Fun Turns to Tragedy!!!

The Skinny

I am a gun enthusiast trapped in the People's Republic of Maryland. My political affiliation is Independent, as the Ruling parties are both full of crap, and long ago stopped representing the common man. If the Libertarians weren't such freaks I would probably be one. I am a member of the Nation of Riflemen and damn proud of it. I once took an oath that I would support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. As far as I know I never broke that oath, and will continue to follow it. I am not Politically Correct and will NEVER be Politically Correct. If you need to know more, feel free, Ask.

what am I up too???

Top Referrers

Calendar

My Links

XBL

• Home Improvement
• Blogging
• News
• Personal
• Political

Monthly Archives

• August 2010
• July 2010
• May 2010
• April 2010
• March 2010
• February 2010
• January 2010
• December 2009
• November 2009
• October 2009
• September 2009
• August 2009
• July 2009
• June 2009
• May 2009
• April 2009
• March 2009
• February 2009
• January 2009
• December 2008
• November 2008
• October 2008
• September 2008
• August 2008
• July 2008
• June 2008
• May 2008
• April 2008
• March 2008
• February 2008
• January 2008
• December 2007
• November 2007
• October 2007
• August 2007
• July 2007
• June 2007
• May 2007
• April 2007
• March 2007
• February 2007
• January 2007
• December 2006
• November 2006
• October 2006
• September 2006
• August 2006
• July 2006
• June 2006
• May 2006
• April 2006
• March 2006
• February 2006
• January 2006
• December 2005
• November 2005
• October 2005
• September 2005
• August 2005
• July 2005
• June 2005
• May 2005
• April 2005
• March 2005
• February 2005
• January 2005
• December 2004
• November 2004
• October 2004
• September 2004
• August 2004
• July 2004
• June 2004
• May 2004
• April 2004
• March 2004

Most recent entries

• We need Gov Health care why???
• this thing on???
• Where is the human cloning technology when you need it.
• Do your Job
• reloading 223…
• fixed the page finally
• All mounted up
• Backed UP
• Lefty AR update
• Gastro intestinal adventures
• Garand Update
• Lack O Blogging…
• FURY…
• Woot.  SNOW…
• Took longer than expected

Navigation

Home | About | Archives | Contact

Members

Login | Register | Member List

Syndicate

• RSS 1.0
• RSS 2.0
• Atom

Join our Mailing List

Site Statistics

This page has been viewed 2404641 times
Page rendered in 0.6643 seconds
44 queries executed
Total Entries: 519
Total Comments: 1072
Total Trackbacks: 16
Most Recent Entry: 08/02/2010 09:55 am
Most Recent Comment on: 09/03/2010 10:45 am
Total Members: 17
Total Logged in members: 0
Total guests: 9
Total anonymous users: 0
Most Recent Visitor on: 09/08/2010 05:23 am
The most visitors ever was 302 on 08/31/2009 07:29 pm

Hits

Referrers

Site Credits

Powered by:
ExpressionEngine

Design by:
BlogMoxie and modified by Me

Both of these men have suffered due to their stances on our constitutional rights.  Both Kim and Joe have taken the fork in the road that is not only less traveled but fraught with peril.  Both of these men have paid a high price for their staunch support for our rights and freedoms as American citizens.

Kim du Toit runs an excellent website,  The website is his personal pulpit for beating back gun bigots, PCism, and nanny state liberals.  Kim espouses his personal views and feelings on a wide range of subjects from Guns to Girls, and most things in between.  He has raised the ire of many Gun Fearing Weenies, and Nanny State Liberals.  In the past he has been called just plain mean due to his Pussification of the Western Male essay and dim views on the prospects for Africa.  He even won the worst blogger award from the left wing.  (Which he rightly counts as one of his favorite accomplishments for this year.)

He is an American in the truest sense of the word, and believes in the Rights and Responsibilities of the common Citizen.  Unfortunately being a real American in this day and age is a tough thing. 

Kim and his wife made the big plunge and started their own company.  They knew that Kim’s outspoken words may get him/them into difficulties one day.  They were ready to accept the consequences.  Well in their quest for financial backing in their business ventures the came to a point where they lost all of their backing because of Kim’s website.  It was a hard decision for Kim and his family, but fortunately for us (members of the Nation of Riflemen) Kim is made of stern stuff.  His family made the decision to undergo (probably no small amount) hardships to make their business a success in the face of loosing their financial backing due to Kim’s views. 

Well we may not be able to make people who grew up in this country see or understand what it means to be an American, but Kim who is an immigrant to this country “gets it”.  Hopefully for Kim’s sake he can, sometime in the very near future, poke the sharp pointy end of a stick named success into his former financiers eye.

Understanding what it means to be an American brings us to the road that Joe’s is walking.  You see Joe is also very outspoken about his Rights and Responsibilities as a Citizen in our society.  He has a blog where he speaks of the issues that face gun owners in particular and Americans in general.  He has no problem pointing out the proverbial terd in the punch bowl.  He is fairly outspoken and blunt in his assessment of a situation.  He tells it like it is.  Good bad or ugly you get the facts when you go to Joe’s place.

Joe like Kim has had his personal life run afoul of his professional life.  In Joe’s case he works for a big company, who intern employed Joe to do secret things for the government.  Joe was recently terminated from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, his place of employment not because of his performance at his job, but because of his outspokenness in his private life.  His company started an investigation on Joe because of his Blog and a picture he had posted. Has he committed some crime by speaking his mind?  Was this picture of some lewd illegal act?  No. It was a picture of Joe with a pistol holstered at his side.  It was a picture of Joe freely exercising his Constitutional right as a Citizen of America to be armed.  He was fired because he exercised his Constitutionally protected rights.  He was fired because he was outspoken in ways that were not “Politically Correct”.

Unlike Kim who is self employed and has no real recourse if his backers pull out, Joe is an employee for a company which could be held responsible if he was discriminated against because he was exercising his Constitutionally protected rights.  Joe being a fairly bright guy and he went and did his own research on what might have caused his termination, as he could not think of a reason that someone who had never had poor evaluations would be fired.  He found that his company ran a covert investigation into his writings on his personal blogs.  Through his logs on his websites he was able to track the “Security” personnel’s every move (which says a lot about the supposed security people).  It did make for some interesting reading and I encourage all of you to go read about Joe’s experience at the hands of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.  I am pretty sure that Joe is suing, and it does not look good for PNNL.

So the lesson that these two tales is as follows.  If you want to stand tall and exercise your rights and responsibilities as an American you better be prepared to take it on the chin.  There are a lot of people out there that just don’t understand what it means to be an American.  They unfortunately will not take kindly to you standing up and pointing out their inadequacies.  Joe’s wife Barb once said to Joe “People are scared of people like you Joe”.  They will try to tear you down because they are scared of you, even if you are the last thing on earth that they should fear.  So remember kids, Forewarned is Forearmed.

Joe, Kim.  Thanks for the lessons…

Well I finally got Ben’s link button up and he complained that the button shows way too much nut and not enough reasonable…  Ok I can fix that…

So lets let the people decide which one looks better.  Then new one above or the old one below…

I am also looking at updating Cowboy Blob’s link button as his was the first one that I did and I have a few more under my belt so I know that I can do much better than the 175grain SMK montage that I have as the background for his link button.  I have some Ideas and have a way to get some real nice background pictures but it may take some time…

Fun dun went and turned to Tragedy!!!

Normally it would be just plain old “Fun Turned to Tragedy!!!“ but this time it involved a pickup truck so we had to throw in some southern accent…

Well this weekend was a long weekend.  I took Friday and Monday off so it is even going to be a longer weekend.  Most of this weekend involved a chain saw and the trusty truck.  I dig get a bit over zealous trimming a couple bushes in the front yard, to the point that they no longer exist.  Unfortunately it has also been so hot and humid that it has taken us three days to get all the trimming done, and we still have a little bit left to go.

Well all that chain sawing also made for four dump runs with my truck full of brush.  The first three runs were all fine, but on that forth run tragedy was lurking in the placid grass.  We have about a little over an acre of property so I was driving the truck through the yard from bush to bush and tree to tree picking up the trimmings.  Minding my own business I might add.

When out of nowhere a stump jumped up and attacked the side of the truck.  Ok, maybe it did not jump up, but it attacked the truck none the less.  It tore off the ground effects, dented the bottom of the passenger door, as well as the denting in rocker panel below the door.  To add insult to injury it also got the muffler.  Probably around a Grand in damage… Grrr… 

Well on the plus side I have always wanted to change out the factory exhaust in the Lightning, as I have always thought it sounded a bit wimpy for a muscle truck.

Now my weekend is indeed complete…

Well I have a few more frequent referrers that have earned some custom link buttons.  I have owed these for about a week now but have not had the time to get them put together, but now it is done…

First off I have a link button for Ben over at Reasonable Nut.  He has been blogging since last september and seems to be intent on keeping it going.  He has earned the name or at least part of it more than once.  He has yet to get his own Jihad issued against him, but he did manage to get his own personal “Kill Ben” blog put up over his stance on the hunter killings by the Hmong in Minnesota.  So here it is the long awaited Reasonable Nut button.

Next up I have Say Uncle.  He is a blogger that I have been reading for some time no and his link image was a tough one to come up with.  But unlike Ben, his site has a little bit of inspiration and graphics to point me on my way.  Say Uncle is also another primarily 2nd Amendment site with a strong current affairs touch to it, additionally he does not like breed specific dog legislation.  Here is Uncle’s Link button.

Finally I have Ravenwood’s Universe.  He is another local blogger who I have been reading for six months or so.  I particularly like his “found on the beltway” segments.  He is also a Libertarian and has a pretty good wrap up on just what that means.  To me it means that his political beliefs are a lot like mine…  His was an easy button to develop as the “Universe” theme was pretty easy.

So that wraps up the link button additions for now…  It does seem that for the time being that is it…  I don’t have any clear high referrers on the horizon for a while.  But then you can never tell if I can find another pic to get the links to pop on over to my site.  On a side note it is kind of funny that the posts that garner the most comments is one with chicks and guns. 

Well here we go again.  Lautenberg, Corzine, Schumer, and Clinton are once again trying to institute a gun ban.  They are trying to hide this one under the pretense of calling it the “Police Law Enforcement Armor Act”.  The gun bigots are once again using the old appeal to emotions fallacy. 

The bill starts out by stupidly trying to ban a pistol and one type of ammo for said pistol, which is already banned because it is an “armor piercing” round. 

But then this little gem goes farther than that one type of ammo.  The congress critters go on and try to hide the second part of the bill in a bit of legalese “testing handguns and ammunition for capability to penetrate body armor, and prohibiting the manufacture, importation, sale, or purchase of such handguns or ammunition by civilians.”  Here is the text that they will then use to justify a ban on handguns in general.

“The purpose of this Act is to protect the Nation’s law enforcement officers by—
testing handguns and ammunition for capability to penetrate body armor; and prohibiting the manufacture, importation, sale, or purchase by civilians of the Five-seveN Pistol, ammunition for such pistol, or any other handgun that uses ammunition found to be capable of penetrating body armor.”

No in fact, the purpose of this act is to ban as many pistols as they can.

Well guess what, most modern pistols (and almost all rifles) will already defeat level IIA armor in the higher velocity or +P rounds.  They plan on using IIA as the body armor that they are specifying as the armor to test against in order to ban pistols and ammo.  In fact Level IIA armor is the absolute minimum armor level recommended, with the heavier level II armor being the usual level that is acceptable.

So this bill is nothing more than a ban on handguns.  The gun bigots failed to get an outright ban so now they are going to try and sneak a ban in by calling it “Police Protection” because that sounds much more friendly.  And they wonder why they loose elections, they are so busy trying to restrict our rights that they have forgotten that we are indeed Citizens with rights and privileges.  They want to take away our means of making sure that the government will not be able to run amok later down the line.

Once again the democrats show their true colors…  More and more it seems these colors are no longer red white and blue.  Just plain old commie red.

Go check out Publicola and Gunscribe for a more detailed report. 

Well the Maryland arm of the DNC fundraisers called me last night. The democrats in Maryland need to update their database a bit, as I long ago switched my party affiliation from democrat to Independent before Clinton got elected the first time.  They must be used to getting hung up on, because she would not let me get a word in edgewise while she explained the reason for her call.

So after hearing about how the republicans are raising nearly four times the amount of money that democrats in Maryland are raising, I thought it would be my turn to talk.  I heard her take a deep breath, I tried in vain to interrupt her but I was a microsecond too slow.  By the time that she had finished explaining that the democrats were in need of help to keep Erlich from being reelected governor next year.  She quickly followed up by let me know that Sarbanes is retiring from the senate and we need to make sure that Lt Governor Steele would not become our next senator as that would be a disaster.  At this point she started to run out of steam, I was sure that it was my turn to talk.  Unfortunately it appeared that she was just getting her second wind ready.  She then went on to tell me about the stiff opposition that the local government officials were also facing from republican challengers.  She followed all that up with a quick “So can the democratic party count on your $100 contribution?” At this point I knew it was time for my snappy reply.

As I had a good three minutes to formulate my reply, I got strait to the point.  “First off, I have not been a registered democrat since just before Bill Clinton became president, and have not voted for a democratic candidate for president since before Bill Clinton”.  I gave a bit of a pause just for effect, and to let my previous statement sink in before I came to my second point. “I also will not vote, or donate any money to the democratic party as long as they continue to support Gun Control as one of their party tenets ”, During my pause this time, the nice lady on the other side of the line gave me this hesitant comment “The democrats support gun control?”.  I then had to point out that there has not been a single gun control bill introduced into the Maryland house and senate in the last few years that was not penned and supported entirely by democrats in Maryland.  At this point the other side of the line got kind of quiet.  I politely thanked her for her time and hung up.

Note to the Maryland Democrats:  If you are going to have some out of state telemarketing firm calling people in Maryland for donations at least make sure that they have a small bit of local knowledge, give them a one page crib sheet for goodness sakes.  Second take my number off of your list as I am not giving one red cent to a party that thinks I am a subject, and an untrustworthy one at that.  I do not need my nose wiped and my diaper changed by some nanny state that thinks they know best. 

I am a Citizen with all the rights, privileges and RESPONSABILITIES that being a citizen entails. Infringe upon those rights at your own peril.

Yea that last part was a bit of ranting (though not incorrect) but I think I earned it after having to endure the DNC ask for money.  Oh and had the RNC asked for money I have another response ready for them as they have been just as busy trying to turn us into subjects as the DNC.  Hence why I am registered as an Independent.

I read a blog called The Balance of Power,  there was a discussion on public schools going on that got me interested as I spent a bit of time working in a public school systems.  It got me thinking about what I saw during my time working for “The Prince” and where things were headed.  The public school system is in trouble no doubt, but the social promotion of the students are a symptom of a deeper issue.  The problem lies more with how we are bringing up our children than the public school system though the public school can use some work.

MORE...

Now we can all guess where this is…

Just one more example why the suicide bomber was invented.  Who in their right mind would want to stir up trouble in a society that has no compunctions about arming the populace.

Almost makes me want to immigrate. 

On the dark side if we get a few more suicide bombers in this country this type of fashion apparel may be on the approved list soon…

I would love to credit the photographer but I am guessing that these photos are kind of common in Israel.

On a side note it does look like one of the lasses has developed a new Kleenex dispenser…

Well I have been having a bit of writers block here lately.  I have a thing or two that I want to write about but I just don’t feel like doing all the links and supporting information right now.  So here are a couple of people you should really read.

The first is Doc Russia hitting the nail on the head in respects to the Islam problem.  Ok, he not only hit the nail on the head but drove it all the way through the board with one swing.

The second is over at Individ’s place.  He has quite a few stories on China.  Once again this story should be read and then follow up on his multipart China lessons. 

I will try to muster the energy to get some of my own posts up but till then give these two a shot.
there that should be good for at least two hits on your pages guys.

Well I have been meaning to update my blog roll for a while now.  I am definitely going more for quality than quantity.  I will be starting to prune out some of the dead links in the near future…  Tonight I am going to add three blogs. Two I have been reading for a while, and the third is kinda from the other side of the political fence so to speak (at least he seems to think he is).

First off, Doc Russia.  Doc is a

Marine who is currently in Med School paying his dues on the way towards becoming a Trauma Doc.  I have been reading Doc for at least a year now and have always enjoyed his stories.  He writes a quality blog and I often can’t wait to get the latest installment of “I wanna be a Doctor”.  So head on over to Doc Russia’s place for some good story telling.

Second on the hot list is Irons in the Fire.  I have been reading Firehand since he started blogging but my link till tonight has been via Kim du Toit’s blog.  He speaks of many things from motorcycles to marriage, so if you have a hankering to learn a bit about blacksmithing head on over and take a peek… You will not be disappointed.

Finally with much trepidation I am adding Gun-Toting Liberal.  I have very few liberals on my blogroll, not because I have something against liberals, but for the most part I find them either condescending in their elitism or they basically have no manners.  By manners I mean that if you want to disagree with someone, make a reasonable thought out argument.  Calling someone names (BushHitler, Boy King, Lurch) is never the way to win an argument.  I will tune you out in a heart beat if your argument revolves around childish name calling.  Maybe Move On and Howard Dean have given liberals a bad wrap…  So after much reading I have decided to put Gun-Toting Liberal on my blogroll as his site is well written and we seem to see eye to eye on a great number of things.

The thing that really did it for me was reading his writing on The Balance of Power which is a blog where there are several contributers from different political alignments that expound upon the same topic.  That particular site presents opinions in a fair and reasoned approach with no name calling and lots of good content.

So I guess that just about wraps it up for now.  I once again seem to be getting people introduced on my blog with the proper decorum that I have tried to set in the past.  I will take a hard look at what needs to be trimmed out over the next couple of days, so expect my blog roll to shrink down to a manageable size again…

I really don’t have a whole lot to say about the events of 7/7.  My heart goes out to the people affected by this latest attack.  Rest assured that America stands by your side.  Mr. Freemarket, hope you made it home safely…

(AP Photo/Yuri Gripas)

For the first time in history we are flying the flag of a foreign country in place of our own at the State Department…
Hat tip to PubliusPundit

As we see events unfold in the upcoming couple of weeks we will get a better idea of who.  The why of it no longer matters as religious fanaticism is to blame.  If it is indeed once again a islamic issue, then the moderate voices of Islam need to be loud and clear in their condemnation of the latest event from their fanatical brethren.

A word to the moderate’s in Islam, you want to help ensure that islamic people are not put under the spotlight in an unfavorable light? 

Actions speak louder than words.

Frankly as an American we have heard all this before, and we are used to seeing the same old hand being played in Islam. Condemnation for a week, then back to business as usual, throwing rocks and burning flags.

We have heard your words, but as of yet, your deeds don’t say much.

Well I have yet another cool link button to put up, in fact the fastest site to yet earn a cool link.  David’s site The War on Guns is a site that I have been reading for about two months now.  It is still just a baby in the blog world, but growing fast.  I look forward to more good things coming from David, as he is a contributing columnist for several gun magazines.  Unlike most of us he gets paid to write…  So here is my latest Cool Link.  The image is historical, but it fits nicely as we are in fact struggling to get back what has been taken…

So welcome David,  Good luck with the blogging…

Yes we have all seen them…  I am not saying they are wrong I am just saying they exist.  Heck I bet that half of the links I find referring to my site on technorati are in the middle of some rampant froth flecked monster of a blogroll (for those of you that have me in that category I still appreciate the links).  I also have a little blogroll, granted it has not reached the vaunted status of froth flecked yet but I am trying…

Now in my own way I have decided that I would show the people that I get a lot of hits from that I appreciate them and their readers.  I have decided that I would make custom links for the sites that are high referrers to my site (yes I know that if I wrote more I would probably get more hits).  These links will also have a place of prominence on my blog, not stuffed down among the cracks and crevices of the dreaded sidebar blogroll.  I still hit the sites on my blogroll every day or so.  Some more often than others (Kim du Toit, Aphecca, Captain’s Quaters, RNS, yes Ben even you).  So I have a ways to go before my blogroll becomes err how do you say unmanageable…  I think that I will always try to keep the quality vs. quantity ratio very high but you can never tell.  So if you are a top referrer you can expect to get special treatment here in my little collection of electrons where fun frequently turns to tragedy…

The special links all started with Coyboy Blob being the first to realize that my URL had changed with the advent of Fun Turns to Tragedy!!!² and Expression Engine.  From there the Analog Kid at Random Nuclear Strikes decided that it was a challenge and he wanted his own cool custom link.  So I bring you the second of my custom links just for the Analog Kid.  Go check out the Soft Green Glow…

I have a couple other sites that are climbing the Referrer rankings to become the next site to receive the custom link treatment.  So we should be seeing another site soon…

Now I just have to try and put up enough high quality posts to justify the linkage…

Well last night around 11:30 or so the was a bit of noise in the other room.  About a minute later the dog decided that it was time to hop up and see what was going on.  When he did not come back to bed I started to wonder what was going on.  I finally got up to take a look, no reason to grab the H&K as the pup was not barking.

  I went into the computer room and two of the three cats were a bit agitated.  I watched for a minute and then a tiny little gray field mouse darted past Ivan the cat.  The chase was on then, because I could move things for the cats and dog to get in on the action and keep the mouse moving.  The mouse then made a quick break for it, and ran into our bedroom being hotly pursued by Ivan (the evil black overlord) our black tux cat.  I am glad that Liz was still groggy when the mouse ran under the bed, as the scream would have been a bit loud at that time of the night and probably spoiled the fun.  So not three second later the mouse shoots out of the bedroom with a black kitty in hot pursuit.  The whole time Max was playing rear guard in the hallway in either anticipation or amusement, since the cat was doing such a poor job of mouse wrangling.  The mouse then proceeds to dart over my foot and back into the computer room and under a computer desk.  The black cat once again all paws and claws in hot pursuit. 

After a few minutes of running out from under the desk, and then darting back under when the cat got back out from under the desk (hobbs appears to be terrified of mice), the mouse made a mad dash around the trash can trap that I had placed in his most likely escape route.  He then proceeded to run between the paws of the stunned rear guard, the ever vicious and attentive Max, and into the hall bathroom.  Max was into the bathroom in a flash of brown and white fur, skittering to keep his footing on the slick floor.  He soon had the mouse trapped behind the toilet.  Now Ivan seemed to have missed the whole mad dash down the hall thing, and was still poking his head around the computer desk thus displaying his hunting prowess.  In the mean time Max had come to an impasse with the mouse and the toilet, so it was time for reinforcements.  I had to pick the cat up and take him to the bathroom as he was sure that the mouse was still under the computer desk.  Once I had him in the bathroom I had to basically point the mouse out to him as he kept trying to head back to the computer room.  After the fearless hunter had the prey in his sights the action began, with the cat chasing the mouse from his chosen place of sanctuary and the dog chasing him back.  Finally the dog got a couple of good whacks in with his paw and the mouse tired enough for me to grab him with a paper towel.  I threw the whole bundle of fun out the side door and went to bed.  Case closed. Or so I thought…

Coming up next is the Shriek portion of our story…