If Only I Were Smart Enough To Understand

Let me get this straight. The Reverend Wright claims that Africans are right brained, Europeans are left brained and so they do not learn the same way or the same things. Do I have that right?

So, Wright seems to be awfully light for African.I am not particularly interested in how that came about, whether voluntarily or through a slave-owner relationship, if relationship is the right word. Anyway, the mixed ancestry is pretty clear. So, how does that work? Is Wright left brained on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and right brained Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday with both halves working together in a mighty engine of thought every Sunday? Or is it a little piece of each half all the time?

Since many, perhaps most, of the people in America are made up of various mixes of racial backgrounds I am really curious as to how this works. Obama, for instance, is pretty mch fifty-fifty. Is his right brain-left brain mix different from Michelle's, who seems to have a smaller percentage of European heritage?

Or is Wright just blowing smoke. The more I try to think of this, the more I need a couple of aspirin. Maybe Wright just isn't in his right mind.

A Nice Day Off.

I managed to make it to my first Cowboy Action Shoot since late last spring. It was a local shoot, six stages. For those that don't know a stage is a shooting scenario. It consists of ten (or more) shots from the revolver(s), nine or ten (or more) shots from a pistol caliber rifle and four or more shots from a shotgun. We shoot at steel targets, usually pretty close. As a matter of fact we had the shotgun targets too close at the first half of the shoot and people were getting peppered with birdshot bouncing back.

Once we moved those targets back another five yards the bounceback was more tolerable. Once lead shot bounces from steel it is ballistically identical to a ping pong ball. Up close it is fast but it loses speed like a bowling ball thrown straight up. By a weakling.

Anyhow I shot in the Frontier Cartridge class with my black powder loads in .45 Colt and 12 gauge hammer double shotgun. I missed one target in the first stage and then my shootin' irons became death rays and I didn't miss a target again the rest of the match. Well, a very slow death ray.

I made the mistake of buying all my gear before I ever went to a shoot or talked to any competitors and so I bought all the big cartridges. Then I started shooting and discovered that the winners all shoot light recoiling guns, mostly .38s and a few .32s. If I had the budget I'd replace my Cowboy Action handguns and rifle with that grand old .32-20. Ah well, I'll never win a match but with the black powder I can make a lot of noise, stink, more smoke and a whole lot of fun.

The interesting thing about black powder in cartridge guns is that the noise and perceived recoil makes most folks think that the loads are real hot. Shotshells are still rated in "drams equivalent" meaning that smokeless shells are rated as to how fast the shot would go if pushed by that many drams of black powder. I usually shoot two and a half drams or two and three quarters of real black, light twelve gauge loads are three drams. A Dram is 27.3 grains. A grain is 7,000th of a pound. Black powder is so inefficient that half of the mass of powder goes out as solid matter, adding to the recoil. So the smokeless load would be something like twenty-twenty five grains with very little staying solid to add to the recoil.

Ah, nobody cares about that, just remember if you see a whole lot of smoke then the powder level usually isn't up to the noise. My .45 loads probably leave the barrel of my revolvers at around 700 feet per second or a bit less. In a strong revolver I could get that same bullet up to 1350 fps with smokeless while with black the best I could do would be about 900 or a little more. Not that I would advise standing in front of a .45 slug at black powder velocities. Or a muzzle loading rifle, either. The butcher's bill of the War of Yankee Aggression shows what those old smoke poles could do. Ah well, I'd rather shoot the steel rustlers and train robbers.

The day started off nice and clear with a temperature in the mid sixties. As the day progressed it clouded up and never got to eighty.

The only drawback was that I'm getting too old to tote those big steel targets off and back on the trailer. Lord I ached this morning.

The top and bottom pictures are me. If ou enbiggen that pic you will see the cloud of smoke forming. When it is real humid and the wind is still a black powder shooter has to do some fancy duckin' and dodgin' to see the targets. The third picture from the bottom is a Pard loading up his replica of a Winchester Model 87, that old lever action shotgun. If you always wondered what to get me for a present...

McCain, How Dare You?

I was gradually becoming willing to vote for John McCain. Then he just had to attack the North Carolina Republican Party. The North Carolina Republicans are out of touch? How dare you, sir?

Have you looked at how it is only your campaign and the national Republican Party that cannot raise money? Do you have any idea at all of what you are doing? Dedicated Democrats will vote for their eventual nominee. You, sir, will not get those votes. Running against your own Party will not win the general election. For every independent you gain you lose a Republican.

I was just about ready to hold my nose and vote for you, McCain. Unfortunately the state of the art does not permit that strong a clothspin.,

No Hat, Some Cattle.

There is a saying here in the west: "All hat, no cattle." It refers to a person who goes beyond wearing "casual western" clothes and goes overboard acting like a rancher or cowboy. Well there's no cattle herd on the Poorfarm but my dogs have two cows, and a zebra and a Tigger, a leopard and a sheep. Oh, and a new rooster.

Ming and Eddie don't play with the stuffies much but CAP does. Of course Eddie wants to get involved when Miss Priss has a stuffy.

Ming just mostly lays around. Her arthritis isn't getting any better. We had a nice big thunderstorm last night, though, and that got her moving. Every thunderclap brought a blizzard of barking and chasing around. The picture of her, the third from the bottom, is her laying exhausted after chasing the thunder off to Arkansas. It worked, too. Army Wife, Toddler Mom reported rain this morning.

It will soon be time to take the dogs to the lake, I think the water is still a tad cold but it's getting there. CAP needs to go to the lake and get a bath.

So, What Is This Arugula Stuff, Anyhow?

I must not get out enough. I don't know what this Arugula is or why it costs so much at Whole Foods. I suspect it is a vegetable, dunno why turnip greens isn't good enough for them.

Spring is well underway down here. Not many guys seem to be answering their spam e-mails as too many are wearing shorts outside. If those spam advertisements worked there would be a lot more guys wearing long pants.

So, Obambi is still ahead on delegates. I really don't understand the Donk's game. So, Hillary won Texas but Obambi got more delegates. How does that work, exactly?I just don't get it. Obambi hasn't won any of the battleground states and few of the solid blue states. He has won in some of the states where a Donk has the same odds of winning as I have of winning the next Mr. Universe contest. Oh well, I guess I don't need to understand them to vote against them. Hillary and Obambi are the only reason I'd vote McCain.

There is something really wrong with Yankees. Are northern Universities so hard up for talent that this William Ayers creature is on the faculty of Northwestern? It is sort of funny. There was some kind of misconduct so Ayers walked. In the kind of government he craves he would have got a pistol bullet through the head and an unmarked grave.

I don't remember ever showing pictures of the gun Linda Lou clings to, when she isn't praying. It's a simple S&W Model 60 LadySmith. Except for a little action smoothing and a Hogue Monogrip it is box stock. It was built after S&W's unfortunate dalliance with that Brit outfit, Banger Puta or whatever the name was, that cozied up to the Clintons.

We really wanted the Model 65LS, that six shot .357 with the three inch barrel, instead of the five shot .38 Special PlusP with the two inch tube. Unfortunately, although they were advertised all over, I still have yet to see one. Too bad, the 65 LS would be easier to shoot, being a little heavier, with a longer sight radius.

We waver on what we feed it. Sometimes the Cor Bon 125 grain PlusP JHPs, sometimes the Winchester PlusP 158 grain lead hollowpoint and lately, the Speer Plus P 135 grain Gold Dot Hollowpoint. We don't often mess with those Cor Bon loads, they kick like an angry Missouri mule. The most common is the Winchester. The holster is a Galco, inside the pants clip on.

Oh well, it's almost bedtime. AWTM has some more rain coming, it is pouring here and the dogs are doing their best to scare the thunder off with insane barking. It might be working, the weather is headed towards Arkansas.

Scattershooting, While Wondering About Aces And Eights.

Some years back there was a columnist for a Dallas Newspaper who wrote the occasional column call "Scattershooting While Wondering About...." I just bemembered his name, Blackie Sherrod.

Anyhow he would use that title when all he had was snippets, each not worth a whole column. That is where I am today so, thanks, Blackie.

Someone please explain how this Paris Hilton got so famous.She has no particular talent, she isn't very pretty as far as her face, she has the hips of a boy and no butt, combined with those huge plastic-filled hooters. Just what's up with that? If this is a sex symbol, no wonder the abortion rate is so high. It's a wonder the population hasn't entered monasteries and nunneries.

I am having a lot of trouble understanding how the "housing crisis" is Bush's fault. Let me get this straight in my head. The Democrats forced lenders to loan money to people with poor credit and spotty job histories because not lending lots of money to people was raaaacist and sexxxxxist and probably fattening. Then these folks didn't pay the money back. Meanwhile other folks kept getting home equity loads and spending the money on silly stuff. So, how is this Bush's fault?

When my Momma died we paid off the house and land before we did anything else. A lot of folks thought we were silly in doing so. My sister's husband bought some electronics stocks and they lost their shirts. Well, not quite but a few years later that money would have been real handy so they could escape California.

Yet, because the Donks forced lenders to give money to people who couldn't pay it back it is not just Bush's fault it is my dutyd yours, to rescue them.

I notice that The left is still mad about their mssiah being asked questions. I thought they were complaing about be silenced, now they demand that all questions must be approved by them in advance. Funny, though. Isn't McCain still getting flack from the left about Rev. Hagee?

I wonder why everyone thinks that Wild Bill Hickock had aces and eights in his hand when Jack McCall shot him through the back of the head. MCall was using an S&W .45 Schofield, I believe. The usual load was 28 grains of black powder and a 230 grain soft lead bullet. This bullet went through Hickock's head and lodged in the leg of a player 'cross the table. Hickock went down hard, breaking the flimsy table, the other playes dropped their cards and the rest of the deck was scattered. So, how did anyone know what cards Hickock was holding?

The only one who could have seen those cards was Hickock and he wasn't talking, being dead and all. Oh well, I'll just cling to a gun and pray some. Oh, the Jehovah's Witnesses dropped by this morning, I didn't talk to them, though, because Ming The Merciless was having hysterics. Or was it that I was too bitter? I forget.

The Leftosphere Goes Insane

I had the good sense not to watch the little get together between Clinton and Obama. There is nothing either of those two clowns can do to get me to vote for them. Well, maybe twelve million dollars, after taxes. I do live in Texas so it wouldn't mean much if I did vote for one of them. But that is it, 12 mil or no Donk vote. And I still won't listen to them.

I have enjoyed watching the lefty side of the blogosphere go gaga because the moderators actually asked some questions of interest to anyone outside a university campus or coastal large city. One thing that seems to be recurring through the leftosphere is the anger that anyone should question the cultural changes. Now, since there is only one faction of the Democrats pushing these changes, one would think they would be proper fodder for a Democrat debate. And, since it is the Democrats pushing these changes one would think that it would be proper for Republicans to argue against them.

Not so. According to the Stalins of the Leftosphere, only questions agreeable to them should ever be asked. And, since they won't give a detailed list in advance, this means, what, exactly? That no questions should be asked of their latest Messiah?

Another thing that surprises me in the aftermath of this latest "debate" is the attention given to someone called Andrew Sullivan. Ever since I have been reading blogs vast attention has been paid to this person, I do not know why. He seems to be the homosexual version of Paris Hilton, he is extremely famous although nobody knows why. I have never managed to sit through an entire piece of his writing. Anyhow, Andy is very unhappy that people vote in ways he does not approve. Oddly, though, there is nothing on my voter registration card saying that my choices must be approved by Excitable Andy. Perhaps that is a congressional oversight that will be corrected soon. Does a simple law solve the problem or will they need a Constitutional Amendment? Or maybe Andy should pull on his big girl panties and live with the fact that America doesn't agree with him.

Clinging to my guns.

I am trying to make sense of the hooraw over Obambi's talk about small town people clinging to their churches and guns. Well, I have real trouble over Donk's being considered the friends of the poor, anyway.

During the runup to the '92 elections I was voted in as a Republican Precinct Chairman. I had gone to vote in the Primary and had asked to go to the Republican Precinct Convention. The election official said we weren't going to have one, we didn't have a Precinct Chair. Then she asked me if I wanted to be the PC.

I said sure, why not. So she took my name down and asked the next Republican to come along if he, or she, was willing to write me in. Well, someone did. So, I was unanimously elected, one vote for, none against. I was reelected twice and then resigned to move out here to my retirement home.

I have mentioned before that I spent my life working a job where no reasonably honest man grows rich. During this time my wife has always driven the nicer car. Not that she is snobbish, it's just that if one of us gets stranded on the road it would be better that it be me than her.

Now, once I became a Republican Precinct Chairman I started having to go to political get togethers. Many were at wealthy Republican's homes. So I'd drive up in my used and abused old car, the one with the driver's door held shut by a refrigerator hasp and bolt and the kids parking cars would look rather oddly at me. But the wealthy Republicans never did. I'd sit among women wearing a wedding set worth more than my yearly wages, wearing my only "wedding and funeral suit" or, sometimes, blue jeans and a western shirt and my opinion was just as welcome as the words of the guy in the bespoke suit and three hundred dollar shoes.

Oddly, though, when I had to go to some function like the Election Judge training where there were both Republicans and Donks, the Donks never missed a chance to look down on someone less wealthy.

So it is with the people trying to say that Obambi was just talking about small town folks voting "against their economic interests. So, I live between two small towns. These Donks think I'm voting against my economic interests to vote for lower takes and to keep my guns. Oddly, Teddy Kennedy does not give up his trust fund. As a matter of fact the Clintons donated Billy Jeff's old underwear for the tax deductions. I know of no Democrat that pays more in taxes than they absolutely have to, and I suspect that Donks work harder than Republicans to avoid takes. How many Republicans take a tax deduction for used underwear? Or is it that the MSM would hide that to protect the Republican's reputation? Somehow I doubt that.

The reality is that Republicans want to lift people up. Democrats want to keep people dependent on them. The Democrats do not like the poor, they just want to use them.

I must go cling to a gun now.

The Most Important Post Of My Week

I can hardly imagine that anyone who looks in here (aside from the odd relative) doesn't keep up with Army Wife, Toddler Mom. In case you are that unimaginable reader please go here.

So, Did The San Francisco Bozos Scare The Chicoms?

I spent much of today driving around. I heard nothing on the car radio about Tibet being free. I reckon a bunch of poor smelling yahoos did not frighten the Chicoms. Imagine that.

Funny, it seems that the Sadr bunch of loonies is seriously considering putting down their guns. Seems that they have had some trouble staying alive after getting the US and Iraqi military mad at them.

So, what is the score? Good vibes, zero people freed. The military, 50 million. No wonder the good vibes types hate the military.

I had to drive up to North Dallas today, to get the stitches out of my face. Well, the stitches on the surface. The Doc put those stitches that dissolve under the skin for the rest of it. Anyhow I seem to be healing well. Very little pain, that's always nice. I like as little pain as possible.

I saw some storm damage on my drive, a new portable building in pieces, although I don't think it was fastened down at all. It wasn't there a couple-three weeks ago, then it was sitting in an otherwise empty field last Wednesday and now it is scrap. A school bus shelter torn apart and lots of shingles off some roofs. The radio was talking about five Salvation Army crisis vans out giving coffee and snacks to emergency crews in the DFW area. I saw none of that kind of damage but that's weather. Linda Lou, Captain Fatbob and I drove through Oklahoma City after that last big batch of tornadoes and we saw where it looks as if God's own bulldozer drove through neighborhoods with no damage at all only yards away. That was May of '99. Interstate 35 ran right through it and it is elevated through some of it so we saw it real well.

That was a trip where Linda Lou tried to kill us. On the way north we were just ahead of the storms, all the way to Emporia, Kansas. That is where we stopped for supper. We had never been to a Cracker Barrel Restaurant and store before then. So we ate and then Linda Lou had to look at every single thing in the store while the storms caught up. We drove the rest of the way to Topeka at about thirty miles an hour on the freeway, in blinding rain and constant lightning. It would have been interesting had we been struck by lightning, that was the trip we took to bury her father's ashes next to her mother. Two dead people, a dead dog and another one turned to ashes. We would have made the Weekly World News.

Free Tibet. How?

I'm surfing around and see where the Lefties in the Bay Area are doing an "action" on the Golden Gate Bridge to free Tibet. I'd be interested in knowing how they plan to do this. It's not like any agency but the War Department, and then the Defense Department, ever freed anyone. And they really do everything they can out there to prevent the Defense Department from doing anything.

Tibet is the perfect cause for those clowns. They can point to their desire for a free Tibet while doing everything they can to prevent the young men and women from freeing the people in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Suppose we got the Congress to authorize another half dozen divisions in the Army, as well as like increases in the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps and used that increase to try to free Tibet. Assuming we had a path to Tibet, which doesn't look easy to get to. How long would it be before "Bush Lied!" No blood for yak butter!"

See You On The Other Side, Chuck.

Chuck Heston is dead. I can't say I ever met him, we exchanged waves at the NRA Convention, once. I think it was in San Antone, although it's been so long I wouldn't bet big money on it being there or someplace else.

Heston was a Democrat back when Democrats were not thrown out of the Party for loving America. Like Ronald Reagan he didn't leave the Democrat Party, the Party left him.

I never cared about The Apes movies, or Moses or Ben Hur, I liked his westerns. Will Penny, Major Dundee.

Heston stayed married to the same woman for sixty-four years. Several folks on the 'net ave mentioned that they'd like to hear the conversation when Heston meets Moses. I just hope he stops on the foot of the Rainbow Bridge and pets the criters what are waiting for us.

I'll see you there, Chuck, maybe we can do some plinking.

Don't Get Into A Knife Fight With A Surgeon.

I had that little outpatient surgery to remove the small skin cancer near my eye Wednesday. It is an interesting procedure that I hope y'all will forgive me for not wanting to do it again real soon. I had thought that the Doc would simply remove surface skin. Nope. I didn't get a great look but he cut out enough to completely submerge a single ought buckshot. Then the nurse's aid bandaged it up and I went back out to the waiting room and read and drank coffee for about an hour and a half.

This was all done under Novocaine. That was what I worried about more than anything, a certified nurse's aid so close to my eyeball with a needle the size of a Zulu spear.

While I was sitting there a lab worker was examining the lump of flesh ripped from my face. Most times the Doc has to cut two or even three times to make sure he gets it all. Since I never did get half as purty as Momma wanted me to be I told him to cut a little extra. Who'd notice a scar on this face?

Sure enough, it worked and he got all the cancerous cells out on the first try. So then he did some fancy sewing, that "thread" that dissolves because it is under the skin and followed that by some extra fine stitching on the skin flap over the hole. I should end up with a very thin and fine scar shaped like a "T" with the more or less vertical part most of an inch long and the crosspiece about half that. With the stitching as tight as it is I doubt anyone will notice in a year or two.

There is a little pain, not bad. I take a Darvocet at night but I don't think I'll need them much longer, I'll switch to Tylenol. It does itch, though. I had some old Cortisone cream for bug bites around, I just spread some on it, we'll see if it works.

Anyhow I am now cancer free. I look like I took a jab in the eye from a young Sonny Liston but it's not the first black eye I ever had. Although at my age one would think I'm done with that.

The Doc that does this surgery does no other kind and he stays quite busy enough doing it. I have no idea what this cost my insurance but I bet it is easily well into four figures, even though it took way under an hour, except for the waiting around. I got there at eight AM and was walking out at noon.

All I can say is wear a hat big enough to shade your face.

Look Who Followed Me Home, Ma! Can I Keep Him?

Eddie has a new pal. The puppy from across the street followed him home and Eddie wants to keep him. During nice weather when we have Cochise' Apache Princess safely in the back yard we like to leave the front door open so Eddie and Ming can go in and out when they please.

There is a problem with that, now. Eddie's new pal is very much like a teenage boy. You parents will bemember how they always head straight to the refrigerator, Well Eddie's pal head straight to the food dishes.

Worse, this puppy is a thief. A stuffy thief. Linda Lou was not paying attention and I went out and found four stuffies out where they aren't supposed to be. Stuffy Thief!

In other canine news CAP has turned into the Mud Monster. That one broken sprinkler head turns that area into a mud hole. The two Pugs avoid the mud, Princess revels in it. She is a very smart girl but she does have a doggie brain, not an adult human brain. This means she does not realise that her Momma won't let her in the house covered in mud. So we don't let her in except about an hour or two before bedtime.

Oh well, payday I'll buy another sprinkler head and beg the plumber neighbor I have to install it. Sirloin steaks were on sale and I put several in the freezer, that might just do the trick.

We're Not Dead!

Nobody here at the Poorfarm is dead, or even sicker than usual. I haven't been posting because our Doctors have decided it's test time. My rat poison levels have been wonky, nobody knows why. My Coumiden/Warfarin that my cardiologist has me taking has been swinging my blood thickness levels all over so I'm driving up to Greenville to have my blood drawn more often, Linda Lou's Doc has a bazillion tests for her and I'm having various tests, too. So, since we live way out past Resume Speed, Texas, I'm spending lots of time staring through the windshield.

Anyhow, so far, so good on the various tests.

It doesn't help that I am way past bored with this election. Just who decided to start this election in 2005 and can we beat them with shoes?