Retrosexual man -- an endangered species fights back

A buddy of mine stole this from somewhere without credit. But I like it so I stole it, too. Hereinafter, please refer to me as "Retrosexual Man."

The Retrosexual Man of the 21st Century

Please allow me to vent. I have had it. I've taken all I can stand and I can't stand anymore.

Every time my TV is on, all that can be seen is effeminate men prancing about, redecorating houses and talking about foreign concepts like "style" and "feng shui."

Heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, transsexual, metrosexual, non-sexual; blue, green, and purple-sexual - bogus definitions have taken over the urban and suburban world!

Real men of the world, stand up, scratch your butt, belch, and yell "ENOUGH!" I hereby announce the start of a new offensive in the culture wars, the Retrosexual movement. Formerly known as NORMAL!

The Code :

A Retrosexual man, no matter what the women insists, PAYS FOR THE DATE.

A Retrosexual man opens doors for a lady. Even for the ones that fit that term only because they are female.

A Retrosexual DEALS with IT, be it a flat tire, break-in into your home, or a natural disaster, you DEAL WITH IT.

A Retrosexual not only eats red meat, he often kills it himself.

A Retrosexual doesn't worry about living to be 90. It's not how long you live, but how well. If you're 90 years old and still smoking cigars and drinking, I salute you. If you are still having sex, you are a God.

A Retrosexual does not use more hair or skin products than a woman. Women have several supermarket aisles of stuff. Retrosexuals need an endcap (possibly 2 endcaps if you include shaving goods.)

A Retrosexual does not dress in clothes from Hot Topic when he's 30 years old.

A Retrosexual should know how to properly kill stuff (or people) if need be. This falls under the "Dealing with It" portion of The Code.

A Retrosexual watches no TV show with "Queer" in the title.

A Retrosexual does not let neighbors screw up rooms in his house on national TV.

A Retrosexual should not give up excessive amounts of manliness for women. Some is inevitable, but major reinvention of yourself will only lead to you becoming a froo-froo little puss, and in the long run, she ain't worth it.

A Retrosexual is allowed to seek professional help for major mental stress such as drug/alcohol addiction, death of your entire family in a freak treechipper accident, favorite sports team being moved to a different city, favorite bird dog expiring, etc. You are NOT allowed to see a shrink because Daddy didn't pay you enough attention. Daddy was busy DEALING WITH IT. When you screwed up, he DEALT with you.

A Retrosexual will have at least one outfit in his wardrobe designed to conceal himself from prey.

A Retrosexual knows how to tie a Windsor knot when wearing a tie -- and ONLY a Windsor knot.

A Retrosexual should have at least one good wound he can brag about getting.

A Retrosexual knows how to use a basic set of tools. If you can't hammer a nail, or drill a straight hole, practice in secret until you can -- or be rightfully ridiculed for the wuss you be.

A Retrosexual knows that owning a gun is not a sign that your are riddled with fear, guns are TOOLS and are often essential to DEAL WITH IT. Plus it's just plain fun to fire one off in the direction of those people or things that just need a little "wakin' up".

Crying. There are very few reason that a Retrosexual may cry, and none of them have to do with TV commercials, movies, or soap operas. Sports teams are sometimes a reason to cry, but the preferred method of release is swearing or throwing the remote control. Some reasons a Retrosexual can cry include (but are not limited to) death of a loved one, death of a pet (fish do NOT count as pets in this case), loss of a major body part, or loss of major body part on your truck.

When a Retrosexual is on a crowded bus and or a commuter train, and a pregnant woman, heck, any woman gets on, that retrosexual stands up and offers his seat to that woman, then looks around at the other so-called men still in their seats with a disgusted "you punks" look on his face.

A Retrosexual knows how to say the Pledge properly, and with the correct emphasis and pronunciation. He also knows the words to the Star Spangled Banner. A Retrosexual will have hobbies and habits his wife and mother do not understand, but that are essential to his manliness, in that they offset the acceptable manliness decline he suffers when married/engaged or in a serious healthy relationship - i.e., hunting, boxing, shot putting, shooting, cigars, car maintenance.

A Retrosexual knows how to sharpen his own knives and kitchen utensils.

A Retrosexual man can drive in snow (hell, a blizzard) without sliding all over or driving under 20mph, without anxiety, and without high-centering his ride in a snow bank.

A Retrosexual man can chop down a tree and make it land where he wants. Wherever it lands is where he damn well wanted it to land. Except on his truck--that would happen because of a "force of nature", and then the retrosexual man's options are to Cry, or to DEAL with IT, or do both.

A Retrosexual will give up his seat on a bus to not only any women but any elderly person or person in military dress (except 2nd Lt's) NOTE: The person in military dress may turn down the offer but the Retrosexual man will ALWAYS make the offer to them and thank them for serving their country.

A Retrosexual man doesn't need a contract -- a handshake is good enough. He will always stand by his word even if circumstances change or the other person deceived him.

A Retrosexual man doesn't immediately look to sue someone when he does something stupid and hurts himself. We understand that sometimes in the process of doing things we get hurt and we just DEAL WITH IT !

A Restrosexual Man is Normal.

There. I feel much better now! (Belch)

Try it guys. You'll feel better, too. I guarantee it.

Panthers perform cardiac comeback for No. 2 playoff seed

How 'bout them Panthers?! The Carolina Panthers just clinched the No.2 NFC playoff seed, a first-round bye and a home playoff game either Jan.10 or 11 by winning a 33-31 thriller at New Orleans. At right, Steve Smith of the Panthers outfights two Saints defenders for another long, crucial pass in the game. Smith just kept performing miracles and so do all the Panthers. Playoffs, here we come! I oughta say Superbowl here we come, but I don't wanna jinx 'em.

How to survive hell -- in seven easy lessons

I really like Doug Giles. He's a great writer, talk show host and even a preacher. And he's one of those Christians who ain't afraid to stand up and give you the truth, consequences and all.

His column today is called If You're Going Through Hell, Keep Going. Here's his seven points. You gotta read his column to get the rest.

Here are seven observations and exhortations to help us keep plowing through tough times.

1. Jesus Promised Pain.

2. Are You Gonna Cowboy Up or Lay There and Bleed?

3. It’s About Character, Stupid.

4. Don’t Blame God if You Brought This On.

5. Solomon Says, “Relax.”

6. The “Gift” of Hell.

7. Once You’ve Made it Through “Hell”, Don’t Become a Jerk.

Again, read the whole thing. It just might help you get through your personal hell today.

Hanging out with the 'Baby Dolls' for the holidays

I've been too busy to blog for a while, but that's a good thing. I had some time off my regular job for the holidays, so I took a part-time job with a local gunshop to keep busy. As a certified gun nut, I shoulda been paying them but they paid me so I didn't argue. What I've been doing is taking photos of their guns for sale on gunbroker.com and posting the photos and info for sale.

I had shopped there and bought guns previously but had never seen what they call the "Baby Doll Counter," down on the pawn shop end of the business, away from the other guns. This counter is full of classic, mostly out-of-production revolvers, almost entirely Smith & Wessons and Colts. And there I saw for the very first time a Colt revolver I'd never seen, a Colt King Cobra .357 Magnum (above) in Colt's Royal Blue finish. See why they call 'em baby dolls?

They also have a Colt Anaconda .44 Magnum, two Colt Pythons .357 Magnum (0nly the blue one is for sale, the Stainless one is reserved for one of the owner's Christmas presents) and a Colt Diamonback .38 Special, none of which I had ever seen before in the flesh, so to speak.

Colt no longer makes any of these revolvers, the Single-Action Army being the sole survivor of what was once a lineup of some of the best revolvers ever made. But they sure knew how to name 'em, didn't they? The Diamonback'll bite you and the Python and Anaconda eat you alive.

On the other hand, you have Smith and Wesson, who used to have some great names, the K-38 Combat Masterpiece, the K-38 Masterpiece, the very first .357 Magnum, the .357 Registered Magnum, and of course, the original Military & Police .38 Special revolver.

And then some marketing "genius"/idiot at S&W decided all those great names had to go. In 1957, the above pistols became, respectively, the Model 15, Model 14, Model 27 and Model 10.

Really gives you the warm fuzzies, don't it? But they're still great pistols and being a Smith guy, I expect one of more of them will end up going home with me. First on my list is the .357 Combat Magnum, but I ain't giving you no link to that bad boy. It's mine, all mine. Get yer own.

Don't forget the real meaning of Christmas

Merry Christmas! In case you don't know or forgot, here's what Christmas is all about.

And Happy New Year, too!

Heroes "of whom the world was not worthy"

Kevin McCullough writes about two of his military friends and their connections to the S.E.R.E. school at Camp Mackall, which is right here in my home county, Richmond, in North Carolina.

It stands for Survive, Evade, Resist, and Escape.

Few in civilian life know much about it because of the intense nature of what it is. Stories have surfaced as to what others experienced in undergoing it, but even these are few as those who do persevere it are expected to not release the details of what happens.

The description as best I could decipher is akin to being caught behind enemy lines. Your objective is to survive for periods without the basics. You are to do so for as long as possible by not being captured (hence the "evade" phase.) When captured you are to react as though those who hold you are in fact the enemy, and as they do things like waterboard you, break fingers, etc., you are to rely upon all your ability as an honorable member of the defense forces of the United States to resist, not give up your information, nor of your mission. The more you resist the more those who run the program are encouraged to hurt you to tempt you to break. The only major caveat they are asked to observe is not to break any major bones.

Comforting.

The S.E.R.E. school was developed and founded by one of the heroes of my war, the Vietnam War, but few outside of the Special Forces (Green Berets) community ever heard of him.

James "Nick" Rowe was a young lieutenant serving as an advisor with South Vietnamese troops early in that war when he was captured and became a Prisoner of War. I met Nick Rowe much later and did a feature story for a local newspaper about his war experiences leading to S.E.R.E.

I also wrote about Nick Rowe in a semi-autobiographical novel I self-published, "The Crossland Shootout." The part about Col. Rowe is not fictional. Here's an excerpt, if I may quote myself.

Nick Rowe learned how to survive, evade, resist and escape the hard way, by surviving five years of captivity in Vietnam, becoming the first American prisoner of war to successfully escape in that long war. He later wrote a book about it, "Five Years to Freedom."
I met the colonel when I did that SERE feature story, and in the interview I did with him he recalled the crucial moment when he was at the end of his rope, beaten and bloody from repeated torture and starvation, about to give in to whatever his captors demanded just to get a little relief, or maybe just to give up and die.
In that moment, the young Green Beret said he recalled just the first five words of the 23rd Psalm, which he had learned as a boy in Sunday School back in Texas. "The Lord is my shepherd."
That was all he could recall in his search for spiritual strength at that defining moment of his life, but he said he held onto that, repeating it over and over until one word stood out.
My. When I saw that word in my mind's eye, I grabbed on to it. I made the Lord my personal shepherd right then and there, and from that point on, I found the strength to keep on resisting."
And he resisted finally to the point of his successful escape.
His resistance had finally marked him for death, when the Viet Cong who had been holding him prisoner for five years finally decided they couldn't break Nick Rowe and were transporting him under guard to a North Vietnamese prison for his execution.
Then the Good Shepherd who gave Nick Rowe strength to survive intervened. The Viet Cong patrol stumbled into a helicopter sweep by U.S. forces and Nick Rowe evaded his captors and escaped.
And for that escape, Nick Rowe knew he was a marked man. The death sentence passed on him by the North Vietnamese kept him from going back to Vietnam, so he spent the rest of that war in the U.S.

I saw the colonel again just before he took an overseas assignment to the Philippines, back when we still had a big military base there. It was closed in recent cutback times.
He had advanced to one rank shy of a general's star and told me he knew he had to take another overseas assignment if he ever expected to make general.
In what I later realized was a prophetic moment, he told me one of his buddies asked him if he was going back over there where the communist guerrillas were still fighting to do some research for another book. He said he replied, "I hope not."
But that's the way it turned out, except Nick Rowe didn't get to write about this research. The communist guerrillas in the Philippines carried out the death contract the North Vietnamese put on Nick Rowe's head for escaping. He was assassinated with his driver one morning on his way to work in Manila in an ambush by the guerrillas.

As the Bible says in Hebrews about the heroes of the faith, "of whom the world was not worthy."

Like the Marine and the Navy pilot McCullough writes about, the world is not worthy of such men and women who have fought and died for our freedom. We owe them everything. And they ask of us nothing. At the bare minimum, we owe them our respect, loyalty and support.

Watchwords of the coming Obama Presidency

Every now and then a politician slips up and utters the truth. Such episodes are normally called gaffes. Obama committed one yesterday.

The One announced his choice for Education Secretary, one of his basketball-playing buddies from Chicago, and with the announcement tossed in a sweetener, a paltry $10 billion for “early childhood education,” which according to the Noo Yawk Times has educators all “atremble.”

After years of what they call backhanded treatment by the Bush administration, whose focus has been on the testing of older children, many advocates are atremble with anticipation over Mr. Obama’s espousal of early childhood education.

In the presidential debates, he twice described it as among his highest priorities, and his choice for secretary of education, Arne Duncan, the Chicago schools superintendent, is a strong advocate for it.

And the $10 billion Mr. Obama has pledged for early childhood education would amount to the largest new federal initiative for young children since Head Start began in 1965. Now, Head Start is a $7 billion federal program serving about 900,000 preschoolers.

“People are absolutely ecstatic,” said Cornelia Grumman, executive director of the First Five Years Fund, an advocacy group. “Some people seem to think the Great Society is upon us again.”

Despite the recession, Mr. Obama has emphasized his interest in making strategic investments in early childhood education. Asked if the financial troubles might force him to scale back, Jen Psaki, a spokeswoman for the transition, said, “We simply cannot afford to sideline key priorities like education.”

Uh, hold on a minute there Cornelia. I survived President Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” which even liberal historians agree was a dismal failure. LBJ, AKA Lend ‘Em Billions Johnson, spent billions on welfare programs that in the end resulted in more poverty in America, not less.

But the President-elect who is so ignorant of history that he prefaces his biggest whoppers with the Nixonian lie “Let me be perfectly clear” is also apparently ignorant of LBJ’s negative legacy, since he refers to his $10 billion funding promise as “making strategic investments.”

In case you’re not educated yet on Obamaspeak, let me be perfectly clear what a “strategic investment” is: A whopping big tax hike. Sorta like spreading Joe the plumber’s wealth around. And now we have a new Obamaspeak uttered in the context of his federal education plans.

Even though federal control and funding of public education is miniscule – with the sole exception of unworkable federal “reforms” such as the infamous “No Child Left Behind” regulations – Obama said he does have a plan for reforming our public schools: “Rhetorical outreach.”

When I heard that term uttered on Fox TV news last night, I realized that here we have the watchwords of the Obama Administration. “Rhetorical outreach” describes exactly what Obama does best, in fact the only thing he has any experience with, the man who will soon be President who has never run nothing but his mouth. Us rednecks have two other words for "rehetorical outreach:" B.S.

“Rhetorical outreach” is how he plans to make the oceans recede and sunshine break through all over our troubled planet. Plus a $1 trillion economic incentive package. Plus a few billion here and a few billion there for any pet program he cares to add to his “Great Society II.”

As the late Sen. Everett Dirksen said, a few billion here and a few billion there and after a while it adds up to some real money. And where will all these billions come from? The Federal Reserve has already lowered the fed bank’s interest rate for loans to our nation’s banks to 0 percent.

Where do we go from here? Negative interest rates? “OK bankers, step right up, the Fed bank will pay you 1 percent to take our free money!”

There ain’t no free lunch. Somebody has to pick up the tab for “strategic investments” by your federal guvmint. It’s called tax increases.

And while I’m on the topic of “strategic investments” by your federal guvmint, Obama also announced yesterday another gov.-given “right.”

The Washington Post breathlessly reports today on “President-elect Barack Obama's call to bring high-speed Internet to all Americans.”

So far, Obama has not put a price tag on that “right” but an industry trade group has tossed the figure of $25 billion on the table for discussion.

So in addition to ordering the oceans to recede and the sun to shine all over the world, Obama will also end “the heartbreak of dial-up.”

In case you’re trying to add up all the billions and trillions Obama has already promised, forget it. Uncle Sam is already officially bankrupt.

Here's a short editorial to make you sit up straight, courtesy of the Washington Examiner:

The United States of America is bankrupt. Don’t believe it? Consider this: Federal obligations now exceed the collective net worth of all Americans, according to the New York-based Peter G. Peterson Foundation. Washington politicians and bureaucrats have essentially mortgaged everything We the People own so they can keep spending our tax dollars like there’s no tomorrow.

The foundation’s grim calculations are based on Sept. 30 consolidated federal statements, which showed that Americans’ total household net worth, diminished by falling stock prices and home equity, is $56.5 trillion. But rising costs for unfunded social programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security increased to $56.4 trillion – and that was before the more recent stock market crash, $700 billion bank bailout, and monster federal deficits chalked up in October and November.

“Given more recent developments, it’s clear that America now owes more than its citizens are worth,” said Foundation president David M. Walker, who has been trying to warn Americans of the coming financial tsunami for years, to no avail. So, after Uncle Sam bails out bankers, Wall Street gamblers, carmakers and over-their-head homeowners, who’ll bail out Uncle Sam?

And one more perhaps unrelated news item caught my eye this morning, a story about the mysterious galactic stuff called “dark energy.”

"We've discovered this incredible dark energy; we don't understand what the hell it is," said Lawrence M. Krauss, a physicist at Arizona State University.

Now there’s a Freudian slip of the tongue if I ever heard one. One of these days, the truth about “dark energy” will be revealed and it will not be a physicist who discovers it. The Bible tells us what it is now and where it is: Hell, the place that Jesus Christ described as “outer darkness.”

So that's my God and grits report for today. Can't believe I didn't get in a word about guns.

Fighting a lonely war far from home at Christmas

War correspondent Michael Yon, the Ernie Pyle of our day, reports good news and bad news from the frontlines of the war on terror.

The war in Iraq has ended. Violent elements remain, but they no longer threaten the very fabric of Iraq. The Iraqi Army, police and government continue to outpace the elements that would prefer to see Iraq in chaos. Iraq is no longer an enemy. There is no reason for us to ever shoot at each other again.

That's the good news. Now the bad news from Yon, who always tells it just like it is.

But Afghanistan is a different story. I write these words from Kandahar, in the south. This war here is just getting started. Likely we will see severe fighting kicking off by about April of 2009. Iraq is on the mend, but victory in Afghanistan is very much in question.

While Americans sleep tight in their beds, this time of year U.S. soldiers sit shivering through the frigid, crystal clear nights at remote outposts in places most of us have never heard of and will never see.

Often they head out into the enveloping darkness, to hunt down and destroy terrorists, who continue to kill innocent Afghans, Americans, Aussies, Balinese, Brits, Indians, Iraqis, Pakistanis, Spanish ... in short, anyone who opposes their violent tyranny. Their greatest weapons are ignorance and terror. Witness the latest unprovoked attack on our friends in India.

These enemies have no wish to reconcile with their fellow countrymen, or compromise in any way that would diminish their control of the lives of the ordinary Afghans who don't share their feral vision of life. They throw acid in the faces of little girls whose only crime is that they go to school. So we must continue to send our toughest men to confront them eye to eye, while performing the difficult balancing act of not alienating those who intend us no harm. This is particularly difficult in Afghanistan, a proud nation with a deep tradition of antipathy toward outsiders - even those who are here to help, though I am finding many Afghans clearly do not want us to leave.

The hard work is especially difficult when our troops are spread perilously thin. Over the last nearly two weeks I've spent time with teams whose nearest ground support is too far away, and too small anyway, to help them when they get into serious trouble, which happens all the time.

Some of these groups are too far out for helicopters to reach within any reasonable amount of time, and so their only choice often is "CAS," or Close Air Support: jets with bombs. Sadly, despite the extreme precautions I have seen our people taking in Iraq and now Afghanistan, we are bound to make some mistakes, which the enemy exploits to full potential. In fact, there are reports that I believe credible that the enemy is actively trying to bait us into bombing innocent people. Such is the savagery of the Taliban and associated armed opposition groups (AOGs).

In Part Two of Yon's report on the war in Afghanistan, he writes about a little-known element of the coalition forces, Lithuanian Special Forces.

U.S. and Afghan soldiers in Zabul Province give high marks to the Lithuanian Special Forces, who like to ride these captured Taliban motorbikes (photo at top) to sneak up on, and chase Taliban fighters. The "LithSof" are on their way to becoming living legends: Both Afghans and Americans report that the Taliban are afraid of the Lithuanians. Stories about them are filled with dangerous escapades and humor.

Americans say that the Lithuanians are sort of a weaponized version of Borat, who think nothing of sauntering around a base in nothing but flip-flops and underwear. "They look like mountain men. They never shave, sometimes don't bathe, and often roll out the gate wearing nothing but body armor and weapons. Not even a t-shirt," an American soldier told me. The Lithuanians may be a little bit nuts, but the Americans love to have them around because Lithuanians love to fight, and when you need backup, you can count on them. That contrasts starkly with many of the NATO "partners."

Maybe when your country spends almost a half-century with the Soviet boot on its neck, its first generation of free soldiers know what freedom is worth - and that you sometimes have to fight for it.

Try to get that mental image out of your head, Lithuanian soldiers riding Taliban motorcycles wearing nothing but body armor and weapons.

If you'd like to do something to support our troops and their loved ones at Christmas, here ya go:

The Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund

SoldiersAngels

The United Warrior Survivor Foundation

Naval Special Warfare Foundation

Operation Enduring Christmas

Operation Support Our Troops

What to do 'When all hell breaks loose in your life'

"If all hell has not yet broken loose in your life it soon will."

Now there's a comforting thought to start your day, ain't it? So writes one of my favorite columnists, Mike Adams. This former atheist, now a conservative Christian, has penned a thought-provoking missive for these troubled economic times when it seems the whole world has turned sour.

It should go without saying that I’m always pleased to hear when a reader turns to Christ. There’s no greater joy than hearing the good news that someone has accepted the Good News. By the same token, there is nothing more devastating than hearing of a reader turning away from Christianity. That happened to me recently when a fellow I once witnessed to said, “I still believe in God but I feel like he only intervenes in my life when he wants to (expletive) with me.”

The fellow who told me that also said he was not a “conservative Christian” like me but instead a “more liberal Christian.” He may or may not know that he’s on the verge of no longer being a Christian at all.

Perhaps the most accurate thing my reader has recently said about Christianity is that I am a conservative Christian. That conservatism is reflected in two things I believe to be absolutely certain about the life of a Christian:

1) I believe that - because we live in a world broken by sin and occupied by fundamentally flawed individuals - storms are inevitable. If all hell has not yet broken loose in your life it soon will. Chaos would not be so pervasive if people were as fundamentally good as the so-called liberal Christian deems them to be.

2) When all hell breaks loose in life, each individual is faced with the choice of moving toward the Cross or away from the Cross. Every person in every tumultuous situation chooses one or the other of these two options. A man has no one but himself to blame for the consequences of making the wrong decision – though the so-called liberal Christian probably dislikes my emphasis on free will.

When one responds to tragedy by moving towards the Cross it is impossible to believe that God only intervenes in men’s lives when he wants to (expletive) with them. The closer one moves to the Cross, the more one understands that God really is willing to intervene in the lives of men. One also understands that God does it because he loves all of his children and wants to have a real and permanent relationship with them.

Amen, brother Mike. Read the whole thing and you'll be ready when all hell breaks loose.

Ammo Ban and Registration Laws considered in 18 states

Know what's selling better than guns right now? Ammo. Us gun nuts ain't stupid. Word has gotten out that to date, 18 states are considering laws that would effectively ban all ammo now manufactured. Every single round. I know gun nuts like moi who have a fair stash of ammo and others more prudent than moi who have many thousands of rounds stashed away. If these new state laws go into effect -- or worse, if a federal law is adopted -- only expensive ammo with micro-stamping would be legal and all current stocks of ammo would become illegal.

Obviously, gun nuts know about this because ammo sales have skyrocketed even faster than guns sales since Obama got elected. I ordered some ammo online two weeks after the election from one of the major ammo dealers and I'm still waiting for my order to be shipped. Last word I got from the dealer was that it will be at least 2-3 more weeks before my order will be shipped.

The NRA-ILA has the lowdown:

Happy Holidays: Now dispose of all of your ammunition! Every last round! From now on, you will be able to buy only overpriced ammunition that will be registered to you in a government database.

Not yet--at least for now. A small company, Ammunition Accountability--which wants to help anti-gunners price and regulate the Second Amendment out of existence, profit at the expense of our rights, or both--has found radical anti-gun legislators in 18 states willing to introduce bills pushing such nonsense.

But few anti-gun proposals are so overtly aimed at destroying the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. As we began noting on www.nraila.org in January, so-called “encoded ammunition” or “serialized ammunition” bills would require ammunition manufacturers to engrave a serial number on the base of the bullet and the inside of the cartridge casing of each round of ammunition for popular sporting caliber center-fire rifles, all center-fire pistols, all .22 rimfire rifles and pistols, and all 12 gauge shotguns. In all but one of the bills, people would be required to forfeit all personally owned non-“encoded” ammunition. After a certain date, it would be illegal to possess non-“encoded” ammunition. Reloading would be rendered illegal.

People would be required to separately register every box of “encoded ammunition” and the registration would be supplied to the police. Each box of ammunition would have a unique serial number, thus a separate registration. Gun owners would have to maintain records if they sell ammunition to anyone, including family members or friends. The cost of ammunition would soar, for police and private citizens alike. The Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturing Institute estimates it would take three weeks to produce ammunition currently produced in a single day. A tax of five cents a round would be imposed on private citizens, not only upon initial sale, but every time the ammunition changes hands thereafter.

And to what benefit in terms of fighting crime? Criminals already steal guns and would certainly steal ammunition. Burglaries would be encouraged. Criminals could also use shotguns, which fire pellets too small to encode, and which use shell casings made of plastic, which would be difficult to engrave. Criminals could also collect ammunition cases from shooting ranges, and reload them with molten lead bullets made without serial numbers.

Congress eliminated a handgun ammunition sale recordation requirement in 1983, because there was no law enforcement benefit. Be on the lookout in your states in the next legislative session for anti-gun zealots who refuse to learn from history, plus continue their crusade against our Second Amendment rights.

For more information on this issue, please visit www.nraila.org/Issues/FactSheets/Read.aspx?id=227&issue=005, and www.nraila.org/Issues/Articles/Read.aspx?id=289.

Cerf writes job description for Obama's CTO

Vint Cerf, inventor of the Internet (Really? I thought Al Gore did that), responds to a question about Obama's promise to name a chief technology officer (CTO) for his administration. Cerf is now working for Google as "Internet Evangelist," ironically the same job title as my brainiest former boss at the now defunct Koz.com Internet business, Doug Patton. Cerf makes it clear he is not interested in the CTO gig under Obama. I suspect it would be a huge pay cut.

Breaking news bulletins...

Question. Is Obama so ignorant of recent American political history that he does not know what former President always said "Let me make this perfectly clear..." before telling a huge whopper? Or is this his tongue-in-cheek imitation of Nixon as he tells his latest whopper?

"Let me make this perfectly clear. I have had no contact with Rod Blagojevich ... or Jesse Jackson Jr."

This shocking news just in from our Washington bureau:

Evil Republicans in the U.S. Senate have conspired to hasten the end of the world as we now know it by defeating the Detroit bailout plan for the United Auto Workers, heroically passed earlier by Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats plus a few RINOs.

A spokesman for the UAW called the Senate vote "a victory for all courageous $78-per-hour blue-collar workers," noting the Union had courageously held its ground by refusing all concessions demanded by evil Republicans in the Senate.

In other news, this just in from our news bureau in Springfield, Illinois:

The Illinois Legislature has passed a major bill to put a positive spin on recent developments in state and national politics. A new state motto has been adopted with bipartisan support: "Some of our politicians haven't been indicted, yet!"

And this bulletin just received from the Chicago, Ill., Imaginary Office of the President-Elect:

President-Elect Barack Hussein Obama showed his concern for the growing political scandal in Illinois politics by taking a brief pause from his rehearsal practice for the inaugural oath. Lowering his right hand and removing his left hand from the Koran, Obama turned to the camera and said, sincerely with a sad and solemn voice:

"This is not the Governor Rod Blagojevich that I once knew." When reporters responded with a barrage of questions, Obama said his announcement was only a photo opportunity. But when questions persisted, he responded with one other brief statement: "This is not the Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. that I once knew either."

In other major news from Hollywood:

Famed film-maker Michael Moore has announced a blockbuster cast for his latest docudrama, coming to a screen near you just in time to bring a bit of holiday cheer to these troubled times. Congresspersons Barney Frank and Maxine Waters will play themselves as the co-inventors of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as the lead roles in "When Freddie Met Fannie."

Ex-President Bill Clinton will co-star as the President who successfully kept America out of the War on Terror for eight years while leading the peacetime economic expansion of Freddie Mae and Fannie Mac and establishing the twin Clinton legacies of "Peace and Prosperity In Our Time."

Moviegoers will probably want to go out for popcorn and a stiff drink for a few minutes during the brief depiction of the eight years of soon-to-be Ex-President George W. Bush's administration, which begins with his launching of the War on Terror on 9/11 and ends with him forcing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into bankruptcy, bringing about the economic collapse leading to The Great Depression II.

But be sure to be back in your seats for the final minutes, when President-elect Barack Hussein Obama will make triple cameo appearances. First, he will play himself as the Illinois Senator receiving the "Friend of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae Award."

And the film will end on a high note with President-Elect Obama in a second cameo appearance as Presidential-candidate Obama, doing a dramatic rendition of his "The Oceans Shall Recede!" speech, wearing the same robe Charlton Heston wore as Moses in "The Ten Commandments" and holding the staff of Moses in his outstretched arm.

The dramatic ending of the film is an amazing political prophecy by Moore. Obama will make his third cameo as President Barack Hussein Obama, still wearing the robe of Moses and carrying his staff, with which he will tap on both shoulders Al Gore, inventor of Global Warming, as he appoints him Czar of Receding Oceans.

We now return to your regular news programs by the mainstream-media Obama network.

India gun control enabled Mumbai massacre

What happens when government decides to disarm all citizens? Like for instance, Mumbai, India?

So where do terrorists prefer to strike, amongst armed citizens, or in "gun free zones"? The Ridley Report covers the question the media isn't even asking, much less answering about Mumbai.

Coming to America soon, gun-free zones from coast to coast. Come on down, Osama! We're ready.

National Parks To Allow Right-To-Carry

Just received this notice from NRA-ILA:

The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), through the National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, has announced the final amended version of its changes to rules on carrying of firearms in national parks and wildlife refuges. DOI's move will restore the rights of law-abiding gun owners who wish to transport and carry firearms for lawful purposes on most DOI lands, and will make federal law consistent with the state law in which these public lands are located. NRA led the effort to amend the existing policy regarding the carrying and transportation of firearms on these federal lands.

About time, but how long will it take the incoming Obama administration and whoever he picks for Interior Secretary to overturn this rules change? Not long, I'm betting. Enjoy your freedom while you can, gun owners and concealed-carry-permit holders. You are now free to move about armed in parks.

Buy guns & ammo now before gun-grabbers ban

I just received this little gem from Gunbroker.com in their December newsletter. The gunshop in North Carolina cited is not identified, but I strongly suspect it is Jim's Gun Jobbery in Fayetteville, largest gun shop in NC.

Jim's has been quoted by several newspapers across the nation as having record sales since the election, so it's a pretty good bet that's where this information came from.

One of the readers of my blog posted a comment anonymously just before the election giving me a hard time for saying Obama is anti-gun. His/her response was Obama won't be as bad as I think he will be. Maybe so, but huge numbers of gun owners or wantabe gun owners are voting with their wallets since the election that Obama and the Democrat-majority Congress will do exactly what they've done in the past when in power, ban guns.

If they don't, fine. Us gun nuts will just have a few extra arms and ammo than we had planned on buying anyway and just hadn't got around to it. But if it does turn out as bad as us gun nuts expect, well, better buy now while you can. Besides, if the bans are passed, our high-capacity rifles and pistols will appreciate in value smartly, probably more than gold and almost certainly be a better investment than the stock market and other so-called "securities," which are all headed in a downward direction lately and show no signs of a turnaround anytime soon.

If you're a gun nut or just a concerned citizen for your own safety and your loved ones, better to buy now while you can than to wait to see what happens only to find out you're too late to buy.

Hooray! Georgia votes for Saxby Chambliss

Finally, some good news for us right-wing gun-nuts, good ol' Georgia voted for Saxby Chambliss.

Now if Norm Coleman can hold off Al "I'm a blooming idiot and proud of it" Franken, the GOP might be able to head off some of the nuttier attempts at leftwing legislation, as in gun-grabbers.

To paraphrase what one of the few Democrats with a lick of sense said, retired U.S. Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia, I may already have more guns than I need, but I don't have as many guns as I want.

Of course, Obama will very likely be the second coming of Jimmy Carter, if not worse, but at least Georgia voters have got smarter since they got burned so badly by the peanut farmer from Plains.

Fred Thompson explains how Washington will save us

Fred Thompson, an actual adult who survived Washington, has a few words of clarity about the economy for this gloomy holiday season. If you can't figure out what "reputable, liberal economists" are doing, Fred explains the battle plan in clear terms. Allow me to paraphrase: When you're in a hole, don't stop digging. Dig faster and deeper and sooner or later you'll dig yourself out. Really.

Bayonet for your pistol; chainsaw for your AR

I thought the bayonet attachment for the CZ75 SP01 I bought was a bit over the top.

But this guy over at the Firearm Blog is way beyond over the top. He upped the ante with a full-auto chainsaw attachment to his AR-15.

Just having fun.

President-elect Obama's first international crisis

Who is this "fat little bastard" as Blackfive describes him, and why is he in the news? He's the sole survivor of the 16 terrorists who attacked multiple "soft targets" in Mumbai, India. Uncle Jimbo says this twerp is the only one of the merry band who didn't follow orders to "kill until the last breath." Jimbo also notes they were far from a bunch of pros, firing from the hip like they learned how to shoot in video games. But they did kill many innocent civilians and some Indian military and police and have fomented another looming war between Pakistan and India.

Remember how Joe Biden "guaranteed" Obama would have an international crisis to deal with very soon in his administration? How about before he's even inaugurated? India vs. Pakistan war is looking more likely by the day and hour and it may start before Jan. 20, the Obama Hour.

Bill Roggio has the startling news that the sole survivor of the Mumbai, India terrorist attackers has fingered the Pakistani military and intelligence service as helping set up the attacks.

The only member of the jihadi assault team captured during the Mumbai attacks has fingered several Pakistani organizations as providing support to the group, according to reports in the Indian press.

Ajmal Amir Kasab, also known as Azam Amir Kasav, was captured by police after a shootout near the docks in southern Mumbai. He was wounded and feigned death but was picked up by police after he was seen breathing.

The siege in Mumbai lasted 62 hours and claimed more than 195 lives. Terror assault teams held the city hostage as they fanned out through the city and attacked policemen, five-star hotels, a train station, a cinema, a cafe, and a residential complex.

Kasab has provided details on how his team of 16 terror commandos departed Karachi, linked up with a freighter carrying arms, hijacked an Indian fishing boat, and infiltrated into Mumbai via inflatable rafts. [See Indian commandos end 62-hour siege of Mumbai.]

Kasab has implicated the Pakistani Navy and the Dawood Ibrahim criminal network based in Karachi for providing assistance and training for the Mumbai assault team, police sources told India Today. The plot to attack Mumbai was hatched more than a year ago, Kasab told police.

According to the police sources, Kasab said 20 Pakistanis began training in terror camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir more than one year ago. The group trained in the Kashmiri camps "almost five-and-half months, during which the terrorist were taught the use of sophisticated arms and ammunition."

After the training at the Kashmiri camps, the group was "given a month's leave and were ordered to gather in Karachi after the break for training in boating, rowing and swimming by the Pakistan Navy."

The terrorists were then given maps and other information on their targets in Mumbai and trained in attacking the targets, India Today reported. Earlier, Kasab said several members of the assault team visited Mumbai to scout the targets and familiarize themselves with the city.

Any way you slice it, this does not look good. Pakistan fighting off India means they won't be doing any more fighting against Osama's thugs hiding and training in the mountains of Pakistan.

And who knows what will happen if the two nuclear-armed powers go to war -- again. One great big international hairball, ready and waiting for the new President Obama to cut his teeth on.

Assault rifles, hi-cap pistols are today's 'Redneck Gold'

I visited eight North Carolina gun shops in my area over the past few days and I can report that the gun-buying public in Moore, Richmond, Anson, Hoke, Scotland and Cumberland counties and surrounding areas is in an assault-rifle-buying frenzy. Yeah I know, big surprise. All types of assault rifles, AK and AR design, have shot up in price some 200 percent since Obama won.

Only one gun shop I visited today in Fayetteville was singing the blues. Why? They'd sold out of all their assault rifles and couldn't get more from their suppliers who are all back-ordered.

Jim's Gun Jobbery in Fayetteville is semi-famous for winning in court against the feds in September. The ATF had been trying since 2005 to revoke the store's license, but a federal judge ruled the tiny amount of paperwork errors cited were insignificant, not to mention not wilful since the attorney for the store introduced evidence that the store's owner, Jim Faircloth, has instituted training programs for his employees to eliminate the paperwork errors.

The Fayetteville store made the papers again in a story two weeks after the election, reporting more guns sold on a Saturday than the previous Christmas Eve. And business was booming when I dropped in today with clerks handing out assault rifles as customers were buying briskly.

Same story at all the other stores I've been in lately, except for those sold out of assault rifles. At Guns Plus in Spring Lake, on the other side of the huge Fort Bragg Army base in Fayetteville, more of the same was going on with guys and gals lined up at the counter to buy all kinds of guns, long guns, short guns, shot guns, rifles, pistols -- even knives and clubs.

I guess you can say guns are sorta "Redneck gold." Us poor ol' rednecks can't afford to be hoarding a bunch of gold in these uncertain economic times, but we can afford a gun or two or three. I'm hoping to get at least a couple more semi-auto pistols that hold more than 10 rounds before the assault-weapons ban hits the fan. And maybe a Charter Arms Bulldog .44 Special snubby revolver, too. One of my gun buddies is predicting we're going to see a "Saturday Night Special" ban that will include all snubby revolvers, from the cheapest hunk of pot metal to the top quality Smith & Wessons and others, all chunked into the same sack and tossed in the deep.

The boss lady behind the counter at Jim's Guns said she's even heard there's been legislation filed that will even stop the sales of .22 rifles! Is nothing sacred? That's really sacrilege, threatening our .22s! Even liberal Democrats might have a .22 firearm. Sheer madness. I've already got two .22 rifles and a .22 pistol, but I just might have to get another one or two.

As Zell Miller said, I've already got more guns than I need, but I don't have as many guns as I want. And any money I spend on "redneck gold" will certainly keep its value and will even appreciate madly if Obama and his gun-grabbing pals do what everybody expects them to.

Have you seen 'How Obama Got Elected'?

Here's the video 1.4 million people have seen on youtube and is enraging the nutroots. I've heard people talking about how ridiculous it is but I didn't realize it was enraging the lefties so. Fun!

Stay tuned for the full-length documentary, "Media Malpractice... How Obama Got Elected"

Amanda Carpenter at Townhall.com says the video has got the nutroots frothing at the gills. She said the video author had no idea he'd get such a reaction, but he's having loads of fun.

"Ziegler argues that he never intended to make Obama supporters look bad. Rather, they could not answer the questions because the media misinformed them throughout the election. He admits his interviews were not “scientific” but he did commission Zogby to conduct a poll asking the same questions. The Zogby poll found 57.4 percent of Obama supporters could not correctly say which party controls Congress. Only 6.2 percent of those same supporters failed to identify Palin as having a pregnant daughter. See poll results here."

RINOs lead the way to Clinton Ban Reauthorization

Why wait for Obama and the Democrat gun-grabbers when RINOs will do it for them?

Rep. Mark Kirk [R-IL] (or should it be R-Ill, which is what he makes me?) has introduced a bill to reauthorize the Clinton assault weapons ban of 1993. To date he has these RINOs also signed on.
Cosponsors [as of 2008-11-07]
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen [R-FL]
Rep. Michael Ferguson [R-NJ]
Rep. Christopher Shays [R-CT]
Rep. Michael Castle [R-DE]

H.R. 6257: Assault Weapons Ban Reauthorization Act of 2008.

Whoopee. How many Democrats will flock to the RINO banner? The line forms at the left. Way left.

Meet Logan, The Sky Angel Cowboy

A young boy on a ranch has wisdom beyond his years. It all started with a phone call from 13-year-old boy in Nebraska to a Christian radio station. Since then his story has spread around the world and millions have heard his words of faith and hope. Eternal hope, not the political kind. Gives you encouragement that maybe this country ain't going to hell in a handbasket after all. At least, not all of it.

Preparing for the Obama presidential administration

I share the same state with Mike Adams, but unfortunately we have not met and he is not a friend of mine. But I sure wish he was. Adams saw the McCain defeat coming and took action to prepare for the Obama presidency. How? By buying five guns and giving them away to friends.

Adams writes about this in his reply to "Deb" who wrote him to complain. Deb wrote:

The hate-mongering and fear-spreading used by the Right to try to salvage its power has frightened perfectly normal members of my family into thinking that the Obama presidency will bring us a totalitarian government. If you are really a scholar, then you know that this is all hokum.

Mike Adams responded:

Again, Deb, although I am a right-winger myself, I am in total agreement with you (except I doubt that every member of your family is “perfectly normal.”). The Obama presidency will not bring about a totalitarian government. The reason for this is pretty simple: The 46% of us who voted for John McCain are presently arming ourselves to the hilt.

Since I already have enough firearms to overthrow several Latin American governments, I’ve purchased five firearms and given them to friends and neighbors since it became apparent that McCain would not win the election. You did not ask me to but I’ve listed those five guns below as well as my reasons for giving them away:

Read Debbie Does Malice to find out which guns Mike Adams bought and gave away.

Why do bad things happen to children?

I just received an email from a Bible Q&A reader who asked me a piercing question.

Why do bad things happen to children? My 13-year-old son has brain cancer. I'm not dealing with it very well. He has had the tumor removed and all the treatment. Now it is very tough to sit and wait to see if it will come back. He was a great athlete and now he can hardly walk because of the effects of the surgery. How do I deal with all of this?

Brian M.

And here's my reply that I wrote to Brian M.

Dear Brian,

I will certainly begin praying for your son and will ask others in my church and other Christian friends to help pray for him also. Lots of evil happens in this world for which we have no explanation, your son's brain cancer being a sad example. It certainly isn't his fault or yours.

And answering why is really impossible. The closest thought I can offer is something I heard from a minister once. He answered the question "Why do bad things happen to good people?" in what is sort of a typical Jewish way, by asking another question instead of giving an answer. Have you ever noticed in Scripture how when Jesus was asked a question, He often replied with a question?

Anyway, this minister said instead of seeking an answer to that unanswerable question, perhaps we should consider the question "Why do good things happen to bad people?" because we are all sinners and if the Lord gave us what we deserve, none of us would get mercy, we're all guilty.

So the amazing thing about God is that instead of giving us the judgment we so richly deserve, instead He gives us grace and mercy through the gift of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And by faith in him, we find our sins forgiven and our souls saved for eternal life. That does not change the nature of evil in this world, nor stop bad things from happening to "good" people, saved Christians. But it does give us the assurance that there is a life beyond this one and we will live in God's kingdom eternally there. I hope your son is saved and if so, even if the Lord does not choose to answer my prayers and yours to heal him, you can be assured you will see him perfectly healthy and happy one day in heaven. There his great athletic ability will not only be restored, but even improved to the point of perfection in a new perfect body that will never get sick and live forever.

I hope this feeble answer is some encouragement. Please keep me informed about your son and your struggles with this terrible situation. If there's anything I can do, write or call me anytime.

Yours in Christ,
John Myers

Please add Brian and his son to your prayers.

Sarah whaps bomb-throwin' Bill; offers Obama energy help

Gov. Sarah Palin talks with Wolf Blitzer at CNN. She says she is not backing off her criticism of Barack Obama's association with Bill Ayers. Now that bomb-throwin' Bill's buddy is President-elect, how long before Ayers is doing sleepovers in the Lincoln bedroom of the White House?

Sarah also offers to help OJT President-elect Obama with energy issues. She does have executive experience in that area, including negotating a deal with Canada for an oil pipeline to connect Alaska to the lower 48. Sarah says she's ready if Obama really wants to be "bipartisan." Sure, when donkeys fly. I bet Sarah Barracuda is just about the only Republican that scares Obama right now. And with good reason. She's gonna slobberknock him come 2012.

How to turn victory into defeat in the Middle East

A disturbing and sober assessment of what President Barack Obama has promised to do in Iraq, exactly what he promised throughout the campaign, cut and run. Substitute retreat for victory.

William Rusher, veteran analyst, lays out the facts and the likely conclusions of Obama's plan.

The first big step of Barack Obama's administration, and quite possibly its defining achievement, will be abandoning America's military involvement in Iraq. Obama can argue, quite plausibly, that he has a mandate from the American people to do exactly that.

He certainly has made no secret of this intention. In September of last year, he asserted that "the best way to protect our security and to pressure Iraq's leaders to resolve their civil war is to immediately begin to remove our combat troops. Not in six months or one year, but now." And on May 16 this year, he spelled out his plan: "Nobody's talking about bringing them home instantly, but one to two brigades a month. It'll take about 16 months to get our combat troops out."

He has since been elected president of the United States, and there is no reason to suppose that he has changed his mind. So it is as predictable as anything in politics can be that we are indeed going to pull out of Iraq. The long effort to bring about a sensible solution to the problems of the Middle East is over. The Americans who died there, at the behest of our government, died in vain. The very short list of wars that America lost is about to receive a notable addition.

Whether the American people intended this result is certainly open to argument. But nobody can contend that Obama's decision is devoid of justification. He has been perfectly candid about his intention and has plenty of political support for it. Where it will lead, however, is -- to put it mildly -- open to debate.

The American withdrawal from Iraq will amount, for all practical purposes, to an American abandonment of any hope of influencing developments in the Middle East. There is no way we can pull out of Iraq and yet hope to retain any serious clout in that crucial region. Its vast supplies of oil are not essential to the United States (since we have other sources for it, at home and in the Western hemisphere) but are absolutely crucial to our allies in Western Europe and elsewhere. Control of those supplies by local powers in the Middle East, let alone more distant meddlers like Russia and China, will drastically alter the global balance of power.

How Obama intends to cope with this new strategic situation isn't clear. If he has a plan, he certainly hasn't revealed it. The European powers are in no condition to step in and impose the political stability that the Obama plan will wreck. And the notion that the local powers could do so by themselves is laughable. Within months, the whole region will simply be a plaything for troublemakers in Moscow and Beijing.

God help us. What happens in the Middle East matters to the whole world and to the U.S. I lived through the results of "declare victory and leave" in Vietnam. This loss will be much worse. It could spell the end of America's long-held and hard-fought position as leader of the free world.

"Who more than self, their country loved..."

The late Ray Charles, a genuine patriot, loved to sing the last two verses of “America the Beautiful” as a tribute to our nation. Here they are used as a soundtrack for images from every major war in the last 100 years in which Americans have fought. God bless America and our veterans.

Remembering a vet who gave all

I wrote the following remembrance on Sept. 11, 2001, a Veteran's Day to truly remember.

We're probably remembering our veterans with a bit more emotion this year than on previous Veterans Days, which I guess is always the case when America observes the holiday at a time when our men and women of the Armed Forces are engaged in combat.

At the Veterans Day observance at the Richmond County Veteran's Memorial Park in Rockingham on Friday, speaker Hugh Lee, a World War II veteran, reminded us of the Americans and our allies locked in combat in Afghanistan with a new type of enemy, the forces of terrorism.

But though this is a different type of war than any we've ever fought before, at core it comes down to the same bottom line - men and women have to go into harm's way to stop Osama bin Laden and his terrorists, just as they did to stop Hitler and Tojo 60 years ago.

Five WWII veterans were honored at the dinner at VFW Post 4203 with high school diplomas they never received when they went off to war so long ago. I'll have to agree with Tom Brokaw on this one point if nothing else, the WWII vets may well have been "The Greatest Generation," which is what he titled his book on that era.

But as I strolled through the Veteran's Memorial Park and looked at the monuments to WWII, Korean and Vietnam War veterans, my own thoughts went back to one of our Vietnam vets who gave all.

Lonnie Hoopaugh from Norman was a childhood friend, a classmate of mine through the 12th grade. I remember the first day of the first grade - back before they had kindergarten - and the teacher asked how many of us knew the alphabet already, pointing to the strange characters displayed at the top of the blackboard.

I didn't even know what the alphabet was, much less know its characters, and neither did anybody else in the class. But Lonnie raised his hand. The teacher only smiled and didn't ask him to recite the alphabet. If she had, I don't know what Lonnie would have said.

But one thing Lonnie never was as long as I knew him was bashful.

He was a little guy, short as a Banty rooster, which may have been why he made up for his lack of stature with a boldness and swagger. And that's at least one reason Lonnie is no longer with us. His older brother Wade, who still lives in Norman, told me in recent years that in 1968, Lonnie only had a little over a year left in his hitch in the Navy to serve and was stationed on a ship on the West Coast where he could have stayed and avoided the Vietnam War.

But Lonnie volunteered for the Navy's most dangerous duty, riverboat patrols in Vietnam. The "Brown Water Navy" as it was called, had the highest casualty percentage of any unit in that war, with 70 percent of its members either wounded or killed in Vietnam.

In January 1969, I had just arrived in Vietnam aboard the USS Mullinnix, DD-944, a destroyer, to begin a tour of gunline duty in support of our troops inland. I didn't know it until I returned to the states, but that was the month Lonnie was wounded and killed.

Lonnie was manning a .50 caliber machine gun on the fantail of his riverboat when a B40 rocket came arcing in and landed at his feet. He was evacuated by helicopter, but later died of his wounds.

Wade told me he has often asked himself over the years: Why did Lonnie die? Why did he volunteer to fight in our most unpopular war? The Vietnam War is still regarded as something far lesser than the conflicts that preceded and followed it, mainly because it was the first war America lost and hopefully the only one we ever lose.

If we learned nothing else from Vietnam, we learned how not to fight a war. We learned that Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara shouldn't have been picking targets and setting rules of engagement in Washington, D.C., while men and women were dying in Vietnam.

Civilian authority over the military is indeed part of our constitution, but I pray LBJ will be the last commander-in-chief who handcuffs our military by making such critical decisions for them.

So far, President George W. Bush is following the lead of his father in the Persian Gulf War, letting the military do the fighting while he does the leading. If we can remember the hard-learned lessons of Vietnam, perhaps there will never be another war like it.

My prayer this Veteran's Day is that President-elect Barack Obama doesn't dishonor the blood our men and women in uniform have already shed for victory in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sarah Barracuda bites hunk out of back-stabbers

First day back on the job as Governor of Alaska on Friday (how's that for a work ethic, starting a work-week on Friday!) and Sarah Barracuda has a few choice words for the back-stabbers.

Palin-McCain (Cindy, not John) for 2012!

Obama's instant economic stimulus plan is working

One of the leading Internet gun dealers where I shop reports:

...we have managed to stabilize our replacement cost on our best selling ARs and AKs. As reported on ABCs Nightline tonight, distributors nationwide raised prices as much as 200 percent on Wednesday.

How's that for an instant economic stimulus? Well, on second thought, the only economy getting stimulated is gun distributors who are price-gouging because they know their supply of assault rifles will soon be cut off by President Obama. It's called supply and demand. When supply goes down -- in this case to zero -- demand goes up and consequently the price goes up. So us gun buyers are the ones getting stimulated, but it ain't a good stimulus. More like a cattle prod.

But, you say, he's not even President yet, so why this sudden panic buying and price-gouging?

The NRA-ILA has the juicy details of President-Elect Obama's first "official" action.

Senator Barack Obama's presidential campaign slogan, "the audacity of hope," should have instead been "the audacity of deceit." After months of telling the American people that he supports the Second Amendment, and only hours after being declared the president-elect, the Obama transition team website announced an agenda taken straight from the anti-gun lobby--four initiatives designed to ban guns and drive law-abiding firearm manufacturers and dealers out of business:

"Making the expired federal assault weapons ban permanent." Perhaps no other firearm issue has been more dishonestly portrayed by gun prohibitionists. Notwithstanding their predictions that the ban's expiration in 2004 would bring about the end of civilization, for the last four years the nation's murder rate has been lower than anytime since the mid-1960s. Studies for Congress, the Congressional Research Service, the National Institute of Justice, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have found no evidence that gun prohibition or gun control reduces crime. Guns that were affected by the ban are used in only a tiny fraction of violent crime-about 35 times as many people are murdered without any sort of firearm (knives, bare hands, etc.), as with "assault weapons." Obama says that "assault weapons" are machine guns that "belong on foreign battlefields," but that is a lie; the guns are only semi-automatic, and they are not used by a military force anywhere on the planet.

"Repeal the Tiahrt Amendment." The amendment--endorsed by the Fraternal Order of Police--prohibits the release of federal firearm tracing information to anyone other than a law enforcement agency conducting a bona fide criminal investigation. Anti-gun activists oppose the restriction, because it prevents them from obtaining tracing information and using it in frivolous lawsuits against law-abiding firearm manufacturers. Their lawsuits seek to obtain huge financial judgments against firearm manufacturers when a criminal uses a gun to inflict harm, even though the manufacturers have complied with all applicable laws.

"Closing the gun show loophole." There is no "loophole." Under federal law, a firearm dealer must conduct a background check on anyone to whom he sells a gun, regardless of where the sale takes place. A person who is not a dealer may sell a gun from his personal collection without conducting a check. Gun prohibitionists claim that many criminals obtain guns from gun shows, though the most recent federal survey of convicted felons put the figure at only 0.7 percent. They also claim that non-dealers should be required to conduct checks when selling guns at shows, but the legislation they support goes far beyond imposing that lone requirement. In fact, anti-gun members of Congress voted against that limited measure, holding out for a broader bill intended to drive shows out of business.

"Making guns in this country childproof." "Childproof" is a codeword for a variety of schemes designed to prevent the sale of firearms by imposing impossible or highly expensive design requirements, such as biometric shooter-identification systems. While no one opposes keeping children safe, the fact is that accidental firearm-related deaths among children have decreased 86 percent since 1975, even as the numbers of children and guns have risen dramatically. Today, the chances of a child being killed in a firearm accident are less than one in a million.

I got a post from the aptly named "anonymous" here on my blog just before election day, commenting on an Obama anti-gun post I made.

No, he's not 100% pro-gun, but he's not as bad as the NRA is making him out to be.

Really? Just how anti-gun can he be? We shall see indeed.

Palinmania by left-wing media rolls on despite Obama's win

The campaign may be over, but media bashing of Sarah Palin sails right on. MSNBC (home of Keith "Worst Pundit in the World" Olbermann and Chris "Obama thrill up my leg!" Matthews) keeps the wolfpack baying, but Matt Lewis of Townhall.com comes to Sarah's defense. Why is the media so angry about Palin? Simple. They know a conservative winner when they see one. Her emergence was the real bright spot in this campaign and we definitely haven't seen the last of Sarah.

Anne sez: The Reign of Lame Falls Mainly on McCain

Anne Coulter showed Superwoman restraint during the campaign in holding her tongue and supporting John McCain as not as big a crap sandwich as Barack Obama. But now she's free.

How many times do we have to run this experiment before Republican primary voters learn that "moderate," "independent," "maverick" Republicans never win, and right-wing Republicans never lose?

Indeed, the only good thing about McCain is that he gave us a genuine conservative, Sarah Palin. He's like one of those insects that lives just long enough to reproduce so that the species can survive. That's why a lot of us are referring to Sarah as "The One" these days.

Like Sarah Connor in "The Terminator," Sarah Palin is destined to give birth to a new movement. That's why the Democrats are trying to kill her. And Arnold Schwarzenegger is involved somehow, too. Good Lord, I'm tired.

After showing nearly superhuman restraint throughout this campaign, which was lost the night McCain won the California primary, I am now liberated to announce that all I care about is hunting down and punishing every Republican who voted for McCain in the primaries. I have a list and am prepared to produce the names of every person who told me he was voting for McCain to the proper authorities.

We'll start with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist. Then we shall march through the states of New Hampshire and South Carolina -- states that must never, ever be allowed to hold early Republican primaries again.

For now, we have a new president-elect. In the spirit of reaching across the aisle, we owe it to the Democrats to show their president the exact same kind of respect and loyalty that they have shown our recent Republican president.

Read the whole thing if you like.

I think I shall join Anne in giving the "exact same kind of respect and loyalty" to Obama and the whole crowd of leftwing nutroots that they gave President George W. Bush. The loyal opposition has its work cut out for the next four years, at the minimum. Let the "respect" flow forth.

The beginning of the end of Democracy in America

The following quote is open to debate as it's authorship, but it is true whoever said it.

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.

Now consider this alarming statistic I heard on the news in post-election reporting: 52 percent of the voting public in America are on some form of governmental assistance. And that 52 percent voted for the candidate that promised them the largest handout from government. God help us.

Sore Loser Nader calls Obama an 'Uncle Tom'

Ralph "Leftwing Racist" Nader shows once again why he's less than irrelevant in politics today. Say goodbye, Ralph, and don't let the doorknob hit you where the Good Lord split you.

Schumer's Fairness Doctrine: Fox News same as pornography

Fairness doctrine coming soon for all conservative media sources, broadly hints Sen. Chuck Schumer. To the victor goes the power shut up those who don't agree with their views.

Election Letdown: Obama cultists can't cope with victory

After the victory party, now what?

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

A few presidential job interview questions for candidate Obama

Got 3:57 to spare? Let's ask Obama what he's done so far that makes him worthy of our votes.

Attack Ad On Obama--By Obama Himself

My beautiful young friend, Mary Katharine Ham, has a final shot for Obama. A look at the ever-evolving-changing-flip-flopping positions of the presidential candidate who stands for nothing ... and everything. As he often says, "I've always been for (whatever will get me elected)."

Obama's like the weather in Missouri. If you don't like it, wait a minute. It's always changing.

Obama flips off McCain just like he did to Hillary

Obama can't even be a gracious winner, he has proven once again, as he did with Hillary. He made a supposedly gracious speech today congratulating John McCain on his campaign, which Obama assumes will be a losing one, but just had to let that middle finger stand up one more time.

Now that's presidential material right there, President of the Outhouse, not the White House. If McCain pulls off the big upset I'm expecting him to do, Obama might just have a hissy fit.

Slippery Slope 3.0: How Low Does Obama's Tax-Hike Plan Go?

RNC scrambles to keep up with Obama's ever-lower tax-hike promises. The rich get poorer.

Pa. GOP throws Crazy Uncle Jeremiah into the ring

The Pennsylvania GOP throws the punch McCain has been pulling, not-rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's spiritual advisor for 20 years.