Confederate Sharpshooter

After recently sticking my head into the liberal hornets nest called the Raleigh News & Observer, the following quotes seem appropriate:

An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." Jeff Cooper

“Criminals are not dissuaded by soft words, soft judges or easy laws. They are dissuaded by fear and they are prevented from repeating their crimes by death or by incarceration.” Ronald Reagan, 1975

"Sadly, being helpless themselves, sheep tend to instinctively fear anything with canine teeth. Many of them cannot distinguish between the wolf and the sheepdog, and thus fear them both equally."- Massad Ayoob

Once again a senator with some common sense wants to eliminate the idiotic prohibition on CCW in restaurants that serve alcohol. Predictably, the same emotion-driven dolts that oppose any sensible firearm law are going into panic mode.: http://projects.newsobserver.com/under_the_dome/bill_would_allow_guns_in_restaurants

Thanks to http://thefreehold.blogspot.com/ for bringing this to my attention. You’ll notice I’ve posted several comments below the article, and have actually caused a few of the less hysterical anti-gun folks to at least admit they can’t counter my arguments. That’s a start. Feel free to help me out there. Also be sure and send a thank you note to Senator Brock so he’ll know we appreciate his sticking his head into a particularly large hornets nest. He can probably use all the support he can get.

I’d like to talk to you today about a part of self defense few people give thought to anymore: what to do when your car breaks down. The good news is today’s automobiles are safer and more reliable than ever before. If your car is less than 10 years old you probably would give little thought to jumping in for a cross county trip with a quick stop to check the oil and tire pressure- perhaps not even that. The trouble is, is something does go wrong, the chances of being able to get things going on the side of the road with some duct tape and pliers is about as good as your odds of winning the lottery. So, what can you do to at least be prepared for what problems you can solve?

This topic was brought to mind by something that happened earlier today. Pulling out from our rather rural side road onto a major US route is always fun, and today was no different. To add to the challenge today, looking just up the road I observed a good sized SUV stopped dead in the south bound lane, facing me. A line of cars were stacked up tight against the SUV, and a small sports car was blocking the center of the lane, straddling the center line, apparently caught in the middle when he tried to dart around the SUV and met cars coming in the other direction.

Did I mention all this started around the beginning of heavy traffic going home time?

Normally I go out of my way to stop and help folks out. I really do. I know it’s not the smart thing to do any more, conventional wisdom is ‘call a professional’ and don’t get involved. But this was well out of the city limits, the Sherriff’s department refers traffic problems to the State Patrol, and chances of having a unit available for a quick ETA would be nil. So there was a very good chance the impatient dolts behind the stranded motorist would manage to make things worse with at least a rear end collision behind, or even a head on collision trying to go around, were dang good.

None of this needed to have happened. I wish I could tell you that I stopped, helped this lady out, and taught her a valuable lesson. But I didn’t. I’ve been down with a nasty chest cold for some time now, was going the wrong way and would have had to turn around, and likely as not would have been a victim of the aforementioned collisions for my trouble. So this time I left it for younger and closer Samaritans, and hoped one would get the vehicle off the road before something bad happened. Even in passing, I could observe several telling signs as to what might have been the problem. First, the front bumper bore the plastic plate of one of the less trusted used car dealers for this area. Second, the driver was an older, grandmotherly lady, who looked positively bewildered at what had happened to her ride. Finally, the SUV- if I had to guess I’d say it was a Ford Explorer- was stopped in the level area between two fairly steep hills, just past one large intersection and just short of the one I was exiting. Good wide shoulders on both sides of the road. Car was obviously not under power at all, for what ever reason.

Ok, before you read further, ask yourself: what could this presumably nice senior citizen have done to prevent ending up in such a precarious predicament?

Quite a few things, if you ask me. And since you are still reading, I’m going to act as if you did. She could have pulled off the traveled portion of the road when she sensed the engine had died, for one. Buying from a used car dealer with a better reputation for another. Keep the gas tank full, and don’t cheap out on the maintenance is also good advice.

As we discussed earlier, cars are more reliable than ever, but they are also more complex. Back in the points-and-condenser days, I have nursed wounded motorcycles home with nothing more than the tool kit under the seat with only half of the twin cylinders working. I have also repaired broken air lines on 48 foot semi-trailers with a swiss army knife and pliers, and some improvised parts made from aluminum cans and other trash on the side of the road. Sometimes, you can still get things going with ‘improvised field expedient methods.’ But if that mysterious epoxy sealed ignition module decides now is the time to quite making the little sparky things spark, well, you are pretty much screwed until you have another epoxy filled module- and that after the big dealer-only machine tells you that is what is wrong. But what about those of us who have no mechanical abilities, and depend on others to do anything more complex than change a light bulb? Fear not, there is still a great deal you can do to avoid being the lead story on the late news.

First off, it’s always better to not have problems in the first place. This is a lot easier than it used to be- if you have enough money. If you’re never going to get your hands dirty working on it anyway, you might consider a leased vehicle. You pay your money, and let the dealership take care of all those pesky details like oil changes, tune ups, even tire pressures. Personally, I detest going to a dealership for anything, it’s expensive, time consuming, and they often treat you poorly. That said, if you are unwilling to learn skills for yourself, it’s an option. Option number two is slightly better: purchase a reliable automobile from a reputable dealership or a used car dealer that you can trust completely and take good care of it. In our current economic woes, that’s where a lot of people are becoming penny wise and pound foolish. Now is NOT the time to go cheap on maintenance. Real simple: if you can’t take care of the wheels, don’t drive it. You can walk now, or walk later. But you will end up walking if you keep putting off filling up the gas tank, checking the tires, etc.

You may think I’m a bit off topic talking about car maintenance as a self defense or survival topic. Far from it: the most popular place to find trouble is the public highways, especially when you aren’t able to choose where you are stopping. Ask anyone you know who’s had car problems, and see how many of them died in front of the repair shop. Years ago a broken down car was a great way to meet nice people who would do anything to help you out. That still happens, but rarely. Much better chance you’ll meet someone wanting something you have, be it the AAA wrecker asking for your credit card number or the roadside bandits who want your car for parts- or worse.

Even if you do everything to prevent problems, sometimes things go wrong. The delivery trucks have been known to put kerosene in the gasoline tanks, that bottle you just drove over might flatten passenger side tires, fan belts break, etc. What do you do then?
You have a plan to survive, that’s what. And it starts with not being killed while you sit there trying to figure things out. No matter what the problem is, no matter how fast it came about, unless you are sitting at a stop light or waiting for the train to pass, you have no excuse for being a sitting duck in the travel lane of a high speed roadway. Do NOT coast to a stop in the travel lane, and sit there trying to restart a car that obviously isn’t going to restart. Use the inertia of your vehicle to get it as far off the road as is safe and possible. You don’t want to park in a ditch or get mired up in the mud, but even that isn’t fatal. Sitting stopped in the travel lane is a good way to end up very dead. Get off the road, now. When I teach younger people how to drive, I get them out in the country and start with a known good place to stop, and reach over and kill the engine. “Your car died, get off the road.” I’ll announce, and let them dead-stick the car off the pavement. At first they’ll look bewildered, and claim they can’t steer, brake, etc. without the power accessories. But after a few tries they always start smiling and enjoying it. Nothing like a new skill to enhance your confidence. If I have a decent pupil, I’ll then give them a list of symptoms and ask them what they think is wrong. Then we go down the list of how to get out of the mess- do we walk, will the cell phone work (never does, I make sure of that.) Can we fix it here, do we count on help from a passerby, etc. It is nothing less than amazing how much good can come out of a few dry runs like this, and yet I can only name one other person who has done anything like it, bless his heart his daughter will be a lot safer as a result. More often I see the flip side of preparedness. I will never forget a summer afternoon- almost dark, the sun was setting- and driving past two teen age girls stopped dead center of a blind curve on a curvy state road that already had a reputation for fatal accidents. I pulled off the road, walked back, and offered assistance. “No, we’re fine, daddy is coming to change the tire.” Dolts. Imbeciles. Idiots. Bad enough you’re trying to kill yourselves with your stupidity, but do you have to kill the poor bastard who’d going to come around that corner any second now and plow into your brain-dead behind? I tried in vain to convince these Barbie doll lobotomy cases to drive on the flat tire long enough to get around the curve and off the road, and left them sitting there. I hope they made it home, and I hope daddy was smart enough to take away driving privileges until they wised up. But I digress. Yes, cell phones are wonders of modern technology, but don’t bet your life on them. Use that computer between your ears, and use it often- ask yourself once in a while what you’d do if this happened here. If you have kids learning to drive, remember that driver’s education in most states now is an even bigger joke than it was when you took it way back when. Be honest with yourself- if you aren’t going to be able to teach the proper skills, find someone who can. Ask those same professionals before the need arises- most all police departments have ride along programs, and the cops would rather teach your kid now than meet them later. If you know a truck driver- a good one- or a trucking company, ask them to show your trainee just how big the blind spots are in a modern semi rig. I’ve never tried it, but you might even see if the local rail road has a program to show the kid what a locomotive will do to a car. My personal favorite involves a Saturday night demolition derby at the local short track, but I’ll understand if you don’t want to go to that extreme.

Back to the lady in the SUV. When I came back by, the wrecker was hooking up the to rear of her wounded steed. She looked like a nice little old lady. I’ll bet her grandkids think the world of her. She probably doesn’t have a cell phone, and always counted on grandpa to keep the car up so she wouldn’t have to worry. That’s all good, as long as it works. But trouble most often finds the unprepared, and these days the trouble is easier to find, and worse to deal with. If you have someone you care about, do something that might save their life one day- teach them what do when things go wrong. It might be the best thing you’ve ever done.

Go Here:

http://www.examiner.com/x-1417-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2009m2d19-When-animals-attack

Go Now.

Thanks to David Codrea and for saying what needs to be said, and for linking to this blog as well.

Take it from someone who has taken phone calls very similar to this one: When every fraction of a second counts, and your friend or loved one is bleeding, dying in front of you- the police will be minutes away. Minutes. It will seem like eternity, and after it is all over you'll wonder what you could have done differently. You will feel ashamed that all you could do is talk on the phone and wait for others better than you came to do things for you that you should have been able to do for yourself.

That is why I am so passionate about making people take responsibility for their own safety. It is not the governments job to keep you safe. It is YOUR responsibility. The sooner you figure that out, the better off you will be.

The Aussies decided a few years ago that banning firearms and self defense would make things better. After all, only the police need guns, and the police will be there if you need protection. Let's see how that's working out:



Be sure and listen for the money quote: "The union says the police need more protection." That's right, The police need more protection.

Sometimes Dad sends me good, wholesome family fun.
This is one of those times. Enjoy.

You'll notice everyone is smiling. I've never seen anyone finish off a mag or belt of full auto who wasn't grinning from ear to ear. Pity more folks aren't able to enjoy events like this.

I am still obviously very new to blogging, and still very much trying to decide how I want things to look and work around here. I appreciate any and all suggestions, and hopefully things will settle into a productive pattern soon. As you can see I have changed the template, in order to work better with blogger and have more control over layout. Obviously, colors are not my strong point- be patient and perhaps one day someone will convince me there are more than 5 colors in the world. My main concern is that the entries be easy to read on everyones screen, which isn't always possible, but I am trying to come as close as I can.

About the only regular feature so far is the "Sunday Morning Biographies" which I decided to use so we could have at least one day a week to look forward to some good news, and easy reading. It is not my intention to preach gloom and doom every day- enough of that out there as it is. Rather I'd like to mix some entertaining and light hearted stories in with serious discussion of ideas in the hope of attracting readers who may not agree with everything I say, in order that I might get them to think about what position they have taken. I may not change a lot of minds, but I find that a discussion with someone who disagrees with you makes you think a lot harder and work on your own position more so than 'preaching to the choir.'

You will notice I have started catagorizing stories at the lower left hand of the page now. The catagories are far from perfect, and there are some things that will be hard to find, but I hope this will help you find what you are looking for if you want to find something specific, or if you like one subject I cover but not the rest.

Finally, feel free to post comments as you feel the need. I enjoy the feedback, and it lets me know what is working. Should you have something you do not wish to post publicly, I will consider a email address for feedback in the future if enough people ask for it.

Thanks again for stopping by, hope you will want to come back soon.

Mountain Man.

If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.
-Winston Churchill

They spoke of him as the "British Bulldog" for a very good reason. We would do well to heed his words.

Forget all the idiocy you have seen watching the latest hollywood nonsense, and watch how a real woman shoots a real gun- and does it quite well. Gentlemen, if you have a spouse or girlfriend that doesn't think handling a firearm is ladylike or fun, get her to check this out

Not everyone is a true believer in the Church of Algore...

Former astronaut speaks out on global warming
By Associated Press Sunday, February 15, 2009 http://www.bostonherald.com Around the Nation
SANTA FE, N.M. - Former astronaut Harrison Schmitt, who walked on the moon and once served New Mexico in the U.S. Senate, doesn’t believe that humans are causing global warming.
"I don’t think the human effect is significant compared to the natural effect," said Schmitt, who is among 70 skeptics scheduled to speak next month at the International Conference on Climate Change in New York.
Schmitt contends that scientists "are being intimidated" if they disagree with the idea that burning fossil fuels has increased carbon dioxide levels, temperatures and sea levels.
"They’ve seen too many of their colleagues lose grant funding when they haven’t gone along with the so-called political consensus that we’re in a human-caused global warming," Schmitt said.
Dan Williams, publisher with the Chicago-based Heartland Institute, which is hosting the climate change conference, said he invited Schmitt after reading about his resignation from The Planetary Society, a nonprofit dedicated to space exploration.
Schmitt resigned after the group blamed global warming on human activity. In his resignation letter, the 74-year-old geologist argued that the "global warming scare is being used as a political tool to increase government control over American lives, incomes and decision making."
Williams said Heartland is skeptical about the crisis that people are proclaiming in global warming.
"Not that the planet hasn’t warmed. We know it has or we’d all still be in the Ice Age," he said. "But it has not reached a crisis proportion and, even among us skeptics, there’s disagreement about how much man has been responsible for that warming."
Schmitt said historical documents indicate average temperatures have risen by 1 degree per century since around 1400 A.D., and the rise in carbon dioxide is because of the temperature rise.
Schmitt also said geological evidence indicates changes in sea level have been going on for thousands of years. He said smaller changes are related to changes in the elevation of land masses — for example, the Great Lakes are rising because the earth’s crust is rebounding from being depressed by glaciers.
Schmitt, who grew up in Silver City and now lives in Albuquerque, has a science degree from the California Institute of Technology. He also studied geology at the University of Oslo in Norway and took a doctorate in geology from Harvard University in 1964.
In 1972, he was one of the last men to walk on the moon as part of the Apollo 17 mission.
Schmitt said he’s heartened that the upcoming conference is made up of scientists who haven’t been manipulated by politics.
Of the global warming debate, he said: "It’s one of the few times you’ve seen a sizable portion of scientists who ought to be objective take a political position and it’s coloring their objectivity."
___
Information from: The Santa Fe New Mexican, http://www.sfnewmexican.com

The sooner we all realize we are being lied to, and what they are lying about, the sooner we can clean house and start over.

I only met 'Brother Sheldon' three times in my entire life, each time at the church down the road on US-52 with a sign out front that proclaimed "Truckers Welcome." But I feel like I knew him very well. He was, and continues to be, a part of my morning ritual on our local radio station, one of the few that still includes morning preaching on a daily basis. Some of my earliest childhood memories are of staying with my mother's grandmother, a widow, while mom and dad went to work. Grandma Jessup would invariably turn on the AM radio in the living room at 9 am each morning to listen to morning devotions, often done by Preacher Burrows, a kindly old man who always stopped by to pray for grandma when she was in poor health. After morning devotions, the high pitched, energetic voice of Brother Sheldon would jump from the speaker, announcing "The temperance and evangelistic crusade bringing you Triumphant Truth..." I was too young to understand it all then, but grandma would listen with rapt attention, despite a bunch of kids fighting, jumping, and generally being a nuisance.

As the years went by, sometimes I'd listen, sometimes I couldn't. As a long haul truck driver in the late 70's and early 80's I came to realize how important good Southern Style preaching could be to a boy far from home, when I tried to find some good preaching on the radio while waiting for a load on Long Island, near NYC. I did finally find a good preacher, but somehow hearing the King James 1611 being quoted by a guy with a heavy Bronx accent just seemed wrong. Not long after that I started running local, or at least regional, truck routes. With a little planning and some luck, I could pick up my 10,000 watt home town station up to 100 miles away, even with the cheap radio in the cab. I'd try to catch Triumphant Truth for a morning break, it was only a 15 minute long program and I could usually stop for that long.

What made Triumphant Truth so different was the often used subject matter of temperance. It was hard even back then to find a preacher who often spoke about prohibition and the evils of alcohol. As I have mentioned recently, I am not a believer in government prohibition of much of anything, all it does it raise the price and generally causes more problems than it solves. That does not make the prohibited items any less wrong, however. A lot of people raise eyebrows and look at me with a bit of disbelief when they find out I don't drink alcohol. A lot of them probably don't believe I'm telling the truth, but I am. I do not see much, if any, benefit to using an over the counter drug that makes me even more stupid than I already am. As you might imagine, that way of thinking wasn't popular with a lot of the people I associated with, so it was really wonderful to have a daily pep talk from someone as passionate about the subject as was Brother Sheldon Jones. That wasn't his only passion, of course. He preached about the love of Jesus, the forgiveness of sins, the need of salvation, and could preach Hell hot enough that you could feel the heat and the flames.

Sadly, we lost the voice of Triumphant Truth in late 1999. I remember hearing the sad tone of the radio announcer as he intoned he had a special announcement- and I knew it was bad news. Reverend Sheldon Jones had died at the ripe old age of 81, the end of a well lived and full life. His funeral was at his beloved home church in Moncks Corner, SC, and he was buried nearby. The Voice of Triumph and Truth continues, at least for now, on some of those same radio stations, but I wonder for how long- my local station announced recently that the program might be discontinued soon due to a decline in listener support. That would be a sad day indeed. If you happen to live in an area where you can pick up a broadcast like Triumph and Truth, I would encourage you to support it with your prayers and with your gifts. In these days of uncertainty and despair, we need God fearing men like Reverend Sheldon Jones to remind us that there is such a thing as right and wrong, and God does still work in the affairs of men.

Dear Lord, the nonsense just keeps coming, and from a Confederate State, for goodness sake:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090214/ap_on_fe_st/odd_guns_for_roses_3

The story is short, so I quote it in entirety:

COLUMBIA, S.C. – Police in South Carolina gave away roses on Valentine's Day. All you had to do to get one for your sweetie was turn in a gun.
Hoping to get the weapons off the streets with the "Guns for Roses" program, authorities in two central South Carolina cities set up a program where anyone who turned in a gun received a free rose and a Best Buy gift card.
At a Columbia church, five cars lined up to give away guns before the exchange had even started. About an hour and a half later, police had collected 75 weapons.
"We've got a great turnout so far," Richland County sheriff's spokesman Lt. Chris Cowan said.
A handgun was worth a $100 gift card, while a rifle or shotgun netted a $50 gift certificate. Cowan said one man turned in six handguns, worth $600 in gift cards.
But there was no amnesty for those turning in the guns. The weapons were checked to see if they were stolen, names and addresses were jotted down and ballistics tests would also be done to see if the firearm was used in a crime.
Cowan said the idea was spawned in part by Columbia Police Chief T.P. Carter and Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott, who has made headlines recently for investigating Michael Phelps after a photo surfaced showing the Olympic swimming champion smoking a marijuana pipe. The program was modeled after a California one; similar exchanges have been done in New York and San Francisco.
Cowan said gun donors were young and old, men and woman. Many had a big smile and some said it was a relief to get rid of the weapons.
And did the men even care about the rose?
"Most of them have taken it," Cowan said.

Where to start? Sigh. Well, it made these dolts 'feel good' which of course is the idea behind any liberal nonsense. Did it make anyone safer? Possibly, a firearm in the hands of someone not willing to learn how to handle it safely is indeed a danger and should be avoided. But if that is the case, they should not be looking for a bribe to turn loose of the iron- they should simply call someone who understands firearms to come and pick up the unwanted machinery. If this describes you, you can even call the local police department and they will happily come and take them away, no cost to you. Of course, you'd be stupid to let a valuable family heirloom go that way, but that is your decision. Your local gun shop is a better bet- they will tell you the value of your stuff, and if it is something they can sell, will offer to buy it at a fair price. ( I wonder how many nice valuable guns got turned in here by unlearned relatives?)
And of course the guns will be ballistically tested to see if they were used in a crime. Yeah, right. Don't hold your breath on that one, sparky. Matching up a random gun to a crime under such circumstances make the lotto look like a sure thing. Never mind that stubborn little fact about criminals not showing up for gun turn in programs. Just not happening, for some reason.
Pity the 'gun donors' didn't take the rose offered. They could have held onto it, and used the thorn to stop the next bad guy that shows up.

By the way, in case you still aren't convinced, and think that gun control really could work if we just held hands and had happy warm thoughts:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090212/ap_on_re_af/af_congo_making_guns_2

And this from a bunch of folks living in a third world country under a totalitarian government. Here in the land of John Moses Browning and machine tools galore at the local Lowes Hardware, I promise you we could do a lot better.

Read carefully, and try to figure out what they left out.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090214/ap_on_re_us/guns_in_church_1
That wasn’t too hard, was it? We gunnies figured it out before clicking the link, in all likelihood. If you read the story and it did not jump out at you, here is what Paul Harvey would call “The REST of the Story…”
There was no mention anywhere of an armed individual stopping a person bent on mass murder anywhere in the story. They’d like for you to believe such things ‘just don’t happen in real life.’ They do, however, quote a pastor who sees things the way they want the story slanted: "I believe it would disturb the sanctity and tranquility of church" said Pastor John Phillips, a bill opponent who was shot twice in the back as he finished a service 23 years ago. If a church opts out, "Do you want ushers to stop you at the door and frisk you?"
Well, Pastor John, if you aren’t going to let your law abiding, honest, church going congregation decide on how best to provide self defense in these dangerous times, you darn well better have somebody frisking people at the door. In fact, you’d better get a metal detector and a few goons to make the bad guys think twice before going hunting in a ‘disarmed victim zone.’ You know, like those really nice people that make you take off your shoes before you can fly on the plane, and the beefy guy in the Kevlar vest at the courthouse that makes you put your keys in the basket before going into the courtroom- and will send you back to your car if you forgot and brought in a swiss army knife with a 1” blade.

I wonder why the AP writer didn’t quote this guy?
"Many people are expressing relief that a volunteer security guard used her own gun to stop a man on a shooting spree Sunday. "She probably saved over 100 lives," the Brady Boyd, the pastor of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, said on Monday. The female guard, a church member dressed in plain clothes, killed the gunman after he opened fire at the mega-church." (http://armsandthelaw.com/archives/2007/12/shooting_at_new_1.php)
That quote is from a story not too long ago where a man showed up armed to the teeth at a large church in Utah, assuming that a church was a prohibited area for concealed carry, and that he would have no resistance to mass murder. He was wrong. Utah allows CCW in Churches, and instead of getting his 15 minutes of fame for slaughtering a bunch of sheep, he got a Darwin award for poor planning. By the way, try to find mention of this story somewhere besides a gun blog. It’s not easy. The left wing media buries stories like this as fast as they can, and worse yet, they will out right lie to change the way you look at it: over and over in the AP versions of that news item, the woman was referred to as a ‘off duty police’ or ‘security guard.’ She was neither, as far as I can find. She was an ordinary member of the congregation with a valid CCW permit, who had volunteered to carry during services because of stories of similar attacks in other churches. Also AP failed to mention after the first rewrite of the story a quote from the CCW holder that she was convinced that “God had guided her shooting’ and gave her the accuracy to stop the attacker. Can’t have that sort of thing spread around, it might cause people to think.
If I can accomplish only one thing with my readers today, it is this: You can no longer trust the major news outlets. They are no better than Radio Cuba or Pravda at reporting the news. They report what they want you to know, in a way to make you think what they want you to think. This is why the folks in Washington are so obsessed with shutting down the blogs that point this out, and especially with talk radio. If they manage to shut down the few remaining voices of dissent, they can pretty much brainwash the great unthinking masses into going along with the big plan. That is why we have to fight, and fight hard. Nothing less than the freedom of this country is at stake in these two major battles: free speech, and the freedom to live life as you see fit, without any oversight by those who wish to enslave you.
Personally, I would never attend a church where my rights to self defense were abridged. Luckily, I don’t have to.

While trying to think of a short subject to write about while under the weather, I came up with this happy thought:

The anti-freedom crowd is hell bent on gun control in any form right now, Bill Clinton musing about how it's time for the AWB to return, Eric Holder being confirmed as AG, etc. The Socialist agenda has the fairness doctrine high on the list of things to do as well, but strangely doesn't want to start with NBC, CBS, CNN or any of the other left leaning outlets. Gee, imagine that. Of course they want to start with talk radio and the Internet blogs- silence the opposition, it's called.

Here's a though for fighting back. Every time they try to introduce a bill like that, the loyal opposition needs to add an amendment targeting the real problems. Starting with this insane notion that you can catch criminals with serial numbered ammunition and firing pins that print numbers into shell casings. OK, if they want to try that, let's try it with a real problem: alcohol abuse. We all know the problems associated with alcohol abuse- broken families, being out of work, traffic fatalities, murders, rapes, all caused by people who have a problem with alcohol. Well, if it works (and it doesn't) for firearms, why not apply the technology to the booze industry? I can see it now- Photo ID's for purchasing alcohol, 3 day waiting periods, 'proof of need' before purchase, and of course total accountability in the form of tracking every drop of booze from manufacture to consumption by careful record keeping and cans that can only be opened by special devices that imprint the owners name on the can. These would be registered and numbered by the government, of course, and it would allow for the easy solving of crimes such as littering, drunk driving, and of course those deadly 'assault bottles' crime.

Won't work? Why, it would work just as well as any of the dimwitted gun control schemes being pushed through right now. (http://www.grnc.org/ has some updates on gun control schemes hidden in the porkulus package.) And even those who don't care much about having real God-given rights taken away by a runaway government will sit up and take notice when that government starts to interfere with the chance for them to get drunk. Besides, the last time prohibition was tried in my home state in reference to alcohol, a lot of poor farmers got mighty rich, and we invented NASCAR and made Junior Johnson a hero. Not a bad side benefit, that.

Same thing with the assault on free speech (Fairness Doctrine) Best case would be to have it applied to the mainstream press in equal measure, I'd love to see Katie and Matt and Chris- especially Chris- forced to share air time with Rush and Sean. But we know that won't happen, the courts are even more liberal than congress. So we need to poison any bills with things just as silly as what the socialist agenda has planned.

Yeah, it's silly and it won't work. But then, that's what the other side is doing, and sometimes you have to fight fire with fire.

My apologies for the lack of posts the last few days. I have been dealing with some health issues that have kept me away from the keyboard.

I have been astounded at how many people have already stopped by my tiny little outpost here in blogger land, and from such diverse places as Austria, Canada, Iraq, and even foreign countries such as California.

Meanwhile, if you have read the few posts I have already published, I hope you will take the time to drop a comment or two via the links. I don't know what you think unless you tell me. As it says in the box, speak your mind- but be polite.

I hope to be up to some short posts later today, and perhaps some 'standard capacity' rantings this weekend. Thanks for your patience.

SAN GABRIEL, Calif. (AP)– Masked gunmen opened fire inside a coffee shop, killing two men and wounding five other people before fleeing, police said early Friday. Officers who received a panic alarm call from the Coffee House cafe were headed there Thursday night when they were flagged down by several people who had been shot, police Sgt. Rene Hernandez said. Witnesses said two men with bandanas over their faces entered the cafe and opened fire before fleeing, he said. One victim was declared dead at the scene and another died at a hospital, Hernandez said. Two victims were hospitalized in critical condition. Three others suffered wounds that were not considered life-threatening, including a man who was grazed by a bullet and declined hospital treatment, Hernandez said. San Gabriel is about 20 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.

Ok, let us analyze things logically here.
California has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the country. Getting a concealed carry permit is impossible except for the politically well connected, and the Hollywood elite. The murderers were also violating probably a dozen other laws against kidnapping, assault by pointing a firearm, burglary, terrorizing the public, robbery, as well as civil rights violations and of course murders, plural. Apparently, none of these laws deterred these individuals in any way from brutally murdering decent folks doing nothing more than having a morning cup of coffee.
Question: will the people of California realize this, and start demanding that existing laws be enforced, criminals taken off the streets until no longer a threat to the public? Will the laws against self defense be repealed, so that decent people can protect themselves when needed?
Or will it be just another excuse to cry ‘evil guns kill! We need more gun laws!’?
I think you know the answer to that one.
As we used to say in the repair business, you can’t fix it until you understand what’s broken.

Apparently, I'm not the only person who really dislikes folks discarding cigarettes out the window:
http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/news/local/5909644.html

Police are looking for a litterbug vigilante who reportedly posed as police officer to stop a woman who allegedly tossed a spent cigarette from her car window. Police said the unidentified man was driving a red pickup truck with a dash-mounted flashing blue light when he stopped the woman and told her he was an off-duty Maine State Police trooper.

Now, as funny as this may seem, it does raise a few safety issues, and the advice in the newspaper column is pretty good. And for all my friends out there who smoke, do us all a favor and use the ash tray, please. I still have a nice scar from someones smoke that got lucky and nailed my left arm back in the days when I rode motorcycles more than drove automobiles. And quite a few brush fires, including some big ones, started with a discarded cigarette. Note to the bandit: cops are very, very particular about competition. They don't like it. And they will have a very bad attitude if they catch up with you- and rest assured you are getting more detective time than just about anything else going on right now.

Senator "Leaky" Leahy grinned like a cheshire cat as he announced the nomination was confirmed by the largest margin in history, 75-21. North Carolina Senator Burr voted against the nomination, but our brand-new junior senator, Kay Hagen, voted for confirmation.

So now we have the most anti-self defense, pro-government president in history, aided by near fillibuster proof majority in the Senate, confirming the most rabidly anti-gun AG in history. One day we may look back fondly at the Janet Reno AG office. Bad things are on the way for those of us that wish to be left alone to live our own lives as we see fit, without big brother controlling our every move.

Mark my words: things are going to get worse. Much worse, and quickly.

Like almost everyone else in the free world, I spent last night enjoying the company of friends and family watching the Super Bowl on TV. Great game, even though I’m not a football fan- I just show up for the food and conversation. This year, as you might expect, a lot of that conversation centered on the economy, jobs, and what needs to be done. The group of friends I was with would be considered extremely conservative, religious, and ‘right wing’ by any member of the current media. Yet, during the pre-game conversation, the talk turned to the recent Wall Street bailout and in particular some of the salaries of the executives of the affected companies. Most of the remarks were the expected ones, but to my surprise there was widespread agreement when it came to passing laws and controls on what people could be paid for doing work. Specifically, what a Wall Street Executive, say, the guy who runs Acme Investments, should make. My fellow arm-chair quarterbacks were all in favor of passing laws against anyone on Wall Street making ‘a million dollars a year.’ One person opined that they shouldn’t be making more than the president, since anyone who had control of the nuclear button had a lot more responsibility than a glorified banker. So, nobody in the US should ever make more than $400,000 per year. Also, nobody needs to make that kind of money.
I said very little at the time, I came to watch the game and eat, not get into a heated political argument. But the point bears scrutiny, as it demonstrates the lack of depth most people apply to issues of great importance. I expect that given a quiet setting, and some time, most of these educated, in some cases professional, men and women could be persuaded into seeing the flaws in the argument they were so passionately extolling over chips and dip. But most people do not get around to doing that, and the majority now give some brief thought as to who to vote for a week or three prior to the election, and then forget it for another 4 years. This needs to change, and we- true conservatives- need to get to work at educating and correcting everyone who lets this sort of thing go unchallenged.
Free markets regulate themselves. That is how they work. Every time you stick the heavy hand of government into the mix, you screw up that regulation, with sometimes disastrous results. It might fix a temporary problem or make you feel better in the short term, but sooner or later it will snowball into something terrible. No, I don’t think some of these high-paid executives are worth the obscene amounts of money they are paid. (I don’t have to go to New York to see that kind of money, either- every city, county, and state has a share of ultra-rich folks, if you know where to look.) But I cringe with fear any time I hear someone voice the opinion that a government- any government- should do something about it. Who do you think owns those companies? Most are publicly traded, and if you own insurance, have an IRA, or have an investment anywhere you could probably do something about things at the next meeting. But I would advise that you don’t. Why? Well, you do want the IRA to gain value, right? The insurance to be worth something? Then you need to have someone running the company that knows what the devil they are doing, and unfortunately people like that are in short supply, and command strong salaries. Let’s face it, if Acme Investments could hire Wile E. Coyote to run the business and expect it to prosper, they would, and save a few million bucks on salaries. But they don’t, because they’ve seen what happens to Wile E. Coyote when he gets near the Acme products. So the stockholders pony up the bucks and hire someone who will get the job done, and by golly if he doesn’t he’s out the door in short order, with the few exceptions of CEO’s that are bright enough to fool the stockholders while they rob the place blind. Those companies are not around long, which is the other end of self regulation. Contrast this with government control, where this year we tell the CEO he can’t make more money than looks good for the cameras. CEO promptly does so, and either gets the money elsewhere, as a stock option for instance, or he finds work in a sector that allows him or her to make the money he deserves. As the saying goes, you generally get what you pay for. The Clinton administration attempted to levy a tax on any CEO that grossed more than $1 million to the tune of a 100% tax. Guess how much they collected? Right- zero, zilch, nada. Nobody is going to work when it all goes to taxes. The affected parties simply reduced the salary they were paid and took it elsewhere as noted above. But it did look good for the cameras.
We are constantly told the minimum wage needs to be raised, and the top earners need to get less. This will not work. Wages are paid from profit earned by a company providing goods and services to the public. When these wages are artificially raised, or lowered, it affects the ability of these companies to provide those goods and services. Simply put, if you raise the minimum wage to $100 per hour, you won’t have a bunch of happy burger flippers and waitresses. You will have a bunch of unemployed burger flippers and waitresses, since few of us can afford $500 burgers or $1,000 lunches. Change that amount to $7 per hour, or $10, or $15, the effect is still the same. It doesn’t matter if we are talking about selling newspapers on the corner or General Motors- the products sold have to reflect the wages paid to workers, or the company will lose money and be forced to close, and minimum wage doesn’t count when you are unemployed. It holds true for the other end of the economic spectrum as well: if you don’t pay top dollar for your CEO, you get Wile E. Coyote running the Acme Inc. And we all know what happens then. Government regulation, with very few exceptions, causes far more problems than it ever solves. So, please, think carefully and remember that having the people who cause problems (The Feds) are the last people to ask for help when trying to solve a problem, especially one that involves money.

And I hope you will do the same.

The vote on the Eric Holder nomination is tonight, according to the erudite young man I spoke to when I called the office of Senator Burr today. And the Senator is 'out of the country' but 'expected to be back in time' for the vote.

I have long been a supporter of Senator Burr, and even had the chance to interview him during his opening campaign for House of Representatives, as a radio news person way back then. But I don't like the sound of this. I know most of the conservatives, of both parties, are running scared right now, but I'm hoping Burr will step up and be a leader.

If you haven't called yet, do it right this minute:

Senator Richard Burr - 202-224-3154, http://burr.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.ContactForm

If this insult to civil rights and liberty is passed, remember well every name that voted to do so.

Keep the pressure on, it is the only option we have currently.

I have been looking forward to sharing this story with everyone, as it is one of my all time favorites to tell. The reason it is one of my favorites is that it tells how things were in my South growing up, without all of the distortions brought on by special interest groups and political correctness. I give you my word as a Southerner that these events really happened, and I am setting them forth as closely as I can recall the details from so long ago.

Mr. Ralph had worked in my father’s machine shop since long before I was born. My earliest memories of him were in the old shop, a tiny, wood framed building with a hard concrete floor, stained permanently black from decades of grease and oil drippings from the massive WWI and WWII surplus lathes and milling machines that filled every inch of space. Mr. Ralph started out as a more or less janitor, as he could neither read nor write, and had no machine shop skills. But we lucked out and got a contract with a local company (the same one we moved punch presses for in http://confederatesharpshooter.blogspot.com/2009/01/lessons-from-my-dad.html ) that involved heat treating small parts for production. It involved more heavy lifting than skill, and Mr. Ralph had a new job title: Case Hardening Technician. He was ecstatic. I don’t ever remember going into the back room where the gas-fired furnaces were blazing the ceramic and boiler iron pots into cherry red glory without seeing Mr. Ralph with a face-splitting grin on his face. When he saw me, that grin would get even bigger, and show the missing and worn teeth, as he’d spit tobacco juice into a paper cup and greet me with an enthusiastic “ChaLEE boy, we’s gettin’ it done TO-day.” I didn’t know it at the time, but elsewhere in my state, about this time, students in a nearby city were doing something called a ‘sit in’ to protest a whites only policy at a lunch counter at a major drugstore chain. I wouldn’t have understood it if I had known, I didn’t understand racism, for the simple reason that no one in our place practiced it. Mr. Ralph was Mr. Ralph, no more, no less. Later on, he was my boss for an all too brief period of time, as I learned how to do the work he had took such pride in for so long, but was finally getting a bit too old to continue in. Not to worry, we still had Mr. Ralph around for many good years after that- dad promoted him into the machine shop itself, where he became very skilled at any machine you’d care to name, provided it didn’t involve a great deal of math or reading.

I’ve introduced you to this excellent character from my youth in order to share this story, which even now brings a smile to the face of anyone who was there when it happened. Mr. Ralph was a good, honest, employee. Besides the ever-present chaw of Red Man Chewing Tobacco, he had only one vice in the world: he absolutely hated to see anything useful wasted or thrown away. Anything in danger of being tossed out before completely useless would find itself on the bed of Mr. Ralph’s pride and joy, a 1965 Ford F-150 pickup, powder blue and meticulously clean and polished. Remember that, please.

In addition to working in the shop, when ever school was out I’d help my grandfather on the farm. From baling hay, cutting silage, repairing equipment, there was always something to do. This particular year, dad decided it was time to clean up some of the bigger equipment, including a huge corn picker that hadn’t been moved since last season. To this end he had filled 2 empty gallon jugs with some very strong, concentrated soap. Amway degreasing concentrate, it said on the 55 gallon drum in the corner of the shop, and it warned that you needed to cut it no less than 100/1 with water just to use as a degreaser. I’m talking good stuff here. Strangely, the stuff looked dark green, much like antifreeze, and since the jugs we were using were in fact old Texaco antifreeze containers, dad put a huge paper tag on each jug with a string, marked in bold letters, “SOAP.” He then sat the jugs by the back door, so we wouldn’t forget them when we left for the day. But forget them we did, and when we looked the next day, they were not by the door, or anywhere else we looked. They were gone, vanished. We ended up filling up some new jugs and forgot about finding the old ones.

The next week, as was the custom around mid afternoon, everyone had gathered around the coke machine for a break. A couple of the hands were ‘traveling’ with the bottling plant names on the bottom of the bottles, when Mr. Ralph came in from the back door, more agitated and upset than I’d ever seen him before. He wanted to speak to me, and it was plain he didn’t really want to talk in front of the others, but he had no choice. “Cha-Lee boy, what would cause a car to foam” he asked, wringing his hands and looking quite worried. “Foam? What kind of foam?” I inquired.
“They’s foam comin’ out of de radiator of my fo’d” he explained.
“Oh, that’s nothing to worry about. It usually means you don’t have enough water in the system, and the water pump is just making bubbles. Keep adding water and it’ll quit.” End of discussion.

Mr. Ralph was back minutes later, even more agitated and upset than before. He was nearly apoplectic. “Cha-lee boy, you GOTS to come help me, my cah is FOAMING.”
“Did you keep adding water?”
“Yes, yes, you gots to come out right now, I don’t know what to do.”
“Ok” I replied, swallowed the last bit of the afternoon coke, and everyone on break followed us to the back door.

I will never forget the sight as long as I live. The parking lot, which we shared with a knitting mill next door, was big enough to park several dozen cars. Luckily, it was mostly empty. The entire lower half of the entire lot was covered- and I mean COVERED- with thick, white, glorious foam. It looked like an airport runway preparing for a crash landing. Near the pickup- which was engulfed with the suds- it was nearly two feet deep, and smoothly tapered down to flat near the corner of the lot. Instantly, I knew where our highly concentrated detergent had ended up. RALPH! YOU STOLE OUR DEGREASER!

“No, no, no Cha-lee boy, I didn’t steal nothin’. I thought ya’ll was goin’ to toss it away.”“Oh, man, wait till daddy sees this!” I laughed. Seriously, dad would have thought it pretty funny. Dad has a sense of humor about such things.
“Please, please, don’t tell Mister Don, cha-lee boy, he’d fire me for sure.” Ralph was really taking this hard.
“no, I won’t tell daddy. But it is pretty funny, you have to admit.” Ralph failed to see any humor at all in this, especially as his pride and joy was by this time being engulfed by even more foam.

As it turned out, the story had a happy ending for all concerned. We all hosed off the parking lot with water hoses, drained the radiator on the pickup, and by the time paychecks were brought downstairs from the office no evidence remained. Ralph had what had to be the cleanest pickup- inside and out- of any person in the history of automotive cleaning, and for weeks after the entire crew of the machine shop got free cokes every day during afternoon break, as soon as anyone would look over at Ralph and ask the eternal question, “what would cause a car to foam?”

Dad, of course, knew what happened. But he never let on. He thought it was as funny as the rest of us.