Behold! The Power Of The Cookies

I've blogged before about Linda Lou's oatmeal raisin cookies. They are her Grandma Hagen's recipe and they are a hit everywhere they go. I sometimes take a bag of them as a reward for those who do me favors. Like my gunsmith. My '92 Winchester clone is very difficult to detail strip and get it back together and I like to shoot black powder cartridges in it. So, a couple times a year I have to detail strip it and clean the black powder residue off the small parts and out of the nooks and crannies. Well, a dozen oatmeal raisin cookies gets me a spot to strip it down, clean it up and, when needed, help getting it back together. Price ten minutes of a professional gunsmith's time and see what a bargain those cookies bring me.

Well, I took a baker's dozen of those cookies with me to my Cardiologist's offices yesterday, I figure anybody keeping me alive deserves a few cookies.

Every month my insurance company sends me a statement about how much I pay and how much they pay for my medications. Since I am on social security disability, the government pays for my premiums. I am always careful to thank the taxpayers in the store when I pick up my meds. Well, anyhow after the Doc got his bag of cookies (enough to share with the staff) he had his nurses dig around and fill a bag with physician's samples of over two months of one expesive scrip and three months of another.

This is some five hundred dollars worth of pills. Of course my out of pocket cost is five dollars and thirty-five cents per month per scrip, so I guess the taxpayers should send me a card or something. Or not. The reality is that a bag of cookies is a nice surprise for those who do good things for us and sometimes the reward is great.

Carbon Footprint?

So I was listening to the radio and it seems that a ship, owned by an eco-warrior friend of Algore, had a batch of eco-tourists on board to check out the ravages of glow-ball worming. So they go down to Antarctica, run in to an iceberg, sink with 48,000 gallons of marine diesel in the tanks. So what is the carbon footprint?

Why do I suspect that the world would be a better place had we saved the diesel fuel and let the eco-warriors sink?

Thanksgiving, 2007

We drove up to Plano for Thanksgiving dinner with Dean and Stephanie and the kids. As usual I have much to be thankful for, the finest family a man could have is the start of it.

Actually my family is the last of it, the beginning was a few hundred years ago when a bunch of people got tired of the old country. Somehow they built The United States of America. It wasn't perfect but it was good enough that my ancestors called it Golden America. Since then my family helped to keep building and we are not through yet. Those kids will keep building Golden America, better than they found her. For that I give thanks.

Doggie Friday.

The dogs were having a feeding frenzy, Daddy had a BOWL! Did you know that dogs just love instant vanilla pudding?

I've read that any reference to Ron Paul will drive up traffic for a blog. Now I am not really a Ron Paul expert, Ron Paul comes from the Houston area. Houston is where God would apply the deodorant. Now Ron Paul is not the reason I don't go to Houston for free. I don't go there because big cities suck, I do not think that is Ron Paul's fault. I do not think that Ron Paul helps, though.

Now if Ron Paul came by the house, Ming would bark at Ron Paul. Eddie would jump in Ron Paul's lap. CAP would sniff at Ron Paul's crotch. CAP sniffs every one's crotch, Ron Paul would be no exception. Linda Lou says that it is because CAP's nose is right at Ron Paul's crotch level.

Now if anyone is interested, I don't have anything against Ron Paul except Ron Paul's stance on the war. Now I have no problem with someone being against this war, the thing is Ron Paul is being dishonest about it. Now Congress approved the "use of force". Ron Paul says that we need a declaration of war. I hate to break the bad news to Ron Paul and the Ron Paul supporters but there is no wording required for it to be a declaration of war. Once Congress approved the use of force, that is all that was needed.

Ron Paul should read the Constitution.

Black Powder .45 Colt Shotshells

On one of the Cowboy Action Bulletin Boards I am a member of a Pard was wondering about .45 Colt shotshells. Now I load a few shotshells, with smokeless powder, in both .45 and .38 Special for snakes so I got curious.

Now when I get curious I head for the reloading room and get busy. Many have said that in order to load .45 Colt shotshells you need to start with .444 Marlin rifle cases and cut them down to the cylinder length of the .45, then run the cut down cases through a .44 Special or .44 Mag die to get the front bit of the case to fit the front end of the chamber, then fireform the case.

After all that, then you have to take the fireformed cases and drop the black powder in, then a stiff card wad or, better yet, a gascheck, then add the shot, then another wad or gas check, and crimp everything down. That is a lot of work.

Now, I thought it would be easier to simply drop in some black powder and just seat a Speer Shotcap over the powder. Today I finally tried it. Now the first problem is that black powder is a whole lot bulkier than smokeless. One of the common smokeless loads is 7.5 grains of Unique, remember a "grain " is not an individual speck of powder but a weight measure, 7,000th of a pound. Now there simply isn't room for a normal charge of black powder under a Speer shotcap, this is one of the reasons that black powder almost disappeared in Gramps' day.

I could only get 20 grains of Black in, my .45s usually carry some 35 grains. But then my usual bullet weight in 250 grains and these shotcaps weighed some 169 grains or a little more an a single .45 caliber round ball.

Now there is a Pard that "invented" the .45 Cowboy cartridge, what he did was order a bunch of cases from the Starline Brass people. These cases have the .45 Colt rim and diameter but are only as long as the .45 Automatic Colt Pistol. Another cowboy action Pard devloped a Big Lube Boolit that weighed the same as a round ball but has that great big lube groove, and a more normal, although very short of course, shape. This bullet is named after him, the El Paso Pete bullet.

Another Pard decided to try the Cowboy Cartridge with black powder, he mamaged to put in about 18.5 grains and the El Paso Pete bullet and got over 900 fps. Well, it seemed to me that a little more powder and the same payload weight ought to work for shotshells.

It does. At least at "there's a SNAKE!" range. I took a gunfull of these out with my usual targets, a couple of Linda Lou's plastic soda bottles and let fly. At normal SNAKE! ranges the bottles were nicely speckled with birshot holes. Now after the bottles were hit and flew a bit all the birdshot didn't exit the bottles, I suspect it was those shot that hit the part of the bottle on the ground.

At any rate I shall stick to the more normal smokeless powders for these shotshells. It's not that a smokey shotshells WON'T kill a close up snake, the higher velocity of the smokeless powder would give better penetration at the longer range, though, and after shooting real black your shootin' iron needs to be cleaned fairly quickly while smokeless gives a little more time. But if Black was all I had...

My Head Is Cold

I needed a haircut, badly and we didn't have ten dollars to spare. So, is my hair short enough?

Has It Really Been 232 Years?

It was 1775 that the Continental Congress approved a Corps of Marines to give our sailing ships the power of infantry. Since then the men, and now women, have stood on the ramparts of freedom.

If it's November Tenth it must be our anniversary, Linda Lou didn't want me to forget it. Not much danger of that. Not after nine grandchildren.

Speaking of grandchildren, number ten is due on June 13th, if all goes well. We haven't really been married for 232 years, not even all my life. We've only been married for the part of my life worth remembering.

Waterboarding

I've noticed that the Dems are all up in the air over waterboarding again. I don't understand. From what I have read we've only waterboarded three people lately, all done by the CIA and none since 2003.

Now, excuse me for being a poor dumb redneck but wasn't the CIA still being run by that Democrat-appointed George Tenet back then? Now I don't particularly care if we waterboard a few AlQ types, for all of me we can gouge out their gonads and make them eat them, but then I am not real fond of those who would put my granddaughter in a burqua. However I am aware that a lot of folks don't agree. Or is it that they just don't agree when there is a Republican in the White House?

Anyway, here is my proposal: Every time someone starts screeching about torture we agree how horrible it was that the Clinton appointed Director of the CIA used to allow it but now that Bush has his man in the office that it is all over.

Morgan Shot In The Back And The Vendetta Ride Begins

After Virgil was shot things calmed down a little in Tombstone. The Earps and their wives all were living in the Cosmopolitan Hotel with Turkey Creek Jack Johnson, Texas Jack Vermillion, Sherman McMasters and a few other fellers guarding the hall.

This was when Wyatt's "marriage" to Mattie really fell apart and his romance with Josephine Sarah Marcus really took off. Sadie, as she was known was an actress/singer and perhaps also a lady of the evening. To make the politics/personal situation even more interesting Sadie dumped Johnny Behan for Wyatt. Well, at least she dumped Behan, he had a wandering eye, did Johnny, and it seemed that the other body parts wandered, too. No one is sure of the exact order of the Behan Dumping-Wyatt romancing.

Wyatt's "wife", Mattie was strung out on Laudanum, that is a drinkable morphine concoction, much used back then. Seems that Aspirin hadn't been invented. I have "wife" in quotes because there is no record of Mattie ever marrying. The Earps had a rather lurid family life. Seems that older brother James Earp had a wife named Nellie who also ran a sportin' house. Mattie worked in that sportin' house and it was there she met Wyatt.

Virgil's wife Allie was also a saloon girl as was Morgan's Louisa. Well, it stands to reason, the Earps main business was gambler/saloon keeper. Who would they meet?

So, we have Virgil healing, slowly, Morgan and Wyatt both with Federal law enforcement commissions but mostly working as gamblers and the tension rising. In February, 1882 Morgan sent his wife, Louisa to Colton, California to his parents.

By the night of March 18, 1882 men had to hire small boys to walk the streets ahead of them, cutting holes in the tension, just so they could get around. It is ten PM and Wyatt and Morg are killing time, waiting to close out the Faro Table at the Oriental Saloon. They are in the back room of Cambell and Hatch, a billiard parlor and card room, shooting pool.

In this room are Morg and Hatch, playing pool, Wyatt and George A. B. Berry, watching. There is a back door, solid on the bottom with the top half in four glass panes, the bottom two glass panes painted over, the top two clear. This so men could see inside while children could not, remember all those saloon girls.

Suddenly rifle fire burst out, a shot goes through Morgan's spine, exiting it lodged in George Berry's thigh, causing a painful flesh wound.

The other shot went high, right through Wyatt's hat but missing him. Morgan lived an hour, Wyatt, Sherm McMaster and someone named Tipton carried Morgan to a clear spot of floor where Doctors Matthews, Goodfellow and Millar all examined him and pronounced his wound fatal. They then moved him to a couch. He died about an hour later, surrounded by his brothers James, Wyatt, Warren and even Virgil, who was just begining to move around. Also were Allie and Nellie Earp, and a few other friends like Doc Holliday. Doc was raging and went through the town kicking in doors looking for various cow-boys. Morgan's last words were "I can't stand it...I've shot my last game of pool." The I can't stand it was from them trying to stand him up.

The best evidence points to Curly Bill Brocius and Frank Stillwell as the shooters with Indian Charlie, real name Florintino Cruz as the lookout.

The next day Morgan's body was shipped to Colton to be buried. The day after that Virgil, still very weak and sick, started his journey to Colton, also.He had to be carried up the steps of the train. An interesting historical note is that Allie wore his gunbelt so that he had access to a weapon.

When the train stopped at Tuscon Wyatt and Doc spotted Frank Stillwell on a flatcar, Wyatt and maybe Doc and Warren filled him with holes, beginning the Vendetta Ride.

Wyatt, Doc, Warren, Sherm McMaster and Turkey Creek Jack returned to Tombstone with a warrant out for them for Stillwell's death. We are told that this was a murder warrant although the reality is that they were merely wanted for questioning as Stillwell was a murder suspect himself and Wyatt was a Federal Officer. The Sheriff in Tuscon, Ron Paul, had worked with Wyatt for Wells Fargo, they were old friends. Had Wyatt stayed in Tuscon he would surely have beat the rap. Instead they left on the train with Virgil, getting off up the line and riding a freight train back to Benson where their horses were.

Returning to Tombstone they met up with Sheriff Behan as they were leaving town. This is when that famous conversation took place with Behan saying "Wyatt, I need to see you."

Earp replied "if you aren't careful you will see me once too often." The Earp Posse rode out of town, Behan then put together a posse of his own, consisting of at least one of the Clanton bothers, Fin, Johnny Ringo and about twenty of the cow-boys.

Here is where the history gets confusing. Including Stillwell history puts the death toll on the vendetta ride as somewhere between four and fifteen. We know that Indian Charlie was the next to go, he was cutting wood on Pete Spence's place. Now the Earp Posse wanted Spence, too as they were pretty sure that he was involved in shooting Virgil. What they didn't know was that Spence had turned himself in and was safe in jail in Tombstone.

There was more riding around by both posses and then Wyatt's posse rode up to Iron Springs where they were supposed to meet up with a friend with supplies. Instead they found Curly Bill and some of his pals. Shooting from cover, the first thing the Earp Posse knew was when the bullets started flying. Turkey Creek Jack's horse was killed, Wyatt came down off his horse and let two blasts of buckshot into Curly Bill. This spoiled Curly Bill's plans for running Cochise County, another shot went into Johnny Barnes, another cow-boy. Johnny died some two weeks later.

With all this shooting one would think that Wyatt would have been blown to doll rags. He had a bullet througfh his boot heel, several through his coat tails and pant legs and one through his saddle horn. No bullet touched his skin. Doc picked up Turkey Creek Jack and the Earp posse went to Henry Hooker's ranch to rest up and refit.

Meanwhile the Behan Posse returned to Tombstone having done nothing but spend a lot of the county's money.

From there the Posse moved out of Arizona and the vendetta ride was over, or was it? Nor the next few months several of the cow-boys met mysterious ends, not least Johnny Ringo. On July 14, 18982 Ringo's body was found by a teamster, John Yoast. Ringo was leaned against a tree with his gun in his hand and a bullet through his brain.

Now it is normal to think that he shot himself, there are a couple of details wrong, with that. Suicides are almost never found with the gun in their hand after shooting themselves through the head. The gun is still recoiling when the bullet takes out the brain, the hand muscles relax and the gun goes flying. Plus part of Ringo's hair and scalp had been cut off his head with a knife.

His boots were gone and his feet were wrapped in an undershirt. And one of his cartridge belts was buckled on upside down.

The one person we know for sure that had nothing to do with Ringo's death was Doc Holliday, he was in court on a larceny charge in Colorado during this. Buckskin Frank Leslie confessed to a guard in Yuma Territorial Prison that he did it, many claim that Wyatt Earp did it. I think Ringo killed himself but I wouldn't bet the rent on it.

A few years later the silver mines of Tombstone flooded and Tombstone went from growing city to a small town. Now it exist only to remove money from tourists, but once...

Wyatt Goes To Court

We last left The Earp Doc Holliday in the vacant lot between Fly's Boarding House and Harwood's Boarding house. The McLaury brothers and Billy Clanton are seriously dead, Virgil hit through one leg and Morgan hit across the back messing up the flesh over both shoulder blades and chipping a vertebrae. Doc had a bloody chunk blown out of the flesh over his hip.

The brave Sheriff comes out from the cover of Fly's Boarding House and places the Earp Party under arrest, and then scurries away when Wyatt tells him that he will "not be arrested by you". Shortly thereafter Wyatt and Doc post bond while Morg and Virgil are recovering at home.

This brings us to Judge Wells Spicer's court. Spicer, the Justice of the Peace, conducted an examining trial to see if there was enough evidence to hold Doc and the Earps over for trial. Something that is not much known today is that Spicer was from Monmouth, Illinois, the city of Wyatt Earp's birth. I have seen, in various websites, that Spicer and the Earps were related, although I can find no statements as to exactly how.

At any rate the Spicer hearing is very well known, with the transcript available on line. The keys to the Earps not being held to a murder trial are actually pretty simple. The anti-Earp faction claims that the Eaps and Holiday shot these men while they had their hands up, surrendering. They claim that the McLaury brothers and Billy Clanton were unarmed.One can, perhaps, forgive sarcastic old Doc Holliday for asking if Virg and Morg shot themselves.

Now about midway through this hearing, Will McLaury showed up. Will was a lawyer from Fort Worth, Texas and brother to Frank and Tom. He was pretty sure he could make the Earps and Doc do that funny dance at the end of a rope. He was wrong. Judge Spicer said that Virgil was acting as a law officer and that he was legitimately making an arrest. He then blistered Virgil for letting Doc into the party and wasn't too happy about Wyatt, either, him having just buffaloed Frank. Still, although Judge Spicer was critical about Virgil's choice of Deputies, he did have the right to deputise anyone he wanted so, case closed.

Ike and Will tried three times to get the case reopened, no one else wanted the case so, the Earps were free. Virgil was ambushed by shotgun wielding assassins. Witnesses reported five or six shotgun blasts, Virgil picked up some twenty buckshot pellets, wit another twenty-odd pellets hitting the Eagle Brewery and the Crystal Palace Saloon. This was the night of December 28th, 1881.

The lion's share of those buckshot pellets went through his upper left arm. He was crippled for the rest of his life although that did not prevent him from continuing as a law enforcement officer in several cities. Some five and a half inches of shattern bone and fragments was removed from Virgil's arm and it was thought that Virgil was going to die.

It was at this time that US Marshall Crawley C. Dake issued Wyatt his Deputy marshall's commission. Now Wyatt and Morgan were both Federal Officers.

Left at the ambush scene was a hat with Ike Clanton's name written on the inside. This intensified the feud.

Welcome To The World, Christopher James

Grandchild number nine made his appearance at 1240 AM Eastern Daylight time tonight. Christopher James XXXX born in a suburb of Charlotte, North Carolina. Nothing unusual to report about the labor, those kids seem to have making boy babies down to a science. The new boy joins his three brothers.

At eight pounds and seven ounces and 20 and a half inches he seems to be a sturdy young feller. he should fit right in to my squad in the Army of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.

I shall post pictures when we get them. These grandchildren are why I do not view the left as more than a passing pain in the kazoo. Liberals have one baby, late in life. We are outbreeding them. So we see four grandparents with two grandchildren on the Lib side and us with nine, so far.

Oh, I took the picture of the gun down and my blog went back to normal. I'll repost the picture later and see what happens.

Something Awful Has Happened

Okay, somehow an awful thing happened to this Blog. Somehow the colors have changed but not in every browser. In AOL the blog is the same old visible color scheme. Thing is, in Firefox it has changed to something that can't be read. Dark blue print on a dark brown background. But not in AOL.

It's too bad all the kids were grown and gone before I got my first computer. Why would the color scheme change in one browser and not another? I think I need a couple of aspirin and a nap. Let's see, how many different browsers are there?

Is Anyone Out There?

The only thing anyone comments on here are dog pictures so, here some are.

Did anyone at all read the previous entry? Is it worth working hard on a piece of history or should I just post pictures?

October 26, 1881

The trouble had been building for a while. Part of the trouble was political. Most of the in-town power structure was Republican and Union. In the countryside they were mostly southern and Democrat. One of the main people, though was southern and apolitical, John Henry Holiday. Doc, as he was known, was only involved because of his friendship with Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp. Now it is hard to say at this date it but it is often said that Earp wasn't just Doc's friend, he was his only friend.

Doc, you see, was not a particularly friendly sort. Some say he was just born mean, others say that the Tuberculosis made him that way. In those days, before antibiotics a case of TB was a long, slow death sentence. Doc drank to control the pain and, being a walking dead man, was abnormally prone to get into disagreements, sometimes leading to the knife or the gun. When you know you are in for a slow and painful death, why avoid danger? Since coughing blood and phlegm all over your customers was not really considered good dental practice, even back then, Doc had taken down his dental shingle and taken up the profession of gambler. Please note that in 1881 gambler was a respected profession.

Now, Doc wasn't the only gambler, Wyatt had the Faro table at the Oriental Saloon. His brother Virgil was the town Marshall, read Chief of Police, his brother Morgan was a Deputy Marshall and his brother James was a saloon keeper. Virgil was also a Deputy US Marshall. Morgan and Wyatt also worked off and on as "shotgun messengers" for the stage company. A shotgun messenger was that feller sitting beside the stage driver armed with an 1878 Colt double barrel shotgun. Truth be told, many shotgun messengers preferred the 1873 Winchester .44-40 for the same reason many modern bluesuits like an AR-15 clone over the pump shotgun, the added range.

Much of the argument over the gunfight in the Harwood's vacant lot/part time lumberyard between Fly's Boarding House and Harwood's boarding house, some 80 yards from the OK Corral (what a mouthful, no wonder it's called by the false name "Gunfight at OK Corral".) is just like the arguments over today's events. Today there are only a few facts known for sure.

The cow-boys as they were then known were not ranchers, or cowhands as we know them today but men who made their living going across the border to Mexican ranches and rustling their cattle. Nor were they above the attacking of smuggling caravans. Google the Skeleton Canyon Massacre. Old Man Clanton, the father of Ike and Billy, was the leader of the cow-boys until he was killed, probably by a Mexican posse in revenge for his raids.

Leadership of the cow-boys fell not to Ike but to Curly Bill Brocius. Seems that everyone but Ike knew that he was a not very brave blowhard. The only time he seems to have any courage is when he was full of whiskey.

Now the gunfight had been brewing for some time but it really began the night of October 25, 1881. Ike and Doc exchanged words in a saloon. Doc was a "special deputy" in a saloon, sort of a cross between a bouncer and a rentacop. This job allowed him to go heeled, as they said. He was allowed to carry weapons in town, unlike most people.

At any rate Doc was rather unhappy with some of the things Ike had been saying and was ready to fight. Ike had no gun on him so he retreated. He then kept drinking and got madder and madder. By the time Doc had gone to bed, in Fly's boarding house, Ike had worked himself into a rage, wandering the saloons and sporting houses, telling everyone of the awful fate awaiting Doc and the Earps. Sometime during the night Ike had gathered up his shootin' irons and seems to have gone everywhere but Fly's, "looking for Doc". Since it was common knowledge where Doc lived most people will wonder just how Ike could have missed him.

Meanwhile the townspeople reported Ike's parading around, drunk and armed with revolver and Winchester, to Virgil. Somewhat grumpy about being awakened early Virgil dressed and went looking for Ike.

Now comes the part that proves the Democrat/Clanton version of the events is a lie. Virgil Earp found Ike Clanton. Now the Democrat/cow thief (but I repeat myself) version of this fight says that the cow-boys had their hands up and were surrendering and the Earps and Holliday just cut loose on them. We know this is a lie simply because Earp did not shoot Ike while Ike was armed. Instead he "buffaloed" him, went upside his head with the side of his Colt. It is an interesting aside that the Colt Single Action Army revolver was far more popular with western lawmen than the big Smith and Wesson or Merwin, Hulbert& Company revolvers because those guns tended to bend in odd places while the Colt lasted just fine. Now television and the movies have given us a bad description of how to buffalo a bad guy. In the movies you see the Sheriff use the barrel of the gun. False. That way is a good way to make the gun point in odd directions. One example I know of, a feller bopped a bad guy wrestling with another Officer over the top of the head, his double action revolver then shot over a foot high at 25 yards.

Anyhow, down went Ike, then Virgil hauled him to the courthouse where, once the judge was found, he was fined $25.00 and $2.50 court costs. Virgil took Ike's guns to the hotel and saloon that was the main cow-boy headquarters in town. Ike could pick them up on his way out of town.

During this, more cow-boys got into Tombstone. One of them, Frank McLaury (or McLowry or Maclowry) bumped into Wyatt. Wyatt showed how he was known as one of "The Fighting Earps" by buffaloing him.

Soon after all that the cow-boys were in Spangleberger's Gun Shop and Wyatt moved a McLaury horse off the sidewalk. Words were exchanged. Meanwhile someone finally told Doc that Ike was looking for mim, and armed. Doc is reported as saying "If God will let me live long enough to get some clothes on, he shall find me."

Now comes three PM on the 26th of October. The cow-boys are gathered in a lot near Fly's boarding house. This lot was often used as a lumber yard, it was empty of lumber at the time, the lumber having been sold during one of Tombstone's building booms.

This lot is some 70 to 90 yards from the OK Corral, between Fly's photography Studio and boarding house and Harwood's boarding house. Harwood owned the lot and also sold lumber. The cow-boys there were Ike and Billy Clanton, Frank and Tom Mclaury and Billy Clairborne. Another cow-boy that was either there at the beginning or right near was Billy Allen.

Again townspeople told Virgil about the cow-boys. He went by the Wells Fargo Office and got a double barreled shotgun, loaded, of course, with buckshot. He then gathered up two of his brothers, Morgan and Wyatt. Earp brother James was not handy. The three Earps were headed to the vacant lot when they met Doc Holliday. Virgil told him he didn't need to be involved and Doc said "That is a Hell of a thing to say to me". Virgil, knowing that he could not keep Doc out of this affair decided to give Doc the shotgun and took Doc's walking stick. Doc had a longer coat that the Earp brothers and the shotgun was neatly concealed.

Now they were four, walking through this town, on their way to one of the most famous attempt at a misdemeanor arrest in history. It was then that Sheriff Johnny Behan showed up, trying to stop Virgil from going the rest of the way down to the lot. Behan, a Democrat, was very friendly to the cow-boys, many still say in league with them. Imagine! A Democrat allied with criminals. Who could say such a thing? Anyway, Behan claimed that he'd solved the problem, the Earps and Hollidaycould see no sign that Behan had collected all the revolvers, Winchesters and other assorted hardware so they kept walking. Oddly, though, they must have half believed Behan as Wyatt and company put their guns in various pockets.

Note that few western lawmen and townspeople wore gunbelts. Wyatt, for instance, lined a pocket of his coats with leather so his gun wouldn't snag and to keep it less visible. He wasn't nearly alone. Men did not walk around in their shirtsleeves much, either. All of the Earp brothers and Holliday were dressed in frock coats with vests. Doc was the only one in the party with a holsted gun.

Now the Earps and Doc arrive, the only one of them that had a hand on a gun was Doc Holliday, that a shotgun reached through a slit pocket on his long coat. Meanwhile there were five cow-boys there, plus Behan and Billy Allen, both close by, and an unknown number of other cow-boys and sympathisers around. Virgil, having nothing in his hands but Doc's walking stick, said "Throw up your hands, I want your guns!" This is when things got confusing to researchers. The Democrats say that the cow-boys lifted their hands and the Earp party then started firing. Now I discount this as if that were true then it is extremely unlikely that there would have been two survivors from the cow-boy side, nor would Virgil and Morgan been pretty badly wounded, plus the scratch hit on Doc.

Nonetheless things got hairy, quickly. Virgil, still holdning the walking stick cried "hold it" I don't want that!"
Too late, the dance had started. Doc struggled to get the shotgun out from under his coat, Ike ran up and started grappling with Wyatt, Virgil still had that darned stick in his hand, Morgan drew. Wyatt threw Ike off and yelled "get to fighting or get away", Ike ran. So did Billy Clairborne. Meanwhile Wyatt shot at Frank Mclaury, Doc is known to have filled Tom with buckshot, Virgil got hit in the leg and kept fighting, Morgan was shot through one shoulder, across the back, and into the other shoulder. This shot chipped a vertebrae.

Meanwhile, after Doc had emptied the shotgun and before he had his revolver aimed Frank hollered, "I've got you now!" to Doc. Doc replied "you're a good one if you do". Frank then shot Doc right through his now empty holster, tearing a nice gouge of meat out while he was at it. Doc then hollered that "I'm shot, through and through!" Doc then answered the shot with another bullet through Frank. Frank died shortly after. Meanwhile poor Billy Clanton was a regular lead magnet, shot through both sides of the chest, his right (gun) hand and the gut.

The fight was over. Bystanders had to keep Doc from shooting Frank some more, he was rather angry. They convinced him to stop, mainly because Frank had already been shot through the head and Doc, with his fine training in dentistry, knew that Frank was as dead as he was going to get. The only cow-boy left on the scene still living, was Billy. Still having his gun in his left hand, he was begging for more bullets. Soon, however, the adrenalin wore off and Billy spent the next fifteen minutes or so screaming and dying. His last intelligable words were something like clear these people out of here so I can get some air. There was plenty of air, he couldn't use it because his lungs were full of blood.

Now, to this day there are those who claim that Tom Mclaury was completely unarmed. He was standing behind a horse with a Winchester in the scabberd, though, and some witnesses claim to have seen him shooting a revolver under the horses neck. At any rate Tom's main guns were still at the hotel where he'd checked them. No handguns were found near Tom's body. I am conflicted. I am hesitent to place too mach faith in the witness who saw Tom shoot, remember, there were a lot of heavy caliber guns going off with Black Powder loads, the smoke would have been very thick.

At the same time, the drawings I've seen that claim to know where everyone was puts Tom, or someone unknown, as the only one that could have fired that shot across Morgan Earp's back. So, either Tom fired that shot and someone picked up his gun and spirited it away. We know that Tom had just collected money from a butcher for a bunch of (stolen Mexican?) beef he'd sold him, over three thousand 1881 dollars. Could that butcher have given, or lent him a gun? Sure. And the only other explanation is that one of the folks in Fly's pegged that shot. Now, Behan, Ike and Big Nosed Kate, Doc's on again, off again lover were all in Fly's, plus Fly, of course. As a matter of fact Fly himself came out with a rifle and he is the one that disarmed Billy Clanton.

This is why I believe that Tom had a gun. Had anyone in Fly's pegged that shot at Morgan that telltale black powder smoke would have told too many people the truth.

As soon as the shooting was completely over, staunch Democrat Behan came out to arrest the lawmen. Some things never change.

Those citizens that kept Doc from shooting Frank a little more may have kept the Earp brothers and Doc from getting their necks stretched, they were cleared in an examinging trial that is still sometimes quoted in law today.

Then came the bloodbath. It became open war.

Hurrah For Bobby

My neighbors to the east in Louisiana have gone an elected themselves a new Governor, Bobby Jindal. He is the first nonwhite Governor since Reconstruction, back when Republicans were appointing the pols in the south.

Isn't it kind of strange when it takes breaking up over a hundred years of Democrat rule to come up with another nonwhite for Governor? Why is almost like the Democrats might be, um, exagerating a bit in their tales of Republican racism. Nah, that couldn't be. Why those pictures the Democrats put out with Jindal's skin darkened after the pictures were taken, why that was just to, um, to, um, to, yes, remind people that there are some pretty smart conservatives out there who do not have blue eyes. Yeah, that's it. It couldn't possible be that the Donks are projecting their own racism, could it?

Anyhow, Bobby J has a reputation for being smart as a whip and has the reputed ability to squeeze the taxpayer's money until the buffalo on the nickle farts. That's a start.

Off Premises Guns

I haven't commented on the Rebecca Aguilar mess because I don't watch television news. News people are, for the most part, idiots. Isn't it odd that the two majors in colleges with the lowest average SATs are education and journalism?

At any rate I am not surprised by Aguilar, she has always been just a hair to the left of Vladimir Lenin.

There is one important thing in this story that hasn't been commented on, why that poor old guy had to go buy a new shotgun. If, God forbid, you are caught in that old guy's situation and have to blow away a bad guy in your home the LEOs will take that gun as evidence. It will sometimes come back after all the trials are over, many places they are gone forever.

Here is what is not known. Most jurisdictions the LEOs will hoover up all the guns around, regardless of whether or not they were used. That's right. Use a gun to save your life and be left defenseless. So what if the guy you blew away is from a family of career criminals. So what if there are several others worried that you might testify against them. All the guns get taken. Now this is not necessarily the idea of the individual bluesuits but comes from the political types who give the orders.

Any citizen who lives, or works, in a high crime area who believes in armed self defense should have at least one off premises gun that the government does not know about. Now depending on the situation that gun could be kept at a friend or relative's home or buried out in the backyard.

Now this guy in Dallas lived where there is no waiting period, So, if the guy he blew away has friends, he is okay, he's already rearmed. What if he had lived in California? Or some other benighted state with a waiting period? Or worse, someplace where the laws could take a firearms owner ID Card? Remember, this guy had been broken into over forty times before blowing away the first bad guy. And had his gun taken. And then the next one. And had his gun taken.

Will Academy Sports run out of shotguns before West Dallas runs out of crooks? West Dallas being what it is, I'm betting that Academy will run out of shotguns.

Now the best way to hide a gun is to buy some PVC threaded Pipe and end caps with plenty of pipe dope and a big handful of silica gel packets. Put the gun and ammo and stuff in plastic bags. Put a bunch of pipe dope on the threads and put the gun, ammo and silica gel inside, screw it all together tight, let it dry real well and bury it, quietly. Then don't tell everyone.

Naturally I would never do this myself.

Conservative Bedwetters?

I have noticed that the left has gone to use the term "conservative bedwetters" to describe those of us who believe that America has enemies who are serious in their efforts to harm us. Oddly their constant bleat about 'Bush's tyranny' don't seem to count.

How come I am a conservative bedwetter because there is an unknown but sizable percentage of the Islamic world that want to kill my grandchildren while it is perfectly normal to go on national TV and complain that Bush is silencing the opposition? How come when Bush tries to have our security types listen in to foreign phone calls it is spying on Americans?

We have decades of attacks on America, Americans and American property to look at while the left says that Bush won't come back to Texas in January, 2009. After all those recounts and re-recounts they still say that Gore won Florida, even after even the New York Times admitted the truth.

I know few Conservatives who are worried about themselves, most of us are worried about the country and our families.

So now someone famous that I had never heard of falls down while walking her dog and the left fills up with rumors of a right wing attack. Here is what I'm not really smart enough to understand...Why is it that leftists think they are so brave because they attack people with no thought of ever attacking them while they side with those who will, if they win, kill them.

We see "feminists" siding with those who put their own women in Burkas. With those who perform clitorectomies on their young girls. We see gays marching with Palestinian flags while the Palestinians throw their own gays off tall buildings. We see nationally known journalists accusing our troops of deliberately targeting journalists while the Islamists have killed them.

Even all that is not particularly surprising. What is surprising is how brave the left is. While we on the right don't attack them, they attack us. That poor Air Force guy shot for no reason because he is in the Air Force, for instance. Yet the left tells themselves about their wonderous courage.

I wonder what it would be like if their fever dreams came true. Suppose there weally were Bush gulags spread all over the Prarie? Suppose we mon the right really did start attacking leftists? I have no way of knowing for sure but I expect the left would act just like George Soros did as a teenager when he cooperated with the Nazis sending partisans and Jews to the death camps.

There is only one Klansman, Byrd, in the Senate and the only Nazi in American politics is Soros. That is the dirty secret in politics, the left screeches about Nazis and Klansmen while being led by them.

Note: In interesting news, unlike the political stuff, Cochise' Apache Princess turned nine months old Monday. She still hasn't grown into those ears and paws.

NASCAR Cooties

So the Democrat staffers of Congress' Homeland Security Committees needed shots to go down to Alabama and North Carolina. I wonder if it was really to protect the racefans from turning Donk? From what I've read that means that NASCAR fans will be pulling the straight Republican ticket.

I don't quite understand this, it seems that a NASCAR track is far healthier than Washington, DC. Of course there is a lot I don't understand.

NASCAR has it's roots in the rural south. It started with the moonshine runners racing their cars. Now the southerners have moved all over the country since those days and they took their music with them. So we have NASCAR in places like California, lots of southerners moved there, Michigan, lots more moved up there to build cars, and unlikely places like New Hampshire and Pocono.

Here is what I don't understand. NASCAR is being broadcast on ABC/ESPN this time of year. The year starts on Fox, moves to NBC and ends up on ESPN. Okay, fine. But why does ESPN/ABC start their broadcast with the Sammy Hagar? Okay, I undrestand that they are trying to broaden the market and that the new fans may not like country music. Fine, throw in some Southern Rock, then or some Gospel. But every week they start the broadcast with something that just annoys the fans they already have.

The Rolling Stones. NASCAR. This just does not fit. Oh well, I record the race, let it get started good and then fast forward through the Sammy Hagar. I wonder if the sposors paying for this know about TIVO?

Saturday nights race at Lowe's Motor Speedway was a heartbreaker for Ryan Newman fans, he jumped ahead after the green came out and was pulling far ahead of Gordon when the back end came out from under him and he backed into the fence.

Someone at Goodyear is going to have to decide to put a little softer rubber on those tires so the boys can have some traction.

Update. I wrote this late last night, actually this morning and wrote Rolling Stones instead of Hagar. Sorry. All those guys who have to stand in the sun twice to cast a shadow look alike.

A Little Update

I know that few care but just for grins, I finally got the weeds knocked down some time back. By the time it was finally dry enough to mow the dogs were disappearing in the back yard. The bad news is that even now the cut grass is so thick that the mower bogs down in it.

It's also nearly two weeks since we finally got the new water heater in. A long hot shower beats the foo out of using baby wipes. The downside, of course, is the people driving off the road, blinded by how clean and shiney my backside is, right through the bluejeans it's blinding.

The left seems to be making a major move to shut down free speech these days. Somehow wondering about the choices of this Frost kid's parents is attacking children. I have nothing against the kid, I am not happy about the parents choices. Linda Lou and I have the same number of kids, I don't recall her asking the taxpayers to pay for their health insurance. In saying this I may get my address posted on some lefty website.

If anyone knows Michelle Malkin please tell her I'd be glad to loan her some ammo.

It's a sad night. I was just on the SASS Wire, the website of the Single Action Shooting Society and we lost a pal. Longshot Logan had a heart attack and is now causing trouble upstairs. He was a master woodworker. He made some of the prettiest handgun grips and rifle stocks I've ever seen. He was also a master of the photoshop and kept us in stitches on the Wire. RIP, LL.

A Phoney Real Soldier

Things get stranger every day. Now the Mayor of Atlantic City is just out of a clinic. Seems that his actual Army record of 20 years of honorable service with two Bronze Stars and two tours in the Southeast Asian War Games wasn't enough. He had to tell everyone that he wore a Girl Scout Hat, too.

I wonder if you can still start a big, fun brawl by asking a Spec Force Operator for two boxes of Thin Mint and a box of Shortbreads? But I digress.

Anyway this Robert Levy fellow had a perfectly good military resume. I don't know if his Bronze Stars were with the "V" for combat valor or just plain for doing a really outstanding job, it doesn't matter, really. Like millions of other men he went where he was sent and did what he was told. Very well, too. Bronze Stars don't come out of cereal boxes.

But for some reason, that wasn't enough. He had to embellish. Sigh.