Ghosts of Christmas

At the end of a long Christmas day (I was awakened from a very nice sleep at 6 am this morning) as I sit here in the Kudzu Grotto (KG) just me and the mice still awake, and I've not heard a peep out of the mice, so they may have turned in also, the images of this Christmas keep running through my minds eye, blurring with ghostly images from Christmases past, both near and far.

The smile I've worn most of the day still feels glued to my face as I picture loved ones, especially the little ones, having a completely joyous time..

From the opening of the first presents early this morning when it was just the wife, Eldest Daughter with husband and Eldest Grandson and I, to the parting this evening after the other children with additional grand children and in-laws had arrived, feasted, unwrapped presents, enjoyed each others company and in general just had a grand ol' time, today has transported me into a time of happiness as I forgot all about cares of the world, politics, war and day to day living in a much changed world from how it was when I was a child myself.

There are some like Fred who, having abandoned the US for the expatriate life in sunny Mexico, (a move I have to confess I have a secret longing to make also due to the generally poor opinion I have of the elite who would have us all bow down to the idol of gubbermint) who delight in pointing out the false God on Consumerism that all to many of our countrymen and women bow down to this time of year. Which worship I confess I have decried many times myself, but then there are those moments which still give me gladness and hope that all is not lost.

Moments like the laughter and giggles of small children as they run to you handing out presents as their parents hand the packages to them and point out who they are to give it too. Which activity I have to admit they seemed to love as much or perhaps even more than receiving their own gifts.

A moment like the one just before the big family feast when every one is asked to gather round as I, head of the family, am expected to ask grace, and young grandson Lee bursts out with the request, "Can I say Grace", and all the adults try to quiet him, but the spirit whispers to me to let him do it, and his simple, humble, heartfelt words touch hearts much more eloquently than anything I could have said, leading to exclamations of joy and awe that remind me of Tiny Tim's words at the end of A Christmas Carol, "And God Bless us,... Everyone". We were indeed blessed by this child.

Much as we were blessed so many years ago by the birth of a small child to a young Jewish girl in a far away land.

Whether you are a believer or not, where ever you are, no matter your situation.....tonight I deem you friend for stopping by and hope that you are blessed.......Everyone of you. I hope you experience joy similar to mine as I hold one of my grand children.



Although this picture was taken at the Thanksgiving/Surprise birthday party for me, it expresses pretty well the joy felt today.

Eviction notices

Having just spent over an hour going over the plan to either get the rent money due the old Grump in the New year or evict the current tenant (much the preferred option) the subject is high on my aggravation list at the moment. This is the third discussion in depth he and I have had about the subject and the result is the same every time. We have our goal, our tactics and logistics mapped out in the most minute detail, accounting for every contingency we can imagine, and I am heartily sick of the subject. Realizing that an eighty-one year old has not so much else to worry about, considering that meals are planned and cooked by the wife with occasional help from yours truly, housekeeping and laundry is taken care of by the wife with minimal interference by yours truly, his health care is taken care of by medicare and private insurance which he pays for out of his ample social security check and pension, his focus can be turned almost entirely to this one aspect of his life. But damn! Just work the plan.

It makes me realize that the current political class which is leading the country further and further away from the Constitution can also be evicted by the real owners of this Republic.

All we have to do is have the will to do it, plan to do it and then use the electoral process against them in the next election.

Things can seem really bad. Lord knows I rant and rave enough about the situation. And believe me the financial ruin the politicians are heaping upon our country can lead to disaster....BUT ONLY if we let them. With a nation of armed Citizens we have in the event everything else fails the ultimate winning hand.

Things have to be done in order. First we show the politicians who is boss and then we'll have to kick out the fraudsters who control the money.

Ron Paul is exactly right. Our elected representatives have sold us out to the fraudsters..
.....but only because we have let them. It's time to educate yourselves, decide on the goal of Freedom, make our plans and then work the plan.

The goals set out by Marcus Tullius Cicero would make a nice place to start.

Another one bellies up to the trough

I know.....I know...I've ranted enough here over the last five years to make you think I know that all politicians are liars and whores, but like Diogenes I continue to seek a politician who has a single principal. Just one...is that too much to ask?

Now Nelson has gotten on board the gravy train.

Clean house and a third of the Senate in 2010. That'll be a start.

Want your picture taken with Fat Al

Well...be prepared to pony up the shekels. The man has no shame I tell you.

Some see through the FIC (Farce in Copenhagen). Gerald Warner give us a heads up.


Not only is Fat Al second only to Bill Clinton as liar-in-chief (thanks largely to eight years of on the job training, he thinks people will pay for the privilege of posing for a photo with him.....little realizing that most of them only want some thing to draw red rings on for posting at the 100 yard mark at the nearest rifle range.

Yet we see that some are stupid enough to pay for carbon credits when they take a plane flight. So based on the assumption that there is a sucker born every minute Pope Al is just doing as he has always done....pork the fatties for all they are worth.

Another rainy day

With wind and mid-thirties for the high temps. Brrrrr. I don't live far enough south, but since family and friends are here and finances preclude a move..........here I'll be for a while yet.

The morning was spent mostly outside working, then a couple hours inside getting ready to send a package off. The rest of the afternoon was spent in the truck picking up some presidents.
No heavy lifting but a bit tired around the neck tonight as I had to listen to the ol' Grump for the two hours I was inside. Hopefully he has seen the light.

I wasn't planning on posting tonight, but my good friend LL has a post you should read which includes the following bit of inspirational, spiritual music. Send a little tip Mr. Hookers way if you can and spread the word to support our troops.

The Pledge from jameshooker on Vimeo.

The more things change the more they remain the same

It would appear we have learned nothing in the last 2000 years.

“The budget should be balanced,
the Treasury should be refilled,
public debt should be reduced,
the arrogance of officialdom
should be tempered and controlled,
and the assistance to foreign lands
should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt.
People must again learn to work,
instead of living on public assistance.”

Quote from Marcus Tullius Cicero

63 BC

With a hat tip and thanks to Dax and his little brother.

If I never posted another thing and this message could be spread all over the US of A, I could die happy knowing I did my part to try to effect positive change.

It wasn't Peking Duck

No......but it was one of Chef Ming's better efforts.

Today being the anniversary of the wife's entry into the light at least 39 years ago, I made an effort to clean up a bit....even shaved and splashed on a little Old Spice after shave, then squired her in the Red Ram to the local Kroger shopping center beside the Home Depot to one of the Classic City's better eating establishments the aforesaid Chef Ming's, where we dined on Shrimp, Scallops and Beef with Oriental Vegatables. Not our everyday fare but a very nice break in the kitchen duties for the wife and a fix for my oriental food jones. Both the location and dish were her choice as I had thought of taking her somewhere to get medium rare cow with baked for her and salad for me, but as it was in her honor, I let her do the choosing.

I've learned a little something in the last few years of marriage. One thing is to let them have their own way every once in a while.

If you ever have a chance to visit Ming's emporium try the Mushroom Beef.....my all time favorite. Go hungry as the portion sizes will be all you could ask for.

A little coolish here in the Classic City today. Once again I failed to notice the frost on the ramp off the back deck and busted my ass......well it was already cracked (groan).

I spent a goodly bit of time in the back yard trying to get some product ready to ship and finally had to admit that time waits for no man and you can't rush some things. Oh well..
..tomorrow is another day and I'll finish by lunch.

I'm working against a deadline since Christmas is next Friday and if I want to be paid for this week's efforts I'll have to ask for a rush processing to get paid by Christmas Eve. It helps that I smile at all the girls working there and they feel sorry for an old man and will take pity on me.

The goat roping in Copenhagen is becoming a farce with most of the third world tin pot dictators taking the opportunity to bash the US and Capitalism while trying to wheedle money out of us. Well.......really they didn't have to wheedle much as Hillary Clinton was there to throw money at them.

I really wish we had a president who had the common sense and cojones to tell those idiots to shut their pie holes and go back home and encourage the free markets in their own country so as to raise the economic standards there instead of bashing us with one hand and holding the other out for some of our generosity. But instead we have a communist wanna be who will make a speech there totally tearing down the Goodness that used to be The United States of America. Wanna bet......any takers?

How's that hope and change working out for you now??

It's enough to make me wish we had a Queen running things. At least she knows how to stretch a shilling.

Watersports & Other Recreational Activities

Warning: This post is so much in opposition to the previous post I caution you not to read it if you have a weak stomach. If you do and are of a sensitive and gentile nature, don't come crying to me if you want to vomit or commit acts of violence upon certain of your leftist neighbors. I tried to warn you.



We've had enough rain here in the Classic City vicinity this year to make walking outside to your truck be considered a watersport of sorts I suppose.....and there might be those whose first thought on seeing the word might think of synchronized swimming, water polo, or even slip sliding down the rocks at Bramblett Shoals where as kids we were thrown into the deep water under our fathers stern guidance.

Ahhh those good old days of long ago... Times change and not always for the better in every instance.

Take for example the things they teach our most precious possessions, our children, in the gubbermint schools these days.....

Things like fisting and pissing on your partner....WTF?? I mean come the hell on here..
...fisting and pissing??

And it was done by the new Czar for Safe Schools appointed by Barrack Huesein Obama (piss be on his name).

Folks we've been traveling down the wrong fork in the road for a goodly number of years now..
...and I realize that I'm getting a little long in the tooth and have a few more gray hairs on my head than in times past.....but I say again.....WTF?? is this how you make sure the school environment is a safe one??

When I was a kid in school the safety issue was taken care of by Principal Britt or one of the teachers......and that was effected by swift and painful application of a good piece of heart pine or oak 1 X 4, oftimes with airholes drilled in it to ensure you got the message that there would be no funny stuff tolerated while you were under their care. And God help you if after administration of the wood to your nether extremities they then called your parents.

I realize that times have changed, but are we really better off having our children taught the vilest possible things in a school setting? I don't think so.

Not unless you have a predilection for stuffing gerbils up your ass.

Just damn

Another Rainy Sunday in Georgia

The Classic City area hereabouts has certainly had it's fair share of the water this year. Now that the leaves are mostly off the hardwoods things look as cold as they feel outside.

I was awakened a little after 7pm by my youngest grand daughter who came giggling into my bedroom and yelled, "get up paw paw". Right there I started smiling 'cause I knew it was going to be a good day.

She had been sent to fetch me by her nanny who wanted me to go to Mickey D's to bring back some fast food breakfasts for us all, courtesy of the old grump who like a ground hog had stuck his head and $20 to pay for the eats. Sausage and hotcakes with syrup and butter, Big breakfasts with sausage, scrambled, biscuit and hash browns. Lots better than cold cereal.

Small Grand children are special anytime of the year, but especially around the time of Christmas I think, seem to be endowed with all the qualities we oldsters look backward and wish we had never lost.

We have six grand children ranging in age for 17 down to 3 1/2. All healthy, Thank God, all smart, all a blessing to those around them....well one could study a bit harder. But, all of them amaze me with how different they each are. Each of them with something to teach us every day.

So this evening I'm not dwelling on the problems of the world. I could care less if a golfer has a predilection towards buxom young women who are not his wife....or politicians who are willing to sell their souls for a mess of porridge.

I'll sleep the sleep of the happy and contented. Blessed beyond my limited understanding.

Cleaning up on a Rainy Saturday Evening

For much too long I have put off the task of cleaning up some of the disused, disabled and un-liked links in my side bar. Tonight was a perfect time to take care of this bit of old business.

Some were deleted either because they had quit blogging or I developed either antipathy or disdain for them personally in general or their writings in particular.

Others were added because I like their writing or their points of view. One was linked because she is my daughter and I love her.

There are many other sites I read from time to time and sometimes more often which I might add if it strikes my fancy or I find myself with too much time on my hands again.

Welcome new guys and thank you to all the old timers. You all give me much enjoyment.

If you see something you don't recognize in the blogroll check it out. If you don't like it..
...well, you don't ever have to go there again.

Winning hearts and minds

That phrase will of course be instantly recognizable to any person who served in what we like to call the South East Asia War Games of forty years ago. You may remember........the one we lost.

Today we're doing the same thing in North West Asia. What a goat rope.

It is always a great thing to be able to sway people to your way of thinking by your words and deeds to the mutual benefit of both parties. I am a big fan of getting people to think in terms of Freedom and The Rule of Law under something resembling our Constitutionand Bill of Rights.

But when reason and diplomacy has failed and the shooting starts.....then the leaders of a Nation such as ours has as it's first obligation to win the conflict so decisively and quickly that as few of your own troops suffer injury and casualties as possible. This has the added benefit of killing as many of the opposing forces leaders and reducing to as few as practical the numbers of civilian casualties in the area you are in effect taking over.

Eliminate in totality the forces who oppose you and who are restricting their peoples Freedom and then you have the time and ability to convince your former enemies of the correctness of your ideals of Freedom, Justice and Liberty. This is a natural desire of all intelligent, freedom loving individuals everywhere.

Of course there are always, as we see in our own country, those who want to be controlled and enslaved by someone who will at least feed them or give them a free place to live along with whatever other things they can get from the producers without effort on their part.

Wise leaders however would institute policies to wean everyone except the truly incapable and sick from the teat of the public dole.

But first in order to convince people who have not known freedom, you have to eliminate or so cow the opposing forces that they are not capable of disrupting your efforts to educate the people in their own higher capabilities.

As a for instance, I urge you to consider the peoples of Japan, who sixty years ago were totally defeated by us and within 20 years had so adopted the freedom mindset that their economy and country became one of the strongest in the free world.

Pussies like BHO and General MacCrystal who has his nose up BHO's butt, will only cause more US casualties for a military who are some of our best and brightest young people and will as a direct result create less Freedom and Liberty, as well as Justice in the world....more importantly .....less of the same here in our own country.

Which will one day lead to the deaths, on both sides of the issue, in our own hometowns.

Leadership is about courage, competence, conviction, commitment, and character.

The great Acidman once wrote that there are three kinds of bloggers; Linkers, Stinkers and Thinkers.

As anyone who has followed the masturbatory spewing that goes on here knows, I am among the second classification with an occasional foray into the first. I make no apologies, the connections between the keyboard, my fingers and the brain are tenuous in the best of times. Medications help somewhat based on the phase of the moon, I guess, but like a boil (Definitely not for the weak of stomach) on the back of my neck, sometimes I just have to pop things out, because, come on, can you imagine how much more ugly things would get inside my head if it were just left to fester?

One of the pulsating pustules that festers in the fetid fields of my wonder-ings is the fact that we have no leaders amongst those currently elected to the highest offices in the land.

Below I blatantly borrow from and link to a blog post that addresses the characteristics and qualities necessary in a leader. That way you don't have to sink deeper into the steaming swamp that passes for my thoughts.

Leadership is about courage, competence, conviction, commitment, and character.

Leadership has five basic components; the first is courage, not just physical courage but also moral courage to stand, sometimes alone, in order to do that which is right. It is about having a unique quality that in times of a trying crisis steps forth and exhibits itself in actions that are selfless and display uncommon virtue, valor, and resolve.

The second component is competence which is an ability to anticipate a problem, analyze viable solutions, and execute a decision. It is truly a talent that is necessary as America faces some of the most pressing issues in our economy, national security, energy independence, and illegal immigration. Competence knows no partisan agenda but seeks that which is best for those whom a leader is called to lead.

The third component is conviction which relates to one having a strong belief. What we need now more than ever are men and women who have a strong belief in America and its Constitution. America is a Republic and what is a fundamental principle of a Republic is adherence to Rule of Law….and that is our Constitution.

A conviction in America would have precluded the passing of the insidious healthcare legislation last week, in the wee hours.

The fourth component is commitment. In the military we all take an oath to our Constitution, to support and defend it, against all enemies foreign and domestic. We have a bond to our Brother and Sister Warriors. America now needs leaders who are committed to the American people, not their own self-interest and certainly not special interest, foreign or domestic.

Finally, leadership is about character, and for me that is defined by “doing what is right when no one is watching”. Far too many of those who are inferior to us have risen to positions of governance, only to make deals and decisions in hiding.

If our Country is to survive for another 233 years we must regain an ability to assess leadership. And in the coming year there will be many parading before us for support to gain that special honor to govern.

Some one like this man is needed, and we need one like him in every congressional district in the country.

If we don't find and elect these kinds of people soon we may well find out what Zimbabwe is like here in the former land of the free.

Great Speech

Want to watch something to get the image of PBHO last night out of your brain.

I know you do.

Go over to GOC and watch the video. Then send Lt. Col West a note of appreciation, maybe even a dead president picture or two.

Lt. Col. Allen West for congress

Goat Ropin'

You knew it was going to be bad last night, didn't ya?

PBHO is going to explain his Afghan Adventure, complete with charts and graphs.....no, wait...
he can't watch the teleprompter and point at charts at the same time. There is a reason they don't let him chew gum.

I didn't watch. I'm too freakin' old to subject myself to anything that painful. I feel sorry for the West Point Cadets and their instructors who were forced to sit through the whole thing.

Did anybody think to count the number of times they interrupted him with wild un-controlled applause? They probably had some Major in the corner with a cue card that said, "Applaud". Mostly that's what Majors are good for... following orders whilst keeping their noses firmly implanted in their superiors arse.

Folks, this ain't no way to win a war. Our troops on the cutting edge deserve better.

I'll let you go over to Guyk’s for a better analysis of the situtation. Follow his link to Joan of Arrgh for another. You might also take a look at what the German news source thought of PBHO's speech.

It probably wouldn't bother me quite so much if I hadn't already lived through one such disaster as this has the potential to be. Even more so because I have a nephew scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan next month with 2 of his brothers still in the Reserves....plus my 9 year old grandson want's nothing more than an old steel pot type helmet for Christmas so he can play soldier. Maybe by the time he's old enough this country will be led by grownups again. If not and I'm still alive they'll have to cut the handcuffs between me and him to get him into the green meat grinder.

'Cause let me tell you something.... I've been to the rodeo and I've seen all the shit kicking and goat roping before.

Mind Time Travel

Too many years ago I decided the the misfortunes of life would affect me less if I keep a certain detachment....a distance if you will, between everyone else and me. When people who occupied the next bunk over, or in the next hut were there in the morning and not in the evening, the void left, especially if quasi-friends was a bit much to bear.

Consequences resulting from that decision have had far reaching effects, touching wife, children, friends, both near and far, work and job satisfaction.

Probably the worst effect has been an inability to plan for the long term, focusing rather on the immediate over the anticipated. This has lead to a life lived on the edge.....never fully tasting of the sweetness of a fully involved life. If you wonder how such a one could accumulate nearly 42 years of marriage to the same person and wonderful children and grandchildren who love me.......so do I. Blessings of Angels I suppose.

One of the results has been a focus more on the work, whatever it was, or at other times totally blowing it off, so that the tangible rewards enjoyed by many haven't been fully experienced. Travel, for instance, has always been something I wanted to do. Did we do much of it. Not if it took more that 6 or 8 hours. Mine has been done in my minds eye.

Wish to travel to Europe, watch the travel channel or mostly read books. Africa...watch Humphrey Bogart in 'The African Queen", or 'Casablanca'.

The last weeks travels have been to Mexico, sparked by 50 and 20 Peso pieces... Holland for information on Trade Ducat, Great Britain to look at Half Sovereigns.

Today I traveled back to 1911 Germany, to the reign of Wilhelm II for a Gold 20 Mark coin.

The history on young Wilhelm was quite interesting. The Kaiser who helped incite the Austria-Hungary federation to provoke war with Serbia was the grandson of Queen Victoria of Great Britain and actually held a position in the English armed forces by birthright. Little good it did him when England, Russia and the U.S. came to the fight against them in WWI. Little wonder that pictures of him taken in Holland where he fled into exile and lived until death in 1941 showed a sad, perhaps bitter, man. I wonder how many shoulda, woulda, coulda thoughts ran through his head over the last 30 + years of his life.

I guess like most of us he had plenty of them.

Traveling in Mind Time is no substitute for actually going there, but it may be as close as I get.

Health Insurance Reform

Much ranting and raving from parties on both the left and the right is being done these days with little listening to voices of reason by much of anybody.

I tend to say that it's not my dog in the fight because the VA takes care of all my needs and 75% of the wife's, but really I get just as frustrated as most anybody when common sense is not only not winning the race, but is still in the paddock calmly munching on a bit of leafy alfalfa goodness waiting for someone to come along and open the gate and saddle her up.

The current bills in both the house and the senate average around 2,000 pages.....many of them at odds with each other and totally lacking the presence of the mare of common sense.

Of course one can understand the proposed solutions when you realize that the problem is not really how to provide affordable health care to those currently un- or under insured.

No, the problem as seen from the eyes of the entrenched bureaucracy is how to preserve as many and indeed to add to the number of jobs within government dictates as possible. Because, really now, in a time when people are losing their jobs where they actually make something useful or solve some pressing problem.....we need those secure government jobs......which of course come with the added benefit of falling under the health care insurance members of congress and the president get. You don't see him rushing to sign up for the proposed coverage.......now do you?

Really as Charles Krauthammer suggests, a bill of about twenty easy to understand pages would probably do just as well.....if not better.

I'm just saying.....

Thanksgiving

It's Saturday evening after Thanksgiving here in the kudzu grotto, and I'm just now giving the blog-o-sphere thanks that should have been posted on Thursday... mostly because I had nothing to really say then, and we were scheduled to have our family get together today, as I supposed, because it fit more handily within other family members time constraints.

I suppose I should have noticed that the amount of dressing that was prepared this morning was huge, but knowing the families appetites, nothing out of the ordinary. The locale had been changed from everyone coming over the river and through the Deep Dark Woods to Grandma's house to the eldest daughter's house. That in it's self wasn't anything to wonder at, as with the number of people the family has grown to, what with the in-laws and out-laws the additional space there would make the whole thing more convenient, not-with-standing the nearly hour long drive to her house.... so in my usual way of just complacently complying with the wife's wishes, I thought nothing of that either.

Suspicions could have been raised when, while en-route, a phoned request for us to stop by the old Harbins Community Center to help the eldest grandson out with his stalled truck was received.

Hey, even though it was seemingly in good shape.....it was a couple years old when he got it for Christmas, and seeing as how Big Red my own loco-motive steed of Dodge Ram fame was making weird noises yesterday with the result that a trip to the local grease pit was scheduled for a complete brake job and possibly front wheel bearing replacement, I just blithely assumed some minor help was needed on his truck.....after all it is a Chevy....pre-government model and all.
....I mean come on......it's a Chevy.

In due course arriving at said location and seeing his hood up....I paid no real attention to the other cars in the parking lot. Then when he came out and said that some old friends from years ago were having their Thanksgiving there and would we like to come in an say hello to the lady who babysat him as a toddler......still my radar was blank (reflects the general interior of my brain-pan), until I walked through the door and I saw all the family including Aunts, Uncles, Cousins and more who all yelled .... "Happy Birthday...Surprise".

Knock my scrawny ass over with a feather!

Almost a month early they had sprung a surprise on me.....leaving me looking like the proverbial Deer-in-the-headlights.

Flummoxed does not begin to describe me mental state at the moment. But due to my generally rapid firing neurons I was able to maintain an upright position, and with the help of good genes.. avoiding a heart attack, I was able to stumble around shaking hands and hugging folks I'd not seen since either the last funeral or family reunion which ever was last.

So tonight I'm sitting here reliving the last half a day and considering just how unbelievably blessed I am to have family who came from far and wide to help me usher in the 60th decade of what I can only hope to be a long and healthy life. (My goal is still 192 years, regardless of Obam-o-care)

My most profound thanks go out to my sisters, my daughters and son, my darling wife, and all of the aforementioned.....for the best combination Thanksgiving and Birthday a guy is likely to ever have.

Thanks also to a provident Creator who has allowed me to remain topside the earth for this long, cause you'll know it's gonna be a bad day when you hear them spading the dirt down upon you.

And the food was good.

Some thing never change

Somewhere north of five hundred moons ago and just a little below the 17th parallel and south of the Ben Hai River , your now somewhat older (and hopefully wiser), then youthful Boy Sky Warrior, was introduced to the idiocy of politicians directing the course of a war so to be as politically correct as possible, avoiding disturbing either the sensibilities of their electorate, or of the enemy.

Our elected leader PBHO is now attempting to do the same thing.

We warriors of that long ago conflict re-learned one thing, which thing had been known throughout thousands of years of recorded history and almost as many years of continuing conflict, but is so easily forgotten between conflicts. That thing is that in order to win a war, either of arms or diplomacy, you have to convince the opposing side of your implacable determination to totally crush them either with arms or ideas.

Generally speaking it requires the arms to succeed in order for the ideas to gain ascendancy. It requires, as mentioned, that implacable determination, that steel will that will not accept the idea of surrender or defeat.

Our generations rising military leaders (the next generations Generals) learned that lesson very well, and when the next little fracas came along those Generals when turned loose to win with the admonition of "General win me this war" defeated one of the best armed and equipped armies in the world in about 100 days which for the ground troops consisted of just over 100 hours of fighting mostly the demorlized ground troops of the enemy with just over 100 losses of their own personnel.

Now comes a new generation of Generals who have for the most part advanced politically rather more than from actual achievement, as well as a new generation of politicians who for the most part have no real concept of the meaning of taking and fulfilling an oath.

For the commander-in-chief of the United States to dither in making a decision that will protect American lives and will in addition free million of Afgans from the tyranny of religious zealots is to my way of thinking unconscionable.

There are those who will keep their oath along with the 3% that will never surrender, who will only break, never bend till the objective is achieved. For I chose not to be among the mendacious, mediocre, mewling masses which accept blindly the dictates of those who only want power over me and mine.

Whores

It has long been known that the senate of the US Congress was made up of one hundred whores. Some of them are more expensive than others.

After last nights vote, in which several senators spoke out of both sides of their mouth, saying "I'm only voting for moving ahead to debate" on the one side, while the other side spewed, "but I'm not in favor of the public option", we see that their idea of having Principles is akin to the whore saying, "I'll only suck your dick if you fuck my constituents in the ass".

Like Diogenes we could look all day for an honest man or woman in our hallowed halls on the hill, yet at the end of the day we will still wind up living in a tub.

Also like that worthy, we had better start looking to live a life of self-sufficiency.

The fight is now truly begun, and no one can avoid the conflict. Will it be said that you did your part when it mattered most?

Doom, Despair, and Agony

When you've made as many financial mistakes as I have you can hardly be blamed for viewing with alarm some of the recent economic forecasts being tossed about by every Tom, Dick and Harry with even a smidgen of public forum. (Guess I fall into that category myself, although with an average of 8 to 9 readers a day my smidgen is hardly noticeable. If not for some family and friends I'd be talking to myself, which mostly I am in an effort to sort out my thoughts and feelings on different subjects.)

Having squandered so many opportunities on foolish dreams never realized, due to an exaggerated over-blown opinion of my less than Einstein-like mental prowess, and a superb and highly developed ability at procrastination, combined with a wide streak of laziness running happily thru my character laughing hysterically at anything and anyone who in their silliness think they can get me to do anything at all on their command, I wound up a trio of years ago losing everything but the aforementioned mental prowess, procrastination and laziness, my wife and children and one heavily mortgaged house which was always one month away from being behind on the payments.

Then thru the blessing of a benevolent God and a youthful willingness to cast myself into harms way I have been able to recover in some measure to the point that I now look about and see the doom that not only mine, but 94% of the rest of the population, helped along by a willingness to follow blindly anyone who like Oprah or Barrack Hussein OBama, G.W. Bush and vast legions of those who claim to know what is good for us, is fixing to hand out to not only us, but a goodly portion of the rest of the world.

I tell you truthfully that as my dear departed Grandfather would have said, "it makes my water weak".

The French banking giant Société Générale
has taken to warning clients to prepare for some possibly rough and bumpy roads ahead.

I suspect that if indeed we do go down those roads in the coming couple of years we will, like myself in the recent debacles aforementioned, have no one to blame but ourselves. Will the voice of the common sense possessing people in this country be heard and followed, or will the moonbats and drugged out hollowed eyed hippies from Haight Asbury like Nancy Pelosi and her cronies continue to have their way with us. Hey, I'm not saying that 40 years ago while operating under a hemp-fueled fog someone might not have found her a cozy port in a storm (maybe they could stuff a sock in her mouth long enough to get by). I'm just suggesting that like some of my past decisions led to a somewhat less than pleasant anticipated result, that we'd better measure twice (maybe have someone double check our measurements) and cut once before we blindly allow the current leaders of the Dimocrit and Republickers to decide the fate of our few remaining years.

If we do, then I humbly suggest that next summer you turn the swimming pool in the back yard into an intensively cultivated garden and learn to can and store everything you can grow and trap. You'll thank me a couple years down the road. But you're already a couple years behind, as am I.

At least it took 100 million Dollars to get her to put out!

What's the old joke?

"will you make love to me for a million dollars?"

"Well.....I'm not that kind of girl...but, it is $1,000,000.00s.....OK"

"Will you make love to me for $10.00?"

"Hell no! @#%& you......what do you think I am? A whore?"

"We've already established that. Now we're just dickering on the price."

At least now we know Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana's price now. Before we were just pretty sure she, like every other person in the congress, be they democans or republicrats, would prostitute themselves, their wives, their mothers and their children to get elected and remain in office in DC.

Rest assured that the leaders of the democratic party and PBHO will spend any amount of money that the taxpayers will be on the hook for in order to get this so called health reform passed.

The late great Willie Sutton, bank robber par excellence, once said, when asked why he robbed banks, "That's where the money is".

Had he been just a little smarter, and perhaps more photogenic, he could have run for congress.
That's where the real piles of money are. Of course in light of his truthful answer to the aforesaid question, he may have been too honest to qualify.

What is it about this country that causes us to elect such scum-sucking dirt-bags to congress? Do we just not care. Well, in light of the fact that even in the last very hotly contested election only around 37% of the eligible voters in this country voted you might think that.

Some think that the possibility of this country coming unglued is a real possibility.

What? You don't think China, or biggest trading partner and creditor, is telling their people to buy gold and not exporting any of their production, even though they are the biggest producer of gold in the world, just because they happen to like the way it shines, do you?

I'd be willing to bet that they are quietly becoming the worlds largest producer of AK-47 rounds and I know you haven't seen any of that coming on the market.

See, everything is coming unglued, and everything is for sale, like a garage sale when somebody dies.

Washington, I tell you, is nothing but a cloud of looters swirling around the country’s fly-encrusted cadaver. Aint it so? I ask you. Everybody wants to drain money from the federal udder, from the sour dugs of the great hydra-titted monster that dwelleth all bloated within the beltway. All you have to do is think up some crackpot scam, sell it to an affirmative-action bureaucrat with glazed eyes, or pay a commoditized Congress to buy it, and the lucre flows.

These days in the great squirrel cage we live in, everybody hates everybody else. How is that? Not along ago America was sane and agreeable, at least considering the generally low mark for that by the human race. It was my favorite country. You had slingshots and BB guns and monster-block Detroit iron punched out to more cubes than Rubik’s wettest dreams, and sock-hops and happy simple-minded rock-and-roll. And at least in the south, people would wave when you went by, even passing in automobiles we'd raise two fingers to the oncoming car. It was a pretty good America.

But somebody has pulled its cork. Now blacks hate whites hate browns hate women hate men hate Christians hate Musselmens. High-school girls either starve themselves or vomit right and left, and the boys come to school with semi-autos to design adolescent hecatombs. It will probably be an event in the X Games before long. The country has gone wigged out. I figure somebody must have put something in the drugs.

But here’s the real problem. America has ceased being exactly a country. Instead it is like a professional-wrestling grudge-match with no rules and everybody throwing everybody else into the audience. Think about it. The place is going broke enough to live under a bridge, but the military spends like a drunken corporal on yet more clownish wars against pissed-off peasants. The military contractors grow fat. Corporations, supposedly American, bolt for China. Wall Street pillages what is left like Timurlane on a roll. Universities, no longer much more than enablers for loan companies, rape the young. This is going to last?

We’re gonna pay for this. Like Milton Friedman said, there’s no suchthing as a free lunch. If he didn’t,he should have.

The train ain’t got no driver and no tracks. Congress is a subcommittee of the big Bankers and crooked as kite string in a ceiling fan, the Supreme Court an unlicensed morgue, and the president a shiny ball with pretty teeth bouncing around in a corporate pin-ball machine.

What’s really slick is how the criminal element in DC has fogged the alleged mind of that vast, sprawling, larval critter, the public. Tell those salt-of-the-earth suckers out there that some hideous danger crawls ever closer, tell them you are going to protect them, and you can pick their pockets till there’s not an ounce of meat left on their bones. Think buzzards circling a dying horse.

Makes me want to move somewhere warm and tropical, Where you know the police are corrupt but they can be bought for only a few peso. Where a large part of the population are so poor they don't even have shoes, but they get together in the evenings and talk to one another. Where they only expect of the government to leave them the hell alone. They'll take care of themselves and one another just fine, thank you very much.

Like Davey Crocket is reputed to have said when he was tired of congress, "The hell with you all, I'm going to Texas".

Maybe a little further south of there these days. Consider it Texas South.

Hey, lets get Texas to secede from the union, and then pull everything from there south to the canal under a new flag. I'll volunteer.

Warmer climes

A bit rainy here again today. It really came down hard during last night. A few sprinkles and mist today with cloudy skies and a bit of wind. All combined to make it feel cooler and less comfortable. An extra shirt and a hat to keep the top of my head dry helped a good bit in the feeling like I wanted to be outside today.

I don't generally mind the cold too much, although to be truthful I much prefer warmer spring like weather much more.

I've recently made the acquaintance of a man who was born in El_Salvador. He's been in this country for 20 years or so. I haven't asked him if he came here legally, to be honest, even if he didn't, I consider him an asset to this country. He's married with 2 children who were born here and his wife was also born in El Salvador.

We had a bit of fun tracking his home in that country down with Google Earth. It's amazing what you can find. He was able to use some nearby landmarks and pick it out exactly.

From time to time I get a little treasure from him since his job working for a landscaper has evaporated and he now buys and sells to me some scrap jewelry. He's not doing too badly at it either. As he says, "it's better than working meester
". He and his wife are buying a duplex here in the Classic City and living in one side while the renters pay his mortgage. He'll also be renting his current house out also.

I told him I was gonna stay close to him as he would be rich soon and I wanted some of it to rub off on me.

The reason he and warmer weather come to mind is that of course El Salvador is very much south of here and winter is something they only experience when they go to the top of their higher mountains during the rainy season.

He came by a couple of days ago with two rocks about the size of half dollars that he said came from the area of El Salvador he came from. We crushed them very fine and placed in a quart jar with some Aqua regia. Very pleased was he to see that there might be a little gold in them. Not much.....it'll maybe turn out to be a little over a gram, but considering the original size of the rocks and the fact that the big miners consider a quarter oz of gold per ton of rock processed a bonanza I'd say he did very well with his rocks.

Now we both want to go gold mining in El Salvador. What a hoot. You just never know when an adventure might present it's self.

Faith

Faith and Credit.

Full Faith and Credit.

Those 4 words are all that back the money most of us use every day. Whether to buy that morning biscuit and sausage and black coffee at McDonald's every morning on your way to the ditch digging job, or a croissant and super creamy french vanilla grande latte at Starbucks in the hi-rise office building where you lurk in your corner office with the good view on the 60th floor, we all use the bits of paper and base bits of metal coins that our rulers in their massive marble facaded opulent edifices to conspicuous consumption constructed on the most expensive pieces of real estate in every downtown of every city and village in the country, we all use them (or it).

I speak of those pictures of dead presidents and founding fathers found in everyman's (screw it, I'm not politically correct. If you're of the female persuasion would you want me to use the term hu-woman instead of human to refer to you as if you were a separate and distinct species from the other half of the race) wallet, or in the case of our french cousins your purse.

We carry and use them (or the modern electronic equivalent) because they are so much easier to carry around than the ham you would perhaps trade for a years subscription to Oprah magazine.
After all she can only eat so much ham at any time and by the time she carried it to those poor starving and ragged young girls she mentors in Africa it would taste much as the ham the wife discovered while defrosting the freezer yesterday and tried to serve this morning. A bit rancid .

Those bits of paper or notations on an electronic recording gadget represent a portion of our life or our intelligence. After all we trade our work or skills for them.....they must be worth something. We expect them to be worth something...we trade our lives for them after all, and we expect those in charge of our government and banking systems to do their job to insure that they are worth Something...Anything, else our lives meaning is demeaned.

So it was a bit disturbing this evening to read the following words.

Faced with a weakening world reserve currency, the questionable status of the world’s largest economy, and unsustainable US government spending, central banks are rendering a quiet vote of no confidence on the US dollar

NO CONFIDENCE.......WTF....my work, my skills, my life traded for drab green rectangles of paper and ink, and Central Banks have lost confidence it them.

Now I understand all those ads for gold on the Fox Network.

Just as an aside...if any of you are on speaking terms with your local banker, go tomorrow and ask him or her if they'll make you a loan using your gold and silver coins and bullion for collateral. They'll likely laugh in your face,... but suggest that they use as collateral your CD for $10,000.00 you have on deposit in their bank and see what they say.

Oh, by the way, they will be just as unwilling to use all that ammo you have buried under the slab in the garage or that dehydrated food stacked on shelves in your pantry.

But if the PTB (powers that be) don't start acting like responsible adults instead of the pimpled 14 year old kids they apparently are up there in the hallowed halls of power, you just might be glad of those cans of pinto beans and cases of .223 you've so wisely put aside.

Oh. You haven't?

Thanks for the rain

I was almost motivated to rake the leaves in the yard and try to cut the grass one last time for 2009. I know, I need to take my medications on a more regular basis. Or at least find out which one regulates my wanting to do a little something useful switch and quit taking that one.

Fortunately the rain started before I strained something. Now I can sit in the house and vegetate some more.

I mean really.....doesn't rotten leaves become humus?...and isn't humus good for the soil. Seems to me that I'm just doing what Van Jones wanted me to do.....GO Green!

Move along there.....

.
..Nothing to see here.

There is no problem with the Dollar. Everything is hunky-dory. We smart folks at the Federal Reserve (not federal, with no reserves except the ability to print money out of thin air) are monitoring the situation with a vigilant eye. Ever watchful that nothing happens to diminish in any way the rock steady value that 330,000,000 people count on to be there for their retirement and old age through their mutual funds, IRA's, 401k's and that bundle of 1$ bills hidden under grandma's mattress.

That's right sheeple, keep moving, nothing to see here, just keep traveling up this narrow ramp to the concrete room with the big drain in the middle of the floor and stainless steel hooks on rollers hanging from rails in the ceiling.

Don't let that terrified bleating worry your pretty little head.

We're from the government and are here to help you. (snicker)

What friends..

.
....we have in our all knowing, all powerful, so intelligent elected leaders and the puppet masters who pull their strings.

Gold opened on the New York Globex exchange by shooting straight up, to start off the new week with continuing new highs after several weeks of new highs for the shiny stuff.

Meanwhile the leader of the free world Hussein the Humble kowtows before the symbolic head of Japan, Emperor Akihito.

Does anyone else suspect that the decline in the value of the US Greenback might be related to the decline in respect that nations around the world have for The Red, White and Blue?

I'm actually glad that the asshole from Chicago keeps licking the boots of other heads of State. It shows how little respect he has for the office he holds.

Meanwhile his actions Vis-à-vis our most reliable and staunchest ally Great_Britain bespoke a condescending rub-ur-face in the mud fuck you attitude.

A wise man once told me that a man could be lucky to count 5 people as his best friends. (Defined by him as someone you could call at 1:30 in the morning to come bail you out of jail and the only question asked would be, "which jail?".) That count would probably come nearer to being 1 or maybe 2 people for most of us. So we would be wise to cultivate, nurture and be willing to do the same for them. You never know now-a-days when you might need to make that one call.

Methinks that countries (or their leaders) would do well to think about just who we consider friends.

Anyhoo PBHO might could do with a little edumacating on the subject of how the leader of this nation should act when let out in public. Better still, maybe we should take steps to lock him into kennel up there at Our house.

Late in th' Day

It's a little late in the day for a Veterans Day post I guess.

I want to thank all those in my family who emailed to wish me a happy day. Thank you.

And Thanks to all the Veterans who have served The Constitution of the United States; for that is the heart of the Oath we take...

“I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

They never release you from that Oath. Oh you can chose to ignore it if you wish, but there is no swearing out ceremony. From that moment on you are a part of the brotherhood of (to be PC here we'll also include sisterhood) arms..

As I am wont to do, I've spent a little time reading about Liberty and Freedom today. One essayist that touched me the most, because she actually gives thought to the things Freedom means is Claire Wolfe. Actually living Free can be tough. Is it worth it? That's for each of us to decide for ourselves. I know one thing..... a lot of Veterans feel that it is. For that, I salute them, and say Thank You.

Waterlogged

Just when I figured we were all going to have to grow gills around here, the rain stops and the wind begins to blow. And blow.

We live in one of those areas where the colors of fall just begin to blossom on the hardwoods and then we get a good rainstorm or two followed by wind and all those shades and hues of autumn are slammed to the ground, looking much like a manic four your old has been in the paint shed throwing all the paint buckets to the ground just to see them smash.

Time to get the mower out one last time this year to chew up what I can, then let the rest lay where they fall. I tried out my leaf blower day before yesterday and found it to be sadly inadequate to the task. I hope all my leaf rakes are broken. I don't think my hands are shaped right to hold one anymore.

My old friend the 2000 Dodge Ram had to go to the doctors today. I thought the water pump was going out on me. Turned out that the timing chain cover was leaking. Requiring an overnight stay since the garage needed extra time to get a new one in. With 350000 + miles on the odometer I guess I can understand a few little problems to crop up now and again. Doesn't detract from the fact that I have no payments to make to a finance company.

We left out, the wife and I, at 7am this morning, one following the other to drive the truck up to our regular mechanic, about 50 miles away. Small price to pay to have competent, knowledge people preform the required tasks necessary to get me back out on the road. If you are ever in need of a good mechanic in the NE Georgia area, you could do worse than call our friends at Taylor Automotive in Toccoa.

Still raining

Sounds like a cow pissin' on a flat rock outside. The pooch is so hunched over from trying to hold it in he's beginning to look like a comma. He is so going to have to go out before bedtime tonight. Last two nights he's required the wife to get up around 1pm to let him out. But she loves him....I just hope she doesn't think of waking me up to let him out.

Seriously folks...this year is making up for the several years of serious drought we had that preceded. Not that I'm complaining you know, but I've been getting more and more requests to help out on the Ark I'm building out in the back yard. I may have to do like the cruise ship lines and add a few extra stories. Probably need to add a few more rocks to the hold to keep it from flipping over in a light breeze.

I did manage to get out for a little while today. Nothing very productive unless being told what you already knew is considered productive. I swear that visiting places like the IRS, the Social Security Office, Banks and Post Offices make one wish I'd taken up a life of crime so I could have a lifetime J.O.B. also.

Speaking of enjoyable and exciting places to go, if you have a high pain threshold and stronger than normal gag reflex you might consider going to this website

I guess you could consider it work safe if you say it's doing research on where to shop to save the company money. Or studying the effects of diet, exercise and staying in school past the 6th grade as a project for the Human Resources department.

Enjoy.

Rainy Tuesday

It is raining here at the kudzu grotto this morning. The pooch had to be dried with a towel when coming back in after his morning constitutional. Sucks to be a pooch I guess. If we could only train him to squat over the porcelain altar.

Nothing in the news excited me this morning I'm afraid. I'll try to work up some righteous indignation later in the day.

Go read This

Bill has hit another one out of the park.

http://pajamasmedia.com/ejectejecteject/

Make with the clicky and paste. Don't be lazy. You can thanks me later.

I am thoroughly in awe of his writing. Almost makes me want to spend a little more thought and time on my posts.

But that would be almost like work, wouldn't it. Can't have that.

Whatta ya still doin' here. Go read Bill.

You see....

.
........This is what happens when you throw sand in the engine.

Do they seriously think that the producers will forever keep saving in $'s and never make a run for the exits.

I'll tell you a little secret. People with the means and knowledge can always move to where the opportunities are. If we don't provide those opportunities here in the Dumb ol' US of A you'll see such a migration to other places as has not been seen since the ice ages forced everything south.

Starting a new work week

Well, at least those with jobs should be heading out this morning rushing here and there in a vast, collective effort to keep the engine of the sputtering economy fueled and running.

Me, well I rolled out at my usual tardy 7:15 to shower, pull on some pants and down some bacon and eggs. No grits today.....nor toast or a delicious buttermilk biscuit fresh from the oven, even though I do love them so.

After a Sunday indulging my carb fueled jones for chocolate chip cookies and an actual sandwich with whole wheat bread, it's back to mostly protein with a few raw veggies and an occasional apple to help scrub the pipes all lubricated with water and diet green tea.

__________ ___________ _________

I notice that the left is gloating about their Saturday night effort to throw sand in the economic engine that keeps a great deal of the world put-putting along.

Not that I'm so xenophobic as to believe that the US is the only economic engine pulling the belts and shafts that keep the world turning......just that if we shut down, who would buy all the stuff that China and much of the Asian second and third world keep producing?

I'll just keep on playing with my hobbies and simple entertainments while everyone else does their part to keep things going.

On the record

It seems that the House of Representatives, which has a dumb-o-crat majority has voted along party lines for the most part to pass their version of a national health care bill.

No big surprise here. There will be many who are overjoyed and just as many who will be saddened.

The thing to remember is that it now has to go before the senate. A much closer majority for the dumb-o-crats and with quite a few of them that are facing re-election in 2010.

Will they pass anything resembling what the house has passed?

Damn-if-i-know.

The thing to remember is that next year is a re-election year for every house of representatives member. What is done by one congress can be undone by another. Will the people be heard shouting for or against what is essentially a vote to destroy the greatest health care system the world has ever seen? We'll know soon enough.

In the meantime the talking heads on both sides of the issue will have plenty of opportunity to increase ad revenues by broadcasting day and night.

It won't make a lot of difference to me personally. I'm already on a gov't health care plan. The VA takes care of everything. Just as long as I have enough time to get to Augusta. If anything sudden comes up though and there is not time to make the 2 hour trip and I have to go to the local emergency room I'm screwed.
At that point I'm on my own for paying the costs of everything done there. Never mind that I am 100 percent covered by the VA....it only counts if it's in a VA facility or I have been seen at the local VA clinic and given approval to go to a civilian Doctor or hospital.

Kinda makes me want to live a little more healthy lifestyle. Well......kinda. Old habits are hard to break.

While I am grateful to have my VA benefits, I can see the problems in it also. Most of the care I've received has been top notch, but then I'm fortunate not to have a lot of physical ailments. Should the time come when that changes, I'm more than a little worried about having to depend on an over crowded and over worked system. Having a country that has been actively fighting war in more than one country around the world with the smallest active duty regular force in decades will mean more and more work for the men and women caretakers in the VA system.

Want a steady job into the foreseeable future? Get any kind of medical or related skills and go to work for the VA.

New Gold Record

Yesterday for just a few moments the spot price of gold breached the $1100.00 mark.

Portending what. I must confess that I don't know. Perhaps a move into the $1150 to $1200 range, or perhaps a top that will now see a retrenchment to lower prices.

Chief among the news events leading up to this new high is the continual slide into obscurity of the US dollar leading some folks to try to protect at least a portion of their savings by converting them to the shiny stuff.

I've long sought it out myself, but rather than holding and hoping for new highs follow the old adage of buy it low and sell it a bit higher. When rates on CD's are one, two and maybe if you're lucky three percent a year, and inflation is considerably higher (although the PTB (powers that be contend it is so low as to be negligible and certainly the value of our homes ((most peoples biggest investment, so they would have you believe, in reality a place to hang your hat and shelter you and yours from the elements, nothing else) is deflating along with the value of stocks, 401k's and mutual funds, it doesn't make sense to buy gold and hold.

No, buy, make a couple percentage points a week and then do it all over again.

Unless you happen across something like I found lately.







The Gold Medal for the highest average cotton yield per acre in the nation back in 1919. 1360 pounds per acre is about 4 to 500 lbs higher that recent years averages.
And they did it with Mule Drawn Plows and Picked it by Hand.

How cool is that.

No, I don't think I'll refine this piece out.

Having a bit of redneck farmer left in my soul, if not my body, I think I'll keep this piece. After all it is 2 1/2 inches across, 1/8th inch thick and weighs almost 2 1/2 troy ounces of 14 karat gold. No, this will be kept. Unlike the Great-great-grand daughter of the guy who won it I'm not yet ready to trade my inheritance for a mess of porridge. (not that I'm related, but my inheritance is memories of a Rednecked farmer from a long line of farmers.)

Fairly successful farmers by most measures even if the lands have all been transformed into asphalt and concrete highways and crowded subdivisions. The strain still lives in my heart and soul.

We owe much to those hardworking individuals who tilled the soil and brought to our homes and stores the necessities of everyday living. They gave their hearts and souls to their trade. Living an individualistic self-sufficient life. Sometimes hard on themselves and their families they were followers of a tradition that made this country great.

I'll keep this memento, just like I cling to my God and my Guns.

Damned if I'm going to let marxist wannabes tell me how I'm to live my life.

Like Colonel Ludlow played by Sir Anthony Hopkins in Legends of the Fall said, "Screw 'em"

This is the kind of reasoning

That you get when your intellect is replaced with slavish devotion to the perverted writings of a sixth century pedophile. (Piss be upon him)

Oh Yeah!

This certainly sounds like they are allowing us to keep our Lives, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness.

http://republicans.waysandmeans.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=153583

Dumb-o-crats just want Control, Control, Control.

Poetic Justice

I can't help but think that there is something truly wonderful in the fact that the islamic terrorist wannabe who committed an act of jihad against fellow Americans and Soldiers was brought down by the bullets of a Woman.

For all the misogynistic followers of the prophet moo-ham-id (piss be upon him and his followers) you just know that amidst all their celebrating that one of their myrmidons took down several dozen of the enemy that a 120 lb Woman stopped him cold has to cause a few shivers of fear to run down their yellow spines.

I'm glad she didn't kill him outright. He needs to suffer the shame (to their way of thinking) that a girl brought him down. His punishment should be to spend eternity standing in pig shit up to his eyebrows.

Just damn.....there seems to be no mercy in me for this guy. Can't find it, although I confess I haven't looked very far.

Wonder how they will spin this?

From Atlas Shrugs comes this report.

Washington - A top US Army official confirmed Friday that the suspect in the killing of at least 13 people at a Texas army base likely shouted 'Allah Akbar' (God is great) before opening fire.

Army Lieutenant General Robert Cone, commander of the Fort Hood, Texas, base where the shootings took place on Thursday, made the comment in answer to a question from NBC news.

Cone said 'there are first hand accounts' to the effect that the suspect, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, had yelled the Muslim religious chant.

NBC reported that the death toll had risen to 13, as one of the victims had died overnight.

The 39-year-old suspect in the killings is a US Army psychiatrist described as a devout Muslim who opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and had been trying to resign from the Army, according to media reports Friday.

Another 30 people were injured in the shootings. All but two were members of the military, officials said Thursday.

Cone said Thursday that investigators, who now include the FBI, had not ruled out the possibility it was a terrorist attack, but said evidence indicated it was not likely.

The talking heads are spinning this so hard and so fast I think their head is going to fly off -- which would be appropriate. Not one newcasters, ot one, can bring themselves to say ...jihad.

No terrorism here folks.....Move along.

Pondering

Just mulling over a couple of things whilst munching on a crisp apple for breakfast here.

Two events happened yesterday.

First, at noon a bunch of people met on the steps of the Capital building to protest the health reform legislation that the hollow-eyed-hippy from Haight Asbury, Nancy Pelosi is pushing and then meetings with congress-people to encourage them to vote against it.

Second, an Army Major, A psychiatrist of all things, who was to be deployed overseas (where he would work in a secure medical facility) shot up Fort Hood killing 12 people (last I heard) and wounding over 30. I'm sure it was simply by happenstance that his name is one that sounds Islamic.

Which event was reported on in the news? Even Drudge doesn't mention the first this morning.

Oh well, I'll finish this apple and hope the fiber will help clean out the chile I gorged myself on last night.

Wish it would flush out the Colon on the Potomac (CotP). I'm afraid it will take a high colonic to do any good up there.

Much Better

You know how it feels when you really need to let out a ginormous BELCH.

Just damn.

Spent half a day cooking up some of my top secret chile recipe today. Doom of Damocles to be levied on my redneck ass if I ever reveal the magic ingredients.
(of course since that friendship went down the drain like everything else at the time how will he ever know)

hmmmm maybe I could get rich by selling the recipe on eBay

Anyway, supper was time to partake of a huge bowl of meaty goodness. (By huge I mean more than I should have eaten in two days. Glad I froze the rest in half quart freezer bagged portions, since I'm the only one here who will eat it. Who would refuse based on the fact that it's CHUNKY meat style instead of hamburger?)

Oh woe is me. About a half hour later I'm laying on the couch watching NCIS and groaning from indigestion.

Half a Pepsi and a half mile walk on the treadmill later I am blessed with relief in the form of much bovine style belching. Al Gore will probably want to sell me a bunch of carbon credits or the tree huggers will want to tax my ass to death.

Normally I walk a little faster and a little longer but it just wasn't in me tonight.

The good thing is that my walk takes me toward a pencil sketch of the wife when she was 21 or 22 on a trip to Paris she took with a bunch of other military wives.

Hey.....maybe he wasn't the best sketch artist and it's been long time since then but I still picture her like that whenever I look at her

Thanks Van

Sometimes we just need to enjoy ourselves and forget the troubles of the day.

Son-in-law Van sent this link by e-mail delivery today.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1610699488?bctid=31812464001

Make with the copy and paste.

Don't you wish we could all act with the total un-self consciousness of a child simply having a good time. There would be a whole lot less strife and conflict in the world.

Maj. Malik Nadal Hasan

the Army released a statement saying it did not believe the shootings were an act of political terrorism.

Officials says it was not clear what Hasan’s religion was, but investigators are trying to determine if Hasan was his birth name or if he may have changed his name and converted to the Islamic faith at some point.

Fuck me running!

Why is it that the acts of terrorism we have had on American soil in the past 8 years, that we know about, have been committed by persons with islamic sounding names, whether they were born with them or not?

You want to know what really pisses me off though?

After waiting for SPBHO to finally show up on the news to speak about this atrocity, the first things he spoke about were not about the civilians and soldiers that lost their lives or the many family and loved ones that will suffer.

No, he had to praise some of his asshole buddies that have been working to further his agenda.

President Obama, speaking on the Fort Hood soldiers’ shooting on Fox News.

Please, everybody, have a seat. Let me first of all just thank Ken and the entire Department of the Interior staff for organizing just an extraordinary conference.

I want to thank my Cabinet members and senior administration officials who participated today. I hear that Dr. Joe Medicine Crow (ph) was around, and so I want to give a shout out to that Congressional Medal of Honor winner. It’s good to see you.

AFTER a few more remarks about how “hard his team would work”, the president got into the reason for the TV face time.

Now, I have to say, though, that beyond that, I had planned to make some broader remarks about the challenges that lay ahead for Native Americans as well as collaboration with our administration.

And he wonders why so many people wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire.

Nah.....he doesn't wonder.....he never gives us a thought.

Pucker Up

Here it comes again.

Every where we look there are new spins put on everything that comes out of Washington.
Just like in the last Great Depression they talking heads and their copywriters keep spewing out new numbers supposedly proving that the light ahead is the other end of the tunnel and not the 11:45 pm Limited at 80 miles an hour.

On the 29th of last month the gov't released news that the GDP was up, which if true would mean that the recession is ended ..... right?? At least on the way up.

Sure I believe that. I used to play with dynamite for a living. Things tended to go up when I touched the electric wire to the battery also. Sometimes when they came back down you didn't recognize the results.

Our Federal Reserve, U.S. Treasury, and various U.S. Government fiscally incestuous cabal members are replete with liars, exaggerators, and crooked politicians. The U.S. Government and several others are economically dead; they just haven’t admitted it yet. There is not enough taxing power, stealing power, money and bond-printing power on this globe for these dudes to worm their way out of a major collapse. It may take some time, but its coming for sure if we don't throw that switch to put the Limited onto a different track. Just changing the faces of the people in Washington is not enough to do the job. Me thinks we might need to dig Andrew Jackson up and turn him loose for a while up there. Maybe he would be just the Zombie we need.

It used to be that this Nation was the engine that ran the world, then some one had the great idea that we could become the guy that worked on the engine and we could outsource the powerplant overseas.

For years we’ve watched with great interest the appearance of ridiculous made-up jobs’ ideas like ethanol, solar, wind, and various other concocted schemes designed to skirt around old-fashioned mining, manufacturing and agriculture. Here’s a few really stupedo examples:

1. How about buying a new three ton SUV hybrid? Now there’s an oxymoron.

2. How about demanding 1/3rd of the US corn crop be used for ethanol despite this one being economically unfeasible beyond common sense?

3. How about demanding 20% of all USA electricity be produced from wind by 2020 when the wind blows only half the time?

4. How about shutting-off irrigation water in California’s vegetable growing belt to save a two inch trashy fish? This killed 40,000 jobs and ruined one million acres of formerly productive farm land. And, there is no use for this fish whatsoever.

5. How about the tree huggers telling us, no demanding, that all coal-fired power plants be shut-down permanently for EPA reasons? China is building one new coal power plant per week. Don’t you suppose their wind pollution ends up over our country and elsewhere?

6. How about the world’s champion really dumb idea of eliminating all livestock and poultry as their, uh-hem, bodily function gases are not of the greenhouse variety but shall we say more of the barnyard variety?

7. And, of course the best one of them all-print counterfeit currencies and bonds with abandon having no consumer-commercial buyers-users. This being designed to fill a global void of zero-negative economic activity.

8. How about a new $40,000 hybrid electric car with a range of 40 miles before it stops? Most cannot afford a $20,000 car let alone one twice as costly. Besides most of us would not be thrilled to get stuck in the Mohave Desert with dead batteries.

9. Personally, with all of these wonderful new suggestions, we might suggest someone develop and build a new chain of insane asylums to house those mentally unstable folks spouting these great new ideas. Now there is good idea! That would be a flash of brilliance! With thousands of these nut-cases on the loose, those buildings would fill literally overnight.

Perhaps it's time to remind people if you own paid for stuff it will most likely remain in your hands; not in somebody else’s.

That is if you have the sense and will to keep them from taking it from you.

Two writers (two of the many reasons I spend more time reading and less time writing) of blogs that I especially like are V-man who sometimes takes a pessimists point of view of the situation, and Bill Whittle who can make me feel proud and hopeful for this country yet.

If you don't check in on them already give 'em a try. Maybe you'll like one or the other.

Heil Obama, Heil Obama, Zieg Heil

The Messiah may have Claimed he didn't watch the election results last night up in the White House, but I'll bet my eye teeth that he LIES.

Meanwhile the Indoctrination continues at those bastions of propoganda...
..Government Schools.

I am so glad my children all went to school before this crap came along, but I'm worried about my younger grandchildren. I just hope that some of my ranting and raving rubbed off on the children and they are teaching their children to think for themselves.

Think your Safety Deposit Box is Secure??

Think the government as now exist is dedicated to protecting your god given rights to Life, Liberty and Property?

You might want to think again.

Read This

Food, Guns, Bullets, Common Sense, Gold & Silver.
Keep your head down and your powder dry.

Sunny Days at Last

It seems boys and girls that fall has at last truly fallen around here at the Kudzu Grotto (KG).

While yesterday and today were nice and sunny the temperature has dropped into the 50's during the day and somewhere just above freezing in the early morning hours.

But that didn't deter this young buck and his lady friend from feasting on the Breakfast buffet spread under the huge red oak tree in the front yard.



Only a 4 pointer, he was squiring her around the grounds with all the aplomb of an 8 pointer sure of his dominance over all comers. Of course that may have had something to do with them being in the middle of a subdivision and more mature bucks were being a bit more cautious in the philandering on this the first weekend of gun season here in the northern Piedmont of Georgia. Discretion that this youngster will have to learn if he wants to stay out of the frying pan or off the grill.

They came tiptoeing out into the yard at about 8 am and had a fine time till the neighbor started up his pickup truck.

Yesterday was also a time of rushing down to Walnut Grove to pick up the wife and carrying her to the emergency room at Athens Regional after a tumble from atop a rickety ladder to land in the tub in her sisters soon to be new abode.

It had me a bit worried to be sure as she is usually not one to call about a bruise, but this one was on the point of her left elbow and swelled and hurt quite a bit.

Thankfully it was just a serious bruise and nothing was broken or chipped as we had at first worried.

Of course it only took three hours for the Doctor to finally call us out of the waiting room to tell us that the X-rays showed nothing broken and then another hour waiting for the nurse to wrap her elbow in an Ace Bandage and finally after tracking the nurse down getting her discharge paper.

Have you sat in an Emergency Room waiting room lately? I don't recommend it as being on the top ten list of things to do on a Sunday Evening. I wanted to come home and take a bath in Listerine after hearing all the coughing and sniffling going on.

Of course after we had been there 3 hours we remembered the Doctor on call facility on the other side of town. Mark that down to the onset of the old timers disease in both of us. Next time for sure.

I'm just glad she didn't break a hip. Guess all them calcium tablets have done a little bit of good.

She's her Daddy's little Princess

She's also her Paw-Paw's little pumpkin.

I just remembered where I heard that title for the first time.

My Dad had a cousin....older by probably 20 years at least and more likely 30, hell, it was 35 years (I just did the math). At least one generation between them.....maybe a 3rd or 4th cousin, but we all called him Uncle Hershel. He had a small farm and had always been a small farmer in Dacula where I was raised. (Back then we were probably related in some way to 25% of the population in Gwinnett, County in one way or another.)

He'd work for my Dad on the dairy farm when we needed a little extra help which was a lot of the time. Also help out over at my Grandpa's since he was related to us through my Dad's maternal Grandmother Francis Hinton Mahaffey.

He'd married (I don't know if it was the second time, might have been the first) a widow woman when he was 65 years old and it wasn't long before she bore him a son (her second).

Uncle Hershel had brought his young son with him to visit us one afternoon while we were milking cows. The son was maybe 2 years old or less.....old enough to say a few words anyway. Uncle Hershel was as proud as a Peacock in full strut showing off his son.......carrying him held high up against his shoulder. He'd ask the boy what his name was and he'd say "Pumpkin" and Uncle Hershel would smile like the sun coming up over the Atlantic and say, "that's right, my Pumpkin".

So I guess that might be where I picked up the habit of referring to our small children as "Pumpkin". Come to think of it, I still call some of the grown ups "Pumpkin".

Anyway, back to the little princess.

We kept her for most of the 10 days that her parents were gone on their annual hunting trip to Wyoming (with a little help from her Aunt Hope) (Mama and Daddy each got two antelope and a mule deer) and enjoyed just about every minute of it. (Her Nannie would say EVERY minute)

Today the wife remembered one of the little things the pumpkin did that I didn't know about at the time.

Our sofa and love seat in the living room are covered in real genuine Naugahyde (remember that?) and while watching TV one day while Nannie was in the kitchen preparing supper she came into the kitchen with her little lips pouted up and a apprehensive look on her face and led her Nannie back to the couch and confessed that she had poked about 4 or 5 small holes in the arm of the sofa with the end of a comb she'd been combing her hair with. (Not big holes and a couple were not even all the way through the vinyl.) I'm sure her little heart was near breaking to have to admit it but her pure little heart couldn't tell a lie or pretend it didn't happen. I have to admit that just thinking about it now causes a little catch in my throat that she was brave enough to go tell Nannie of her little indiscretion.

Perhaps that is because I can remember back a long, long, long time ago to the day my Mother came into the living room and caught me In flagrante delicto a'pokin' holes in the freshly recovered naugahyde couch with one of the little Case knives that my Grandpa was fond of buying my little 4 year old self when he'd carry me to the feed store with him.

I don't remember if I got my little ass whipped for the crime or not (probably, but I can sure remember how horrified she had been of my actions), but if not I damn well deserved it.

It's a little easier to consider it an amusing little incident when it's one of the grandchildren and it's a week after it happened, but my little Pumpkin knew she'd done wrong and 'fessed up to it.

I'm pretty damn proud of her for that.

Another one (well actually three) bites the dust

It seems lately that hardly a week goes by that the weekend news doesn't have an article or report about another bank(s)closing.

Unless it happened to your bank you probably put it down to just another hiccup in the ongoing illness that besets the national and global economy. Ho-hum......well, that's what the FDIC is for. They'll take care of things. Right?.......Right??

This weekends closings come in Michigan, Colorado and Minnesota. Between them the three banks had deposits of $585,300,000.00 and assets, which really means loans outstanding, of $633,800,000.00.

Some would ask, "if the banks are supposed to have a reserve of 10% how can they loan out more money than they take in"?

It's not too hard if you take a close look at the second largest criminal enterprise in the country, second only to the bloated, diseased Federal Government.

No wonder we're in such a mess.

From time to time

there'll be a day when you want something so bad and know it's coming, but it drags on, and drags on, and at the end of the day it's still not there; and you're left with a woulda, coulda, shoulda feeling. A just not satisfied feeling, even though you knew you did all you could.

Today was one of those days...a day of waiting and anticipating kind of days. So I'm sitting here at the desk with an unsatisfied feeling.

Oh, I know, it'll show up tomorrow and I'll get 'er done, but the dust will still be in my mouth like a six day dust storm where the grit gets in every crack and crevice and you can't drink enough water to quench the thirst.

It's those types of days that cause you to set new goals, decide to strive a little harder, give just a little bit more effort, sleep just a little bit less.

I guess it's a human kind of feeling. The kind of feeling that changes you a little, somewhere down deep inside, and you know a threshold has been reached and you step over.

Probably doesn't make much sense...kinda like a lot of late night thoughts that seem so clear at the time but you know in the morning will be only half remembered and already starting to fade with the light of a new sunrise.

I was surfing the web over by the walking mans place the other day and he had a little post about some of the obscene amounts of money that some people are paid (think CEO's, Insurance executives, bank executives, talk show host's) and I got the feeling that he felt that some of these folks were over compensated to an obscene degree and I asked in the comments if he were one of those people getting paid an obscene amount of money would he would turn it down.

His response to me was one that started me thinking. I'll let you read it...see what you think.

"Just to answer your question posed and not to be overly confrontational...no I would not accept tens of millions in compensation regardless of my contribution to the profit of the enterprise. There is nothing I could do with 10 million that I could not satisfy with 1 million or $100,000 or $1.

If anything the huge executive compensation should be distributed as earnings for them who own the stock in the company because when you think of it they are the ones taking the risk."

It led me to recall something I read once upon a time or twenty (cause when you read truth you need to read it over and over until you under stand it)

It goes;

"One may not comdemn a man for succeeding because he knows how. Neither may one with justice take away from a man what he has fairly earned, to give to men of less ability".

So tell me, if you will......when a person is paid a high salary, with perhaps bonuses for performance and guarantees for producing is that person to be deemed obscene?

Oh, I don't mean the people like Bernie Madoff, or Ken Lay of Enron. They deserve the scorn and punishment they reap.

No, I mean the people like Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, his son Rockefeller Jr., and those many CEO's and top Executives whose salaries make most of us wish we'd studied a little harder.

Have we fallen so low that we can't admire people of achievement? Do we desire to pull everyone down to the lows that we might be at?

I've never earned more than $45K a year in my whole life and generally much less. Does that make me a better or worse human being than someone like Bill Gates whose net worth is more than many small and some not so small countries around the world? Does that make me an enemy of those who make more than I? Does that mean that I have to hate them, to ridicule them, to try to topple them?

Who employs more people, is responsible for creating more jobs, gives more to charities?

Who decides? You?