Red Hill Kudzu

Georgia Weather

2012-01-30T21:29:00.002-05:00

They say if you don't like it........just wait a minute.
I came in a few minutes ago from taking the pooch for his nightly patrol of the concrete driveway.

Wow. As an old redneck, that thought, of a concrete driveway, seems a little odd. For most of my years a dirt drive has been more the norm. Mostly rutted, slide 'em in the ditch, red dirt.

Anywho, scouted the perimeter with the pooch as stated, wearing my "Got Ammo" tee shirt, PJ bottoms and bare foot. How's that for the next to last day in January. Supposed to be 6o or better degrees for the next 5 days with high 30's and 40's at night. Before you know it we'll be sleeping with the windows open.

My Choice for President

2012-01-27T23:02:00.002-05:00

What? You thought I can stomach voting for the lessor of many evils again?

The first time I ever voted was for Ronald Regan in 1980, knowing that ultimately he was the choice of the Rockefeller's, the CFR, the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderburgers. David R. laid his arm around Regan's shoulder and said, "Ronnie's my Man".

I've voted every election since, either holding my nose as with McRino, or voting Libertarian.

To tell the truth, I'm a little fed up with the whole process. Super Tuesday I'll have another opportunity to either hold my nose or write in Ann's name.

I think my arms gonna be too sore from recoil to reach high enough to hold my nose again.

They thought they were free

2012-01-19T20:02:00.002-05:00

They thought they were free: The Germans, 1933 - 1945,
by Milton Mayer

“You see,” my colleague went on, “one doesn’t see exactly where or how to move. Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don’t want to act, or even talk, alone; you don’t want to ‘go out of your way to make trouble.’ ... In the university community, in your own community, you speak privately to your colleagues, some of whom certainly feel as you do; but what do they say? They say, ‘It’s not so bad’ or ‘You’re seeing things’ or ‘You’re an alarmist.’

“These are the beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you don’t know the end, and how do you know, or even surmise, the end? On the one hand, your enemies, the law, the regime, the Party, intimidate you. On the other, your colleagues pooh-pooh you as pessimistic or even neurotic... the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked... But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C?”

Remind you of anyone we know?

The fact is that the US has been on a slippery slope for decades, and it’s about to go over a cliff.

Do you own Stocks for your retirement?

2012-01-17T21:35:00.003-05:00

Maybe in a 401k, a private nest egg you'll use in your dotage, or leave to your wife, or children?

You do own them? Right?

Perhaps we all need to read this.

I once bought a stock. It was in a gold mining company in the US. Highly recommended by a highly recommended adviser. A long term hold, he said.

I took my eye off of it. It was sold to another miner in Canada. No worries. Then it became a diamond mining stock........ in The Ivory Coast. Who had a civil war. Whose diamonds were banned because they were Blood Diamonds. They made a movie out of it.

I still own the stock. Its an energy company. A very small energy company. In a very small country in Africa. It was never worth a lot of money. Now all it is, is a piece of paper, suitable for framing. To hang over the toilet perhaps.

The Candidates

2012-01-16T22:50:00.004-05:00

I watched about as much of the SC Republican Debate as I could stand.

About 1 hour and 20 minutes and I was ready to stick the Browning in my mouth.

God Help us. BHO and the usual suspects are certainly not going to do it.

"Kill 'em all", is the hue and cry from all but one and he's suspect.

Don't get me wrong, the worst loss I ever had was the tee shirt from VN that I'd adorned, in bold Majic Marker, with, "Kill them all, let God sort it out". As if God is gonna stop us. The old "free will" thing don'tcha know.

Fred

 , as usual says it much better than I, and he's going to visit The Kasba to boot. 
I'm jealous.
Both of his writing, and his traveling.

Motivation

2012-01-15T21:06:00.002-05:00

Tried and failed to embed this new fitness motivational youtube video in a comment at

Yabu's

That should help get a guy in shape.

Out of the 'hood

2012-01-09T17:22:00.007-05:00

"People seek retreats for themselves in the country, by the sea, and near the mountains, and you too are especially prone to desire such things. But this is a sign of ignorance, since you have the power to retire within yourself whenever you wish. For nowhere can a person retire more full of peace and free from care than into his own soul."
Marcus Aurelius: Meditations

I've heard it said, "you can take the boy out of the country, but, you can't take the country out of the boy".

I guess that's true. If, like me, you were raised on a working farm, if you one time owned your own farm with cattle, crops, fences, equipment, even with all the headaches and heartaches that may have led you to leave...........there remains within me those memories of running through the field and furrows, woodlands and streams, barefoot, shirtless, not totally heedless, but, careless of the rocks, dirt, briars and critters, cowpies and mud puddles. A scrawny redneck child who could throw a rock at a field lark, and lie down against a Jersey cow, calmly chewing her cud in the sun.

And I yearn and strive to keep those memories and places alive, somewhere, down deep inside. Down where the free part of me lives, down there with the anguish of putting a good cow down because the strain and pressure of delivering her latest calf had stretched and torn the pelvic ligaments and tendons past the point of being able to rise to her feet ever again. Down there with the pleasure of watching a newborn calf flop about while discovering her balance, to respond to the lowing and licking of the mother, taking those first tentative steps, searching, without knowing exactly why, for the warmth of mothers udder and latching onto a teat and having the milk of life giving goodness run wetly down a new throat.
Down there with there with the remembered smells of new mown hay, fresh cut silage and the acrid smell of chlorine cleansers sanitizing the stainless steel milk tank.
Down there where you would watch the dawn come....first a faint grey, later washed out blue, then a bright red half oval rising into the blue of another beautiful May morning.
Down there with the satisfaction of coming in after all the light has gone from the sky, smelly, sweaty, itchy, dirty, from honest toil well done, well completed. Watching your daughters and son play with the dogs and kittens, the calves trying to nurse on finger tentatively offered to soft pink and black noses.

These parts of me cause a searching for those barbed wire fences sagging between locus posts, so old and hard that a staple will only bend instead of driving cleanly into the wood......to hold for another day, year, decade 'til the inexorable spread of subdivisions and supermarkets overrun it all.

So I guess it's no surprise when the kudzu wife wants to move away from the 'hood that I start thinking about more than a half acre lot with a used double wide on it. Almost a year after starting the search, Friday saw us become the proud owners of another mortgage.

In the middle of cattle and chicken country, with quite a few goat farms, a few row crops..... mostly soybeans, or corn maybe, if the farmer is raising cattle, no big grain farms like out West.
Just country folks, most with a job in town, either near or far.

Back....... perhaps to a second childhood, only with more work this time, and less shirtless running, a bit of dignified middle aged strolling perhaps and the shirt stays on, lest the glare in the sun causes jet liners far above to confuse me with destination airfield lights.

Part of the front porch:

View of dining room from kitchen:

Back deck:

The new Kudzu Grotto/man cave:

About a 100 young pecan trees in need of tending, along with Fescue grass and Coastal Bermuda grass, wild blackberry thickets for rabbit homes and cobblers.

I hope I don't wake up from this dream anytime soon.

Sunday Evening going down.

2012-01-08T20:09:00.002-05:00

Winding up another quiet day here at the KG.

Not much has transpired. Woke up late (7:45) as usual, but after I started making noise cleaning last nights dishes out of the dishwasher the KW came in made the coffee and cook us up some nice sausage and fried eggs w/toast. God Bless her. I can do an adequate job of it, but, it just tastes better when she does it.

It's been a cloudy, kinda moist day, with more fog later in the afternoon. We just took it a bit easy after showing the new property off to our youngest daughter and grand daughter yesterday. The son, his wife and two children came over after a bit and look things over also. Lee, my grandson is growing like all get out. Almost as tall as I and just under his dads shoe size, he bids to outdo both of us in height. I'm not sure exactly when you realize you're all grown up, but think it may be when you realize that you'll soon be the oldest to carry the name on and soon it will be others turn.

Life goes on, and, I'm glad it does, but wonder if it'll be over before I've seen all I wanna see.

I want to climb to the top of the Temples of the Sun and Moon and look thru the Sun Gate at

Machu Picchu

at sun rise.

What do you want to do, that you haven't done yet?

Is there really any reason to vote this year?

2012-01-06T19:36:00.001-05:00

Between now and November of this year there will likely be 10's of Billions of $'s spent in this country.

O'Fuher Obama is said by some to already have almost a billion $'s collected to assure that either he once again buys the top spot or has a tidy little nest egg to apply to his library and foundation which is sure to follow.

Who knows how much will be spent by the other candidates for the presidency, not to think of all the congress critters, one third of the senators and all the state and local wannabe's.

Put that way, it could be that 10's of Billions of $'s is far short of the total. Would a Trillion $'s be closer to the mark. I dunno. Maybe someone will go to the trouble to add it all up some day in the far off dimly seen future.

Is it worth it? Is it? All the efforts expended for literally years......sometimes decades, to claw and fight and struggle to the top of whatever heap you want to ascend to.

Really?

I confess that my juice's get to flowing every two years and especially every four years during the election cycles.

I rant, I rave, I flail about, waving my arms, eyes bulging out, veins in my neck and forehead bulging, red faced, frothing at the mouth, even more so than is usually my demeanor. Just ask any of my family and acquaintances. There is a reason that I'm that weird cousin, brother, in-law, that people keep one eye peeled for at any gathering of over one person. (that being me, myself and I) How my dear Kudzu Wife (KW) of 44 years and 2 days has retained any bit of sanity is, quite frankly, both a mystery and blessing to me.

I do keep the manufacturers and marketers of hypertension medication, anxiety and depression pills, muscle relaxers and massage therapists in business....so there may be some good that comes from all this.

But otherwise?

Sure, we go to the polls, we vote. We feel either satisfaction or despair depending on whether our choice gets the gold medal, or just a ribbon for participation.

To what end?

Does the number of bureaucrats diminish by any appreciable amounts? Sure a few of them may lose their patron or their job, but their is always either another politician or maybe a lobbying group that has need of their services or more likely their little black book of names and contact information.
Have you ever seen an agency or institution eliminated?

The "State" still lives. Managers come and go, either doing good or ill, and mostly nothing, while the bureaucracy, the core of the problem, remains, immovable, inviolate, resistant to change, year after year, cycle after cycle. Get rid of them. You jest. Where would these millions of minions-in-name, rulers......regulators-in fact go. On welfare? To further increase the problems?

This is the real State, hidden beneath the surface of this public theater. It is the vast army of professional bureaucrats and the mandates they carry out. It is the enforcement apparatus that oversees a gargantuan tax code. It is the Federal Register that is too large to print. It is the central bankers, their staffs, their machinery, their mandate to bail out the state no matter what. It is the hundreds and thousands of agencies that purport to control every aspect of life. And would if permitted control even the begating and ending.

We don't vote for this; no election puts any of this at risk. This is because the state itself is not subject to our whim. Imagine if the President and all the elected officials in the entire country and all those who work in their offices decided not to show up to work for a week. What would happen? New bills wouldn't pass. The media wouldn't have politics to cover. There would be a periodic scramble over superficial issues like the debt limit. But otherwise, the state would go on just as before. Nothing fundamental would change.

And it seems that none of the elected officials have the power to do serious damage to this system. This goes for the president, too. They can often influence the way the state grows, but they can't actually fundamentally threaten the apparatus itself. The longer they are in office, the less personal power they realize that they have. The reason is simple. The system is not structured to permit them to dismantle it, even if they wanted to. They are temporary managers of a ruling class, and the members of this class mostly scoff at these people, treating them like actors on a stage that the class itself owns.

Hosanna! Eleven months and our new managers take their seats, the talking heads will tell us once more: "The system worked." Yes, it did work in exactly the way they want it to work. Nothing much will change. If you don't like the results, there is something wrong with you. If you don't like the rules, taxes, human suffering, wars, inflation, intrusions, confiscations and all the rest of the apparatus, you had better run for office, give to another candidate or otherwise throw yourself into the politics full time!

This is not choice. When we go to the grocery, we face a choice of what to buy. Or we can walk out without buying at all, keeping our money instead. Whatever the result, it is really in our hands. The electoral system is different. The store is the state. The products it offers are produced by the state. There is no real choice, only enough shadings of differences to keep us entertained. And we cannot really walk away. There is "no none of the above" and there is no keeping your own money. After all.....look at your money. Does it say, "kdzu's money, or Bill, or Sally's money........or God in Heaven above, even United States Money?

No. You don't have to look, but if you need reminding, pull a fiver out and read what it says at the top.

Do you want the blue pill, or the red one, maybe the red, white and blue one?

Choose carefully, but be warned.........Storm clouds building on the horizon.

Just Imagine

2012-01-03T22:25:00.002-05:00

“Where knights and hosts could not be assembled, there was no warfare afield...Ideas of using power for advantage had not yet burgeoned. Disaster and disorder did not occur...People munched their food and disported themselves; they were carefree and contented.”

Pao Ching-yen (4th century A.D.):

This seems a nice fantasy. What recorded history of the peoples of the earth show us is that as a species we are all to eager to be riled up into a mob to go and rain destruction on anyone that we're told is offending us or our allies. Mostly without much in the nature of hard concrete evidence. We didn't bomb Saudi Arabia after 9-11 even though most of the terrorists aboard the planes were Saudi. Instead we sent our drones and bombs into remote patches of Afghanistan which, while there may have been camps there at some point, were mostly populated by a few goatherds and their lovers.

What if they gave a war and nobody showed up? Not to worry, we'll soon have enough drones and remote controlled vehicles to do all the work for us. Strangely we're most often treated only to the number of our causalities.........not the other sides.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a strong believer in "Kill them all, let God sort it out". If you're going into a fight thinking any other way, you've already lost.

You can quote Sun Tzu all you want. All I need to know about winning a war I learned from Timur-i-ling.

Well, well, well

2012-01-03T09:02:00.002-05:00

Happy New Year.

First work day of 2012. Actually, Sunday was, but due to a good winter sinus infection I didn't get a lot accomplished.
I'm due at the VA clinic here, just outside the Classic City, to see my primary care Dr.. I was probably supposed to fast since midnight, but, damn that. A little benadryl to attempt to dry my head out, washed down with a little coffee and real, by damn, cream will just have to be accepted.

The Iowa ca-ca's are today and most likely whoever gets the most vote will go next to the NH primary, along with most, if not all, of the other candidates......ad infinitum, until we culled the herd down to the most photogenic and bland personality available.

Just remember that the American public get the leadership they deserve.

Scary.......ain't it.

What if?

2012-01-02T20:07:00.002-05:00

with a jaunty tip o' the hat to

Gun Rights 4 us all

The Republic is dead, All hail the Empire

2012-01-02T15:16:00.003-05:00

Did you ever notice how so many bad acts of legislation are signed into law on Christmas Eve or New Years Eve.

First the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, now the

National Defense Authorization Act of 2012

signed by Barack Hussain O'Facist Obama on Saturday.

Of course he claims that although he has the power to detain American CITIZENS indefinitely, without either charges or trial,.....of course

Hheeeeee would never use it.

He being too noble, honest and true believer in the Constitution that he is.

Of course he is aided and abetted by his fellow dictators-in-training now serving in the congress.

For an idea of just how committed they are to the Oaths of Office they swore to, consider that of the Senate the vote was 93 for vs. 7 against, and in the House the vote was 229 for vs. 186 against, and 17 voting either present/or not voting.

My Congressman voted against, but, our two staunch Conservative senators voted for.

The RCOB over my eyes threatens to blind me to any calls for restraint. Suffice it to say that my money and time will be committed to removing them from office. Bastids!!

Many church signs around the community lately asking, " what will we be praying for in the coming year?

Gonna give this some serious thought.

Santa's Gone

2011-12-26T08:40:00.002-05:00

And the New Year beckons.

This just might be one of those times when we almost wish we didn't have to go.

Too much uncertainty. If not for the hope of sweeping the current Communist-in-chief from office, there might not be too much to look forward too.
However, they say that hope springs eternal from the youthful breast, so I'm going to do all I can to follow the advice of the ancients......

“Each man has only to be left to
utilize his own abilities and exert his strength to obtain what he
wishes…When each person works away at his own occupation and
delights in his own business, then like water flowing downward,
goods will naturally flow ceaseless day and night without being
summoned, and the people will produce commodities without having
been asked.”

Ssu-ma Ch’ien (145-90 B.C.)

and to hell with the gubbermint.

Question: Is Breaking the Law Ever Justified?

2011-12-22T08:57:00.002-05:00

A good question, I think.

In 1791 Thomas Paine wrote a book entitled The Rights of Man, in which he states a simple truth, “All power exercised over a nation, must have some beginning. It must either be delegated or assumed. There are no other sources. All delegated power is trust, and all assumed power is usurpation.”

In this country all power wielded by our government is delegated to them by the people. In a letter written in 1865 James Madison stated, “… that the Government holds its powers by a charter granted to it by the people…”

Click here to read the whole thing

A response to tyranny

2011-12-20T22:30:00.000-05:00

I think I'm gonna leave this up until either we get someone else in the WH or this bill is repealed. You have 2 Senators and a Representative in Congress. Feel free to tell them I posted this, or any thing else you might want to say. They do, after all, work for us.

We are anonymous (I choose not to be. Anyone can find my email on this website)

We ask that you post the following in public places

Whereas, on the 14th of December, 2011, the House of Representatives of these United States voted in favor of indefinite military detention, without charges, of any American, anywhere, anytime, without due process of law, at the discretion of the government alone;

Whereas, on the 15th of December, 2011, the Senate of these United States voted in favor of the same bill;

Whereas, the proscription against the use of military force to police the populous has been an essential feature of American civic life and civic liberty since the arrival of our civilization upon this continent;

Whereas, the wanton violation of this proscription was one of the chief causes of the separation of the American peoples from their government in Great Britain;

Whereas, the Constitution so chartering the government of these United States does not grant this power;

Whereas, the Constitution forbids the addition of any power not enumerated to the general government;

Whereas, the use of such draconian measures has been an essential feature of the enforcement of tyranny by totalitarian governments of the 20th century, including, but not limited to, the Nationalist-Socialist government of Germany, the fascist government of Italy, the government of the United Soviet Socialist Republics, and the government of Vietnam;

Whereas, the use of such draconian measures is carefully calculated to quash all political dissent amongst a captive people;

Whereas, the codification of such draconian measures effectively nullifies all civil liberties the people may hope to hold;

Whereas, the codification of such draconian measures are the last act in the quest to hold a people captive to the rapacious will of their government without recourse;

And whereas, the codification of such draconian measures is an act of war against the populous at large;

Therefore, be it declared that a STATE OF WAR formally exists between the Government of these United States and the People of these United States.

We, the People of these United States, declare any and all attempts to enforce the provisions of HR 1540 to be unlawful, void, and of no force.

We, declare ALL WHO voted in favor of HR 1540, and ALL WHO attempt to enforce HR 1540 to be traitors to these United States, punishable under law.

We, SHALL DISOBEY, APPREHEND, OR RESIST WITH DEADLY FORCE, in our discretion, any person who attempts to enforce the provisions of HR 1540.

We, SHALL NOT aggress against any employee of any American government who shall not attempt to enforce or aid and abet the enforcement of HR 1540, they being as trapped as the rest of the populous.

Such STATE OF WAR shall continue until HR 1540 is stricken from the code of law, and all who had hand in HR 1540 are brought to justice under due process of law.

Signed and witnessed by we, the individual citizens of these United States, below:

Kdzu

Rollin' in th' mud

2011-12-20T17:37:00.003-05:00

“I would rather roam and idle about in a muddy ditch, at my own amusement, than to be put under the restraints that the ruler would impose. I would never take any official service, and thereby I will [be free] to satisfy my own purposes.”

Chuang Tzu (369-286 B.C.)

I've not rolled in the mud since about '90 when a friend and I went up to Nashville to blast the ditch for a pipeline re-routing for the extension of an airport. Hot damn... if you want to get the job done on time and the weather is not cooperating, raining constantly, temps in the 50's.......
well then, you by gosh get down in that ditch with the pneumatic drills, drill steels, a hundred feet of air hose, your boots and rain gear, and freaking get after it. Not only do you have to drill the holes, stuff a plug in the top, write down the layers of rock and how deep each was, you also have to go back with a pipe connected to the air hose and blow out any water that had seeped in while you were drilling a couple hundred more. The rain suits were mostly to make us think we were'nt really getting that wet and muddy. Evenings we went to the best steak and prime rib establishments in town. The friend had his girl friend along. Me......it was just pass out when I hit the bed, get up in the morning and do it again. The friend....well let's just say that several mornings he looked almost as bad as before we'd washed the mud off the night before. Rode hard and put up wet was an understatement. Hard work, good pay, good friends......it don't get much better.

But I digress slightly from the quote above. My main thoughts are that with all the "governmental oversight" into every little nook and cranny of our lives these days, it becomes almost imperative that we keep in mind who the Sovereigns, and, who the servants are.

With the goberment lead by that staunch conservative John Quisling McCain trying to (and make no mistake, they are going to pass it) pass another law making you and I terrorist combatants......

Known as The Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010, or S. 3081, the bill authorizes the President to deny a detainee a trial by jury simply by designating that person an “enemy belligerent”:

An individual, including a citizen of the United States, determined to be an unprivileged enemy belligerent … may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners in which the individual has engaged, or which the individual has purposely and materially supported, consistent with the law of war and any authorization for the use of military force provided by Congress pertaining to such hostilities. [Emphasis added.]

The latest Defense Authorization Bill just passed by Congress shows how far the law-makers and law-enforcers will go. The doctrine of habeas corpus goes back to before the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215. It was an ancient Anglo-Saxon limitation on the power of government. If the feds held a prisoner, a writ of habeas corpus required them to “produce the body.” The government had to either release the person or charge him with a crime. For more than 800 years, this gave people some protection against government.

But now, in the Year of Our Lord 2011, the Congress of the United States of America, with the complicity of POTUS, himself, has seen fit to deny the right of habeas corpus to American citizens. Henceforth, the feds can capture you, put you in prison and waterboard you every day for the rest of your life. They don’t have to charge you with murder or jay-walking or any crime at all. They don’t have to let you talk to a lawyer. Or to your spouse. Or to your Congressman... They don’t have to read you your rights or provide any evidence against you. Like the Argentines in the ’80s, they just ‘disappear’ you. And you’re gone forever.

The Guardian reports:

Human rights groups accused the president of deserting his principles and disregarding the long-established principle that the military is not used in domestic policing. The legislation has also been strongly criticised by libertarians on the right angered at the stripping of individual rights for the duration of “a war that appears to have no end”.

The law, contained in the defence authorisation bill that funds the US military, effectively extends the battlefield in the “war on terror” to the US and applies the established principle that combatants in any war are subject to military detention.

“It’s something so radical that it would have been considered crazy had it been pushed by the Bush administration,” said Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch. “It establishes precisely the kind of system that the United States has consistently urged other countries not to adopt. At a time when the United States is urging Egypt, for example, to scrap its emergency law and military courts, this is not consistent.”

Rand Paul, a strong libertarian, has said “detaining citizens without a court trial is not American” and that if the law passes “the terrorists have won”.

“We’re talking about American citizens who can be taken from the United States and sent to a camp at Guantánamo Bay and held indefinitely. It puts every single citizen American at risk,” he said. “Really, what security does this indefinite detention of Americans give us? The first and flawed premise, both here and in the badly named Patriot Act, is that our pre-9/11 police powers were insufficient to stop terrorism. This is simply not borne out by the facts.”

So now the feds, whose salaries we pay, can spy on us with drones we paid for too. They can send a swat team to disappear us...and keep us in prison.

Our question is: ‘what gives them the right?’ What bread to these people eat? What air do they breathe?

Obummer and his cronies may bow and kowtow to every pissant so-called ruler or leader in the known world, but they don't have to expect me to bow down to them.

2011-12-19T18:04:00.000-05:00

“The Sage says: ‘I take no action, yet the people transform themselves, I favor quiescence and the people right themselves, I take no action and the people enrich themselves...’”

Let it be

2011-12-18T22:35:00.002-05:00

“The more artificial taboos and restrictions there are in the world, the more the people are impoverished...The more that laws and regulations are given prominence, the more thieves and robbers there will be...”

Lao Tzu (6th century B.C.)

The used to be a philosophy of laissez-faire practiced among wise people. Broken down into it's simplest meaning.......let it be. Don't fuck with it. Let it alone. Things will work out for the best the less it is bothered with.

It was the way our forefathers thought when confronted with some nosy busy body wanting to tell everyone else how they should do things.

Then we established schools for lawyers, and forbade anyone from practicing law without a diploma and license from licensing boards. We're now overrun with the vermin. You can hardly wipe your ass without lawyers or some regulator telling us how many sheets of Charmin to use and how hard to squeeze.

But, there is a simple way to negate all their assumed power............

Tell 'em to fuck off......then show them the highway,....... emphatically.

I love this quote!

2011-12-14T18:09:00.001-05:00

Don’t be taken in by the fanciful
treatises and bombastic declarations. Don’t fall for the pomp and
ceremony, the debates on television, the speeches from bully pulpits
and rally cries in the halls of Congress. Government, as it is
witnessed today, is little more than a codified process of rape and
pillage. It’s a means, by which the insiders may
loot the outsiders. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Bill Bonner

A soap opera

2011-12-07T20:40:00.003-05:00

That's what life seems like sometimes.

Makes me want to find the remote and shut the power off.

In the bad news. My rental property burned today.

Hopefully, the good news is the insurance is current.

In the either good or bad news....depending........we'll be moving to a place in the country in the coming year.

The Bad news is that it's 110 years old and needs some paint and TLC.

The good news is that I'll have a huge shop and 16 acres.

The bad news is that it will all cost money.........maybe I can get Obummer to pay for it out of his stash. That would be good news.

These are The Days of Our Life.

Just damn!

Like lambs to slaughter

2011-12-04T08:36:00.002-05:00

In the wake of Herman Cain's announcement that he's dropping out of the race for The Presidency of The United States, I encourage you to go and read

Neal

NOT Neal Boortz.

“We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the numbers of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the worst, and to provide for it.”

Thomas Jefferson

We are all Criminals

2011-11-21T18:40:00.003-05:00

Way back in the Dark Ages say the 1950's and 60's the world was a whole lot safer.
Pretty much if you minded your own business, and didn't interfere with someone else, and you weren't making or hauling moonshine, you were generally safe from the long arm of the law descending upon your shoulders and hauling you off to places you'd rather not be.

No More

Now we are all criminals. Even if we think we have all the requisite permits, all the EPA regulations complied with, even if you are the most meek and humble person around....
you are a criminal in the eyes of some local, state, or federal busybody, er, ah, dedicated public servant.

Walk out your front door.......you're guilty of something. Put your hands on your head and lie down on your stomach. Don't look up.........you'll be tasared for resisting.

About all you can do these days is to accept your criminality and growl, as did Colonel Ludlow,

Screw 'em, Screw the government.

and go on your merry way.

A little before midnight

2011-11-20T22:37:00.003-05:00

It's been a sweet day here at the Kudzu Grotto.
The Kudzu wife (KW) slept late on the couch after getting up before dawn to let the pooch out.
A couple of Tylenol PM last evening let her get to bed early.

She needed the rest. For the last week it had been a constant watch over her mother, first in the Ty Cobb Memorial Hospital down in Royston, where she had been found to have pneumonia, low blood sugar, COPD (from 70 years of smoking) and a bowel blockage. Then here in Athens Regional Hosp. for possible surgery, with the decision made on Tuesday to transfer her to St. Mary's Hospice House.

She would likely not have made it through surgery, and if she did, would likely be on a ventilator for what little time was left as well as dialysis due to kidney failure.

Her passing was mostly peaceful. All her children came to see her while she still recognized them, along with mine and the KW's children, her grandchildren, along with four of her great grand children.

Friday afternoon, just after her bath, she took some gasping breaths and passed into that great unknown. She would have been 79 in January. A fruitful life in that she gave birth to four children, eleven grandchildren (I think) and more than 4 great grandchildren. (I can't keep up with the great's)

Born in the depths of the depression ( in the town where the movie "Fried Green Tomatoes" was filmed) to poor parents, hers was not an easy life, rather it was filled with it's share of hardships and troubles. But she endured. And while all of her memories may not have been the most pleasant..... they were hers, and ours. And that makes them precious.

O:Dark in the am.

2011-11-06T06:20:00.004-05:00

Damn moving back and forth from DST to ST.
At least I was due for a little extra shut eye.

We humans think we're so smart, manipulating the clock, endeavoring to get a little more work time or play time out of a day.

Truth is we only change our perceptions. The earth still revolves around the sun at more or less the same speed. We spin around on a tilted top, at more or less the same speed each day, month after month, year after year, millinia after millinia, for the last God Knows how long.

Over and Oover.

And we think we're so smart, because of all the marvelous things we can do that previous generations haven't done.........at least as far as anyone knows.

But,

Not one of us can create a sunrise.

Monday Evening

2011-10-31T20:05:00.003-05:00

...in the Grotto means surfing the interwebz since Dish Network has hundreds of channels but nothing worth watching unless you pay extra, and I'm such a skinflint that ain't gonna happen.

Found this browsing through Backwoodshome.com

We, the sensible people of the United States, in an attempt to help everyone get along, restore some semblance of justice, avoid any more riots, keep our nation safe, promote positive behavior and secure the blessings of debt-free liberty to ourselves and our great-great-great grandchildren, hereby try one more time to ordain and establish some common sense guidelines for the terminally whiny, guilt-ridden, delusional and other liberal, commie, pinko bedwetters.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that a whole lot of people were confused by the Bill of Rights and are so dim that they require a Bill of No Rights.

ARTICLE I: You do not have the right to a new car, big screen color TV or any other form of wealth. More power to you if you can legally acquire them, but no one is guaranteeing anything.

ARTICLE II: You do not have the right to never be offended. This country is based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone—not just you! You may leave the room, turn the channel, express a different opinion, etc., but the world is full of idiots, and probably always will be.

ARTICLE III: You do not have the right to be free from harm. If you stick a screwdriver in your eye, learn to be more careful, do not expect the tool manufacturer to make you and all your relatives independently wealthy.

ARTICLE IV: You do not have the right to free food and housing. Americans are the most charitable people to be found, and will gladly help anyone in need, but we are quickly growing weary of subsidizing generation after generation of professional couch potatoes who achieve nothing more than the creation of another generation of professional couch potatoes.

ARTICLE V: You do not have the right to free health care. That would be nice, but from the looks of public housing, we’re just not interested in public health care.

ARTICLE VI: You do not have the right to physically harm other people. If you kidnap, rape, intentionally maim or kill someone, don’t be surprised if the rest of us get together and kill you.

ARTICLE VII: You do not have the right to the possessions of others. If you rob, cheat or coerce away the goods or services of other citizens, don’t be surprised if the rest of us get together and lock you away in a place where you still won’t have the right to a big-screen color TV or a life of leisure.

ARTICLE VIII: You don’t have the right to demand that our children risk their lives in foreign wars to soothe your aching conscience. We hate oppressive governments and won’t lift a finger to stop you from going to fight if you’d like. However, we do not enjoy parenting the entire world and do not want to spend so much of our time battling each and every little tyrant with a military uniform and funny hat.

ARTICLE IX: You don’t have the right to a job. All of us sure want you to have one, and will gladly help you along in hard times, but we expect you to take advantage of the opportunities in education and vocational training laid before you to make yourself useful.

ARTICLE X: You do not have the right to happiness. Being an American means that you have the right to pursue happiness—which by the way, is a lot easier if you are unencumbered by an overabundance of idiotic laws created by those of you who were confused by the Bill of Rights.

I kinda think these ten should have been appended to the original from the get go.

Maybe then there would have been less temptation to spin that precious document.

For those who aren't aware

2011-10-23T18:35:00.004-05:00

For those who might have never had this experience come up.... a word of wisdom.

Never mistake a laxative pill for your allergy pill.........(especially since you had already taken one Senacot that morning),
just before going down to Bonna Bella Yatch Club for an Oyster Roast and Low Country Boil.

Most Especially, if you are going to eat about 3 dozen oysters and then the Boil. There were 400 lbs. of oysters for about 40 people. Even discounting the shells, you do the math.

Nothing holy about the S***s I had this morning.

But the weekend with fellow bird men from a little war game in SE Asia 40 years ago made any discomfort worth it all.

Surprisingly, none of us had changed one bit.

Food For Thought

2011-10-02T19:54:00.003-05:00

".....supreme absolute power is originally and ultimately in the people; and they never did in fact freely, nor can they rightfully make an absolute, unlimited renunciation of this divine right.” We the people of these United States are the masters, not the servants to a government which believes it is the sole decider of what powers it will wield. It may be true that the justice system has failed us, that we have no legal means of overturning unconstitutional laws and infringements upon our rights, we do have the right, and the authority, to simply disobey those laws that clearly overstep the express powers granted our government."

James Otis in 1764

“When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic.”

Dresden James

RTWT

Love to hear your thoughts.

2011-09-27T20:22:00.003-05:00

I'm prob'ly a little biased......

Well, hell, I know I am, but it is my WCO (well considered opinion) that folks what have been sent to places where they, and their close co-workers, are considered targets of opportunity and shot at with frequency, and real intent to do bodily harm, develop, should they survive, a high degree of logic and rationality. To whit: don't stick your head up, you fool, if you want to keep it attached to your shoulders. .. Don't fly over there by that patch of bamboo 'cause there's people who want to kill us over there.

such as that.

So that when I read carefully thought out reasoning from one of them, I pretty much pay a bit more attention that what I hear come out of politician's mouths or the boob tube or pretty much anything someone who is considered a big shot in holly wood.

Things such as this about fighting the so called WOD (war on drugs).

"A couple of things you might do to persuade Mexico that you really want to do your part.

First, why don’t you put a youngish DEA guy, or gal, in each of about ten universities chosen at random: say, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Harvard Medical, Julliard, Haverford, Berkeley, UCLA, and Dartmouth. (I say they’re random). See, young agents could rig their apartments for sound and video. In six months you could arrest hundreds of children of senators, Fortune Five Hundred CEOs, and people high in the Executive branch. You could give them the same sentences that slum blacks get. Think of the headlines: “Senator’s Kid Gets Five Years in the General Population in Leavenworth.” Is that a concept or what?"

RTWT

Like Conspiracy Theories??

2011-09-20T15:46:00.002-05:00

Try this one on for size.We have all been fooled into thinking that teh ONe, teh MIGHty, teh Omnipotent ONe, he of the IMMAculate ELEction..........Lord MOst HIgh Barrack Hussein OBama.

Barry O as he's know to Oprah and OTHers, does not, in fact, know what the Hell he's doing.

We point and giggle wildly as effort after effort goes into stimulating and masticating the EcOnomy

.Time after time we watch as he vows to TAx UnTo DeaTH those eVil Millionaires and BILLionAires, what with their private JETS and ILL gotten Lucre they got by oppressing the working Man and Woman, whether they actually have a job and pay taxes or not.

No, No, my friends.

His dastardly plan all along is to do all these stupid things, chant meaningless campaign slogans that somebody wrote and he read off of a teleprompter..........

And then see how many mindless myrmidons would actually cast their ballot for him the second time.

You see he's secretly a closet Randian. A worshiper at the alter of Libertarianism and Objectivism in the Ayn Rand tradition.

After the next election a list of Deamoncratic Voters will be forged from the supposedly SEcRet ballots, enabling a very specialized team of eliminators to quietly, furtively go about the business of wiping from existence those liBeraL voters, root and branch, meaning them and their offspring both, thereby ridding our proud Democracy of the Contagion of Stupid.

Best be careful which button you push in 2012.

Noodling down the highway of life today...

2011-09-16T19:41:00.003-05:00

... on the way to Home Depot for a pine board and small box of deck screws, I put the Red Ram on auto pilot and gave a bit of thought to the fact that I'll soon (within a year) be able to apply for my Sociable Security. Doesn't hardly seem possible that I've lived this long. Some times I get to thinking that I should have lived a little more and not worried about the long thing.

I know most people looking into my life would suggest that I should have worked a little harder.

Me.......eh, I don't know about that. What I should have done is worked a little smarter.

Still......I've done a lot of different things and have discovered lots of ways not to do a thing or two.

Still the idea of getting my Sociable desserts causes me to ponder.

People say Social Security is broke and the younger generation will never be able to draw from it.

They say that the gubbermint has raided the fund and spent it long ago, leaving nothing but I.O.U's behind, locked away in a filing cabinet some where in an office building in Virginia.

They say that for every recipient these days that there are less than two workers contributing, and, with fewer workers feeding money into the trough, we pigs swilling out the other end are gonna get pretty skinny pretty soon.

So........I've come up with a way to save Social Security and put it on a solid foundation now and into the future.

Hold your applause and cheers for after the presentation please, as the sooner I get this plan into print the sooner we can all start living the life we so richly deserve. (besides, once you read the plan your cheers and applause will be so much greater. (notice how I delayed gratification 'til later so as to reap so much more in the future?)

Since we have all those I.O.U. in the Vault, which indicates somebody, supposedly the gubbermint, owes on them, why don't we just have the gubbermint print up enough money to pay them off, adding of course the interest that they supposedly would have earned since the first I.O.U. was written.

This should amount to a goodly sum.

Then we have Warren Buffet invest it for us. This should earn more than enough to allow all us old geezers like me to get a nice monthly check.

Alternatively we could take the supposed amount in the Trust Fund as of 2011, which is 2.600,000,000,000.00 divide it by the approximate total adults in the US which is somewhere around 229,182,000. This would give all adults approximately $11,340.90, which we pay to everyone immediately, end Social Security at once and let us do what we will with the money, whether it be play the Lottery, buy gold and silver, guns and bullets, beer and flat screen TV's, or I suppose you could invest it in some company or other.

Those not adults will be responsible for their own old age with no government intervention and no taxes when they get ready to retire.

The trick is that we would then be responsible for our own future and we'd know for sure what kind of a scam the gubbermint has been running all these years, and only the liberals would ever part with any money to the government to hold and manage for them.

I'll take mine in cash please..........then I'd open a currency trading account and bet against the $ every time. Which I would do from a small estancia in the hills of El Salvadore, just close enough to town to get internet service.

And of course a nubile young Latino Lady to cook my breakfast.

Whither Now?

2011-09-12T07:20:00.002-05:00

After all the MMM's (moronic mass media) crocodile tears and wailing of the weekend just past, we need to take a few moments to engage in a bit of quiet reflection on the past 10 years.

I know what I think. You know what you think. Maybe we need to do a little 'outside of the boxes' thinking, and consider what paradigm we'll operate under going forward.

With a hat tip to Yabu , may I second the motion to go read this.

In an Age of Fops and Toys

2011-09-11T19:29:00.002-05:00

Consider for a moment, quietly, silently, those young, and sometimes older, men and women who for the past 10 years have volunteered, each for their own reason, to join, fight and sometime die, or come home less than whole in either their bodies or minds, for the Idea of The United States of America, Freedom and Liberty from fear or danger.

Home to a country who's people support and honor them, but, who's politicians (a more derogatory term I cannot think of) spend them uselessly in foreign lands, spending the wealth of their blood and minds, as well as the wealth we could use at home, for personal and political gain.

When will we awaken, and like the giants who founded this Republic, throw off the shackles they use to keep us quiescent?

In an Age of Fops and Toys
By: Ralph Waldo Emerson

In an age of fops and toys,
Wanting wisdom, void of right,
Who shall nerve heroic boys
To hazard all in Freedom’s fight,—
Break sharply off their jolly games,
Forsake their comrades gay
And quit proud homes and youthful dames
For famine, toil and fray?
Yet on the nimble air benign
Speed nimbler messages,
That waft the breath of grace divine
To hearts in sloth and ease.
So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man,
When Duty whispers low, Thou must,
The youth replies, I can.

Sunday Morning coming down.

2011-09-11T00:01:00.001-05:00

Like hearing that Pres. Kennedy was shot, that man had stepped on the surface of the moon, like remembering when our children were born (though not always the correct dates)......

So too, I shall probably always remember where I was upon first hearing that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. (at least until the dementia progresses farther along than has so far been the case)

It's been a long ten years. Lots of changes. They (changes) come more and more quickly. I've long since been left in the dust. But, we endure, because, well, because one must.

The days and nights following 9/11 were tough on me. I say that not to elicit sympathy........it's simply the truth.

The brightest moment came...possible the brightest moment ever.......with the response below from my daughter, to an email I sent out to friends and family, (which is even farther below).

These will always be my memories of September 11, 2001.

Well....I debated on forwarding this because it is a personal message from my dad sent to family and friends. With my emotions on a roller coaster as I'm sure everyone's are - it did me a world of good to hear these words from him. It also touched my heart and I hope it touches yours.
While my dad is not usually a man of many words I've noticed that as I grow older I seem to hear him more clearly :) While sometimes he and I have to agree to disagree, and some may think that he is a bit radical at times - he is a wise man who I love and respect.
I am proud to say that my dad served in Vietnam and is a firm believer in our freedoms. I do not remember Vietnam because I was a baby. But I do know that I am indebted to him for protecting me as a daughter and an American. I do remember the Gulf War but maybe it didn't affect me as much because I was not mature enough - I seemed to think America was "invincible". These are the days that I will remember for a lifetime. These days will change me forever and they are the days that I am striving to be the best person that I can be.
Today....not only am I very proud to be an American, a daughter of God, a mother, a sister and a friend but I am so very proud to be my Daddy's girl. :)
Love you all-
Eldest Daughter

Kdzu wrote:
> I love you all. Some of you have been subject to my diatribes over the years. More than 25 years. I do not apologize for them. I was raised in an era in which the highest accolade that you could pay to a man was to call him a patriot. I have tried to live up to the ideal which that word means to me. The events of the last few days have caused me to evaluate the principals by which I live. I see no need to be ashamed of those principals. Instead I will be more committed to those principals. I will still call for us to return to the principals espoused by the framers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States and the Bill Of Rights.
> Our 1st President warned us of the dangers of foreign entanglements.
> I warn us of the danger of PRIDE. This Attack is the result of pride. The Pride of thinking that we can impose our will on the rest of the world. They don't want it as we would not want if they tried to impose theirs on us.
> If you wish to impress people you should live in such a manner as to impress them to want to be more like you, not feel as if being like you is forced on them.
> The civilized peoples of the world should shun and isolate those who do not choose to be themselves civilized. We should make it clear that an attack on those of the society of civilized peoples will be the only excuse we need to slap them back into the stone age and that we would then see that they would never have the ability to harm us ever again and they will be shunned until they finally prove their ability and desire to become a useful and productive and willing participant in the society of civilized peoples.
> Like most of you I have felt awe, anger , rage, steely determination, resolve and all of the other emotions of the last few days, even fear, embarrassment for that fear, embarrassment for the desire for revenge on the perpetrators of this atrocity. They finally all came to a head this evening . I'm not ashamed to admit that I weep as I write this. I'm not sure when if ever I will be able to overcome some of the feelings that I have.
> I know this. We were placed here on this earth to obtain bodies and to gain experience. Sometimes experience comes at a high price, high enough sometimes to make people unwilling to pay that price. But, that price must be paid. It always must be paid.
> Some of you do not agree with my choice of a religion in which to believe. I respect your right to disagree. Some of you do not feel strongly enough to try to determine what exactly it is that you do believe in. I encourage you to examine your feelings and to determine exactly what you are, or wish to be. We are all children of a wise and loving Heavenly Father. One which loves us so much that we are allowed to choose our destiny. So too do I love you.
> We all have been lax and caught up in our own lives. There are however those who seek to understand the world around us and try to explain it and the ways in which we can make it a better place in which to live. We must each seek to become better educated and better prepared for the experiences which are to come.
> I've heard that the word for CRISIS in Chinese means both opportunity, and,.......
... its opposite. This crisis will give each of us the chance to choose which it will be for us.
> I begin to ramble, so good night.

kdzu
>

Amazing!

2011-09-10T18:53:00.000-05:00

Just think of all the Chinese Coolies out of work.

What's this???

2011-09-09T09:00:00.004-05:00

Is someone in the MSM actually giving some of Sarah Palin's ideas a bit of respect?

Click here to read the article.
She puts the cross-hairs directly on the biggest part of the problem, I think.

Until we unseat the career politicians, the bureaucrats and lobbyists, nothing will get done.

I know many people who think that nothing will change without at least some bodily fluids running over the ground. Whether that is piss running down their legs in fear of an electorate that has reached the point of "I'm Mad as Hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore" or "My name is (insert your name), You destroyed My Country, Prepare to die"

Big changes coming. The available time to prepare is fast running out. However you plan to prepare.

You do prepare, don't you?

The unfaithful shepherds...and the jackasses...

2011-09-08T19:21:00.001-05:00

For the shepherds have become stupid and have not sought the LORD;
therefore they have not prospered, and all their flock is scattered
(Jer 10:21).

A big day up yesterday. The Dow rose 275 points. Gold dropped $55.

What’s the matter with investors? They should be selling gold AND
stocks.

Why? Because we’re in a Great Correction. Not a boom. Not a
recovery. Not anything except a Great Correction.

What does that mean? It means Mr. Market is correcting the errors of
the past. We don’t know exactly which errors — it depends on how
rambunctious he gets — but we know we won’t ever go back to where we
were in 2007. We have to go on. Forward. Adelante, to give it a
certain Latin sashay.

But where to?

C’mon...you don’t seriously think we know, do you? Of course, we
don’t...nobody knows the future. But just wait until Mr. Obama gets
on the TV screen. He’ll tell us where he wants us to go.

We’d like to tell him where to go too...

But, heck, he’s the POTUS. We’re just a lowly scribe...a miserable
molder of mediocre memes. A financial Jeremiah...always
warning...worrying...predicting doom and gloom.

But wait. Didn’t we tell you the bubble would pop in 2007? Didn’t we
tell you that real estate would go down 30% or more? Didn’t we warn
you to get out of stocks and into gold 10 years ago?

Sometimes right. Sometimes wrong. Always in doubt.

But what we see now is an unfaithful shepherd...

A central bank that has turned its back on the currency it is meant
to protect...

A government that has betrayed the principles it was set up to
defend...

And an economy that has turned into a zombie. It’s somewhere between
alive and dead... Pretending to be a capitalist system...but a
capitalist looking for a handout.

Consumer confidence numbers continue to sink...

Housing prices continue to fall...while housing starts bump along at
depression levels...

More and more people are moving into long-stay motels...more and
more are on food stamps.

An ABC poll tells us that Obama’s DIS-approval rating has increased
to 60%...with most Americans convinced that his jobs proposal (to be
announced today) will not work.

The output gap — roughly the difference between what the economy
should produce and what it actually does produce — is at 7%. It’s
never been this high at this stage of the business cycle.

Had enough?

Well, it gets worse. Because the effect of the unfaithful shepherds’
bailouts has been to shift more and more wealth to the people who
were wealthiest already. Business profits — especially in the
financial sector — soared. Wages fell.

And now, even old people can’t pay their mortgages...so they’re
stuck in jobs, leaving the young with nothing to do. The youth
unemployment rate is one in four; it’s a wonder they are aren’t
burning cars and rampaging through cities. But they live in the
suburbs and probably can’t afford the bus fare to get into town.

This is becoming a dangerous situation. Former Labor Secretary
Robert Reich explains:

The 5 percent of Americans with the highest incomes now account for
37 percent of all consumer purchases, according to the latest
research from Moody’s Analytics.

During periods when the very rich took home a larger proportion — as
between 1918 and 1933, and in the Great Regression from 1981 to the
present day — growth slowed, median wages stagnated and we suffered
giant downturns. It’s no mere coincidence that over the last century
the top earners’ share of the nation’s total income peaked in 1928
and 2007 — the two years just preceding the biggest downturns.

Starting in the late 1970s, the middle class began to weaken... The
middle class nonetheless continued to spend, at first enabled by the
flow of women into the work force. (In the 1960s only 12 percent of
married women with young children were working for pay; by the late
1990s, 55 percent were.) When that way of life stopped generating
enough income, Americans went deeper into debt. From the late 1990s
to 2007, the typical household debt grew by a third. As long as
housing values continued to rise it seemed a painless way to get
additional money.

Eventually, of course, the bubble burst. That ended the middle
class’s remarkable ability to keep spending in the face of near
stagnant wages. The puzzle is why so little has been done in the
last 40 years to help deal with the subversion of the economic power
of the middle class. With the continued gains from economic growth,
the nation could have enabled more people to become problem solvers
and innovators — through early childhood education, better public
schools, expanded access to higher education and more efficient
public transportation.

Of course, Reich goes on to misunderstand everything. He thinks the
rich got richer because government was not ambitious enough. The
real problem was that the rich were able to use ambitious, activist
government to their own ends.

The unfaithful shepherds rigged the game in their favor.

And more thoughts...

Last night we watched TV. There was a show called “Killing Bin
Laden.”

We do not normally react to political commentary, except to laugh.
But the “Killing Bin Laden” show gave us the creeps. We laughed. But
it was a bitter, worried laugh.

The show describes, with evident pride, how a group of American
soldiers trained carefully...and used the latest gee-whiz military
hardware to murder unarmed, apparently completely innocent people.
Encountering bin Laden’s wife, for example, the soldiers made no
attempt to protect her...or to rescue her. They just gunned her
down. As appalling as this was, what happened next almost took our
breath away.

An “expert” appeared on screen. In a single sentence, this jackass
excused the killing by saying “it was permissible” or some other
claptrap. What exactly was his rationale, we don’t know. He didn’t
say. Even in times of war, soldiers are not supposed to kill
civilians. Heck, these soldiers probably shot his dog too. You may
be allowed to kill enemy combatants (which is a huge stretch for Bin
Laden)...but what kind of army kills their wives and children too?
If this ‘expert’ doesn’t go to Hell we’ll be disappointed in the
whole structure of Heaven.

Our “History of the Jews” book has made us think. It has a lot of
instances of mass murder masquerading as military action. And then,
when the Jews had been massacred, their cities destroyed, and their
wives and children sold into slavery, they asked why their God had
forsaken them. The prophets answered: ‘because we forsook Him.’

It was a good answer. They argued that the Jews had been corrupted
by politics...and then they became its victims. Those who lived by
the sword, perished by it. Rough justice, administered by God
himself.

So, what’s in store for a nation that makes heroes of killers? We
don’t like to think...

Bill Bonner
9/8/11

As promised

2011-08-29T21:06:00.004-05:00

The oak buffet, or sideboard, as some us remember hearing them called in our youth.

I wish the round turned posts on either side were more visible in the photo, the growth rings spiral round like a candy cane......very nice. The hardware appears to be original and age appropriate. Probably the mirror has been replaced as it has none of the flaking of backing that caused many, let's call them beauty, spots to show through.

The new kitchen table is in the next room. At first I thought to strip it and show the natural oak under the paint, but I'm beginning to think there is a reason that it was factory painted. Most likely because, while it is solid oak, there are many short boards joined together and the overall effect may be less than perfect to the eye.
Still it is a nice solid, well made table and if we can find a set of chairs that will complement will make a nice heirloom table........well maybe not heirloom, but we're getting on towards middle age and it can probably last most of the next 131 years.

Unless we get drunk and climb up there and start dancing around showing our asses. In which case, the table may survive, but, we'll likely break our fool necks.

One thing I've learned by observation........

The rich don't necessarily have better taste, they simply know that if you start with quality you won't be having to spend money to replace it every time you turn around. That saves money, which eventually makes one rich.......or tightwadish.

They think we don't realize

2011-08-29T09:18:00.002-05:00

That the more they try to scare us into accepting that only the government can protect us, that we must ever depend on them for our security and safety,...the more we realize just how ineffectual and inefficient and power hungry they really are.

The day we realize that we are Sovereign Individuals is the day the shackles fall from our limbs, the scales slide from our eyes, and we see the world and it's riches for ourselves.

Good Day

2011-08-28T20:15:00.005-05:00

It has been a good day here at the Kudzu Grotto. Still 2 hr's + to go, but, I'm sitting here at the keyboard and baring something unforeseen it will go down as one of those good, good days.

I know that some in the north east portions of the country may be a little wet and there were some for whom Irene was a disaster of the highest caliber and my heart goes out to them, but, as long as my sisters in VA and MA, their husbands and children are OK, then I'm happy. Just as I know the rest of you folks throughout the NE are happy that PBO (pres. barry obama) was in charge at the Crisis Center Headquarters. Whatta president.......whatta guy!! Coming home from vacation early just to guide the ship of state through the choppy waters kicked up by Irene.
I can just here them now, up there in the AOP (Asylum On the Potomac), singing in unison..

SWG is sure to love this one.

Anyhoo, the Kudzu wife and I left this morning to visit the little antique store in the school house. That's where she said it was and who was I to argue. We needed a new kitchen table and chairs and that was where she was bound to look. So we did.

We saw many old tables and assorted oddments many of which were of interest, particularly an 1890's buffet in quarter sawn oak which I can only describe as striped, were it maple it would be Tiger Maple, but, it's Oak. I'm sure there is a wood workers term for it, and I should know it, but it escapes me right now.

Something I've always wanted. Now I can say I have one. Great piece, great price, (methinks). It sits in the livingroom. I'll try to post pictures tomorrow.

The Kudzu Wife found her table.....but unfortunately, no chairs to suit her. I can feel another expedition coming soon.

Arriving home we awaited a visit from my Salvadorian buddy, Armando. He walked from Metzapan to the US to escape the civil war there while in his teens. He brings things to sell me on a regular basis.

Today, one of the items was 2 Marine Corp Qualification Badges, ( Sharpshooter, and Bayonet)and an Army Air Corp Instructors Wings from WWII. The wings most caught my attention, being a former Army Aviator myself, albeit from a younger generation. I haven't yet researched the Marine badges but the Wings look like this......

These items will not be shipped off for scrap, but added to my small collection of militaria. Sentimental ol' fool...........that's me.

Much has been going on in kdzu's life of late and the blogging is slow. I have to remember to breath in and out and block most things that threaten my blood pressure. I'll fill you in on some of it later.

Interesting question

2011-08-18T19:23:00.002-05:00

I can't help it. Things just pop into mind and out through the keyboard.

I wonder, if there are any of the candidates running for president who are running them on a business like basis........that is, are they taking on any debt?, do they pay their bills when due?, how much did they spend on the dog and pony show in Iowa last weekend?

In these days of interwebz and electronic mediums those questions might be easy to find answers to those questions and more.

I'm just too lazy to go looking.

If any one out there has any of the answers, I'd be interested.

Apocolypto Syndrome

2011-08-09T07:34:00.002-05:00

Go over to http://www.grouchyoldcripple.com/archives/008760.html and read some of Ron's fine ranting.

I wonder...

2011-08-08T17:05:00.002-05:00

... if now that the Chinese are saying what folks in this country have been saying for years the idiots in politics will pay any more attention?

Look at the market......look at the gold price. Hell just look around.

This mess has to be deliberate. No way on earth to fuck it up this bad by mistake.

Bad doo doo on the way.

Oh Yeah!

2011-08-08T06:43:00.002-05:00

Passing the debt increase bill really saved us from disaster, didn't it.

Gold has increased to over $1700.00 the ounce.

China has gone from lecturing us to declaring the $ dead.

The rating agencies have downgraded our credit rating with promises of more downgrading.

Gas is up. Food is up. Nearly everything costs more except the price of your McMansion which is down 30% or more.

Our enemies are emboldened in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

How's that "Hope you can believe in, and Change" working out for you now?

The apes are in charge of the zoo and slinging shit on everything.

2011-08-05T06:41:00.002-05:00

It seems that I am bereft of my famous Kudzu covered header on this blog. Something I've noticed for a little while but inertia has prevented me from giving a big flip about.
Now there appears some weird symbol at the top and although deleted yesterday, appears again today.

W.T.F.

Over.

It's like being trapped in The Twilight Zone.

Hallelujuh!

2011-08-04T08:23:00.002-05:00

We're saved!

Catastrophe has been averted and once again the wheels of state will be able to turn with everyone employed by gubbermint and all us pensioners and welfare recipients, out of work rocket scientists, Foreign and domestic bond and treasury note holders, receiving our monthly handout and interest payments on time.

Of course, since the funds are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States Federal Reserve, they will buy less and less as the price of everything goes up due to the sellers wanting to maintain their purchasing power.

You don't have to believe me or the talking heads in the LSM........just check the price of gold and the markets around the world.

Deep, deep doo doo folks......but let's keep electing politicians to go to D.C. to help us out......OK?

Future plans

2011-08-02T21:34:00.002-05:00

I think I'm gonna join the local Republicrat party. Not that I have anything to contribute or anything.
I just want to be able to identify the bastards so if I see them crossing the street I can hit the accelerator.
I might get me one of those brush guards to go on the front of the Red Ram first. I don't want to ding my bumper. It's hard enough to get the bug shit off the grill.

Maybe I'll get one of those big hay bale spikes too. Then I can see how many will fit on there before I have to pry them off.

Just Damn!

The House is on Fire!

2011-07-31T11:39:00.002-05:00

And in danger of collapsing around our very ears; and few there are, who are dragging over hoses, much less trying to find a faucet to attach them too. In fact they seem incapable of even identifying sources of water from which to dip teacups to fling upon the flames.

Everyone is screaming, "Fire! Fire!", but, the reality is that almost half the occupants would rather the whole thing became nothing but ash, instead of working together to save their home.

As evidence of this, watch to see how many member of the Senate were even in their chairs listening to this impassioned, un-teleprompter assisted, plea from the new Senator from the Sunshine State.

Personally I think the floater should be washed down the gutter with the rest of the shit.

Hi-dee-ho Neighbor

2011-07-15T20:55:00.003-05:00

It's not that I don't have opinions about everything going on these days, it's just that I've come to opine that it may just be better to keep my head down.......
or at least stand behind the tomato vines.

Of course it might work better if instead of red I tried some camo clothing and face paint.

Or maybe keep the red and stick my arms out to scare the crows.

Straining @ gnats

2011-07-07T07:20:00.002-05:00

Much being made of the verdict in a trial in Florida the last few days.

Personally I think the jury got it right. The prosecutions case was a Tower of Babel with a base built on sand.

Apparently........I was not there and, truth be told, didn't have a great deal of interest in the matter, except what little I did hear or read didn't seem to have a consistent element of exactly what the prosecution was saying the ultimate crime was.

The jury seemed to get the same feeling.

It is up to the government, whatever level you're dealing with to prove beyond a shadow of doubt their case. It they fail in that one area they do not meet the standard with which I'll wager every one of us would want met if it were us sitting behind the defense desk.

Too many talking heads invested way too much time and effort in what, after all, while heinous, is an all too often type of case in this country. They'll all probably get a huge bonus for getting people all over the world to watch their shows and through the increase in viewers and listeners, cause the advertising sales people in their organizations to be able to increase advertisers and revenue. Books, tv shows and movies will probably further increase sales...........
And after all, that's really what much of the furor is about.

I think that's something people really ought to remember. The only reason any program is on TV or Radio, or even newspapers, is to enable them to sale their product, which isn't the program...........no, it's the ability to tell potential advertisers, 'look how many people will see and hear your advertising........now just sign here'.

There is a reason that statues of justice depict a woman blindfolded holding a balance scale.

Gonna be another hot one here in the south. Maybe a few showers later. Let's keep it real.

Theft Update

2011-07-01T20:42:00.002-05:00

I guess it is probably policy of my bank to attempt to make whole it's customers who fall pray to identity theft......especially if they notify the bank before they open on the day it's first noticed. But it makes a guy feel special that everyone in the small branch of the local bank I deal with are all supportive and ready to do whatever they can to help.

Although it probably also helps that they see me at least one and sometime 5 days a week, always with a smile and friendly word to all and occasionally bringing by a surprise to show them or an offer to render service.

So far they have provisionally replaced the money in my account while they investigate.

Needless to say a new card and pass word will be arriving soon. You forget just how often you make use of the convenience after a while. I assure you I'll be checking out the POS devices first from now on.

----------

I had my first ever acupuncture session late this afternoon. Hopefully to spark a break to the stalled improvement the medical massage therapist has been giving my neck and shoulders.

A bit weird at first, along with a little doubt about it's effectiveness..... I'm
now a tentative believer. Before the hour and a half session was over I was able to turn my head fully to the left and on the right side of neck and shoulders where pain was greatest......able to rotate my head and neck farther than has been possible in many years.

All of this due to having needles placed in the back of the left hand and heel of left foot.

Hardly seems like the appropriate place when the pain is in neck and shoulders on the other side...........but, I'll not argue with success. Unless, of course, I wake up in the morning paralyzed from the neck down.

So........two good results of having the grandmother run into the back of the truck over a month ago. I found a great medical massage therapist, as opposed to just a massage for relaxation, and she referred me to an Oriental Medicine and Acupuncture doctor with an actual Doctorate instead of being simply certified by some school no one ever heard of and whose phone # has been disconnected.

Unfortunately, instead of being able to simply swipe my card I had to remember to carry my checkbook and write out the check.

How quickly we succumb to these modern conveniences.

You all have a wonderful Independence Day. Think about Liberty an all that goes with it.

They finally got me....

2011-06-29T20:33:00.003-05:00

Identity thieves that is. A**holes.

About to write the kudzu wife a check this morning and bethought to myself to check online the status of the Vast Kudzu Fortune. (VKF)

Good thing I did.....

Some how, probably through a skimmer, my debit card # had been used 3 times in Orlando, FL. I'm pretty sure I've never even been in Orlando, but, an atm at the 7-11 located at 6994 West Colonial St. had turned over nearly $900.00 of my Obummer stimulus stash. Good thing the welfare check is due day after tomorrow, although, I'll most likely be mightily tired of Pork & Beans by then.

Did you know that the Orlando County Sheriff's Department will take your criminal complaint online now. It's so refreshing not to have to actually talk to a live human to resolve these types of incidents.

Still if by some freak of nature or perversion of the normal way of things they do actually send a contentious human out there to look at the atm video tape (assuming it actually works) they might actually be able to see who the scum-crawling septic tank resident was that hied himself (or herself) off with the sum total of the VKF, no doubt to help fund their way through Law School, which they will need as a part of the resume that will help in their aspirations to enter public service and eventually become part of the great and wonderful leadership we have in Washington, D.C.

Is this a great country or what?

I'll tell you one thing.......you may see my mug shot in the paper for vandalizing convenience store fuel pump card readers, as I'll never more slide my card to one with out making sure it is an integral part of the original equipment, and in no way can be removed by less than a blow torch and crow bar.

It's too bad that vengeance can't be applied to folks like that by the victims. I don't want justice.....

...retribution is more to my liking.

My money

2011-06-23T13:10:00.002-05:00

Head over to Hoosierboy for a letter we ought to send to every representitive at every level.

They ought to be required to recite "It's the people money, taken from them by force" into a voice recognition device every morning before being allowed to get out of bed, and then twice before being allowed to vote on any piece of legislation no matter how insignificant or how much or little money is being authorized.

Failure of the device to recognize their voice should lead to an electrical shock of sufficient strength to knock them to their knees being applied to their brain stem by implanted device similar to those used to track missing dogs or other animals.

This would also allow the public to track their movements at any hour of the day or night.

Just a little food for thought.

Fathers Day

2011-06-19T16:09:00.002-05:00

....is beginning to wind down to the supper time. Just turned the grill on and when it seems hot enough will tenderly place some of that ol' expensive cow parts on the rack.

The wife of my youth and I took a trip up to Dahlonega to see our friends at the Grisson Mine. Delightful folks with a wide range of mining, dredging and panning supplies, and their own pit mine which they dig out crush up and sell to the touristers in small bags or buckets to experience panning for gold themselves. What a thrill to find color in your pan.......of course if you have your own little honey hole where the only costs are getting there and a little backbreaking work, finding a small flake or nugget is even sweeter.

Our three kids all called and wished me happy papa day. I talked to Diana last week and I know she and the kids were treating Adam well today.

I kinda think I've posted the following poem before, but it hasn't been in any of the June archives I've looked at and it should be posted on a Fathers day.

Behind a Fathers Mask

To a small infant child, behind the mask of a father
is a person who is never wrong.
It seems he knows answers to all of her questions and
He is powerful and strong.
With a kiss to a boo-boo or a pat on the back, he
takes pains of the body away.
He makes pains of the heart disappear with a hug
and the words "I'm here to stay"
As the child grows older and independent she also
Grows away from the man she calls dad.
A relationship with him is just something she
holds in her heart that she once had.
Now a rebellious teenager who claims to know all
Dad never seems to be right.
And the long talks they once had now take the
form of a never ending fight.
So she leaves the masked mans arms to see
the world on her own.
And learns too quickly life could have been easy
had she only known.
After fighting the battles with him and saying
Things that weren't ment.
Thru all of the madness and tears only his
Love was being sent.
And now a full grown woman independent and
Free.
It is understood he was trying to be what she needed
him to be.
So she no longer tries to see behind her
fathers mask.
Now answers come without effort about a good and
bad past.
And she see him thru different eyes than a young
infant child and his identity comes thru.
He is not just my father, nor is he my enemy,
he is my dearest friend - forever true.

Oldest Daughter
6-17-90

We have no idea what kind of father we'll turn out to have been until we see what kind of mothers and fathers our children turn out to be.

The Kudzu Wife and I have been blessed beyond measure.

For that we can thank the children we knew.

Stormy Weather

2011-06-16T17:00:00.002-05:00

Boy, we had some last night. Not as bad as some of the folks more westerly of us have had this spring, but quite a show of thunder and lightning with more than an inch of rain and what sounded like enough wind to carry us away.

But......I looked out the office window from my easy chair, where I'd retired to after the power flickered and the computer and monitor shut down......and the leaves and branches of the trees were as still as on the calmest day of the year. WTH??

I've never experienced anything like that.

I had a 10 inch plastic lid sitting atop a coffee pot outside the shop.........with nothing weighting it down.....it's still there this afternoon. No protection.....sitting there on a 4 ft tall military container in the middle of a small grove of oaks.....from 10 inches in diameter to 30 inches diameter. Not a thick grove. Spacing from 15 feet to 40 feet apart. Weird I tell you.

I know I wasn't dreaming cause the pooch was going ballistic with fear and the wife commented on the severity of the storm.

Have you ever heard of such a thing?

Or do I need to cut back on the meds?

Another one ............

2011-06-14T07:32:00.002-05:00

..........Bites the dust.

Can you imagine my glee?

I needed a laugh

2011-06-13T20:59:00.002-05:00

And tonight I got this one.

I'm sorry. Does this make me a bad person?

I just like to see examples of Darwinian Selection in action. It might happen to me one day, but I like to think I know enough to check to see if the switch is on before sticking my finger in the light socket at least.

Why?

2011-05-29T20:53:00.002-05:00

In just less than 7 months I'll (should I be so lucky) be 62 years old. Won't be long before I can retire to a life of luxuries afforded by the addition of social security payments to our income.

Not that I'm counting on that.

For the past 42 years I've taken way too much pride (one of the churches 7 deadly sins) in being an american......a veteran and a citizen of the USA.

This Memorial Day weekend while remembering friend and comrades, amongst all the many other causalities of all the conflicts involved in founding and keeping this Nation Under God, I also grieve for those who are now being slaughtered by those who supposedly 'protect and serve'.

You may or may not be aware of the murder of Jose Guerena .

Google the information. Try to get as many facts as are available from whatever sources are available.

Posting has been light and sporadic for some time now. For many reasons.

This Memorial Day weekend I'll be remembering and grieving for a lot of reasons.

Will I be back here when I'm somewhat recovered?

Maybe.......maybe not

It'll depend on whether I can take any more self-flagellation over my foolish pride.

The world didn't come to an end on Saturday

2011-05-23T08:17:00.002-05:00

But for some it did on Sunday night.

A tornado right thru the middle of Joplin, MO. Heartrending.

Maybe that cornball preacher just got a few of the details wrong.

Maybe if I were able to build and new house out in the country it would be all concrete, dome shaped and protected by as much earth as I could pile on it.

Folks, if you're religious even a little bit, pray for those souls in Joplin who have to pick up the pieces. If you are not religious......send food, water, temporary shelter and whatever else you can afford. Go and help if you can.

I'm gonna dig me a Hobbit Hole.

Inch by inch.......

2011-05-14T13:13:00.002-05:00

...Step by step, slowly we creep, closer and closer, day by day.....

To being a nation completely controlled by criminals and thugs.

For nearly a thousand years of both English Common Law and the Bill of Rights amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America the police power of government has been constrained under the Fourth Amendmant to respect the sovereignty of a persons home.

Apparently the Indiana Supreme Court has other ideas about that old moldering Document.

This and other egregious assults, such as the messiah snapping his fingers at businesses
and ordering them around, along with so many more acts of a government totally out of control, leads me to wonder if it's now time for the citizenry of this country to take a page or two from the playbook of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr's. philosophy of Righteous Resistance.

If we continue to bow our head by our silence to these acts of Tyranny by a government totally out of control perhaps we'll deserve what we get.

Saturday Evening

2011-05-07T19:22:00.002-05:00

The wife and pooch are ensconced on the Genuine Naugahyde cover couch watching the Saturday 'Brit Coms' on PBS. I like 'em as well but they were re-runs over in the ol' Blighty 10 years ago and are becoming a little tiresome in their repeats here in the KG (kudzu grotto) as well.

It's been quite a week.

Pres BHO has been strutting around like a little bantam rooster all week while al-queda blusters and threats and tv and radio talkshow hosts make much of the fact that enhanced interrogation from years before he was elected brought about Usama Bin Laden's much delayed demise.

I think it's a bit telling that BHO went to Ft. Campbell to congratulate the people who carried out the raid in Pakistan. The aircraft and crews might have been from there but they were but the bow, delivering the arrow of SEALS, who I suspect strongly were not stationed there and quite possibly refused to be part of the Dog and Pony Show, preferring not to prostitute their abilities and deeds so cheaply.

At least, so I prefer to think.

Gold and silver, especially the later, succumbed to the pressure, eased along by George Soros' selling at the peak, aided by the Commodities Exchange who, as they did in the 80's changed the margin rules weeding out those without sufficient knowledge of the market. So it goes. Remember......... those with the gold make the rules. Play their game at your peril. The old Scottish wisdom still holds true....... "Money is flat and meant to be stacked up".

The kudzu wife continues her recovery from surgery. She's sleeping thru the night now, mostly without too much aid from pain relievers. Thanks for your prayers and good wishes.

I watered the garden this evening, it having been 4 days since the last good rain. It continues to grow well...I'm ahead of the weeds so far, and I'm looking forward to the day when we can eat the first squash out of it.

Once again the music in my head took over as I stood there playing the water shower up and down the rows. Tonight's tune was always one of Usama Bin Laden's favorites.

Kinda gets you right there, doesn't it?

Clouding the issue

2011-05-04T22:25:00.002-05:00

Much is being made these last few days about whether to show the pictures of a dead Usama Bin Laden or whether waterboarding helped produce the intelligence that ultimately led to his demise.

WTFC Th' goat F***** is dead. Good enough for me. I'm just a little saddened by the fact that they didn't dip him in pig shit before they wrapped him in the shroud before they turned him into fish chum, but other than that I'm fine with it.

Did we pour a little water over the head of a few people to get the information. So What. I'd authorize the waterboarding of every person who might ever have had even the most tenuous of contact with him or his cohorts.

We're at war with Islamic fundamentalists who from the day they first went to school were taught one thing. Follow the Koran and death to anyone who doesn't convert willingly or not.

Of course Christians have not much room to talk. We've killed our fair share over religion over the years. It's just that mostly we've grown past that.

Don't believe me.............What about the guy that hid out in the mountains for years after bombing the Atlanta 1996 Olympics and that abortion clinic. He didn't just get the idea one day and think, "that'd be fun, hear, hold my beer".

There are damn few saints that walk this earth. Get used to it.

Blasts from the past

2011-05-04T20:11:00.003-05:00

This former Junior Bird Man was jolted today to receive a letter from Charlie Horse 40.

Mack from my old helicopter unit in Quang Tri somehow tracked my address down.

Stick a feather up my ass and tickle me silly. When they remember you from 40 years ago, it kinda chokes a guy up.

I'd spent way too many years reliving to myself those halcyon days of yesteryear. So much so that my vision was clouded for many years, although I'd have denied strenuously any suggestion that was so. Thankfully things got bad enough, and I still had sense enough, to reach out before seeking that last blissful refuge of darkness.

I remember Mack as the older new guy in our unit (he had by then 15 years service and it was his second tour). Our unit check pilot, we flew up to the unused airstrip at Dong Ha where a few auto rotations and questions established that I at least wasn't gonna kill us that day. Although I well remember the day they ordered me to take off with him in the front seat, in near zero, zero conditions and fly out to Khe Shan. I told him to make sure I keep us straight and level and when we got up to 80 or 90 knots I pulled it back slowly and climbed us up through what seemed like a mile of clouds (actually 800 or a 1000 feet)'til we popped out into the clear blue and turned west to where the monsoon was over beyond the mountains. They didn't give us but 5 or 10 hours of instrument training back then and I well remember the advice the instructor gave about flying in clouds, "don't fly in clouds, they're full of rocks".

Memories of the past.....long ago and far, far away.

Also got a call tonight from Bob Smith who was still new when I rotated back stateside.

Old times.

Common sense or Intelligent sense

2011-05-03T20:39:00.000-05:00

Cordite high

2011-05-03T16:27:00.002-05:00

Gonna take some doing to bring me down this evening.

"A bad day fishing is better than a good day at work", they say. I'll second that. And raise you a good day at the range is hard to beat also.

After what has been a longish period of time away from doing any serious practice, I finally broke down this morning and told the kudzu wife that I was going to get my hair cut, buy some fertilizer for the garden, drive down to Monroe, Georgia to see if anyone wanted to sell any scrap and get in some practice at The Trading Place's indoor firing range.

I won't bore you with pictures of the targets as they were pretty well shredded after a hundred rounds or so of .38 spl fired, for the sake of comfort and expense, through the S&W Mod 586 stainless .357, and the 9mm spat out by the old Browning Hi-Power. Let's just say that 2 in the heart and 1 in the head is still achievable even if I did have to adjust the S&W's sights a bit.

My right elbow is a bit tender after that. Either Carpal Tunnel syndrome, which was diagnosed a coupe years ago, or bursitis. Whichever hurts the worst. Next time I see the primary care Dr. I'll try to get something done about this. Glad I didn't try to shoot a box of the .357. I'd have to get a sling and trolley for the right arm.

The garden is doing awesomely. I put some 10-10-10 out and watered it in pretty good. We've got flowers on the squash plants, tomato plants and a few of the green beans. So far I haven't see any blooms on the pepper plants and since I'm not a big fan of peppers other than crushed red on a pizza or whatever in just past mild salsa, I haven't really looked at them.

You do know how to water a garden don't you? Well at least a smallish one like we have. You set the sprayer nozzle on cone and pretend your are a spring shower. Set a cup in the middle of the garden and when the drift has filled it about to 1 inch full you've done enough.

There is something satisfying about watering a garden that way that can't be matched by one of those back and forth sprinklers you set in the middle and all you have to do is turn on the faucet. I would say almost Zen like except my fervid pea brain keeps humming a tune. These evenings selection was........

They don't make them like that any more. Whether that's a good thing or not I'll leave you to decide.

We're due some rain and possible thunder boomers tonight and tomorrow. Ya'll keep a weather eye out.

Sleeping with th' fishes

2011-05-02T15:38:00.004-05:00

They say our Navy Seals killed Bin Laden.

Good....it's about time that ol' Bastard met his maker. Wouldn't you like to be a fly on the wall at that meeting. Will it be a kind loving Christian God, or an angry vengeful Muslim God. Of course if you trace the divinity back far enough maybe it's one and the same. What then.

The reports say the Obama personally authorized the hit and watched it in the situation room. If so.......kudos are in order. I hope there was a mini-camera attached to the helmet of the guy who pulled the trigger. A leader shouldn't flinch from violence carried out at his behest. Again......I'd like to have been a fly on the wall watching Obama's face. Was there joy, anguish, fear....... we'll never know the truth for sure.

Will this make us safer? Doubtful. Replacements for Bin Laden are prob'ly queued up at ever mosque in the world. This'll just be one more reason for them to play jihed.

But it takes the public's mind off of the fiscal mess the banksters and politicians are foisting off on the backs of the people. Not just here but round the world. For there will always be those who wish to profit from the labor of others. Not a bad thing if they are the inventor, entrepreneur, builder of the enterprise. Not a good thing if they, through fiat currency and false promises to sock it to the rich, bleed us of our lives.

Be that as it may, let's all send up a prayer. About what is up to you.

Me? I cooking up a Salmon Puff for supper. Smelling good. Served up with a little yellow corn cooked in lots of butter with salt and pepper............Mmmmmmmmmm make you hurt yourself.

Sleeping with th' fishes

2011-05-02T15:38:00.001-05:00

Paying the piper

2011-04-30T17:59:00.002-05:00

As we all know if you don't pay the piper he'll pipe a merry tune and lead all you precious children out of town and into the forest, never to be seen again. I hate it when that happens. Don't you?

Not to worry........

Here's a good way to pay him.......well at least for the next year.

With a hat tip to Karl Uppiano and much thanks to Bill

Back again

2011-04-30T12:55:00.002-05:00

Although we've not been gone far. I've been reading my favorite bloggers and visiting new ones for most of the past month. I've just not been able to work up enough of a give a damn to post something of my own.

Not that the month has been with out thing of interest........

I had an older lady run into the back of the Red Ram while I was stopped at a red light about a mile from home. Thank goodness for a nice new chromed hitch ball and bar. It centered her front bumper and only hurt Red's feelings, while bending her bumper around it and demolishing her name tag. (Inez, if it matters)

Neither of us was damaged, as I first thought, and though I'd left my license at home, since neither of us wished to make a report the nice Highway Patrol Officer gave me back my insurance card and wished us a safe trip home.

The Kdzu Wife had her throat cut. Not by terrorists, but by a young man who, looking too young, claimed to have preformed thousands of spine operations and taking cadaver bone fused a couple of her top vertebrae and relieve the pressure on nerves to shoulder and arm which had for a while threatened to paralyze her left arm. Guess you can't judge a Doctor by the apparent lack of facial hair big enough to require shaving on a regular basis. She is much improved and came home a week ago today after a one night stay at St. Mary's Hospital here in the Classic City with a much greater appreciation for pain relievers and muscle relaxers.

We have a small garden planted with two squash plants, four tomato and six pepper plants, along with two short rows of green beans. I planted them in the new topsoil I had dumped in the sinkhole that had been growing steadily bigger in the back yard. Happy to report that everything is looking good.

The recent violent weather in the south only brushed us a little bit late one night. Some needed rain and lots of rumbling and flashing but thankfully none of the Tornadoes that devestated areas to the west and north of us. I hope none of you were seriously affected. If anyone has heard from Eric SWG let me know as he's been suspiciously missing from the blogosphere the last few days. Hope he and Mrs SWG are alright. So many people are not. Over three hundred dead. Towns and communities wiped out. Many without electricity or other public services.
Say a prayer of blessing on all those affected and another one of thanks if it isn't you.

In light of these recent events the political and financial melt down of this country I love doesn't seem quite as relevant as it otherwise might. If you've been paying attention to the price of gold and silver and their reaction to the actions of the Fed Chairman Mr. Bernake and politicians of all stripes you see that my assertion that we're all screwed has not yet been discredited. The violence in places near and far including McDonalds in this country indicate that my prediction of Feb. 21st is still on track.

While you're on you knees for yourself and those lives disrupted by mother nature be sure to request a blessing that this nation will turn back to God, for that nation that turns away will be cursed until they once more remember him.

Keep well dear visitors. I'll probably be back.

Fucked

2011-04-07T19:35:00.003-05:00

Richard Nixon declared "War on Drugs" in 1971. Are we winning?

Lyndon Johnson, carrying forward initiatives started by JFK declared "War on Poverty in 1964. Are we winning?

George W. Bush Declared "War on Terror" in 1971. Are we winning?

VA psychiatrists, psychologists, and even outside evaluators all agree that I'm not 100% correct in all my thinking. But.....are they right?

Damnifiknow.

I just have to wonder though, if we haven't all been acting a little crazy for the last 50 years or so.

We willingly cast our ballots every two or four years for politicians who say, "give me your vote and the authority and I'll solve all these and other problems".

Do you want to lesson the costs associated with drugs? Declare them legal. Stop prosecuting people for possession. Start a program of treatment for anyone who wants to quit or control their desire for mind altering substances. Is someone in pain? Let them and their Doctors use whatever gives the best and greatest relief without fear of governmental oppression.
After all that if someone harms someone else through force or fraud because of, or while under the effects of, said mind altering substances, have a simple penalty...... Death by hanging to be administered immediately upon conviction after a trial in accordance with Constitutional standards.

Do you want to end Poverty in our time. Stop paying people to be poor. But provide lands, fertilizer and equipment whereby they may grow their own sustenance, build their own housing, raise cattle, whatever. Support them in this effort for one year with whatever they require.......after that provide only the land.....that they may realize that they have to work hard, save and preserve what they can, and above all they don't eat their seed corn. If they do eat the seed........let 'em make it as best they can.

Want to end the War on Terror? Fully recognize the Second Amendment at all times and in all places. Stop trying to tell anyone else what to do, whether in this country or without. Deal honestly with other countries in full transparency to the public in every country. If anyone wants to mess with us........
Fuck 'em. Long, hard and repeatedly until they either quit.....or die.

But then they do say I need to keep taking the meds.

Whatta I know?

Just this.

If we don't change things soon......we're fucked.

Move over Ayn Rand

2011-04-05T23:01:00.003-05:00

I have a new love of my life.
(well my ranting and raving over political correctness and idiot politicians life anyway).

Go over here and watch Anne Barnhardt Give 'em hell

Watch the second video first. I promise you you'll not regret it.

Woo haa!

What are you afraid of?

2011-03-26T20:27:00.002-05:00

What are you afraid of?

That "tsk tsk tsk" as you sit in the Doctors office? Opening the electric bill at the first of the month? Of not hearing the car pull into the drive at 11:00pm the night your daughter has her first date? Watching the boss bring the checks out at the end of the week and hoping there's not a pink slip in yours? Standing at the grocery checkout and watching the numbers add up higher and higher?

We all, even those of us too proud to admit it, have those things which cause us a bit of concern, whether great or small.

I used to worry that my falling asleep before I got to the "amen" in my bedtime talks with God might show a lack of proper respect.

But there is one that most of us don't want to talk about, except in whispers, only with like minded friends.

Check out this article over at Whiskey & Gunpowder.

April 15th is coming soon. Don't tell me your heartbeat doesn't pick up about 2 beats per minute.

Always there.

2011-03-24T20:50:00.002-05:00

I just came in from walking the pooch down the drive for his nightly sniff and snoop, combined, of course, with whizzing on ever spot he thought appropriate to leave his mark. At all of 18 lbs. (which granted is a little chubby for a Yorky) he thinks he's 10 feet tall and bullet proof.
Truth be told he owns the Kudzu Grotto (KG) and will loudly protest any incursion....... even if he only thinks he heard something approach. Woe betide any other dog that should approach the chain link boundary of his domain. He may not be able to get to them but you'll think he's gonna chew through the fence and gnaw them down to kibble size.

Some people live with delusions of being more important than they actually are also. For instance most all politicians of whatever stature.........even if it's only county marshal of Franklin County, GA, one step up from dog catcher, but he get's to ride around in a county truck that has Marshall painted on the side.

We've got a lot of deluded people up in D.C. also. They think they are great leaders, but take a look at the fine messes they've gotten us into.

Some of us think we have the power too........after all we contribute to the parties and pull the lever for the above mentioned bozos.

It's a clear night here close by the Classic City. A little chilly to be walking the dog in pajama bottoms and a cotton tee, but as I walked with the pooch back toward the house.... I looked up and thought to look for the North Star. I immediately spotted one that I thought was it. And then I second guessed my self and had to look for the Big Dipper, or Ursa Major, to confirm identity. I was gratified to see I was still able to spot the North Star (actually at my age I'm glad to be able to see it) and to know I could count on it to give me a sense of my direction.

It's hard to get lost when you know what direction you're headed in......

Maybe we all ought to look up in the night sky a little more often......

Maybe make it a requirement for any political office to be taken blindfolded out onto a hill on a dark night and pick out the North Star within a minute.......no second guesses allowed.

If they can't find it, make them walk home. Alone.

Tyranny? You decide.

2011-03-20T07:34:00.003-05:00

While I might have chosen to call it something other than dollars, I hardly think This amounts to terrorism.

Heaven forbid that someone get the idea that the current Federal_Reserve_System"> notes (every penny of which represent a debt instrument obligation of our treasury to the Central Bank) issued coins and paper money are somehow less valuable than pure silver.

I wouldn't be surprised to find this guy disappeared to GITMO before long.

Who The Hell...........WTF

2011-03-19T21:49:00.003-05:00

I would probably have wagered a smallish sum.......perhaps a nickel, against the chance of me ever agreeing with anything Louis Farrakan ever uttered.

Color me Embarrassed .

After a day of lounging in the shade of a pine tree on Fox Lake, watching those with more willingness to brave the sun than I, pluck crappie after crappie from the water, and come home to a TV dinner followed by homemade Banana Pudding, to see on the news feed that my government has launched cruise missiles into Libya........I have to ask the same question of Obummer. "Who do you think you are?"

I wonder what the reactions of the good citizens of the USA would have thought if after the last election when the GOP won a majority in the House of Representative and listening to all the caterwalling from the Left if Libya had launched missiles into Washington, DC in support of the Democrats?

What do you think the people of Libya think about what we unleashed on their sovereign soil?

For some reason, I don't think we won any hearts and minds even though we are supposedly supporting the rebels. We still sent bombs into their country because Obummer was embarrassed by media reports of how ineffectual he has been.

This will not end well............no matter the outcome in the short term.

Just my opinion.

Unintended Consequences they never quite turn out like you think they will.

I suspect the Muslim Brotherhood and Bin Laden are laughing their asses off right about now.

Consider

2011-02-24T07:44:00.002-05:00

......the situation in Wisconsin for a moment.

With all the lay offs all over the country, what do you want to bet that double the number of teachers who are shutting down the schools there could be found among the unemployed and might me more than happy to fill those positions for 3/4th the salaries the protesters were making.
Fire 'em all and hire non-union workers immediately.

Could it be done?

At a loss

2011-02-21T19:30:00.002-05:00

The is so much anger being shown by people around the world this week that I truly am at a loss for words.

Most anybody that's spent more than 5 minutes with me will tell you that's not an everyday occurrence. Give me an opening, no matter how small and I'll attempt to fill it with my tongue............wait that didn't come out quite how I intended it.......

Let's just say that I have an opinion on most everything, and mostly am not shy about expressing said opinions.

Lately, however, I've begun to think that maybe I should just keep my thoughts to myself. (Who says you can't teach and old dog new tricks?) The jury is not in however and maybe I'm leaping to conclusions a little too fast.

It has been said that change is inevitable and that our ability to change with the times has a lot to do with how successful we will be. (take a look back at the dinosaurs for instance, or the Native Americans......well up until they got the idea of running the gambling houses to get their due one mark at a time.)

By the time this coming summer ends I expect to see more traumatic change in the world than has occurred in many a moon.

Whatta ya think? Am I just whistling in the dark?

Wednesday

2011-02-16T06:32:00.003-05:00

Early (for me) on a Wednesday morning.

I was awakened by the wife in response to a note left on the coffee maker. I've become much too used to awakening when the urge strikes me and have determined to get up at an earlier set time. We'll see how it goes.

One thing about my avocation.........not a job, as it's self imposed, is that I get to do a little traveling around North Georgia and see some of my friends made over the last 16 years. Yeah, we do a little business........but, I'd be just as glad to see them over a coke at the local convenience store. Most people are pretty nice one on one and it seems to me that if we could get more of that type communication going between peoples of the world that international relations might go along a bit better.

Of course for that to work we would have to keep the politicians and bankers completely out of the picture.

I know........ a dreamer I remain.

On the other hand, for some of the asshats in the world we just need to use a neutron bomb on them and take all their usable land and stuff.

This has the advantage of directness and efficiency and would soon eliminate either all the asshats or us........whichever came first.

Of course, I, as ruler of the world and Regent Potential of the Universe, would be in charge of deciding which ass hats would hear the gong.

We've had a couple of very nice days here in NE GA. Bright sun and warmish temps...
.. just a long sleeved shirt and it's pretty nice by mid day. A little cool in the mornings......I always check before starting down the ramp off the back deck, to see if there is any frost that might cause my feet to slip. A few more sudden smack downs of that nature and any brains in by buttocks will start slipping out the cracks.

Ya'll have a good day.........go out and make some money.....then convert it to gold or silver so as to actually have something of value.

It still surprises me that people will actually trade those items for pieces of paper with green ink on them.

The handwriting is on the wall and I have little faith the people in Washington are smart enough to keep us from going into default.

In The Garden

2011-02-12T19:33:00.002-05:00

We got the ol' Grump planted today.

After several emotional days with lots of people to call......lots of people calling with condolences, questions about arrangements, visits to the funeral home, the viewing, the renewing of auld acquaintances, the sharing of memories, looking thru his picture boxes, (remind me to post the picture of Miss Panama City Beach 1971, my better half in her pink Bikini) (I'm thinking of making it my screen saver)), the murmurs of, "Oh, don't he look natural, just like he's sleeping", (and the Funeral home did do a good job ), the Au Capella singing by the members of the Shoals Creek Primitive Baptist Church of the always favorite In The Garden and Amazing Grace, 4 of the Fulmer Sisters blending their sweet voices in harmony, and a comforting message by the Preacher and his son Chris, who have for the last 5 years had made it a point to drive 40 to 50 miles each month to bring the love of Carl's brothers and sisters in Christ to him, we got the Grump laid in a clear area of the cemetary surrounded by oak and poplar trees, then partook of a delicious meal prepared by the ladies of the Church.

If that is a long, run-on, blurry sentence, it is exactly how it seemed. Time rushing past with much to do, much done, and finally we can look forward to taking a deep breath, a little bit slower pace, a time to adjust to having only two people and a neurotic pooch in the house. (It just may have been more stressful on the pooch than on the wife and I).

Several people expressed their condolences and sympathy here and I very much appreciate it. Very kind of you. While I've only met and known you through your blogs and your occasional visits to mine, you feel like family and I appreciate you much more than words on a screen can express. Thank you.

Tomorrow is another day. We plan to sleep late and take the pooch for a little ride which he loves to take.....if only for the opportunity to stick his fuzzy head out the passenger side window and get brain freeze as his ears and hair are pushed back by the wind.

After all is said and done.......here we remain. Projects waiting to be undertaken and accomplished. Leaning on one another for support. Looking forward to another 43 years of marriage...(well, at least I am. The wife is not so sure she'll make it that far).

And so it goes.......Another Saturday Night at the Kudzu Grotto.

R.I.P.

2011-02-09T07:48:00.002-05:00

The ol' Grump passes during the night........sometime after midnight when I finally lay down.
He'd had a busy day with visitors and was tired. He'd gotten up around 7:30pm to eat 2 bites of an egg and cheese biscuit the wife had cooked for him...took his pills and had his first nebulizer treatment.
When I put him to bed he wanted to keep his quilted jacket on over his PJ's and apparently at some point he got too warm, sat up on the edge of his hospital bed...took both the coat and PJ top off.......put the quilted jacked back on, buttoned it neatly and simply fell back with his feet off the bed.

Quicker than maybe we were expecting, but more gently than I expected also.

So the end or one more period of time. New beginnings for us all as we'll adjust to the absence and he to the presence of those gone on before.

So: R.I.P Carl Edward Murphy (12-18-1928 - 2-8-2011)

A world gone mad

2011-02-08T19:47:00.002-05:00

Who in their right mind 60 years or so ago would have predicted the messes we would find ourselves in today.

I expected anti-gravity levitation belts that would whisk me effortlessly anywhere I wanted by now. Not that I'm complaining about the ride in the Big Horn Hemi-powered Dodge in the yard.

We've been paying bribes to Egypt for the past 30 years to prop up the government there and what has it gotten us? A government that spent the money on keeping themselves and their enforcers in power and trickled little to none down to the population at large. Hit them with an increase in food costs past what they can afford and I'm surprised the resulting riots have been as small as they have.

What would we do here? With millions of privately owned weapons and vehicles to get places can you imagine the carnage that would have taken place?

On the other hand the fast food diet we subject ourselves to is now claimed to Lower Our IQ's

DUH. Huh.

Keith Olbermann is now going to send tingles up Pope Al Gore's legs.

Obama's people have no concept of the "open to the Public" idea.

Must be all those Big Mac's with super-sized fries.

Not only is Joan Rivers still alive , they feature her in a Superbowl ad that doubtless has teenage boys all over the country jerking off in the closet.

Oh sure we believe that's really her. She's had more nips and tucks than an Amish Quilt. Doubtless she has to shave her throat already, you can only imagine whats hanging between her shriveled dugs. Probably looks like the backside of an ol' Jersey cow. (shiver)

Ya'll come back when you recover from that image.

Another week gone by.

2011-02-08T19:36:00.002-05:00

The past eight days have been a little hectic.

The news on the ol' Grump is that he's still kicking but not very high. Kidneys started back up somewhat, but circulation to extremities is decreasing. Feet are swelled past the point of being able to get his house shoes on him. Bigger size coming up.
The hospice nurse comes out twice a week and takes vitals, adjusts medication and consults with the wife. Tuesdays and Fridays are bath day and thank goodness hospice provides people to help with that. The first two had him laughing and giggling but the one today was older and a little more dour, although she did sing off key which aggrieved the Grump somewhat.
We continue to adjust to the changes. More of a stress on the wife of my youth.
Ya'll keep here in your prayers

Monday Update

2011-01-31T22:31:00.002-05:00

The ol' Grump has been sent home from the hospital. He has had 4 days of people paying more attention to him and he's eating it up. Every memory he's ever had is told and retold.

The situation with the Kidneys has not changed, so they quit giving any medication for it. They also disabled the defibrillator he's had for the past 5 years.
A hospital bed has been moved into his room and the old double bed moved out back to the tool shop. The hospice nurse will start visiting tomorrow.

As they say, "time will tell", so all we can do is all that will get done and finally his preacher will get to preach him into the ground.

The Grump is OK with it.........it's been a long life with all it attendant ups and downs.

And so it goes.

Morning News in the Afternoon

2011-01-29T14:48:00.003-05:00

The phone awakened the wife and I around 2:30am. After fighting with, and nearly being strangled by the mask and hose to the CPAP machine I finally made it to the phone before the ol' Grump's nurse hung up.

It seemed the ol' Grump was living up to his nickname and giving the staff at the hospital fits.

Accusing them of trying to rip him off and rob them for his money......the insurance companies were all thieves who weren't sending the checks when they should, how in the hell was he going to pay.......

I dressed and instructed the wife to go back to sleep. (does she listen.......NO)

Arriving at his room I calmed the ol' Grump down and finally got him to lie back and let me pull the cover up over him. It only took 40 minutes or so. I stayed til 6:30 and came back home since I had to make a trip to Cleveland this morning. The wife went to sit with him.

Trying to drain the fluid from him is not working......kidneys shutting down... Dialysis not much of an option...the Doctors about of options......friends and family coming round.

We'll see.

Ya'll pray for the wife.......and the ol' Grump, if so inclined. We'll see how it goes.

Friday Evening 1/23/11 9:56pm

2011-01-28T21:55:00.003-05:00

Finally the week is drawing to a close. I'm ready.

Sunday started out with my left shoulder attacking me at odd times for no apparent reason. WTF (winning the future, Right, thanks presbo) is up with that. I know the rotator cuff is torn, so is the right one, but this would make my knees wobble and stop me in my tracks while I was just walking along.

Monday morning I hie myself down to the local bone popper, Dr. Hooper, Chiropractor, having figured out that if I turned my head to the left and down the pain would shoot to my shoulder. A quick ride on the massage table then a few well considered adjustments to the spinal bones and, voila' no more pains. This was great news since I'm a wimp when it comes to pain.......I mean come on, I take enough central nervous system suppressant to not feel being hit by a train, I don't have to take shoulder pain.

By Tuesday I'm all kinds of disgusted with the noise coming out of the talking boxes and the interwebz. If you are into that sort of thing you can check out Drudge Reports or visit your local leather clad dominatrix student of the school of Marquis de Sade. I'm ready to find 50 or 60 wooded acres with a bubbling brook and go sit myself beside it until the mushroom clouds dissipate from over the major cities or the smoke from the riots blows away.......whichever comes first. Don't bother me, let me listen to the water and the wind in the river cane.

Wednesday I'm wondering if gold is going to fall back to 1980 levels, and the coming financial, job, food, energy holocaust is indefinitely postponed.

Thursday, the ol' Grump needs to go to the emergency since he has swelled up with fluid 'til he can hardly breath and get around. The wife takes care of that while I take care of business, which I was glad of since my favorite thing in the world is to wait around in the hospital emergency room waiting for someone else to be seen.
He is admitted and kept overnight while they try with medicine to get him to take a leak larger that half a teacup. Wife is some stressed and the poor pouch having to stay in the house most of the day totally by himself is near catatonic with distress. His joy when the wife got back home is pure unconditional joy and love.

Friday, the ol' Grump is still no better, maybe a little the worse since he is more disoriented than ever and is afraid the cost of hospitalization will be too much. This from an 82 year old with money in the bank, social insecurity, a county pension which includes insurance in addition to medicare, a supplemental policy for everything else and holds a note on the rental home I bought from him. He ain't got to worry about money, but he does.

And I.....well I found this little item this morning.

1929 100 Lire, issued by The Sovereign State of the Vatican, 90.8% gold with a portrait of the then Pope, Pius XI.

Out of a mintage of 10,000 this one fell into my hands.

1929 was the year my father was born in Birmingham, Alabama. This one is probably a keeper. Researching a coin online will get you more information than you can use sometimes, but the end results are almost always interesting even if the coin has no great value.

Still it may be comforting to meditate upon as I sit in the cane beside the creek.

We'll see what tomorrow and next week bring, if I'm still around and if I feel like it.

Hope your weekend is great. Get off your ass and go somewhere and do something.

Once upon a time long ago

2011-01-20T22:30:00.003-05:00

and not so far away, I owned a dairy farm. Well I owned the cows and equipment, part of the land with my mother and sisters, and all of the debt.

And life was good, well except for the getting up at 4am and getting slapped in the face by a wet shitty, half frozen bovine tail while trying to milk the ol' hussies. But, mostly good. Because we could sell all the milk we could produce, even if our government set allotment was lower, the Atlanta Dairies Cooperative, which not only bottled milk but made ice cream and had a Cheese plant to take care of any surplus over the demand for milk and ice cream.

A lot of dairies cooperatives were not so fortunate and were selling milk to the Federal government as powdered milk, Cheese and butter which the gov't would dole out to less fortunate countries, less fortunate citizens (read those on the public dole).

However even with all their largess the gov't still had to pay billions to store milk products, with the amount growing larger ever year. They did this because the farmers had an awfully good lobby in Washington, DC which funneled much moola into the pockets of congressmen and senators. And life was good for them and us.......

Well, up until the gov't in it's wisdom decided they couldn't afford the cost of storage anymore and sought to reduce the amount of milk purchased.

You'd think that would be easy enough, just stop buying the surplus milk, right?
The farmers were smart enough to figure out that reducing the size of the herds, feeding less high protein grain and other measures would work and within a week, voila' no more surplus.

Wrong that would be way too simple. No.......the gov't in it's wisdom would pay the farmers not to produce milk.

I'll not bore you with the process, let's just assume the gov't got to spend billions more. And the farmers went on to other profitable pursuits.

Today we have a problem with unemployment in the nation. Rates, depending on who you ask are over 9% according to the gov't figures and in actual fact are closer to 20%.

Many and varied are the solutions put forth by the experts, most of them long on predictions and very, very short on specifics.

I have a plan.

Want to really fix the unemployment problem? Listen up. Eliminate all bailouts, subsidies, giveaways and support systems - both to business and to labor. Abolish all employment restrictions and employment paperwork. All free labor - undocumented non-citizens - to compete equally with native-born workers. Cut taxes to a flat 10% rate for everyone. Abolish every government agency that begins with a letter of the alphabet. Then abolish the rest of them.

I confidently guarantee that the nation would be back at full employment within 30 days.

I can be confident because everybody except the criminal element would be busy working their fingers to the bone growing a garden on any available piece of dirt, and defending it with extreme prejudice to the criminal element many of which would be left to rot where they lay, or thinking green, we could use them for fertilizer. Or in more rational societies they'd be hooked to plows to till more ground.

As long as the feds take the pressure off labor to make adjustments. Giving food stamps, minimum wages, unemployment compensation, make-work, shovel-ready boondoggles - all these things cause workers to think they can continue as before...that a "recovery" of the good ol' days is just around the corner...and that they'll soon be earning as much as they were in 2007. Maybe more!

Tain't gonna happen.

Remember the cooking, gardening and canning advice your grandmother tried to give you. You'll wish you had her around for a little advice again.

I wonder sometimes.....

2011-01-20T19:29:00.002-05:00

.....Why I ever try to put thought to keybord.

Especially when there are people like Vin around.

Go Here and read his "I like to pay taxes, with them I buy Civilization".

Necessities......

2011-01-19T13:36:00.002-05:00

... What do you consider necessities.

Food, water, shelter, transportation (I love my Truck), a source of income that allows you to provide yourself with these things and hopefully a little more.

I could add chocolate (dark) but my body would probably be better off with out it, although my mental state might get a little out of kilter. (Heaven knows I'm not fit to be around most of the time, but deprive me of a source of comfort and I won't be held responsible. Just sayin'......)

From whence cometh this rambling you might ask? Well, you might although there are few enough of you that check in here, statistically we matter less than the gnats bite on an elephants ass.

But as we were riding by the public housing (welfare housing) the other day it was pointed out to me that *..... lived there now along with her off sprung because she is mentally incompetent. This led to me asking, "what purpose does it serve the government to maintain this waste of air and her equally useless youngun,for it too will never be capable of much, at the citizenry's expense"?

The answer came quickly, "They've got to have something to spend the money on".

Well said. But more correctly, the government has to have something to spend the tax money's and the money's they borrow on else how could they stand before us and say, "Look what good use we have made off all that money and beside, you are not having to take care of your own defects and self created problems yourself". Lord knows none of us want to take responsibility for our old, incompetent, burdensome relatives, repeatedly pregnant daughters, drug addled, alcohol besotted, or simply too sorry to work, sons. Do we? Well?

If the government didn't take at least half of everything you earn in some form or other, of which half or more is spent on the bureaucracy administering this clusterf*** do you think that costs of care for these individuals might not be greatly reduced?

Just wondering about the necessity........

A Confession.......of sorts

2011-01-17T20:19:00.002-05:00

I must confess to stealing the following paragraphs from an email received from The Daily Reckoning.

Look...according to our new Daily Reckoning theme...political parties, voting, the blah, blah of partisan debates...as well as Paul Krugman...

...they are all almost irrelevant...all “products of the past”...

...relics...emblems...icons...symbols...

...full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing.

The real trends are bigger than that. What is at stake here is a model of government that began with Otto von Bismarck. It is a model in which the state supposedly serves the interests of the citizens. (Under the previous model, there were no citizens...just subjects who owed a duty of obedience to the sovereign...and in exchange received protection.) In Bismarck’s model, citizens give up a portion of their output...and stand ready to protect the state with their lives. In return, the state gives them the right to participate (through elections etc)...provides protection from foreign states and domestic outlaws...and makes sure that their physical needs are taken care of.

This model seems to be headed for bankruptcy. The big question is: when the state is unable to provide the benefits it has promised...what will happen? Will the masses accept less? Or will they revolt? Or will a new model evolve...peacefully?

You can get a free daily email, just google Daily Reckoning and I'm sure somewhere you'll be given an opportunity. Of course you will have to put up with your fair share of advertisements, but, I reckon (poor pun) it's a small price to pay for another view of the world.

Often after reading thoughts that are not programmed into my consciousness by the MSM I ponder how different input requires different outputs.

The question is......"Or will they revolt"?

Not so much of a question as I'm pretty sure they will, just when and how bad will it get seems a more pressing question. Which leads to further questions. Will the military be used against us on our own soil? Will the leaders of the military follow those orders.

Do I have enough of.............. (fill in your own blank)

How safe is my present location? If not how can I get to a better one.......and how soon?

Questions and answers differ.......or is the question relevant?

Noise

2011-01-14T08:43:00.003-05:00

Noise is, it seems, increasing every day.

Not only the constant ringing in my ears, the one truly constant companion of the last almost 40 years, but the noise of planes, trains, automobiles and especially the noises from all the electronic devices that we have made such a part of our daily lives over the last 100 years.

We've taken the telephone, that I can remember from the late 50's as being a source of irritation because the curious neighbor from up the street would stealthily pick up when she knew it was our ring, to a constant companion that tracks us every where and is answered no matter where one is, whether in the middle of a conversation to the solitude of the toilet facilities.

Radios which once were listened to only in the evening, or perhaps only on Saturday night when the Grand Ol' Opry came on, to a little bud with wires growing out of them to remain in a persons ears 24/7.

You begin to see the trend?

We've become so interconnected, so used to all the information constantly bombarding us that we lose our perspective.

Last weekends shootings in Tuscon, while deplorable, and tragic to the individuals involved who were killed or wounded, distressing to those that witnessed the violence, horrible to those who's loved ones died or were hurt, has become another source of noise, eagerly jumped on by the media who's only existence it seems is to ensure that not a single, breathing human on the planet has not only heard about it, but is to react to it as if it had happened to their family and made to react in ways that someone else wishes them to react.

Way too much noise methinks.

For I, personally, am not so much moved by this latest event. Indeed had I never heard, read, seen any of the reports my life would not, and has not, really been affected.

I mean really, am I supposed to take upon me some additional burden in my life over a shooting in Arizona? Is this supposed to add to some collective angst we must all share in? Am I to bear some responsibility for what happened?

I think not.

Since before recorded history began, I suspect, there have been those, who for what ever reason, have wanted to pick up a stick, or rock, and bash in the head of someone or destroy something, for reasons the rest of us cannot truly imagine.

Perhaps their wiring is faulty.

So..........I shall continue on my way, vigilant to the same degree as I generally am, as oblivious to the same degree as always, trying to get through the day despite the ringing in my ears and the noisome world around me, living for the now, since I'm convinced that none of us are assured tomorrow, much less the next 60 minutes.

Still Cold

2011-01-13T08:45:00.003-05:00

At least more of the ice and snow melted away yesterday.

I was awakened in bliss as only a grand father can be when the youngest grand daughter shook me and said, "Paw Paw I had a bad dream, tell me a story".

How's that for fearless? To have a bad dream and then expect me to tell a story that will make it all better. Truth be told, I can do that when necessary.

The best thing about stories for the g-daughter is that you just ask what story she wants to tell and she'll give instructions on what it is to be about, who the characters are and what they are to do. Simply follow along and the storyline will be given in great detail.

I did doze off a couple of times there and had to be roused by the question, "Paw Paw, what happened then?"

So the day is off to a bright shiny start. I've eaten my two eggs, (over easy) my bacon (not too crispy, just right) cheese grits (yummy).

Ya'll have a good day. I'm off to play.

Cabin Fever

2011-01-12T21:40:00.002-05:00

.....May be a complaint more often heard of in the frozen regions of the artic, but coop up a southern country boy with no way to get out short of slippery suicide on iced over streets with other maniacs and the tension builds to almost intolerable levels very quickly.

Thankfully the weather was sunny enough today and enough other idiots had to get to work, or elswhere, that their combined traffic created just enough warming to thaw narrow tracks on the surface streets that I was able to get to Fedex today. Traffic was thankfully light and most people were keeping their hands on the wheel and eyes on the road that I saw no current accidents, although several people were trying to pull their car or truck out of the ditches.

By this evening it was good enough that a couple of people stopped by to see us. Economic necessity will override common sense most days. Let's just hope that the economic necessities of the nation will not cause an overwhelming loss of common sense in the general population.

While many people speak of the problems, fewer have any workable solutions to put forth. The consequences of the necessary tough actions that must be taken if the Republic is to survive, much less return to thriving health, may lead to an even worse situation when so many find out that their make work jobs have just ended or their grip on the public teat is useless as that dug has withered, dried up and fallen off the skinny breast like a three week old umbilicus cord.

It somehow seems almost appropriate that there are so many vampire movies, tv shows and popular book series these days.

Do vampires ever consider what might happen once they have turned everyone into a blood sucking monster? Do they have the foresight to maintain the herd at maximum health even at the expense of controlling their darker nature?

Does the herd have enough understanding of what is happening to it, and more importantly the will to resist the temptation to submit, or the strength to break the ties that bind them?

Despite the blathering and bleating of pundits port and starboard, tv, radio, print and internet all of them claiming that their vision and version of America is right, do we really understand the problems and their potential outcomes?

Do we even really want to know?

Maybe we don't, maybe like Darwin thought, we really are descended from Monkeys.

A good possibility as Fred Suggests.

You should read and ponder whether any of the things he sees coming can be stopped, or even delayed for very long. I'd personally love to hear any of your ideas. Maybe if enough of us put our heads and hearts together we will be able to create a different tomorrow.

If not...................

What???

I knew it

2011-01-10T15:18:00.002-05:00

When you have a bit of snow in the South people nut up and use it as an excuse not to go in to work.

I did take the Ram out this morning to carry a package to Fedex with every expectation that they would be open. I mean after all they can get a package around the world overnight and be able to track it every step of the way, you'd think they wouldn't let a few inches of snow stall the works, would they??

Turns out they will.

After careful navigation, with my usual superb driving skills, honed lo these last 45 years, I arrive in front of the building only to find that some people aren't as dedicated to work.

Wussies.

With the freezing over and possible icing this evening it may be a while before I'm able to get out again.

Fortunately, the larder is stocked with comestibles, stores of propane are in readiness, squirrel beds are located and 12 gauge shells loaded, we're ready to withstand at least a 3 day seige.

I'd hate for it to become a Donner party thing though, the ol' Grump would make mighty tough and stringy eating. Perhaps with enough boiling and some dumplings and lots of pepper.........

Nah, better hope we don't run out of squirrels.

More Global Warming

2011-01-10T08:31:00.004-05:00

Sheesh, we've about 4-5 inches already and more coming down.

Unusually for me the cold seems to have found it's way into my finger joints this morning. Does this portend worse weather later today? No idea, as this is unusual.

Of course this Global Warming is unusual too. Reckon it has something to do with a lack of sunspot activity the last year or so?

Why haven't we been hearing from that bloated wind bag Albert Gore lately? Even meek little Tipper finally got fed up with his lies and booted his ass to the curb. Of course he can just give her half of everything and still have enough money to draw the bimbo-flies and environmental moonbats to his swollen carcass. A waste of resources to keep him alive, methinks.

Of course, I have been accused of being a little intolerant of idiots. I mean come on, they're fun to laugh as for a while, but you soon become weary of shooting fish in a barrel.

Speaking of shooting.......I finally took the time to peel the camouflaged tape off the barrel of the Ruger Model 77 Mark II I picked up a while back and gave it a good cleaning and lubrication. Nice gun, stainless steel barrel and action with composite stock and topped with Leupold 4 X 12 VX-II scope.

Hopefully, I'll be able to take it over to the ARC range next month and sight it in.

I have no real need for a rifle of this calibre, but, like I've always heard...... you can never have too many guns, or enough ammo.

Well, I've had my grits and hen apple for the morning, I'm sure I have a lot to do if I'll just get too it. Hopefully I'll be able to get to the Fedex office before the icy part of this winter wonderland hits later today. Right now it's fun to look at, but if we get any ice on top of it the pines will start snapping onto the power lines and the real fun will start.

Stay warm and come back now, hear.

The Last Six Seconds

2011-01-06T12:14:00.002-05:00

I read much these days, some of it very discouraging and pessimistic. I find it very easy sometimes to want to throw my hands in the air, take my guns, ammo, such food as we have stored, a few coins of silver, the wife and ol' grump and find a place in the deep dark woods to await the zombie hoards and whatever end may come.

This following account, whether true or not, is part of the reason I do not. Not yet. Not while people such as these are part of our armed forces and citizens of this land. And make no mistake, there are men and women like this out there. They are Tea Party Patriots, Republicans, even some who vote democrat perhaps, people from all walks of life. People who like the signors of The Declaration of Independence, will be willing to Pledge their lives, their fortunes and their Sacred Honor in defense of liberty and freedom.

They do exist......I've met some of them. Let us look for them, challenge them, support them and, if possible, elect them to the highest offices in the land, that this once great nation may remember her heritage and rise taller and stand brighter than ever before.

The Last Six Seconds

On Nov 13, 2010 Lt General John Kelly, USMC gave a speech to the
Semper Fi Society of St. Louis, MO. This was 4 days after his son, Lt
Robert Kelly, USMC was killed by an IED while on his 3rd Combat tour.
During his speech, General Kelly spoke about the dedication and valor
of the young men and women who step forward each and every day to
protect us.
During the speech, he never mentioned the loss of his own son.
He closed the speech with the moving account of the last 6 seconds
in the lives of 2 young Marines who died with rifles blazing to protect
their brother Marines.

"I will leave you with a story about the kind of people they
are...about the quality of the steel in their backs...about the kind of
dedication they bring to our country while they serve in uniform and
forever after as veterans. Two years ago when I was the Commander of all U.S.
and Iraqi forces, in fact, the 22nd of April 2008, two Marine
infantry battalions, 1/9 "The Walking Dead," and 2/8 were switching out
in Ramadi. One battalion in the closing days of their deployment
going home very soon, the other just starting its seven-month combat
tour.
Two Marines, Corporal Jonathan Yale and Lance Corporal Jordan
Haerter, 22 and 20 years old respectively, one from each battalion, were
assuming the watch together at the entrance gate of an outpost that
contained a makeshift barracks housing 50 Marines. The same broken down
ramshackle building was also home to 100 Iraqi police, also my men and our
allies in the fight against the terrorists in Ramadi, a city until
recently the most dangerous city on earth and owned by Al Qaeda. Yale was a
dirt poor mixed-race kid from Virginia with a wife and daughter, and
a mother and sister who lived with him and he supported as well. He did
this on a yearly salary of less than $23,000. Haerter, on the other
hand, was a middle class white kid from Long Island. They were from two
completely different worlds. Had they not joined the Marines they would
never have met each other, or understood that multiple America's exist simultaneously

depending on one's race, education level, economic status, and where

you might have been born. But they were Marines, combat Marines,

forged in the same crucible of Marine training, and because of this bond

they were brothers as close, or closer, than if they were born of the same woman.

The mission orders they received from the sergeant squad leader
I am sure went something like: "Okay you two clowns, stand this post
and let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass." "You clear?" I am
also sure Yale and Haerter then rolled their eyes and said in unison
something like: "Yes Sergeant," with just enough attitude that
made the point without saying the words, "No kidding sweetheart, we know
what we're doing." They then relieved two other Marines on watch and
took up their post at the entry control point of Joint Security Station
Nasser, in the Sophia section of Ramadi, Al Anbar, Iraq.

A few minutes later a large blue truck turned down the alley
way-perhaps 60-70 yards in length-and sped its way through the serpentine of
concrete jersey walls. The truck stopped just short of where the
two were posted and detonated, killing them both catastrophically.
Twenty-four brick masonry houses were damaged or destroyed. A
mosque 100 yards away collapsed. The truck's engine came to rest two
hundred yards away knocking most of a house down before it stopped. Our
explosive experts reckoned the blast was made of 2,000 pounds of
explosives. Two died, and because these two young infantrymen
didn't have it in their DNA to run from danger, they saved 150 of their
Iraqi and American brothers-in-arms.

When I read the situation report about the incident a few hours
after it happened I called the regimental commander for details as
something about this struck me as different. Marines dying or being
seriously wounded is commonplace in combat. We expect Marines regardless
of rank or MOS to stand their ground and do their duty, and even die in
the process, if that is what the mission takes. But this just seemed
different. The regimental commander had just returned from the
site and he agreed, but reported that there were no American witnesses to
the event-just Iraqi police. I figured if there was any chance of
finding out what actually happened and then to decorate the two Marines
to acknowledge their bravery, I'd have to do it as a combat award
that requires two eye-witnesses and we figured the bureaucrats back
in Washington would never buy Iraqi statements. If it had any
chance at all, it had to come under the signature of a general officer.

I traveled to Ramadi the next day and spoke individually to a
half-dozen Iraqi police all of whom told the same story. The blue truck
turned down into the alley and immediately sped up as it made its way
through the serpentine. They all said, "We knew immediately what was
going on as soon as the two Marines began firing." The Iraqi police then
related that some of them also fired, and then to a man, ran for safety
just prior to the explosion. All survived. Many were injured...some
seriously. One of the Iraqis elaborated and with tears welling
up said, "They'd run like any normal man would to save his life."

"What he didn't know until then," he said, "and what he learned that very
instant, was that Marines are not normal." Choking past the emotion he said,

"Sir, in the name of God no sane man would have stood there and
done what they did." "No sane man." "They saved us all."

What we didn't know at the time, and only learned a couple of
days later after I wrote a summary and submitted both Yale and Haerter for
posthumous Navy Crosses, was that one of our security cameras,
damaged initially in the blast, recorded some of the suicide attack. It
happened exactly as the Iraqis had described it. It took exactly
six seconds from when the truck entered the alley until it
detonated.

You can watch the last six seconds of their young lives. Putting
myself in their heads I supposed it took about a second for the two
Marines to separately come to the same conclusion about what was going on
once the truck came into their view at the far end of the alley. Exactly
no time to talk it over, or call the sergeant to ask what they should
do. Only enough time to take half an instant and think about what the
sergeant told them to do only a few minutes before: "...let no
unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass." The two Marines had about five
seconds left to live.

It took maybe another two seconds for them to present their
weapons, take aim, and open up. By this time the truck was half-way
through the barriers and gaining speed the whole time. Here, the recording
shows a number of Iraqi police, some of whom had fired their AKs, now
scattering like the normal and rational men they were-some running right
past the Marines. They had three seconds left to live.

For about two seconds more, the recording shows the Marines'
weapons firing non-stop...the truck's windshield exploding into shards
of glass as their rounds take it apart and tore in to the body of the
son-of-a-bitch who is trying to get past them to kill their brothers-

American and Iraqi-bedded down in the barracks totally
unaware of the fact that their lives at that moment depended entirely on
two Marines standing their ground. If they had been aware, they
would have known they were safe...because two Marines stood between them
and a crazed suicide bomber. The recording shows the truck careening
to a stop immediately in front of the two Marines. In all of the
instantaneous violence Yale and Haerter never hesitated. By all
reports and by the recording, they never stepped back. They never even
started to step aside. They never even shifted their weight. With their
feet spread shoulder width apart, they leaned into the danger, firing
as fast as they could work their weapons. They had only one second left
to live.

The truck explodes. The camera goes blank. Two young men go to
their God. Six seconds. Not enough time to think about their families,
their country, their flag, or about their lives or their deaths, but
more than enough time for two very brave young men to do their duty...into
eternity. That is the kind of people who are on watch all over
the world tonight-for you.

We Marines believe that God gave America the greatest gift he
could bestow to man while he lived on this earth-freedom. We also
believe he gave us another gift nearly as precious-our soldiers, sailors,
airmen, Coast Guardsmen, and Marines-to safeguard that gift and
guarantee no force on this earth can every steal it away. It has been my
distinct honor to have been with you here today. Rest assured our
America, this experiment in democracy started over two centuries ago, will
forever remain the "land of the free and home of the brave" so long as
we never run out of tough young Americans who are willing to look beyond
their own self-interest and comfortable lives, and go into the darkest
and most dangerous places on earth to hunt down, and kill, those who
would do us harm.

God Bless America, and....SEMPER FIDELIS!"

This is the nation's Corps of Marines. The feckless leaders in the congress do not deserve such men protecting them. May God protect the Corps from the evil that is being imposed upon it.

Winding Down

2010-12-29T21:34:00.002-05:00

At least I thought that was what the year was supposed to be doing.

Around here ol' Father Times doesn't seem to have lost a step since June. Busier than a three legged dog in a rabbit hunt. Still, while I left at 9am and drove back and forth for over 200 miles, sometimes at 80 mph (like the time just before I saw the Sheriff's car parked beside the abandoned hotdog stand just outside Franklin Springs) I wound up back here, right where I started from. I can travel farther and make less progress than anybody I know.

The snow from the weekend is mostly gone except for a few patches in the shade, although it's been windy and cold enough to mostly dry out the ground that's now showing.

I think I'm just going to forgo the rest of this year and stick around home till after the weekend. I'm sure it will ring on down to 2011 just fine without me. Still if the fire works Friday night sound too close and too much like Tec-9's I may be forced to rouse myself and light off a few .357 cherry bombs. That reminds me......I need to make a run to Wally World to the sporting goods section soon. You can't have a really good New Year's celebration with out enough noise makers and those little annoying thing-a-ma-jigs you blow into that sends a paper annoyance uncurling into someone's face.

It's been quite a year here at the Kudzu Grotto. Lot's has happened and nothing much seems to have changed.

I'm looking forward to the New Year and the onslaught of potential presidential candidates announcing there intention of running for office in 2012. More than ever the internet will have to do yeoman's duty to hold their feet to the fire.
Get out there and do your part.

Snow on Christmas

2010-12-26T14:37:00.006-05:00

It must be all that Global Warming stuff.
In the last 100 years it has never happened in this area of Georgia.
Before we'd left the festivities in Gwinnett County where our eldest and her family live we were beginning to get snow sticking to the ground. The stuff of songs and movies, something little children (and some adults) had wished would happen for generations. Just that little something extra to make the holy day merry and bright.

By the time we had driven 40 miles to the east we were back into only rain.

Never mind. We had truly experienced a White Christmas. Not for the first time, since the wife and I had three Christmas' in Germany once upon a time, but, a first for our home stomping grounds.

Later, after the wife and pooch had turned in early for much deserved sleep, I watched as the drizzling rain here turned into snow. By the time I turned in around 11:00pm there was almost an inch on the porch railing.

This morning we awoke to 3 inches of the icy fluff, and it was still falling.

Although the roads and paths are a bit too warm for it to entirely cover the ground it still makes for a nice picture and give us hope that it will soon be gone.

Don't get me wrong.......I love to see it come, but the remnant of the farmer left in me remembers and hates the mud that comes after it.

Merry Christmas to all who visit

2010-12-24T21:55:00.002-05:00

It's quiet and still here at the kudzu grotto this evening.

The ol' Grump is abed with who knows what running thru his head, the wife and pooch are already down at the eldest daughter's preparing for tomorrow. It was sunny and nice today with a slight chance that tomorrow will see the first snow on Christmas in Atlanta in over 100 years, though I can remember two back to back Christmas' where we had ice storms in the early 60's.

May you receive the spirit of Christmas tonight and keep it all through the coming New Year.

Oh Yeah........

2010-12-24T03:59:00.002-05:00

I feel so much safer NOW

On the one hand they tell us to let them know if there is anything suspicious, and on the other they hassle you if you suspect that their policies are stupid, wrongheaded and designed more to control a people that think because they live in the USA that they are a free people.

It's coming.

Prepare now. Don't think that because we've elected a few new people to the congress that everything will be alright.

Because it won't.

Wikileaks & mr. Assange

2010-12-16T08:24:00.004-05:00

If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is wrong, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one ever was truly harmed.
.
Marcus Aurelius

While the reptilian portion of my brain say, 'cut him into little chunks and make fish chum outta him', another portion asks the question, 'what if our government took George Washington's advice and avoided entanglements with foreign governments'?

I realize that politics has gotten to the point that, like sausage making, we really don't want to think too much on how we get to the finished product, but, I sometimes wonder how things would be if, as individuals, and as a country we could stand forth boldly saying, 'these are our guiding principles, we will stand by them. We do not ask that you necessarily have the same ones, but, we require you to respect ours. Ours are embodied in our Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of the United States. We will defend them and this Nation against all who wish us, or them, harm, both foreign and domestic, until the last breath'.

I'm not so naive as to think this will happen now at this late date and in light of all the things that have happened in the world.

I just get to wandering on the paths thru the kudzu every once in a while.