Rattling the windows and the nerves

Woke up this morning at 4:4? to the rattling of the bed, and not in a good way. Now I get that the earth shakes and quivers all the time (as the wife reminded me) but it ain't something that I dig. At all.

The earth doing its thing is a great reminder that we as the inhabitants of this blue marble sitting amidst otherwise nothingness are in charge of exactly dick, despite what your boss, mortgage company, and the I.R.S. seemingly like to make you think.

Yet there is this reminder from Christ Himself when He did his tour in the mid-east 2 thousand years ago.

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life^[b]?

And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Pretty good reminder after a 5.4 on the Rhicter .

SB1200

You might not know this but in the Missouri State Senate they are debating a bill on encoding ammunition by 2009. Encoded ammo would be registered to the purchaser and would include the date it was sold, the purchaser's name, date of birth, drivers license number and serial number of ammunition.
I was all set to do my usual ramble about tyranny of government of this when I got a copy of my good friend Dave's e-mail he sent out to our state senators. His words do far more justice than anything I could write. I encourage you to read it.

"I am writing to express my opposition to Senate Bill No. 1200 introduced by Senator Bray. I believe this to be yet another thinly veiled attempt at criminalizing law abiding citizens rather than actually reducing crime. Many law abiding citizens will purchase firearms and ammunition for protection of their homes, persons and property. Sadly, many of these citizens will rarely, if ever, practice with their firearm. Ammunition that has been purchased for self defense purposes may remain in a closet or drawer for years. By passing this law, you have effectively made these law abiding citizens criminals by possessing ammunition which does not meet the requirements set forth in this bill. I find this legislation interesting in that ammunition encoding systems are currently based on a proprietary system, and is patent pending. A licensing fee would be charged for each bullet manufactured with the encoding. I find it reprehensible that a company would enlist the help of legislators to enact legislation that would pump money into their pockets by forcing the licensing of an unproven technology. In addition to the "licensing fee", costs would also be passed on to the consumer to account for the record keeping required for every box of ammo purchased. This will in effect price the Second Amendment out of reach for many law abiding citizens. After all, what good is the right to keep and bear arms if you can't afford the ammunition. The economic impact could be great. If ammunition costs rise significantly, you could potentially see a drop in hunting and shooting sports which pump billions of dollars into our economy. This will result in the closure of manufacturing plants and supporting businesses which require a healthy industry to survive. This would result in the loss of thousands of American jobs. I would think it to be politically damning if legislation were passed which caused the loss of more American jobs. The shutdown of these ammunition manufacturers would impact law enforcement. It could increase their training costs as it would likely impact the availability and quality of the ammunition that they train with and rely upon in their duty weapons. In addition to the impact on law enforcement, our military would be impacted as much of their ammunition also comes from the same factories and manufacturers which produce ammo for civilian and law enforcement use. People who intend to perpetrate a crime with a firearm will have little regard for whether their ammunition is registered or not. If this law were in effect today, it would not have stopped many of the recent mass shootings. Is this legislation about preventing crime, or about filling the coffers of a company peddling an unproven technology and reducing the rights of American citizens through a de facto ban of our Second Amendment rights? I urge you to vote against this measure and any other measure, de facto or de jure, that would infringe or remove the rights granted in the Second Amendment of the Constitution. I would point out that in Australia and The United Kingdom (both with stringent weapons laws) that it has done little to reduce the amount of gun related crime. Rather, in Australia where all forms of firearms are prohibited, crime has actually increased since there is no apparent deterrent in that someone may well be armed. Please vote against this bill."

Well said David...well said indeed!

2012

So its the morning after the New Hampshire Primaries and I choose not to debase myself with name calling, but New Hampshire come on!

All great nations, empires, and the like fall at some point, and while I hate to say it I think our reign is almost over. It wouldn't have to be mind you, but frankly when a nation sticks diodes in its ears to listen the personal choice of music and misses the hum of a nation we lose ground every day. When the top stories of the week on yahoo are whether Britney wore panties, or which celebs top the worst dressed list it proves our heads are willfully stuck up our asses. And it heavies and hardens my heart.

In the fall of 2010 I will turn 35 and by 2012 I will be 37 making me old enough to make a run for President.

No name calling...none. I won't even talk about the other candidates. Rather I will talk about what I will and won't do. If I get asked a question and I don't have a plan for it I'll say exactly that.What I do want is to get things right at home.

Freedom-Safe guarding the rights of the individual. I consider myself a man of the person not of the people.

The Border-Put the United States Armed Forces on the Mexico border. We are all the sons and daughters of immigrants in this land and I welcome legal immigration, dare I say I admire anyone who fights to make a better life for themselves. But we are a nation of laws and those laws must be respected. There is no free pass for sneaking across the border.

Iraq- All U.S. combat troops to be withdrawn over time if we are not already out. American military advisers? Absolutely but our combat days in Iraq are done. I would deal with the our new found allies to set up multiple military bases inside Iraq. However if they want American boots on the ground to defend their liberty then they will have to pay for through private military and security forces. Freedom costs. It did us. We had to pay for it with money and blood. I would sell/trade American military equipment for exclusive and discounted oil rights. Oil is a national security issue and it has to be addressed, and there is no reason not to openly address it.

Foreign Policy-The world likes to bitch about America try living with out us for the next four years. Have a famine in your country talk to the U.N., natural disaster try the Mouvement international de la Croix-Rouge et du Croissant-Rouge. We buy nothing from Venezuela n-o-t-h-i-n-g. Hugo likes Castro so much he can share the pain of an American trade embargo.

America has to focus inward, we can and must bring jobs back to the U.S. and instill national pride and rugged individualism.

We need to offer $1 billion dollars cash to the first company who can build a gas free vehicle that can drive six hundred miles in one run with out a recharge of whatever, can haul six people, three deer stands and a duck boat. Has a full bore, out run, and gun engine that you can be proud to drive.

We have to develop new technologies and force the large American businesses to recycle their trash in earnest and stop filling up landfills.

Developers need to be given sufficient tax breaks on derelict housing to go in a rebuild neighborhoods complete with schools, supermarkets and honest to God infrastructure.

Get the middle class to move back into metropolitan areas and stop, S-T-O-P bulldozing our wetlands, our farms, and our forests.

If the American people really want to change health care (not socialize it) then take it to the streets in protest, literally. Let the voice of a nation be heard that the Insurance Industry has to make sufficient changes that make cost lower and return health care to the doctor. Encourage healthy living through knowledge and education.

If you are on of the many Americans who thought that the American Government didn't do anything to save the victims of Hurricane Katrina then why in the bloody hell would you want them to take care of your heart condition, cancer or broken leg!?


It is important that we have pharmaceutical companies but we don't need a pill for everything. Homeopathic medicine needs to be addressed in a serious way in America and legitimize by teaching it in American Universities.

Address the stupid obsession with our way of thinking about our children. They are not our most precious resource the American middle class working person is. Children shouldn't be put up on pedestals and treated as equals, they aren't. If you put your child first all you get is an adult who only thinks of himself and never finds satisfaction in life.

Get our kids outside again and put away those mother fucking video games. You want to know why your eight year old has diabetes and he's over weight ...Halo 3. That's why. There are these amazing things that are called hiking, fishing, hunting...sandlot baseball where uniforms are whatever you have on and one team wins and the other (gasp) loses...just like real life.

Encourage encourage encourage a free market where people are free to make as much or as little as THEY choose.

Pass a national carrying conceal bill for the private citizen, that does not require any form of National I.D.

Tax the hell out of the American pornography and adult entertainment business.

Fight the overwhelming trend of Socialism in this country, remind people of the goodness of freedom and that we all don't have to agree, and in fact we shouldn't, but that we all have to live together.

Last but not least personal responsibility. Its nobodies business to take care of you or your family but you. When a child sees the parent taking charge of their futures and instilling good pride through hard work and ethical business practices you will see the child turn into an adult of strong principals and self sufficiency.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpation's, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Something wicked this way comes

You've probably seen the video and heard the late night talk show hosts laugh and quote "Don't tase me bro..." but there is something verry disturbing about this.

Andrew Meyes who is a journo student at University of Florida was forcibly removed from the question stand after asking John Kerry too many questions. Force escalated when he pulled away from the Campus police who were attempting to remove him and it ultimately led to him being dragged to the rear of the auditorium and was taken to the ground by several cops who began to zip-cuff him. It was here that he was tasered.

Now over the years I've done some man-handling of men and on some occasions women. Here was difference between those situations and this. There was a viable threat against my principal or myself, or someone else. I NEVER removed or put my hands on anyone who was running off at the mouth. I did try and talk reasonable to them, and as corny as this sounds got one of the best pieces of advice I would ever employ from Patrick Swayze in Roadhouse. "Be nice". It may sound completely soft, and limp but here is the thing, it is also completely disarming in 80% of the situations. I never said that I wasn't ready for something to go down or go bad, nor that I was not firm in my request or apologetic about what I was doing I simply asked a question in a gentler tone.

It works in most cases because when you make an approach your adversary expects you to try and bully them, so they don't want to lose face and nobody likes to be pushed around. Being nice will get you far.

In the Andrew Meyer situation everything was wrong. Instead of saying to him that everyone is allowed a certain amount of time, they cut the mike off and the cops moved in. They put their hands on him to move him from the rear and blindside. Meyer had just finished when hands are put on him.

This is a very serious situation on a constitutional level that occurred on an American University of all places, where free speech is taught as a corner stone of America.

This is the hall marks of moving towards a Police State.

And where was John Kerry in all of this. The man who wanted to be the leader of the Free World should have looked to the police and requested (he had no actual authority to do anything granted) that they immediately remove their hands from this man, and it would have been a great place to go on the necessity of protecting free speech. What Kerry says instead after mumbling in a weakish manner about answering his questions is "Well I guess he won't be swearing me in up here as President" ???

While everyone is very much obsessing over unimportant issues like O.J. So called "small" issues like this are showing the turning of the tide. The Universities are always a good meter to measure against how society is going. And as a man was being assaulted and his constitutional rights clearly being violated America has laughed at it.

In a post 9/11 world our borders are still wide open to illegal persons who can in some parts obtain a drivers license and hundreds of thousands of them can protest that they have rights to be here and work illegally. And no one moves in to arrest them. Mean while private citizens bent on doing the right thing of protecting our borders both armed and unarmed are criticized and called "extremist". Homeland Security has issued warnings of school buses being used in an Islamic funded terrorist attack, presumable in the Northwest, and very few even know about it. The leader of Iran himself, a known terrorist and state sponsor of terrorism, has been asked to speak to students at an American University, all the while an over zealous journalist student is being tasered and escorted out in handcuffs.

We the People have a very reasonable, inalienable and lawfully expected right to ask questions both publicly and privately, aggressively or passively no matter who agrees or disagrees with the position one has taken. That my fellow Americans is free speech, plain and simple!

Global Warming

So its July 20th, 2007 here in the Mid-West and normally the weather is something to the effect of 175 degrees with 225% humidity and everyone is generally willing to offer virginal sacrifices to the air conditioner gods to keep the appeased, yet every summer we are seeing milder and milder summers here in this part of the country. Sure we still get those stupid hot days, but something is changing.

As of this writing (around noon non the less) the Temp is 75 degrees and we have been experiencing something of Monsoons in the late afternoons a couple times a week and nice enjoyable days....in July.....in St. Louis.

Global warming is being blamed or at least man is for causing global warming. Well I think we bear some burdens but not all of it. Here is just a thought for all you atheistic evolutionaries to ponder.

The ice caps are a result of meteor impacts that caused something to the effect of a nuclear winter over the earth (read: ice age). Areas that were once comparable to African Savannas year round (Montana) were blanketed by ice and snow and glaciers. So the ice age wasn't exactly something that was supposed to occur naturally in an earth context. Eventually the ice melted over some period of time and the land got itself back in sync. Then we show up and eventually screw the pooch. Or are we completely, I mean we definitely pollute that undebateable.

If the polar caps weren't natural and occurred from galactic pollution and they are still melting then isn't the earth actually returning to what is once was? Maybe we need to realize that in the 21st century that as a society we are completely removed from a daily life amongst the natural land and maybe just maybe we don't have all the answers like we think we do. I seriously doubt that people who drive Priuses and live in urban areas can tell me jack shit about what really goes on in the wilds as a whole...not that they won't try...as they drink water out of the plastic one use bottle that came from petroleum that was drilled out of the earth from several thousand miles away and shipped over an already environmentally troubled ocean, along with those non bio degradable shoes (leather is bio degradable by the way...see circle of life concept).

Everyone talks about the massive droughts in the Southwest and Los Angles areas (umm its the desert) and massive floods every where else and how man has caused all this. Droughts have been going on since before we all were born, by something like since the beginning. It can not rain extensively in one area to the effect of flooding and not cause a drought in another (See Newton's 3rd law of physics it pretty much applies). Our water is the same water that was drunk by earliest man, dinosaurs, Genghis Khan, Caesar, George Washington, to yours truly.

Maybe the reason the earth is shaped in a near perfect circle is because cycles work better that way (hmmm circle-cycle seems to be some connection there), and maybe we all need to stop, look and listen to the natural world instead of trying to talk it to death.

Or here is a really crazy thought. Perhaps there is actually a higher power, an honest Supreme Being who created all this and might have a better handle on things than we all realize.

So if a mid afternoon in July is clear skies and 75 degrees is the result of Global Warming I'm gonna go rejoice and roll around in the nearest land fill then pick up my AK and go Whale Hunting.

The Murderer at Virginia Tech

In the coming days you are going to here more and more about what drove Cho Seung-Hui, a 23 year old senior of the Virginia Tech English Department to commit mass murder. And placing blame is going to come along side it, some of it not necessarily wrong, but little of it right.

The sad fact is that while nothing could ever justify an evil act such as this, it will more than likely have to do with a girl, teacher, grades or an uncertain future. At least that will be the speculated reasons.

Regardless of what you hear in the next several days and weeks remember this. Ultimately there is no one else to blame but Cho Seung-Hui himself. He made the choice to murder and take innocent life by stalking and killing. And I think he liked it. What? You may ask. There are some people in this world who enjoy killing just for the sake of killing. I think in the wake of the two hours after the initial dorm murders were committed he decided that he actually enjoyed the murdering of people.

He got a power charge or a hard on or whatever. You can not tell me that he didn't shoot almost forty people and not enjoy it. He did.

Maybe the campus administrators should have shut down the campus as soon as they found out of the two dead. I certainly think so. It's called problem containment. But there is another unseen blame here. No one student or professor was capable or willing to stop him. Virginia has a carry conceal law, but it prohibits the carrying of firearms on campus. This law certainly didn't seem to stop Cho Seung-Hui from carrying out his attack. One or two students armed with a pistol in a messenger bag or under a t-shirt could have neatly perforated his head. But there is something else missing. Bravery. Grown an able bodied men cowered behind doors, desks, tables and chairs when they should have been doing something. The very same guys who are so brave playing their Special Forces video games in the dorms, or watching 24 and thinking how much they would like to be Jack Bauer (I like guy tv too). All the danger, none of the risk.

The cowardice to do nothing in yesterday's attack was just as evil as the murder committed by Hui. One student or instructor armed could have saved lives. One (or seven) well placed stab wounds from a folding knife from a sneak attack on Hui could have saved lives. A fire extinguisher sprayed and emptied and then applied to his head could have saved lives. We can not sit an condemn the French for surrendering or cowardice when we are raising our men in the same manner.

While this is no doubt a dark moment and spot in American history, and it is easy to point out that Hui was able to get access to handguns, let me refresh your memory to September 1, 2004, the Beslan School Hostage crisis. Doesn't ring any bells? Probably not. It happened in the Russian town of Beslan. A group of Muslim pro-Chechen rebels took 1200 teachers and student hostage. Russia isn't exactly known for its easy access to firearms. On day three gunfire erupted and resulted in the deaths of 344 civilians of whom 186 were children. You don't kill 186 elementary aged school children and not enjoy it.

Life isn't getting more violent, history shows us this. But the fact of the matter is that one day we are going to wake up and find that a suicide bomber walked into an American bookstore, coffee shop, mall and blew himself up, and that will be the start of it. And explosives are highly controlled and regulated in the U.S. so there won't be the standard excuses of blaming everyone else for the actions of those who commit evil.

There is in the end only one solution to problems such as this. Courage. Or more appropriately Courage Under Fire. If you are encountering someone who is trying to kill you and those around you the only reasonable thing to do is to kill them before they can continue. This responsibility falls on the men of society just as it always has, and not on waiting for the police to rescue you.

The amazing thing is that through repeated situations like this the world over, I still get asked "Why do you carry a gun?"

twilight’s last gleaming

"Three Yale University students, one a U.S. citizen born in Pakistan, were arrested on charges of setting fire to an American flag hanging outside a home.Said Hyder Akbar, 23, Nikolaos Angelopoulos, 19, and Farhad Anklesaria, also 19, were arrested early Tuesday on charges ranging from reckless endangerment to arson, police said."

I'm not an overly emotional guy, in the sense of crying. So when yesterday I read that three guys from Yale University had been arrested for burning the flag one might immediately think I was mad, which is true, but really more so I was heart broken. Truly sincerely heart broken, that kind of pain you feel when you miss someone you love or when a tragedy hits that had nothing to do with you and yours but it leaves you marked with sadness. I fully realize that it's not a big deal to the media or sadly enough to the American Idol viewing public and in a few days we'll hear no more about it. I could go on a tirade about how I firmly believe that if you burn the flag and someone assaults you for it, that it is also freedom of expression. Or that by burning the flag I believe you renounce your American Citizenship and should be deported. But I've decided to go another way instead. I came across something from my old Boy Scout Manual about the flag, it reads:

The National Flag represents the living country and is considered to be a living thing emblematic of the respect and pride we have for our nation. Our flag is a precious possession. Display it proudly. There are certain fundamental rules of Heraldy which if understood, generally indicate the proper method of displaying the flag. The right arm, which is the sword arm and the point of danger, is the place of honor. Hence, the union of the flag is the place of honor or the honor point. The National Emblem is a symbol of our great country, our heritage and our place in the world. We owe reverence and respect to our flag. It represents the highest ideals of individual liberty, justice and opportunity for all.

The longest undisputed and undefended border between two countries in the world is between The United States of America and Canada. You will find no heavily armed military service personal sitting atop tanks and humvee's on either side waiting for one to make a move. What you will find is Old Glory flying next to the Maple Leaf. You will also find her flying atop of institutions of learning, or in the halls of justice, but you will also find her often enough welcoming home the average man or woman from work or the child from school as it is sometimes found firmly anchored to the front porch. She's been to the moon and draped over our dead, she represents not the government but her people.

In 1831 a sea captain named William Driver was given a beautiful flag as a birthday present by family and friends where he quickly named her "Old Glory". She flew at sea for the next six years until he retired from life on the water, and took "Old Glory" with him to Nashville, Tennessee. On days of Patriotism he flew the flag loud and proud, but when the South seceded in 1861 Driver was afraid she would be confiscated by confederate troops so he hid the flag having sewn it inside of a comforter. On February 25, 1862 the Union army reclaimed Nashville and Driver removed her from her hiding place and went to the state capital and hoisted up the flagpole where he remained all night keeping watch armed and prepared to defend her and see that she came to no harm. Shortly before his death in 1886 he gave the flag to his daughter to keep. It would travel with her to Nevada and California where it was displayed from time to time. Then in the early 1900s the flag was badly deteriorating so she had it sewn to a bed sheet in order to stabilize it. It remained a family heirloom until 1922 when it was sent to the Smithsonian Institute and carefully preserved. It and the flag which flew over Fort McHenry during the British bombardment of 1814, inspiring Francis Scott Key to write the The Star-Spangled Banner to the tune of a British drinking song "To Anacreon in Heaven". Both of the flags are considered the two most historically significant in the country and two of the greatest treasures of the Smithsonian.

All of this begs the questions. What is gained by setting her on fire? Who sides with you? Whose hearts do you really win and do you really want them? If this is being progressive you can keep it, you're no friend of mine and I wouldn't care to have you sit at my table and break bread with my family. All my words are wasted though as Key said it best when he penned:

O say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?