Busy

I've been really busy the last week or so. I have everything I need to build my fence, my son in law is coming out Saturday to help with the postholes and concrete for the big main poles and gate. Since the only gates they had that were tall enough to keep a German Shepherd in were too narrow for my lawn tractor I bought a big old panel of chain link six foot tall dog kennel. We looked kind o' funny driving around with that on the roof of the van. I'm not real sure we shouldn't have just bought a mess of these panels, bolted them together into a small kennel and then added a couple of panels per payday.

The van was kind of leaning, too, what with 400 pounds of quickcrete sacks along with the rest of everything.

I've been busy trying to cast my bullets out of my new mold, it is taking a lot of ugly words. My little ten pound electric furnace doesn't hold enough lead alloy to keep the mold hot enough to run good bullets so I'm using my six cavity mold as a two cavity until I get my twenty pound furnace. Running both furnaces I should be able to run the mold as designed.

At any rate I have a shoot this Sunday so I am busy trying to load enough black powder ammo so I can shoot my class, instead of having to fool around with that heathen fad smokeless stuff. I have the bullets cast and lubed and the cartridge cases cleaned, resized and primed. Now it's just dumping the powder, adding a half cc of dry grits and seating the bullets.

Things sure seem odd these days, Scooter Libby is headed to prison while Sandy Burglar got plea bargained down to a misdemeanor. That is just sick. Note: when dealing with the Feds, always have a lawyer and if brought before a Grand Jury, say nothing. A determined prosecutor can, with enough time, get Mother Theresa on a process crime. Have enough Feebs interview you and then haul you, a co-operative witness who durned well knew that he did not commit the "crime" of "outing" an analyst and you too can be guilty of four felonies. Give me an unlimited budget and a squad of Feebs and a grand jury and I could put Fitzfong (or is it Nifgerald?) in prison. If he was silly enough to try to cooperate.

In other news we sure are eager to throw our own people over the side. Seems that Ann Coulter has become persona non grata at all the cool parties. Let's see, the left can bring up Dick Cheney's daughter at the debates and they can, while ex(?) Klansman Byrd is the conscience of the Senate demand that because Jeff Gannon posed for pictures his livelihood is ruined. So now we throw Ann out of the boat? Sorry. I'm not going to. I don't care that all the cool people have the vapors. What the heck, I'm not good enough to be allowed to comment on Hot Air anyway. I don't remember Ann throwing Malkin overboard when the left was attacking her over her book on the Japanese internment.

Would I have phrased that comment exactly like Ann did? No. Still, I have stuck my foot in my mouth enough times in my life that I'll not hit Ann. Even if she does need a sandwhich and a milk shake.

Why I Hate The Left

I do not pretend to hide my dislike of Leftists. I do not like to hear or see them preening about how my side is the Party of Hate while they lament the fact that Dick Cheney wasn't killed in a bombing and wish the Taliban better luck next time.

I do not like the way the Democrats refused to state a position on the war leading up to the election and then, when they won a razor thin majority, claiming the American People support "their plan" on that war.

I am not particularly happy about Leftists telling me how I am ruining "Mother Earth" while their leaders flit about in private jets and build 28,000 square foot mansions, al la The Breck Girl or use twice as much electricity in a month as the average American home uses in a year, as does Algore.

I am not real happy about Leftists claiming that I hate women while they support those who would kill women for the crime of going to school or driving. I do not like Leftists telling me that my side hates gays while they support those who would kill them. I do not like being called racist while the Left sides with those killing black people in Darfur by the thousands.

Most of all I hate the Left for siding with those who wish to kill my grandchildren.

Heading Into Spring

It got warm enough this afternoon to have to run the air conditioning for a couple of hours. It's nice to know that it still blows cold.

It's been an interesting few days, that tooth that was killing me fell out with nothing left inside. This after I paid a ton of money to the dentist in advance, only to have him not return my phone calls. Grump.

Saturday was a Cowboy Action Shoot, it almost didn't happen as it was raining a little. Our range is built on that black gumbo soil, a cloud in Oklahoma sinks trucks. But it looked like the rain was just about over so we set up three sets of targets and shot six stages on those with just different courses of fire on the same targets.

There were only eight of us so we were mostly just bangin' and clangin'. As soon as the rain stopped the wind came up, blowing harder and harder. By the sixth stage the wind was gusting well over forty MPH, I know it hit fifty a few times. Driving home the wind had blown the overhang from over the pumps at a gas station on the way.

In other news I bought the posts and wire for a five foot tall fence to go around my backyard, Wednesday is my "payday" so I will buy the gate, main posts and concrete for the job. Then it is just waiting for my bud to find the time between jobs to help me put it up. Once I get the fence up I'll start looking for another German Shepherd.

Today was Delivery Day. Linda Lou had a Doctor's appointment and then wanted to visit her sister over in Fort Worth so I went and filled her car with gas, coming home I stopped at the mail box and there was my new six cavity bullet mold for the 250 grain Pigeon Roost Slim .45 Boolit. This is a Big Lube Boolit (tm) design, it carries some five times the amount of lube that conventional bullets do, very important for black powder shooting. The extra lube keeps the powder fouling soft so we don't lose accuracy shooting a lot of rounds. I am told that modern black powder is not near the quality of the stuff of the late 19th Century so the old time bullets don't carry near the lube they need. The skinny grease grooves of ordinary bullets carry plenty of lube for a few gunfulls in handguns. The same bullet runs out in a rifle barrel or all day handgun shooting.

This new mold is from Blogdaddy Harvey's neck of the woods, Hartford Wisconsin. I think they only have five more months of winter. The I think they have three days of summer and then comes winter again. The people at Lee Precision make these molds for Dick Dastardly, a riverboat gambler and midnight rambler from Sun Prarie, WI. Dick spent his pension fund building this little home based business. Anyone insterested in BP should click on Big Lube for molds and lubes.

I also got my year's supply of Black Powder off the FedEx truck today. I'm trying a new kind of BP, Graf and Son's house brand. This is supposed to be made by the Schutzen people in Germany. They use a different kind of wood for the charcoal, Alder, I believe.

The finest BP known today is Swiss, the folks shooting the long range buffalo gun matches swear by it. At the close ranges and big targets we use in CAS it is not worth the extra money, it is near twice as expensive as GOEX or Graf's. I'm told that Graf's and Schuetzen are just under Swiss. I am trying Graf's because of the free shipping. So I have ten pounds of BP for $135.00, tax, title license, dealer and destination charges. That will make a lot of .45 Colt and 12 gauge loads. Mo Smoke!

Now I have to buy a twenty pound lead furnace, the little ten pounder I have is fine for a two cavity mold. Trouble is a six cavity takes a lot of lead every time and the ten pounder can't keep the melt hot enough. Still, buying the Big Lube Boolits(tm) is such that I will save money casting after spending a hundred and fifty+ bucks for the mold, furnace and sizer die. They are over thirty bucks+ for 250 bullets.

So, that is what I'm up to, digging postholes, buying fencing materiel and getting ready to cast bullets.

I just hope I don't have have a fire in the house until I shoot off most of this BP.

He Did Not Know He Was Broken

Eddie is home now, back from the Vet. He spent the night there getting fixed. Poor little guy didn't know he was broke.

We expected him to be kind of slow and unbouncy. He is running and jumping just like before, running around like Rocket Dog.

Eddie Turns Nine Months Old.

Happy New Year, in Chinese, if you please. Eddie turned nine months old yesterday. He enters the Year Of The Boar as a teenager in people years. I don't have the energy to figure out when the Year of the Dog is, around here that is every year.

Running In Circles

I haven't done much online this week, I've been running in circles trying to get a bad tooth pulled, plus some other medical problems.

Since my stroke in August of '05 I have been on blood thinner, Warfarin to be precise. This is actually tiny doses of an old rat poison. The Germans used larger doses to kill people back in the Nazi Era. At any rate, dentists hate the stuff, it complicates things. So I am off the rat poison for now, letting my blood thicken up in hopes that the dentist will be able to pull this tooth before I drop dead.

Meanwhile my primary care Doc is all of a sudden worried about my hearing, which is still bad. They did a hearing test, my hearing loss is still "profound" and my insurance still does not cover the $2300.00 worth of hearing aids I need. These are the same hearing aids I needed back in the early '90s when they were hundreds of dollars cheaper. I wonder how come everything electronic has gotten cheaper except for medical electronics. They have risen.

Friday I have to go to an ophthalmologist and I hope I'm at least close on the spelling. The spell checker doesn't do too well on medical terms. Anyhow he is worried that my medical problems can lead to eye problems.

I have noticed that The Puppy Blender has followed my idea of blowing stuff up in Iran and killing certain Iranians. So the various big bloggers on the Left are all mad at him. They'd be all mad at me if'n they knew who I am. They can be as mad as they want, just as long as they stay out of carbine range.

I noticed that the big wheel at Virgin Airlines is offering 25 million Pounds for someone who can stop Global Warming. I do not know how to tell him about my idea to drop enough nukes to cause Global Springtime. Anybody got his address? I could buy those hearing aids.

Hate Speech

I have been reading, with only mild interest, of the adventures of someone named Amanda Marcotte. She is, apparently, some famous blogger that I've never heard of. Please note that just because I have never heard of someone does not mean that they can't, or shouldn't be, famous. I have narrow interests and do not pay much attention to most media. I have never seen an episode of American Idol, nor Survivor nor even Seinfeld. I do not watch 24. I do not watch any television series at all, my hearing is such that I cannot understand what they are saying. Oddly I can watch old movies and even old TV shows but something in modern sound, maybe the style, maybe the technology, makes me unable to hear it. I noticed this about the last year of so of NYPD Blue, that is how long I have been out of the loop.

Ooops! I need one of Drudge's Siren and Light graphics to warn everyone of a digression alert.

Anyhow this Marcotte person seems to not like men or Catholics much or women who enjoy being mothers. Her business, not mine. In looking at the things posted by others I wondered a little about what gave er such a dislike for folks who have never done her any harm, then I got interested in finding a little more information about Mysterious Dave Mather, the old west Lawman, gunfighter and outlaw. Once he got on the side of the Law he stayed a very practical sort. In the towns he worked if a notorious bad guy was in town he and his deputies would just go house to house, room to room and kill him. Whoops, I digress again. Did you know that after Mysterious Dave's career as a Lawman, gambler, and rustler in Arkansas, Kansas and Colorado he went to Canada and was a Mountie and didn't retire until 1920s? I do not know if he kept up with that same style of police work up there.

What I have noticed the most about the controversy over this Marcotte person is that everyone immediately starts talking about the equivalent "hate speech" on the Right. Rush Limbaugh is always mentioned there. Now I do listen to Rush, almost every day. I do not hear the hate. Ridicule, yes. Apparently the Left believes that playing a tape of a Kennedy or a Clinton's exact words and then commenting is hate. Insulting millions of Catholics is political commentary.

I wasn't going to vote for the Breck Girl anyway.

Update: The more I read about politics in 2007, the more I stay in the latter third of the 19th Century. Except with modern medicine.

Rudy

I am nowhere near committing to a candidate for the GOP nomination for President in '08. I am looking at everybody but that crook McCain.

I am getting a lot of information about Rudy "America's Mayor" Giuliani and his anti Second Amendment stance. Trouble is, as mayor Rudy was enforcing New York's Sullisan Law, a law having noting to do with the US Government. The Second Amendment restricts Congress. I do not know, nor do I care much, how the State Constitution deals with the right to keep and bear arms. The Sullivan Law has been in effect for generations, if there were constitutional issues, either State of Federal, they would have been found.

I may well decide to support someone else. I see no reason to lean away from Rudy because he enforced the law of his state. That is what Federalism is all about. New York may have the gun laws it wishes. I stay out of New York. Seems the both of us are happy.

A Big Disappointment

A few days ago I was online at the SASS Wire, a bulletin board for Cowboy Action Shooters and the question of gunbelts and holsters came up. I wanted to reccommend my holstermaker, Brazos Jack of Etowah River Leather but because I am still unsure of putting in urls and such I went to his website so I could write the addy down.

This is when I saw the news, Brazos Jack has retired because of poor health. This happened at the end of November. Nobody ever tells me anything. The good news is that Brazos Jack is still creating gunleather designs for Hide Crafter. So the handy can still have a Brazos Jack gunrig. Klutzes like me, though, have to find another way.

I shall drop an extra prayer or two for the health and well being of a genuine artist in leather and all around good guy.

Iran

It looks as if the Administration is finally getting serious about Iran, now that the Democrats have made sure that we can't really DO anything about them. Sigh. Anyone want to guess how peaceful the world would be now if that idiot Carter had given Khomeini a good hard whack on the peepee in 1979? For that matter, what would that area be like now had Carter sent a few B-52s loaded up with canisters of itching powder and stink bombs over the cities and then casually mentioned that next week it's nukes?

Still, talking about what we should have done then is like talking about what we should have done about Iraq during that two year plus "rush to war". We did nothing then, now we must deal with this clown Imadinnerjacket or however he spells his name.

So, what can we do about Iran? How about what they are doing to us? How about sending some of the Sneaky Pete troops, the SEALs, those Army guys in the Girl Scout Hats, a few Force Recon Marines in to blow up some of those oil pipelines that run Iran's economy, such as it is. Seems that Iran has a whole lot of valuable targets that would be very difficult to guard. Most of these targets would involve Iran's petroleum industry. Speaking of things that are vulnerable to explosives.

Back in 2003 I thought the whole purpose of going into Iraq was to get bases from which we could take the next two steps, Iran and Saudi Arabia, take your choice as to which would have been first. Little did I know that instead we would still be sitting around being targets, coming up on four years later.

Memo to the US Government. We already know that wars are uncomfortable to our guys. Fine. We can take that. The thing is, though, we are supposed to be making things MORE uncomfortable for the other guys. Someone please explain to me why we are allowing Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia to send clowns into Iraq to kill our guys when not one of these country's whole damned armys would fold to just the forces we have over there, without much in the way of reinforcements.

Our troops, their families and my grandchildren deserve a government that doesn't lose it's nerve after the fight starts.

The Mystery Of The Dissolving Noodles

Payday came along and I bought everything I thought I needed to a huge pot of chicken noodle soup. I now know that I made a couple of mistakes but it was a learning experience.

I started with two pounds of skinless, boneless chicken breasts. I sprayed the bottom of my big pot with Pam and dropped them in and cooked them until they were done enough to cut up. I cut them up with Pugs at my feet, Eddie kept trying to climb Mount Peter to get to the chicken.

Back into the pot and then a "box" of chicken broth, it comes in quart boxes now. Who knew? That didn't look like enough so I added two cans of chicken broth. The Pugs were still tormenting me so I gave them each some "chicken ice cream". The last time I needed some chicken broth I didn't need all I had so I filled an ice cube tray with the leftovers. Then I put the yellow ice cubes in a freezer bad. One will keep a pug occupied for long enough to do much in the kitchen. Or other rooms for that matter. These broth cubes don't last but a couple of minutes for a German Shepherd, though. I miss George.

Since I like lots of vegetables in my soup I then added two pounds of frozen soup vegetables, Pictsweet if the brand matters. This turned out to be a mistake on my part as Linda Lou won't eat this soup because of the tomatoes. Even after I pulled all the tomatoes out and ate them in the first bowl. I think I'm going to be sick of chicken soup by the time this is done.

That was too many ingredients for the broth in the pot so I poured in enough water and turned the fire up. Then I added a half pound of egg noodles and a half pound of wacky mac, those egg noodles that look like coil springs and are odd colored because of the various vegetables in them. That looked like plenty of noodles so I turned the fire up until the stuff started boiling, turned it down to simmer and went and listened to Rush. The spices were simple, garlic powder, black pepper, white pepper some sage to remind me that I live in the Southwest and a couple of shakes of Oregano.
An hour or so later I ate the first bowl. Now I don't think those tomatoes hurt anything but Linda Lou is firm in her prejudices so refuses to try even a spoonful. It was pretty tasty, if I do say so myself. I put the pot in the refrigerator and then reheated it for supper. Linda Lou had Hamburger Helper. What I noticed was that the second bowl had almost no noodles, though. They seem to have dissolved. I wonder what kind of secret ingredients they put in the noodles of canned soup, they last forever. A bit of concrete, maybe?

Oh well, the stuff still tastes noodley even if they are all part of the broth. Lessons learned? Use stew vegetables instead of soup vegetables. Half as much chicken, vegetables and other ingredients. Add the noodles at the last possible minute. Perhaps leave the noodles out and put them in as I reheat the soup.

I am going to be sick of chicken soup before this is gone.

So It Begins

The Democrats have been attacking the Pharmaceutical Corporations for some years now and they finally own both houses of Congress. Pfizer has cut some ten percent of it's employees, closing research facilities in Michigan, among other cutbacks.
I had a mild hope that I'd see a new drug or two to perhaps control my tremors so that I could feed myself a couple more years.

The Party that watches out for the little guy, right? I wonder how many little guys will live diminished lives so the Democrats can claim a victory over the evil corporations. Thanks, America. You showed those nasty Republicans.

Cold And Rainy

The temp is hovering just above freezing and it's nice and rainy. Today was our bimonthly Cowboy Action Shoot, canceled.At least I won't come in last today.

I'm trying my beef stew again today with a few suggestions from a recipe site I found. This time I have the same vegetables as last time but have a two and a half pound chuck roast in there. The chuck roast chunks are dissolving into tiny pieces. I found some recipe site on the 'net and one of the stew recipes called for a can of tomato soup, I put it in, good. Next time, though I'll put in a can or so of Ro-Tel tomatoes and green chili, instead. Other than that, the only difference is a little less flour and some spice variations. This time my hand fell on the Paprika so I poured a bunch of that in, in case a hungry Hungarian wanders up.

I am serving with cornbread muffins, again. This time with jalapenos in them. Note to self, a few less jalapenos next time. They are right tasty but give me a very warm feeling the next day. Speaking of hungry Hungarians, I should learn Goulash.

The major news of the last couple of days is the Duke La Cross "rape" case. Nifong has finally recused himself and it looks as if the State Attorney General has chosen another prosecutor with a documented history of prosecutional misconduct to look the case over and decide whether to drop it or to continue. I guess the honest lawyer is on vacation. It's a small state, they can't afford two honest lawyers in one department.

I do not understand Nifong and Gottlieb in this whole mess. Nifong a little, after all he had immunity from civil and criminal charges when acting as a prosecutor. I doubt though, that this immunity carries over to when he started acting as the lead investigator.

This case is not like what Gottlieb and Nifong seem to be well known for, sticking Duke students with extra big fines for underage drinking and suchlike. They should have known that these three families would retain competent counsel, with each of those kids facing multiple thirty year sentences. These families are out for blood.

The lawsuits are starting to come, they will be thicker than these Colorado blizzards we've been reading about. There are too many "little fish" with no immunity and not enough insurance to cover the coming judgements. These little fish, to protect their own families from destitution, will roll over on Nifong and Gottlieb. Not just in civil lawsuits, either. People like to forget that the civil rights of white boys are also protected. I can think of two or three federal felonies by Nifong and Gottlieb, three counts of each. Three counts of each on both of them. This will all come out during the civil suits.

Here is my question...If Nifong and Gottlieb were willing to try to railroad three well to do white kids into prison, who else have they already railroaded? Given the racial and economic makeup of that part of North Carolina, how many pour back guys are in prison while innocent?

Note, those who have not followed this case should Google "Durham In Wonderland" to learn far more than we ever wanted to know about dishonesty.

So, Now What?

We have seen the reaction of the Democrats now, the ones that insisted that we didn't have enough troops in Iraq. They are now totally against any more troops in Iraq. There is, of course, not a word on what will happen if (when?) we lose, as we shall lose if the Donks have their way.

We might look to exactly how the Christians in Bethlehem are doing as an example, not very well from what I've read. Seems as if the only Christians allowed to survive are those who trumpet the Pali's line against Israel. Of course at this rate there will soon be no Israel.

I got an E-mail the other day from an old fried, a lawyer who works for the US Government, in the Executive Branch. It was a series of really insulting anti-Bush bumper stickers. Regardless of the issue of loyalty up, something I had ingrained in me, what about the simple question of insulting me? Does it matter to him that over half of all American voters chose Mr. Bush? What on earth will he do when the Islamists win? What color Burqua will his wife wear? How long will it take him to learn to wear a turban?

I wonder what he'll say when America falls as did Constantinople? I suppose he'll file a lawsuit on the Muslim that is real close behind him. My understanding, though, is that the lawsuit will become moot as soon as he gets the bullet through the brain.

I believe that Bush and company have made many mistakes in this war, a war that was declared long before his administration began, but at least he is fighting it. I would have gone into Iran after Afghanistan. Or maybe Saudi Arabia. Be that as it may we are in Iraq with two choices, win or lose.

I am not sure what winning will look like, no way to guess what a real democratic republic will bring. I do know what losing will look like, I saw it before, the last time the Donks took both houses during a war. I saw the boat people, I read about the two million dead Cambodians. Friends who stayed in the Service told me about not having ammunition for practice. Forgive me for not having a whole lot of confidence in soldiers that can't shoot. Nor in Zoomies that can't hardly hit anything with a bomb. Navy ships sat alongside the piers for lack of fuel.

This is what is coming.

Waiting For Dubya

It is two hours before Dubya gives his speech, the one that pretty much marks his last chance to get the war right. While I do not, by any means, think that this war has been run perfectly, I notice that, unlike my war, the Soldiers, Marines, Sailors and Airmen still believe. The units engaged in this fight report reenlistments at almost 150 percent of the goals. The young men and women who have no intention of going career are extending their enlistments to go over with their buddies. This did not happen this way in the Southeast Asian War Games.

I do wonder what the high rate of reenlistment will do the the Services, long term. War is hard on the knees and back, even without any extra holes in the body, and every year the soldier carries a heavier load. With every extra man and woman who reenlists there is one less spot for a recruit to fill. It will also slow down the promotions for the first hitch types. Oh well, let the smart people worry about that.

I worry that the Democrats are going to force us into quitting while the Soldiers still believe. Aside from believing that this enemy will follow us home, not that some aren't already here, I recall my war. Now it got started under a Democrat, while this one seems to have started under a Republican. Of course most of us have forgotten about the 1998 act where Congress declared, and Clinton signed that regime change in Iraq is America's policy. Poor Dubya. Like I was in 1964 he is dumb enough to believe a Democrat. Unlike Dubya, I at least have not believed one since. Does no one in America remember that the Democrats overwhelmingly voted for this war? What is it about them that makes them commit troops and then when we've invested our lives and our allies have bet their own lives, and their family's lives, makes them want to run out?

How many Iraqis will be slaughtered if we leave? What about the next theater in this war, will one single person trust the word of America if we leave and the slaughter begins? These questions are important. There is a pretty fair percentage of the world's ane and a half BILLION Muslims that want to kill my grandchildren. I suspect that the percentage is well over ten percent. I further believe that the percentage is highest among military aged Muslims. Their schools teach them to hate us, our teach tolerance. Yep. That'll work.

Oh well, I'll listen to Dubya, I have no great hope. For too many the tens of millions of Muslims that want to kill my grandchildren are not the problem. The problem is Dubya and the rest of us evil theocrats.

Fazul Abdullah Mohammad, Rest In Pieces

The Sec Op flyboys got the feller that masterminded the '98 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. I hope that I will be forgiven for hoping that it was a painful, slow death.

Flying Hammer Of Thor

I wonder what Mogadishu and the "Blackhawk Down" incident would have looked like had the Clinton Administration sent the C-130 gunships to Somalia as the ground commanders requested. I suspect that the alQ types would not have decided we were such an easy mark. Of course I also suspect that the Euros and the Lefties would had been crying tears the size of horse droppings over the awful slaughter of the poor innocent little Somalis.

Well, the clock got turned back a notch and finally Spectre, the C-130 gunship has sung her song over Somalia. I never saw the Spectre at work, I did see her daddy, the AC-47 work. There were several different names for that bird, Puff the Magic Dragon, Snoopy and Spooky, it all depended on where one served in the Southeast Asian War Games. When the Little People were trying to get through the wire if we could hear those old radial engines throttle back to loiter we knew nobody whole would get through. We also knew to try to get our whole bodies into those helmets because bullets bounce. Up close it sounded like God unzipping His coveralls. Pretty much if we were close enough to hear all we saw was the inside of a hole or bunker, if we were far enough away we'd see a red line from the sky and a million ricochetes.

I don't know what Spectre carries now, she came along as I was leaving but back then she carried a minigun, an electricly driven 7.62 Gatling Gun, a 40 mm rapid fire gun mount, if memory serves that was simply the dual Bofors AntiAircraft gun pointed down instead of up and a 105mm howitzer. The A/C picks which gun to use depending on the target, the range and the expectation of ground fire. As most of us know, the longer the range the bigger the bullet. I would suspect that they flew over shooting the 105 at anything looking like an AA position, dropped down a bit for the smaller gun and then hosed everything down with the minigun. This is not based on anything but instinct, I do not believe an A/C would put his crew in any more danger than absolutely neccessary.

I read where there were a few "high value" targets down on the ground and we have to wait until ground troops identify the bodies. Good luck with that. It's one thing to look at a body that has been hit by one bullet, a 40mm shell going off right next to that body is a little more problemactic, to say nothing of a 105. Or twenty+ 7.62s. We may never know who all was killed. I do know it wasn't enough.

Update: I just read that the AC-130 is armed with a 20mm Gatling Gun instead of the 7.63mm Nato round. Those rounds are like three quarters of an inch accross. That's a slug that makes a big hole, even if it's not explosive or incindiary.

The Clan

Some months back we had three out of the four kids in one place, complete with spouses, or should that be spice, and seven of the eight grandkids. A professional picture was taken of the mob, it somehow took this long to scan it into the computer.

As you can plainly see, we seem to have run long on boys, three out of the four kids were boys, seven out of eight grandkids (so far) are boys. I am pleased we don't do dowry in America. I'd open a vein.

Linda Lou was brave enough to go to Chuck E Cheese for the mob o' kids bash for William's birthday. I stayed home to watch the dogs, well, that was my excuse. I missed Michael and Jennifer up from San Antone but I reckon it's worth it to skip that place.

Birdseed Thieves and Marie Callender Pies and Cobblers

Retired people must have hobbies. In addition to shooting I have started a birdseed collection. Trouble is if I try to keep my birdseed collection in the house we get those little tiny field mice and Linda Lou threatens me with dire consequences. So I got this little plastic silo that we hang in the wild plum tree in the front yard.

Now the tree is full of flying birdseed thieves and the odd squirrel. Naturally it annoys me to see my precious birdseed collection being stolen, this time of year it is the Cardinals and Blue Jays, plus every little brown bird that I can't identify. Linda Lou won't let me shoot them so my little tree is always full of red and blue birds flashing around like rubies and sapphires. I tried taking a couple of mugshots, just in case they come to your neighborhood, I don't know how well they came out, click to see.

In other news, Mrs. Who of the not famous enough House of Zathras is mad at me because I wrote of Blackberry Cobbler yesterday, when it isn't blackberry season. It seems she hasn't canned enough blackberries to make a cobbler. Well, since even wives who have never met stick together and I don't want Linda Lou to punish me, here is the trick...Marie Callender frozen cobblers. Buy 'em at Wally World. These cobblers, and her frozen pies, are the best store-bought pies and cobblers I've ever eaten. And, of course, they are never out of season.

The Marie Callender frozen pot pies are good, too.I eat them a couple of times a week, for breakfast. Linda Lou has back trouble and when her back is kicking up she sleeps on the couch. When I wake up before she does I eat the pot pies for breakfast because I can fix 'em quietly, without waking her. They come in two sizes, ten ounce, for those on a diet, and sixteen ounces, for those of us that don't care if we ever see our feet again. If your only experience with pot pies are those teeny ones from Swanson, try one of these. Their new Cheesy Chicken is out of this world.

The Navy Bean Soup Is Perfected

I've always loved Navy Bean Soup, I had never learned to cook it. Last month I made my first attempt. I learned then to never try making it with cheap bacon.

I tried again, finished it yesterday, it's perfect. This one is for Blogfather Harvey.

I put two pounds of navy beans on to soak overnight and slept the sleep of the just. In the morning I poured it all into the colander, washed and dried the bean pot. While the bean pot was drying I cut up a pound of good bacon, about one inch chunks is fine. I then sprayed the bottom of the pot with Pam, put the fire on, a medium heat is fine and dropped in the bacon.

While the bacon was cooking I cut up two medium yellow onions. After the bacon was almost done I drained the bacon grease. Note: don't cook the bacon all the way, just almost all. We want a little bit of fat left, for some reason the soup needs it. Not a lot, a little.

If there is leftover ham or pork chops, that sort of thing, it works just as well as bacon. Once the bacon is drained drop in the onion, beans and water. Fancy places like restaurants and naval vessels always have other vegetables in the soup, carrots, celery, etc. Hmm, there's a big ol' baking potato left over, cut it up and throw it in. What other veggies? Oooh, look there in the freezer, it's a bag of stew vegetables. In it goes.

Since we can't have soup without spices, let's finish up. Garlic? Sure, all I have is garlic powder. Pour it in. Put it in until you are sure there is too much, now add some more. Three or four bay leafs (leaves?), a few shakes of ground sage, a batch of orango and a little bit of thyme. Now some salt, some pepper and some white pepper. Hmm, a little more garlic.

One of my earliest memories is from before we had television where we lived, my mother loved listening to the Tennessee Ernie Ford show on the radio. One of his sponsors was Martha White's Gladiola Brand Cornbread Mix. Make this bean soup, serve with cornbread muffins and you too can say "Goodness gracious, it's pea pickin' good!" Tennessee Ernie was like two hundred years old when he died, he still died too young. The last time we went through Tennessee we stopped at the Grand Ol' Opry and one of the CDs we bought was a twenty-song one by him. If the only song you ever heard of his is Sixteen Tons you would be surprised to learn just how much of his stuff was Rockabilly. And just how racy some of it was. Baby boomers like to act like our parent's generation was so straitlaced. Forgetting, of course, that there were so damned many of us. Judging from our behavior I don't think very many of us were virgin births.

Oh, anyway, serve with cornbread. Oh, and add just a little more garlic. And put some Tennessee Ernie on. Desert should be blackberry pie or cobbler. And listen to Blackberry Boogie.

Note: It doesn't matter how cold it gets at night, don't try to sleep with your head under the covers.

Iran

I wish I had a better understanding of the terrain on the border of Iraq and Iran, I simply cannot understand why we allow weapons, money and bad guys to flow across that border. It's been over thirty-five years since I wore Uncle's suit but I still recall how to set up an L shaped ambush. I didn't have to have a funny hat, neither. Any Infantryman could do it then, why aren't we doing it now?

When we were having that two year long rush to war I looked at the map in my World Almanac and thought then that Iraq was just a step, a staging area much like Sicily in WW2. We already had troops and air bases in Afghanistan, Turkey and, I believe Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, as well as Saudi Arabia. The Gulf of Oman and Persian Gulf were each American lakes, owned by the US Navy.

So, we gone in, knock off Sodomy Hussein, then retreat to a few bases, and the oil fields, let the Shiites and the Sunnis kill each other while we protect the Kurds and go on to the next step, putting the fear of God and George W. Bush into Iran and Saudi Arabia.

There is not a square inch of either of those places that our fighter bombers can't reach, as a matter of fact our helicopter gunships can get fairly deep into each. I seem to remember, back in the day, that our Zoomies and Rotorheads used to love to see stuff blow up. I would hope that hasn't changed although with the PCification of the military I am not so sure. Have the Weapons Officers in the back seats of those jets all been replaced by JAG Lawyers yet? Or is that next?

I do not understand why there is one brick standing on another through Iran. I do not know why Halliburton doesn't have the contract to rebuild. I blame the Democrats.

Look out! It's Eddie. Everyone must watch out for Big Ed. He doesn't really understand that he's no bigger than a minute, he just knows that he is descended from wolves.

William Is Four

We had a small gathering Sunday, just the grandparents and William's parents, and, of course, William's little brother, Josiah. Next weekend is the big party, at Chuck E Cheese, I shall be too ill to show up there, actually I have permission to skip it, that many kids would be bound to give me another stroke.

From the top, that is William and his parents, Dean and Stephanie, next is Gramps and Josiah, the next two are William, his dad and one with Pele, their mess dog. That was my New Years Eve, whoopie!

Oddball Stew

I am teaching myself to cook new things, nothing fancy, just things I have never learned to cook before. I have never really learned to cook beef stew, having always been a pot roast sort of feller. A while back though, I was at Wally World just after they had put "yesterdays" meat out, marked down and there was some really pretty looking stew meat. So I bought it and pitched it in the freezer, along with a couple bags of stew vegetables, a couple of extra potatoes and some onions, the stew veggies never have enough potato and onion.

There was also the little envelope of stew spices, probably McCormick. In reading the directions I discovered that we are supposed to put some flour in the water, that is why our pot roasts were never like Momma made, I reckon.

So I poured a little oil into the big pot and started browning the beef, added the water and then some flour, too much it turned out, so I added more water until it was still too thick but manageable,cooked it for a while, then it was time for the veggies. Trouble is, I had added so much water that the right amount of veggies made it a soup, not a stew, no problem, I added more veggies.

So I ate it until the beef was gone and I still had a lot of juice and veggies left. I was wondering what to do and then I dropped into the little "supermarket" nearest my little house, a Brookshires in Quinlan. Linda Lou wanted the Sunday paper and I wanted a can of black eyed peas to eat for good luck, it was just after they closed the deli and so they had a bunch of stuff marked down including about a foot and a half or so of smoked sausage. Did I mention that marked down tastes better? Next month sometime the brand new WalMart is opening, no more driving twenty-six miles, one way, just to go shopping! Bet the prices come down at the Brookshires, too. Ooh! And the first race of the NASCAR season! Woot!

So I cut up the sausage and dropped it in the stuff in the stew pot. I boiled the whole mess for a little bit and now I have another couple of days rations.

Of course, the real trouble is that with just the two of us anything we cook it too much for us, so we eat it until we are just tired of it and then the dogs get it. We have fat dogs. So anyway, here is a new recipe, beef stew with all the beef gone and a batch of smoked sausage toss in. I shall call it oddball stew. It tastes pretty good.

I Did Not Cry

Saddam is officially dead and I did not cry.

In new far more important, today is my grandson William's fourth birthday. We'll be going to a small party later so there will be pictures in the next few days.

Until then, happy New Year.

Thinking About Global Warming.

I took Eddie out to pee, and to fire the other barrel. To do so I had to put on my thermal underwear, my sweats, a jacket, a watch cap and a jacket and gloves. Could be worse, I could be in North Dakota or Wisconsin or some awful place where they allow snow. (Why don't the legislatures up there pass a law?)It got me to thinking about the global warming zealots (the same bunch that was convinced we were all gonna die in the new ice age) talking about how we are all gonna die because it's going to get three degrees hotter.

Here is what I don't understand, we are all going to die because the ice will melt and the seas will rise a whole foot or so. Just how much of Holland is below sea level? When did the Dutch build those dikes? Long before my time, right? Except for New Orleans, aren't the rest of us smart enough to put up some dikes? Are we not as smart as the Dutch of a couple hundred years back?

I have a lot of trouble adjusting to Algore telling us we are all going to die because it will get a few degrees warmer. We have people living everywhere from Yuma, Arizona to Anchorage, Alaska, we seem to be a pretty resilient bunch. Perhaps Algore will die over a few degrees, the rest of us will move a hundred miles north. Except, of course, in Australia. They'll go south. It warmed up at the end of the Dark Ages and our ancestors survived. I'm told that if it warms up some, the growing seasons will be longer and there will be more to eat. Of course, looking at Algore lately, maybe that is the problem. Nobody will be hurt by the heat, Algore is just worried that he'll explode.

I figure my grandchildren are pretty smart kids. If it gets too hot for them to live in Texas, Arizona and North Carolina, where they are now, they can move to Siberia and wear tank tops in January. The way the Ruskies are dying off, they might as well. There will certainly be enough room.

And another thing, in between all of us dying from the coming ice age to all of us dying from the big hot spell, were we not all supposed to die from Nuclear Winter? How's about we figure out how many nukes we'd need for a Nuclear Springtime? We could drop the first one on Tehran and just work our way down a list until we have perfect weather. One on Khartoum would stop the genocide in Darfur, a nice small one on the Aswan High Dam in Egypt would let the rest of Islam know what it means when they talk about throwing Israel into the sea.

We could start a little pool, how many nukes would it take to make for good weather and would that be enough to calm Islamic Rage Boy down a notch or three or will we have to rebuild the Napalm refineries. We can Napalm 'till there is global warming, nuke until it cools off and just repeat until the surivivors of Islam decide to play nice with the rest of the world.

There, I've solved the two big problems of the world, all from staying home today so as to not bring this cold to the grandkids. With a little luck the cold will be over by William's birthday party. If I don't get over the cold by then, somebody give me another big problem to solve.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all.

Vicious Killer Attack Pugs

Linda Lou got herself a new camera, an itty-bitty HP Photosmart M527. We are still learning to use it but here are a couple of doggie pictures. I am still not real happy with a camera with no little window to look through, especially on moving targets like children, dogs and suchlike. Oh well, our old camera has the little window so it lives hanging from my guncart so I'm not endangering the new one at a Cowboy Action Match. Not that anyone would shoot it, but Linda Lou worries about me dropping it.

Our old camera is a Toshiba PDR-M61. As far as I can tell, photo quality is the same, although I may need new bifocals. The big difference is that we can't carry the old one around in a shirt pocket. Of course I never carry it that way and Linda Lou doesn't have very many shirts with pockets.

I suppose there is some sort of scientifical reason than these electronic cameras wait when you push the button to take the picture, usually until the dog has moved so we see nothing but the dog's butt. Or maybe the camera makers are Malthusian types and just want my blood pressure way up there.

Odds And Ends

There isn't much going on down here in the Poorfarm. We had our Cowboy Action Shooting Club's Christmas dinner and get together on Saturday night. As always, Mexican Food. I will not comment about a bunch of middle-aged and older men, and their wives, in a closed room eating frijoles, we've all seen that understated masterpiece, Blazing Saddles.

We, as usual, got our share of strange looks, even in Texas people look at you funny for wearing the old-style cowboy clothers. Or maybe it was the frijoles.

It looks like I'm going to have to pay a visit to the Fabled Tequila Mines Of Cuervo. I was drinking a cherry limeade from Sonic the other day and somehow Eddie the Pug Puppy got 'hold of a lime slice. I have never seen a dog that loves lime slices before, Eddie may be the first. I tested Ming the Merciless with a lime slice, she wrinkled her nose and backed away which is more like it. Oh well, if we load him up with Margeritas we'll have a lot more peace and quiet. With my luck he'd be a fighting drunk.

Linda Lou's minivan is in the shop so we're driving a rental. A Dodge Caliber. It's okay, just another small car except to one thing. You can wear a hat inside. Most of the little moterised roller skates these day you just can't wear a real hat, there isn't room. Even the bigger cars you can't get in and out while wearing a hat. I am beminded of Walter Chrysler who, when the longer and lower craze first started said "I build cars to drive, not to p--- over."

When we bought the minivan we were also looking at a Jeep Grand Cherokee, I then drove one while the minivan was getting some kind of service, we upgraded the rental that time. I could not get in and out without taking off my hat, the roofline was too low. The new Grand Cherokee may have this fixed, the guy from the rental company was driving one for the pickup at the dealership, and, at least on the passenger side of the front, it worked for me. I didn't use to care about wearin' a hat. Right up until I didn't have enough hair left to keep my head from sunburning.

Well, that's all I have, it isn't much.

What Did They Study?

Oaky, let me get this straight. The Iraq Study Group studied Iraq by going once to the Green Zone and only Chuck Robb got out of that particular place and went to an FOB.

Meanwhile they had no testimony from a single Lance Corporal in The Corps or a Staff Sgt. in the Army, nor any Colonals running Regiments or Brigades.

After all this study they want us to involve Iran nand Syria in the solution to the problem when probably half, or more, of the fighters and weapons killing our troops come from Iran and Syria.

Did this crowd study LSD?

Name For A Dave Barry Rock Band?

Britney Spears' crotch seems to be leading the news today. Linda Lou and I are a little over 120 years old, combined and we've both gone our whole lives without either of our crotches being featured on the Drudge Report or Michelle Malkin.

Of course, I don't get out much, is Britney Spears' Crotch the name of a new rock band?

Linda Lou's Kansas Farm Woman Cinnamon Rolls

Blogfaddah Harvey wanted this recipe. Don't nobody blame me if his, or hers, belly drags on the ground. These things are a once per year recipe.

Two tsp sugar, one half cup lukewarm water, one package yeast. any cook knows the drill, dissolve sugar in water, add yeast, dissolve. Let stand ten minutes.
Scald one and one half cups milk, add one half cup sugar and one half tsp salt. Cool.
Add two beaten eggs, , three cups all purpose flour, yeast mixture and three more cups flour.
Knead a little. (May need to add a little more flour)
Cover and let rise for twenty minutes.
Knead on lightly floured board until dough springs back when punched with finger.
Let rise until doubled, about an hour.
Roll out and spread with eight ounces of soft margarine or butter.
Add three cups brown sugar and eight tsp cinnamon.
Roll in long roll, cut in one inch slices. Twirl the slices into rolls. Place in nine by twelve by two inch cake pan.
Let rise until doubled.
Bake at 350 degrees F for twenty to twenty five minutes.
Flip out of pan.

Eat.

A Recipe For Army Wife, Toddler Mom

My pal Army Wife, Toddler Mom is asking for baked goods recipes, cookies, and suchlike.

We have a standby here that we try to never be without. It's her Grandma Hagen's Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. Linda Lou eats six of these cookies a day as a meal and has lost a WHOLE LOT of weight on this diet. Oddly this started before she retired and her diet consisted of six oatmeal raisin cookies and a Sonic double cheeseburger and tater tots each workday. I make no guarantee that anyone else will lose weight on this diet but it worked for her.

At any rate here is the recipe...Grandma Hagen's Oatmeal Raisin Cookies:

Two sticks margarine, the cheap stuff
Two Eggs
One cup sugar
Two cups flour (all purpose, not self rising)
One tsp baking soda
One tsp Cinnamon
One half tsp allspice
one half tsp nutmeg
Pinch salt (new salt, not an old salt like Harvey)
Two Cups quick oats
One cup cooked raisins (note cook raisins in a small pan with water. Bring to a rolling boil, turn off heat)
five tsp raisin juice. (Raisin juice is the the water the raisins boiled in.)

Soften margarine. Linda Lou puts the margarine on top of the stove, in the back where the over vent is. She has it unwrapped, in the mixer bowl. This is first, she does everything else while the oven preheats.

Blend in sugar and eggs.

Blend or sift flour, soda, spices and salt.

Add flour, oatmeal, raisins and juice.

Mix until the dough forms a ball. (If you don't have a mixer use a stout spoon, this dough is thick. Until we got a mixer I had one arm like Popeye)

Spoon onto lightly greased cookie sheet. (Linda Lou squirts the cookie sheet all over with Pam and then wipes the excess off with a clean paper towel.)

Bake at 350F for ten to twelve minutes.

Did I mention that Linda Lou lost a lot of weight eating six of these cookies a day?

Anvil Al Memorial Birthday Shoot

Saturday was another cowboy action shoot and also it was Anvil Al's Birthday. His wife and a couple of confederates cooked up a mountain of brisket and beans, potato salad and sundries to celebrate.

I think Anvil Al ought to have a birthday on the second Sunday and last Saturday of every month. I have no pictures of the actual eating, this is after all, a G rated Blog. Had y'all been there you would know why we have those bandannas around our necks.

The shooting was going along nicely, right up until I "missed the bucket", again. The residual damage from the stroke I had made the ring and little fingers of my right hand numb and weak. Those are the fingers I use most when reholstering a shootin' iron. Ooops! I was going along in my first clean stage of the shoot and then, all of a sudden there was a six shooter on the floor of the Sportin' House. Fortunately I only seem to drop the iron when reholstering so it's only a stage disqualification. Had the gun been loaded it would have been a match DQ.

Anyway I was my usual slow but semi-accurate self, shooting black powder and putting up clouds of gun smoke, the barbecue beans, later, added more smoke.

The smoothing out of my shotgun chambers helps a lot, without that stage DQ I would have been in the middle, someplace, insead of next to the last. It doesn't matter all that much where I place, I'm never going to be a champ at this. The champs have better nerves and reflexes than I do. Cowboy action is just plain fun, no matter where I place and the shooting is okay practice. So what if my main defense revolver is a double action? Shooting is shooting. Since most bad guys never practice, even at my worst I'm better than they are. Cowboy action has certainly helped my shotgun shooting, my buckshot loads don't kick near as much as those black powder cowboy action loads.

Anyhow, the weather was near-perfect, cool and cloudy in the morning, clear and warmer by the time the shoot was over. I like shooting black powder when it is cloudy and humid, it makes more smoke. It's harder to shoot fast, though, not only does the smoke hide the targets but the flame and sparks from the gun going' off is distracting. Instead of swinging to the next target and searching for the front sight I'm watching the flames.

Oh well, good company, good food and a pretty nice day.

The Return Of The Prodigal Puppy

Linda Lou and I were sleeping the sleep of the just, the sleep of only those with a good conscience when the phone rang. It was the vet's offices telling me that someone had found Eddie. Well, we dressed fast and headed out.and, sure enough, there he was, at a "resort" and marina about three miles off. Maybe a mile and a half as the crow flies, not being a crow I'm not positive. At any rate we drove among the house trailers and the feller that found him was outside with him. Eddie was glad to see us.

As soon as I opened the car door, Eddie jumped in. We both got a ton of puppy kisses and Ming The Merciless, peas be unto her, barked hysterically at Larry. Eddie is fine, skinny as a rail and covered in ticks. He's been eating his little head off and has had a bath with flea and tick soap.

It's too bad he wasn't found yesterday, he would have enjoyed the cooking of the turkey breast. He got a hunk of turkey today, though. I have decided to leave his food dish down all the time until Monday and let him get filled up good and then go back to the housebreaking routine.

You might guess that Linda Lou is really happy.

Who Knew She Is Muslim?

I am not sure what adjustments we are going to have to make in our household routine but we just discovered that Ming The Merciless is a Muslim dog. I guess I will have to write to "Ask_The_Ayatollah.com" or "Query_The_Q'ran".org" or somesuch to figure out what to do.

At any rate her Muslim background may explain why she bites my fingers when I give her a treat, she's so small that's the best she can do with her Jihad.

One might wonder how we discovered that Ming is Muslim, let me explain...
I was eating dinner and shaking rather more than usual and dropped some peas. Ming snatched them up before they had a chance to bounce or roll, ate every one and begged for more. This prooves she is Muslim, because..............

Peas Be Unto Her.

High Finance

I just saw on Drudge that Google stock is up to $500.00 a share. Now I don't understand much about finance, I barely understand lunch money. I am curious, though. I use Firefox and it has Google connections. It's free. I have a G-mail account. It's free. I regularly Google stuff on line when I want to figure out the answer to(mostly) unimportant questions. It's free. Okay, there are a few little ads that I never look at.

So, here is my question... Here is a business giving away it's product and services and each individual share is worth FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS! What does a shareholder get? How in the world does a company that gives it's service away make a profit to the stockholders?

I don't understand, am I an idiot or do folks with disposable income just enjoy throwing it away?

Didn't we just go through this same thing at the end of the Clinton Administration with the bursting of the Great Dot Com Bubble?

Update: in comments my Pal, Teresa, who is pretty smart even if she's some kind of Yankee, says that Google makes bazillions of bucks from advertisors. Okay, I believe it but then I must ask, who reads the ads? I read some at first but quit because when they're ads claiming to have what I'm looking for I always managed to find it cheaper. So, I never read the ads.

Granted I might be just a little unusual but I'm certainly not unique. I don't know for sure but somebody, the advertisors or the stockholders will eventually get sc, um, oh well, I just hope they're all getting kissed.

New Blog!

Well, my pal Army Wife, Toddler Mom has a new kid, a blog-daughter. It's a good thing AWTM lives in Arkansas because this virtual daughter is already in her twenties.
Anyhow you can find KD over at her blog, The Life Of The Wife.

While we wait for his return we might all take turns worrying and praying so that KD can maybe take a two minute break every once in a while.

Duke Of Trousers

A while back I was looking over the classified ads on the SASS Wire, the cowboy action bulletin board, and noticed that a Pard was selling some Horsefly pants. No, not pants for a horsefly, that is just the brand name. The guy who made these is retired now but was quite well known for the quality of his work.

Anyhow, the guns and holsters are only a small part of the expense involved in the sport of Cowboy Action Shooting, the "right" clothes are real expensive. That shirt I have on in that picture is forty-bucks and not even perma press.

So, when I saw four pairs of these pants for ten bucks a pair I sprained a finger typing "I'll take 'em" and posting it. Now, a minor difficulty is that I didn't NEED four pairs of button fly, no belt loop, three pocket pants, iron every time you walk past pants. There are those who are really into the costume part of the sport, I'm really just there for the noise and stinky black powder smoke but, for a few days I was the Pants King of Lake Tawokonie. As luck would have it, though, another Pard, out California way wanted to buy those pants, too. So I sold him two pair and instead of the Pants King I am merely the Trouser Duke.

If anyone cares this is the first pair of green trousers I've had since back when I wore Uncle's Suit.

Eddie Didn't Come Home

Well, we've lost another puppie. I took Eddie out to pee the other night and then Ming came out and they went off to sniff around. Eddie didn't come home and searching proved useless.

Owl? Coyote? Mean people? Who knows. Foo.

Veteran's Day

Eighty-eight years ago the lights came on in Europe after four years of Hell on Earth. No one knew then that it was the beginning of the end of Europe's dominance of the globe.

Just as Decoration Day morphed into Memorial Day, Armistice Day turned into Veteran's Day. A day to remember not just the heroes, the Chesty Pullers and Silent Lew Walts, the Manila John Basilones and the Audie Murphys, but the other guys like me, and now gals, who put on Uncle's suit and did what they were told in unglamorous jobs.

I don't often think about my time in the Service, life is in the way. Every once in a while, though, I think back. I don't remember the lack of sleep and the bad food, I don't think of the hours of boredom or the moments of terror.

Instead I remember that once I stood with heroes.

Two Anniversaries.

Two anniversaries today. Two hundred and thirty-one years ago the Continental Congress created two battalions of Marines.

Fast forward a little bit and my then-fiance, Linda Lou wanted us to marry on a day I couldn't forget. So, November tenth. Semper Fi, twice.

Pictures

By popular demand, puppy photos! Don't nobody dare tell me that Quality Weenie isn't popular.

In other news the Donks seem to have got some new law on the books. It seems to be against the rules to stand in the driveway of the polling place with a gun and a sign "No Donks!" Foo. I never have any fun.

Anybody know how Frank J is doing with his ASP Baton?

Vote

Just a note on this laptop...vote. I know a lot of conservatives are disgruntled, I have my problems with the bunch running the show in DC. I'm still going to pull the straight Republican Ticket.

Of course, it is easier for me, there are very few RINOs running here in Texas. Still, even a RINO will prevent a Speaker Pelosi. A RINO will help prevent a Donk taking our tax cuts away and, most importantly, will keep up the fight against Islamic terrorism. Nor should we forget judges.

It is somewhat easier for me, too, because I knew all along that Dubya is not, and has not been, a classic conservative. I knew that from the time I met him when he was first running for Governor of Texas. That was during my big political career when I was a Republican Precinct Chairman.

So, vote. Hold your nose if you must, just vote. Don't forget, the polls are supposed to be crowded this year so we Rupublicans vote Tuesday and the Donks vote Wednesday.

My Computer Bit The Dust.

My computer has bitten the dust. I am online only due to this miserable little laptop that is a pain to type on. Between that and the near-impossibility of housebreaking this idiot puppy I have no time to blog.

My computer just quit going online. I paid to have a modem put in, it seems to have made the problem worse. I could at least play solitaire on it, now it won't even do that.

Limbaugh V Fox, Or Is It?

The Michael J. Fox vs Rush Limbaugh would not be nearly so interesting if the Legacy Media would report it straight.

I was listening to Rush on (last) Monday, when he first mentioned the Fox commercial. A couple of things should be noted from the start. First is Rush's admiration for Fox as an actor. The second is Rush's puzzlement. Although Rush is, and was, aware of Fox's bout with Parkinsons he had never seen Fox acting as he was in that commercial. So, he asked a simple question, was he acting or was he off his meds or what. I understand that Rush tried to illustrate what he was talking about on the dittocam, not watching TV or having that service on line, I only know what I heard.

Later in the program Rush mentioned the E-mails he was getting discussing that Fox has written that he does go off his meds when he wants to illustrate the symptoms.

This started a tidal wave, seems that it is illegal, immoral and fattening to notice a Donk's disease. It is quite all right to notice a Repubs's. Just look at how Limbaugh's addiction and deafness are treated compared to say, Courtney Love's or any one of a dozen other Hollywood types. Except, of course, Mel Gibson's. But I digress.

One thing about this controversy that is important is that one side is lying. The ad that started all this is about the Missouri Constitutional amendment about cloning. Since this amendment has very little to do with stem cell research the proponents have named it the stem cell research amendment or some such nonsense. Please note that adult stem cell research is perfectly legal, even supported by Federal tax dollars. There is also much research done with fetal stem cell research, existing lines of these stems cells are eligible for Federal money. New lines are perfectly legal, too. They just do not get Federal cash. Considering that there have been zero (that is less than one) disease that has had any progress noted through fetal stem cell research, that sounds pretty fair to me. If private research comes up with any progress, fine. Then we can discuss a change. I am not sure that my twilight years are worth the death of a fetus but, fine, let us talk. Just, please, don't misname the amendment. Don't claim that backdooring human cloning is making cloning illegal and that it will cure me.

Don't promise that I will never shake again if only we elect Democrats. Don't attack Rush for asking questions. Mr. Fox has injected himself into this story and we aren't supposed to talk about it. Y'all bemember how no Donk talked about Rush's addiction? This a pretty good deal for the Donks, they make up these rules that they say whatever they please and we have to take it and keep our mouths shut..

I don't buy it. Nor do I care that Rush is not an expert on Parkinsons. That is my neurologist job. I don't ask Rush for medical advice, I don't ask Doc Walker for political news.

By the way, anybody notice that Fox's foundation is putting durned near two million dollars to support research in a viral therapy for Parkinsons? Not fetal stem cell, viral. Hmmm. So, HIS money is going for something showing some hope. Good. I like that. So, how much of his own money goes to fetal stem cell research?

Nap Is Over

Hi, my two month nap is over. All two of you are either glad or appalled. I have a couple of posts in my head that I will type out soon.

As some know, I have Parkinsons and will comment on the Limbaugh/Fox kerfluffle, I will be somewhat unique there because I have listened to Limbaugh all this week and have yet to see or hear Fox.

The other thing in my head is an appreciation of the .30-06 cartridge, I need to get that out while it is still the centennial year since some ordnance types dreamed up the old warhorse.

So Much For Freedom

Today is, I believe, the day that freedom of speech is lost until after the election. We are not allowed to say anything about politics without official permission from those who are supposed to work for us.

I shall never forgive that scumbag McCain. I expect the Democrats to be anti freedom, that is what they do. I would not vote for a Donk, anyway, not on a bet. I will, though, never, ever, vote for any Representative or Senator who voted for this bill.

John McCain is a crook. He was in the Keating scandal up to his eyebrows. He claims that we are not supposed to spend our very own money because he is a crook. Wouldn't have been better for him to retire instead of attacking our freedom?

McCain is a crook. Pass it on.

A Swarm O' Grandkids

We had a special treat this week, three of the four kids were in town so we had seven of the grandkids in one place. I have them in some kind of order, it is, from top to bottom, Ethan, Nathaniel and John Mark, belonging to Robin and Meleah.

Next are William and Josiah Dean, they go with Stephanie and Dean. That is Linda Lou holding Josiah. She is responsible for this whole mess.

The bottom two are Michael Jr and Alexandra Dawn, those are Michael and Jennifer's.

Now it is time to nap for about two months.

Meet Josiah Dean R-----

Here is a picture of my new grandson, Josiah Dean. I guess it is time to change my blurb at the top of this Blog, he is grandson number seven, grandchild number eight.
Those who care about such things he weighed seven pounds four ounces and was born at 8 38 AM, Central Daylight Time yesterday morning.

Mothers and those who expect to become mothers will be exceedingly jealous. The kids got to the hospital at six AM, the boy was in the outside world two and a half hours later. Mother and baby are well as is the father. Grandparents are all proud as peacocks.

Frustrating, But I Won My Class

I won my catagory at yesterdays shoot. Well, maybe I lost. It's hard to figure it out when I scored the highest in my class and the lowest. Yup. I was the only one shooting Frontrier Cartridge.

A better idea about how I did is that I was 18th overall, still down toward the bottom of the pack. I think I might have gotten closer to the top fifteen had I not blown the order in which I had to engage the targets. That mistake cost me a ten second "P" or procedural penalty. Other than that one disaster I managed to run the match with only one other miss, I think. I'll know for sure when the club puts the scores up on the website. My time is improving, too. Granted, the top shooters in Cowboy Action shoot a stage in twenty to thirty seconds and I am still just over a minute per stage but then the top shooters are not shooting .45 Colt with black powder loads, either. I am not going to cry about shooting ten rounds, from two handguns plus ten tounds from a lever action rifle and then four rounds from a starting empty mule ear double shotgun in a minute. I suspect that, as I practice I shall get the time per stage down to 45 seconds or so. I'm still having some problems drawing and holstering and picking up and grounding the long guns. The problems are more due to that stroke than poor equipment. Still, an hour or so of practice three or four times a week would help, too. Too bad I don't practice.

At least I managed the shoot without dropping a gun, that's something.

I need to put off road wheels on my guncart. It is so dry around here that there is a real danger of breaking an ankle stepping into the cracks in the black earth. It hasn't rained around here since Moby Dick was a minnow.

The Big Lube Boolits are a real success. I finally got around to shooting the .454 diameter 250 grain Pigeon Roost Slim slugs in the rifle. The .452s shot very well in my revolvers but poorly in the rifle. I have no idea why the revolvers are so much more forgiving than the rifle. It may be just a matter of expectations. I EXPECT a rifle with a 24 inch barrel and a Marble's Tang Sight to shoot a group of around an inch, inch and a half at fifty yards and two inches or so at a hundred. The .452s did not do so with the only load I tried in the rifle. Perhaps a different load would tighten the groups up. I suspect that a full charge of The Holy Black would cause the base of the bullet to slug up to completely fill the barrel. Then I'd have to put up with the complaints about my "hot" loads being hard of the steel targets. With the .454s I had no problem with my load of 28 grains of GOEX FFG, a .7 CC scoop of instant grits, uncooked of course and the bullet. Note that I fired sixty rounds, over six stages. There was plenty of time between the stages for the black powder fouling to harden and tie up the gun. In that heat it would have. The last round was just as accurate and chambered and extracted just as easily as the first.

The only differnce between the Big Lube Boolit and a regular cast bullet is that the Big Lube carries at least five times the lubricant as a bullet made for that newfangled fad smokeless stuff.With my home cast bullets I only get ten rounds or so until the fouling turns too hard and starts giving problems in the revolvers. In the rifle I started having problems right off the bat. Twenty-four inches of barrel is just way too much for two skinny grease grooves.

Of course my homecast bullets shoot just fine with a grease cookie underneath the bullet. That what I will be shooting when I run our of the Big Lubes, at least until I can afford the new mold. There are only two reasons for using the Big Lube Boolit instead of the regular one. The grease cookie takes a lot of room in the case that can be filled with powder. That is not important for Cowboy Action since I download anyway. The time spent loading rounds makes the Big Lube matter to the handloader. It is just so much faster to por a scoop full of dry grits into the case than it is to take a freshly powdered case, push a sheet of beeswax over the casemouth, making a wad. Then we have to push the wad down on the powder. Then put a dollop od soft black powder lube in the case and finally add a card or vegetable fiber wad on top of all that and now seat and crimp the bullet.

Whew! I'm tired just writing that, it's worse doing it. What is even more fun is having to make the sheets of beeswax since no one seems to make sheets. Linda Lou does not much like me making the beeswax sheets since I always manage to drip wax all over her kitchen. Speaking of which, if I cook at least half the meals, how come it's her kitchen?

The other main advantage of the Big Lube Boolits is that it took four patches to clean my rifle and not much more than that to clean each revolver.

The Big Lube Boolits also come in full size rifle sizes, too. There are two for the .45-70 and other .45 caliber rifles, a 390 grain and a five hundred grain, and a 240 grain for the .38-55. These would be really good for long range rifle competion and for hunting. I have heard some rumblings about molds for cartridges like the .32-40 and the various .40 caliber rifles, too. If enough people are interested Dick Dastardly will be pleased to have to molds made. Big Lube Boolits.

Update: 8/20/06. Don't ask why I forgot to finish and post this all week. Too busy playing with a puppy, I recon.

Busy.

I've been busy lately, busy trying to housebreak a puppy, busy with the grown dog and busy getting the ammo loaded for this Sunday's Cowboy Action Shoot.

Ming is sick, mainly seems to be abscessed teeth that will have to come out. It wouldn't be so bad except that she fights the antibiotic tablets that we have to give her twice a day to get the swelling down so that the Vet can do the tooth (teeth?) removal. She was refusing all food and water a few days ago, now, after some of the antibiotic pills she is eating food that we have soaked in water. Still, the pills are a battle. We've wrapped them in cheese and peanut butter and soaked dog food, it doesn't matter. It is going to be fun trying to shoot this Sunday with my fingers torn off.

I am having some luck with Eddie. He is peeing on the paper and outside. Unfortunately he enjoys firing the other barrel near the paper. I keep explaining to him that I have a perfectly good brick with which to beat him. Sill, he comes bouncing in from outside and runs right to the paper and then poops alongside it.

I have managed to load up enough ammo for the Shoot this Sunday. I ave loaded up one hundred rounds with the new Big Lube Boolits, the .454 diameter 250 grain Pigeon Roost Slim bullets.I already have quite a bit of ammo loaded with the .452 diameter bullets for the handguns. This is all loaded with GOEX FFG black powder, also known as The Holy Black and the One True Powder. The .452 bullets are as accurate as anything in my revolvers but very inaccurate in my rifle. I am hoping that the .454s will cure the problem. If not I shall go back to my home cast bullets and a grease cookie along with those Remington .455 swaged lead bullets.

I also have all my all-brass shotshell cases loaded up. I finally got around to weighing the shot charge, right around an ounce and three eighths of my mad scientist mix of number six and number nine birdshot. No wonder the recoil is somewhat sporty, that is a heavy load of shot. Three drams of Black Powder behind those shot charges. I am on my last bag of the now discontinued Winchester Red Wads in those shotshells. I have most of a thousand of the Circle Fly fiber cushion wads that work beautifully when I want a super open pattern, poorly when I want the patterns that work for the game I play.

It seems to have something to do with the way the forcing cones are cut in modern shotguns as opposed to the old shotguns. Old guns work best with the fiber wads, modern ones with plastic. Although my mule ear double looks old, it has the modern forcing cones.

I also filled up the rest of the box of .45 Caliber Shot Capsules with number nine birdshot for the blowing away of snakes. I have three more empty boxes for when I manage to buy some number twelve shot. Mike Venturino, a noted authority on the arms and ammo of the last half of the Nineteenth Century, swears by number twelve shot in handgun shotshells. This 12 shot is deadly on snakes at handgun ranges, trouble is that it has so little mass that it won't hold velocity for ranges for anything else. The shot caps hold just over 157 grains of number nine shot. There is the problem, fifty rounds of birshot shells is a lifetime supply. So, what to do with the rest of the bag of shot?

I have been following the War on Terror with great interest, in Britain, Israel and Lebanon as well as here. There are many, far smarter than me commenting. I have just one question, why can we not terrorise the Muslims a little bit? Say just enough that they have to stay home to keep us from killing them? Just a thought.

Edward T. Dog

The apprentice Pug has finally told Linda Lou his name. Eddie, he will be Edward T. Dog to those with whom he is not yet on a casual-friend basis. Assuming there is ever any such being.

Etowah River Leather

Here are the pictures of the new gunleather that I promised about two months ago. This rig is from Etowah River Leather in Baird, Texas. I try not to stay up nights trying to figure out why a one-man holster company in Texas is named after a river in Georgia.

The rig starts with a three inch wide, lined belt. Note to those considering wearing heavy iron: the wider the belt the better. A heavy shootin' iron worn on a narrow belt is an instrument of torture. Bemember those half to three quarter inch belts that were popular back when I had a full head of hair? Put an N Frame S&W revolver holster on one of those and the rig would slowly cut you in two. This particular belt has no cartridge loops. For one thing, the holstermaker, Brazos Jack, known to the IRS as Jim Simmons was making this rig to illustrate his pattern for a Single Six Rig and a row of heavy caliber cartridge loops would not fit the pattern. Instead he included a pouch on a clip That fits where I want to put it. It is easy enough to put as many rounds as I need for the rifle and handguns in. Most stages do not need a reload, anyway. I simply keep a couple of rounds in the pouch in case I miss a "must fall" knockdown target or accidentally eject a live round. There are other reasons for no cartridge loops, too. Such as Jim didn't know if I was shooting a .45 or a .38. I shall not complain, if I decide I'm desperate for cartridge loops I'll pay him for a belt slide like the shotgun slide that clips on the front of the belt. Assuming, of course, that I ever see any cash again.

Next on the lineup are two straight draw holsters. These holsters are lined with smooth leather. This is great for the finish of the revolvers. The rough leather of an unlined holster can catch dust and grit and act as if it were sandpaper. The downside is that we need to be more careful about engaging the hammer thong as the iron can fall out easier. I seldom stand on my head while wearing a pair of shootin' irons, though. If I must I'll slip the hammer thongs on.

There is still some controversy about straight draw verses a strong side and a cross draw rig. I have pretty much decided that I am a two straight draw man, primarily because of the "crossdraw shuffle" that CAS requires. This is so no one breaks the 170 degree rule as they draw. Oddly if one simply stands with the left foot forward he can draw from a left side crossdraw holster without violating that rule. It doesn't matter, though. If one tries the crossdraw without an exaggerated swaying of hips there is a whole lot of hooraw from people who think that to shoot a gun one must be a choreogpher. Without them I'd wear a strong side right holster and a cross draw on the left.

Brazo Jack is one of the few holstermakers I know of that does not believe in wet molding the holsters. I'm still getting used to that after some forty years, or more, of dunking a holster in the horse trough and letting it dry around a well greased gun. I can't complain about the speed, though. The irons come out of the leather like they were jet propelled. I should have taken a picture of my hideout holster for my Ruger SP101, it is wet molded.

A look at the very bottom picture shows how the top of the holster is slightly rolled out, this makes it a lot easier to reholster the weapon. A look at the pictures shows the border tooling done on this rig. Every one of those tool marks was put on by hitting a little chisel with a small hammer.

This rig is further embellished by a "State Of Texas" concho on each holster.

Brazos Jack does not keep a stock, each item is made to order. He is fairly fast, I would be surprised to see a basic rig taking more than six weeks or so, unless he was real busy.

One can also order the patterns and plans for several of his rigs if you are the kind of person who is handy.

Jim's website is and is well worth checking out. I also have his snail mail and phone number, a note will get it to you.

Hidecrafter

This issue of Shoot Magazine has a nice article with professional pictures. I don't know how much their website will give you but it is here.

Out Of Memory

I tried posting a couple of picures of the new, old Pug. This time the blogspot would let me upload them and I can see them on the preview. When I try to put the preview up on to the actual Blog, though, I get the same old post from day before yesterday. Then I hit the "refresh" button and I get a little message that says "out of memory at line two".

Line two of what? Which memory, the computer? Blogspot? Me? I will confess that my memory is really awful, since the stroke but I don't know that the computer knows about that.

Update: Whatever it was fixed itself. Good.

Here She Is, Miss America!

Blogspot seems to be over it's tantrum and is allowing me to post some pictures.

This is Ming. Linda Lou didn't much like that name but it seems to be growing on her. That's good since it's the name that Ming has had since she was seven weeks old.