The Followers of the Pedophile

I see that the followers of the pedophile prophet have once again shown their ignorance, bias, and lack of understanding as to the true character of their supposed prophet.

(Reuters) - Egyptian protesters scaled the walls of the U.S. embassy on Tuesday, tore down the American flag and burned it during a protest over what they said was a film being produced in the United States that insulted Prophet Mohammad.

Freedom of speech really has these people stymied, doesn't it? It's as if they really don't understand that in the United States we're free to insult anyone, including their pedophile prophet. Personally, I think that Mohammed was simply a conquerer, a pedophile, and used religion to maintain his position among backwards people.

The problem, as I see it, is that followers of Mohammed are still backwards people.  Their religion is a sham and they worship a rock.

Many Muslims consider any depiction of the Prophet to be offensive.

Not a problem, as I consider the entire faith to be offensive. Their list of human rights violations are legion, they treat women like chattel, and their prophet had sex with children. Go figure that they're a screwed-up religion.

If we had a real President, he would have ordered the Marines at the embassy to shoot anyone who tried to come over the wall, and he would have had carrier jets level the area around the embassy.  But, we don't have a real President.  Simply a sham-man who bows to foreign leaders.  Today of all times would have been the perfect time to level a couple of square miles of downtown Cairo, then ask the leadership there if they're capable of controlling their people.

Where Were You?

I began Tuesday, September 11, 2001 at midnight, counting inmates in the local jail. I was a jailer at that time and our shift completed count and as the vast majority of the offenders was asleep, we made another pot of coffee and settled in. We woke them at 4:00 am for breakfast and completed another count. Our relief arrived shortly thereafter and we were released at 5:00.

I went home and fell into bed. At about 7:50 am (central time) my phone rang, a friend telling me that a plane had just flown into the World Trade Center and that we were under attack. In my REM sleep phase, I hung up the phone and rolled over. The phone rang again a few minutes later, so I got up and went into the kitchen to make coffee. As the coffee dripped, I turned on the television just in time to watch the second plane go in at 9:03 am. All I could think was “That was no accident.”

 I lay on the couch for the rest of the day, napping as the horror unfolded. I remember getting up about noon and making a big plate of eggs and hashbrowns for lunch and thinking that I needed to get some sleep before the evening shift I still had to complete.I lived in the country at the time and it was common to see contrails all over the sky from the various routes that crisscross the United States.

I recall going out into the bright sunlight that afternoon under a cloudless sky and noticed that there were no contrails at all. All aviation in the United States was grounded and the sky was awfully quiet. At 4:00 pm local I put on a clean uniform and went to work.

Remember

Today is September 11th, and my flag is flying over the driveway.

More later, but today is a day to remember.

Fiberglass

I haven't worked fiberglass in 40 years, back when my Dad was partnering around with Chester Kubes, a local body and fender man.  We made pirogues in the back of Chester's shop, a duck boat that looked like a kayak, but with cajun overtones.  We made them out of fiberglass and Chester sold a bunch of them.  They were virtually indestructible and I occasionally see one locally that I know was made in Chester's shop.

When the squirrels ate a hole in my corn feeder, I decided to patch it with fiberglass and one thing led to another and I didn't get around to patching the hole until today.  When I was mixing the resin with the hardener to saturate the fiberglass cloth, the smell wafted up and I was back in Chester's shop.  It's funny how smells carry away the years, and it's been nearly 40 years since I first smelled fiberglass resin.

That's three layers of glass over the hole, and while I know that it's rough, working fiberglass always looks rough until the layers set up, the resin hardens, and you can use a grinder on it.  It'll wait till tomorrow and I'll clean it up.  I think the old men would approve of my patch job, even if it's got a couple of bubbles in the resin.  It'll be okay.

But, just for a while, I was a teenager again, in a body shop on Lee Street.

A National Embarrasment

A National Embarrasment.  That's what the Chicago Tribune headline says about the teacher's strike.

The religious leaders were critical of the political turn the negotiations took. "It's a national embarrassment in the middle of a national campaign," said Hatch.

I know how I'd deal with the strike. I'd give the striking teaches till tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. to return to the classroom or be fired. No questions asked, no quarter given. This is what unions are good for. They're arguably the highest paid teachers in the nation and they go out on strike. Fire 'em all. Break the union and pay them at the lowest levels in the nation.

 Mayor Rahm won't break the union, though. He's a Godless Democrat and he needs union support to stay elected. The deal he made with the devil of organized labor to get elected is getting repaid today. It's the Chicago Way.

The picture that's being posted on Drudge, and other places is telling of the Chicago Teacher's Union.

They look like they need a raise, don't they?  What they need is several years unemployed, fired for cause.  Plus, the blog comment of the day:  “The teachers are upset because they must be (gasp!) evaluated on their work. The parents are upset, not because their kids’ educations are impacted, but because they don’t have a place to drop off their kid. The only people cited as having any concerns whatsoever about education were 16 and 17 year old students.”

Hell, I get evaluated on my work every day.  I haven't had a raise in four years. I'd fire the whole bunch, and offer them about $30.000 per year.  I'd make them the lowest paid teachers in the nation and tell them if they didn't like it, to carry their collective asses.

Tax Free Weekend

Every year, Louisiana sponsors a tax free weekend for hunting, fishing, and outdoor sports.  Basically, anything that a person might use during the hunting season is free from state and local sales taxes.  In my area, the sales tax is 9.5%, so the tax free weekend represents a fairly nice discount.

I needed a new deer feeder and I've been looking at the Moultrie Easy-Fill feeder for a deer stand I intend to construct in a few weeks.  So, today I hied myself to my local retailer and picked up a feeder.  Lots of folks buy big ticket items this weekend, and anything that might be used for hunting or fishing counts as tax free.  If I had needed a new four-wheeler, or a new rifle, this would be the weekend.  However, I'm happy to support my local retailer and I needed a new feeder, so that's what I purchased.  I'm happy to have it, the retailer is happy to have it out of inventory, and Louisiana is happy to support the 2nd Amendment.  It's a win-win for everybody.

More Spam

So, I get this email from some idiot I've never heard from, asking me to register and vote for Barack Obama.  Hah!

I've been registered to vote since I was eighteen.  I doubt I'll be voting for Obama.  The guy ends with this laugh line.  "Thanks -- this won't be the last you hear from me."

Uuuh, yeah it will.  You're in the spam folder.

Sunday Morning Dawg

We're experiencing our first real cool front of the season.  Temps have moderated considerably since morning and Milady decided to cook a big potato soup for supper.  The dog, of course, is considerably interested in cooking.  Especially when it smells good.

He's superintending the entire process.  Hoping for a snack, I guess.

Soft-pedaling Pedophilia

There's this Gawker piece that drawing a lot of internet commentary. It deals with pedophilia and seems to be somewhat sympathetic.

But there is a growing number of researchers, many of them out of Canada, whose work suggests that pedophilia is an illness deserving of the public's sympathy the way any brain disorder is. Some of the scientists say pedophilia is a sexual orientation, meaning that it's unchangeable, regardless of how much jail time or beatings or therapy someone is dealt

I don't know about the psychology of pedophilia, but I've been a practitioner in child abuse cases from back when I was a Probation and Parole Officer. With no academic training in the field, but simply from working with those offenders in the real world, I'm convinced as well that the condition is unchangeable. It seems to be a sexual orientation, like heterosexuality or homosexuality.  I am not at all sympathetic, but I realize that there are various categories these folks fall into, and in my work-a-day mind, I characterize them into three categories.

I've found it interesting that many that I've known tend to specialize in one gender or the other, often not switching between heterosexual or homosexual liasons.  Another interesting fact is that the vast majority of offenders are male.  The female pedophile is an abject rarity.  Virtually unheard of in the system and I comment on them mainly because they are so rare.

First, and most dangerous, is the "Chester the Molestor" category.  These guys are active predators and are not only dangerous to children within their reach, they seek out victims seemingly at random.  It might be as innocuous as a child selling product for a school fund-raiser.  All kids are potential sex partners in his mind and he's dangerous to all of them.

The second category is the offender who doesn't actively seek victims, but offends with children in his social circle.  This might be the favored uncle, or the school teacher.  They don't intend to harm children, but gain trust and mistake that trust for affection and perceived sexual interest on the part of the child.  The child is often torn with guilt and doesn't want to tell responsible adults that they've been molested.  These guys do the most damage because of the conflict that they introduce into families and social circles. 

The third category is that guy who lets himself, through intoxication, become involved in a pedophilia incident.  It's not something that we can overlook, and the damage is certainly done, but often the offender did not intend to commit an offense, whereas the other two categories were in full understanding of the situation.

These are your classic pedophiles.  There is another category of offender, generally the guy in his late teens or early '20s who gets himself involved in a situation with a girl who is under the age of consent, but is indeed consenting.  I don't consider these guys pedophiles, although the law applies to them as well.

It is my experience, of the three classes of classic pedophiles, they recidivate at high levels.  Most of them wind up back in jail. They are dangerous to kids and will re-offend if given the opportunity.  The best place for them is in prison, simply because the prison setting keeps the children away.  They can't re-offend if there are no children available.

Don't expect me to have any sympathy for pedophiles.  I've worked with them for too long to have anything but revulsion for them.  The best way to keep these folks from re-offending is to keep them locked up.

There is one more class of pedophile that might deserve mention, and the article mentions those folks. 

Others have reason to believe that pedophiles are born that way, and that some of them will suffer through entire lives without hurting a single child.

If they never hurt a single child, they're not offenders in the eyes of the law. We don't convict people on their predilictions, we convict them on their actions. If someone knows that he's attacted to children, but never acts on it, I don't believe that he's in violaion. It's not against the law to have lurid thoughts.

Friday Morning

In another hour I'm going to pull my boots on and head toward the school house.  Tonight is our first home game of the football season, so I'll be totally engaged until the last car leaves the parking lot.  So, don't look for content here.  There's plenty of good content out there today.  The Godless Democrats finished their convention last night, and nominated another Godless Democrat to run against a good Mormon boy for President.  I understand that he gave a speech that could be best described as ... Meh! Jennifer Rubin may have a better take on it than I.

Seriously. Like an aging rock star, President Obama, in a downsized venue, with downsized proposal and spewing downsized rhetoric only reminded us how far he has fallen from the heady days of 2008. The man, the agenda and the aura are faint imitations of their 2008 incarnations. And most importantly, he put forth an agenda that was entirely, and obviously, lacking, one that didn’t begin to match the demands of our time.

So, just exactly what is the argument for re-electing him?

In God We Trust

The Democratic National Convention continues to provide light comic relief, to include the vote yesterday on whether to include God in their platform.  Seriously.  The vote is subject to claim, but it's telling that they voted three times without a clear majority, and the chair decided that the motion had passed.  This is high political theater at its best.



So, now, the Democratic Party is on record, voting against God three times.  There's some biblical reference there, and the story of Jesus will tell it.  However, Adam West, a staunch conservative currently in an election campaign is quick to capitalize on the godless Democrats.



Tonight, our President will take the (considerable smaller) stage and lay out his plan for the next four years.  Hopefully that will include his plan to leave Washington in early 2013 and retire to Hawaii.  That's my idea of his best plan to get the country back on track.

Godless Democrats.  Heh!

Grandkids

The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry, and today was no exception.  I spent the afternoon in the pool with grandkids, trying to keep them from drowning themselves, each other, and me.

This one has no fear of water at all.  If you take your eyes off him for a minute, he's under.

This one's learning to swim and he'll be out of his life jacket next summer.  It already chafes him to wear it.

Oh, well, the grass will wait another day.

Electoral Map

CNN shows us their idea of today's electoral map, representing their best guess as to the upcoming presidential election.  It's an interactive map and you can play with it, but I thought it might be better to save it, then look again on the day after the election and see how close they were.  It'll be interesting.  As always, you can click on the map for a larger version.

That's what it looks like today, with yellow being the battleground states.  Still, it's interesting to capture these things from time to time and see how the race progresses.

The Handi Rifle

For those of you not familiar with the Handi-Rifle, you're missing something.  For years they were produced by Harrington and Richardson, who also produced a line of shotguns called the Partner.  These are simple starter rifles available in a wide range of calibers from .22LR to .45-70.  At one time or another, many small runs of obsolete calibers were produced, but for the most part, the little rifles come in the standard rifle caliber flavors.  I own four, in .223, .30-30, .308, and .45-70.  Nowadays they are produced by H&R 1871 at the Ilion plant that produces Remington firearms.  (Yeah, Remington owns Marlin, who owned H&R.)  Bud's Gun Shop stocks them, as does others.  I see that they're currently being sold for a street price of about $300.00, depending on flavor.

That rifle pictured is my .308.  It's made in a variety they call the Ultra.  It has a laminated stock with pressed checkering and a medium-weight 22" barrel.  It weighs 8.2 lbs according to my bathroom scale, and has an overall length of just 38 inches.  I've mounted an old Tasco World Class scope on it.  This particular rifle exhibits honest 2" accuracy at 100 yards with my standard .308 load.  I currently load for five rifles in .308 and I don't worry about such things as OAL for each rifle.  I've got one load set for a son's target rifle and all .308 ammo produced on my bench is set for best accuracy for that rifle.  Keeping records on every rifle would be onerous, so I've settled on a standard load.  Still, a 2MOA rifle is nothing to sneeze at in the hunting woods and while I'm sure this one would do better with proper load development, it suffices for my purposes.  With great glass and ammo tailored to the rifle, it might be a tack-driver, but I'll never know.

The beauty of this rifle, in my opinion, is safety, durability, and ruggedness.  It's a single-shot which means when the grandkids are shooting, I can control the ammo very closely.  It's got a transfer bar action which means that the trigger must be pulled for the rifle to fire.  It's very safe.

It's also handy.  I have no trouble ringing the 200 yard gong at a local range, set up to simulate the heart-lung region of a whitetail deer.  In short, the little rifle is shootable.  It's a great rifle for a youngster and a good rifle for the frugal hunter who is willing to accept the limitations of a single-shot rifle.  If you're casting about for a great little rifle made in the USA and you're thinking that a single shot is all you need, you could do a lot worse than the Handi rifle.  I did a more complete review in 2010 for Castbullet.  If you'd like to read it, clicky here for more information.

Disband the TSA

Given the fact that the TSA is as close as we can come to a government goon, they've expanded beyond their original commission, and they're inserting themselves into venues far beyond transportation, how long before we disband them.  Just pass legislation telling the country that the TSA no longer exists and tell everyone that works for the agency that they're now unemployed.  We'll still pay them for 99 weeks, but that's better than the alternative.  Let's just disband the TSA.  Entirely.

So you really want me to provide links?  Google is your friend.  Okay, just one.

On Labor Day

I remember when Labor Day was a day for a big union barbecue.   Dad was a union man for much of his working life, then came to realize that they were a drag on much of what passes for productivity.  Like many good ideas, the organized unions morphed from worrying about the working man to enriching the coffers of the organizers, the union officials, and in many cases, organized crime.  My earliest active memory is laying on a quilt while Mom and Dad danced a jitterbug at a union picnic.  Good times.  Good memories.

Still, we celebrate Labor Day in any number of ways, most prominently by not working, if we're able.  In that great scheme, I'm off work today and I have nothing planned.  That is to say, I plan to do nothing.   That is my active plan.  The last of the grandkids are about to head home after a weekend of fun and frolic at PawPaw's House and the place will grow peacefully quiet, broken only by gentle snoring emanating from my recliner.

I've got some stuff in the publishing queue, but nothing that won't wait.

The Conversation

I see another pundit reporting that the Democratic Party wants a conversation on gun control.

The draft language of the Democrats' 2012 platform – set for a final vote this week in Charlotte – argues that current safeguards protecting the public against gun violence are insufficient and urges "an honest and open conversation about firearms."

We've been having that conversation since 1968, and it's been both honest and open. It might be instructive to see what they want and the article lays out two of the sticking points.

The document also calls for "reasonable regulation" governing guns, including laws banning assault weapons and requiring all gun sellers – not just licensed dealers – to perform background checks on potential buyers.

And there's the problem. We already have laws banning assault weapons. Those laws have been in place since 1934 Fully automatic assault weapons are all-but-banned to the general population. I cannot go out and purchase a rifle like I carried in the Army for most of my career.  Their second point would require that if I want to give a gun to a son or grandson that I go through a licensed dealer to have the NICS approve the transfer.  Hogwash, all of it.

Don't be misled.  What they want is a ban, a total ban, and if anyone tells you anything else, it's also hogwash.  We've been having this "open and honest conversation" most of my life and it entails encroaching on my rights.  I remember when I could walk into a shop, buy a gun with cash across the counter and walk out with the gun over my shoulder, just as easily as I'd buy a loaf of bread.  I bought my first shotgun at age 13, just like that.  Since then it's been one "reasonable" regulation after another and no one can prove that any of them have done anything to stop gun violence.

Not anymore.  We've been having this conversation for over 40 years.  Nothing that the gun banners have done has worked for the simple reason that guns don't commit violence.  People commit violence and no one has any idea how to control that.

The problem that the banners have is that they've already lost the conversation.  By our collective actions, writing, speaking, talking, teaching, explaining, we've seen a tremendous expansion of gun rights from where it was 20 years ago.  The ability to get a concealed carry permit is almost an absolute right, with gun-banning holdout areas excepted.  It is interesting to note that the gun banning holdout areas are often the ones with the most gun violence, a trait that we've been able to point out time and time again.  Gun banning doesn't work.  Look at the places with the most onerous regulations, and look at the crime stats there.

No, they've lost the argument.  They've lost in the Courts where expansion of human rights is important to freedom.  They've lost in the legislatures, who see their arguments as detrimental to freedom-loving peoples.  They've lost in the public opinion, where many people see the benefit of owning, shooting, and passing along firearms.  They've lost in the marketplace where the gun industry is the one bright shining spot in this otherwise horrible economy.

They've lost everywhere but those few backwards, anachronistic areas like California, Illinois, and New York.  Places that were once vibrant, exciting, and bustling are now shedding businesses, economically stagnant, and horribly violent.  Not a place that anyone would want to live.  Certainly not any place that a freedom loving person would want to live.

For myself, I'm finished with this conversation, and I'm certainly through being reasonable.  When reasonable people negotiate, when they try to compromise on an issue, both sides lose a little to come to a middle ground.  It's been my experience with the banners that they never give anything, they never lose anything.  It's always my side that loses.  We lose rights, we lose freedom.  I've got a few ideas of my own, but I'm sure that the banners won't get on board, and I'm saving those thoughts for the conversation.  But, my big question for the banners is this.  What are you willing to give up?  If you want to bring something to the table, you've got to be willing to compromise, you've got to be willing to lose something.  What are you bringing to the table?

Sunday Morning Dawg

In the aftermath of Isaac, life is returning to normal in the Gret Stet.  PawPaw has spent most of the weekend untie-ing lawn furniture and cleaning up after the storm.  Grandkids are over for the weekend, and rambling around the place.  The dog never did get that haircut, but I don't think he's in any danger of running afoul of the haircut police.  He's lounging, watching grandkids.

And, every time I move he looks at me as if to ask, "What's for lunch".

It's good to have things getting back to normal.

Un-Possible

Some poor kid got shot in Chicago, in the neighborhood where our President owns his Chicago residence.  Really.

A teenage boy was shot about a block from President Obama’s home, in the second such incident in the past week.

But that's un-possible, you see, because gun ownership is all-but-illegal in Chicago. Evidently, that's the second shooting in the neighborhood this week, another kid was gunned down just three blocks away.

When only the criminals have guns, the crooks are empowered to predate on the public.  That's the failure of gun control, and the failure of policies that keep guns from honest, law-abiding citizens.

Choices

That last post about my old writings got me to remembering, and I remembered a piece that I wrote in the mid '90s.  It was originally submitted to a newspaper and was published as a guest writer piece.  Later I reworked it and published it on Castbullet.  When we edited the piece we realized it needed some artwork, so  we asked my son to do a scene with guys sitting around a campfire.

It's a story about hunting and the choices we make when we're all alone in the woods.  I've moved it over to my server to preserve it there and you can read it, either at Castbullet or on my site.

Enjoy.    Choices.