Karson Has A Birthday Party

Satuday was Karson's first birthday party. Because Dean's mother had to be at work by two PM they held it at the ungodly time of ten AM. Ten AM doesn't sound so early to normal people but I worked the swing and graveyard shifts for most of my life. And we live a very long way from the northern suburbs of Dallas,

What makes it worse is that I'm part vampire, I simply do not do mornings. So I went to bed about three and a half-four hours early, at midnight. I then tossed and turned, and did not sleep I simply annoyed Bingo, who can sleep day or night. Every time he got nice and comfy I rolled around. Finally I got up at three thirty AM, relieved my now tiny bladder and got to sleep. Funny how so many of my body parts have enlarged with age but my bladder has shrunk to the size of a grape.

At any rate my disgustingly cheerful Linda Lou came in at seven AM to wake me, her being all nice and awake. It didn't hardly work until she set Bingo on me to wash my face with his little sandpaper tongue. That didn't work too well, either so he switched to cleaning out my ear. That got me up, I just wasn't ready for an all morning wet willy.

I stumbled out and got a cup of coffee. A while later I had another cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal with a banana. I never know if they are going to feed us, this time they were going to. Naturally I wasn't hungry.

Anyhow we got in the car and drove to town. And drove, and drove some more. What ever possessed us to move so far from everything? I swear, we get yesterday's teevee programs over the satellite! If we decide we'd like to shop in town by the time we get home the milk is sour, canned goods are way past their sell by date and any electronic goods are three generations obsolete.

Anyhow we got there before the kid was old enough for his learner's permit, only a half hour late. We were not there but a few minutes when Karson's Mama started opening his presents. Note to the young: One year old babies do not understand birthdays. Although birthday parties are a good way to score some new toys and clothes, as well as baby wipes and diapers, the older kids do not understand, either. Especially William. Now that boy wants to be the center of attention. He wants to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral. (Thanks, Robert A Heinlein!)

Another thing we discovered is that the Safety Nazis have really worked over children's toys. Linda Lou remembered that kids of Karson's age just love those toy telephones, Oddly the Fisher Price toy telephone still uses a dial. To heck with the children of that age, have their parents ever seen a telephone with a dial?

That is not the important thing, though. The "cord" between the bottom of the phone and the ear-mouthpiece has shrunk. It's like six inches long, it's impossible for a baby to goo goo and shriek over the telephone to his imaginary friends without lifting the whole thing off the floor. This is not the way these things were when Karson's parents were that age. I know it's the Safety Nazis protecting the children! from being strangled. Well, now I'm sixty-two years old now and have been a news junkie my whole life. I'd like to know just how many of the children! have been killed or seriously injured by too-long "cords" on toy telephones. Names, dates and coroner's reports, please. I suspect we'd be better off killing the Safety Nazis and letting kids grow up with a little risk, the way we did.

Then it was Karson's lunchtime. He is still eating that Gerber stuff. He has switched to the stuff that is a little more textured, he's not quite sure about it. I couldn't get a good pic pf his "do not want!" face.

Then it was time for cake. Naturally they gave the birthday boy some to eat with his hands, judging from the look of things his knowledge of persactly where his mouth is is still somewhat tenuous. The other kids did their part, too. We left just as the fire Department came to hose the place down. Really, the one that got the best part of this shindig was Pele the dog. He scored two unattended hot dogs, a hamburger butt, some chips and a plethora of crumbs.

Then we drove home, wondering why we don't go see the kids more often.

The Reaction To Michael Jackson Explains Obama

I never understood the huge orgy of "grief" when JFK was killed. Yes, too bad, he was fairly young, although ancient to my fifteen year old self, with young children. It's not like any of those crying kids, much less the adults, had ever met him. I'm not sure when this began but I think it was with Kennedy. The media had much to do with this of course, Kennedy was not a particularly good President as well as being a horndog first class. This was well known to the Washington press corps but, for some reason was none of our business, even though the public was paying his salary.

I remember my parents, depression kids who came to adulthood before the development of Sulfa and Penicillin. So they were used to people dying young, Most people today cannot imagine how many people died young even in the first half of the 20th Century. I do not think people would have had time to do all that weeping and wailling over strangers in, say, 1920.

Of course, it's getting worse and worse. There are still thousands of people going to Graceland, people crying in America over Princess Di.

What I've noticed most on this latest death is what all these "grief stricken" clowns are saying. Maybe it's what they've always said but as my hearing problems progress I'm not listening but reading. These "grief stricken" clowns aren't talking about MJ or his family, they are talking about themselves.

What Michael means to me. What I think about his death. What his music means to me.

Listening to these people is like listening to an Obama speech. I. Me. There is no him. No you. Although these people are Americans I do not know them. They do not grieve so much as scream "look at me! I'm grieving!" Kind of like Obama, not wanting so much to be President but to scream look at me, I'm President!

This would not have happened to the men and women who broke their backs on farms and ranches, in mines and factories in the 19th Century. It is a measure of how frivolous our society has become. Trouble is, the frivolousness is just about to ruin the last best hope of mankind. Once Obama finishes collapsing the economy, the America I grew up in will be gone, perhaps forever.

In more important news than Jackon, Obama or the future of the nation, yesterday was my youngest grandson's first birthday party. I'll be posting pictures tomorrow while Linda Lou is off to a doctor's appointment.

The U. S. House of Representatives Declares War On U. S. Businesses, Workers and Homeowners

I guess I'm not quite smart enough to understand how shipping more jobs overseas will help the American economy. I am not quite smart enough to see how adding thousands of dollars a year more to the average household's bills will help the economy. And with the average world temperature dropping and some migratory birds losing their mating season because Canada is too cold, is this really the time to attack glow ball warming? Especially since a lot of real climate specialists say that what we do, within reason, has nothing to do with the climate.

The US House of Representatives does not agree with me, though, so they passed another huge bill that no one has read. I know this because there were over three hundred pages added after three AM this morning. Remember this day. Be sure to defeat everyone who voted for this monstrosity.

In other news I went to the supermarket after the hottest part of the day passed. While I was traveling the awful bill passed. Then, a while laterthe news came on. Now the most important item on the news? Not cap and tax but the earthshaking news that it may be weeks before we know why Michael Jackson died.

I never paid much attention to him, for some strange reason they didn't play much of his stuff on the country stations. I am blessed that I don't watch TV much anymore. So I was spared the Princess Di like crap. Okay, he's dead. Along with Lord only knows how many Iranians fighting, unarmed, for liberty. I'd trade a dozen pop stars for one of those Iranians.

Actually of the stars that died, Colonel Ed McMahon, USMC(R), retired and Farrah Fawcett were both each worth ten Michael Jacksons. Each of them stood up to be counted. Lord only knows how much of her own money Fawcett put up to aid battered women. And McMahon was on his way to the Pacific to fly fighters off carriers when we dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Then he flew those single engine Cessna Bird Dog spotter planes in Korea. As low and slow as those things flew I always expected the men who flew those things over combat zones to have to walk bowlegged. So, what do we get? Michael. Remind me again why the news media is dying.

A Politician Can't Keep His Zipper Up, Imagine That.

One would think by now the news would be that a politician could avoid being led around by his small head. But no, the big news of the day is that some clown, governor of a fairly unimportant state, South Carolina, got laid. Outside of his marriage. Now it's very important, unlike when getting laid outside of marriage (and lying about it under oath) was none of our business.

So, one was President and had the D behind his name, the other, Mark Sanford had the R. So, it was only about sex then and not important. Now it's knocking Iran out of the news.

Okay, for the record I deplore Sanford's behavior. I am not going to vote for him, even if he moves to Texas or runs nationally. Now, Sanford, will you please shut up and go away. We have more important fish to fry.

In Iran platoons of thugs fired automatic weapons into unarmed crowds. Axe wielding goons went into those crowds chopping on unarmed citizens. Note to the national media: let the Mayberry Clarion or whatever other papers they have there cover Sanford and y'all cover Iran and the Norks. Yeah, the ones that are going to fire a missile toward Hawaii. We'll deal with Sanford if he tries to run our electric bills up madly or take over a couple of car companies, or, worse, dismantle the best health care system in the world.

Slaughter In Iran

Someone please explain to me exactly why the Mullahs of Iran are still alive. We should have killed them back in '83 when they sent their boys to blow up the Marines in Beirut. We should have killed them when they sent their boys to blow up the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia.

We should have killed them a hundred times over for shipping those EFP bombs into Iraq, yet they still breathe air that decent people may need someday. And now they send their boys to slaughter unarmed citizens of their own country.

So, what does it take? After the unpleasantness of 1939-1945 we swore "never again". Yet it keeps happening, again and again. Seems like the rules could be made a little simpler and easier to understand. How about Rule number one: Kill unarmed citizens and we kill you. Rule number two: Sneak weapons and such into a country where there is no declared state of war, we kill you. Rule number three: Bomb people without a declared state of war, we kill you.

Instead we just let these murderous thugs get more and more powerful. I know, lets do it like we did with the Chinese, let them murder their people and let's help them get their missiles to fly. That will show them we mean no harm! Meanwhile a small voice on a mostly unread blog says just because we mean them no harm does not mean they mean us no harm.

I've said this before, just because we have no interest in war does not mean that war has no interest in us.

Update: You want to stop this nonsense? Put in a world wide Second Amendment. Meanwhile make it a world crime to use tanks and armored vehicles internally. Make it a world crime to have the military personal weapons unavailable to the citizens. Yeah, we might lose a few more politicians that way but politicians are a renewable resource. They breed like flies. We lost two Kennedys in five years but we still have those vermin all over. and the best of that family was the bootlegger/Nazi sympathizer.

I submit a new world order, one where the governments are afraid of the people, not the other way around.

Weenie Diplomacy, No Wonder I Love Fausta

Well, the Frozen Custard King still has the invitation out to the Mad Mullahs of Iran to come to the Fourth of July shindig at the White House, yes, those same people who murdered the unarmed demonstrators. Fausta called it weenie diplomacy and she is right.

Slow Joe Biden sure is right, there is a new Sheriff in town. One that cares nothing at all about freedom or human rights. This is what we get when 52% of the people vote in a clown that thinks the biggest threat to America is the American people. I certainly had my differences with Bush, even bigger differences with McCain but at no time did I think they wanted to end our economic system.

One would think that after spending millions of dollars in illegal campaign contributions that the Frozen Custard King could at least fake a liking for the United States of America. Ah well, I guess that is as unlikely as a Democrat coming out for liberty.

Scattershooting While Wondering, Why The Jews?

So I cooked the first tuna casserole of my life today, came out pretty good even if I say so myself. Which I shouldn't, I know. Two cans of solid white tuna mixed in with a can of cream of chicken soup, a half cup of milk and most of a regular can of peas. Then I sliced and broke up the butt end of a block of Velveeta. stirred that in while my two cups of elbow macaroni was boiling. After that was drained I stirred it in and then put paprika all over the top. into the oven at 350 for half an hour and fini! I do wonder what other spices I should have added, it was okay but plain.

Even Linda Lou said it was all right. It wasn't the way my Mama made it though. I'd give anything to ask her, too durned late.

Something I don't quite understand is Jimmeh Carter. First of all I do not understand why he hasn't accidentally bit himself and died from the hydraphoby. Next I cannot understand how he made it as far as he did in the Navy without understanding the slightest thing about war. So, the Hamasholes put some rocket launchers in the yard of the american School over there in Hamasland and started pegging shots into Israel. So now Jimmeh is mad at whom? That is right, the Izzies! Why those nasty Israelis wouldn't just sit there while rockets rained down on their civilians! The nerve of those people! Why can't they just march into the sea and die? I wonder what Jimmeh would be saying if those rockets were landing in Peanutville?

The idea that the Jews won't let the "palestinians" have their state is fatuous anyway. When they partitioned the area they gave the Jews a little sliver called Israel and the "palestinians" a big hunk called Jordan. That wasn't enough.

Here is another thing I don't understand. All these American libtards screeching about how the "palestinians" have a right to their lands, how come they haven't given their homes to American Indians? Would not simple honesty demand that? Oh, sorry. Honesty? Of liberals? Fat chance.

Now I'm probably not the world's greatest geographer but it sure looks to me like Jordan is a powerful lot bigger than Israel. And please don't try to tell me that the people of "Palestine" are different than the people of Jordan. For one thing, the only Palestine since Biblical times is the one down the road a tad in east Texas.

I do not understand why the left, who claim to be the ones standing foursquare against racism and sexism manage to always stand against the Jews and women. Oh, sure, they say they are only against Ziononism. Like they say they are for women. Except for Sarah Palin. Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter, too. The women who get savagely beaten in Iran for the crime of showing a little too much wrist. Those girls pushed back into that flaming girl's school over there because they didn't have their hair properly covered.

Oh, heck, the left only supports the women and minorities that say what the left wants to hear. We all know that yet women and minorities keep flocking to the left. This is almost as silly as those clowns wearing the Free Palestine T shirts at the gay pride marches. Do not point out the contradiction, though, unless you want to hear and hour long diatribe about the awful things Boooosh!!!!11!! did starting fourteen years before he was born.

This has been the way it's always been. The Jacobins were not powerful enough to bring down King Louis the Whatever. The Leninists were not powerful enough to bring down Tsar Nicholas The Second. Castro had to pose as a Democrat. It was only after the left took power away from the useful idiots that supported them that the killing began. As may happen here. And, if it does, here as in all those other places, the "center leftists" will wail "I didn't know!" as they are put up against the wall. I can only hope that, if it happens here, that idiot Carter will be one of the first up against that wall.

Update: Linda Lou noticed that I wrote chicken noodle soup instead of cream of chicken. I've corrected it, and suggest that you not try to make tuna casserole with chicken noodle and milk. Or, give it a try, sounds awful but it might be good. Just have some hot dogs and pork'n'beans handy, just in case it's as awful as it sounds.

Fire Letterman? I'm Starting To Believe

I've been casually following the Letterman Palin fight since it started. What it mainly did at the start was make me wish for the first half of the last Century, back when men were expected to have to back their words. In 1950 a Letterman would have not said those things about Governor Palin and her daughters. If he had, Todd Palin would have made those famous gap tooth grin far more gapped.

You may have noticed how much the culture has coarsened since then. There are a few blogs that are fairly new to me that have been following this much more than I have, I simply do not watch network TV much anymore. I am now so deaf that it is unpleasant for Linda Lou to be in the room so, instead I cruise the intertubes. Oddly I can hear and understand old movies and most sports. They have done something to the sound of the newer movies and network series that makes it nearly impossible to understand the words. So, I haven't seen Letterman since forever. Back when he was filling in for Carson.

Anyhow I've been reading Robert Stacy McCain and, through him, Cynthia Yockey. Ms Yockey claims to be newly conservative and brings some skills over from the left, where she used to reside. Apparently she noticed, finally, how the left treats women and minorities that do not think in lefty approved fashion. You might notice that people who insult a lefty approved group lose their jobs while people who insult conservatives and their families mostly get raises. And then we wonder why we are losing the culture wars as well as politically.

Ms. Yockey is an activist. Few of us on the right are, being mostly concerned with jobs and family. We have lost the ability to deal with cheap bullies like Letterman, that Oberclown, the pencil necked Bill Maher and the rest of that crowd. But Yockey knows.

The bullies of the left have been tearing down capable leaders of the right for a couple of decades now. It's time we fight back. Lets go to work, go over to The Other McCain at http://rsmccain.blogspot.com/ or Ms. Yockey's place at http://www.aconservativelesbian.com/aclblog/.

Perhaps if we learn to flex our muscles a bit and go after them just about as hard as they've gone after us, the "entertainment" media will learn to stop insulting half their audience. Wouldn't that be nice?

I Wish I Were Smart, Volume Forty-three

Are the Shiai'tes so different from that other bunch of Muslims? Here is what I don't understand. In Iraq, a brutal dictatorship until George W. and the United States military came along, everybody and their brother in law had guns. We had our Zoomies lighting up wedding parties because they were firing off guns.

Yet right across the border, the only folks with guns are the Minions Of The Mad Mullahs. What's up with that? I know that Iraq is mostly Arab and Iran is mostly Persian, although I confess to not knowing the difference very well. I do know that we seemed to be utterly helpless when Iran was shipping guns, ammo, bombs and bombers over the border to kill our guys.

I, being a poor dumb redneck, never quite understood why we couldn't ship guns, ammo, bombs and bombers the other way. Of course I never understood quite why we didn't send airplanes to drop napalm on those huge mobs screaming "Death To America!!!", either. If those idiot Democrats hadn't destroyed the intel community and military back in the '70s none of this would be going on. The Mullahs would have been dead and Iran would be a different place today.

Of course if George W. had had the stones to ship as many guns and bombs into Iran as Iran was shipping into Iraq, things would be different, too. All the idiocy in the world doesn't belong to Democrats, just most of it.

I am not smart enough to know how letting yourself get beat up by punk bullies is good for you. Meanwhile all the smart people in politics understand that.

The only good news is that when The Minions Of The Mad Mullahs started shooting into the crowd the crowd tore them apart. Note to the MOTMMs, shooting into a huge crowd of angry people only works really well if you have enough sense to only have half of you shoot at a time. That way one half of you idiots can reload while the other half shoots.

Now I don't really know if the mobs forming are really better than the Mad Mullahs but I don't see how they can be a whole heck of a lot worse. Seems to me that the President of the United States should say something nice about them. I wonder when the last time was that a Democrat sided with the good guys? I believe it was late 1941. Maybe 1950 if we count Truman. And we should count Truman as he was the Democrat that wrested control of the Missouri Democratic Party from the Klu Klux Klan, unlike W. Virginia which still hasn't. Oh well, maybe when Byrd comes out of his coma and dies they'll end the KKK there. Of course Truman just turned the Party over to the Tom Pendergast Machine but, better the mob than the KKK. At least that's what the Dems think. Given the choices in the last election, the Chicago Outfit vs the New Orleans Mob. But, I digress again. Iran.

My prescription for Iran is really quite somple. A smart bomb through Imadinnerjacket's window, along with one through the windows of the Mad Mullahs. Then a sweet note to the next government saying something along the lines of no nukes, no messing around outside your borders. We have plenty of bombs and lots of people who would like jobs making more. Love, the United States of America.

While I would like Iran to treat it's citizens nicely, that's really up to them. If they want to hang homosexuals or beat women for showing a hint of wrist, well, who am I? It's when they go outside their borders that it bothers me.

Saint Peter, Don't You Call Me...

'Cause I can't go...My Father's Day present arrived a bit early, a new Dell
studio XPS 435T. The thing has so many bells and whistles attached that the packing list is two pages long. I feel somewhat churlish that I'm plugging in the same old speakers and not the new ones with the humongous woofer. But then I already have a humongous woofer, her name is Cochise' Apache Princess. And two emergency backup woofers, Ming and Bingo.

Anyway, this is the biggest computer I've seen since they stopped using punch cards. I like to herniated myself getting it in the house and thence into my little gun room/study. I mean the thing is nineteen inches tall, about seven and a half inches wide (my tape measure is kind of rusted there and I can't tell persactly, and twenty inches deep. This is the only thing keeping Linda Lou from taking this one over and giving me her new one, it's way to big to fit into her computer cubbyhole. Most computers come with one or two little discs to restore things in case of having to wipe the memory, this one came with seven. Linda Lou tells me that the size of this computer is because it's used by gamers. She chose it because she could have a phone line modem put in, still no DSL or cable out here. Anyway, it's quite a machine, it's not only full of features I don't know how to use, it's full of features that I don't know what they are.

So far it loads things much slower than my old one, I think that's because McAfee Virusscan is trying to download and, because I'm on a phone modem out three miles past Resume Speed, Texas, it keeps having to go back to the beginning. It would get up to fifteen percent complete and then, the next time I had to get back online it's get to seven percent and then...(It's up to fifty-two percent, please pray for the wind and rain to hold off until it's finished.) So anyhow I don't really know how well it works, yet. Anyhow, although the computer is for gamers, I'm not a gamer. In the Cowboy Action Shooting world, we have gamers. they shoot virtually recoiless loads and sound like a semiauto rifle at full speed. Thing is, they go "pop-tink" when they hit the steel targets. I'm sometimes a warthog with my 250 grain bullets and my near original velocities. But then I mostly shoot real black powder, that makes me a soot Lord, or I prefer Soot Hog as I stick with the heavy bullets and more powder than the old Cavalry load of twenty-eight grains of Black and a 230 grain bullet. This is the load that the Indian fighters used from about 1875 until they replace the Single Action Army with that anemic .38 Long Cold, only to go back to it when the Moros got pesky. That is the load Saint John of Browning duplicated in smokeless powder for a semiauto pistol, the immortal 1911. But I digress...Meanwhile it's back down to twenty-five percent downloaded. Note to self, tell the kids that if the interwebz are important to them, don't move to the country unless they've got over a hundred a month for satellite intertubes service.

Let's see, in other news...David Letterman is a chump. Six years ago he made a baby with his girlfriend. Only now did they get married. Yet he has the gall to call Sarah Palin slutty looking? He then talks of the fourteen yeat old daughter getting knocked up? And then explains it all by saying he was talking about the 18 year old? But it's okay because the 18 year old got pregnant, just like Dave's girlfriend. But Dave's girlfriend isn't a slut while all the Palin women are. And the left is where the majority of women vote. Because we, on the right don't value women. Uh-huh. Now, buy that bridge quick, I have other buyers lined up.

I'm a dad, although the kids are grown and married, and producing grandkids at an alarming rate, there is no parent of teenagers that didn't worry about unexpected grandkids. Some lefties worry a little less because they believe in abortion. Still, what happened to Bristol could have happened to any teenager, and happens all too often. It was certainly not a moral failure of the Palins. Instead it's a simple matter of human evolution. It was only a hundred years ago that kids of Bristol's age were married. It wasn't that long ago that a young woman of Bristol's age was, if unmarried, an oddity. So, now it's the style to marry later, if at all. Too bad we don't know how to tell the hormones that. The reality is, kids are horny. Women are gullible. Thank God for that or most men would be bitter old single men, with neither pot nor window.

Awful News

I may not be the last person to know because there are those who live in caves but I'm pretty late. I have an E-pal in the Pittsburgh area, Oddybobo who lost her sister in a motorcycle accident. I am so late noticing this because of my slow internet connection, she puts so many pictures on her blog that I don't get there very often, only on weekends when there isn't much news.

On the 21st day of May Joyce and her friend were killed instantly, leaving her small son. After a several year fight with cancer it had returned. That's the only thing that makes the death of a thirty year old mother even slightly bearable, she was spared some weeks or months of agony. What makes it harder, though, is she hadn't time to say goodbye.

Oddy writes of her having to stuff her grief while taking care of those who needed it. I hope by now she has managed to let it out. I also hope that the praters of this unrepentant sinner for Joyce and for her son, and Oddy and family will help a tiny bit.

Although Oddy stuffed her grief the mountain cedar must be bad today for my eyes are watery.

Yam Good And Other Stories

I haven't been around much lately, I've been trying to avoid what those peabrained Democrats are doing to my country. Can anyone tell me what constitutional authority Obambi has to run an auto company? The guy has never run a hot dog stand. Anyhow every time his name comes up I repeat a long string of ugly words.

In other news we finally have the house air conditioned again. I will probably die owing my soul to Lowes Home Improvement but we have two window units in, replacing the central air that bit the dust. We will need one more small unit for the spare bedroom, since nobody sleeps there and it's full of books and other clutter, we can wait for that until we pay the bill down a tad. Anyway, both units are installed and the empty spots in the windows are filled with cardboard for now, I finally got the plywood cut yesterday and the paint and the glue to finish the job. So today I primed one side of the plywood, when it's good and dry I'll prime the other side, then paint it. Then put it in and be done.

The most exciting news, according to the dogs, is my discovery of a new (to us) dog treat. These are strips of yam, or sweet potato if'n you're a Yankee, wrapped in chicken and then somehow dried until it's nice and hard. The yam strips are about three eighths by three eighths of an inch and are of varying lengths. So if you have more than one dog you can give the big ones to the bigger dog and the little ones to the small dog.

Anyhow these things are called Yam Good and they are made by the Waggin Train people. I found them at Wal Mart. Now they have other treats, I haven't tried them yet and probably won't until the dogs get tired of these, which may never happen. According to the label these treats have no artificial flavors or colors, that's colours for my two or three British readers, no byproducts. No Fillers, No preservatives, no grain. No propylene glycol, no potassium sorbate, no titanium dioxide (whatever that is) no phosphoric acid and no potassium chloride. I don't know who would put all that stuff in a dog treat but they feel it's important to know that they don't. I'm just surprised to see that Firefox's spell checker knows how those things should be spelled but still gives the red underline to Obama. Yes, Firefox I know he's a mistake. But we're stuck with him for a while. Oh, yeah, the dog treats. My dogs love them and the Waggin Train folks seem to be avoiding the melamine problems that some other products have had. I hope they keep avoiding them. Although, from my admittedly limited understanding, the melamine came in grain and, since there is no grain in this product, they should keep avoiding the problem. Anyhow, give them a try, they are Bingo, Ming and Princess approved.

Nix Nork Nukes Now!

As I practice my headline writing I notice the rather flaccid and anemic response to the North Korean underground nuclear nuke test. We've been afraid of Li'l Kim since the Clinton Administration.

I am pretty sure that the reason is all that Nork artillery within range of Seoul. Of course many North Korean cities are within range of South Korean and American artillery but that doesn't seem to bother the clown with poofy hair.

I had a plan way back in '94 that I believe will still work, although no one has the courage to use it. Item one would be to evacuate Seoul. Item Two: pour artillery and air into the Nork artillery positions and air power. Item three: turn the zoomies loose on the rest of North Korea. Leave a small buffer zone on the Chinese and Russian borders.

After there are no Nork weapons more powerful than a Red Ryder Beebee Gun bomb the gaurdhouses and fences of those massive Nork prison camps. Then let everyone back into Seoul. Rebuild what has been destroyed. I strongly believe that damage will be fairly light, our counterbattery fire is nothing short miraculous.

Now one reason we haven't done that is because we are worried about killing civilians. This is an unfounded worry. No matter how many we civilians we killed it would not come close to how many Nork civilians starve to death or die in the prison camps.

The only people in North Korea that get enough to eat are the politicos and (some of) the military. The South Korean military is not the Army of the early 1950s. I saw them work in the midsixties.

The only advantage Li'l Kim has is brutality. The Norks have nothing else. Their air force is a joke. Their artillery is obsolete. Their army is armed with weapons a couple of generations old. I doubt that one Nork troop out of a hundred has night vision gear. I also doubt that they have effective body armor.

The South even has rifles that shoot airburst shells and all have laser sights. Meanwhile the Norks have those old AKs. The only advantage to the AK is that it will usually hold together while operated by a peasant. Imagine being a Nork grunt. It's night. You are crouched behind a rock when a South Korean that you can't see puts an airburst shell about three meters above your head. Now imagine you are that dead Nork's squadmate. You are hungry, your bud was just killed by a soldier that nobody can see, your officers have taken half the rations and you haven't been paid, or laid, in months. How is that morale and fighting spirit?

The Norks have the T62 tank, the South has the KH1, arguably as good as the M1Ain Abrams.

So, do we wait for the Norks to nuke Tokyo or Seoul or do we gird up or loins as Slow Joe said?

Oh, sorry, I forgot. China! Oh noes! China might get mad! You will forgive me if I'd rather see China mad than a smoking, glowing hole where a city of ten million people used to be. But, that's just me.

Scattershooting While Wondering Who Put The Bop In The Bop-Shu-Bopapop.

Am I the only one left that remembers that song from the '50s?

How often do I need to thank Blackie Sherrod for using the "Scattershooting While..." to keep it from becoming a very small scale plagiarism? I wonder about the same thing on the name of my Blog, of course. I do not know if I saw Duke Venturino's column in Handloader Magazine before or after I started my Blog. Or is it just a case of great minds thinking alike? I like the great minds theory.


I had my weekly ration of eggs and bacon this morning. I am kind of curious about this mania among health professionals about fat and cholesterol. During the 19th Century, and before, a big problem men and women had was keeping enough fat in their diets, especially in winter in cold climates. In the old diaries I constantly see references to killing a fall bear so they would get enough fat. Now I wonder, was it because nobody knew about cholesterol or because the men of that time burned off more calories by having to spend more time in the cold and having to work so much harder.

This last paragraph also makes me wonder about modern folks complaining about how they are so overstress. Few of us work twelve hour days anymore, coupled with then we don't have to go home and chop wood for the stove, carry water from the well or the pump. We have hot water heaters and vacuum cleaners. Washing machines. We don't have to clean the horse manure out of the stable. We buy milk instead of milking the cow. We don't have to shop every day, we have refrigerators and freezers. Those who can at home or sew, do it because it's their part time hobby. Sometimes I want to slap someone who complains about sitting at a desk for eight hours and then have to drive home for a half hour.

Oh, speaking of bacon and eggs, I wonder how much bacon grease I'd have to add to my bullet lube to automatically send any stray Jihadi types directly to the hot place with no virgins?

So I'm deciding whether to minimize this and get offline and watch an old movie or to take a nap. Decisions, decisions. Or maybe a movie and then a nap. Or maybe no nap today and go to bed "early" so I can get up at 10 AM or so. I've fallen into the bad habit of sleeping until noon or one PM. Then I miss half, or more, of Rush. Since I don't watch the news and have let my newspapers go, that and the Internet are my only sources of news. Maybe it's just that even with Rush and the intertubes, I'm run down with Obama fatigue. And we thought Clinton was a Presidency all about himself.

I have decided to blow off Facebook. There aren't enough words before they cut me off to tell a story.

I am hoping that it will stay dry enough tomorrow to fly the flag. Also, to get the Coca Cola 600 in. But mainly to fly the flag.

Naptime

So it was naptime and I was being quiet as a little mouse when I looked over on the couch and spied this. What I don't quite understand is how Ming the Merciless manages to trick me with her "carry me down the stairs, Daddy, you know it hurts my poor paws" routine, even though I see her climb up onto the back of the couch. I guess I'm just gullible.

I am not gullible enough for the politician types, though. I am still bemused how the Democrats are trying to criminalize what was done after 9/11 to prevent the next attack. Now they're saying that it was all that dastardly Bush Administration and we're gonna get even with them!

Sorry, I was home the morning of 9/11. I was on a shooting, hunting and handloading Bulletin Board website when someone popped up with turn on the TV! So I did. One of the things I saw was the stampede down the steps of the Capitol Building.

Now I'm pretty old but I remember the fire drills in Kindergarten. Maybe I only remember because I had to walk out into the playground holding hands with a pretty little redhead but I remember how we had to walk, calmly. We were never told if it was a drill or the real thing, came in handy the day there was a real fire. It was just a small thing, electrical if I recall, but smokey. In that whole school, K-5, there was no panic, we all walked out to the playground and then got to watch the big red fire trucks.

Unlike Congresscritters and their staffers. Remember? Remember the panic over Anthrax in the mail? Linda Lou sure does. Oddly, that panic was all in the political/media class. Linda Lou went to work every day at the main post office but the politicians shut down.

With all that panic we are now told to believe that it was just the Bush Administration treating suspected Jihadis mean. Right. I've got some oceanfront property in northeast Texas, too. I will gladly sell my half acre for the bargain price of five million dollars, too.

So the "torture" was all Bush now. I'm supposed to believe that those panicky congresscritters wouldn't have approved grabbing Jihadi's gonads with red hot pincers? Riiight!

This is why the Donks can't get any real traction on this. All but the diehard leftists have memories. As an aside, it must be nice to have no memory. To be able to say it's never worked anywhere it's ever been tried but it will work now because we have smart people like Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid in charge, all led by the super genius Obama. (What job has Obama had before that proves his competence? Oh, right, because the community he organized is now so wealthy and healthy.) Though the Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) try their best to throw all that down the memory hole, as well as those brothers and sisters of ours jumping out of those burning buildings, we remember.

It seems everyone but Washington remembers. The Washington/New York Republicans can't seem to remember what happens when grassroots Republicans don't man phone banks, when we don't walk precincts. When we sit home on a November Tuesday. Two elections in a row and the big deal "leaders" of the Party can't figure it out. No, Steele, you don't need new grassroots. No, Cornyn, you don't endorse the RINO a whole year before the Florida Primary.

The Republican Party lost big business some time back. Oddly, about the time big business started losing money and shipping jobs overseas. This has much to do with how we lost the education establishment a few decades back and started graduating MBA types who can't walk and chew bubblegum at the same time.

What we have left are main street businesses and the religious right, along with very few libertarians. So, naturally the Republican "leaders" are jettisoning the people who actually did the walking the precincts and manned the phone banks. Hint: It wasn't the libertarians. I keep reading folks like Professor Reynolds, I have never read of him doing any actual work during an election. This is not a big indictment, it's just who walks precincts and works those phone banks. But the Republican "leadership" thinks we need new grass roots.

Armed Forces Day

It's raining today so we don't have the flag out in honor of Armed Forces Day. Too bad, we'd fly it otherwise.

I've said it before, I'm not one of those "professional veterans" I see wearing bits of old uniforms or jackets marking where or when they served. I have none of the gewgaws and doodads they gave me for going where I was sent and doing what I was told. I volunteered once when I took the oath. The rest of the time I went along because otherwise I would have broken that oath. Not to mention being put in the jug.

The only thing we shall do to mark the day is watch that movie, "Taking Chance". We don't have HBO so we didn't get to watch it when it came out there. Instead we bought it and it came off the UPS truck this week. So, we will watch it later today and then, as the grandkids get old enough to understand, we'll show it to them.

While it is not important to me that others know, I did once stand with heroes. Many of the career men I met then had served in the big one, men who made that long walk to the beach of Tarawa, when the boats got hung on the reef. Men who saw the flag raised on Iwo Jima or the Kamakazis off the beaches of Okinawa. Other men who took that nice winter's walk back from Chosin a few years later.

Those men are mostly gone now, instead my generation of veterans has weasels as our public face, John Effin Kerry, Jack Murtha and James Webb. The nice thing about today is that the phoney Hee-roes and fake veterans are more easily found out. That clown in Denver, that kid who wrote that crap in the New Republic about how the war in Iraq stole his humanity before he ever got there...

So, today is another day to say thanks. As every day is, of course. Thanks to those who went before me, thanks to those I knew and thanks to those who came along after. And, yes, thanks to those who are yet to come.

I just got the word from Arizona. My grand niece, Cassie is graduating from high school. In the fall she will become Midshipman Cassie as she goes to the University of Arizona on an NROTC scholarship. So, Cassie, fair winds and following seas. You become a link in a very long chain. You will be a long time understanding just how proud of you I feel.

Exactly What World Does David Brooks Inhabit?

So first I saw what Victor Davis Hanson said about what David Brooks thought about Republicans and John Ford Westerns, it got me curious enough to actually click over and read what Brooks had to say.

Apparently he thinks Republicans don't care about a civil society. This must be because Brooks is a an ivy league "educated" cretin. Brooks says people vote Democrat because they crave order. Um, David, have you looked out the windows as you rode through your beloved Democrat run cities?

It's a pretty good bet that the worse the civic order conditions, the more powerful the Democrat influence. Funny, the places where even police won't go except in groups, that is where the vote is about 100 percent Democrat. But Republican don't care about an orderly society.

I am reminded of how the Democrats used the James Byrd murder aftermath. After Bush's Texas has sentenced two of the murderers to death and the one that rolled and turned state's evidence to life without parole, Democrats said that this just proved the need for hate crimes legislation. Right. With hate crimes legislation the peckerwood that rolled over would get TWO life sentences without parole, right? And the others? Maybe the Democrats would not try to get rid of their death sentences. Oh, I know, they'd still try to do away with the death sentence but would blame the Republicans.

Anyhow, all I know is anyone who decides to vote Democrat because they are interested in civic order is as stupid as those rich folks who voted for Obama believing that he'd go after rich Republicans but leave them alone.

Mom

It's too bad we are broke (again) this month, I have some more slides from my boyhood that I would like to get into a format to put up on this blog. For some reason the new scanner hooked up to the new computer puts the pictures we scan in into a format that we can't manage to put on this blog. And the new grandbaby pictures the kids post on Facebook, the same. Oh well, on with my Mother's Day post...

One of my earliest memories is getting beat up by a goose. I don't recall exactly what I did to anger it (do not ask if it was a goose or a gander at this late date. I have no idea, nor do I know how to tell the difference even today. All I remember is that this giant bird (when you're five years old it doesn't take much to be giant) came rushing out of a yard and whopped me with the leading edge of it's wings and pecked the foo out of me.

Anyhow, it hurt and it really made me mad. I had done nothing to that critter. I later discovered that geese are very territorial, all I knew is that it was time for revenge. So I ran home because my folks had been doing some kind of project and there were some one by one boards around, the perfect size for a small person's hand to wield as a club.

One was broken and kind of pointy, making it just what I needed, a club that I could also stab with. My plan for justice was spoiled, though. Somehow my Mom got wind of it. Fifty-five+ years makes me forget why, exactly. She may have heard me crying tears the size of horse apples, that goose HURT!

Anyhow Mom caught me about a block from home as I was going back to wreak vengeance and justice on that feathered fiend. Unfortunately my mother took sides with the goose. Worse, she took my weapon of righteousness. Worse yet, I must have said the wrong thing to her because she used that stick. On me, the injured party. Step, swat, step, swat, all the way home. Sometimes there is no justice in the world.

I haven't like geese since.

Cracking Down On Tax Cheats

So I see where the Bambi Administration is cracking down on tax cheats. So, I thought "Great! Geithner and Rangel are going to the federal pen."

Imagine my chagrin when (I discovered that instead, they are going to stop the deductions on company's overseas taxes.

I mean it's really hard sometimes to believe in God. When this administration can talk about cracking down on tax cheats and not have lightning strike...

Just Wondering

I'm kind of curious about one little detail. Most everybody who is serious about the economy is expecting we'll hit the wall fairly quickly with these trillion dollar deficits. Now Bambi is still talking about how he's going to pay these things off while giving 95% of citizens an income tax cut.

Now I'm no economist but since almost half of the country doesn't pay income tax, how is he going to cut those taxes? Since the top five percent pays 60% of the taxes I'm not real sure that Bush did a very good job of "tax cuts for the rich".

But what I am really curious about is how people like Obama, Reid and Pelosi are going to explain the mess when the Chinese want some of their money back.

I could see, if the unholy trinity had held spending down even to the insane levels of the last year of the Republican Congress they could just screech Boosh! Booosh! and a sufficient portion of the public might let them live. But having run against Bush's spending and then increasing the deficit to well over a trillion dollars seems to be a whole different problem.

It seems to me that when the bill comes due for this there will be a lot of people very unhappy. I have seen that Bambi's energy proposals will cost each family some thirty-one hundred dollars a year. Well, if I had someone to ghostwrite books making me millions like some people, that would be fine. Or if I could jet all over and have a limo idling outside while I made speeches about how the little people use too much energy. As it is, I don't have an extra thirty-one hundred dollars a year. Not many folks I know do. Folks I know either work for wages or run businesses small enough that an extra thirty-one hundred dollars a year might just cause them to lay off some help, or go out of business. Then what?

It looks as if our political class is eating the seed corn. That is the one sure way to lose the farm. I don't mind Bambi, Pelosi and Reid losing their farms. I'd rather, though, that they didn't take us with them. And I'm curious, what are they going to do if the whole thing comes crashing down around their ears? They can scream Boosh! Booosh! all they want, the entire government belongs to them now. Under Bush I paid my house off. If I lose it to government idiocy it won't be Bush. I won't be mad at the Republicans who can't stop this stupidity, either.

Well, I will be mad at Republicans, if only they'd stayed with the Party Platform they'd never have ended up with no power at all. Instead, they blew it. Leading us to this.