Prayer Posse, Forward, Ho!

Seems that Rush Limbaugh was taken to the hospital in Hawaii this afternoon with chest pains. When last I heard his condition was listed as serious, of course it's that with anything from heartburn to a major heart attack.

I understand the lefties are rejoicing with this news, lefties love death. Everywhere there are lefties there is the cry for more death, from abortion to offing the elderly.

Of course, it's too late for the lefties to celebrate, Rush blazed the trail for conservative talkers, now they are legion. It was Rush who gave me the courage to become a Republican Precinct Chair and who helped me put into words the philosophy I'd had for some time.

So, prayers up from Texas. Please add yours.

The Christmas Trip And The Vicious Killer Attack Chihuahua

So Christmas Eve we got a bit of snow and sleet and it got bitter cold. Well, perhaps not Wisconsin bitter cold but certainly Texas bitter cold. We were worried that we might not get to travel but the majority of the snow and ice just barely missed us.

So, we got up and loaded the car with about twelve bazillion presents and nine metric tons of backed goods and away we went. The ice and snow had come from the west, heading northeast. It barely grazed us but was thicker and thicker as we went toward Dallas and it's northern suburbs. The good news about that is the road and bridge sanding gets more effective the closer to town, too.

That's a drawback to being out here, we have three and a half miles until we get to where there is even a try at making the roads passable, in an ice storm, we're home until it thaws a little. The good news is we don't hardly want to go nowhere.

So, this Christmas outing was to my son in laws father's house where we were eating Christmas dinner and opening some few gifts. I don't do mornings well, morning is time to go to bed so this year it was decided I could skip the main XMAS morning gift opening. I wasn't consulted on this decision, seems as I am a bit too grumpy when I don't get my sleep.

So, anyway, we went from the Valley of the Sabine River, over Lake Tawakoni, into the Valley of the Trinity and over Lake Ray Hubbard, around one edge of Dallas and up to the house.

It is remarkable how easy it is to travel, it wasn't very long ago that it would have been a week's trip, fording the rivers by buckboard wagon, stopping to clear downed trees from the trail, fighting the swamps of those rivers. I was born and traveling before the Interstate system was a going thing, albeit in the back seat while the parents drove. And THEY used to talk about how easy it was now that the roads were paved! It's so easy to forget how far we've come and how fast.

So, there isn't much to say, other than the pictures. The grandkids were happy.

Bill and Lela, Den's folks, have this little bitty Chihuahua that I thought I had made friends with. Then she was trying to get up on the couch where I was sitting and I pretended she was one of the Pugs. So I grabbed her by the loose skin on her back and went to pull her up, just like the Pugs, and she cried, real loud. I let go and she ran away.

So, a little later I tried to tell this dog I was sorry with a good ear scritch, that's when she attacked! The next thing I knew my thumb was bleeding. So, she was little? So, those itty bitty fangs are sharp! Due to the blod thinner I've been on since my stroke, I bled like a stuck pig for a while before it clotted up. I did not call animal control for I had brought it on myself. For Bill and lela's sake I hope that little beast hasn't decided she loves the taste of blood.

So, a while later we left and wended our way back home, we wanted to get home before all the melted ice refroze and the roads slicked up with black ice.

The next day I took some of Linda Lou's blueberry cheesecake, cinnamon rolls and a few slices of nut bread next door to my neighbors. He is a month out of surgery for a cancerous gland, I know which one but the name escapes me right now, the one that tells us to make and release Insulin. Anyhow, they romoved it and now he has to take insulin after meals, I'm not positive sending loads of sugar is such a great idea but they seemed to like it. I reckon it's not so bad, just increase the dose of insulin, right? Of course, Linda Lou's cheesecake, they might have to shoot the inulin in with a needle the size of a firehose.

Oh well, that was out holiday. Everyone was safe and sound except my thumb and that's my fault. Anyhow I got a new red flannel shirt for Christmas, like it?

The System Worked!

So, this 23 year old Nigerian smuggled a bomb onto a jetliner heading for Detroit. When he got to Amsterdam he had to deplane and fool around the airport, got back onto the jetliner without a passport but with a bomb. The Netherlands will not, for some reason, allow US Air Marshalls to get on airplanes, even US airplanes but they do allow people to get on with bombs in their underwear. Well, it's the Netherlands and he had the bomb taped to his nether regions so I guess it makes sense.

Question for Janet and Obama: If the Netherlands will not allow United States law officers to get onto United States aircraft in their airports, why are we allowing flights from those airports? Seems simple enough, don't let our Air Marshalls onto planes from your airports, fine, no flights from those airports. That doesn't sound like rocket surgery or brain science, you'd think even a politician would be able to figure it out. What other countries do not allow our Air Marshalls to fly on our airplanes? And why? This may well go back to the Bush, or even the Clinton years, we've had the Air Marshall program for a long time although it was more or less dormant since the lull in hijacking after the take this plane to Cuba craze in the late '60s, early '70s. But, why haven't we heard of it? Why have our government types, who are supposed to work for us, been squawking about it?

Another question for Janet: Where does it say that "the system" works when the only reason flaming wreckage didn't plow through downtown Detroit is because the bomb, although lit, only burned instead of exploded? Ms. Napolitano, that is not exactly a very dependable system you have. What is the system, to allow only incompetent bombers onto the planes? What is the test? I'm told that the explosive used, PETN is very powerful and needs only to be dry to have that amount blow a jet in half. So, what is the system, give the bomber so many free drinks that he pees his pants?

Okay, I have to admit here that if I was a bomber, using my weenie as a fuse might well make me pee my pants, too but I'm not sure this is persactly the most dependable system. A system that might work just a tad better is to not let anyone who is on a watch list on the effing airplane. A system that might make a little better sense is to copy, exactly, the system that El Al Israel uses. It is true that Israel is over run with socialists but we don't see dweebs like Napolitano making total idiots of themselves on one show after another.

I always figured that leftists aren't exactly the brightest of God's little door prizes but American leftists are really stupid. I give you exhibit A: the United States of America with a capitalist system where our working class live better than the mid level bosses of the socialist countries. I give you the American leftists who have traveled to these other countries and, if they looked out the windows, saw how people live. And yet, instead of trying to help lift those people up like, say, Sam Walton, they try to tear us down.

Still, Janet is a new low, even for American lefties. The system worked. Okay, I must stop writing now before I burst into a long string of ugly words. The system worked. Oh, my.

Time To Quote Reagan

We on the right side of the aisle often quote Ronald Reagan and there is much to quote. Thing is, with this crowd in Washington we need to start quoting a different Reagan, Nancy. Ronald's beloved "Mommie" has one very famous, and often ridiculed, quote, "just say no".

This is what we Americans need to start saying to the thugocracy in Washington, as well as many state capitals. When Obama puts out an executive order saying that United States laws no longer apply to Interpol, we need to say no. Every law enforcement agency doing business in the United States must follow the law and muct respond to Freedom of Information Act requirements, from the FBI down to the Quinlan, Texas Police Department. Yet Obama is saying that Interpol doesn't? Nancy was right, just say no!

The Senate is trading hundreds of millions of our dollars so some Senators would vote yes for this monster bill that no one in the Senate has read. A bill that puts the decisions that were between me and my doctors are now in the hands of unelected boards and committees. Meanwhile they say that these decisions were all up to my insurance company, forgetting that I can sue my insurance company, we cannot sue the government unless the government gives us permission! Just say no!

It's time that millions of Americans tell Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, plus that pencil necked freak in the White House, "you have your bill, now try to enforce it!" Funny thing is, if they lock us up, the courts say we get first class medical care, not that cut rate stuff that Pelosi is trying to sell.

Pelosi and Reid got control of our Congress by promising to end corruption. That seems to be working rather poorly. Perhaps it is time to follow Nancy's instructions and just say no.

Merry Christmas!

So I went out today to get the tire fixed, Linda Lou drove into a curb for no apparent reason. It turned out the tire couldn't be fixed, the sidewall was broken so I had to buy one. It was, of course, the coldest day in forever, there were even snowflakes. It's supposed to be down into the low teens tonight with wind chills down to the single digits. There is something wonderful about a tire repair shop in winter, down here they do not have heat, most of the year they don't worry about heat, they're hoping to keep enough breeze going to prevent heatstroke.

By the time I finished carrying the groceries into the house the stairs were icing up, I have no idea of what I'd do if I lived in Minnesota or somesuch place where they actually have enough snow to stay on the ground for a while. That's not true, I have an idea, I'd move. South. Fast. And Far.

Still, while we're living four miles south of the North Pole I'd like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.

What If We Don't?

The idiots in Congress are passing a whole bunch of new laws, many of which a majority of citizens oppose. This is not the first time, nor, if the Republic survives, will it be the last. Periodically a vocal minority gets all fired up and Congress thinks they must follow.

The last time was during the First World War when Prohibition was enacted. I do not know, nor am I interested in looking up, the percentage of drinkers to non drinkers. That is not germane, what really matters is the percentage of drinkers plus the non drinkers who do not care what others do. I, for instance, am now a nondrinker. This is not because I care, it's simply that once I start, sometimes I cannot stop. So I have, with a lot of help, taught myself not to start. This does not mean that, you, the reader can't have a drink, for many, perhaps most, drinking in moderation is beneficial.

The point, though, is not about drinking or not, it's that prohibition was an abject failure. Many Americans simply liked to drink, even more did not want the government pushing them around. This led to massive noncompliance, along with massive crime. Much like drugs today. For that matter, I do not know but I surmise that much of today's drug use is that same desire to not take orders from the government.

A blade on our ceiling fan broke and I was looking for a replacement fan, turns out that all the fans since 2007 require those dumb little candelabra bulbs. I, instead of buying a new unit, glued the blade back together. Now I shall look for a ceiling fan that I can put the old light unit on, because I do not like those little bitty bulbs, nor do I like those congresscritters telling me I cannot have enough light to see in my own living room.

Congress is repeating the same mistakes as early in the last century, creating vast new thing that, ultimately, require voluntary cooperation. Cap and Trade. Suppose we don't? These multitudes of requirements and taxes in the "health care" bill. Suppose we don't? For instance, several doctors I know or know of, will now stop taking new Medicare and Medicaid patients. And well they should, treating someone where you lose money on every visit is not, persactly the way to make a living. Being required to be on Medicare, this really frightens me. For now, the two docs that keep me alive, will continue to see me. If, however, the government tells them they must take more M&M patients, they will both retire. My family practice Doc, Doctor Lopez, is too young but judging from his name he could probably practice someplace where he could make a living like Argentina.

So, what will happen when every Doc over the age of fifty retires? Has no one told the Democrats that slave days have been over for a while now? During Prohibition there were more Speakeasys per city than there were legal bars before Prohibition. So, this is what we will be seeing soon. Bulbeasys where we can get the good old incandescent bulbs for our homes, Healtheasys where we can see a Doc without the government being involved? Then what? Natural gaseasys so we can heat our homes? Generators hidden in soundproof ditches for electiceasys? The PETA hysterics. Will we have meateasys?

Seriously, what will they do? Governors are letting criminals out of prison because they cannot afford to keep them locked up. So, what will they be able to do with my real light bulbs? What are they going to do to retiring Docs?

Copenhagen

So I was wondering what all those fancy pants Yankees were doing talking about a brand of not very good eatin' tobacco and then I realised they were talking about a conference on how to turn the whole world into Zimbabwe. We'd all be money ahead if, instead they all got a chaw. Not Copenhagen, though, something good like Brown's Mule.

So, what have we learned about the environmentalists through this? Well let's see, the fifth largest oil exporting nation is run by a feller name of Hugo Chavez. Since he took over Venezuela their standard of living has dropped every year. He go a standing O at Copenhagen. Oh, and their clean up efforts have dropped, too.

Who else is a hero at Copenhagen? Oh yeah, Mugabe of Zimbabwe. Never mind that the population of Zimbabwe are dropping like flies, he got a nice chance to speak. Can someone explain to me why a thug like Ogabe isn't shot on sight?

Speaker after speaker ragged on the evils of capitalism and yet it is the capitalist countries of the world with the cleanest environments. Socialist countries have no money to clean up, the egalitarian socialist leaders steal it all. Kind of like the Czars in a certain unnamed administration.

Now I realise that most of the leaders of the environmental movement are watermelons, green on the outside, red on the inside but do the followers of these idiots not have eyes? Have the whole stinking world lost the ability to look at pictures of the Soviet Union when it was going? Or China? Has not one of these followers looked at what was West Germany and East Germany, even today?

The places where the heroes of the leaders of the environmental movement run, you can't drink the water. You have to be very careful eating the vegetables because of the heavy metal and human waste in the soil, meanwhile, the places they want to destroy are the cleanest. A thought problem...you're thirsty. Pour yourself a glass of tap water and drink it. Do you want that glass of tap water from the poorest town in the United States or the richest town in Zimbabwe? A middle class neighborhood in Venezuela or the USA?

Why is anyone listening to these knuckleheads? It's not just internationally, either. Right here in the USA we actually have people listening to the idiots who ran our great cities and states into the ground. Why does no one tell the governor of Michigan to sit down and shut up? The Mayor of Chicago should not be able to step outside for fear of the rocks thrown by citizens. The Governator of Cal-lee-forn-ya ought to be slapped in the face with the flat of a shovel every time he tells folks to conserve energy while he commutes from the Los angles area to Sacramento every working day.

It is past time we stop putting up with this load of horse, er, ah, fertilizer. The very next time any of these environmental or climate idiots tells you anything at all, tell 'em, fine, you first. If they tell you about energy use, tell 'em, fine, you cut down below my level and then I'll cut down. They tell you about population, tell 'em, fine, you drop dead and I'll see what that does for the environment.

It is time we stop letting these dimbulbs push us around.

Lee Loaders

I was wandering through the Intertoobz and I noticed several folks wanting to get, in addition to other supplies, ammunition. Seems that a lot of folks do not have a whole lot of faith in the Administration and it's plans.

You, the reader, may have noticed that ammunition is hard to come by these days, and expensive when you do find it. There is a trick, though, that will make you independent of the ammo shortages. There is a little kit sold for $22.00, called the Lee Loader, developed by Dick Lee up there in the snowbanks of Wisconsin. Now most kits for reloading ammunition are a tad complicated and kind of expensive, they also require that a press be fitted to a bench. Not so the Lee Loader.

A Lee Loader is powered by a brass or plastic hammer or, for that patter, a hardwood stick. They are a lot slower than a bench mounted press but, by the same token, a lot simpler to use. The loader comes with directions and a little plastic scoop for the powder.

Thousands of reloaders and handloaders have got their start using these nifty little kits. Many never move past them, sure they are kind of slow and not exactly real versatile but they will give at least one good load for each bullet weight in a cartridge.

The person who lives where it might be good to leave in a particular emergency would be money ahead buying one of these per cartridge of their "oh foo, things have got really bad guns", a few hundred bullets, a thousand primers and a canister of powder. All of this would fit into one of those little military ammo cans.

This is not much different than the hand tools the Buffalo Hunters used to make the west safe for farming. People act like making serviceable ammo is difficult. The Buffler Hunters did it by firelight and a significant percentage of them were illiterate.

Sarah And The Political Establishment

I've been thinking about why the Republican Establishment hates Sarah Palin almost as much as the Democrats do. My first thought is that once in office she brought down a couple of crooked Republicans.

Then I think that she does not need the political establishment, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans. Just look at the folks waiting in freezing weather overnight to get a book signed when it's really easy to get the book from Amazon with no freezing and no lines.

I don't recall anyone sitting outside bookstores all night in freezing weather for Obama's books nor for Hilary!. This scares the foo out of establishment politicians of all stripes. To not need the handlers! To not care what the Davis Frums think? To be able to connect with real people without a speechwriter? Blasphemy!

No, establishment pols love Obama, he cannot create a coherent sentence without his teleprompter. This means plenty of jobs for the establishment pols. This, by the way, is why the establishment pols are pushing this two thousand plus page "health care" bill through Congress, even knowing that for many it is electoral suicide. Why should they care about elections with all of these lovely political jobs in those pages? There are so many boards and panels in these bills that every single Congresscritter could be voted out and the Obama gang could appoint each of them to lead one. The trouble is, those Congresscritters have no reason at all to believe the Obama gang won't throw them under that same bus everyone else has been thrown under.

That bus must have that jacked up suspension and the giant tires from the monster truck rallies. I wonder what the carbon footprint is?

Speaking of Carbon footprints, I wonder what the carbon footprint is of all those government creeps and NGO waterheads in Copenhagen is? Let's see here, strong evidence of fudged data and a whole slew of people that want us little guys to starve while freezing in the dark while they jet around from feast to feast. Um, don't you think they would have disarmed us first before trying this nonsense?

Stupid Or Evil?

This pencil necked character in the White House is making me crazy, I'm afraid of getting as crazy as those who suffered from Bush Derangement Syndrome. It starts with my deafness. I do not listen to the speeches so I tend to miss the uplifted chin and the metronomic swing from one teleprompter to the other. Instead I read the words, words that simply make no sense.

If you like the insurance you have you can keep it. If you like the doctor you have you can keep her. Except, of course, that with all the added people, plus the inability to turn anyone down or to raise rates, no insurance company will be able to keep offering health insurance. Oh, and there is the little problem of many doctors just retiring as will my Neurologist. He's in his fifties, he's made a few bucks, invested it in ways that the Washington vultures have not manage to ruin, why put up with it? Why not spend time with his grandkids?

Now my Neuro Doc is hardly alone. Now I don't ask everyone but both my Neuro and my Cardio Doc plan on retiring if Obama Care passes. And that means the nurses, nurses aids, receptionists and a few lab people will be out of a job. Meanwhile, no one says that our system can't use a little work, but two thousand page bills? How many pages would it take to write a bill saying that everyone below an particular income level gets all of his or her insurance paid for? Everyone making a bit more gets ninety percent, etc through people getting just a little help? Oh and pre-existing? Go into the pool.

Or Afghanistan. A real good way to lose a lot of soldiers is to have almost as many as are needed. Hitler discovered that in Russia. The Soviet Union found that out in Afghanistan. I fear we are going to find the same thing.

The bad guys have discovered that they cannot really fight us. So they don't. Instead they put explosives everywhere. Of course, the bad guys don't have to fight us now. They know we are going to trickle three quarters of the men that MacChrystal asked for and then bring them back in 18 months. Well, bring back the survivors, anyhow.

I don't know much of anything about this fight, my fight was four decades ago. I know a lot has changed but one that that hasn't changed much is that if thirty thousand more troops are going, only a small percentage of them will be Infantry, actually fighting the bad guys. Well, there will also be artillery and some of the rotorheads will be fighting, too. Far more will be pushing paper or turning wrenches back at the bases. Not that these folks are unimportant, a helo or track needs maintenance, and lots of it. Someone actually has to look at the requests for supplies, more have to pull it out of the supply room and put it on the birds going to the men out in the boonies, etc. In my day it was about ten men doing "stuff" for every Infantryman in the bush.

In my war we had up to a half million men in country and rifle squads were going out in the bush with five or seven men. Rifle Companies were at just over half strength and still expected to do the same job. Is this still happening? For all I know, it's worse. In my day if things got too bad we could pull a few guys out of the motor pool or supply. I'm curious about what percentage of the guys, I think they call 'em Fobbits now, can actually move about with the loads our Infantry carries. Can you imagine a skinny little kid from a brokedown Texas farm like Audie Murphy being in today's Infantry? Much less being the most decorated soldier from this new war?

But, I digress. Again. My point, and I do have one, is that we aren't sending enough of the troops that MacChrystal asked for. And MacC is, like a good soldier, simply saluting and trying, like the Generals did in my war. Remember how that turned out? Lord, I wish we had Generals who, when asked for a strategy would resign if they did not get the resources they need.

Trouble is, in the back of my mind there is a nagging fear that this is all on purpose. Can the Administration be trying to kill off or make the really topnotch troops quit? The Army and Marine Corps we have today would refuse, and properly so, orders to go into American cities and subdue a population refusing to be government slaves. Thugs like those fat boys doing what they thought were military drills for Obama would run from a squad of Marines. But, suppose, suppose that the Marines and Infantry are killed or quit in disgust. Suppose those New Black Panther thugs from Philly had, instead of nightsticks, the body armor and weapons of a Marine Rifleman?

I know this is pure paranoia. No Presidential Administration would ever purposely lose a war and destroy the military while, at the same time, wrecking the economy. It's pure paranoia, right? Right?

Obama Infiltrates An Enemy Camp And Lives

So, put your own guy in charge of the Afgan Overseas Contingency Operation*. Then when your guy tells you he needs some forty thousand+ more troops wait around for months and decide to give him thirty thousand and, oh by the way, they're all out of there sometime in 2011.

Announce this at West Point, where boys are turned into Regular Army Officers. These kids will be the Second Lieutenants, the ones with the life expectancy of a Mayfly in heavy combat. I cannot remember off the top of my head whether it was the United States Military Academy (West Point) Class of 1950 or 1951 that was almost wiped out in Korea but it doesn't really matter. A Class of the future leaders of the Army was nearly wiped out, those Cadets know it. So does the top brass in the Services, you don't eat the seed corn. That, of course, is why we had the Lt. Calley types, in their eagerness to protect the future leaders they neglected having enough competent leaders then.

Chis Matthews, he of the tingling thighs, described Oboma as going into an enemy Camp for this speech. He might be right. I suspect those Cadets know who values their lives. This may explain the paucity of applause in that speech tonight. It's a pretty tough thing to not be able to trust your Commander in Chief.

Speaking of trust, just how is anyone going to trust the United States? What are we going to see after the Great Skedaddle of 2011? Well, let us look back to Viet nam, the War Democrats Love. After Saigon fell and became Ho Chi Minh City the surviving military and police were sent to reeducation camps, the higher the rank, the longer the stay. Many were killed. The crippled veterans of the South got no pensions, of course. After the police and military got out of the "reeducation" camps they were forbidden any decent jobs.

If anything, the Taliban is more bloodthirsty than the North Viets. So, tell me again why, the next time anything, anywhere, gets ugly, anyone should bet their future on the United States. Oh, and tell me what happens to the Pakistani Nuclear Arsenal after the Americans leave.

Democrats love to talk about how much they love the little guy. Of course they do everything they can to see little guys die. If the Dems had got their way, Iraq would have been a bloodbath, just like Cambodia was. Of course it was during the Democrat rule of LBJ's day when the TOG Rule was codified. TOG or They're Only Gooks was very important. Transpose a couple of characters while calling in artillery and kill half a platoon of ARVNs? No problem, TOG Rule! Misjudge the wind and drop bombs on a Ville instead of the bad guys? TOG Rule.

The only difference today is the Dems don't want Americans involved at all. The new TOG Rule for the Dems is that only foreigners should do the killing. I'm not sure they don't like it when Americans die, after all there sure are a lot of abortions, and the Dems in charge of New Orleans sure didn't bother doing anything but complain before, during and after Katrina, They just hate to pay for having Armed Forces.

Oh, in case anyone thinks I only complain about Democrats, Huckabee sure did act like a gutless wonder in his statement about his commutation of the sentence of that Clemmons scumbag who seems to have shot down those LEOs in Washington State. Huckabee could have actually taken a bit of responsibility but then, that wouldn't be the Huck we all know and love.

*War is a lot easier to spell.