Bambi will be my BITCH!

Oh yeah! Uh huh! Got a muzzle loader! It's my birthday!

OK, well, maybe it's not my birthday. But still!

It's too late to go out hunting again; the season was over on the 10th of December. But that gives me time to practice, sight it in and get familiar with it. It came with the scope brand new in the box, never been fired. Unfortunately, using a scope is illegal during muzzle-loader season. But the factory put the iron sights in the case with it, so all I have to do is take the scope off, put the rear sight on, and I'm good to go.

It's a Wolf break-action in .50 caliber. It uses the 209 primers. I've got some miniballs to practice at the range with, but I'll be getting the primo bullets for actual hunting.

Yet another gun for the cabinet. And another season in which to kill Bambi.

As an aside, I had dinner tonight with the gentleman who loaned me that other, non-working muzzle loader. He actually feels quite bad about the whole situation. But the one thing that I took away from it, other than to never use that particular gun again, is that it wasn't me. That is, I was not the reason I didn't get a deer. I had been feeling pretty crappy by that last day. I mean, I hadn't seen a frikkin' thing other than a squirrel or two. Was I doing something wrong? Did I smell wrong? Was I hunting in the wrong places? Hunters, you know how it is - you don't see anything, you get to wondering just what the hell is going on.

Well, it wasn't anything I was doing. Harvest numbers all over the state were down. Lots of reasons for it - weather, date of the hunting seasons, an overly-high estimate of the deer population. But I had a deer so close I could have thrown the gun at it and hit it. So I can hunt. And now I have a gun I can hunt with for another two weeks after the regular season. Oh hell yeah. I'm taking an entire week off for hunting season next year. I'm getting that white-tailed varmint. I WILL HAVE MY VENISON!

THIS! IS! WISCONSIN!

If this rumour is true....

Would anyone really be shocked? Show of hands? Anyone? Anyone?

Didn't think so.

Goin' Shopping

Some of you might remember that little problem I had during hunting season because of a borrowed muzzle-loader. I plan on solving THAT little problem today. There's a Cabela's about two hour's drive from here. I'll make it an all day event. Drive down, take pictures (the route follows the Wisconsin border, which is the Mississippi River), stop and have lunch with the Ragin' Mrs. at some little restaurant, and get my muzzle loader.

It might just be one hell of a day.

How was your Christmas?

Christmas Eve

There's a whole lot of political bullshit out there that I could get upset about if I wanted to.

There's a whole lot I can bitch and moan about if I wanted to.

But the bottom line is this - no matter what's going on, I've got a damned good life. I've got a great woman who married me. I'm still happy to wake up and put my uniform on every day.

It's Christmas.

You folks take care. I'll see you whenever you get back online.

Merry Christmas

Not Happy Holidays, Merry X-mas or anti-Christmas Kwanzaa...

"And there were in the same country shepherds, abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them! And they were sore afraid ... And the angel said unto them, "Fear not! For, behold, I bring you tidings o great joy, which shall be to all my people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ, the Lord."

"And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." And suddenly, there was with the angel a multitude of the Heavenly Host praising God, and saying, "Glory to God in the Highest, and on Earth peace, and good will toward men."

"That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown."

I hope you all find a fraction of the joy I am blessed with this day. For if you do then you will truly know happiness.

Adding to the post below

When I was transitioning to my new position, I was working with a Sergeant from Ohio. He had been on his way to Iraq with his unit a couple years ago, when his plane stopped for a scheduled re-fueling in Maine. The plane was going to be on the tarmac for about two hours while it picked up fuel and changed crew.

Turns out President Bush was in Maine at the same time, and when he found out that a plane-load of troops was going to be sitting around for a couple of hours, he decided to stop in and talk to 'em. So he did. Just walked on the plane and started talking to a bunch of Soldiers about their mission, their lives back home, what they thought about going over, what their fears and hopes were.

There was no press. There was no media coverage. There was just a man going to talk to men and women who were serving their country. And if the Sergeant I was working with had not have told me about it, I would have never known it happened.

Obama can't even visit wounded troops in Germany unless he turns it into a media circus.

To Obama, and with all Democrat American Communist Party members, the troops are there to be used for political gain, and nothing more. Judging from remarks made by John F'n Kerry, Charlie "Taxes? What taxes?" Rangel, and a host of other parasites in donkey suits, the Left doesn't even think that the military qualifies as human. Unless they can use us for their own personal gain, they don't want to deal with us at all.

Obama would not visit wounded troops in Germany unless he got a good media story out of it.

President Bush walked on to a plane of Soldiers and talked with them for two hours, and nobody outside of that plane knew about it unless the Soldiers told them. No press, no national media.

I think that speaks all that needs to be said on that score.

The untold story

Seen in quite a few places, about President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

Mr. Bush, for instance, has sent personal letters to the families of every one of the more than 4,000 troops who have died in the two wars, an enormous personal effort that consumed hours of his time and escaped public notice. The task, along with meeting family members of troops killed in action, has been so wrenching - balancing the anger, grief and pride of families coping with the loss symbolized by a flag-draped coffin - that the president often leaned on his wife, Laura, for emotional support.

"I lean on the Almighty and Laura," Mr. Bush said in the interview. "She has been very reassuring, very calming."

(.....)

Mr. Cheney similarly has hosted numerous events, even sneaked away from the White House or his Naval Observatory home to meet troops at hospitals or elsewhere without a hint to the news media.

For instance, Mr. Cheney flew to North Carolina late last month and met with 500 special-operations soldiers for three hours on a Saturday night at a golf resort. The event was so secretive that the local newspaper didn't even learn about it until three days after it happened.

Mr. Cheney and his wife, Lynne, also have hosted more than a half-dozen barbecues at their Naval Observatory home for wounded troops recovering at Bethesda Naval Hospital and Walter Reed and their spouses and children.

There's four pages to that story. Read each and every one of them. I hate Bush's domestic policy. I think that on the domestic front, President Bush is no different than any Democrat American Communist Party member chosen at random from Congress.

But when it comes to the military..........

There's President Bush, who obviously cares about the troops, who shares their pain, who understands exactly who and what is at stake, and then there's the Democrats, the troop-hating, military despising, Soldier insulting, Marine-spitting-on, Airman dismissing, Sailor-cussing Leftoids who haven't done or said a DAMN thing positive to the troops in decades. The worthless, drug-addled ex-hippies who never grew up, who remember spitting on the troops after Viet Nam, and who want to do it again.

Go read. While I wasn't a big McCain supporter, read that story and ask yourself if you could ever in your wildest dreams see that corrupt fucking commie piece of shit Obama doing what President Bush has done.

Snort

"Stop linking Islam to Terrorism!"

As Mike says, You First, assholes! Maybe when muslims stop blowing shit up all over the world, hmmmmm?

Quiz Time

Just for Gits and Shiggles.

My Conservative Identity:

You are an Anti-government Gunslinger, also known as a libertarian conservative. You believe in smaller government, states’ rights, gun rights, and that, as Reagan once said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”

Take the quiz at www.FightLiberals.com

Yep. Sounds about right.

From Frankie C

Reader Frankie C sent me this link in an email in an attempt to get my blood pressure up.

Banks that are getting taxpayer bailouts awarded their top executives nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses, and other benefits last year, an Associated Press analysis reveals.

The rewards came even at banks where poor results last year foretold the economic crisis that sent them to Washington for a government rescue. Some trimmed their executive compensation due to lagging bank performance, but still forked over multimillion-dollar executive pay packages.

Now, before I start ranting and raving, I have a serious question to ask - how much of the bank failure was caused by the Government?

Think about the mortgage crash-n-burn. We can all blame the banks, or the mortgage companies, but the fact is that it was CONGRESS who forced companies to make loans to people who should have never gotten a loan in a million years. All in the name of Diversity (ALL HAIL DIVERSITY!). That was the trigger for the problems that we're having right now. As usual, when the government gets involved, things get worse. As the mortgage crisis flamed out of control, banks were left holding mortgages that were essentially worthless.

When you go from having assets, to having no assets, that's gotta hit a bank pretty darn hard.

Now, was there some stupid financial shenannigans going on? Most certainly. But by who? Who exactly needs to be keelhauled, and who should be congratulated for their damage control?

The AP article doesn't say.

I don't trust the AP in the best of times, and these ain't the best of times. They have their agenda, and they push it at every opportunity. Remember folks, the Media is not your friend. They are the enemy. So the fact that the AP is hyperventilating over the bank CEO's salaries means nothing to me.

And I must point out again that the very same Congress who caused the Mortgage burnout, the very same Congress who has driven our economy into the dirt, the very same Congress who has killed thousands of jobs in this country.... just gave themselves a pay raise.

Which the AP is fine and dandy with. So that ought to tell you exactly what they're thinking. So while I'm upset at some greedy bastards, I can't really get angry until I know WHO screwed up, and who did their level best to save their companies.

Rather Busy again today

Going to shovel my walk, go to church, then help a buddy move some crap around.

If I'm lucky, I'll get to watch a football game somewhere in there.

See you tomorrow.

Yep, that sounds about right.

Mark Alger has a link up to The Doctor Is In, who takes on the case of assisted suicide, and "the Right to Die". And I just have to link to it, because this paragraph right here boils down so many of the "rights" being pushed by the Leftists into something comprehendable.

Many of the “rights” which are being promulgated and promoted by today’s secular culture are in reality straw men, fine-sounding proxies for demands and desires far less salutary than they sound. Thus, gay marriage is not about gays getting married (hence the lack of enthusiasm among gay rights advocates for civil unions which provide all the legal benefits of marriage), but is instead an effort to destroy traditional heterosexual marriage as normative in culture, thereby removing not merely legal but cultural restraints on all forms of sexual and relational deviancy. The high standard — heterosexual marriage, with its enormous advantages in the raising of children and establishment of societal self-restraint, morality, and relational stability — must be brought down to the lowest common denominator of any two (or more) people getting “married” — with the sole purpose of muting societal condemnation for self-gratifying, dysfunctional and heterodox partnerships. Unrestricted abortion, a.k.a. “freedom of choice”, is about the uncompromising (albeit delusional) demand for unconstrained sexual license without consequences — especially for women, but also for their sperm donors who want no responsibility for their casual hookups: dispose of the unplanned pregnancy, move on to your next “partner”, and you have achieved the perfect “zipless fuck.”

Likewise, physician-assisted suicide is not at all about “death with dignity”, but rather about actively enlisting the culture in support of radical individual autonomy. Not only must we exert full control over the time and manner of our death — which we have always been able to do, by simply killing ourselves — but we demand that society support, honor, and praise this decision, without the faintest whiff of criticism or condemnation. It is not sufficient that we be able to kill ourselves. Rather, it is necessary that we actively kill those societal sensibilities and strictures which condemn such a choice as morally misguided and potentially destructive to our human dignity and our social fabric.

Every single "right" promulgated by the Left can't be found in the US Constitution. Instead, these "rights" come from the Leftist's desire to enforce his way of life onto other people. They want to do x, y, or z, so dammit, they'll claim it's a right and force everyone to let them to it!

By all means, go read the whole thing.

After you're done, go raed Francis Porretto's post on why the Left is pushing for Embryonic Stem Cell research even though every major breakthrough in that field has come from Adult Stem Cells, not Embryonic.

And by the way

Congress just gave itself a raise. That's right, the group of idiots, thieves, corrupt canker-sores, and greedy communists have just upped their pay. After destroying our economy, causing thousands of people to lose their jobs, Congress gave themselves more money. After leading what has to be the most unethical Congress ever, they're getting paid more to be that corrupt.

Can we lynch them now?

Velociman on the Big Three

And he rips Salon to shreds, which is a bonus.

I noticed, by the by, that Mr. Lind never states the blindingly obvious: Detroit isn't bankrupt because of a few automobile plants in the South. They are insolvent because their business model is as putrid as Gacy's date in a crawlspace. The combination of managerial greed, union greed, and insufferable government mandates combined to slay an industry that has been essentially producing unwanted junk for 35 years anyway. These Yankee protectionists need to take the buggy whips out of their collective asses and throw them upon the bonfire of history. It's not broke, idiots: it's fucking dead. And unless the next CEO of General Motors is Jesus H.M.S. Christ it will stay dead. Unless the Corkers of the Senate have their way, and the industry is reborn with a foundation of economic viability, shareholder oversight, and viable product offerings.

I've said for years that I would buy a Ford Truck, because those actually have a history of, well, working. But I wouldn't touch any domestic cars if my life depended on it. And I'm not just talking about my ass - I've owned and operated both the so-called "foreign" and domestic cars, and damn near each and every time the Japanese car has out-performed and out-lasted the domestic. My Nissan truck, which has gone through several different kinds of hell that no automobile should ever be asked to do, is still running with over 220,000 miles on it. It starts up every single morning.

The last two rental cars I had were both Chevy's, and in both cases I had to get the Rental Car company to come pick them up, because they were not working. New cars. Non-functioning new cars.

How much you want to bet that if I'd gotten a Nissan or Toyota, that bugger would have worked?

Tossing money at the Big Three isn't going to do jack shit other than push that problem down the road for a couple of months. Ford, Chrysler and GM are going to collapse unless they fundamentally change the way they operate. Since they're not going to do that, they will go bankrupt.

Whew

Today is the first free day I've had in about two and a half weeks. I can actually do some Christmas shopping, and work on my truck.

I think I might have actually gotten enough sleep.