It just isn't the same any longer...

So there I am getting old, and making an observation on the shooting line that one shouldn't droop over one's rifle like a daffodil. Which got a chuckle from a shooter.

But I can't do as much as I once did, the weekend wipes me out a bit, my wife has gone on her second hiking with friends in the mountains, she comes back and the next day has a long nap in recovery. Yep, it isn't like it once was... but we are trying.

I do notice that the rest of the world is driving on, marriages happening, children learning well their letters. God is good, we are being replaced by better models.

Dreams don't bother me, education does...

I had lots of strange dreams last night, went to bed early and dreamed away.  Many military dreams, and then some dreams about one of my favorite games which grew some shrines and Holy trees both which improved powers and must be protected from raiders -- the game isn't built with those features. Dreams don't hurt me.

I went over the Program of Instruction for this weekend's Appleseed this morning. I don't see where we will shoot enough AQTs but if everyone moves Quickly, Quickly, Quickly, we should cover everything. That is marksmanship education with real standards and award for earning the title.

Which makes me wonder why after fifty plus years the education is worse than it was when  I was a student. What happened, why can't it get better? It isn't class size, it isn't text books, it isn't the standards, and systems do work. What is wrong with our system>

I am on top of it...

Bombs go off in Boston. Not the North Koreans nor their special agents. Not the Islamic Terrorists, they have no idea what Patriot Day, nor the Marathon celebrating it is about. So there are only two guilty parties setting bombs in Boston. First some ultra-Rightwing Nut Jobs, and second the BAFTE doing more undercover work to promote locking up the potential dangerous for cause (they might).

Only the East African runners and the North African long distance ones care about winning that race, so they wouldn't bomb Boston. Like I said about North Korea, Little Kim has no idea what a coupe an attack on Boston for that day would be.

So, only those that identify April 19th with fighting oppression (Ultra Rightwing Nut Jobs) and those that want to frame the innocent for burning the Reichstag  (The BAFTE and all their undercover operatives). Since the Oklahoma City Bombing showed how much better the UltraRightwing Nut Jobs are at bombing the innocent, I will have to think the BAFTE did these bombs just big enough to make the statement we have to live in fear, but small enough that when their case falls apart on investigation they won't be hated as much as they deserve.

I am sure they have their evidence lined up and the perfect suspects. And calls for more surveillance by the Democrats in Congress.  If those folks in Washington DC had known that there already was a Patriots Day in New England they wouldn't have named 9/11 the same way.

You don't really think it was the ghost of King George the Third, or a few of his kin that think we should get back under their protection, do you?

Drop out of the North Korean impact area...

Go to your local Sportsman Club and be part of an Appleseed. Worked for me. In Poulsbo, Washington.

Two hard tiring days of teaching, coaching and telling the tales that every American should know by heart. Five new Riflemen awarded the patch and three loud Huzzahs! Families and friends, serious couples all enjoying the event and the learning. I watch a couple in perfect sync while changing magazines, firing their rifles and shifting onto another target and squeezing off the next rounds... they couldn't have practiced that rhythm and impressed me more. So over twenty two shooters, and not one crime committed because they were using rifles.

I would jump up and down and shout 'I told you so' but those against my idea of a good time with firearms would reference the Governor of New York, Connecticut or California as evidence of my foolish idea of fun. But then they do get armed guards and lots of money for reacting to irrational fears and their jobs don't look like fun, just power applied in stupidity.

On day two, fresh homemade cinnamon rolls sent for us to enjoy, they were lovely. The scattered showers were able to scatter all around us and miss the range mostly. I now have a light sunburn on my paleface... y'all take care out there.

One fears what they don't understand..

So of course the idea of armed law abiding citizens strike fear into the law breaking politicians - because they have no morals, no honor and not a lot of intelligence?

I don't like to generalize, there are a few smart, honorable and law abiding politicians, not enough but a few. Of course if a lie is told loud enough, repeated often enough, it will have a feeling of truth. No one has questioned that laws were broken at Sandy Hook, no one wants to mention that - they want to control the guns, like they already do the drugs, the illegal guns, the illegal aliens, the illegal acts against other folks. Those laws are no longer enough, they want background checks for gun purchases, but no background checks for voting, or student loans, or doing business with the United States government.

I am sure the whole push for background checks would immediately die, if the official form and record of the check was used for voter ID.

Bill O'Reilly wants stop and frisk done on all those others not like him, says it will teach them a lesson. I would love to see a criminal slip a gun into his pocket and then sic the police on him for a frisk. There must be a whole lot of problems with the Bill of Rights since Bill O'Reilly wants to do away with so many of them.

                                                                
Kevin Baker would like to know why so many of the police are carrying an assault weapon when  most of their work is in writing tickets and delivering court orders. His picture from Facebook today.

I am still trying to figure out when the law enforcement folks decided that lying to the public, covering their faces and identities, and working to 'con' people that hadn't done anything - into doing something they could then blackmail their cooperation with... When did they decide that being a law enforcement thug was better than being a criminal thug? Don't they have mothers that loved them? don't they have children that would like to be proud of them?

Having had to face the facts that real enemies had much better weapons than the modern criminals, terrorists and police, I am not frightened by the police, criminals nor terrorists that have such bad weapons. You should not be either.

The reason that the politicians think they (guns) are scary is they have seen too many foolish media stories where people die everywhere all the time, shot. Honest, if the entertainment people did show after show of drunken or drugged drivers wrecking the lives of innocents in the true relationship to the causes of death in America, there wouldn't be much use in trying to sell a Chevy Volt on those networks.  Week after week of innocents dying by the real killers on the highway. More than all the school, or Chicago gang shootings. Or they could do week after week of stupid reproductive acts between fool humans, and then the visit to the abortion clinic where it is all made better, as long as you get to see what they have to destroy. But then that would be not very entertaining either.   

Even the most honest journalist won't mention the medical errors causing deaths, the accidents caused by the impaired, the abortion numbers for cheap sex.

So for political gain, they will pass some laws and slap each other's back, do some high fives, and the deaths will continue, so they will have to try another law or two to tighten it up. Notice that all the failures have not stopped them from trying to fail bigger next time.

When asked why the Left is acting up, and being plain old rude in public - one commentator says they often do that when they feel powerless - kind of like Little Kim, Jung Un and his nuclear temper tantrum. But the Left isn't losing now, they have everything going their way - and are noticing that what they have won't work and we are all going down the drain together. You will finally run out of rich folks to tax, businesses to ruin and run badly. The Soviets did it, the Americans trying their same foolishness will go the same way.

Some of us gun owners already have the background checks, the registered firearms, the Concealed Carry Permits -- so making a law saying we should do what we already do - isn't going to stop criminals in England, Europe, Africa, Asia, South America, and Mexico from getting all the automatic, concealed firearms they want to attack judges, other criminals or victims.  So why are our representatives in the capital pretending that another law or two will change facts? They are afraid of the truth, yep, they are afraid of the truth.                                                                                                           

What should we do today, Brain?

We should conquer the world, Pinky.

Yep, we should conquer the world or, clean the rifles of evidence, ya know.

Hope your day went well, it rained as I finished the front yard mowing. But the Sun shown all afternoon.

What hath God wrought?

With those words the Pony Express would fade into History, the electric communications revolution had begun. At the time of the telegraph, most people in America could read and write, letters were welcome, speeches and sermons could be very long, words have meaning.

Over a hundred and fifty years later, the communications are faster, the words have less meaning, not much effort in basic grammar, spelling or offensive content seems needed. The language is still English. In many ways the professionals have gone to geek speak in their fields. Soon only experts are sought to fix things that, once upon a time, everyone could handle.

I was thinking about this as I finished the Enemies Trilogy by Matthew Bracken. I liked all three books, but was reminded of George R. R. Martin in that people, characters you started to care about died suddenly, but then that happens in real life, too. But all the hot issues of the current mess the Americans find themselves in were addressed one by one. Which, unfortunately means when the final story ended kind of happily, I am still stuck being a fat Rockwell Relic in a world I have difficulty understanding at all.

I was introduced to some new stuff in the book, most of the dynamics of frightened incompetent governments with too much power are historical, some truths not worth mentioning are also, they are real but we don't talk about them, still to the people that know those truths it adds to the realism of the tale. I once tried to explain how important it was in Gates of Fire, that the author wrote that the tired warriors stopped being heroic as their spirit became worn. Later they would become brave again as they had nothing but spirit left. In combat there is no time out, no halftime show, no chance to rest and renew.

I recommend the set of books, but I also say to read it as entertainment, if you want to resist and deflect the coming uncivil war in the United States you had better be speaking up and out now, because 'they' have the pulpit and aren't about to give up the microphone. Watching how important the wedding planning, and event seems to be (expensive?) is never going to be as important as how well the marriage goes - is it working? fruitful? a blessing to all?

Case in point: the Sandy Hook school shootings. They already had laws against murder, having a gun in a school zone. That didn't protect any of the children from the shooter. And none of my guns were used in the crime, but for some reason - after they failed to keep people from drinking and driving, texting while flying or driving, abusing drugs and alcohol, and having millions of the unborn killed in sacrifice to irresponsible reproductive acts. for momentary happiness  -- they think that changing the meaning of the 2nd Amendment will make anything better.

Living in the land of the LOST, that isn't some far away place, just down the street. I understand that MSNBC, which I don't watch, thinks that it is our shared community responsibility to raise the children, which sounds nice, until I mention I would like to take them shooting. Then there seems to be a problem. Take them shooting. Read:

Gun Digest Shooter's Guide to Rifle Marksmanship

Yes, take them shooting since it is a community responsibility to raise them properly.

Oh, and Morse didn't get an answer - God wasn't impressed with the telegraph, He already had his masterwork and it wasn't noted enough. Live in His Love.