A Fellow Blogger is back!

 Remember my talking about a fellow blogger  and he vanished...Well he is back under a new site,   he was doxxed, threatened with arrest, and to have his livelihood wiped away all because some SJW didn't like what he said.  This blogger had 84,000 lifetime post in 5 years.  His stuff has been tamer than my stuff,  but he got targeted.  Scary time we live in.  Well   he asked me not to mention his "Old Name" until he is sure all the dust is settled.     Here is the site for his new blog, go check it out and bookmark it!

75 Million Pissed Off Patriots

   

      Welcome Back !!!

The Thagomizer

I am a huge fan of "The Far Side" comics, one of my favorite all time comics is this one...

We used "white out" to change the words in the cartoon while we were in Germany and subsitute names of our fellow soldiers to make the point more personal.  It provided a lot of humor for us. 
     Now on the reason for this post, I have on my blogroll The Abode of McThag.  He is a real good guy and has a warped sense of humor, but everytime I click on the Link to his blog I think of this cartoon from the "Far Side".

I hope Angus don't mind my putting a spotlight on his blog.  He is a good guy and a very serious gamer and he also puts out a lot of cool stuff on stabby things and many other articles.   If you don't have him bookmarked or on your blogroll, you are missing out.

A thagomizer is the distinctive arrangement of four to ten spikes on the tails of stegosaurid dinosaurs. These spikes are believed to have been a defensive measure against predators.

The arrangement of spikes originally had no distinct name; the term Thagomizer was coined in 1982 by cartoonist Gary Larsonin his comic The Far Side, and thereafter became gradually adopted as an informal term within scientific circles, research, and education.

                                                Thagomizer on mounted Stegosaurus tail

There has been debate about whether the spikes were used simply for display, as posited by Gilmore in 1914,^[ or used as a weapon. Robert Bakker noted that it is likely that the stegosaur tail was much more flexible than those of other ornithischiandinosaurs because it lacked ossified tendons, thus lending credence to the idea of the tail as a weapon. He also observed that Stegosaurus could have maneuvered its rear easily by keeping its large hindlimbs stationary and pushing off with its very powerfully muscled but short forelimbs, allowing it to swivel deftly to deal with attack.  In 2010, analysis of a digitized model of Kentrosaurus aethiopicus showed that the tail could bring the thagomizer around to the sides of the dinosaur, possibly striking an attacker beside it.

                                                   A thagomizer on the tail of a Stegosaurus fossil

In 2001, a study of tail spikes by McWhinney et al., showed a high incidence of trauma-related damage. This too supports the theory that the spikes were used in combat. There is also evidence for Stegosaurus defending itself, in the form of an Allosaurus tail vertebra with a partially healed puncture wound that fits a Stegosaurus tail spike. Stegosaurus stenops had four dermal spikes, each about 60–90 cm (2.0–3.0 ft) long. Discoveries of articulated stegosaur armor show that, at least in some species, these spikes protruded horizontally from the tail, not vertically as is often depicted. Initially, Marsh described S. armatus as having eight spikes in its tail, unlike S. stenops. However, recent research re-examined this and concluded this species also had four

The term "thagomizer" was coined by Gary Larson in jest, in a 1982 The Far Side comic in which a group of cavemen in a faux-modern lecture hall are taught by their caveman professor that the spikes on a stegosaur's tail are so named "after the late Thag Simmons".

The term was picked up initially by Ken Carpenter, a paleontologist at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, who used the term when describing a fossil at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Annual Meeting in 1993. Thagomizer has since been adopted as an informal anatomical term, and is used by the Smithsonian Institution,^[the Dinosaur National Monument, the book The Complete Dinosaur and the BBC documentary series Planet Dinosaur.

The cartoon fate of Thag Simmons notwithstanding, stegosaurs and humans did not exist in the same era; humans evolvedaround 60 million years after the event that killed all non-avian dinosaurs, and some 120 million years after stegosaurids went extinct. In The Prehistory of the Far Side, Gary Larson suggests that "there should be cartoon confessionals where we could go and say things like, 'Father, I have sinned – I have drawn dinosaurs and hominids together in the same cartoon.

NRAAM 2018 AAR

I attended my second NRAAM in the great city of Dallas;

I flew into Love field on Saturday morning and flew out Sunday Morning.   I learned a few things...First off I should have planned a Friday trip and return on Sunday Trip.  I couldn't change the airline tickets,  I bought these tickets at a huge discount and the flip side is that once I buy them, they are set in concrete.   Because of that I couldn't change my hotel room either.  Oh well, lesson learned on the planning side, I was trying to go as cheep as I can and as the phrase goes "Penny wise, pound foolish".   Next year I will plan on 2 nights.
      Well anyway I met the "GodFather" Old NFO at NRAAM, now let me tell you...That guy knows EVERYONE, if he don't know you, I betcha he knows someone that knows you.  I also met a bunch of other people like Lawdog, you know the same guy that came up with the "Cake Meme" that I use on a regular one...Lemme find it for you...

Yeah, that one...He says that he gets a bunch of hate mail on it.  To me that shows how effective it is when the liberal gungrabbers are butt hurt.  I also have bought both of his books and let me tell you, the story on the books are tame to meeting the guy in person.  He is truly a class act and a slightly warped sense of humor .
     As far as the venue goes, I and my son walked through Dallas, caught the "DART" or the Dallas area rapid transit  system and it was laid out differently and man everyone was nice and friendly to us, especially when it was obvious that we are "out of towners".  Unlike the sullen indifference I get here in the ATL.  I was looking for protestors, where were the protestors?..I was expecting to get swarmed by antifa or some of the other idiots, and with the exception of a couple of police on the corner all I saw were the members headed into the convention center.   I was armed, I had for the trip bought a little Pelican case to transport my pistol.  I had read up on the rules, I being a GA CCW permit holder, Texas recognized my permit so I could carry on the rail system, and in the convention center.
    The convention center had the usual big names there...

The crowd was a bit different this time, I and several other bloggers noticed it.  the crowd wasn't a bunch of older white males, nothing against older white males, I happen to be one.

  It was a bit different, there were a bunch of women there, and according to Lawdog, one lady was giving the Glock rep fits about their gun policies and she was articulate, and reasonable but she had that guy squirming.   He was pleased, you can read about it and others on his blog. 
     I and my son walked around and ran across this place, again...

he and I got a T-shirt, the only place that I am aware that you got "free" T-shirts.  Swag was far lower this year than last year, don't know what is up with that.    I did buy a couple of things, I was talking to the guy running this vendor stall..

 And I was checking out the actions on these rifles and they were like glass and they were Mosin Nagant rifles, I was shocked.  The guy running the booth told he how he did it, he had explained that the rifles were buried in Russian cosmoline for 70 years in many cases and the metal had absorbed the cosmoline.  He told me how he got the cosmoline and how he polished the action up on the Mosin Nagant rifles,   I will try what he suggested in a few weeks when I have my Honey do list knocked down.  I did buy some stripper clips for $20 and he gave me some new set screws that accepted the hex key vs the older ones that used the flat tip screw driver.  To me the advice was worth the $20 so I had no problem buying the stripper clips for my Mosin.

I also bought a regular magazine for my Smith Sigma, I have a couple of magazines but they are the "capped" 10 round magazines.   I may try to experiment and grind the stop off the  capped magazine.
     I also saw some furniture that was "unique", and I wonder of the spousal unit would think of this addition if I had bought it.
     

I suppose I could move it to the dog house.....LOL   Well anyway I also saw this for people wanting to keep their pistol within easy reach....

There is a pistol strapped under the Steering column.

The NRAAM was an enjoyable visit,  We did have to help Old NFO find his car, he was gracious to give my son and I a ride so we didn't have to use the transit system.  I met some new people at a place the bloggers congregated at after the meet..

It is what I call a "Beer Bar", Since I don't drink, I just ordered "Tea" and we did damage to the assorted, breads, cheese, salami and pretzels.   It was a good get together and I talked to people that I have met online and never in person until now.   We were there for a while swapping stories and having a good time   I really enjoyed the camaraderie and I am looking forward to Indianapolis 2019.  This time I will plan my trip better, LOL

New Blogger!!!

 A good friend of mine, Yes I actually have a couple of those, he started his own blog.  You can find it
Here!!!   I have known Mac for many years,  He and I have survived Summer camp, and many Boy Scout activities,

 Here Mac is being "friendly" with the ladies from "Frozen",  If this happened in the corporate world, this might be a "HR" event, This pic was taken a couple of years ago at one of the Klondikes that the camp has hosted for the council

Yes he is the frequent commenter and I blame him for things that I put on my blog..Angry Staff Officer, yep it is Mac that tuned me into this guy,Yes it is his fault.   Mac seriously is a good guy and he has a slightly warped sense of humor....Again   go HERE..I Double dog dare you....

  Yeah go for it.

     Go over to Mac's new blog and say "Hi".   I will be adding him to my blogroll

    

Lesson Learned and being a repeater

Well I had a few things I wanted to do this morning, and it didn't happen....Well I had bought on the Black Friday specials a "Bun Warmer" to put in my truck on top of the leather seats.  Ford didn't offer "Heated Seats" when my truck was built,It became an option a couple of years later.  Oh Well  Guess what happens when you forgot to turn it off....

Yep you guessed it....DRT battery.  Well I have a battery tender on it now.  I was planning on visiting my Dad this morning and going to the range.  I had purchased several boxes of Federal ammo

I bought the ammo at Wallyworld, I wanted to get several types of "high Performance" like Hornady critical defense or the  Speer Gold Dot.  Well all they had was the Federal Hydroshok.  I have heard good things about that one.  I was planning on running the ammo through my .40 Cal pistols and especially run the hydroshoks through the Taurus since that is my "carry" gun until I sell it or trade it.  But I wanted to see how the pistol performed.  In the past, the Taurus has proven reliable and functioned every time but the quality has been hit or miss with the company.  it is possible that I got one of the good ones and I wanted to verify it.  if the Taurus feeds the Hydroshoks, then the Hornady and the Speer and feeds it and runs well, I might keep the pistol.

 The Other Pistol is my S&W Sigma, the pistol that was such a carbon copy of the Glock that S&W got sued for it.  Well mine is a first generation of that pistol and it works fine, the pistol doesn't fit my hand super well like a SIG or a 1911, but the pistol functions well.

I am retransmitting this signal from Old NFO Blog, the raffle is almost done, if y'all can, please throw some more love at this.

3 days left… We will end the gun raffle at midnight on the 30th, with the drawings to be held December 1st, but the Go Fund Me WILL CONTINUE. Right now we’re at about 61% of our goal, not as far along as we wanted, but at least this should give Andi a good start on the therapy she needs.
Andi, a member of our Blogorado family, has suffered a stroke, which was misdiagnosed initially, leading to complications.  She doesn’t have medical insurance, and is having to fund her rehabilitation on a pay-as-you-go basis.  Several of us have pooled our resources by donating guns from our personal collections, and we’re offering them as an incentive to raise funds for her, along with some non-gun prizes (jewelry, books, etc.) for those who’d prefer them.  The Go Fund Me is HERE. Jenn as a personal post up on Andi, HERE.
You’ll find photographs of all the prizes in three parts:  here, here, here, and here. There is an additional package it’s number 14!  A full polish on a stainless or nickel plate on a blued handgun. This is from Reflections Chrome Plating up in Maine! Remember, donate to the Go Fund Me, HERE, and email your receipt to  4anditherapy@gmail.comtoparticipate in the raffle!!!
The drawing will be via a random number generator on 1 December. First number drawn gets their pick, second number gets their pick, and so on.
Thank you to all that have contributed both packages and donations!

A favor for a friend.

I cut and pasted this from "Old NFO" you know the "Don" and we cannot refuse the reasonable request of our "Godfather".   Seriously if y'all can throw a few bucks at this it will be appreciated.  I will post occasional reminders to keep it in peoples mind.

I know this is a lousy time to ask for money, but one of our extended Blogarado family is in need. FarmFam’s daughter-in-law, Andi, 33 and the mother of two small boys, suffered a stroke in mid August. Unfortunately, it wasn’t diagnosed correctly for two weeks, delaying treatment.
She’s facing a year to 18 months of physical therapy to get back to full function. 
Therapy costs are running $200-500 per session, and she needs therapy once a week. Andi has not been able to afford health insurance, because she her husband own a small business that makes too much money for them to get assistance with health insurance, but not enough for them to be able to afford health insurance, and raising two boys.
Any help will be much appreciated, as Andi has begun physical therapy, and without health insurance she has to pay the full cost of every session.
In order to help her out, we are doing another gun raffle to try to help her with her therapy. One change from what we did for Tam is to run this through a Go Fund Me, https://www.gofundme.com/andrea-keenan-medical-fund, so that the money is immediately available to her for her therapy. One IRS change is that Go Fund Me $$ are now counted as income for the family, so we are shooting for a goal of $25,000 to offset the tax burden they will be hit with.
Here are the ‘rules’ $10 per chance, $50/6 chances, $100/12 chances, etc. Make your donation to the Go Fund Me above, and copy your donation receipt to 4anditherapy@gmail.com. This will count as your entry into the raffle. If you have already donated, we will accept prior donations to the Go Fund Me.
The raffle will run from now through the end of November, with the drawing to be held 1 December via a random drawing program. First number gets their choice, second gets their choice, etc.
The raffle packages are-
Note: All guns are used, not new.

1. Taurus .44 Magnum pistol
2. Ruger MK-II bull barrel .22
3. Custom sub-MOA AR-15
4. Remington 870 pump in 20ga
5. Chinese copy of a 12ga coach gun
6. Springfield Range Officer .45 with 7 magazines and custom holster
7. Springfield Range Officer 9mm with 7 magazines and custom holster
8. Lawdog’s personal Rock Island 1911 9mm, reworked by Joe Speer with 6 magazines
9. A ladies package consisting of a ring (late-Victorian-style design with either high-quality glass or mid-grade garnet stones. The mount is jeweler’s metal, size 6 3/4 or 7).  A unicorn necklace, late 1980s-early 1990s James Avery sterling silver charm on a silver chain. A coin necklace, an 1904 Indian Head penny, silver dipped in a gold-plated mount with a gold-plated silver chain. And a handmade necklace and earrings from Phlegmmy.
10. Signed copies of Lawdog’s, Peter Grant’s, Dorothy Grant’s, JL Curtis’, and Tom Rogneby’s books
11. TBD (other possible packages are being discussed)

All guns will be shipped FFL to FFL for winners. Pictures of the various packages will follow in the next couple of days.
Thank you in advance, I know she will appreciate the help, and this will take a little pressure off the family!

From the Past "I am TJIC"

I was going through some old pics on my blog and I ran across this Pic.

I remember this, it hit the blogging world right after I started blogging in 2011, and it was a big deal that somebody's political opinion was used to strip somebody of their 2nd amendment right without due process.  This came from Borepatch's Blog back in 2011.    I haven't found any new information so I don't know how this resolved itself or if anything changed since the story was "aired" in 2011.

I am TJIC

I've linked several times to posts over at the blog Dispatches from TJICistan.  TJIC is an outspoken (some might say extremely so) advocate of smaller government.  He's also a firearms owner in the People's Republic of Massachusetts.  While he owns guns, it appears that he's no longer allowed to possess any:

ARLINGTON (CBS) – A blog threatening members of Congress in the wake of the Tucson, Arizona shooting has prompted Arlington police to temporarily suspend the firearms license of an Arlington man.
It was the headline “1 down and 534 to go” that caught the attention. “One” refers to Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the head in the rampage, while 534 refers to the other members of the U.S. House and Senate.

Police are investigating the “suitability” of 39-year-old Travis Corcoran to have a firearms license

Let's ignore for the moment how many people were investigated for making similar comments about George W. Bush.  Let's look at the "logic" being exercised by the Arlington Po-Po, shall we?

They claim that Corcoran is so dangerous that, while he has done nothing more than put up a blog post, he must be restrained from possessing firearms.  However, it appears that it's not worth it for the police to follow him, or stake out his place, or arrest him.

Huh?

Look, guys, if you think that his speech rises to the level of an actual threat of specific harm to specific persons, he should be in jail.  If you're not sure, then do the leg work to establish whether it is or not.

So, what do we know about the Arlington Police Department?  We know that they're lazy - nobody assigned to watch over this "dangerous" suspect.  We know that they're biased - Arlington is a hotbed of George W. Bush hatred, and the last decade would offer a wealth of examples of similar or worse speech, none of which was investigated.

And we know that they're idiots.  It's not like there isn't a ton of case law on how the First Amendment applies to threats of political violence.  Arlington will lose this, if it ever gets to trial.  Post Heller and McDonald, they'll lose even worse.  Idiots.

But this is, as JayG points out, an attack not only on the First Amendment, but on the Second as well.  An attack of this sort - groundless in logic, and arguably mendacious in nature - is an attack on all.  And so I have to stand with TJIC.

I am TJIC.  So are you.  If you blog, you are hereby authorized to use this image (created by your humble host, using The Gimp, not that it took any skill).  Please link back to this post.

It would be one thing if the law were applied equally to all.  It's not, and it will be applied disproportionately to us, because we hold views considered by some in power to be Double Plus Ungood.  Lefties in particular, this is your moment.  You say that you stand for good governance.  Prove it.

It was not a famous Massachusetts citizen who said We must all hang together, or surely we will all hang separately.  Benjamin Franklin was more circumspect than the men from Massachusetts, such as Sam Adams, who said this:

Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say 'what should be the reward of such sacrifices?' Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!

Eliminationist rhetoric right there.  Clearly, the Arlington Police would have seized his firearms.  What a sad, degraded state for a once proud Commonwealth.  It seems that I got out just in the nick of time.



UPDATE 21 January 2011 8:40: Boy, this is getting some attention.

To CNN, I have absolutely no idea what you mean by saying I'm an "affiliate" of TJIC.  Other than a shared love of freedom and dislike of tyranny,  there's no connection.  I guess that Irony 101 is no longer a required course in Journalism School, but thanks for all the traffic!

To everyone who thinks the whole situation stinks, here's something that you can do to help (cut and pasted from my post here for your convenience):

-------------- Begin ---------------
We've all seen what happens when you combine crazy gun laws with possibly politically motivated government.  A bunch of folks took this kind of personally.  People have been asking what they can do.

TJIC himself has been pretty gracious about the whole thing, saying that he's in good shape (so far) and recommending that people toss another sawbuck in the plate on Sunday if they want to help the world out.  Fine advice for all of us.

But +5 Insightful to Top Of The Chain, who brings a wicked smaht idea:

So last night after I buycotted a graphic novel from Heavy Ink, TJIC commented on the previous post with this.

Btw, if comic books aren't your thing, I own and run a second business: SmartFlix.com.

Sign up for Combat Pistol University

http://smartflix.com/store/video/6303/Combat-Pistol-University

... or Gunsmithing University:

http://smartflix.com/store/video/6614/Gunsmithing-University

...or one of the others:

http://smartflix.com/store/universities

So instead of entertaining yourself with the latest Spiderman, Batman, etc., you can get yourself some practical knowledge from a variety of subjects.

The idea isn't a boycott, it's a buycott - support business that you like.  I look and see all sorts of shooty goodness there, including this:

oday the M1 is enjoying a resurgence as a long range match rifle through the DCM program and the recent availability of imported surplus rifles. If you own a M1 Garand or it's magazine fed brother the M1A you'll want this course so that you can truly understand how your rifle functions, be able to totally strip it and reassemble it down to the last part and perform basic repairs. You will even understand how that mysterious clip feed system works and how to adjust it. Improving accuracy is also discussed. The differences and similarities internally between the M1 and the M1A are shown in detail.

This video was added to our catalog on January 01, 2000 in Firearms::M-1 / Garand.

As you see, they're helpfully tagged for your browsing convenience.  Other tags include AK-47 and 1911 (by God).  And there's a nifty Amazon-like Wisdom-Of-Crowds thingie, which helpfully points out:

Customers who rented this DVD also rented

• Rediscovering The Old Ways: Fire
• Practical Shooting For IPSC & IDPA
• AK-47 Armorer's Course (covers AKS/MAK90/AK47)
• 3GM - Shooting Techniques of the Grand Masters
• Building The M1 Garand Rifle

So take a moment to browse over to SmartFlix.  There may just be something there for you - if so, order it.  Post it on your site.

And to the point of this post - let's drive so much business his way that Governor Patrick will want to break ground at the new SmartFlix World Headquarters. --------------- End ----------------

Google Retaliation....or Censorship..?

I check out a bunch of blogs every day or every couple of days and several of them all of a sudden are not functional.  They have the "Permission denied" unless I contact the blog owner and there is no link, or they are just "gone".   I am wondering if I need to start looking for another platform because there is a purge going one in blogger?   I blog because it is therapeutic and it allows me to concentrate the scattered neurons called my though pattern... Yes I am concerned...

    

Rant from a blog buddy

   I shamelessly borrowed this rant from a blogger buddy, his language is cruder than I would have used, but I do agree with the sentiment.   He voted for the Donald and I voted Cruz.  If Donald gets the GOP nod, I will support him.  Supporting the democrats is a non-starter for me.   The pics came from my stash.

The Donald almost ran the table. Cruz got Texas, which was expected and he also got Oklahoma.
Trump crushed it in Jawja. I voted for him. Sure. He’s a bloviating blowhard, a brash bully, and a demagogue, but, he is the only person who wants to save the country from the immigration that is gonna destroy our country if it isn’t stopped. He wants to save us from the invasion on our southern border. Are you tired of having to press one for English? Me too. Are you sick of bilingual education? Me too. What about kids not being able to wear patriotic shirts to school because it offends Hispanics? Screw the Hispanics. This is our country, not theirs. What about people who are offended by the American flag. If that offends them, they need to get the fuck out of our country.
He wants to stop Mooslime immigration which is nothing more than an advance colonization from Islamic countries. Islam is totally incompatible with America and our way of life. Mooslimes will not assimilate. They don’t want to. They want Sharia.

Immigration is the most important problem facing this country. What does Marco Gang of 8 Scamnesty Rubio want? Comprehensive immigration reform. That is code for open borders and amnesty for all of the illegals here. Anyone who is on the same side as Chuck the schmuck Schumer is not a Republican. Ted Cruz is not for a wall on the southern border either.
The GOPe claims that Trump is not a conservative. He’s more of one than GOPe senators like Bitch McConnell, Johnny Maverick McRINO and his mini-me little Lindsey Graham. They are more willing to fight the Tea Party than the Democrat Party. And look at the last two candidates that the GOPe has given us. Johnny Maveric McRINO who ran on the platform of “reaching across the aisle” and working with Democrats while stabbing Republicans and his running mate in the back. Then, they gave us Mittens Romneycare, the only Republican who couldn’t run against Obummercare. The geniuses who gave us McRINO and Mittens are now telling us that Trump can’t win. Yeah. Like we’re supposed to listen to those losers. They gave us two losers and ran two losing campaigns and we’re supposed to listen to them?
We have “conservative” pundits who claim that Trump is gonna destroy the Republican Party and the conservative movement. I’ve got news for them. It’s already happened. It happened during Bush 43′s presidency when Bush and the Republican Party spent like Democrats and ran up 4 trillion dollars in debt, which was a record until Democrats and Obungler showed them what pikers they were by running up 8 trillion dollars in debt. From 2000-2006 the Republicans grew gummint by giving us another cabinet department, the Department of Homeland Security and another entitlement program, Medicare part D. That was known as “compassionate conservatism”. So don’t blame Trump for destroying the Republican Party or conservatism. The establishment Republicans like Bitch McConnell, McRINO, and John Boner did that. Over the past seven years these assholes have promised to stop Obumbler if we would just vote for them. How did that work out? We gave them the House and the Senate and it’s been business as usual.
The Republican Party needs to be destroyed. We’re sick of being lied to. We’re sick of broken promises. We’re sick of being stabbed in the back. The grass roots are rising up and giving the finger to the GOPe. Had they kept their promises and done what we elected them to do, there would be no Donald Trump running for president. Can he beat Thunder Rodent Thighs. I think so. I do know that he’ll fight, sumpin’ McRINO and Mittens didn’t do when they ran. He won’t allow himself to be rolled in a debate like that fat tub of lard, Candy Crowley did to Mittens. He’s refreshing in not being politically correct. The only thing he really has to worry about is the GOPe sabotaging his campaign. They would rather see Cankles win than Trump and they call themselves Republicans?
The GOPe would rather commit slow suicide, which is what they’ll get by supporting the PIAP* and open borders, than supporting Trump. Fuck them! Fuck them all!

*Pig in a pantsuit

Doings on here at Casa De Kona

I will veer away from the political stuff, lately I have been doing a "Friday Rant" where I go on a tear, but I kinda did one earlier in the week(see Thursday).  Christmas is coming, I find myself slowly getting into the Christmas spirit with lot of some prodding from the spousal unit.  We went to get the tree at the local tree farm...My son wanted to cut the tree down and me being the father of the year candidate agrees....so when the tree is almost cut through, I push the tree over on him....Remember the father of the year award I was going for....hehehe

Well we get the tree loaded up on the Ranger and made a few other stops before we get the tree home..

     We got the tree set up and I got the outside decorations set up.  We had to get ready for our Order of the Arrow Banquet, the end of the year celebration for our Lodge.  The crumbsnatcher, anklebiter, rug rat, my son was there with some of his friends

They had an awesome time...we got awards, Here is what I got...he got the same...

The one on tip is the "service" flap, you have to give 25 hours of service a minimum a year to get it and maintain it.  The other one goes on the Sash, the only patch "authorized" to go on the sash.  I saw at conclave earlier in the year, an elderly gentleman with the "50" year patch on his sash...
    Here is my son getting sworn in on his oath of office..for the year.

I was very proud of the kids, they all have done well and have worked hard....now they will work harder next year....
   After the banquet most of the people took off, the kids from my chapter immediately went into the mess hall and started helping Mac in cleaning up the kitchen.

I was really impressed that they would step up without asking to help somebody else.  It was a group decision, I just saw a bunch of kids heading into the kitchen area and I grabbed my kid and asked "what going one" and he stated..."We are going to help Mac get the kitchen closed down".  And off they went.  I was proud, this is where selfless service starts...     We on the way home, stopped at Krystals to get some gut grenades....I havn't had them in a long time.....and yep they havn't changed...I was passing gas all night;)

      A couple of weeks later, I had the opportunity to meet with Old NFO, Senior, Old, Antiquated, fossilized, experienced Blogger at the Original Chicfila in Hapeville Georgia.  the store that started them all.  Chicfila started in 1946 and the building of the Atlanta Assembly Plant of Ford Motor Company really got them going.  I would walk over to the Chicfila during work to get me a Chicken Sandwich when I worked there until The Ford plant closed in October 27th 2006. 

   It was great meeting again one of the people that got me blogging,  Old NFO despite me ragging on him about his age, experience is a class act, he has a lot of great stories and is a really good guy.  he was stopping in locations visiting people on the way to the ranch in Texas where he will  be a full time author for a group of books that is like reading a bunch of old friends and people you know and wished you knew.  I am glad that I took the plunge to blogging back in 2011, I have met some great people, people I would have never had the honor to meet if I hadn't taken the gamble to start blogging. Yep you can blame him for foisting me on the blogging world.
     And finally the new Star Wars has hit the screen, I will try to see it in a couple of weeks after the hype has died down a bit...

Rage...Against everybody...

This post is in response to blog babe Momma Fargo who asked about the situation in Ferguson Missouri.  I saw her post and question while I was headed to work.  I didn't have time to answer it.  So I had all shift to think about her question...."Ferguson....What is next?"   Basically.  Momma Fargo wrote this post based partly on her experience as a Police Officer.  She is trying to figure out what is going to happen next and what might be the root cause of the issues.
     I was going to post in her comment section but this would be a looong comment so I figured I would post it here to do it justice.   The Ferguson riots and standoff is in my mind a culmination of decades of racial grievances that have been allowed to fester and stew up under the surface. This is the chickens coming home to roost, This is the results of generations of cultural marxism and political correctness run amuck.
      It is curious that blacks, the least educated thirteen percent of the population, the least productive, most criminal, and most dependent on governmental charity, should dominate national politics. Yet they do. Virtually everything revolves around what blacks want, demand, do, or can’t do. Their power seems without limit.
     We as a culture absolutely cannot do anything to upset them,    Blacks now control the presidency and thus, most importantly, the Attorney Generalship. In this the staggering political power of blacks is most evident. Obama was elected because he was black: an equally unqualified and negligible white politician  would have had no chance. He is now fiercely pushing the most profound transformation of America ever attempted.  President Obama and his fellow travelers have split America along racial lines.  What is the purpose?   President Obama was supposed to be the post racial president, but instead he has fanned the flames of racial discourse.
     We as Americans used to believe in our innate belief as Americans, that we have a common culture a common belief as the glue that holds our society together.  But now that we have split along racial and cultural lines, the belief that we as Americans can come together is fading fast.  The blacks are perpetually angry and demanding more, we have the hispanic groups demanding more, we have the islamic groups demanding more.  Everybody is angry and full of rage, I can see why in the past the blacks have a case for mistreatment for slavery and the Jim Crow laws, but this is the 21st century, anybody that was a slave here in America  have long returned to ash.  I can see the mistreatment of the blacks during the Jim Crow era.  But that went away in the 60's.  Now we have a new generation of blacks demanding special rules and exemptions from today's' society.  Where will it end....The rage is building and I see everybody else getting angry also, the whites are angry because they are tired of being blamed for all the ills in the world.  I am afraid that the differences are too much and the only to fix it is by fire.  Let the rage explode and consume all those that are ate up with the hatred.  Nothing else will do it.  I am almost advocating secession...the divide is almost too much for us as a people to surmount. 

     We have a coalition of groups that pushed for a "Rules of engagement " in the eve of the oncoming of the Grand Jury proceeding:


Proposed Rules of Engagement
1) The first priority shall be preservation of human life.
2) Channels of communication will be established so that situations can be de-escalated if necessary.
3) Police will give protesters 48 hour advance notice before grand jury decision is announced.
4) Police will provide to the public information that makes clear the chain of command, who is making what decisions and the processes for deciding when the police response will be escalated.
5) Every attempt should be made to communicate with protesters to reach "common sense" agreements based on these protocols, both ahead of time and at the scene of protests.
6) Clear standards of professionalism and sound community friendly-policing will be maintained and adhered to at all times.
7) Police will wear only the attire minimally required for their safety. Specialized riot gear will be avoided except as a last resort.
8) Crowd control equipment such as armored vehicles, rubber bullets, rifles and tear gas will not be used.
9) Police or other government authorities will not interfere with the free flow of information through tactics such as limiting cell or internet access, interception of cell or other mobile conversations or unwarranted wiretaps.
10) Every attempt will be made to pinpoint arrests so that only individual lawbreakers will be arrested. ”Kettling” and mass arrests will not be used.
11) Safe houses shall be considered sacred ground and only entered by police when called upon or if extremely necessary.
12) Media and Legal Observers shall not be considered participants in protests and shall be allowed to do their jobs freely.
13) Every attempt will be made to provide alternate routes or other means for non-involved persons to get to places of employment and meet other transportation necessities.
14) Strategically, police commanders will allow protests to take and occupy larger and more disruptive spaces than would normally be tolerated, and will allow occupation of those spaces for longer periods of time than would normally be tolerated.
15) Police will be instructed to be tolerant of more minor lawbreaking (such as thrown water bottles) when deciding whether to escalate the use of force.
16) Police rank and file will be instructed to provide every latitude to allow for free assembly and expression, treating protesters as citizens and not “enemy combatants.”
17) Excessive force and other forms of police misconduct will not be tolerated.
18) Intimidation and harassment of protesters will not be tolerated. This includes pretextual pedestrian or traffic stops, contacting of employers or family members, pre—emptive arrests or detention of "leaders," publishing of private information and any other means of intimidation and harassment.
19) Bond for arrestees will not be set above the levels which would be considered average over the last two years, and arrestees will not be held for periods longer than average lengths of time. Medical care will be liberally made available. Attorneys will be able to travel to and meet with clients without impediments.

    Does anybody want to think of what this means...?  Basically, the Don't Shoot Coalition is asking the police - those tasked with maintaining the monopoly on violence to protect the law biding - to cede their authority to them, in essence granting them the ability to burn down the city without any threat of retaliation by law enforcement agencies. 
      I don't know what the future holds I am truly hopeful that I am wrong, but I see the shades of the Balkans in the fabric of our country and I believe that we will split.

Stuff and stuff...and meeting a fellor blogger

My apologies for mot posting much the past few days, I had a lot of stuff going on in Real life...Nothing bad...Just real busy.    I had my son in summer camp this week with the Boy Scouts, and I had driven up there and spent some time up there...all I can say about the mountains of North Georgia....Lotta hills and everything seemed to be uphill...I am sure it was a perception issue...
    Well Anyway, I had tried to get my son back home....and what is with boys and aversion to soap and water.....I got him home and threw him in the shower then got his foot locker and upended it into the washing machine....Then he and my wife caught a flight to the west coast .  Well through all of this, there was a mini blog meet and I had missed it up in Roswell, Several other bloggers had gotten together at an Irish Pub.  Well I had missed out due to my scheduling conflict.   But Old NFO was kind enough to meet me at the ChicFila in Hapeville, the Original one...Where it started.  All I can say...is that he is a class act and funny as hell.  It was a great experience to finally meet a fellow blogger.  He had told me that they will try to get a get together every quarter.   I will try my best to make the next one to meet all the others.  Here is a cartoon I had clipped last year out of the paper when Old NFO had released the first "Gray Man", I wanted to post it for him and for Peter

4th of July post...Verbatum

I pulled this off Wirecutters blog,   I don't agree with quite everything he said, but he did say it soo well and I did a post yesterday that touched on different stuff but it still said that we are in trouble.  I hope we as Americans can pull it together...

My Fourth Of July Post

Posted on July 3, 2014 by Wirecutter

The Fourth has always been a special day for me. Anybody that knows me knows I’m not big on holidays. Christmas and Thanksgiving are a pain as far as preparations go and having to deal with family that doesn’t want anything to do with me the rest of the year, Easter – I’m surprised they still celebrate Easter seeing as it’s offensive to muslims and liberals, Veteran’s and Memorial day always rubbed me wrong because those are days for memories that should be thought of everyday, Labor Day is just an excuse for a barbecue, but the Fourth to me was always special because of the anniversary it represents.
Not anymore. The Fourth is nothing but a reminder of what a mess our Nation has become. Our Founding Fathers and the Citizens of that period sacrificed everything to ensure Freedom for their descendants and immigrants coming here to seek a better life for themselves and their families. There were provisions in the Constitution to prevent the new government from becoming what they were trying to get out from under. The Bill of Rights came later naming our basic human rights so that future generations wouldn’t pervert the Yellowed Paper in order to grant them powers that weren’t theirs to begin with.
Now I get up in the morning and read what the government wants me to read. If the press isn’t in lockstep with the president then they aren’t allowed in his press corp. If you file for something under the Freedom of Information Act, you see only what the government wants you to see, everything else is blacked out.
My weapons of self defense are government approved but they say if I don’t have a permit for them then they must stay at home, but at the same time the government says the police have no obligation or duty to protect me or mine.
My food has to be approved by the government. I can no longer drink raw milk or eat cheese that hasn’t been homogenized or pasteurized because evidently I don’t know what’s good for me. Even homeopathic medicines have to be government approved if I want to buy them instead of growing and harvesting them myself.
Our children are wards of the State. If they attend a public school, they learn what the government wants them to learn. The government has changed history to suit their views, not what really happened. You are not allowed to discipline your children with your own hand under threat of law. The government determines if your children are eating healthy lunches or not – not lunches from school but what Mom has packed for them.
We’re under constant surveillance. Every time I walk out of my house I have to assume I’m on somebody’s camera. Traffic cams, security cams, dash cams, you name it. My emails are being monitored by the government. My website is being monitored by the government. Every piece of mail – every piece – passing through the post office is photographed and recorded. Every phone call we make, every text we send is monitored by the NSA. Boxes on the side of the roads log in bluetooth information from passing cars to determine who’s in what car traveling down the road, where you got on the road and where you left it. Radar is monitoring our speed.
Our public lands are no longer public. The Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service determine what we can and cannot do on our own public lands and reserve the right to charge us fees for their use. If you resist you will be arrested, fined and possibly imprisoned.
Everything has to be registered. Our vehicles are registered, our animals are registered, our firearms are registered, our watercraft is registered. By the way, you can read that as taxed.
Our police have gone from being peace officers to law enforcement officers. They have the right by decree of government to search you simply by stating they believe you may have committed a crime. In some cities they can search you just because they want to. They burst into our homes, kill our dogs and search our personal belongings with only the simplest of causes. SWAT teams – a concept that was designed for hostage situations – conduct an average of 124 raids every day. Now they raid barber shops for unlicensed (read that untaxed) barbers, they’re raiding dairies suspected of selling raw milk and they’re raiding mom and pop marijuana growers.
With the NDAA and “Patriot” Act, we no longer have a right to an attorney or a Right to a speedy trial in front of a jury of our peers, in fact we no longer have a Right to a trial at all. Indefinite detention is the Plan of the Day at the pleasure of the government.
The tax man takes between 30 and 50% of our paychecks, most of it outright theft. We support, out of our paychecks and from the sweat of our brow, cash and food for those that won’t work, medical and child care for those same deadbeats, organizations through federal and state grants that we don’t morally support or agree with, wars that we may not agree with, and anything else that the government feels is necessary.
Any mention of God has been removed from our schools and government buildings even though this once-great Nation was founded on Christian principles. We can no longer pray before meetings nor can our children while at school. Our churches are regulated as far as mentioning politics. The entire “Separation of Church and State” has been twisted from not allowing the State to force a religion on us to not wanting to offend anybody by asserting our personal beliefs.
Our Nation is presently being overrun with illegal immigrants and our government who swore an oath to obey the Constitution and the Law of the Land is ignoring the law by not defending our borders. In fact, they’re encouraging these illegals to come by rewarding them with promises of a better life and citizenship. If you think this bothers you, think about the immigrants that came here legally and got pushed to the back of the line because of promises that our politicians have made.
Our politicians truly believe they are above us, forgetting that they serve us and not the other way around. We have politicians that carry firearms and surround themselves with bodyguards, yet they deny us the very basic human Right to defend ourselves by outlawing us commoners to own and carry firearms and other weapons. They break laws with impunity, yet imprison us for doing the same. They refuse to listen to the People’s desires and instead enact laws they want. We have a president that says we must conserve energy and cut down on pollutants, yet he and his family fly on Air Force One for their many vacations every year. Our fuel prices have been above $3 a gallon for a record breaking 1200 days because our president refuses to cut our dependency on foreign oil and use our own natural resources which would also provide much needed jobs for us. Our president bows to foreign Heads of State, showing them that he believes we are subservient to them. Our government has done everything it can to make sure that we, as a Nation, serves it instead of the other way around.
This is not the Nation our Founding Fathers wanted for us. I know that if they could see what we’ve turned into, they would be appalled. I know I am, and that’s the reason the Fourth holds no special place in my heart anymore.
-Kenny Lane (Wirecutter)
www.knuckledraggin.com
Ceres, CA.
For the past week I’ve probably started a half dozen posts just for the one day we have to celebrate our Founding Father’s groundwork for a new, Free Nation under God.
I trashed every one of them. Instead, I wrote this. I kept the language clean so that if anybody wanted to use it on their sites, they could without editing.
As with anything you find here, it’s free for anybody to use. I only ask that it’s published in it’s entirety and that my name and link at the bottom be included. I WANT the government to know I wrote this.

Bloggers have 1st amendment protection in defamation suits..

     I have blogged about this several times, I am a student of history, and I believe that Patrick Henry, Thomas Pain and others would have been classified as "bloggers" if such a thing existed back then.  I remembered where Senator Dianne Feinsterin from the peoples republic of California

Yep the same person that doesn't like those nasty old assault rifles....except the ones her security detail uses.  Well anyway, she is trying to push a bill through that basically said that only "established media" has certain protections under the law...you know the establishment media...the ones that are overwhelming democrat, carries the water for the President, and will not say anything derogatory about the president or anybody else connected with the liberal elite.  The same ones she wants to grant protection.  Remember it was a blogger that broke "Fast and Furious"  the establishment media would not touch the story because they support the agenda, the establishment media has become the party organ for the democratic party like "Pravda" was the organ for the communist party of the Soviet Union.  They regurgitate the talking points straight off the printout from the DNC, there is no attempt to be "unbiased", then they wonder why soo many people don't trust the established media.
     Now bloggers are getting the same protection as the dead tree media, that is good thing.

    I ripped this off from Patriot USA blog
      

Bloggers have 1st Amendment 'protection' in defamation suits

Posted by PatriotUSA at 1:56 AM

In a decision released by the 9th Circuit Court Of Appeals:

The protections of the First Amendment do not turn on whether the defendant was a trained journalist, formally affiliated with traditional news entities, engaged in conflict-of-interest disclosure, went beyond just assembling others’ writings, or tried to get both sides of a story.
 

As the Supreme Court has accurately warned, a First Amendment distinction between the institutional press and other speakers is unworkable: “With the advent of the Internet and the decline of print and broadcast media . . . the line between the media and others who wish to comment on political and social issues becomes far more blurred.” Citizens United, 558 U.S. at 352. In defamation cases, the public-figure status of a plaintiff and the public importance of the statement at issue—not the identity of the speaker—provide the First Amendment touchstones…."

We therefore hold that the Gertz negligence requirement for private defamation actions is not limited to cases with institutional media defendants. Obsidian Finance Group LLC et al v. Crystal Cox (9th Cir. Jan. 17, 2014), pp. 11-12.

As stated by Eugene Volokh (the Volokh Conspiracy) who represented Crystal Cox against Obsidian Finance Group LLC :

… I think that’s right, not just as a matter of First Amendment principle but also as a matter of history and precedent (as I documented at length in Freedom for the Press as an Industry, or for the Press as a Technology? From the Framing to Today, 160 U. Pa. L. Rev. 459 (2012))….

http://www.volokh.com/2014/01/17/bloggers-media-first-amendment-libel-law-purposes/

----------------

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

First Amendment To The United States Constitution

This is a fair and just ruling coming from one of, if not the most liberal appeals court in our country. Maybe the 6th Circuit Court Of Appeals is more liberal? At any rate, this ruling gives 1st Amendment protection to those NOT from the media. This means to the public and bloggers, writers,you and me. The mode of publication, paper, internet, blog, mass media was not a determining factor in this ruling. It was taken under consideration but this ruling gives the public and bloggers equal protection under the 1st amendment. While I want to feel 'secure' and safe with this ruling, I do not. My reasoning is simple. It is what this and past administrations have done to chip away at our freedom and liberty. The 1st Amendment is the cornerstone of our Constitution, just my opinion. Without it, what do we have? Do not take this the wrong way and I am not an expert on the Constitution or Constitutional law. I have read the Constitution, The Bill Of Rights, The Federalist Papers, and many books relating to our Constitution.

Eugene Volokh is the attorney who represented the plaintiff, Crystal Cox in the case that was appealed to the 9th Circuit Court Of Appeals. If you have the time, use the links I have shared at the top of the post. It is very interesting reading and Mr. Volokh has done an excellent job. Still, the times being what they are, the arming of our Law enforcement agencies with massive and heavy weapons, the way many (not all) LEO and government agents dismiss, run over our 1st Amendment rights every day is of grave concern to me. It has been for years and I will be the first one to admit, I have a jaded, politically INCORRECT, very conservative view that has been formed over the course of my lifetime. The details of why and how I became very conservative are not important, at least not right now. Let me just say this: I am the conservative backlash to a very liberal upbringing.

The 9th is not the first Circuit Court Of Appeals to rule on this but it is very noteworthy that it came from the 9th, which is based in San Francisco. The 9th has typical upheld 1st Amendment individual, group, employee rights, especially when it has been in cases that were against corporations. Will the 9th pull reversal on this ruling? It has a track record of doing so and it would be a huge miscarriage of justice and a further erosion of our freedom if the 9th does reverse the ruling.

I see this as some good news and time will tell if this ruling stands up or not. The current regime has proven time after time they could care less about our rights, freedom or liberties, as the Founding Fathers set them forth in our Constitution.

None of us should be standing still or silent.