30 August 2009

Orb Spiders

This gentleman has taken up residence right outside my patio door. He weaves his web every night around sundown, and every morning he pulls it up out of the way again.

It's nice to have good neighbors.

According to the Pugh collection he is an orb weaver, one of the most common spiders in North Carolina. Although he is huge, he is harmless. Except if you are a bug, that is.

I think that he has attracted a mate, because now there are two of them.

29 August 2009

Thoughts On The Second

I have a friend that open carries everywhere allowable by law that he goes. Usually he will chose not to go to those places where he is not allowed to carry, either by law or by the request of the place in question.

I have yet to hear anyone comment, either for or against, in our hearing.

There has been quite a stir lately in the MSM about people openly carrying weapons at townhall meetings and other public gatherings. What you don't usually hear is that the weapons are carried legally and that no one has been arrested for carrying them.

The MSM has even gone so far as to call the carry of weapons racist, and to illustrate this has used a picture of a rifle being carried. What they failed to mention is that the weapon in question was being carried by a black man.

Fifty years ago it would not have been an issue, this open carry of weapons. Since that time we have gotten away from the practice, mostly due to the whining of the Gun Fearing Wussies.

Unfortunately also since that time the open carry of weapons has become something viewed as somehow criminal or crazy. Carry laws are not known or understood, even by the LEO's that are supposed to be enforcing the laws.

Reading around the net it is possible to find blogs who's owners claim to be all for the free exercise of Second Amendment rights, and yet those very same blogs have opinion pieces written by said owners who frown on those who open carry at the events. Their reasoning is usually that the open carry makes the wussies cry, and that making the wussies cry generally isn't good for promoting the Second.

I disagree.

I think that if everyone who can open carry does, the general public will become accustomed to seeing it, and the cries of the wussies would decrease (or at least fade into the background). Additionally, as the criminal element sees more and more people open carry they will become more aware that there are a lot of firearms out there. This has been shown to cause them to find another line of work. Both of these are good things.

Eventually I would like to see the open carry of firearms in accordance with the Second Amendment to be just as commonplace, and as unremarkable, as open carry of books and newspapers in accordance with the First.

I don't know that it would ever happen, but one can dream.

28 August 2009

Book Review

I just put down Stephen King's Cell.

The part where he wrote about a .45 caliber Colt revolver was enough to give me a moment's pause. There is such a thing, but most times one refers to a .45 it's an M1911 or a clone thereof.

When he wrote about the human brain only working at 2% capacity I was done with the book.

Most people will quote the ten percent figure, and I will admit that I believed it as well until I read the Snopes entry about it. Where two percent came from I don't know.

Anyway, I'm back to the opinion that Stephen King hasn't written anything since The Dark Tower.

26 August 2009

Ted Kennedy Dies At 77

My mother always told me that if I couldn't say something nice, don't say anything at all.

Clicking the title of this post takes you to the BBC story.

15 August 2009

Wizard's Second Rule

The greatest harm can result from the best intentions.

In Ouray Colorado a woman was killed and eaten by bears on the seventh of August. It turns out that she had been feeding the bears for at least ten years. This act of kindness resulted in the bears losing their natural fear of humans, and in fact made them very aggressive towards humans that were not feeding them.

A five year old bear was killed by sheriff's deputies at the scene after he aggressively approached the officers, and another was killed at the residence a week later by USDA officials working under the authority of the Colorado Division of Wildlife.

Because she was feeding them they stopped hunting for themselves. They just came to her house whenever they got hungry. The long standing effect is that more bears and humans are going to die, because the bears have forgotten how to hunt for themselves and they now equate humans with food. This woman's good intentions led directly to her death as well as the animals she was caring for, and will lead to more deaths before it's all done.

The old saying is that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Combine that with the story about giving a man a fish, and you can see where some of our current problems have come from.

14 August 2009

RIP

Captain Scott Speicher, USN, has returned home.

Welcome home Captain. Rest in peace.

Linky!

Having just finished "Monster Hunter International" (and simultaneously becoming a huge fan), I have also just posted the link to Monster Hunter Nation.

Hurry fast and get yours, because according to the latest update on MHN there are only four copies left on Amazon.

Don't worry though, you can get a signed copy instead.

While you're there go make an entry into the "Hold The Pig Steady" lyrics writing contest.

12 August 2009

Absolute Power

Next time some jackass, be they from the left or from the right, says "If you aren't doing anything wrong you don't have anything to be afraid of" punch them right in their monkey faces. If they spout some blather about the "common good" or some such dogsqueeze as that, punch them twice. It's for the chiiiildrennnn!!!! (who will ultimately have to foot the bill for all of our current nonsense.)

This, boys and girls, is why we don't give government - ANY government, no matter who's running it - any more authority than they absolutely need to do their Constitutionally mandated jobs. Sooner or later if it has the potential to be abused, it will be. That is quite simply the nature of power.

For what it's worth, I thought the Patriot Act was a knee jerk response that wasn't well thought out and shouldn't have been passed. It was passed under the "do something even if it's wrong" mindset, and it was wrong and (as we are now seeing) eventually dangerous.

The ironical thing here is that the "good Liberal" people who were up in arms about BOOOOSH and the ReTHUGlican Congress illegally seizing power were right about the potential for abuse, but now that Obama and a Democratic controlled Congress are actually doing the abusing they are strangely silent.

The porkulous bill was right up there with the Patriot Act, and cap n' tax and the healthcare bill is right there as well. The problem is that once they are passed they are almost impossible to un-pass.

Hat tip: Ace Of Spades HQ, your home for Valu-Rite swilling hobo hunters.

06 August 2009

Dear 52 - An Update

Perhaps

you

have

forgotten

what

we

said

before.

Here

it

is

again.

Buy This Book

I woke up at 4:30 PM (get offa me, I work nights) and found my copy of "Monster Hunter International" waiting for me.

I just finished it.

I didn't know they stacked awesome this high.

Buy this book, make Larry Correia rich, and maybe he will write another one.

05 August 2009

Speaking Of Birthdays

Happy Birthday Brigid.

Not older, just aged. Like a fine wine.

Here's to many more, lass.

03 August 2009

Birthday Presents

For my birthday (which was yesterday) Kevin Baker at The Smallest Minority got me a Quote Of The Day!

Thanks Kevin, you shouldn't have!


For anyone following the link, have a look around and leave me a comment if you see something you like.

Thanks for dropping by!

02 August 2009

On The Subject Of Heros

If you have not yet made the journey to E3 to see the three part series "A Soldier's Story" you need to do so now.

LT Cooper tells how it was to transport Marines from the safety of their transport ship via Higgins boats to the meatgrinder that was Tarawa, and later Iwo Jima.

He then tells the tragic tale of the KIA's of Tarawa being buried and forgotten amongst garbage, septic tanks and parking lots.

LT Cooper worries that we don't heed the lessons of history that were learned during the "ancient wars" that occurred before Viet Nam. The military remembers, and still applies the lessons learned so long ago in their operations today. Carrier operations and damage control methods learned the hard way under fire and kamikaze attacks are still being taught in today's Navy, and are still being used on ships like the USS Cole. Unfortunately, outside the military the nation has all but forgotten the lessons of these ancient wars.

These men deserve better. Please go watch the videos. Remember them.

Another Hero

SFC Jared Monti.

Rest in peace.

HT: Ace Of Spades HQ

It Never Stops

The rumors still fly, made up as usual. No links, I'm not going to feed the fire. Check at Ace's place if you want to know the details.

When is this family going to get a break?

She's resigned already. As in, not a public figure any more.

This means that all of you jackasses who attacked her and her family with impunity all this time can now be dragged into court, on your own dime this time.

And it looks like Darth Cheney has been teaching his young padawan apprentice some Sith mind control tricks. So you have been warned.

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

01 August 2009

Soldier's Suffrage

From Neptunus Lex:

An American Thinker article on the military and voting.

I might have mentioned this problem once or twice myself.

The problem is, you see, that the military vote is mostly by absentee ballots, which for a variety of reasons are not counted. A lot of them are disqualified on technical issues, but for those who pass the gauntlet most of them are not even opened.

The reason they aren't opened is that there usually aren't enough of them to sway the election one way or another, so there really isn't a reason to count them. (Sometimes even if there might be enough of them to sway the election they aren't counted either, usually at the insistence of one of the political parties involved, particularly if it's a recount in Florida or Minnesota. One wonders why.)

The article gives a few more reasons, all of them things that need to be addressed. Thanks for bringing the article to light, Lex.

While you are there, sign the petition.