Flying, signing, eating and shooting, Louisiana style.

Packing up the airplane and heading east this afternoon to Natchitoches, Louisiana.

One of my book readers has put together a shindig and it includes a fly-in, Louisiana food, a book-signing and a get-together at the shooting range on Saturday, June 30th.

As he explains it, "anytime in the South when a few good folks get together, you just know there are going to be some great times to be had along with some serious truth-stretching come story-telling time."

Pass the cornbread.

Here is the Saturday itinerary for anyone in the neighborhood:

• Fly-in is at the Natchitoches airport (KIER) and folks will be flying in beginning around 0900 through mid-morning.

• Lunch and a book-signing will be around 11:30 (ish--everything in Texas and the South is on "ish" time. That's how we do things.)

• Shooting and more book-signing at the local range begins at 2:00 p.m.

• Probably some more truth-stretching throughout the afternoon until around 5:00 or 6:00.

More information can be found here.

I was at the hangar today topping off the bird with fuel and doing a thorough pre-flight. In this heat, I want to be in the air as fast as I can. That means load up the plane, roll her out of the hangar, get strapped in, check everything over one more time from inside the cockpit before spinning the prop, do my pre-start checklist and pre-takeoff checklist together, flip the master switch, turn the key and crank 'er up.

As soon as I see oil-pressure indication, slip the brakes and taxi to the run up area. My pre-takeoff physical checklist will be done on the roll--controls, instruments, gas, trim, flaps. Runup will be the last thing, then takeoff. I'll set my radios and frequencies and GPS units while in the air.

As Murphy's Law pointed out a day or two ago, with an air-cooled engine, the ground is NOT where you want to be on a hot day. I want to be in the air with some nice 100kt breezes flowing into the engine cowlings and keeping my cylinders nice and comfortable as well as keeping my oil temp out of the red.

It's going to be hot and bumpy until I get to altitude. It's a relatively short trip (230nm) and weather forecast is for hot and clear so I'll go VFR and climb to 7500 and see how comfortable that is.

Taking my camera, a few guns, lots of books and the joy and knowledge that a weekend spent with folks who love guns and airplanes always promises to be a fantastic time.

If you're in the neighborhood Saturday, drop on by.

Your tax dollars paying for welfare cigarettes gets retiree clerk fired in NH.

Yep, a 65-year-old woman was fired for refusing to allow some welfare parasite to buy cigarettes with his EBT card.

Wonder what the Food Stamp President will say about that. . . Also wonder if he's still smoking?

Best comment at the end of the story from the readers is the following:

The Food Stamp Program, administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, just announced that it is pleased to be distributing the greatest amount of free meals and food stamps ever.

Meanwhile, the National Park Service, administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior, asks us to "Please Do Not Feed The Animals." This is because the animals may grow dependent on handouts and not learn to take care of themselves.

Thus endeth today's lesson.

Here is a video that pretty much describes the program to the T. It is definitely NOT safe for work or for easily offended people.

However, seeing as how blatant welfare abuse offends me, this video is mild in comparison.

Die, you SOBs. . . DIE!!!

Not a good day yesterday in the land of An Ordinary American.

For starters, it topped 100 degrees again, no breeze, too much humidity.

Felt like I was in Houston. Had to check my GPS to make sure I wasn't.

I'm outside doing some yard work in the heat of the day, and in the midst of taking the brushwhacker to my shrubs at the front of the house, I get attacked by a swarm of (expletive deleted) yellow jackets.

Luckily, I'm not allergic to being bit or stung by these SOBs. The primary adverse reaction I have is swearing at the top of my lungs when bitten by one of these flying menaces.

Given the size of the swarm today, I set new records for volume, duration and creative use of unbefore-heard-of swear words. I think I dropped more f-bombs in just a few seconds than Jimmy Doolittle did during his entire mission over Tokyo.

Then I got mad. Killing mad.

When dealing with yellow jackets and wasps and other useless menaces, Tom Hite is my hero. I didn't do it exactly how he does it in this video, but I ain't through battling these SOBs either.

I managed to get a bunch of ice packs on the affected areas (read: where the little crappers bit and stung me) to keep the initial swelling down, then put some numbing agent on the areas, and finished up with some prescription-strength hydrocortisone.

Finished the yard work, washed the Doberman, changed the oil and filter on my wife's car, went inside and took a refreshing shower and when I sat down in my easy chair . . . the damn electricity went out.

4:30 p.m. northern suburbs of Dallas, Texas on a triple-digit day and the freaking power goes out. Stayed out over four hours.

I heard later in the evening, when the power came back on and I was watching the news, that some utility worker got stung by a yellow-jacket. When he drew his Model 29 with #14 shot (specially cast for wasps, hornets, yellow jackets and horseflies here in Texas), he ended up shooting the transmitter.

Damn yellow jackets.

P.S. I hope the Georgia Bulldogs pound the living snot out of Georgia Tech this year and every year going forward.

I have no words to describe this.

Except for "BRILLIANT."

So the freak Cher cites REVOLUTION as a way to rid the country of conservatives.

Funny, Cher, we conservatives were thinking the same thing--but in regards to liberals.

Careful, Your Ugliness, about what you think or wish for.

The reality is, liberals are the biggest racists of all.

Bear in mind, this is a woman that slept with Gene Simmons of Kiss. Not sure who had the most makeup at the time. . .

Why is she newsworthy? Why, for the comedic effect of course.

An 18-month-old, a pit bull and a piranha. What could possibly go wrong?

Headline of the year.

Unfortunately, it's a very real statement from the comments section of a story dealing with the Parents Of The Year nominees, Mr. & Mrs. Idiotards from the planet Stupider.

Seems the genius mom heard her 18-month old crying, finally went to investigate and saw that part of one of her fingers had been bitten off.

According to the sperm-recipient and egg-host, she "thought their pit bull had bitten it off."

Turns out it was their pet piranha.

This occurred, by the way, in the Chicago area which makes me wonder if the fish in question was one of the mayor's relatives.

Second question is, "If Obama had a pet fish, would it look like that piranha?"

Maybe we oughta just close Chicago down what with all the idiocy that is coming from there.

The Second Amendment and my international friends.

I've been catching up on e-mails today, of which I'm not just behind but for the book account e-mail, I'm weeks behind.

For a novel about the inherently American Second Amendment, I'm floored over where this book has been sold and read. From the e-mails, Above Reproach has been purchased and read in the following countries since the end of April of this year:


United States
Canada
Mexico
Great Britain
Ireland
Scotland
German
Holland
Norway
Finland
Poland
Czech Republic
Italy
Switzerland
France
Belgium
Spain
Russia
Pakistan
India
Egypt
South Africa
Israel
New Zealand
Australia
Columbia
Panama
Honduras
Venezuela
Peru
Argentina
Chile

While being floored, I'm also humbled, hugely so.

The book began life as an idea a few days after September 11, 2001. I'm a well-known procrastinator, so it surprised nobody that it finally published in April of 2012. In fact, some of our friends have remarked, rather dryly, that I must've been in quite the rush to get it written and published.

But some of the countries in which it's not only sold, but from where I've received e-mails is fascinating. . . and extremely heartening.

I'll begin with Canada, New Zealand and Australia. Here in Texas, we've always felt an affinity for Australians. We were both kicked out of our previous countries, banished to some gawd-forsaken land where royalty/Washington was certain we'd wither and die.

Canada and New Zealand. . . two outstanding nations filled with more geographical beauty and awesomeness than most can behold. Western Canada is almost diametrically opposed to eastern Canada in both politics and attitude. Of course, eastern Canada has a huge French influence and is closer, geographically, to Washington D.C. so that explains that.

It is my FERVENT hope that at least in my lifetime, Canada and Australia and New Zealand would enact their own version of the Second Amendment.

Moving on to Europe, I never knew Finland was as gun-friendly as it appears to be. Several Fins have written me about that, and while I don't have time or room here in this post to go in depth, let me simply say that if I had to be on the run across the Atlantic, Finland is the first country I'd stop in. We know about Switzerland.

The Czech Republic kind of surprised me, but then I got to thinking--both of the dogs in the novel (Dak the German Shepherd and Dutch the Doberman Pinscher) are both imports from the Czech Republic. But the Czechs, lest anyone forget, have made some pretty nice firearms, too. The best cylinders for air-cooled general aviation airplanes I have EVER found have been made in Poland.

Having married a Pole and having many Slavic friends, I can tell you that you'll never make a finer friend.

Europe is a bit of a puzzle, but unsurprisingly they are in the same boat as us. The French readers all confirm that most of their problems originate from Paris. No surprise. Been there. Rudest city in the universe and not sure where their snob appeal comes from.

Some of my German friends were whizzed that I imported dogs from their arch-competitors, the Czechs. I e-mailed them back and told them to just wait: In an upcoming novel, the new dogs will be imported from Holland.

One of the readers from Israel pointed out that at the Pocatello (Idaho) incident, it is unlikely that as soon as the terrorist pulled out their Mac machine pistols that the surrounding populace would've been so kind as to have simply ordered them to the floor.

Perhaps the most frightening e-mail was from a police official who works in South Africa. He wrote about how horrific crime has become there, especially crimes against women and how politicized their courts and (so-called) ministry of justice is. Apparently South Africa has their own versions of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson over their stealing oxygen.

The best e-mail came from a young lady in Great Britain, who shoots trap and bird hunts with her father and older brothers. She finished her delightful e-mail with the following question:

"If every civilized nation had your version of a Second Amendment, do you think we would ever have had a world war--or any major wars?"

Think about that.

Evil can only flourish when good men and women do nothing. But it helps to have the proper tools and hardware to combat evil and its minions.

So is it any wonder that Evil, in the form of so many power-hungry government people, constantly strives to limit--or eliminate--our ability to defend ourselves?

Think about that one even harder.

Screw the U.N. We gun-owners of the world don't need you.

The impotence of the police.

Chicago continues to prove why they have become the California and NYC of the Midwest.

A man walking his dog has his throat slashed.

The police's response is to urge citizens to walk in well-lit areas, have a cell phone and not hesitate to call 9-1-1.

In Texas, and elsewhere, our response is to carry a firearm and if some wacked-out cracked-out creep comes up to slash our throat while we're out walking our dog, then there will be blood flowing, but in all likelihood, from a round hole in the creep's body rather than a jagged line from our throats.

To be a victim or not be a victim. The choice is ours--just not in Chicago.

One thing is for certain, however. The police are impotent to do anything about it. On the other hand, traffic tickets don't seem to be a problem. One type of enforcement costs money, the other type makes money.

Seems to be a national trend, doesn't it?

Contempt doesn't even begin to do it.

I remember back when the messiah was walking on the political waters of 2008 and declaring, verily, that his administration would be totally transparent and held accountable at all levels.

He preached from the mainstream mountain about how hearings and meetings on healthcare and other concerns would be broadcast on C-Span and that the American sheep would have full access.

What a bunch of B.S.

Today, Obama's chief legal racist and murderer, Eric Holder, hid like a quivering sissy behind the president's protective cloak of "executive privilege" in refusing to release records and documents requested by the House committee investigating Fast and Furious.

So Rep. Issa (R-Calif) who leads the committee is going to push--and get--a vote for contempt.

What he needs to be pushing for is an indictment for obstruction and an indictment for conspiracy to commit murder because that is what Fast and Furious was all about.

It was about putting illegal guns in the hands of Mexican cartel animals with the full knowledge, and expectations, that those guns would be used in murders and thus able to be tracked back to the U.S. which would give the Obama regime fodder for going along with the United Nations effort to disarm American citizens.

This is wrong on so many levels, but above all, it makes Obama, Holder and Napolitano traitors to the Constitution and to America. Summarily, they should be indicted, tried, convicted and imprisoned.

Problem is, we do not have the guts in Congress or the Senate to do this. With few exceptions, every single elected leader we have in Washington is little more than a self-serving oxygen thief who exists for the primary reason to enrich their own coffers and increase their power base.

I, for one, am sick of it. Sick and damned tired of it. I'm also to the point that I no longer care if what I write ends up inflaming the government goon squads. I have no illusions that if I "stand and fight" that I'll be erased with no more effort than swatting a fly out of the air. I'm ex-military and ex-LE. I know what the government has at its disposal.

I could run, I suppose, off to another country, but that too isn't really an option. I fought for THIS country, damnit, and swore an oath to it.

So about all I really have left is the hope that our elected officials will grope around in their over-priced trousers and try to find their testicles so that they can summon up the courage to do what's right.

Contempt resolutions aren't going to cut it. This administration had a direct role in the domestic murder of a U.S. citizen and law enforcement agent, and AG Eric Holder must be held both responsible and accountable.

The travesties of injustice perpetrated by the goon squads assembled and led by Janet Napolitano are closing in on the images and memories of the German secret police. Napolitano must be held responsible and accountable.

Both Holder and Napolitano were appointed by the chief perpetrator, Barack Hussein Obama. Obama must be held responsible and accountable.

Congress--we're watching you.

Real men.

I bumped into a guy at a grocery store on Saturday afternoon. Literally.

We were both trying to read our wife's chicken-scratch that passes for a list. I'm pretty sure "beer" wasn't on either list, but that's the aisle where the man-to-man collision took place.

As I looked up to apologize, I saw a large guy wearing a biker's vest flying colors.

I have a long history with bikers, mostly positive. That would also include history with some of the one-percenters, also known as the outlaw motorcycle gangs. I've never really had any problems or issues with them.

Bikers generally just want to be left the hell alone. I can relate to that completely.

Bikers have their own lifestyle. I can relate to that.

Bikers will also stand solidly for something they believe in and I absolutely relate to that.

The overwhelming majority of bikers we see on the roads and bi-ways and highways of America are not the outlaw one-percenter bikers. Instead, they are simply lovers of the open road, the roar of their Harley and the fellowship of like-minded individuals.

The biker I ran into was sporting colors that read "Bikers Against Child Abuse."

Our church had a chapter of Bikers for Christ and I'm familiar with a number of Christian fellowship biker groups. Every year I contribute to the local bikers' ride for the Marine Corps' Toys For Tots program.

I asked this guy about his colors and he unhesitatingly told me about the organization. He didn't talk like a PhD (thank goodness), he didn't stand like an apologetic sissy (at around 6' 4" and extremely fit, that would've been hard to do) and he explained the group's mission quite well.

I asked for a website address and he invited me to follow him outside when we finished shopping. In the parking lot, he gave me a brochure.

Back at the house, I punched up the website and was amazed. Bikers Against Child Abuse is a worldwide organization with chapters not only all across the United States, but all across the world.

Well, why not? Child abuse is not specific to just the U.S. or any one country.

Now, lest you think that BACA is a group of badass bikers looking to go and kick the crap out of the slimy weasels who get their rocks off beating and abusing children, that is not the case.

The mission and operation is far bigger.

In fact, the first line in the brochure the biker gave me states "We are child support focused. We are not a vigilante group. "We do not search out and hunt down bad guys, nor do we pursue those who are under suspicion of hurting children."

Instead, BACA works within the system and stands as "guardians" over and with children who have been abused and who are scared or terrified as a result. It is frightening enough for an adult to testify in regards to having been beaten or raped or assaulted. Imagine the sheer terror a child faces.

But imagine two colors-flying bikers, who fear nothing, standing on each side of you, with a gentle hand on your shoulder and a quiet whisper in your ear assuring you that NOBODY is ever going to hurt or harm or even scare you while they are around.

That's what real men do.

The members of BACA do not go looking for a fight; rather they stand shoulder to shoulder with abused children assuring them that there will be no further harm coming to them.

These men stand for something. They're not vigilantes. They're not knee-cappers. They are far from it. In fact, the individual chapters conduct a rather lengthy, in-depth background investigation on each prospective member, then require a full year's worth of riding with the chapter before membership is considered.

That's a better vetting process than we have for most cops, let alone politicians.

And yet, there will be those who see a couple of Harleys roaring down the street with riders flying colors and the inevitable shaking of the head and "scumbags" will be on the tip of the tongue.

Think again. These "scumbags" are real men and they are standing for children who are abused by lesser men--men who often look at the bikers as "beneath them."

Funny how society, left to itself, often works.

Bikers Against Child Abuse is a 501(c)3 organization which means donations are tax-deductible. I am now helping support our local chapters because gas is expensive.

But not nearly as expensive as the damage that fear and injury does to our children.

Bikers Against Child Abuse. Real men worthy of our respect and support.

Racism, Guns and Escape from Chicago.

Yet another story of how safe the residents of Chicago are from the roving gangs of black thugs.

A man had his face beaten in over a dropped iPhone.

If you click on the picture, you'll there is not a white face in there. Likewise, if you read the story, you'll learn that not one of the attackers were white.

But the victims were.

A girl dropped her iPhone on the CTA Red Line train. A black thug picked it up and announced "it was his." The girl's companion asked for the phone back and was beaten. Badly. And he still didn't get the phone back.

Where is Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson? I'm still wondering if this asshat of a president we have would think that any one of the six gangsters would look like his son if he and the great moocher had boys.

No word. Silence. Nothing from the deadfish mayor, either. In fact, violence against whites has seemed to escalate since Rahm stole the mayor's office.

One reason is that guns are verbotten in Chicago. Even in spite of the Heller decision, the Chicago political machine that panders to the roving black criminal element and their sympathizers have outright defied the Supreme Court decision.

That is to say, the mayor, the aldermen, the police commissioners and their lap-dogs, the district attorneys and everyone in a position of authority defy the law of the land.

Fine. I propose we give Chicago the law of the jungle. The law of Darwin. In other words, fight back.

I'm sending a letter to my elected rats demanding that ALL federal funds be cut off from Chicago immediately until which time Chicago adheres to the Heller decision and allows its inmates, er, residents, to legally own a firearm inside the prison, er city walls and to obtain a CHL with requirements similar to those in any other state.

Secondly, I'm demanding that the elected rats send in the FBI and find these CTA thugs and arrest them for a hate crime. I'm sick and tired of a hate crime now being defined as "white on black" and no other way.

But what is really tough about this is if you go back to the story I linked to up top and read the comments. Racism is roaring to a white-hot inferno in Chicago and it is doing so because there is no leadership in the black community.

Anytime a Bill Cosby or other respected black individual puts out the call for accountability and to stand on your own two feet, the entitlement crowd within the black community calls that person an Uncle Tom.

And we, the non-black community put up with it because, for some reason, we're TERRIFIED of being labeled as a racist.

Not me. I grew up in as "diverse" of a neighborhood as possible in the early 60's and I learned at an early age that niggers and black people were two totally separate races. Black people taught me that. Likewise, my hispanic friends taught me the difference between "mexicans" and greasers. My friends taught the blacks and the mexicans (we didn't have the term latino or hispanic back then--our friends who were from south of the Rio Grande were often referred to as mexicans and absolutely zero offense was ever inferred or taken by it) the difference between white people and white trash assholes.

Every ethnicity has its gutter trash percentage that by their actions, cause racial stereotypes to not only exist, but to flourish.

I am not going to tell you that "some of my best friends are black" because quite frankly, I have to stop and remind myself that they are black. I don't look at them that way. I look at them as my friends. Asian, hispanic, black. . . doesn't matter.

Likewise, some of the sorriest individuals to ever steal oxygen from this planet have been as white as me. But I simply saw--and see--them as white trash.

Forget all this hate crime nonsense. A crime is a crime. Find these CTA thugs and arrest them, try them, imprison them.

Trayvon Martin? Forget the race crap. Trayvon was a thug and would've been a thug if he'd been polka-dotted.

Instead, let's start looking at our society as producers versus non-producers. Achievers versus non-achievers. Providers versus takers. Honest versus dishonest. Criminal versus non-criminal.

And let's arm the good people of Chicago to protect themselves against the non-producing, non-achieving, criminal element regardless of what color they may be.

In doing so, we'll lower the crime rate and begin to eliminate racism at the same time.

Only white people should have concealed handgun licenses.

That seems to be the message sent by a squad of uniformed goons in Fort Pierce, Florida.

Fellow Texan, pilot, patriot, gun-owner and blogger Sean Caranna publishes All Nine Yards, a blog about guns and airplanes and conservative things. He's a kindred spirit, to be sure.

He published this story on June 4th and my blood still has not stopped boiling.

There are two brief videos embedded in this blog post. The first shows a black man, Dale Norman, walking down the sidewalk, minding his own business when he gets slam-dunked to the concrete by five Fort Pierce cops.

His crime?

Allowing his holstered, concealed weapon to show--his tank-top had ridden up, exposing the bottom half of the firearm from what is seen in the video.

The goon squad sweeps in, guns drawn. Fine. You have a "man with a gun" call, in an apparently "economically challenged" area of town. But the nano-second the stormtroopers show up and jump out of their cars yelling, Norman complies one-hundred percent.

He makes NO THREATENING OR HOSTILE MOVES WHATSOEVER. For this, he gets ramrodded into the pavement, the proverbial knee in the spine while being handcuffed, yanked up, patted down, arrested and stuffed in the patrol car.

The catch? Dale Norman has a legal, lawful CHL. In fact, it had been issued only five days prior--so, as Sean points out, figure three of those days it was in the mail.

I understand that concealed means concealed. I also understand that here in the South, it gets hellishly hot and humid and proper "concealment" clothing isn't always as concealing as we'd like. Perhaps this CHL holder's instructor wasn't exactly top-shelf and didn't explain in great detail the necessity of staying concealed or the penalty for a "flash" which apparently is getting slammed to the concrete by five uniformed badge-toting apes.

You can't hear a lot of audio on the video but you CAN hear the radio exchange from dispatch to the units. What is not heard is any "panic" about a subject with a gun. What is also not heard is any information from the cops stating that the subject/suspect claims to have a CHL. The vast majority of permit-holders are pretty damned quick to let trigger-happy cops know that they have a PERMIT for the firearm they are carrying.

The cops did the right thing by detaining and restraining Mr. Norman, but they had zero reason to slam-dunk him and then treat him the way they did.

Story doesn't end there. Norman went to jail, spent the night in jail and the prosecutor has stated he intends to file and press full charges against this CHL holder.

Where the hell is the NAACP and Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and the rest of the race-baiting alpha-hotels? I'll go out on a limb and ascertain that had this been a WHITE GUY strolling down a tree-lined street with $300K homes, he would not have been slam-dunked, would not have been arrested and taken to jail, would not have spent a night in jail and would not be the focus of an overzealous prosecutor.

But since it's a black man exercising his CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS, the liberal (read: hypocritical and cowardly) faction of the black community is nowhere to be seen defending this young man.

My blood is continuing to boil.

A few days ago, I wrote about law enforcement seemingly doing everything they can to start a war with the populace they are paid to serve. Incidents like this bring that war one step closer.

But what do we care, right? After all, it's just another black hoodlum who was stupid enough to think he could actually FOLLOW THE LAW and get his CHL but when it shows, well, let's just say he got what he deserved, eh?

The cops' actions were pathetic. Period. The prosecutor's actions are pathetic. Period. The lack of support from the (so-called) black community is pathetic. Period.

Give Mr. Norman a ticket for "flashing," require a couple of hours of supplemental education on proper carry and concealment, then drop the thing. The man took the time--and money--to attend a class, purchase a holster, submit to the background check, blah blah blah. And yet the police continue to treat him like the enemy.

No, make that treat US like the enemy--because I don't give a damn what color the guy's skin is.

It might be one of us in Fort Pierce on a hot day getting slam-dunked to the concrete.

Florida law enforcement is looking more and more like Chicago politics every day.

Silence.

Read this.

The growing irrelevancy of the mainstream media is now being proven.

I'd like to think I was a bit of a prophet when I wrote this in my novel:

The major networks and metropolitan newspapers largely ignored all facets except for the president’s grandstanding and camera hounding in which he promised to veto a bill that never should have made it past the House, let alone into the Senate. The editorials and commentaries from the major media moguls favorably regurgitated all of this, then waited for the onslaught of negative feedback on their websites. Positive or negative, it didn’t matter because as long as the feedback was significant, it would support their advertising rates. But unlike in recent weeks, very little feedback occurred, giving a case for serious concern to network management and newspaper publishers alike. No feedback meant nobody was listening, nobody was reading. Nobody cared what they had to say.

The real action was elsewhere, like on talk radio where callers lit up the lines with national talk-show hosts Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin and Laura Ingraham, with the overwhelming majority of callers strongly favoring a national castle doctrine. Even faster and more furious was the internet with the bloggers and discussion forums. More and more of America had finally learned to disregard the so-called “news” that emanates from the networks with the exception of the Fox News Channel. One feedback submission to MSNBC pretty well summed up the feelings of most when it read, “You’re simply not relevant anymore, therefore, what you in the media think doesn’t matter.”

Fact is, rather than being prophetic, one would have to be blind to NOT see the growing irrelevancy of today's mainstream media.

Of course, the overwhelming majority of liberals ARE extremely "sight-challenged."

Having spent almost two decades in the world of Madison Avenue, I'm familiar with advertising and how it is the sole supporting source of revenue for television news programs. On TV, you have sitcoms and sports and things that people actually ENJOY viewing. Not so much with news. Don Henley had it right when he penned "Dirty Laundry."


Adding to that experience is the fact that my lovely wife was a veteran television reporter for almost a decade. Towards the end, before she left for the far more financially lucrative pastures of public relations, she often bemoaned the fact that newsroom budgets were being cut because of falling advertising revenues.

When the internet began truly roaring around five to seven years ago, we both predicted that the mainstream media would begin taking major-league hard hits.

We were right.

The local birdcage liners around here are the Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Star Telegram--huge papers serving a huge population. Ten years ago, the Morning News was actually tolerable until they brought in some wild-eyed radical woman from an Arizona paper to take over as Editor. The paper went to hell in a matter of months.

Subscriptions have been plummeting faster than the deck chairs on the Titanic. Rather than re-assessing the problem, the newspaper did the typical liberal thing--raised prices for advertisers and then began charging "subscription" rates for online viewing.

Now, not only did subscription continue to plummet, so did readership.

I've been seeing this all over the country. Newspapers are just about extinct. Sad, on one hand, but on the other. . . well, they did it to themselves.

In advertising, we determined rates by CPM--which is Cost Per Thousand, translated this means how much does it cost to reach one thousand viewers/listeners/readers. There are more formulas we used, such as Reach and Frequency and Weight, but at the end of the day, it all boiled down to CPM.

When you lose readers, that means your "thousands" go down, which means your advertisers are reaching LESS people for the same advertising rates. That, incidentally, brings up another nefarious problem that liberals are completely blind to, and that would be ROI--Return On Investment.

So what we have are advertisers reaching LESS readers, but the newspapers wanting to charge MORE for the readers that ARE being reached. I'm sure this makes perfect sense, somehow, to the managers at the New York Times and Washington Post and Dallas Morning News and other fish-wrappers. But it makes absolutely zero sense to the advertisers.

Unlike government, we were in business to make a profit. After all, someone has to support the career politicians and their career welfare constituents. Paying more to get less only makes sense inside the Beltway and those who worship the left side of the aisle in Washington, which is why we're so screwed up.

But according to this story in today's Drudge Report, even the lame-brained newspapers are finally starting to accept the BIG FACT behind their plummeting readership rates.

People are tuning them out. They don't matter. We already KNOW what they're going to say and how they're going to say it before an event even happens. It's either going to be Bush's fault, or we're all racists, or we support feeding children and senior citizens cat food, or we're all part of greedy big business.

Good is bad, bad is good. It's the liberal mantra parroted by mainstream media sources for decades, and this dodo bird is finally coming home to roost.

That is only fitting that such an idiotic bird come home to poop on the mainstream newspapers who line its bird cage.

Proof that a rotten apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Attention law enforcement--veterans are quickly getting fed up with you.

I guess the day has come.

When I was growing up, I could almost always count on a man (or woman, rare as they were) in a police officer's uniform to be one of good guys. As long as I wasn't doing anything wrong, I had nothing to fear from them.

That is simply not the case today, although I have zero fear of cops.

I used to be one. I know how utterly unprepared they are for actual, real, explosive violence. I also know that one-on-one, or two/three-on-one against a prepared, trained individual, they are hopelessly ill-trained and ill-prepared.


And yes, even with their guns and tasers.

What brings up this threatening, ominous post today?

Maybe the fact that I'm fed up with incidents like this one that took place in Wisconsin.

Here is a Marine veteran being arrested for exercising his First Amendment RIGHT at a political rally. What's more, the fat police officer tells the Marine he's going to "get his ass kicked."

The Marine states to the officer that he took an OATH to protect, defend and preserve the Constitution. The First Amendment is a huge part of that Constitution. The cops who arrested this Marine took the same oath.

The difference is that one of the people involved in this incident defended the Constitution and did so in a far away land where people tried to kill him. The other person crapped on the Constitution right here at home and in an expression of one of our MOST precious freedoms--the right to protest.

Unfortunately, stories of modern-day law enforcement's gross abuse of power and authority are becoming far too common. It used to be almost scandalous if a story broke about a dirty cop or one who ran ramshod over someone's rights or got overly brutal.

Hell, now we have cops murdering citizens and the great majority of Americans don't even blink.

Typical of the sheep.

However, I know from the talk amongst my vet friends that a lot of former soldiers, sailors and airmen are getting fed up. More than fed up, we're getting mad.

Fighting mad. Fighting BACK mad.

I know what cops are taught at the academy. I know how cops are taught to shoot and how to fight in unarmed or hand-to-hand situations. I also know how U.S. servicemen are taught to shoot and taught hand-to-hand. There is a huge difference. We're not trained to restrain--we're trained to disable, to cripple, to kill. It was taught to us that if it ever came down to using our unarmed combat tactics, we were already dead and our mission was then to take whoever and however as many as we could with us.

Soldiers and sailors and airmen have a natural loathing of firing on the flag. Translation to civilians, that it is to say, we loathe the idea of having to wage war against our own citizens--and law enforcement is considered civilian citizens.

There is a difference between being a drunk sailor at a frog-hog bar in Little Creek or at a beach hangout in Coronado and having the local cops roust you for drunk and disorderly, opposed to having a group of sheriff's deputies bust in your door at 0300 on a no-knock warrant and then shoot you over a dozen times and kill you for being "non-compliant" as was the case in southern Arizona some time back.

Homeless vets getting rousted and roughed up is nothing new. David Morrell wrote a famous novel about it that turned into a movie you might recall, known as First Blood.

The big problem is that there are some righteous cops out there. There are even cops out there who are vets themselves and who saw hostilities in lands far away. However, I'm not reading any stories or reports about them desecrating the Oath they took or flagrantly crapping on people's rights.

But I'm also not reading or hearing about them raising hell with their alpha-hotel comrades who ARE.

That's where it has to start. Righteous cops who revere the Oath they swore speaking out against the bad element that is growing like an out-of-control cancer in their profession.

You can push the sheep of this nation around. They'll take it. But a whole bunch of veterans are starting to get really tired of it.

In Wisconsin, the cops arrested that Marine because he did not want to fire on the flag. Those two slobs with badges, had the Marine exercised his training and experience, would've stood exactly zero chance.

And if law enforcement decides to make war on America's veterans, then God help law enforcement.

You started it, not us.

From virtual to reality.

Several years ago when I first began jotting down an outline and thoughts for my first fiction novel, e-books were pretty rare. Kindle was new and the naysayers were saying e-books would never fly.

Having spent many a year in the world of Madison Avenue, I knew all about naysayers. These are the folks who predicted the downfall of the stock market--in 1930. Same folks who predicted Pearl Harbor--on December 8th.

The original title of the book was to be "The Castle Doctrine" as the premise was, and still is, the right of ordinary American citizens to use whatever force necessary to defend themselves against threat of imminent, bodily harm and to not have to face prosecution, civil or criminal, for having done so.

My wife hated the title. As good husbands do, I ignored her for the majority of the book. But then I line I'd written in a later chapter where a showdown occurred in the Dirksen Senate conference room over a national reciprocity bill, the title "Above Reproach" came out all on it's own.

From the book:

   “We have rules, Mr. Cole,” Senator Maguire said quietly. “And I’ve already warned you about your language.”
   “Yes ma’am, you do and you have,” Dillon replied. “But so do we. And our rules, from the people that elect you and pay you, are that you treat us with the same respect and dignity that you demand from us. All across the country these past few days, we’ve watched and listened to reports about armed citizens defending themselves, their families, their neighborhoods and businesses against these sleeper cell terrorists that have recently woken up and are going on murderous rampages. The people fighting back against these terrorists are ordinary citizens, just like you and me who—”
   “They’re not ordinary, Mr. Cole,” the senator from New York yelled, again rising to his feet. “They’re barely one step above the animals whose rights they violated and then murdered, and as such, should not be—”
   “Wrong, Senator!” Dillon thundered, slamming his open palm down on the table with enough force to make everyone in the chamber jump. “These are good people. They are decent, law-abiding people. They are patriotic citizens looking out for themselves and their families. When such people as these defend themselves or their families or friends or neighbors using whatever force necessary, they are acting morally, ethically and lawfully and as such, Senator, they are above reproach from you or anyone else in this screwed up town as well as the media!”

As cool as it was to see the book come to fruition in e-book form, it is now available in print edition.

Seeing, feeling and holding your labor of love and joy in your hands for the first time is pretty cool, I have to tell you.

For once, the timing worked out how I wanted it also. The print edition debuted on Memorial Day weekend at Amazon.com. It will be another month or so from the date of this writing until it becomes available at Barnes & Noble and other online retailers.

But for now, virtual has become reality. And for me, that's pretty cool.