My Gun...My God...By God (and Constitution)

We're Now The Official Redneck's Dream State


As of the next election, everybody in the state of Georgia will have a Constitutional right to Hunt and Fish, at least if the voting goes the way that it's expected.

You see, while Georgia still remains a largely rural state, over half of the state's 9 plus million population lives in the metropolitian Atlanta area.

The new Constitutional Amendment is designed to head off a potential challenge to gun ownership rights and the anti-hunting bias that is becoming more and more evident over the past few years.

The source of these political undercurrents is the tens of thousands of carpetbaggers dang Yankee transplants our lovely northern neighbors that relocate here to Georgia each year, along with several generations of indigenous urban residents born and raised in Atlanta--far far away from the rural south in which I grew to know and love in my own youth.

Then there's the PETA folks (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) that are trying to tell us that hooking a 5 pound bass is cruel and unusual treatment, even if you release it unharmed back into your Grandpa's Pond rather than stuffing and mounting it on a plaque on the wall over your fireplace.

To me it's really sad how far our society has fallen in the process of so-called "progress", and how divergent our culture is growing as the "nanny state" mentality overtakes more and more people.

Having grown up hunting on a 360 acre family farm in Alabama and continuing to be allowed to fish on the five acre pond without a license, I just don't understand the idea of the government and a bunch of people that know nothing about it trying to tell me what I can and can not do on my own property, as long as I follow the long standing laws regarding game seasons and species limits.

After I go vote on Tuesday, I think I'll come home and clean my guns to celebrate...

If You've Waited Until Now...

Please Just Stay Home


Recently I’ve spent my time sitting here making faces at the TV most of the day because the news has pretty much been reduced to sounding like the newsletter from a pre-school or kindergarten.

"He hit me...she called me a name...they won't let me play with them..."

The Dems have elected to sequester all of their loudmouths the usual suspects the politicians that represent the true face of their party that aren’t up for (de)election--you know…Pelosi, Kennedy, and now Kerry after he stepped in a big pile of stinky stuff earlier in the week. They’re probably duct taped together in a warehouse on the lower east side watching the screech master Howard Dean practice his post election commentary.

On second thought, all they had to do was sail Kennedy out on his yacht with a few hundred cases of Scotch and some Hooters girls and if we’re lucky the SOB will decide to resign his Senate seat and spend his winter years filming Girls Gone Dead Wild videos. Kerry is at his podiatrist trying to get his foot removed from his mouth, and they handed San Francisco hippy chick Pelosi a half dozen new razors and told her to shave her legs and armpits--that should be good for at least a couple weeks of effort. (I’m a cruel, insensitive SOB…aren’t I?)

Meanwhile, in an effort to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, the Republicans have sat on their hands while the perverts in their midst were outed by the major media outlets and they whimpered and murmured about things not being fair.

Dang I wish the Libertarians would get off of their collective butts and field a few viable candidates in anything other than low level local elections.

Here in Georgia we basically have to sit by and watch if the House changes party hands because our incumbent Republicans have a lock for staying in office. Likewise, the state elections for Governor and state representatives are all yawners.

The most exciting thing here in Glynn county is deciding which incompetent imbecile will replace the incompetent imbecile in the offices of county commissioner and on the School Board.

Regardless, I can name the names of the candidates and I’ve followed the events leading up to the election, and in spite of having unlimited absentee ballots available and “early voting” this week, I’m waiting until next week to go cast my ballot because it just feels weird to me to vote in any other manner.

It's sort of like watching church services on TV rather than getting out of your Pjs, putting on a suit, and walking in the front door of the sanctuary on Sunday Morning.

Any way…as my title says, if you’ve waited until this week to figure out who is who and what is going on, I suspect that you have no clue about who to intellegently vote for--particularly in the national elections. I think that it’s better that you just stay home and watch “Oprah” and “Dancing with the Stars” rather than stumbling into a polling place and punching your “chads” based on the D or R symbol behind the candidate’s name.

But then again, just like having the right to vote, everyone has the God given, constitutionally guaranteed right to be STUPID, so who am I to say anything to anybody about their political decisions and the insanity of our current voting process?

Let’s Teach The Iraqis To Build Automobiles

Instead Of Blowing Them Up...


I'm sorry ladies and gentlemen, but I have to admit that I am SO TIRED of the politicalized rhetoric and discussion about a “timetable and plan” for pulling out of Iraq…and for that matter, ultimately leaving the ENTIRE Middle East to glare and stare at Israel and plot their next jihad attack here in the US.

Forget more military troops, I say that we send a bunch of Georgia Tech engineers over there with our slide rules and T-squares, ship over a few hundred thousand Japanese and Korean assembly robots, and toss in a few German ex-Mercedes and ex-BMW guys for good measure; and let them teach all of the dang towel heads lovely, yet angry, Muslims in Iraq to build mechanical camels automobiles.

Think about this idea with me for a minute…

I’ll wait…

Got it yet?

Think a little harder…

IF Islam is REALLY a peaceful religion, and IF the Muslims REALLY aren’t dead set (excuse the pun) on killing the rest of the world’s population that they can’t convert, then IF we set them up with auto design and manufacturing capability like Dr. Edward Deming did for the Japanese after WWII, then maybe Hammas , the PLO, and the rest of the Muslim world will follow suit like the Germans and South Koreans.

Praise Allah.

With the natives busy building thousands of their "Shia Kia", I believe that we could safely allow our troops to stand down and retreat to a few well positioned bases in Iran, Iraq, and all the "stan" countries just like we still maintain bases within the sovereign countries of Germany and Japan almost 62 years after the cessation of hostilities.

Do you suppose that then most of the Democrats and many of the liberal anti-war peacenicks could figure out how to remain silent 52 years after the creation of the “demilitarized zone” surrounding the 38th parallel, while still allowing tens if not hundreds of thousands of uneducated idiots (per John sKerry) young Military men and women to reside in country on South Korean bases without making it an election issue every two years?

You do understand what we ended up getting out of those deals by leaving troops in countries we had just defeated? (OK, in the case of communist North Korea, at least nearby?)

How about things like PEACE and and an overall lack of domestic hostilities like the current political bickering about the troop deployments in Iraq which we endure today.

Using the WWII/Korean War standards, Kerry and Murtha aren't constantly talking about closing Ramstein Air Base in Germany, Yakota Air Base in Japan, and “redeploying” the men and aircraft to England or Guam, so shouldn't Iraq‘s current short duration of deployment become a mute point?

Finally (“Buy American” slogans aside), almost everyone I know has had a BMW, Mercedes, Honda, Nissan, Toyota, Lexus, Infinity, or even a lowly Kia (which happens to build some great cars that are great values) sitting in their driveway at one time or another.

Face it...Americans love foreign cars.

Just imagine, if they implemented my plans, the Arabs would be too busy producing and shipping autos with full gas tanks to the rest of the civilized world to have time to spend issuing threats and edicts, chopping off heads, and blowing up IED's and car bombs.

Am I onto something here, or not???

WHAT, you don't agree?

Well, at least it couldn’t hurt to try…

.

You Got To Love It

I Do Stuff Like This Too...

No Good Deeds Go Unpunished

Miss Crappy Pants Strikes Again


I received some terrible news yesterday.

Our current condo board and management company elected to terminate the employment of our 60 year old landscaper and friend--Ozzy.

They elected to tell him on Monday that Tuesday (yesterday) would be his last day.

After serving the owners on a five day per week basis for over SEVENTEED YEARS, they gave him only one day notice and no severance pay.

I think that the situation TOALLY SUCKS.

How can you let someone work for you for that long and not at least give him two weeks notice?

After all, they weren’t firing him for his behavior or performance, but rather apparently as a cost cutting measure.

I know that the elected board is within their rights to make unpopular decisions, but let me tell you a little secret…

The truth is that many if not most of our elderly residents have enjoyed using Ozzy like their personal slave valet for the duration of his service out here, and people on previous boards knew it and looked the other way in public because they were the parties guilty of taking greatest advantage of Ozzy’s good nature and willingness to help.

You see, Ozzy took care of this property like it was his own, and he treated our elderly residents like they were his own parents.

Ozzy would drive our neighbors to the store and pharmacy, on company time, because they asked them to do it. The former board members did it. If the person was too sick to come outside, Ozzy would run errands to get medicine or whatever and most of them never did anything but say thanks--and that was all Ozzy expected.

I just did a calculation in my head and, over the past 31 months we’ve had no less that FIVE full time residents pass away, and SEVEN have either moved into assisted living or built bigger houses and moved outside of our 48 unit property.

That’s a 25% reduction in full time resident Seniors, and almost all of these departures served on the Board of directors at one time or the other.

But now, with the remaining beneficiaries seniors reduced down to two or three, they’ve decided that Ozzy is too expensive--he’s expendable.

Now I guess that we can look forward to having a hoard of Illegal Aliens descend on the property once every week or two, while Ozzy’s prospects to finding another similar position are rather grim at his age.

Ozzy taught me a great deal about the location of hidden things like water service valves, sprinkler controls, and other service related items that no one else knows. The standard situation was for a contractor to show up on the property and the first thing they had to do was ask Ozzy where things were.

In Ozzy’s defense, I’ll be damned if I tell anybody anything unless it affects OUR condo.

Good luck Ozzy, we’re gonna miss you…

.

Words to Live By

More Free Advice...


"You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well.

If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."


Best Regards,

John Kerry


MORE COMMENTARY BY YOURS TRUELY:

I just noticed this, but of course the Arab Newspaper/Website al Jazeera.net loves to spread storys like this to our enemies in the Arab world.

Way to go Mr. sKerry, way to take one for the team...er..um...exactly which team are you for anyway?


REVISION II--EVEN MORE INSANITY

This New York Daily News reports sKerry says he won't apologize!!!

Bush called the comment a major dis to U.S. troops.

"The senator's suggestion that the men and women of our military are somehow uneducated is insulting and it is shameful," the President said. "The senator from Massachusetts owes them an apology."

An angry Kerry insisted the line "was a botched joke about the President and the President's people, not about the troops."

His office said he meant to say it was the administration and its allies who were not smart and got "us stuck in a war in Iraq." "I apologize to no one for my criticism of the President and of his broken policy," [emphasis mine] Kerry fumed. "If anyone owes our troops in the fields an apology, it is the President."

Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran, also lashed out at "despicable Republican attacks" from "those who never can be found to serve in war."

"If anyone thinks a veteran would criticize the more than 140,000 heroes serving in Iraq and not the President who got us stuck there, they're crazy," he said in a statement.


Excuse me Mr. sKerry, I've got to go have my hearing checked, want to come along with me?

.

My Digeridoo's Here...My Digeridoo's Here

Hurray!!!


I bet I'm the only person you know that owns one of these:

(No, that's a wicker basket in the corner behind it, not part of the instrument...)

It came to the house via UPS on Monday, and all I've had time to do thus far is pull it out of the well padded box and rumble a few notes on it a couple of times.

Pat had forbidden me from playing it after 9 PM

The cool thing about this "Doo" is, quoting the website:

Crafted from start to finish by Aboriginal family Naiuwa. A great well balanced player with strong backpressure and an easy flowing tone. Seven tommy head lizards decorate this great flared didge. It was inspired by the lizards that scamper up and down the trees just outside Naiuwa's workshop.

I've already figured out how to get about three different variations on the droning sounds it makes and can change sounds at will, but in my middle aged decline I don't have enough wind to blow for more than about 20 seconds at a gasp.

The aboriginal players can do what's called "circular breathing" (I also could 30 years ago when I played the trumpet for three hours a day) which involves puffing your cheeks and pushing the air out of your mouth as you inhale through your nose.

Hey, even if I never appear at Carnege Hall with it, at least I'll be getting some good respiratory therapy.

Bought, Cut, Gutted, And Delivered

I'm Glad To Be Rid Of That One...




This is what the kids saw just before I hauled the hulking thing over to the local seniors home.



I'm TIRED...time to go practice scaring the squirrels and calling whales playing 10 Hz noises on my Digeridoo

It's The Great Pumpkin--Day One

Have I Bit Off More Than I Can Chew? Bought More Than I Can LIFT?


Well, the official weight is in, courtesy of our friend Ski's bathroom scales...

131 POUNDS, and ten pounds of it was SEEDS.

The "plug" I cut out of the top to get to the seeds and insides must weigh over ten pounds all by itself.

I loaded it onto a borrowed garden wagon and wheeled it in the front door of the school about 9:00 AM, and by noon I was freaking out because it took an hour to shave the thickness of the carving wall down to something thin enough for my drills and saws to cut through.

My "PumpKing" is now another 20 pounds lighter, and this is the condition I left it in at 3:30 today:



I have permission to return at 7:30 tomorrow to put in another two or three hours, and I'm certain now that I can pull my performance out at the last minute.

After all of the classes get their picture taken with it and my ever greying, ever balding head, I'm delivering it over to the local retirement home for their enjoyment Halloween night.

I think that I'm tired of Pumpkin...

I'm Busy Carving Pumpkins

Anyone Need A Pie?

Between my engineering marketing efforts and designing pumpkin carving templates (and watching a little football and NASCAR), I'm afraid that I've been neglecting my internet responsibilities (that includes your site...Jim)

I promise to be back up to full rant and programming mode after I get through with my Halloween obligations to all the kids and kids at heart. Here's a picture of the pumpkin which I carved for our friends Ski & Bruce tonight:





See you again shortly...

The Silence Of The Lambs Dogs

I Think We’re Good For Another Year……


No, I’m not gonna gloat.

I have to admit that I did laugh a little privately once the last seconds had ticked off of the game clocks this afternoon in Atlanta and Jacksonville, however.

You see, being a Georgia Tech sports fan requires a great deal of patience. I’ve spent the past 29 football seasons learning my own lessons in humility.

Of course, I didn’t attend Tech to play football and, when I first set foot on the North Avenue campus I barely realized the glorious history earned under the auspices of legendary coaches Heisman, Alexander, and Dodd in the early and mid 1900’s, but since my first days sitting in Grant Field I find that any season that results in winning eight or more games to me represents INFINITE success.

That said, Tech is well on their way to at least meeting MY standards now, having survived Miami’s best efforts to erase a 14 point fourth quarter deficit.

Meanwhile, a few minutes later, about 75 miles down the road from here, the University of Georgia’s team failed to overcome the final 7 point Florida advantage on their scoreboard and since then a literal sea of black and red clad fans have quietly snuck back to their accommodations here on our little island.

No barking and woofing.

No blaring auto horns and hooting & hollering.

I just checked our parking lot and it is almost full again, just like last night, but the silence is DEAFENING.

Good.

The best thing that a good Georgia Tech fan can get out of a Georgia Florida game is the silence I’m hearing right now, along with the sulking early departure of our formerly boisterous visitors this morning.

Now all Tech has to do is win the Georgia game in Athens on December 2nd to earn a quite winter and spring for our longsuffering fans.