I am rereading 'The Ugly American'

which originally came out in about 1958 during the Cold War.

I believe it is still in print. If it's not it is readily available in new condition on Amazon.

The book actually helped shape some of JFK's foreign policy and should be required reading for practically everyone in office and especially for field grade and above military officers. Everyone that draws a paycheck from the state department should read it including the janitor

The book was actually written before we wandered into Vietnam and I do believe JFK was using a few of the ideas expressed in it. Kennedy had shipped a few Peace Corps members there along with a few teams of the newly energized Special Forces. Many of there people were fluent in the local language and respected the local customs unlike a lot of people from the State Department.

Years later in the service a couple of old soldiers told me that this approach was actually making progress. I met a couple of old soldiers that had been there in the very early 60s and they commented that the results, while not dramatic were successful. 

It was about this time the Vietnam M1 Garand rebuild plan started. M1 rifles were being rebuilt to be shipped to Vietnam as foreign aid to various villages. All in all it was pretty much a low budget operation of small Special Forces teams and surplus small arms. Surprisingly it was actually working, although slowly.

I would imagine that as usual the State Department people were waxing pretty fat, though. As usual the State Department types lived in excellent housing, had access to the PX where they could buy anything American including good liquor at cut-rate prices, American food of all types and were pretty much insulated from the people they were supposed to be helping. Even the janitor was living a lot better than most of the locals.

Of course the State Department types in their arrogance more often than not alienate their hosts. They act like everyone wants to be converted into being an American and drinking Coca Cola. Surprise! A lot of people would simply rather live their lives as simple people.

Anyway, it's water under the bridge now. JFK was murdered and that arrogant insensitive bully LBJ took the helm and promptly poured on the coal. He threw billions of dollars and 58,000 lives into the fray and when it was over we were sent lacking.

Of course it wasn't HIS money or any of HIS kids that got killed so no skin off of his nose.

Of course not only did it cost us lives, the financial cost was appalling. Johnson plundered the sacred Social Security fund and it has never really recovered. The money had to come from somewhere and Social Security was there just waiting to be plundered.

Of course, the lessons learned were simply forgotten and as usual we plowed and still plow into foreign aid with an open check book and very few brains. 

A while ago I believe it was the MIT boys that developed a computer that would enable African villagers to have internet access for under $100 per unit. They were pretty proud of themselves until it was pointed out that a lot of small villages didn't have electricity.

Back to the drawing board. Next they came out with some kind of toilet that would keep the village a little more sanitary and prevent disease. That was a little more practical until someone pointed out that in order to use a toilet one has to eat first.

Some genetically altered to resist drought condition seeds and maybe maybe a few chickens to breed with the chickens on hand would have been far more useful and a damned sight more inexpensive in improving the lives of the villagers. They certainly would have done more towards getting American support from the villagers that a dam or superhighway to nowhere would have.

Yet the politicians seem to think that big roads, huge dams and other costly and quite often useless things are the answer. A village in the middle of nowhere doesn't need a dam. A couple of simple wells would be a lot more practical and convenient. Basic clean water goes a long way in a mud hut dweller's way of life.  

Besides dams have to be built and maintained and the majority of these people probably don't have the skills. If a dam is built for them it will likely not last very long without the proper maintenance. 

One of the things I have heard that actually makes sense is setting up a loan program for farmers at a local bank of some sort. We're not talking about giving a poor village farmer a $250,000 loan or some such stupid thing. We're talking about micro loans in the $100 area. It's something he cold actually use and realistically repay.

A huge highway is also a pretty much useless commodity in a place where transportation consists of feet and maybe bicycles. A couple of finger roads and footpaths would make more sense and be easier to maintain. After a couple years in a jungle terrain a superhighway gets awfully overgrown. In a desert it covers over with the constantly shifting sands and in a moderate clime with a real winter the frost heaves buckle it.

Of course the embassy people don't venture out to where the help is needed outside of city limits so they have no clue.

I guess it starts at the top where Ambassadorships are actually political gifts handed out to whichever party members belong to the party in power. That means that a person is qualified entirely on his ability to kiss the ass of his higher-ups. In many cases this is nothing more than another rung on the political ladder of success.

We keep throwing more and more money at failure.

You can bet your ass the Russians send qualified people out to serve in embassy type positions and you can bet they know the language and customs before they get sent abroad.Most other countries do this. Foreign embassy employees generally speak American English fluently before they arrive here and not just the top dogs. The secretaries and clerical types further down the chain speak American English, too. Bet on it. I bet even the janitor does!

Hell, the sign in front of the Russian embassy is in Russian AND one or more of languages used in the host country. The US Embassy's sign is only in English. That's pretty arrogant. Most people in the host country have no clue what it says.

A lot of American foreign policy should change as far as who and what we send overseas.

   


















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One person that refused to accept the race card.

When the employee in question went to her boss and claimed racial prejudice she was asked, "What color were you when I hired you?"

Kinda brings things to a screeching halt, doesn't it?




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Adios, Pocahontas

"From where the sun now stands, I will campaign no more forever."

-Elizabeth Warren



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Every now and then I run into a teenager that reminds me of me.

Overheard at a drug store:

Some woman rhetorically asked the pharmacist "What are we going to do about this terrible Corona virus?"

The teenager behind her piped up in a helpful voice, "I don't know. Maybe we're going to have to start burning down Chinese restaurants and shooting Chinese."

The woman turned around with a look of shock on her face.

I'm going straight to hell because I laughed.

Of course I have no desire to destroy anyone's property or harm anyone and I am sure that neither did the kid it was pretty funny to see the woman go into shock. It was funny watching a teenager do it to her. I feel like someone gave me the day off.




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My guess is that Keith Richards is actually going to die some day.

I just read where he stopped drinking and smoking and I think it is likely that the shock may actually kill him.

Then again maybe he did that so he can snort the Corona virus and kill it for us.



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An interesting point of view.

"When I sign this bill we'll have those ni&&ers voting Democrat for the next 200 years!"

Said Lyndon Baines Johnson, thirty-sixth President of the Untied States, before signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

For quite some time I have thought that the Left really doesn't have a whole lot of respect for minorities. But they DO have a use for them. The use is votes.

The inner city cycle seems to continue like it has for decades.

A couple of months before an election the Democrats venture into the inner cities, promise the people there all sorts of things and hand out a few trinkets. Obama phones are a good example. To put a point on it, these people are being bribed with someone else's money.

On election day they are herded into various vans and buses and are carted to the polls where they generally live up to LBJ's comment. They vote Democrat.

After they vote they are hauled back to their neighborhoods and unceremoniously get dropped off until they are needed for the next election.

As far as anything useful that may enable these people to climb out of poverty they really get nothing. No job opportunities, no education, nothing but another period of welfare and more governmental assistance.

Rinse. Repeat.

It's really sad when you think about it. 

Those people are not being raised from poverty. They're just being left there and will remain there just so long as they are politically useful. Then who knows what will happen to them.

The last thing the Left wants is for these people to become successful. Then they would no longer be easily manipulated because they would start thinking for themselves.

The link from a former member of the Left and is worth the read.






https://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2015/6/25/90-of-the-racism-in-america-comes-from-the-democratic-party-and-the-left/?fbclid=IwAR3NvNlS4d-nJ0pHs7AG_lYUeqvhsmt8EdbB5d851cihv0wggNAGWC75qMM


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Trump and the Corona virus

He's on it. He put Pence in charge of a task force of some sort and the CDC is working on it.

Today I want to pour a cup of coffee all over a smug teenager but I can not do this because he reminds me of me.

Earlier today I saw a certain police cruiser in front of the convenience store and pulled in to bust his chops a bit. He's a good cop and a character of sorts and because he can retire at will he's really easygoing. I suppose a few years back he might have been a little more serious but I think he loves the uproar.

I wandered in and asked him if he's found a phone booth for me to steal yet and he reported he had not.

"I guess Superman is still out of luck," I replied.

Some teenaged girl asked him about  Superman and phone booths. He told her that Superman changed from Clark Kent into Superman in phone booths. She looked a touch confused and said they don't have phone booths anymore and that she had seen them in old movies but had never seen one.

The cop asked her, "Have you seen Superman lately?"

"No," she replied.

"Now you know why," he responded.

Hmmm... off to search for a phone booth. 



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The reloading bench is now operational which

is a good thing. It feels good to see it.

It also got me rolling on cleaning up the basement which I will continue on after I post this.


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I am cleaning out the reloading bench today part 2

I started yesterday and got interrupted too many times to get anything done. I did manage to put a pretty good dent in it, though.

There's a lot of just plain stuff I have collected over the years and I think I will give a partial inventory, cram it into a box and try and sell it as a package. It ought to be fun as it will be listed as somewhat of a mystery box. Actually some of it is pretty good stuff. Own an M1 carbine? There's 2 pretty good magazines in the box.

Today I will likely go through the various powders that I have collected over the years that I did not have good luck with but other people do. I have not figured out what to do with them as I won't sell an opened powder container for liability reasons.

Years ago I probably would have made a huge pipe bomb or something and cranked it off in the woods somewhere. These days I suppose it is not an option because getting caught doing this would probably mean a court appearance or three on terrorism charges or some damned thing. I might dump it all onto an old gallon jar and use it to fertilize the spring flowers.

It's kind of funny where I have the powders stored now. They are  on a shelf that is labeled 'Sacrifices to the gods of accuracy'. 

As a reloader my tinkering days are somewhat at an end. I have a couple of pet loads and they will serve me shooting matches until the end of my days.

Another reason I am doing this is because I am getting old and do not want to leave this mess behind me for my relatives to clean up. There is a lot of stuff there from various experiments and alterations. Not everything on the bench is what it looks like.

For example there is a box of .38/200 for a Webley revolver that the cases are head stamped 38 S&W. The .38/200 used the S&W case but is loaded a lot hotter than the S&W. 

All this is fine and dandy until the widow sells the cartridges at a garage sale and the idiot that buys them takes one look at the headstamp and digs out Grandpa's old Iver Johnson top break, cranks one off and the revolver shatters into smithereens.

Of course in this day and age it is a no brainer that that will end up in court and the $3 you got for the ammo at the garage sale in the first place doesn't look very good anymore.

It doesn't matter if you sold the ammo with fair warning and that it is for components only and the person is responsible to disassemble the ammo and reload it himself. It doesn't matter if you warn him it is ONLY for a Webley MkIV and not for an antique top break revolver.

Some idiot won't pay attention and will ignore repeated warnings and blows his grandpa's revolver up. He will stammer and stutter "But it says on the cartridge it's a .38 S&W!" 

A jury will award him a fat settlement because, dammit, it said on the cartridge it's .38 S&W.

Actually what the jury SHOULD do is award the defendant their legal costs and all twelve should point at the idiot sitting there and shout, "Ha!Ha!"

Anyway, the best way to protect your loved ones is simply get rid of this stuff. That's a huge part of what I want to get done today.




I do have a rifle that needs sighting in and that's always good for a laugh. There is a neat trick I use to guarantee that the first shot is at least on the paper. You take four full sized pieces of newspaper and create a four or five foot square at fifty yards and put the target in the center of it. The first shot will invariably land in the black.

If you do not do this your first shot will miss the target altogether and you're screwed. 

Murphy knew what he was talking about.

I once did this when I tested an M1 that supposedly had a bad barrel. I was glad I did. The rifle shot a group of over three feet!

Of course I promptly re-barreled it and it shot fine but that's another story.

Well, off to spin the wheels of industry.







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One of the bills Trump signed is the right to try law.

It's well past time it was enacted.

It used to be that the only people that got to try experimental medicine on a life threatening disease had to leave the country.

The case that comes to mind first was Steve McQueen. He went to Mexico to try Laetrile which was supposed to be an experimental cancer drug. His cancer was said to be incurable. It was. The Mexican Laetrile didn't work. He died anyway but much to his credit, he tried. As a result we learned one more thing that didn't cure his cancer.

The fact that he died anyway is immaterial. we all die. McQueen had to leave the country to try his experimental cure. I suppose if I were in his shoes with a disease like the incurable cancer he had I would have tried it, too. What did he have to lose? He could have only gained.

I also saw a few people try to get cured of fatal diseases and of the several that tried the non-western medical cures, one of them survived. It was several years ago and I don't recall all the details but the woman followed the Chinese doctor's instructions to a T.

Maybe it was $hit house luck. Who knows. Still, she took a different route and beat something that was incurable at the time.

The point of all this is that now with the right to try law we now don't have to leave the country to use something unapproved.

Of course I am an Old School Libertarian and as far as I am concerned if you want to try and cure leprosy with moonshine then have at it. It's your life and you have every right to try what ever medication you want. For that matter for what ever reason you want (including recreation) but that is just me.

I have never been able to figure out how the government managed to grab the authority to tell us how we have to and what we have to use to cure our afflictions. I figure it's our own choice.

Of course I know very little about the medications available and prefer to consult a doctor but that's me.

I do know an old Marine that told me his corpsman used to quietly schlep him about 4 ounces of bourbon after a fire fight to settle him down when he had the after action shakes. I asked him if he suffered nightmares and he said it was a very rare occurrence.

PTSD is a strange thing. There is no telling who will suffer from it and who won't. The jury is still out on that one. Still, I suppose it didn't hurt.

The bottom line is that we got a choice returned to us that never should have been taken away from us to begin with.







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I just saw where some idiot elected official

wants to make it a law where people have to remove extended trailer hitches when not actively towing a trailer.

My guess is that he was wandering around with his head up his ass looking at his smart phone and passed closely to a parked pickup and barked his shin on one.

Now he wants to pass a law about trailer hitches.

Why?

My guess is that someone saw it and did exactly what he was supposed to. He laughed like hell, Ha! Ha! He barked his shin on a trailer hitch! 

If he was stupid enough to be walking around with his head up his ass he deserves what he got. It's his problem. Not ours.

Now he wants to make his problem everyone else's.

Socialism. Shared misery.


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I have posted a couple of things I recall from my days in Alaska and

One is the time I missed getting murdered.

One night I was out having a few and a certain lady caught my eye. I knew little about her but did make my availability known.

So did another guy. She chose him and they left.

I don't know who said what to who but the guy that got lucky suddenly got unlucky. Her boyfriend murdered him in his own bed.

She was not in my bed so I survived.

From not getting lucky I got damned lucky.

Let's leave it at that.



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Well, we feel....

I had to deal with this 'we feel' crap from a Social Justice Warrior a bit ago and it was ridiculous. 

Me: "We? We? We? You got a mouse in your pocket? Let's get this right. YOU feel. That's Why-Oh-Ewe. You. I don't feel a thing."

Him: Stutter. Hem. Haw. wide eyed look.

Me: "Personally I don't give a damn how YOU feel. If you feel like you have been kicked in the balls or have a brain blistering hangover it's no skin off my nose. You can be dying from pancreatic cancer for all I care. I feel pretty good, though in case you're interested."

That pretty much ended it.







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Do people even know what a tax return is? Do they really understand what a big return check actually means?

I'm sure most of you readers do because if you read my bullshit you are probably somewhat literate or at least semi-literate. The latter in this day and age seems good enough to get by with so let's leave it at that.

Anyway, a perfect tax return is ZERO. Yes, zero. You pay nothing in, you get nothing back. That is actually how it would work in a perfect world.

Let's say you are a ditch digger and work 40 hours a week with no days off except for your 2 week vacation. Of course you don't work during your vacation. You foolishly squander it taking your wife and kids to Disneyland instead of wisely spending your entire vacation at the strip club getting bombed out of your mind but I digress.

You work 8 hours a day digging a ditch for five days a week. That's fifty weeks per year at forty hours per week. You never get sick so you lose no time. They give no holidays so you work them. There is never any overtime nor do you get sent home early. At the end of the year you have worked a total of 2000 hours.

You have no 401K, you don't deal with banks and save your money in a fruit jar you hide under a loose floorboard therefore have no interest income or any other form of taxable income.

At the end of the year if your employer has taken the proper amount of money for income tax out of your check you will neither owe Uncle Sam any money at all, nor will he owe you anything. You're square.

All this being said, it's not really a perfect world. Uncle actually has the employer take out a little extra every week and your refund comes when you settle up and get the difference between what has been taken and what is owed Uncle Sam.

It is a refund for the extra money Uncle Sam has collected from you. It was and still is your money. Uncle Sam is simply giving you YOUR money back. If they had taken out more of your money you would have gotten more of your own money back in the form of a bigger refund. Had they taken out less you would have had a smaller refund.

Just because your refund was bigger doesn't mean you paid less in taxes. It means that they took out more money to begin with. A smaller refund means they took out less.

None of this has any real bearing on what your actual tax is/was.

To compare what you paid to previous years look at what you made last year and what you paid in taxes last tax year. Compare it to what you just paid. If your gross net income figures are about the same it should be fairly obvious. 

If not do the math to see the percentages.

I wrote this because I met an idiot that says that his taxes went up based on the fact that his refund was lower this year. I told him they took less out and he had a hard time figuring that out.

When I tried to explain to him that the government was giving him back his own money he couldn't understand it was his because it came to him as a government check. At first I thought that he was so stupid he ought to be euthanized but I thought twice. If we euthanized everyone that was that stupid it would mean a genocide of such epic proportions that the Holocaust would be dwarfed in comparison. 





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Holy smoke!

A company I did business with some time ago and very seldom bothered me with a string of useless emails just sent me and email asking me if I wanted to stay subscribed.

They also said that I didn't have to unsubscribe, simply delete the email and they would no longer contact me.

For that I will put them in the back of my mind.

Gadsden and Culpepper, if I ever need another flag or banner of any sort I am going to look you up first!




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Looking back on the Richmond rally I wonder

not only how big it really was. Northam and company say 22,000 but I know it was bigger than that.

What I wonder about is how many people didn't show after they sent out all sorts of fear threats of possible violence.

I'll admit I had a lot of fear and trepidation showing up at such a large armed rally. I just knew inside the likelihood of things turning sour. One agitator could have turned it into a real horror show. A panicky cop could have really created havoc.

Yet they pulled it off.

What I would love to know is how any people would have shown up had the clowns in the capitol building not sent threats of violence out. Possibly double or even triple.

888888888888888888888

I do remember one idiot of a cop that was telling people to remove their magazines. The guys would pull them out, walk five or six steps and reinsert them. 

I was unarmed and when the guy in front of me was told to do this he looked at me. "Take it out," I said and then for the benefit of the cop I said to the kid, "If we have to start shooting policemen today you'll have plenty of time to reload."

Of course the cop turned purple but was smart enough not to say anything. His partners yanked him aside and talked to him.

The kid yanked his magazine and a couple of steps later I told him to reinsert it.

Actually what the cop was doing was outright dangerous. Most of the guys had a loaded mag in the well, a round in the chamber and the safety on. If left alone that combination is safe enough. It's when you start fooling around with things that you run into trouble. Sometimes it is best to leave well enough alone.


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We have gotten to the point where many of our elected officials have forgotten

that they are supposed to work for us. Now they seem to think that we work for them.

Ousting them through the voting process never seems to do a whole lot of good because it becomes a case of 'meet the new boss, same as the old boss'.

Maybe if we physically oust some of them at a state level they may get the idea.

Actually there really are a few that want to serve but they get tainted by the rest.





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Most idiots out there don't even begin to understand the Bill of Rights.

The rights covered in the bill are God given.

Let's look at the 3rd Amendment.

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

It strikes me that a homeowner really should not have to worry about soldiers arbitrarily walking into someone's house and demanding that the homeowners move into the basement and give their rooms to some soldier or soldiers. 

It's simply not right and there is no excuse for it at least in peace time. During war an emergency may arise and maybe things have to be done but it guarantees that there will be limits to it and probably compensation.

Still it is a God Given right not to have to quarter anyone whatsoever in one's home against one's will.

Of course most idiots think that these rights are given to them by a kind and beneficent government. They're not. They are simple basic human rights given to us by God.

The Bill of Rights simply recognizes these rights and says that the government promises not to infringe upon them.







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I want to speak to the manager

A couple of days ago I posted about trouncing on some little Karen that wanted to speak to the manager at a local Walmart. She thought she was special and could break the rules and decided to go up the chain.

Now a manager is what he is. He is nothing less than a store manager and nothing more, either. In short he's just another working stiff that has been hired to run a store. I'm sure it's a halfway decent job and all but he's only the guy in charge of one store.

One of these days when I am retired and have time I am seriously thinking of seeing how far up the chain I can get with a petty complaint. Manager, my ass! I want to speak to the CEO!

I'm sure there is a hierarchy in chain stores. There's a store manager, a regional manager and so on up the chain to the point where one has to fly to Benton, Arkansas to get to speak to the bigger bosses.

I wonder how far up the chain I can get.

While we're on the subject, I wonder how far up the federal government chain of command that someone could get.

When I was in the service we had the right to take a complaint up the chain of command. Squad leader, First Sergeant, battery commander, battalion commander, regimental commander all the way up to the President. Of course one never really got very far. The furthest up the chain of command I ever saw someone take anything was to battalion level. The guy that did this eventually wished he'd not even brought thee issue in question up.

Still, it might be fun to take a complaint up the corporate chain as far as one could get. If you get it up far enough it possible (but not too likely) that they would buy you a new car or something just to make you go away.

On the other hand, I imagine if you tried this with the Clinton Foundation that Hillary would simply have you whacked but I digress.

Still, it would be interesting to see how far up you could go to register a complaint that the breakfast sandwich you pair $2 for out of the heated cabinet wasn't warm enough to suit you.

I would imagine that back int he day when Sam Wall was still alive a guy could get to talk to him and if you played your cards right he's probably offer to take you bird hunting.

Still, I'm fairly sure I could do better than some idiot Karen that wanted to speak to the manager. I could probably get up the chain to at least some regional manager or something.

Tune in when I retire and need something interesting to do.





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I am getting sick and tired of the crap the Democrats are trying to do to us.

Talk about trying to stuff a ballot box!

In New York the governor has ordered that illegal immigrants are to be issued driver's licenses and that a DL is same-same to a voter registration card. 

What bullshit!

Of course as angry as I am there are a lot of people more upset than I am. They are called legal immigrants. They are the poor slobs that entered the country the proper way and have to wait for five years until they become naturalized in order to vote.

It is well past time we require five things from voters.

1. Ya gotta be alive. 
2. Ya gotta be a citizen
3. Ya gotta register
4. Ya gotta show an ID
5. Ya can only vote ONCE.

That's not too much to ask for.

Actually in my world there would be another requirement. 

You have to be useful and have performed a couple of years of service of some sort, not necessarily military. It's hardly right to let some low life drink beer all day on the taxpayer's nickel and then go and vote.

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Yesterday I got a little testy.

I was in line a the market and behind a damned Karen type that started a beef with the cashier over an expired coupon. Of course she escalated and wanted to speak to the manager.

I hate people like that. Her plan was most likely to create such a stink they'd cave in to her just to get rid of her. In addition to that she would likely report thee cashier as being rude. The cashier was an old woman that likely was supplementing Social Security. She was in a position where she was unable to defend herself. 

I decided I to help the poor woman out. I was going to get involved. I leaned forward and spoke to the insufferable bitch.

"The manager's name is Ray Charleston. I've known him for years. Want his cell number?"

She took the bait and when she started dialing I looked at the cashier and said I had forgotten an item and would be right back. I took off fast. I had given her MY cell number.

My phone started ringing and I caught it on the third ring. I was out of earshot from her and I could see her. I answered the phone.

"Ray Charleston," I snapped.

She started in immediately babbling on about how the cashier had been rude to her and wouldn't take her coupon and on and on. I let her run on a bit and then brought her up short.

"I see you. We have you on camera. You're that miserable c*** at register four that abused my cashier over an out of date coupon. I want you to leave and leave now. You can pay for your merchandise or leave it. I don't care. Just leave. If I have to come out and throw you out I am going to have you arrested for trespassing."

It was wonderful watching her go into shock. Her few items had already been rung up. She paid and left like a shot. It was like Lucifer himself was chasing her.

I returned to my cart and started putting my stuff on the conveyor. The cashier looked at me. "The manager's name isn't Ray Charleston," she said.

"I know," I answered. "It's the first name I could make up."

"That was YOUR cell number you gave her!" she said, wide eyed. "What did you tell her?"

I laughed. "You don't want to know. Let's just say I didn't want her to get you into trouble so I was unkind."

I thought that poor old woman behind the register was going to wet her pants laughing.






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I just saw where Bloomberg got clobbered my Warren

which I find fairly amusing. 

Let's look at the minority vote for a second.

Trump has probably done more for minorities than any president in my lifetime as far as employment goes. Minority unemployment is now at an all time low.

Bloomberg is has commented that the police don't stop and frisk minority people often enough and frisk whites too often.

Interesting. If you were a minority who would you vote for? The guy that got you a job or the guy that wants the police to pester you every ten minutes?



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Pitcairn Island confirmed

I came home to a nice QSL card from Pitcairn Island in my mailbox. It confirms the log entry of Pitcairn Island in my ham radio log book.

I should count up all of my DX entities because I do believe I am over 220 now

VP6R. It was a DXpedition to Pitcairn. The lone ham there went Silent Key a while back so a DXpedition put it on the air again for a few days.

I am damned glad I got Navassa Island a while back as that only goes on the air about every 20 years.



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It' been a couple of days without a post

I have been extra busy but now I will have time.



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Most people have never figured out how the Constitution really works or what it is.

It is nothing more than a promise from the government that they will limit their authority.

We already have the rights listed in the Bill of Rights.  They are God  given, period.

For example you have the right to worship as you see fit or even not worship if you want. 

The Bill of rights is a promise that the government will permit you to do so without interference.

You have a right to not have troops barge in on you and make your home into theirs, for example. Of course this may change in time of war but the government has to pay you fair compensation for your trouble. Fourth Amendment says the government can't do this.

In short the Bill of Rights is simply a list of what the government can't do to you.

As far as the goings on around the country regarding Amendment Two and other things it's all a bunch of shenanigans on the part of the government.  

I have no duty to obey this crap.

Let's face it. There was a time I supported our elected officials but that day is fast fading. Many of them have neither my respect, my loyalty or my obedience. They can feel free to utilize the mistletoe I have clipped to my shirt tail. 

The RKBA was given to us as a basic human right and the government promised to not interfere.

What has happened in several states is when one party gets into power that declare it a mandate to run roughshod over us. 

It's well past time for a lot of people to run roughshod over  a bunch of elected officials for taking away our God given rights. Incidentally this not only applies to the RKBA. They have gone after parts of the First Amendment and others.  


Incidentally a number of liberal candidates have threatened conservatives and gun owners with the Guilloti F-15 jets and even nuclear bombs over the past year. 

In short threats have been made by either elected officials or candidates for private office and that's just plain wrong.

Joe Biden said an AK 47 is useless against an F-15 and he's right about that. What he fails to understand is you do not try shoot down a fighter jet aircraft with a rifle. 

You use it to shoot the tyrant that tries to send jet aircraft after members of the American public. That's fair and reasonable.



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I am rapidly getting sick and tired of everyone trying to get me

To load, download, upload, sideload or splitload their damned app.

Or worse yet, get their special little card.

If I signed up for 10% of the crap I have been offered my wallet would be a foot thick and my computer would need a monster external hard drive.

And for what?

For nothing I can see that is to my advantage.

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It is morally wrong

to be nice to telemarketers.


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I see where Loco Lizzy Warrenand Shotgun Joe Biden

are both claiming that former president Obama has endorsed them.

Typical.

Obama has endorsed neither of these two imbeciles.

He HAS endorsed Bloomberg which leads to another interesting question.

How much did Bloomberg give Obama for the endorsement?


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Busy

very busy


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The day is beginning and I am up to greet it and welcome it in.

which kind of sucks because I would rather be in bed right now.




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A friend of mine asked me for help building a rifle

And of course you know I can't refuse that one.

What he wants is a beater rifle or what is also commonly called a truck or trunk gun. This is an inexpensive but reliable rifle that the owner can afford to have get beat up, broken or even lost. If it gets little rusty or scratched up it is no big deal.

He settled for a simple kit gun he bought on line rather inexpensively. It contains all the parts necessary to build a simple rifle except for the lower receiver which is a serial numbered item and has to come from a licensed dealer. He already has the lower that was part of a project that never came to fruition.

Actually the kit comes with everything except a lower receiver,  rear sight, magazine and a sling.

Anyway I am in the process of trying to scrape up a couple of magazines, a rear sight and a sling right now to help him out.

It's been some time since I built a firearm from parts before. Over the years I have built a couple of 1911 pistols,  an M-14 I built from a barreled receiver, a couple of Garands from barreled receivers and served as moral support for a couple of AR builds. Still, it's been quite a while.

With the likelihood of various bans looming in the future it is probably a good idea to snag a couple of ARs to put aside because I do see a bad period coming up on the horizon.  

That's what I would do if I were a few years younger.







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I remember a while back when some small town PD

posted a picture on Facebook one of their officers with some kind of a bazooka anti tank weapon aiming it out onto a piece of road and reminded the townspeople that they ought to slow down there.

It WAS pretty funny and it actually served a purpose which was to remind the locals that they should keep their speed down.

Personally I chuckled and thought highly of a chief that had such a good sense of humor but a lot of other people didn't. My guess is the complainers were out of towners.

I bet most of the locals grinned when they saw the picture. I'm sure the officer in the picture was a rather popular local policeman. Generally when someone poses a picture like that they pick someone that everyone knows as being a good guy or at least a halfway decent sort. 

Anyway, a bunch of crybbies, snowflakes, whiners and do-gooders carried on and moaned, wailed and gnashed their teeth screaming that the police had no right to shoot at passing cars with a damned bazooka.  

It was actually funny reading the comments they made.

Again, Ron White is proved correct again. You can't fix stupid.

I suppose that maybe they do have a point, though. Someone told me Russian police cars sometimes carry RPGs to end chases. They very well may but you have to realize that the very snowflakes that were appalled at the thought of a cop with a bazooka are the very people that want to switch our government over to socialism and  bring that sort of thing on



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What a joke! Lowe's sucks for this one

Get a free prize for filling out our survey.

Well, OK. Let's see how this plays out.

So I fill out the survey and go see what prize I am eligible for and presto! There's a list of so-called free prizes but they nail you for shipping and handling.

Some freebie!

Lowe's, you suck! 



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Uno de los dias

There are days when these posts write themselves and days I am sitting here blank minded. This is one of those times.

As I look around I see that I have an awful lot of things running off of USB plugs to the point where I an going to get one of those splitters you plug into the wall and get a half dozen USB outlets. It makes sense.

It's somewhat surprising how much stuff is now charged and run off of USB outlets but on the other hand it isn't. It seems like most electronics today run off of low voltage. I bet that todays televisions even take house current and reduce it to a much lower voltage but I may be wrong here.

Still, laptop chargers reduce household AC to a much lower voltage. Then you have cell phones, tablets and a bunch of other things that require a USB plug or some sort of wall wart. Not a whole lot other than lights and things with motors run directly off of 110 VAC anymore.

It would be interesting to try and imagine when 110 VAC is going to become obsolete. 



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I am slowly getting used to typing on a smaller keyboard

which is pretty cool.

Instead of the thick combat laptops I have hauled around for years I am running with  Kindle Fire 10 with a Fintie keyboard and a Kindle cover that goes with the keyboard.

It's a halfway decent portable rig and because I fly a lot more often it's not a pain in the ass to take to work with me. It comes out of my pack going through TSA and goes back in it afterwards. 

The jury is still out on how rugged it is, though. It is also not as versatile as a Toughbook, though. This is fairly primitive compared to a real laptop.

Still, it is what it is and it works for me...at least for now. 





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I just read an interesting thread on the quality of AR 15s

which confirmed what I got crucified for a few years back.

I once said that they are all pretty good because anyone putting together junk would be out of business in short order.

Anyway a former employee of one of the bigger (now defunct) companies let the cat out of the bag. The now defunct company got bought up a while back by a bigger company.

The former employee went on to say that the basic parts were basically traded around to practically all of the other companies. He pointe out that none of the companies built all 120 parts of an AR on premises. They built some but not all of them and outsourced what they didn't make.

In short, with very few exceptions virtually all ARs made are built with numerous non in-house parts. The expensive makers in most cases use whatever they can get their hands on that basically pass speifications. In this day and age most do.

So what is the difference between a top shelf rifle and a run of the mill rifle? Most of the time It's the roll mark on the lower receiver. That's all. 

Of course, there are a number of custom builders out there that build competition rifles and things are a little different. They may use a better barrel and/or float tube. They might put in a specialty trigger but they generally use the same parts out there that everyone else uses.

I guess it's the same for custom homes. Custom homes all pretty much use the same basic dimensional lumber for framing and building. The sheetrock is the same.

What's different are the trims, appliances, cabinets and the non structural parts coupled with the design and layout.

I build both tract and custom homes decades ago and discovered this.

I am not in the least bit surprised it applied to AR15 rifles.

Unless you are getting a gun from a custom shop they are all pretty much the same.





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I had a hard time catching the SOTU address last night, I only caught

part of it.

Still, the little I did catch was amazing. He's grown since he was elected and is doing an excellent job when you consider what he has been up against.

When I get time I am going to write a long post about what is going to happen if he isn't re-elected.

When he leaves, either in 2021 0r 2025 it will likely be the end of the Republic as we we know it.

It bothers me to see what we have become and where we are headed. 




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I am going to write a damned bok when I retire

about life in Seattle in the 2020s.

It will most likely be a real horror story. I visited Seattle recently and it is NOT the same place I wandered in and out of in the early to mid 80s. Frankly Seattle sucks.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Over the years people have asked me why I don't talk about what I do for a living although sometimes I do but in the broadest of terms. Someone asked me about that recently.

The reason is simple. I work here and as long as I am working for someone I will not say anything about them either way in print. 

I have no sympathy for anyone that bad mouths their employer on Facebook and gets in trouble for it. It really speaks poorly of someone to bad mouth their boss publicly. Besides if he/she is so awful then why don't you go somewhere else?

In the privacy of one's living room over beers is another story entirely, though but the rules are that it stays there.



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Once upon a time

I think I'll tell a fairy tale today instead of a sea story.

If I were to tell a sea story I would not begin with "Once upon a time'. I would begin with 'Now this here ain't no shit'.





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I wonder what's coming next

Every day I get up and it's something different to deal with even though it looks like the same thing.

Something comes along and makes the day at least interesting. Recently I had a pretty sorry 36 hour period but it was at least interesting.

It's funny how many guys gravitate to the old 'Most interesting Man in the World' beer ads because a lot of us guys fear boredom more than a bad day.

The Interesting man ads drew us in pretty much for that reason. He was at least interesting


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I recently had a flight cancelled on me

by Alaska Airlines and they sent me some ubersecret code number for $200 off of my next Alaska Airlines flight.

Smartass I am I emailed them back asking if I could trade it for lap dances at the Great Alaskan Bush Company.

Stay tuned to find out.


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Right now I am watching a thing called VEXIT 2020

West Virginia is offering the counties of Virginia the opportunity to leave tyranny behind by coming a part of West Virginia.

While it sounds outrageous and impossible there is one county that can do this at their leisure, Frederick county.

The Frederick county eligibility for this goes back to the Civil War when West Virginia was shucked off of Virginia and made as a separate state of the Union. Virginia, as everyone knows was a part of the Confederacy.

Frederick county was offered the chance to become a part of WV and didn't take the offer. The offer never was retracted and they can probably leave at will.

I imagine it would be rather hard for the other counties to quit Virginia but it is likely not insurmountable.

Still, it is an interesting concept for those Virginians not wanting to live under tyranny. 


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Hello there!

Still frigging around with a Kindle


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I get used to this Kindle



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I am sick and tired of the impeachment

proceedings that are purely politically motivated.

They don't have a damned thing on Trump, the evidence in question is simply "Orange Man Bad" and that's it.

What the Dems HAVE done is prove to us that as soon as they get the house and the Senate they will simply shit can the president and get all there and screw us all.

Now I see Mitt Romney getting in there trying to garner votes to permit witnesses and obviously try and stick it to Trump.

That's because Mitt Romney is a sore loser and thinks it's not fair that he didn't get his turn and Trump did. He's like a nasty little kid.

They ought to throw Romney out of politics completely and then he could become a model for a new fashion like called "Mom's Jeans".





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I do believe the Republic is at a serious crossroads and

we are seeing a series of power plays going on.

What's happening in Virginia goes well beyond gun control. What is happening there is a power play.

Now that the Democrats have the triple play of the state government they are planning on keeping it through foul means.

The present term for governor is four years and they want to up it to eight. They also want to change the requirements for recall to make it more difficult to legally recall senators and delegates. 

As of now gathering the signatures of 10% of the people that voted in the election the delegate or senator ran in is enough to trigger a recall election. The Democrats want to change it to 25% and the people have 60 days to gather them. This effectively makes any attempt at recall difficult at best and upsets the system. People have  right to recall elected officials.

In addition to this, they are also tampering with the ballot box, planning on enacting legislation that would permit anyone whatsoever to come in and vote. This includes illegal immigrants who certainly have no right to access the American ballot box anywhere.

The courts have been too heavily politicized now for decades. As of now federally one sees Trump is doing what he can to to stuff the Supreme Court with conservatives like Obama tried to stuff it with liberals. Courts are not supposed to be political in any way. They are supposed to clarify points of law and Constitutionality of laws and various situations as the arise. Nothing more, nothing less.

The courts should be neither liberal nor conservative.

Under the Virginian constitution there is a statement that reads as such: "That a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state, therefore, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; …"

Generally when a government decides to do something they would be shot for they try and disarm the citizenry. It looks like the Virginia state government is getting ready to do something they probably should be shot for.

Theodore Roosevelt said once that our freedoms are protected by four boxes, the soap the ballot box, the jury box and the cartridge box.

What I see going on in Virginia is tyranny. 

They have corrupted the jury box, are in the process of tampering with the ballot box. They seem to completely ignore the citizenry because the day after Lobby Day they went about the process of enacting unconstitutional gun laws after 25,000 people showed up to protest it. It was a slap in the face of the people. So much for the soap box.

This, of course means the only box left is the cartridge box.

Right now I will bear no ill will whatsoever toward any Virginian that opens the cartridge box. 

As far as I am concerned the people of Virginia did their due diligence by holding the rally and putting the state government on notice.









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Someone asked me about the most interesting thing I saw at the rally.

It was a woman. Barbara Billingsley, AKA June Cleaver actually has a doppelganger and I saw her.

Now time has passed and Wally retired from Boeing as a senior engineer last year. Beaver took over Ward's job, He spent a career sitting at a desk that had only a phone on it and occasionally spoke with Clarence Rutherford who also took over his father's job. He calls him Clarence instead of his childhood nickname of Lumpy.  

The Beav has about a year or two before he pulls his retirement.

Ward has been dead for several years now but June lives on and is about 90 right now and fairly spry. She is known throughout Mayfield for her pies and brownies which she bakes for the church rummages sale. The church actually takes orders for them and delivers them to the people that order them. 

The reason the church delivers them is because they can't sell them at the rummage sale anymore. Too any fistfights over them have broken out in the church hall over June's pies. Yes, they are that good.

Anyway, I looked out of the corner of my eye and there she was. June Cleaver at the ripe old age of about 90. She was still in a house dress and was wearing her signature string of pearls and she was very much June Cleaver. I looked and saw that something appeared to be a little out of character until I realized that she was carrying slung over her shoulder and AK 47.

Sure, her back was kind of hunched over and it was pretty heavy on her poor tired old bones but it was there. A ninety something year old June Cleaver doppelganger with an AK over her shoulder.

I wish I had been able to stop and talk to her for a second but I had other things to do.

God bless her.






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Things change.

I see things slowly change and it is what it is.

The battle between the States as one could call it seems to be changing. It is becoming a battle between the city slickers and the country bumpkins, so to speak.

I see the flyover states tend to be more conservative and the citified areas more liberal. 

I suppose that the rural (read agricultural) areas could simply stop producing for a while and starve the cities out. It would be an interesting sight to see bread lines in major cities but I hope it doesn't come to that. (Meanwhile Joe Farmer is waxing fat, getting up from the table with a toothpick between greasy lips)

I think one of the big problem is that too damned any people don't have a single clue as to how government is supposed to work.

The idiots that think Hillary would be sworn in if Trump gets impeached has proven that one.

A good class in Civics ought to me mandatory in public schools.

Ben Franklin said, "A Republic, if we can keep it."

Looks like we're not doing a very good job of it.



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A comment from a gay black woman that attended the VA rally

I hate to steal things but this one said an awful lot about the rally.

I was handed this off of another board and it rang true. Totally true. 

I wish I could find the woman to verify the veracity of this, I do know it isn't copyrighted, though.  However, I seriously doubt the woman that wrote this would care if I use it. While I do not know personally who wrote it I believe it's 100% true.



"The rally was absolutely not about white supremacy, but it was a battle cry for the supremacy of our constitutional rights. They are, after all, supreme. The backbone of this country is built from it and that is why we are the strongest country in this world. There is no other country on the face of this earth with a history as bloody and beautiful as the American history when it comes to our constitutional rights and the strength those right give us as people. Why it pretty much says that we are ALLOWED to remain armed so we can overthrow a corrupt government in order to stay the right course. And it's our history and the lessons learned from it that gave me the strength to go to this rally even though I had three strikes against me according to the mainstream news: I am black, I am a woman, I am gay.

"While I could not cover my black face since that was against the rules and I didn't much feel like advertising my sexual orientation, I still wore my LGBTQ pin right next to a round, orange sticker that proclaimed that Guns Save Lives and my pink toboggan. Many white men, yes ... you read that right ... so many wonderful white men shook my hand, told me wonderful tales about their daughters or sons or brothers or sisters who are also LGBTQ and I got so many white fists raised for bumps and not in anger in any way that I had to keep putting lotion on my ashy knuckles. I was warmly embraced, quite literally, as a friend by people I am constantly told hate me just because they have less pigment in their skin, are straight, and have a penis. That was not my experience. That was not the experience of any black person I saw or spoke with. And yes, there were too many there to count.

"If you needed further proof that the people in attendance were not there to proclaim that their whiteness was the reason they should have the right to keep and bear arms then let me tell you this. I was wearing my bug out bag because if I'm honest, maybe a part of me did think shit could go south and I wanted to be prepared. I had my water bottle attached and at some point, it fell off. You have to understand me when I tell you that we were shoulder to shoulder in some areas and forward momentum was like crawling through mud in spots.

"Anyway, my bottle fell off. I heard someone shouting, "Lady! Hey, lady!! Pink hat lady! Yo! Pink hat lady!" I was prepared for many things when I turned and saw that the person shouting for me was in possession of a flag that had stars and bars. The jaded part of me was braced for many things because of my experiences with racism. But this young man smiled brilliantly at me, held up my bottle so I could see it, fought through the crowd to get to me and handed it over with a polite, "That got knocked off, ma'am. You might get thirsty later. You having a good time? Where you from?"

"Then we talked about my bag and he pulled his bag around to show me that his was identical to mine and showed me a better way to attach my bottle. He even attached it for me and then stood there and walked me through some weird knot a couple of times so he was sure I got it down correctly and it wouldn't be knocked off again. He taught me that knot repeatedly and told me he sails a lot and was in the Navy. He initiated a hug, held my hand in his for a moment before he left, and told me how wonderful it was to have met me. He thanked me for being there.

"See, for you and if I'm honest, myself as well ... it affects me to see those stars and bars. Why? I actually thought about that after I met and spoke with that young man. It affects me because I've been told repeatedly it should affect me. I've been told repeatedly it was a sign of racism. That's how I viewed it until now. Just like people look at me and see a black face, a lesbian, a woman and make up their mind about me ... that's how I viewed people with that flag. I judged. But let me say this. Just because I viewed it that way doesn't mean the person carrying it views it that way. To them, it might mean something else entirely. To them, it might be a symbol of something I don't even know about and I can feel offended about it or I can look at the bigger picture and see that at the end of the day what matters is humanity and being good to each other.

"I can tell you that I, black as mud, nowhere near straight, very much a female, felt absolutely safe and welcomed and at home with literally thousands of white men who were walking around with loaded guns. If any single one of them had felt some kind of way about me well, I was outnumbered and they could have said/done anything. They didn't. They were friendly, helpful, funny, determined, and strong. I felt like I counted amongst them and my takeaway was that they were glad to have me there. I laughed. I joked. I hugged. I felt. I fist bumped. I lifted my voice up to say the Pledge of Allegiance and to shout USA USA USA because that matters. I mattered. In a sea of white, what stood out the most was how they all let me blend right in and they did it with open arms.

"So you can take that hate and your black against white racism right off my page. You think you are allowed to be racist just because you're black? Let me tell you something. The only racist anywhere is you and that's a damn shame. You set us back with the way you think and the racist things you say when what you should be doing is recognizing that you would not be where you are today if white people hadn't fought and lobbied and marched right alongside our black ancestors to get you the civil rights you have today. So don't come sideways at me again talking about how I'm somebody's gun-n***er. What I am is a friend to a very good cause. And you're the damn joke who sat the gun rally out because you don't like the second amendment but you'll be the first one screaming when they come for the first amendment once they wipe out the second. Because anyone who wants to run their mouth and say wrong shit all day NEEDS their speech to be protected. Fool."





To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY

A few years back I got a lot of crap over being against

gay marriage which irked me.

It was a leftist do gooder that was a total jerk.

Actually my take on it is that government should issue civil unions to any two beings that want one. I suppose if someone wants to marry a halibut it's fine by me if they can prove that the halibut finds it agreeable.

Of course, it nothing will do but you get married than find a preacher that will marry you.

Anyway, I expressed that I was against the government being in the marriage business and Mr. Do-Gooder said, "Even for gays?"

My answer was "Even for everybody," and I left it at that.

A couple days later I was quoted as being against gay marriage.

That, People is how leftist work work. 

Be careful when you hear someone say anything about anyone.




To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY

I am starting to see the fallout of the Richmond Rally

Of course Red Ralphie has ignored it. I expected that.

The MainStream Media has panned it and there are many patently dishonest articles out there to be seen.

Still, for those who want it, the truth is getting out. The MSM is slowly being outed by social media. A lot is getting through and the fact that there are other news sources is slowly forcing the MSM to tell the truth about the rally.

It was like Woodstock but with guns....and oh, yeah. Unlike the hippies in NY back in '69 who left a shit house, WE left the place spotless.




To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY