bill...and that bill was accepted!

The new six-bedroon house for this family of welfare Somalians--people who aren't even British citizens--is costing the British taxpayers 8,000 Pounds a month, or $13,000 US! And that doesn't even include the othher welfare benefits that this family is soaking up.

Raj Sohal, the family’s previous landlord, said: ‘It was the first time I’d rented to an asylum seeker family. I did it because I felt sorry for them. The fact is they were on every kind of benefit available.

But were the Somolians grateful? Apparently not. Sohal told The People newspaper that they’d gone without paying the last month’s rent.

So the British government gave them money for the rent, and they just pocketed it and stiffed the landlord. Model citizens, eh?

It is unclear how many children the family have – but up to eight youngsters have been seen at the property. When approached by The People, Mr Khaliif said: ‘This is my house. We’ve got every right to live here.’

Question is, how many British citizens who actually leave their houses and go to work each day could afford to live in a place like that? And how does a family of non-citizens who have never held a job for even one day claim a mansion as a "right"?

Frankly I'm surprised that it's the welfare recipients that are doing the bulk of the rioting in Britian. You'd think that it would be the average taxpayer over incidents like this. It's no wonder that the wheels are rapidly falling off of that once-great country. And one has to wonder how much longer it will be until we start to see it happening here.

Lucky, Lucky Murphy

It's his lucky day. I'm making up a big pot of "Dead Dog Chili" today.
It'll be hours in the making and it'll last for days...and it will be SO good. I have not made any since Murphy has been here, but Lagniappe used to love it.

Lucky Murphy...he has no idea what's going to be in his bowl tonight.

Edited: Guess I'd better head to the store. I didn't realize that I'm out of brown sugar and tobasco, and I can always use more peppers and spices in general since I'm there. Oh--and beer. This chili requires beer in the pot, and much more to be consumed while preparing and eating it.

Saturday Man Movie

Time for a bit more modern manliness. Here, Chuck Norris, as Texas Ranger Lone Wolf McQuade, brings justice to villain Rawley Wilkes, played by David Carradine, who was a skilled martial artist in real life himself.Both men refused to use stunt doubles in this fight, over the strenuous objections of the movie producers.

Robert "Sandy" Vietze needs his ass whipped.

By now I'm sure you've heard about spoiled preppy kid Robert "Sandy" Vietze, of Warren, Vt. He's the punk who urinated on a sleeping 11 year old girl on a recent Jet Blue flight to New York. He's recently been identified as a hopeful for the US Olympic Ski Team, but as of this writing, he's reportedly been tossed from the team, as he should have been after his deplorable actions and his refusal to apologize even days later. His only statement thus far was a claim that he was "drunk" and that as a result, he didn't realize what he was doing. That's not an apology--it's a lame-ass attempt at an excuse. Apparently being the rich-kid son of a pair of wealthy Vermonters has taught him that he owes no one any sort of consideration, not even the traumatized child of a cancer patient.
So far, he's still being prosecuted for indecent exposure, and we'll see if daddy can buy him out of a jail sentence that he deserves. But we also need to keep an eye on this case (from a safe distance, naturally) to make sure that the Olympic Team doesn't sneak him back onto the roster once the case gets a bit older and people move on to being outraged about other things. If you want to have a say in this matter, you can e-mail the US Ski Team's President, Bill Marolt, at bmarolt@ussa.org, or try to post a comment on that organization's website congratulating them on booting Vietze and urging them not to reconsider later, unless of course they wish to bring him back in a slightly different capacity, such as the one held by Mel Brooks in this classic clip.

"Piss Boy" Vietze is damned lucky that the girl's father didn't give him the righteous ass-beating that he should have gotten. It's also too bad that Zin wasn't on that flight. THAT would have been karmic indeed.

Police dog goes to the extreme as he takes a bite out of crime.

So what happens when a careeer criminal tries to hid from the police in his girlfriend's house when they come to serve an arrest warrant?

Well if he's in Gretna, Louisiana, a police dog is likely to bit his nuts off.

No fooling.

Lifelong scumbag and ne'er-do-well Cody Melancon resisted arrest and fought Zin, a Belgian Malinois employed by Gretna PD. Zin fought back and got a pretty good "compliance hold" on Melancon's family jewels, partially severing them and causing "permanent damage and sexual dysfunction", according to Melancon's lawyer. But the department is standing behind Zin and his handler. Police Chief Arthur Lawson told WDSU the lawsuit was frivolous.

"Our K-9 dogs are nationally certified and yearly accredited." he said. "One of the things we do is believe in training with our department. The individual involved here was a convicted felon who had -- or was actually wanted for -- felonies, and had a history of violence."

As for me, I think that Zin performed a community service by stopping Melancon from procreating and raising up any more future thugs.

Of course Murphy just thinks Zin's a role model and is presently writing Gretna PD and asking for an autographed (pawtographed?) picture of the heroic police dog.

And the Liberal efforts to indoctrinate America's children continues...

So now in addition to the bad economic news and war news, we have news stories about how the gay special interest groups want the children's TV Show Sesame Street to let male charcaters Bert and Ernie get married. They also want the show to add a "transgender" character, better known as a "shemale".

So if the liberals get their way, it won't be long before the Obama Administration takes action and parents across America will be forced to explain to their pre-schoolers why Bert is bending Ernie over the counter and why the gaunt, shaky guy in the dress and high heels is lurking in the alley next to Mr. Hooper's store, offering to trade sex for crack with anyone who walks by.
Is there anything that these people won't despoil in pursuit of the liberal agenda? Wasn't it bad enough when they put Michelle Obama on the show last year? I guess that in America today--at least in the blue states--even the smallest children are expected to sacrifice their innocence on the altar of Liberalism. Pathetic.

Hippie Economic Indicator says: "Not Good"

So here I am, driving along and minding my own business--not bothering anybody--when this beat-to-shit little 20 year old Toyota merges onto the highway slightly ahead of me and then moves all the way over into the far left lane despite the fact that there is no one ahead of it in the right lane. Naturally, I'm moving at my usual highway speed, which is slightly below Mach 1, and the Toyota is barely moving fast enough to even be on the hgihway in the first place. So just to let this guy know that he's done something rather thoughtless and potentially dangerous, I give him a bit of high beam and some horn as I pass him on the right, in the lane that he should have just stayed in in the first place.

As I pass him, I can't help but notice his bumper stickers. One says "War is not the answer" and the other one says "Peace now!" in big letters. Yeah, ok...whatever. I keep going. Things to do and all that.

Well surprise, surprise, but when I shift back left to pass a bus in the right lane that I'm coming up on, the Toyota starts flashing it's high beams even though it's still several car-lengths back, and it accelerates to the point where it's now riding my back bumper. I give him a polite but firm courtesy brake check to let him know that he needs to back off a bit, and as soon as we pass the bus, it gets into the right lane next to me and accelerates again until it's alongside me. I look over and I see this guy with unkempt bushy hair and a matching beard, neither of which appear to have been groomed since the late 1980's. He's angrily mouthing something I can't make out and shaking his fist at me. I actually start laughing at the picture of this goofy leftist with an obvious anger-management problem, then I give him the Hawaiian good luck sign and accelerate away from him. But looking at his grooming standards and that POS car, it would appear that the job market's pretty tough these days for applicants with a Liberal Arts graduate degree who probably couldn't pass a drug screen on a bet.

Well that didn't end the way that you planned now, did it?

The infamous Dougherty Gang from Florida was arrested in Colorado today after a chase and shoot-out with police there. Busted were 29 year old stripper Lee Grace Dougherty and her two brothers, Dylan and Ryan, all of whom have criminal records. (Ryan has 14 felony convictions despite only being 21 years old. His sister has 5 and was also wanted for a hit-and-run, per news reports.) After shooting at a police officer in Florida and robbing a bank in Georgia, they fled in a stolen car to Colorado, where there were spotted buying camping gear at REI, a store that apparently doesn't include "stop snitching" as part of it's employee code of conduct. The police soon picked up their trail and when spotted, they tried to outrun the police in, of all things, a Subaru Impreza. Well that didn't go well. According to the state patrol, a trooper working overtime and overseeing a construction project near Walsenburg heard what was happening over police scanners and put stop sticks on the road. The vehicle crashed about 9:30 am. when it attempted to avoid the stop sticks.

After the crash Lee Grace Dougherty and one of her brothers tried to get away from the vehicle. Lee Grace had a handgun and was loading the chamber when she was shot in the leg by a Walsenburg police officer. Her brother was arrested. The other brother, authorities have not identified which one, then ran into Walsenburg. He did not go into any businesses and was soon arrested.

To be fair, they were warned. Pasco County (Fla.)Sheriff Chris Nocco called for them to surrender but also put them on notice that if it was a fight they wanted, they'd likely get one. "We want to reiterate to the Dougherty family, we want you to turn yourselves in, we want a peaceful resolution, but at the same time we understand if they want to battle with us, we have the resources and we will win," Nocco said. And as predicted, they tried, but they were no match for the trained, professional police officers that they went up against. Training and teamwork will always trump incestual hillbilly bravado and a couple of guns.

Kudos to the police officers who took these three down, and this should stand as a warning not just to potential hillbilly copycats but to all of those brave Walter Mitty types who seem to infest most gun-related internet forums to greater or lesser degrees--the ones who say that "when the time comes", they'll take on the police or military and win.

Frankly, when I start reading that crap and see that no other posters or administrators are objecting to it, I take that forum off of my "favorites" list because I don't associate with criminals or idiots. And anyone who thinks that they're going to fight a whole team of police officers or soldiers all by themselves is clearly idiotic, as this and almost every other police shoot-out shows. While police officers are regrettably killed by scumbags occasionally, in the end, by virtue of training, numbers and dedication, the police always win. And that's as it should be, whether they are taking buck-toothed banjo-pickers like the Doughertys off the streets or stepping on some armed drug dealer's or wanna-be militia warrior's head. You can talk smack on the internet all day long, but if you try to play the serious bad guy in real life, the good guys in blue are likely going to open up a can of whoop-ass on you and justifiably beat you like a rented mule.
And that works for me.

Now we'll see how long that it takes for the anti-gun whack jobs to use this case to call for the total disarmament of the rest of us. Anyone wanna start a pool?

In other news, it's nice to see that at least some British police are starting to take the right approach to the rampaging bands of looters and thieves. Good job, mates!

When the welfare train comes off the tracks--Britain's example.

So now we're going into another night of rioting in Britain. This will be the fourth night, and it's spreading from London to other cities now, spurred on by youth organizing attacks on specific businesses via social media. It all allegedly started when London police shot a career criminal after he shot at them with a blank gun that was modified to fire live ammunition. He reportedly struck a police officer but the bullet lodged in the officer's radio. In response, the thug's family and friends organized the first blow-up, but now it's just punks all over Britain joining in, including two girls interviewed by the BBC as they drink looted wine and boast that they're doing it to show the police and the rich that they "can do what they want". They also say that it's the government and conservatives' fault that they're out stealing.
When the interviewer asks them why they're looting and burning businesses in their own neighborhoods, they laugh and say "well it's because they're rich..."

And they're not alone. Most of the looting now seems to be focused on stores that sell jewelry, electronics, high-end shoes and other fashion wear...just bling.

If there's any sort of justice, every business that is looted or burned will re-open somewhere else and leave these punks to stand around befuddled like all of the rioters and looters in LA in the aftermath of the Rodney King riots did when the local Korean-owned businesses that they targeted--many of them places that they'd regularly shopped at for years--relocated when they rebuilt, leaving the looters with damned few places to buy stuff or shoplift from afterwards. Communities that allow this to happen should be punished for this sort of premeditated crime by the removal of every store within walking distance from the areas where such behavior took place.

Now in the short term, the authorities need to get a handle on this quick. The British Prime Minister David Cameron said last night that force would be used, including water cannons, but he was almost immediately contradicted by his own Home Secretary, Theresa May, who said that water cannons would NOT be used on the rioters and that they would try to get them to stop by "consent". What a great way to send the message to the criminals that the government doesn't have it's head on straight.

What I think they ought to do is come over here and borrow some of our cops for a few days. Send the Prince Georges County, MD police. They know how to control violent criminals. Send the LAPD. Where are those officers who beat down Rodney King? Are they doing anything this week? Hell, get Johann Meserle, the former BART cop who shot that scumbag Oscar Grant in Oakland a couple years back. Surely even in our own rapidly-sissifying country we've still got a few hundred police officers left who know how to lay the law down the old fashioned way: by laying the bad guys out.

I don't necessarily condone casual police brutality but there does come a time when you need to take your own streets back from the rampaging criminal element that's running amuck and threatening the safety and livelihoods of the people who depend on the police. Since the citizens in England cannot own or carry firearms to protect themselves, the police need to step up and start kicking some ass over there, and not stop until order is restored. Seriously. And if they've forgotten how, I'm sure that we can recruit some old-school police officers from cities like New York, Detroit, Atlanta, New Orleans and Miami to give them a few pointers and show them how it's done.

Oh--and another deterrent? One so powerful that even our government is afraid to use it? Simply make it clear that anyone convicted of any riot-related offense loses their benefit checks and public housing, permanently and effective immediately. If you're living off the public largesse, there should be a requirement that you either be model citizens or find your own way. Alas, there as here, there are too many people getting welfare checks these days who are eligible to vote and the politicians are too scared of them to ever consider making them angry. But in a Just world...

Massive Boredom...

Canine version.



Sometimes there's just nothing going on. Even here.

Gratuitous plane porn

Not sure where I took this. I just found it on an old memory stick.


McDonnell-Douglas F-4 Phantom jet. I SO need one.

Saturday Man Movie

The year was 1942, the movie: The Spoilers.
Because John Wayne and Randolph Scott never could get along while Marlene Dietrich was stirring the pot.
Back in those days, Scott was still getting top billing over Wayne. But they were actually great friends when they weren't trying to kill each other on the silver screen.

Curtain pulled back on "medical marijuana" facade again

"Oh, but it's just medicine for sufferers of chronic pain!"

Leaving aside the fact that the typical "medical marijuana patient" is a twenty-something no-job-having skateboarder or a college kid repeating his freshman year for the third time, I guess that we can assume that the cocaine and guns seized at this dope den "medical marijuana dispensary" all had some sort of medicinal use too, right?People, wise up. When the pro-pot crowd comes to your state with their bus load of professional patients who get paid to sob about how only marijuana makes their chronic pain go away, once you vote to legalize it to help the poor old cancer sufferers (all five or six of them), this is what you approve for your community if you vote for legalized "medical" pot.

Normally I'm not one to tell others how to live, but most people wouldn't vote to allow crack houses next to their local playgrounds and these so-called "medical" marijuana operations are really no different despite the professional PR campaign that they run.

Knowledge is power, and drug dealers who hire lobbyists and PR firms are still scumbags.

Judges rule that a crminal and a victim can "co-possess" a gun

"[P]ossession of a firearm may be sole or joint; dominion or control over the object need not be exclusive" to subject one of the parties -- particularly the one who has just broken into the second party's house -- to serious criminal liability.

OK, I'm loving this one.

In sum, career criminal and all-around scumbag Jerome Strickland broke into the home of an elderly couple in Detroit last year. He was confronted by the armed 70-year old man of the house. Strickland tried to disarm the homeowner by wrenching the gun from his hands, the homeowner resisted, and the gun discharged several times during the melee, with bullets striking both parties. (To be fair, it's not clear whether Strickland was hit by bullets from this gun or those fired by the homeowner's wife, who also armed herself and rushed to her husband's defense.)

In any event, Strickland was arrested and charged with--among other things--being a felon in possession of a firearm based upon his previous conviction for armed robbery. Strickland was convicted and he appealed, claiming that the pistol was not his and that he never succeeded in getting it completely away from the homeowner, so therefore he could not be convicted of possessing it.

Alas, a unanimous panel of three Court of Appeals judges ruled late last week, "possession of a firearm may be sole or joint; dominion or control over the object need not be exclusive" to subject one of the parties -- particularly the one who has just broken into the second party's house -- to serious criminal liability. In short, the appellate panel concluded, "the evidence was sufficient to permit a rational trier of fact to reasonably infer that Strickland possessed the gun jointly with Arlis during the assault," even if, in the end, Strickland arguably got the short end of the deal.

Justice, Baby. 26-60 years affirmed when the court ruled that for the purpose of this charge, Strickland "co-possessed" the pistol along with the victim, and said partial possession was, in fact, sufficient to put him away for a long, long time.

Strickland should enjoy spending the next two decades being laughed at by all the other cons for getting punked by a seventy year old man and his wife.

Obama working to create a job--his own in 2012

The rest of the country is screwed, but last night's big Obama birthday blow-out was Obama's 37th 2012 election fundraiser since taking office.

By way of contrast, by this time in his first term, President George W. Bush had held 7 fundraisers.

President Bill Clinton had held 5 by this time in his first term.

But Obama? 37.

Ad to this the number of Obama golf games--over 70 at current count (Bush played 24 games during his entire eight years)--and the number of lavish celebrity-filled White House parties (like the one planned for tonight) and the number of days that Obama has spent jetting around on vacations or attending other Democrats' fundraisers, and you get a picture of a country pretty much running on auto-pilot as the first man-child basically just indulges himself and his wife at public expense.

Meanwhile, in Rome, the fire department is reportedly responding to several multiple-alarm fires that threaten to engulf the city. When asked for a comment, Jay Carney, the White House Propaganda Minister replied that Obama was in the middle of his violin lesson and could not be disturbed.

White House fence-jumper gives me an idea

So a guy named James Crudup jumped over the White House fence yesterday and got arrested. As the news showed him being hauled off by the Secret Service though, I could not help but think that he is much like Barack Obama in that neither of them belong in the White House. Then it dawned on me that he probably has as much leadership ability as Obama does, and that America could hardly be worse off if the Secret Service just took Obama away and let Crudup run the country until 2012.

What say you?

Hosed...

So today I'd planned a little scuba dive and I went out to a local quarry that I'd scouted on my last flight. (No, it's not the one pictured. Opsec, you know...) Ninety-five degrees out, and there I was, fighting my way into a wetsuit next to this beautiful crystal clear water. I'd already taken my Sudafed to help my ears clear, and I'd notified my friend Aaron of my location and set a time by which, had he not heard back from me, he was to make the appropriate notifications. Everything was set to go...until I hooked up my regulator and opened the tank valve. HISSSSSSSSSSSS...!

WTF? I'd just had this rig checked out at the local dive shop. What's going on?

All I can tell is that the air is leaking from around the pressure gauge and the leak site is inside the console proper so I can't get at it. All that preparation, and my dive is scrubbed by a bad air hose. @#$%^&!!

But at least someone got wet today.

After I got home and put the gear away, I took Murphy, that late night killer of cats and terrifier of Yankees and UPS men, out to the river. Hey--why should both of us be miserable in the heat, right?

The things I do for this dog...

So I'm a terrorist now? But I was called patriotic a couple of years ago...

Gee, remember how just a couple of years ago, it was considered patriotic to express disagreement with the government? And a US Senator who is now Secretary of State told us so.

But apparently that was only supposed to apply when a political party that was not hers was in power, because now we have Joe Biden calling all of us who want to control federal spending "terrorists".

Looks to me like Simple Joe forgot that he's there to work for us, not to be served by us. But apparently he's not a minority in the Obama Administration with that point of view. Once again, our own public servants and elected representatives have declared war on those of us that there are supposed to work for, choosing to side with Mexico and it's hordes of citizens who wish to come or remain in our country illegally instead.

Federal Government Sues Alabama Over Immigration Law


So when the federal government, comprised of people who begged for the job of doing our bidding, not only refuses to do our bidding but actually turns on us when we try to do it ourselves, can the full range of predictable remedies that our forefathers spoke of be far off?

Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it.
John Adams

History affords us many instances of the ruin of states, by the prosecution of measures ill suited to the temper and genius of their people. The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy.
Benjamin Franklin

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
Thomas Jefferson


The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.
Thomas Jefferson

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to order some more ammunition and another case a freeze-dried meals.

Scratch another cat.

Well the neighborhood is short one more feral cat as of 11:02PM tonight. Murphy caught another one on the front deck. What is it with these things that they keep coming right up onto the porch like that? They have to know he's there.

This one managed to escape in the end by rolling/being thrown off the deck onto the driveway below. It happened too fast for me to tell for sure which it was. But the cat was mortally injured so I had to go down and do the humane thing. Apparently someone heard the shot and called it in though, because a Sheriff's Dept. cruiser is now prowling around. I should probably flag him down and own up, but frankly, it's just too late at night to have that discussion, especially since I forgot to call them up and let them know in advance that I'd be putting an injured animal down. My bad.

I have got to get a suppressed .22.


EDITED TO ADD @ 12:01AM: Saw the Sheriff's cruiser again as I was outside so I waved it down. Deputy was one I've known for quite some time and associated with both personally and professionally so I told him I did it. He called me a dumbass for not calling it in and making him drive all the way up here for nothing, then we shot the breeze for a few minutes before he had to go. I told him I'd make it up to him with a donut next time I see him. He replied with a rude remark that I won't repost here. But all is now well.

How businesses go under--employing morons

Much as I tend to avoid fast food joints, a few days ago I had need to make a long drive, and short on time and hungry, I pulled into the drive-thru of a local Arby's to get a sandwich for the road. The time: just before 10:30AM.

As luck would have it, a slow car in front of me held my speed down for about half a mile as I approached the restaurant, so I was already a bit cheesed when a small pick-up truck with two people in it arrived from the other direction and turned into the driveway about two seconds before I did. If not for that slow car...

But still. Two people. No one else in line. This should be ok, right? They ordered something and pulled forward, and then I placed my order: one sandwich. Just one damned sandwich.

But not knowing what was coming, I pulled forward behind the pick-up truck and waited for them to get their food and move.

And I waited.

And I waited some more. Like, seriously, WTF?

By this time, two more vehicles had pulled in behind, placed orders, and joined the line. I'd waited through two whole songs and part of a third on the radio and still nothing was being handed out the window to the pick-up truck. Finally, I blew my horn to "suggest" to the idiots in the restaurant that they needed to do something. This was ridiculous.

Then one of the vehicles behind me in line pulled out and took off. It was followed by the other one. I also pulled around the little pick-up truck, only I went back around the front of the restaurant and stormed inside--I'd already lost ten minutes and I wanted my damned sandwich.

I walked in just in time to hear the one employee exclaim: "They've all left! What do we do with their orders?"
"Dump 'em," replied the other. and before I could even say a word, I watched the first employee grab up three ready-to-go bags of food and drop them into the trash can. Those were meals for four or five people that had been sitting there growing cold while the people who ordered them were waiting in line behind the pick-up truck, which was only now being handed their bag of food.

"What the HELL?" I exclaimed. I came in to get MY food after being stuck behind that truck for ten damned minutes! And you just threw it away!"

"Well it's not our fault," the employee by the window whined. "She ordered cin-a-buns and we had to make fresh ones and that take three minutes once we put them in the oven..."

"But you had us all waiting for TEN minutes," I said. "And you finally threw all of our food in the garbage and wasted it. Would it have killed you two to have that truck pull forward and just given the rest of us our orders?"

"Well we probably could have," said the other employee. "But we didn't think of that."

"Oh, we couldn't do that," the other one rushed to exclaim. "There are only two of us here."

"What did you order?" the first one asked. "I can make you another one real quick."

"Not even if it was free," I said. Like I want these two touching my food now. So I turned around and left, but not before spotting the store owner's number on the window and punching into my phone. I called him a bit later and he wasn't there, but I left a message explaining how the Butt Sisters had just cost him several sales and wasted a fair amount of food that he'd paid for. I never heard back from him but I hope that he boots those two, because it's sorry-assed, lazy employees like that, coupled with inadequate supervision, that can ruin a business and put a lot of other people out of work.

There used to be a time when employees were grateful to have jobs and went the extra mile for customer service. But apparently those days are gone. Question I have to ask is: "Why?" When did it become unfashionable or even permissible to blow your customers off when your whole paycheck is derived from serving said customers?

Lucky for me, the Duncan Donuts across the street was quick enough to make up a toasted bagel with bacon, egg and cheese, and it was cheaper than the Arby's sandwich, to boot. Next time I'm up that way and hungry, guess which one will be getting my business. And the owner of the Arby's franchise has only himself to blame for hiring those two vapid cows and letting them work without a manager present.

Murphy chooses a side in the Civil War

Or as he'd likely call it, "The War of Northern Aggression."

Yesterday I had Murphy down to Harpers Ferry for some swimming and ice cream. He enjoyed both, as he always does, and we walked about the town for a bit because it was a week-end and all of the re-enactors were about.

All was well and fine until one of the re-enactors, a large man in Union blue, got a bit to pushy with Murphy while trying to pet him. Murphy is still somewhat reserved when he meets new people and prefers to make the first overtures himself. He also really hates uniforms, probably due to his time spent at the dog pound, aka: dog jail, before I got him.
But this fellow reached out to pet Murphy, and he was not at all dissuaded when Murphy drew back from him. I saw the ears flatten and the hair on his back start to rise, and I told the man to give him a minute. But Mr. wanna-be Dog Whisperer replied that he was good with dogs, and despite my warning and the warning signs that Murphy was displaying, he tried to reach for him again, only to have Murphy bark and lunge for him and come up short only because I saw it coming and reefed back on the leash.
To his credit, the guy realized that he'd screwed up and apologized, but Murphy is not a forgiving dog, and once he's fired up, he not only dislikes the person who has offended him but anyone who looks like that person as well. And as luck would have it, Harpers Ferry was filled with fat guys in blue wool uniforms and all the way back to the car, Murphy barked at or tried to close with every single one that he saw.

I just told people that he was a Confederate dog, a line which drew more than a few laughs, especially from the men in gray uniforms who Murphy was completely ignoring. He was definitely selective and I had to cut short our walk and take him home because I knew that he wasn't going to calm down any time soon. This shepherd has a memory and no bluebelly would be safe with Murphy on the streets, so back home we went, stopping just long enough to get him another ice cream cone from his patron, Sharon at the Swiss Miss shop.

Some things are more important than re-igniting the War Between The States, and ice cream is one of those things, at least in Murphy's opinion.