Sexual revolution. . . how many does this make now?

Revolution.

The dictionary describes it as the overthrow of a government or social order. Interestingly enough, the same dictionary also describes it as the process of revolving around in a circle, as in orbit.

To that end, I had thought the sexual revolution was long since kapoot. It seems I was wrong.

Between sexually transmitted diseases and the Jerry Falwell types, with one being just as unpleasant to think about as the other, I had mistakenly assumed that the sexual revolution had come to an end and we Americans had refocused our energies elsewhere.

Several incidents I’ve witnessed as of late have me convinced otherwise.

At the end of last summer, I was out on the boat anchored in my favorite cove when I noticed a large cabin-cruiser type pull into the cove. It wasn’t long before the boat, and its young, very female guest, drifted over my way. I could see the young girl in the water hanging on to an inflatable raft and she was a bombshell in a skimpy bikini. My handkerchief could have made three of her swimsuits. Blonde, perhaps mid-twenties, and even in the water, her mascara and makeup were still perfect. I could also tell she was well on her way to a respectable level of intoxication.

As she drifted over to me, she called out, “Hey Mister! Do you have a beer?”

For the record, we never have any booze on our boat. Period. I’m not a prohibitionist by any means and you can drink a distillery every day if you like, just don’t get behind the wheel of anything that moves.

“Nope,” I answered, not having to yell because she had drifted to within ten or fifteen feet of me. “Don’t keep any on board. Sorry.”

She thought about that for a moment, then climbed up on her floating raft. “If you give me a beer, I’ll show you my (rhymes with zits).”

My first thought was that I couldn’t believe what she just said. My second thought was I wonder what she'd show me for a six-pack? I looked at the guy driving the big boat that she was with and he just shrugged. “Give her a beer if you got one,” he called out. “She’ll put on a show for you.”

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen such things on the lake. Last summer, I had pulled up anchor and was leaving the cove and passed a floating mansion of a boat that had one guy at the helm and four young women in various stages of undress frolicking about on the forward deck. As I cruised by, I saw that two of the young women were absolutely naked and engaged in the sort of activity that ends up on videos you used to rent at adult bookstores. As I passed them, everyone on the boat waved, including the two girls doing the indescribable deed. Friendly folks.

I smiled and waved back. What else could I do—and they didn’t ask me for a beer, did they?

When I told this story the next day at the office, one of my employees enlightened me to the facts. Seems that he had bartended at a “gentleman’s club” for almost a year while he was attending college. “The money and tips were pretty good,” he explained. “And you couldn’t beat the scenery.”

“What happens,” he went on to tell me, “is that these rich guys will come into the club, get drunk and start tipping heavily. A lot of them own big boats they keep out on the lake and after a few drinks, they’ll invite some of the girls back to their boat with them after the club closes.”

I grew up in the middle of the sexual revolution when sex was as common as mosquito bites. When I became of age, a lot of my buddies started going to (rhymes with pity) bars. I went a couple of times but that was it. I have about as much use for those places as I do nosebleeds. Besides, it’s like feeding a starving dog a rubber bone.

Unless, apparently, you own a cabin-cruiser yacht.

Revolutions are wars and wars are best fought by people younger than myself. If what I’ve been seeing at the lake as of late is any indication, another sexual revolution could very well be headed our way. With any luck, however, this one will just be a minor skirmish.

And being the prude that I am, I believe I’ll just sit this one out.

What deadbeat parents leave behind

I was in a Walgreens the other day, standing behind someone returning some merchandise. Fairly painless because Walgreens will take back anything, anytime for any reason. If it costs them money, no problem--they just jack up prices for the rest of us honest consumers.

But the point of this post isn't to rag on Walgreens for their return policy.

The point is how come we can't do the same with deadbeat parents?

I was talking to my eighteen-year-old cousin, who in actuality is more like a niece to my wife and I. My paternal grandfather had eight brothers and sisters, spread out over a period of almost twenty-five years. That means for a lot of second and third cousins with some huge age variances.

Anyhow, my cousin was telling me about one of her best friends and how the girl's parents had formally disowned the child, and done so a long time ago, leaving the young lady to fend for herself, literally and figuratively. The young lady now, understandably, has some issues.

The crapper here is that the deadbeat parents who decided they didn't want to be parents way back when they disowned her, those parents will not be nor ever be held accountable for the problems their child is having.

Now, the young lady in question is not criminal--not even close. She isn't pregnant nor has she ever been. No drugs, no booze.

Just a frightened young woman dealing with the emotional minefield of why her own parents suddenly decided they didn't want her.

My question is why didn't the parents simply turn their daughter over to someone who WOULD want her and love her? I doubt the selfish sonsofbitches could answer that question. But I'd sure like to ask them. In person.

I'm a huge fan of adoption. I support it, and late last year, decided to get involved by doing more than simply writing a check and donating money here and there. I signed up to volunteer to be a mentor to some of these kids. To be a friend, a confidant, someone they could trust and count on.

In other words, someone who wouldn't disown them.

I know family courts are overworked. I know--because the training I had to take and am still taking tells me so--that a family court judge's primary goal is to keep the family united. In many respects, I can understand and accept that.

But when a sperm-donor and egg-recipient (aka: biological father and biological mother) formally disown their own child, and in her early teenage years, there is no longer any family to keep together.

Worse yet, the child feels responsible and carries the guilt.

As of December of last year, there were almost 13,000 kids under the age of eighteen awaiting adoption in Texas alone. Across the entire U.S., there are over 300,000 kids waiting on those magic words from their caseworker of "Good news! We have a family interested in adopting you."

"http://www.icareaboutorphans.org/WaitingKidsinYourState.aspx"

The overwhelming majority of these children are teenagers. Nobody wants teens. They come with baggage. They may never call you "mom" or "dad." They may have attitudes. They may be surly. They may have developmental problems and they may have emotional needs.

But that's what commitment is all about. Good with the bad. Having the patience to ride out storms. Having the courage and the sword to help these young people confront their emotional demons, then slay them.

And yet, many of those emotional needs are only listed as "mild," which in translation means the kids are just ordinary teenagers who are more than a little shaken up over having been in a bad home--with deadbeat parents--and are now in a foster home and wondering why nobody loves them.

That kind of situation would make any of us a little emotionally needy.

Look here: "http://tare.dfps.state.tx.us/search/ReportResults.jsp"

These are but just a smattering of the children here in Texas alone that are awaiting a forever family, a family that will love them rather than disown them.

If you search on a national scale, you'll find even more kids waiting on a forever family and home. "http://www.adoptuskids.org/Child/ChildSearchResults.aspx?pg=1"

This is what deadbeat parents leave behind, which is why I have two wishes:

1. I wish there were more than enough families and homes out there to give these beautiful kids the family and home they truly deserve, and

2. I wish we could put deadbeat parents in jail. We already do that, allegedly, to deadbeat dads--but that's only for not paying monetary child support. What about the deadbeat parents who abandon their kids because they simply no longer want them?

I wish I had an answer. I wish anyone had an answer.

Give these kids a shot at a brand new life. And remember: When you reach out and take a chance, these kids are taking a chance on you too.

But isn't that what love is really about? Love is what moves us to take chances with people. Faith is what ensures us it will work out.

Let's find good, loving, forever homes for these children.

Tweet

Learn English, become a citizen, or get the hell out of here

I waited in line at my pharmacy today for an additional twenty minutes. I waited because the asshole in front of me no speakee English.

Unfortunately, there wasn't anyone who spoke Hindu or Indian or whatever the hell it is they speak in Bangladesh or Burma or wherever this buttwipe was from.

So everyone who COULD speak English waited behind this SOB while he kept asking questions that no one could answer. And get this--the longer WE waited, the madder HE got.

Finally, his daughter or one of his harem of wives or sister or friend-with-benefits or whoever she was came in--and she translated for him. And then she had the brass ovaries to lecture US about being more patient and understanding with people who weren't natives here.

A woman--an American woman, I presume--asked this lady how long the man, who could no speakee English, had been living in the U.S.

The man, who looked to be in his late forties, but could've been fifteen or ninety-five for I could tell, or care, had been living here in the United States for over a decade.

Over a decade! And the sonofabitch still couldn't--or wouldn't--learn or speak even the simplest of sentences.

Get the (f-bomb) out of my country, asshole.

I am sick to death of "permanent immigrants" who take all we have to offer in the U.S., but have no intention of becoming citizens.

Get the hell out of here.

I was in an older north Dallas suburb the other day and stopped in a Kroger grocery store. I thought I was in a third world banana republic. I kept looking for American looking faces and American sounding people, but all I heard was a mix of Spanish, Asian, Hindu--or whatever the hell it is they speak--and a whole slew of other languages that I didn't recognize.

Thank God the cashier, an American (because I asked) could speak English. If she couldn't, I had every intention of throwing my stuff on the floor and walking out.

Now, I figure I'm going to be called a xenophobe and homophobe and India-phobe and every other kind of phobe by the liberal faction, so I'll just say it to those who wish to throw our borders wide open and keep them that way:

Kiss my phobic ass.

We have Mexicans living here, but not citizens, working and sending the bulk of their money back home to Mexico. Suggestion? Follow your money home--and stay there with your money. Do not come back. We have prisoners that can pick lettuce and it's high time our errant citizens who are incarcerated began earning their way.

We have Indians running out our ears living here, but who refuse to become citizens, working and sending their money and every damned thing they can buy free with a coupon back home to New Delhi or Calcutta or wherever. Suggestion? Follow your money and merchandise home. Use your American Express Card to pay for the trip back, then put in an application with the American Express call centers that now reside in your country.

Which is a huge reason why American Express is about as welcome in our house as Jane Fonda or Michael Moore.

Asians? I kind of have a soft spot for most Asians. They are without a doubt, some of the hardest working and most honest people I have ever met. But again, if all you want to do is take a free ride here, haul ass. Go home. Fix your own country, make it livable, then stay there.

How come we don't have Czechs and Poles in the massive numbers that we do Indians and Mexicans here? Both the Czech Republic and Poland used to be hardcore communist countries under the iron grip of the Iron Curtain regime within the Warsaw Pact.

When communism was exposed for the sham it is and everyone in the world, except for Barack Obama and California, realized it was a sham, formerly communist countries started adapting and changing and doing pretty well for themselves.

Why the hell can't India and Mexico, and to a lesser extent, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam do the same thing? Taiwan? No problem. Probably the best economic partner we have. Red China? Screw you. Quit sending your commies over here to steal and pilfer every trade secret and patent they can.

In fact, why the hell do we even give visas to citizens from communist countries in the first place?

I'm sick of our open borders. I'm sick of the entire world taking advantage of our generosity, and then shitting on us every chance it gets. To hell with the rest of the world. Screw you. Try living without us for a year or two.

I'm not a total isolationist. I favor maintaining strong friendships and relationships with Australia & New Zealand (the Down Under gang), Great Britain, Israel, Poland, Czech Republic, Japan, Taiwan, South Africa, the western half of Canada--and Switzerland.

To hell with everyone else. No more foreign aid. Tsunami hits India? Too bad, we don't speak the language and you don't speak ours. Nothing we can do. Earthquake in Mexico City? Tough tortillas, amigos. Take a few days off from printing your comic books teaching your people how to illegally cross our borders and then qualify for our welfare and food stamps. . . and take care of your own mess--or leave it for the cartels to fix. Don't care how you do it, we ain't doing it.

No more indefinite I-9 cards (Green Cards). One year. That's it. Student visas? Have to be renewed every six months. No exceptions. None. And if you don't renew it, fail to renew it, or refuse to renew it and we catch you, one year in prison, then deportation.

If you're working for a foreign company who has offices on U.S. soil and sending money back to your home country, then that money should incur an additional tax. Don't like that? Then don't come here.

No speakee English? Tough doo-doo. We ain't translating. No reason our ballots should be in multiple languages. After all, our money isn't and the foreigners don't seem to have any problems understanding THAT.

You know the saying, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." Well, when in America, do as the Americans do--or get the hell out of America.

Tweet

Wall Street: Worshiping at the altar of a false god

The Money Worshiper’s Prayer:

“Our stock broker, who art on Wall Street, hallowed be thy name. Thy market come, thy investment will be done, on earth as it is on The Street. Give us this stock our daily profit. Forgive our losses, as we bankrupt those who trust us. And lead us not into bear markets, but deliver us from the SEC. For thine is the Nasdaq, the Dow and the S&P forever. Amen.”

If you think this is blasphemous, sorry, because the way many people in this country worship money. . .

Think about it. We love money. We can’t get enough of it. We kill ourselves working for it. We dream about it. We salivate over the thought of being a gazillionaire. Millions upon millions of people used to journey to Las Vegas and Atlantic City every year fantasizing about “hitting the jackpot” and coming home richer than the U.S. Treasury. Now you don’t have to travel to Vegas because there’s a riverboat casino on virtually every river in America. If you don’t have instant access to a casino, have no fear the lottery is here. If vice gambling isn’t your thing, no problem. Try day-trading. Via the internet, you can lose more money than the Obama administration and just as fast.

Which brings us full circle back to investing and Wall Street.

As I write this, Wall Street is looking like Pearl Harbor on that fateful day back in December of 1941. Yet, the only panic, wailing and gnashing of teeth that I’m hearing is coming from the Money Worshippers. I mentioned this to the fellow who runs the feed mill where I buy my dog food and fertilizer as I wrote him a check for some dog food. “What do you think about Wall Street?” I asked him.

“Wall Street?” he asked.

“Yes sir,” I replied.

“I don’t think about it at all. I’m not stupid enough to send any of my money up there.”

I thought about that. Here is a man who owns and runs his own business and is making a good living doing so. The business is paid off, as is his home. The kids are educated and he has no debt. He knows all of his regular customers by face, and most by name. He’s happy with his lot in life. That’s wealth in my book. Real wealth.

So long as we allow our economy to go as Wall Street goes, we are going to lose. After all, Wall Street should reflect our economy, not dictate it.

During the latter part of my career years, I got caught up in investing here and investing there and following the market. I was making money, lots of it. I also quit going to church, quit trading at feed mills and other family-owned businesses, and when we ate out, it was always at some chain-name restaurant who also happened to have a listing on Wall Street. My blood pressure and stress levels were in a daily race to see which could reach stroke-level first. I measured my happiness and success by my paycheck and by how well I was doing compared to everyone else in my business. And I was doing pretty damned well.

Except that while I was very successful, I wasn't very happy.

No wonder they call it the rat race. The only people I see winning it are just bigger and faster rats. I was just becoming another big, fat rat. And I didn't like it.

Funny thing about rats is that they will also eat their own. One Fortune 100 company announced significant layoffs. Money was non-existent and they couldn’t afford to keep thousands of employees around, so thousands of employees suddenly found themselves on the street with no jobs and only a measly four-week severance package.

Yet the CEO of that same company was paid $55 million that year--as part of his severance package. And yet the Money Worshipers continued to buy stock as fast as they could in that company.

I can’t print what I think about that.

If you want to invest in America, invest in your hometown and its local businesses. The small businessman built America and ensures that this great nation continues to run today. Invest in your schools and your churches. Invest in your neighborhood parks and playgrounds. Sponsor a Little League baseball or soccer team.

In other words, invest in your immediate quality of life. Because there’s nothing false about that.

The NRA's letter to Obama

I'm still trying to figure out where this bozo and disgrace of a president supposedly learned constitutional law--and allegedly taught it--to be so inept and utterly clueless as to what it is. . .

Maybe in those Indonesian muslim schools he attended as a child?

National Rifle Association of America
11250 Waples Mill Road
Fairfax, VA 22030


nra

March 14, 2011

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

We read your editorial submission to the Arizona Star. However, to focus a national dialogue on guns – and not criminals or mental health issues – misses the point entirely. Americans are not afraid of gun ownership. To the contrary, they overwhelmingly support the fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms. The primary reason why tens of millions of Americans own firearms is that they fear violent criminals roaming the streets undeterred.

We agree with your assertion that "Americans by and large rightly refrained from finger-pointing" in light of the shooting in Tucson . In truth, the professional corps of gun control lobbyists moved with lightning speed to exploit the tragedy. These included the Violence Policy Center ("In the wake of these kind of incidents, the trick is to move quickly"), the Brady Campaign ("Gabrielle Giffords Shooting 'Inevitable'") and Mayors Against Illegal Guns-MAIG ("Bloomberg, Mayors Outline Steps to Help Prevent Another Tucson Shooting"). Your article contains talking points nearly identical to the ones circulated by MAIG for weeks in pursuit of its longstanding gun control agenda. In contrast, it was the National Rifle Association that avoided "playing politics with other people's pain" with our consistent response that only thoughts and prayers for the victims and their families were appropriate in the immediate aftermath.

We also agree with your statement that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms. Your record as a public official, however, is anything but supportive of the rights of law-abiding gun owners. In fact, when Congress had an opportunity to voice its support for the basic right of lawful Americans to own firearms, you refused to join a bipartisan majority of more than 300 of your colleagues in signing the congressional amicus brief to the Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller. In addition, you previously stated (and have never retracted) your support for both Washington , D.C. 's and Chicago's handgun and self-defense bans that the Court rightfully struck down in Heller and McDonald v. Chicago. Further, you surrounded yourself with advisors who have advocated against the Second Amendment for years (Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton and Rahm Emanuel, to name just a few) and you nominated Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court, one of whom has already attempted to eliminate the Second Amendment right entirely. More recently, you selected Andrew Traver to head the BATFE, despite his long-standing association with groups that support onerous new restrictions on our rights.

If you do in fact believe the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right, we suggest you demonstrate that in your policies and those of your Administration, which you have not done to date. Simply saying that you support the right to keep and bear arms is mere lip service if not put into action.

The government owes its citizens its most vigorous efforts to enforce penalties against those who violate our existing laws. The NRA has members proudly serving in law enforcement agencies at every level. Rank and file law enforcement want to arrest bad people – not harass law-abiding gun owners and retailers.

As for enforcing the laws on the books, we strongly suggest you enforce those that actually take violent criminals off the streets. To start, we urge you to contact every U.S. Attorney and ask them to bring at least ten cases per month against drug dealers, gang members and other violent felons caught illegally possessing firearms. By prosecuting these criminals in federal court – rather than state court – strong sentencing guidelines would apply and charges would not be plea-bargained or dismissed, nor would criminals be released after serving only a fraction of their sentences. This simple directive would result in roughly 12,000 violent criminals being taken off the streets every year. Surely you agree that this would be a good first step.

Unfortunately, your Administration is currently under a cloud for allegedly encouraging violations of federal law. We suggest that you bring an immediate stop to BATFE's "Fast and Furious" operation, in which an unknown number of illegal firearm transactions were detected – and then encouraged to fruition by your BATFE, which allegedly decided to let thousands of firearms "walk" across the border and into the hands of murderous drug cartels. One federal officer has recently been killed and no one can predict what mayhem will still ensue. Despite the protests of gun dealers who wished to terminate these transactions, your Administration reportedly encouraged violations of federal firearms laws – and undermined the firearm industry's concerted efforts to deter straw purchases through the "Don't Lie for the Other Guy" program. We hope you agree with our belief that this burgeoning scandal merits a full and independent investigation.

There are additional steps you can take to prevent tragic events such as the Tucson shooting from occurring in the future. One of these is to call on the national news media to refrain from giving deranged criminals minute-by-minute coverage of their heinous acts, which only serves to encourage copycat behavior. If media outlets won't show a fan running onto the field during a baseball game because they don't want to encourage that behavior by others – surely they can listen to law enforcement experts and refuse to air the photographs, video messages, or Facebook postings of madmen and murderers.

Another step is to encourage people to report red flags when they see them. In the case of Tucson , a man clearly bent on violence was not reported to the proper authorities by those who had good reason to believe he had serious mental problems. That's not a deficiency in our gun laws, it's a deficiency in our mental health system – and should be treated as such.

In closing, we agree that gun owners in America are highly responsible. This is in large part due to the NRA's 140 years of dedication to promoting safe and responsible gun ownership, an effort on which we take a back seat to no one. We welcome any serious discussion on policies that focus on prosecuting criminals and fixing deficiencies in the mental health system. Any proposals to the contrary are not a legitimate approach to the issue.

Sincerely,
Wayne LaPierre
Executive Vice President
National Rifle Association Chris W. Cox
Executive Director
NRA-ILA

Remembering a shoe-shine man

(This is a column I wrote several years ago in remembrance to a very special man. I still miss him to this day as he would always remind me what really mattered in life. God Bless you, Harry."

THE SHOE SHINE MAN

Every time I look down at my boots, I think of Harry. The first time I met Harry, I was looking at his face. He was looking at my boots.

I first met Harry back in late 1999. He was the shoe-shine man at the downtown office building where I used to work. He had his chairs and shoe-shine stand tucked away in the corner by the elevator bank I took up to my office; so I saw Harry every morning.

Harry was an artist with his polish and a percussionist with his rag. In the two years I knew him, I never saw a pair of shoes or boots leave his hands that didn’t look better than brand new.

Why is it that we look down at people who shine shoes for a living? In all my years of working with overpaid and over pampered advertising and marketing executives, I never saw so much sloppy work, excuse-making and childish whining in my life. If an ad campaign failed, it was always someone else's fault. If the client didn’t like a layout, it was the creatives’ fault. And so on and so on. This seems to be the trend in today’s office and business environment everywhere. Whine whine whine. Blame blame blame.

Hell, just look at the sorry excuse for a government we have.

But you know what’s funny about shoe-shine men? If their work is bad, there isn’t a single person or thing they can blame other than themselves. Maybe this is why every shoe-shine man I’ve ever met put more than just polish and a rag on my boots. They put pride in their work, and my boots always showed it. And when Harry put pride into making my boots shine, those boots never looked better.

Harry was also a bit of a local celebrity. He was a blues singer who had been singing in smoky old juke joints for decades. The Fort Worth newspaper even did a big write-up on Harry, his blues-singing and shoe-shining and it made the front page of the Living Section. I had never seen Harry prouder. Here he was, pushing 80 years-old and had his face all over the newspaper. In color even.

The only time I ever saw Harry’s face light up even brighter was when he’d talk about fishing. Lord, how that man loved to fish. I liked to fish as well, and I can’t count the number of times Harry and I would talk about him and I taking my boat out and doing some fishing. Harry had a small boat, but it often wouldn’t run. That didn’t bother Harry a bit; he could fish off the shore or off the dock just as well. He loved fishing for crappie and catfish.

But Harry and I never got to go fishing. I was working too many hours, and Harry got sick.

One day he didn’t show up at his shoe-shine stand. His wife had checked him into the VA hospital where they told him he had lung cancer. Surgery was performed and a large part of the problem lung was removed. None of us ever knew where Harry was. Every morning, I would walk up to the elevators hoping to see that Harry was back, but every morning he was still gone.

Then one morning shortly before Christmas, Harry was back. I grabbed a coke and sat down to get my boots shined. Harry told me where he’d been. We made plans to go fishing in the spring.

In the spring of that year, I had retired from the ad agency, and one morning I drove back downtown to my old office building. I had nothing but time on my hands and the water was warming up and the fish were biting. My boat was ready and raring to go, and I figured Harry and I could spend the rest of day just drowning one worm after another and passing time however we saw fit.

It was with a bounce in my step that I strode through the revolving doors and headed for Harry’s shoe-shine stand. But Harry wasn’t there. The security officer saw me and walked over to me. He told me that Harry had died. The cancer had come back and he was just too weak to fight it.

I haven’t felt much like fishing since.

Throwing their sorry asses out of office

Last week, I blogged about Bell, California, getting fed up with their corrupt city council and recalling their butts right out of a job.

Yesterday, I read about the Denver city council voting themselves raises of almost seven percent. This comes at a time when the city is reeling from a $700 million dollar budget shortfall, and put simply, the money isn't there.

Naturally in American, our elected whores vote to take care of themselves first, the people who put them into office second.

Miami-Dade got fed up with this and threw Mayor Carlos Alvarez out on his ass.

"http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/15/2117129/9-of-10-say-yes-to-ousting-alvarez.html"

I've always looked at southern Florida as a banana republic and a third world country. Most of the time that's a good view to have--makes it cheaper than flying to Columbia or Bolivia to experience sweltering humidity and corrupt politicians.

But today, southern Florida surprises me. They stood up to the corruption and brava-sierra of Mayor Alvarez, got the signatures needed to do a recall, and recalled his lying, scheming, thieving ass right out of office.

Are you reading this, Mr. Obama?

A $10 million dollar slave?

I've long been convinced that most professional athletes are dead from the neck up. Adrian Peterson of the Minnesota Vikings reinforces that belief.

As expected, the NFL owners and the NFL players both think they are being screwed by each other, so they headed to the collective bargaining table to see who could screw the other a little more.

What's missing from this story is that ultimately, it is the fan who is being screwed.

But Adrian Peterson doesn't see it that way. He thinks he, and his fellow NFL players are slaves.

Adrian Peterson, by the way, just signed a contract worth $10.7 million dollars.

"http://www.twincities.com/ci_17619356?nclick_check=1"

Adrian Peterson and his fellow NFL players play a school yard game, same as their buddies in the NBA and same as the boys who play major league baseball. Professional hockey players are paid to fight, which begs the question: Why don't we just put Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson and some of those guys on skates and let 'em slug it out? No more silly rules about icing, whatever the hell that is, or being too far forward on the ice.

But I digress.

I remember a time when NFL players almost always took what were called "off-season" jobs. They worked those jobs, and when it was time to retire, they often went full-time to those off-season jobs.

I also remember a time when it was virtually unheard of for an NFL player to get arrested and go to jail. Today, we have Michael Vick going to prison, then coming out and being heralded as a hero for "enduring" his unfair prison sentence.

Wonder if Vick thinks he's a slave? His dogs damn sure were. Wouldn't surprise me one bit if he doesn't agree with Peterson. Solidarity, you know. Pacman Jones, Tank Johnson. . . how many NFL slaves, er, excuse me, players have been arrested or indicted or jailed or imprisoned in the past two decades?

Yet their salaries continue to skyrocket--for playing a schoolyard game. I'm trying to think back to my history classes. . . can't remember the slaves of old getting endorsements from ad agencies and advertisers for being the fast cotton-picker on the plantation. Likewise, trying to remember if any of the larger man slaves got signing bonuses when they exercised their free agency and got traded to another plantation.

Perhaps Adrian Peterson should stick to doing what he does best, and that is fumbling under pressure--because it looks like he just did it again, with his mouth this time rather than his hands.

Black people are too stupid to be cops

Dayton, Ohio's police entrance exams already required dismally low scores just to qualify for an academy appointment.

Thanks to our government, namely Eric Holder's idiotic Department of Justice, those dismally low scoring requirements just got lower.

In fact, a failing grade--an "F"--is all that is required.

This is all part of a move ordered by the DOJ so that more blacks can apply, be accepted, and become gun-toting, powers-of-arrest, crime-scene investigating police officers.

The message from Eric Holder's DOJ?

That blacks are obviously too stupid, at least in Dayton, Ohio, to get a job as a cop on their own.

If I were black, I'd be pissed off. Royally. In fact, I'm not black and I'm pissed off. Royally. Everytime we try to move beyond race in this country, it's some racist national figure or elected official that keep dragging us back.

In chains.

Only the chains these imbecilic hypocrites use today aren't made of steel--they're made of paper and ink and are known as laws. But the net result is the same: One group gets diminished and further stereotyped and they have no control over it.

Check out this story, and pay very close attention to what the Dayton NAACP president says.

"http://abc.daytonsnewssource.com/shared/newsroom/top_stories/videos/wkef_vid_6103.shtml"

I'd like to buy Derrick Forward the adult beverage of his choice.

In case you didn't click on the link, this is what Mr. Forward said, and I quote:

"The NAACP does not support individuals failing a test and then having the opportunity to be gainfully employed. If you lower the score for any group of people, you're not getting the best qualified people for the job."

I find it ironic that the NAACP gets it, and our own numbskulls at the Department of Justice don't.

I talked to a couple of my black friends this evening about this story. One of them is a cop. He was pissed off. Royally. "You know?" he told me. "I spent eight years in the Army, a lot of it over in Iraq in the early days. I come home, used my GI bill to finish college, then applied to the police academy. I made it on my own. High scores, man. I didn't need affirmative action or reduced test scores. If I did, I didn't have any business being a cop."

Damn straight.

My other friend put it more succinctly. "This is the kind of shit," he fumed, "that sets black people back, not forward. When our own people are telling the world that we're stupid and can't do anything on our own, how the (expletive deleted) hell are we supposed to advance on our own?"

A cop only knows two colors: Blue, for the uniform and commitment and loyalty it represents, and red, the color of the blood that cops sometimes bleed in defense of their neighborhood, city, state and nation.

Our government is telling cops that the only color that matters is black. By lowering the test scores, the Department of Justice is telling us that being a smart cop, a qualified cop. . . that isn't important.

What's important is to be a black cop first, and a qualified cop second.

Only some stupid-ass appointed by the Chief Stupid Ass himself, Barack Obama, could run a bureaucracy this utterly out of touch with the real world.

I'd write more, but I need to call up all my black friends and tell them how stupid they are, but to not fret--they have a golden career opportunity in either Dayton with the police department, or in Washington with the Department of Justice. I'll have to be careful, though, as many of them are already cops. Some are career military men with one being a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, some are even attorneys even though I try very hard not to call any lawyer "friend" unless I'm standing in front of an angry judge.

I reckon I'm more disappointed than anything. Here I've been foolishly thinking that all my black friends were just as smart as me, and now the Justice Department tells me it isn't so.

Wonder how my Latino friends will take the news?

Vacationing overseas. Things to consider

It's spring break here in Texas, and a lot of folks are taking to the airways in the sky to vacation overseas. Not me. Military and government broke me of any lingering desires to venture abroad. But for those of you who still seek to explore the world, read on. Maybe I can save you a lot grief.

A friend of mine recently came back from taking his family overseas on vacation. They went somewhere in Europe. He told me that the only place his kids wanted to eat was McDonalds.

With a McDonalds on every street corner here in America, why go to Brussels for a Big Mac?

The more I thought about that, the more I wondered why anyone would want to venture overseas for vacation. So I pulled out my old college atlas and began looking around the globe trying to see if there was any place foreign to America that would interest me during these times.

Mexico? Forget it. Drink anything that doesn’t come out of a bottle there and Senor Montezuma will find his way into your intestinal tract and the rest of your vacation is then spent running from one outhouse to another. Indoor plumbing can be rare in Mexico and is often reserved only for drug cartel chieftains and Mexican federales, which often times can be one and the same.

Speaking of bottles in Mexico, you have to be very careful even then. Mexican tequila comes in a bottle, and their tequila has little worms in the bottom. The worms are dead, and that should tell you something right there. They probably died of Montezuma’s Revenge.

Even more disturbing is the fact that our Texas Department of Public Safety has officially warned Texas citizens that it is not safe, nor recommended that you travel to Mexico. The drug cartels are killing people faster than the Super Computers can count.

But why travel to Mexico? Just travel to any mid to large size city, journey to the underbelly where the illegal aliens huddle together, and there you'll have a firsthand look at what our deadbeat neighbor to the south has to offer.

You won't need a passport to do this, but you might need police protection.

Traveling to South America is risky as well, and for a couple of reasons. One is that they do the Tango in parts of South America and if you’re not in Olympic-class physical shape before attempting to dance the Tango, you could spend all of your vacation cash reserves at the local chiropractor’s office. Secondly, a drug cartel might swap the powdered creamer for your coffee with something a little more lively. You’ll be able to do a great Tango, but it will be in a Columbian prison.

If you happened to have voted for Obama, stop by Venezuela and check things out. Then stay there.

If it's danger you're trying to avoid, then that will also rule out vacationing anywhere in the Middle East. Car bombs and suicide bombers notwithstanding, it’s also hard to find a place where you can knock back the dust of the desert with a cold beer. And if you pick up some goat-kabobs as a snack for you and the kids and accidentally shortchange the vendor, it could cost you an arm. Literally.

So moving right along to Europe, let’s say you want to see some ancient ruins. Check out downtown Detroit instead. If experiencing the Autobahn is more to your liking, rent a Dodge Viper and head to North Carolina, then get on Interstate 95 north and fly all the way into Washington D.C. That German highway can’t hold a candle to some of our very own interstates when it comes to insane drivers.

Looking for smelly and crowded subways like those found in Moscow, London and Paris? You can find those in New York City and you don’t even need a passport.

Maybe you were thinking of taking a trip down under. Forget it. My wife and I used to watch the Crocodile Hunter all the time and it seems like everything that can kill you a hundred times over is found in Australia. They have giant crocodiles in every stretch of water and man-eating sharks that cruise up and down the beaches. If that weren’t enough, they have snakes that can kill you just by reputation alone and huge, ugly spiders that kill you and then eat you. What kind of vacation is that?

China? You can have that too. I saw a Richard Gere movie where he got in deep doo-doo for something he supposedly said or did there. Besides, if you want to visit a communist state, there’s always California.

On second thought, you might find a little more freedom and better cost of living in China.

Basically, the only reason that is left to venture overseas would be for the food, and that problem is easily solved as well. Right here in America we have every ethnic and cultural style of food imaginable and you don’t have to get to the restaurant by airliner. Plus, you can drink the water without having to worry about doing the Tango on the way to a Mexican drug cartel chieftain's personal outhouse.

Vacationing overseas? You can have it. But if you insist, just remember to make sure all your insurance policies are up to date and in good order.

And don’t forget to pack lots of extra toilet paper.

Tweet

Gas pains that Rolaids won't touch

The price of gas at the pumps is giving us collective gas pains that bathing in a sea of Alka Seltzer wouldn't even cure.

You see, the astronomical price of gasoline in America is a symptom of the problem, and not the bigger problem.

The bigger problem is that our government is run, manipulated, bullied and influenced by everyone except for the voters who put their butts in office.

Everyone from the Sierra Club to PETA to Exxon Mobil to the homeless to the transgender freaks have their own lobbyists, all of whom have suitcases full of cash and pockets full of perks to bribe our elected prostitutes with.

And bribe they do.

And then there are the taxes per gallon that each state charges. Not surprising, California and New York--the two bastions of socialism--lead the way in charging the most draconian taxes per gallon of gasoline.

Right here in Texas, we have more than enough oil wells already drilled and capped off to sustain ourselves for decades to come--so long as we don't sell it to too many other states. But, our neighbors all around us also have plenty of oil already drilled and capped off. So do our further reaching neighbors to the west and northwest, and especially our big cousin, Alaska.

Instead, our elected whores continue to pimp us out to the OPEC thugs, including that murderous, dick-tater in Venezuela, Hugo Chavez.

The problems with high prices at the pump go beyond just giving us a collective pain in the ass--where we carry our wallets. When gas prices go up, we tend to drive less and only to necessary places like work. That means stay-at-home vacations which means hotels and motels lose business. So do the roadside restaurants who are used to collecting money from traveling tourists. The souvenir hawkers and tour guides lose money. And so do the gas stations at the tourist destinations.

When gas prices go up, so do airline tickets. American Airlines just announced today they were having to raise ticket prices by a minimum of $10 per trip in an effort to try and offset rising oil prices. Remember: airlines also charge you $25 to $35 per bag, claiming the extra weight causes the airplane to use additional fuel.

I've been raising hell with airlines to charge fat/obese people extra for years, but that's another subject.

Diesel prices are the highest of all, and most farm tractors that I'm familiar with operate on diesel. So do the eighteen-wheelers that transport our goods. So do most of the cargo ships that haul trade goods around the world.

It's ridiculous that a handful of raghead sons of bitches can hold the world hostage simply by manipulating how much oil they pump and sell, and for how much.

I have an equitable solution.

You can't grow jackshit in Sand Land--aka Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya, Iran, Iraq, UAE and other desert wasteland oil depositories.

So how about charging the ragheads the same price for a bushel of wheat as they do for a barrel of crude? Rice? hey, a gallon-container of rice for the same price as a gallon of diesel.

Deal is, we can walk places if we have to, but the Saudis and other oil sheiks have to eat, and last I read, crude oil is not part of the four food groups.

In the meantime, let's start tapping into our own deposits right here in North America and tell the OPEC assholes to go to hell.

To the elected folks in Washington: We put you there this past 2010 to do what is right and to do our bidding. We can damn sure remove you in 2012 if you don't hold up to your end of the deal.

To the Republican majority: Tell that sonofabitch Obama to kiss our ass and go straight to hell and get us the legislative approval needed to start drilling in ANWR ASAP. You have the majority in the House. Get the damned ball rolling. Now.

No more excuses.

Suing your way to prosperity

I have finally found a way to completely quit working and at the same time, become incredibly rich.

I’m going to sue my way to untold wealth.

Thankfully I live in America where we have more lawyers than the rain forest has bloodsucking parasites, which if you think about it, is exactly what most trial lawyers are. Therefore, I reason, if I’m patient and can learn to become a professional victim, I should be rolling in cash in no time.

When the lawsuit was announced that a group of overweight human cardiac time-bombs filed suit against the fast-food industry, I refrained from slapping my forehead in disgust for not being two-hundred pounds overweight and on the waiting list for a sextuple double-secret probation arterial bypass.

Instead, I sat down and did some serious thinking about other everyday things I do that I can sue somebody for. Provided my potential lawyers can find enough stupid jurors, which the tobacco lawsuits have proven is easy enough to do, the following lawsuits should have me on the road to riches in no time.

--Ordinary American v IBM. This one should be a lead-pipe cinch. Most of my computer experience has been on Apple machines, but recently I had to learn to use the PC type computers that IBM created. The learning curve has been giving me migraines, compounded by bouts of diarrhea, thanks to Windows. As a result, my Tylenol and toilet-paper bills have been skyrocketing. By God, IBM is going to pay for that. Bill Gates, you're next.

--Ordinary American v the National Football League. I love football and like to grill or smoke some barbecue on Sunday mornings before the game. I can’t watch football without some barbecue and the Health Police keep telling me that all that red meat is going to kill me. Because I’m addicted to professional football and there are no such warnings about possible long-term addiction broadcast before each game, somebody’s going to pay for that. When I win this one, I’ll be richer than Peyton Manning.

--Ordinary American v Sea Ray. Our beloved boat is a Sea Ray and boats work best in water. You can drown in water, so there’s one potential risk. The other is that the best days to go on the water are days in which it is sunny. Sun can slowly kill you, same as cigarettes and red meat. Nobody at Sea Ray or any other boat manufacturer has ever advised me to “boat in moderation,” so I’m going to sue them for a quick billion to teach them a lesson.

--Ordinary American v Direct TV. Our satellite TV service gives us umpteen hundred channels to watch, yet sometimes there is still nothing worth watching on the tube. When there is nothing on the tube, I have to take the boat out for some enjoyment. This is a double-whammy (see Ordinary American v Sea Ray). If my potential lawyers and I can imply that boat manufacturers have conspired with cable-service providers and get twelve idiots to agree, it’s Easy Street USA for me.

--Ordinary American v Coca-Cola and Pepsi (joint lawsuit). I’m a victim of the Cola Wars, hopelessly addicted to Coca-Cola Classic and Mountain Dew’s new Code Red. Too much of either keeps me awake at night where there is nothing to watch on TV and it’s too late to take the boat out. They also often give me gas, which in and of itself can cause pain and suffering, not to mention a high degree of embarrassment when you let one slip in church during the childrens service. Compensatory damages may be slim, but punitive damages have the potential to be staggering.

I figure that any one of these potential lawsuits can go platinum. With the publicity I receive, I’ll cut a few book deals and then negotiate with the networks and their movie moguls to tell my life’s story. All I need now is a team of lawyers to make it all happen.

One word of caution to whichever firm decides to represent me in these lawsuits. If I lose, I’ll be suing you for every last dime you’re worth.

Why are you showing me your underwear?

The other day, someone accused me of having my panties in a wad.

Moi? The easiest going, non-excitable, non-opinionated guy around?

What brought this all about was that I was at a shopping mall when a young lady cut in front of me at the checkout line. I looked down, and not believing that I saw what I thought I saw, looked down again. She was wearing very provocative thong underwear, the tops of which were plainly visible because there was a lot of skin between her jeans and her equally provocative halter top.

Evolution or Darwinism, or both, has dictated that such people now have eyes in the back of their heads because she whirled around and caught me in mid-gape.

“What the (f-bomb) are you looking at?” she demanded.

“Your underwear,” I replied truthfully. “It looks awfully uncomfortable. I know, because sometimes when my underwear rides up like that on hot days—“

“You have no right to look at my underwear,” she declared.

“Then why are you showing it to me?” I asked.

Can anyone answer that question? Go to any shopping mall where high school or college girls hang out and it looks like thong city. For those of you less informed as to the delicacies of unmentionables, thong underwear are those skimpy bottoms that professional strippers and White House interns often wear. When not covered by other garments, such as jeans or a skirt, they leave little to the imagination. And I do mean little. It seems to have become the underwear of choice for many young ladies of today.

That’s all fine and good except that they also like to pull their thongs up high so that the tops of them—front and back—are easily visible when the young lady is wearing any shirt that doesn’t quite reach to the top of her jeans. How can wearing a thong like that possibly be comfortable?

And just in case any of you think I’m being sexist about this, young boy-dudes have the same problem, only it’s not thongs they’re wearing. At least, I don’t think they are.

The boy-dudes who think they’re cool are wearing these low-rider baggy pants in which the waist hangs down midway to the knees, leaving us no choice but to clearly see if they are wearing boxers or briefs. This is usually accompanied by wearing their baseball hat backwards, or even worse, with the bill sticking out over one ear or the other, which usually has a couple of earnings in it.

Do these kids’ parents know that their sons and daughters are out there showing the world their underwear?

When I was a kid, my mother was forever telling me, “Pull up your pants, I can see your underwear.” In grade school, you were mortified if your shorts crept up while you were at the blackboard working a math problem. In junior high and high school, it was downright dangerous to have your underwear even barely visible because it guaranteed you a major league wedgie that would leave you singing soprano for the rest of the day.

Even worse, your mom always knew when you’d gotten a wedgie because the elastic in the waistband was completely shot.

“Got a wedgie, didn’t you?” Mom would say, accusingly. “See? That’s what you get for letting your underwear show.”

Indeed.

A few years ago, it seems that a lot of folks got their panties in a wad out in San Diego when a female high school assistant principal took on the role of Thong Detector at the prom. It’s my understanding that she was lifting each girl’s skirt before they went in to check and make sure that they weren’t wearing a thong. Some said that she even went as far as to also peep down the front of the girl’s dresses to ensure that they were also wearing a bra.

And I thought being in charge of cleaning the erasers was a great job back in high school. I would’ve killed to be a Thong Detector. Only, girls didn’t wear thongs back then. And if they did, they never showed them to us.

So girls, if you insist on wearing skimpy underwear these days and showing it to us every chance you get, I only have one thing to say.

Don’t get your thong in a wad when we look.

Bell, California recalls entire City Council--and sends them to jail.

Hell, yeah!

I've been hard on California, and rightfully so. Any state that continuously elects the likes of a Nancy Pelosi, Diane Feinstein and Barbara "I've worked hard to be a Senator" Boxer, and then elects a bonafide moonbeam moonbat for a governor deserves most of the crap thrown its way.

Now, to be fair, Queen Pelosi is the direct result of the degenerates, freaks and voting criminals of the San Francisco bay area--an area, by the way, that most of us wish would just fall off into the ocean.

But Bell. Bell, California is a little suburb of Los Angeles who got fed up with the corruption blatantly exhibited by their small city council--corruption that included outlandish compensation packages and salaries.

One bozo on the city council was reportedly clearing $1.5 million.

I hope that sonofabitch goes to jail and gets pronged up the poop chute 1.5 million times.

Here's the story: "http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/03/09/national/main20040979.shtml"

Wake up America. I doubt the town or county exists that couldn't use a dose of what Bell did to their own elected rats.

For damned sure, this should happen in Washington DC. Starting with the White House and working our way down until every last criminal has been tossed out, arrested, indicted and convicted.

I expect this story to start making the rounds around America. And with any luck, other municipalities will follow suit.

We can clean America up. Bell, California, showed us how.

Unclogging White Collar Snobbery (or Flush the Elitists)

Believe it or not, summer is only a few months away from us.

For those of us already slaving away at a job, nothing really changes with the coming of summer. But for this year’s crop of high-school graduates, everything changes.

They have to make a choice: Go to work or go to college.

I heard on the radio the other day where there is some school district telling soon-to-be graduates that if they don't go to college they'll have to settle for blue-collar work.

Settle for blue-collar work?

While I'm sure that most teachers and counselors dream of having their graduates go to college and become accountants, stockbrokers, doctors, lawyers and astronauts, there is not a thing wrong with our young graduates looking to the blue collar professions. My dad used to tell my brother and me that "if it's honest work, it's honorable work."

I still believe that.

I also believe that most white collar professions are vastly overrated and that the people in them epitomize the old saying that goes, "There are a lot of people educated way beyond their intelligence level." Translated, that means you may have a PhD from Harvard, but you have the common sense of a dead gopher.

America would be in a world of hurt without our blue-collar workforce. Who are you going to call when your air-conditioning goes out in the middle of July--your stockbroker? Try calling your old botany professor sometime when your car starts making funny noises and belching smoke from somewhere under the hood.

Imagine if your toilet got clogged up and the only people you could call were white collar professionals. Call your accountant and he's likely to tell you to just go buy a new one, but be sure and keep the receipt so he can find a way to deduct it on next year's taxes.

Call your stockbroker and tell him that your toilet is clogged up and he'll ask you what brand it is, then put you on hold while he sells off all his stock holdings in that particular brand of toilet.

A doctor? First thing he'll want to know is if your toilet is on his list of approved insurance plans. If it is, he'll probably recommend an angioplasty and some prescription-strength Liquid Plumber. If it's not, he'll refer you to a doctor that works at the county hospital who handles indigent toilets.

And then there is always the chance that Obamacare may try to disqualify your toilet for a pre-existing clog.

A lawyer will want depositions from everyone who used the toilet in the past 24 hours so he can decide if they should join together in a class-action suit to sue the toilet manufacturer. Even worse, the lawyer might try to sue you for any accidents that occurred in your household as a result of everyone sitting around grimacing with their legs crossed while you tried to find someone to unclog your toilet.

And what would an astronaut care about a clogged up toilet? After all, when they're in outer space, they just go in their spacesuits.

What America needs is more vocational schools and programs that teach people how to work with both their hands and their brains at the same time. And what our school districts need to be doing is encouraging students to explore all the opportunities that are out there rather than just the college route.

To all the blue-collar workers out there, keep holding your heads up with pride. Go and find young people with aptitude, skill and attitude and teach them your trade by taking them under your wing or giving them an apprenticeship. Blue collar professionals built this nation and continue to ensure that it keeps on running. We should all be thankful and grateful for that.

It’s my opinion that America needs more plumbers and less lawyers. And as soon as we get enough plumbers on board, I say we flush all the excess lawyers down the proverbial white collar toilet.

That ought to clog it up but good.

Rattlesnakes and Bureaucrats

I was out looking at some land early last fall--land that I thought would make a fine private shooting range. While poking around the old gravel quarry, I heard a familiar buzzing.

In this day and age, most folks would reach for their cell phone, which was set on vibrate and emits a buzzing when someone interrupts your tranquility.

But as I reached inside my light jacket, I didn't unholster my phone, but instead my Smith & Wesson Model 686 .357 Magnum with the eight-inch barrel. The first three rounds in the cylinder were loaded with snake-shot--mini little shotgun type pellets, if you will, specifically formulated to send snakes, rats and other vermin to the same Paradise that ostensibly the vermin that flew into our World Trade Center Towers are now inhabiting.

I took aim at the offending rattlesnake and squeezed the trigger. One dead rattlesnake. Easy enough. When you grow up in Texas, you get used to dispatching rattlesnakes, rats and other vermin.

Not so, apparently, if you live in Pennsylvania--at least according to an old newspaper story a friend, and fellow rattlesnake shooter--sent to me. It seems the bureaucrats in Pennsylvania place an inordinate value on rattlesnakes. Even moreso than they do their own citizenry.

Now, when you mention rattlesnakes and government bureaucrats in the same sentence, you’d think it would be hard to tell the difference.

Not at all.

Rattlesnakes can actually use their brains.

Every time I tell myself that I can no longer be shocked by the ignorant actions of our government or the people who work for it, I know I’m just setting myself up for a letdown. And the latest incident of mind-boggling sheer stupidity is no exception.

According to the local paper in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, an 18-year-old hunter shot and killed a rattlesnake while he was hunting turkey. It seems he crossed paths with a four-foot rattlesnake that had killed a mama turkey and was threatening her nest that had ten baby turkeys in it. After killing the rattlesnake, he and his hunting buddy gathered up the little baby turkeys and took them home to try and keep them alive in order to release back in the wild once they were able.

Pretty decent and admirable thing to do, wouldn’t you say?

Not if you’re one of the bureaucrats making and enforcing policy with the Pennsylvania Game Commission.. These morons turn him over to the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, who issued him a citation for killing the rattlesnake. The Fish and Boat Commission has jurisdiction over rattlesnakes.

Figure that one out, if you can.

As I understand it, in Pennsylvania you need a fishing license and a special permit to kill a rattlesnake. I have never heard of having to get a permit to kill a rattlesnake. That would be like having to get a license to set out a mouse trap or get a concealed carry permit for a fly swatter.

Just when you might think that these bonehead-bureaucrats with the Pennsylvania Game Commission couldn’t get any dumber. . . Remember those ten little baby turkeys the hunter rescued from the (now dead) rattlesnake and took home to nurture? The Game Commission seized those baby turkeys, and “according to PGC policy,” killed them.

Dead.

Would Muslim racing keep the pigs away?

I love this story. It's absolutely PI (Politically Incorrect) but 100% OAC (Ordinary American Correct).

Pig Racing next to a Mosque in Houston, Texas

Seems some Muslims down around the edges of Houston, Texas, decided to buy some eleven or so acres of land which is adjacent to a farm--a farm which also raises pigs.

Now, the Muslims knew this beyond a doubt when they looked at the land, negotiated for the land, purchased the land, and sealed the deal. But now they are offended by the presence of pork and have requested that the farmer get rid of his pigs.

The Texas farmer told them to go to hell.

The ragheads persisted, and the Texas farmer upped the ante.

Now, every Friday afternoon during traditional Muslim prayer time, the farmer holds pig races. He's getting quite the attendance from friends, neighbors and other interested parties.

Good for him.

I'm sick and damn tired of assholes from other cultures coming to America and demanding that I bend my culture to suit theirs. I have two words for you: The first has to do with the act of fornication. The second is You. Use your imagination.

Or to put it another way, get the hell out of my country.

I'm sick to death of signs, ballots, instructions on the telephone, etc being in Spanish. I'm tired of voting ballots having Spanish on them. Only citizens of this country can vote (exception being Chicago, of course) and a requirement for citizenship is the ability to read, write and speak passable English. So if you can't read the ballot, tough shit. Don't vote.

I'm sick to death of standing in line behind some curry-breathed Indian from Calcutta or New Delhi or wherever who's returning endless baskets of merchandise to the neighborhood Walgreens because they're running an Indian coupon fraud scheme. I'm tired of the Indians and Asians coming to our country and immediately signing up for Medicaid and food stamps--even as they're taking on a $55K/year job.

The sonsofbitches aren't even citizens, thus cannot vote, but still our stupid-assed whore politicians still cater to them more than they do they own citizens. Unbelievable.

But I really have an axe to grind with the Muslims and their pushing of Sharia law and other such crap on us. I'll consider Sharia law when the raghead imams and mullahs start dining on Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato sandwiches before each prayer service.

I'm tired of anytime another terrorist incident happens, the Muslim clerics jumping to the terrorists' defense. I'm tired of the Muslims boasting how they're taking over the world. I'm really tired of the talk that the imams spout about how one day, all us "infidels" will be slaves to the Muslims. My ass.

So I salute my Texas brethren in Katy for holding pig races next door to the ragheads' proposed mosque site.

Only thing better would be if he held imam races.

I don't think that would offend the pigs.

Gpal: No pal of the gun world

Just as one man caused a furor worldwide with a Ponzi scheme that snared thousands within its financial spider web of deceit, so has the gun world been unwillingly duped by our own guns and bullets version of Bernie Madoff.

A 29-year-old schmoozer and charmer and bullshit artist from California has managed to create a fault line within the California gun owners, via Calguns.net, that makes the San Andreas fault look like a mere crack in the sidewalk.

Enter Ben Cannon, a slick, arrogant, con man who seemingly has more backgrounds than James Bond and the Chevy Chase character, "Fletch," all combined. To read Cannon's self-expressed resume, at the end of the day one can only wonder why this guy is not giving counsel to Warren Buffet, Donald Trump and Tim Geithner when it comes to business and financial matters.

Only one small problem: Cannon's latest business failure, Gunpal, now known as Gpal, has flopped harder than a beached largemouth bass on an Alabama shoreline.

Enter the Gpal scam.

Let me back up for a minute and explain Gpal to those unfamiliar. . .Think Paypal, that monetary transfer service people use when they do business with Ebay. Paypal has been accused at many levels of being anti-gun and for suspending customers' accounts due to violations of their Terms Of Service (TOS) when gun purchases were made and Paypal used to complete the exchange of funds between buyer and seller.

So along comes Ben Cannon and Gunpal promising to be a gun-friendly transfer system as opposed to Paypal. He gets off to a well publicized start, because if there is one thing Ben Cannon is well-versed and practiced at doing, other than masturbation with himself as the object of his desire, it is in publicizing himself and his latest ventures.

Ben has a worshipping faction at a place called Calguns.net and as predicted, they lined up, passed around the Kool Aid, drank heartily and blindly supported Gunpal. Many others of us did as well. What's not to like about a pro-gun, gun-friendly financial transfer service, after all?

This Ordinary American was hoping Gunpal would succeed and become a viable service for frustrated gun owners unable to complete monetary transfers with Paypal for online goods and services related to the gun world.

But unfortunately, this Ordinary American was not familiar with Ben Cannon. Had any of us here at An Ordinary American known about Ben Cannon and his lying, scheming, scamming, bullshit ways, no way would we have been quietly supporting him or Gunpal.

Sometime around February 2010, Gunpal changed their name to Gpal. That should have been the first "uh-oh" sign for the gun world: A pro-gun service taking the word "gun" out of their name.

Some feeble excuses were offered and the Cannon Crusaders mixed more Kool Aid and slugged it down and staunchly defended their man.

But even as early as February 2010, not all was well. The first signs of trouble were already out and in the open. Several gun forum owners and administrators began posting warnings to their membership about Gunpal, now Gpal.

A fellow by the name of "GpalVP" immediately showed up wherever there was doubt of discourse about Gpal. He laughed off the problems and promised that they were simply "growing pains and that Gpal wants your business." The Kool Aid drinkers kept slugging it down.

Then in May, things got worse. It seems a lot of gun/industry sellers had been quite successful at promoting Gpal (formerly Gunpal) as their payment processor. But it also seems that Gpal wasn't quite as successful at paying out the money it was taking in.

Uh-oh number two.

More forum and site administrators started issuing warnings. GpalVP shows up and explains that one of their banks "screwed them" and that they are looking for a new bank.

That was when this writer's BSD (Bull Shit Detector) first began vibrating and registering around a 6.3. Banks enter negotiated or standard contract relationships with customers. They don't just arbitrarily "screw you," not if they don't want a slew of FDIC and other fed investigators sticking an investigative microscope up their asses.

In June and July of 2010, the grumblings of non-payment by Gpal became more frequent, more widespread and more heated. In response, GpalVP's comments became more defensive, more derogatory and the first threats of "legal actions" against anyone saying or claiming derogatory things about Gpal and/or Ben Cannon began to surface.

Uh-oh number three.

Ben Cannon ignored the fact that by his shameless and endless self-aggrandizing and self-promotion, endless press releases and photographs on the internet that he had effectively made himself a public figure. When that happened, those well familiar with Ben Cannon and his scheming, scamming ways began coming out of the closet and telling eerily similar tales.

And within them, the truth about Ben Cannon began to emerge.

No longer was it considered cute that a 29-year-old con artist who still reportedly lived at home with his parents was out playing big-shot entrepreneur. Cannon's claims of grandeur began bringing him unwanted attention, such as an arrest for impersonating a police officer--a charge later dropped due to conflicting evidence reports.

Google searches for "Ben Cannon" "Gpal" "Fraud" and "scam" began yielding more fruit than a south Florida citrus harvest, and with them, more victims of previous Ben Cannon excursions began coming forth.

And they are still coming forth at the time of this writing.

The long and the short of it is that it strongly appears Ben Cannon and Gpal have not been paying out the money they've been taking in from gun world customers. Along the way, amidst a huge and ever growing number of complaints, Cannon has not-so-subtly changed the Terms of Service at Gpal--a move that has now garnered the attention of the FBI and the FTC.

There are a number of forums and gun-world related sites replete with honest, law-abiding gun sellers who are out sums of money ranging from $50 on upwards to four-figures, with some even claiming that they are out five-figures.

How they have not been paid is the question.

Hypothetical example:

If I sell you a gun for $5000 and you pay me via Gpal, then Gpal has $5000 of your money in their account, plus a fee from the percentage. I then request the $5000 be moved into my account. Gpal's TOS stated, at the time, three to seven business days for the transfer to occur.

That should have been the first bells going off. Up to seven business days to transfer money being held in accounts right next to each other?

But in many cases, the transfer wasn't done in seven days. In many instances, those transfers weren't even done in seventy days. So now, I'm out $5000 for this one transaction. If I've done several more nice gun sales, I could easily be out up to $10,000 in funds tied up in Ben Cannon's Gpal scheme, waiting on my money that the buyers paid in good faith and which has been documented to be in a Gpal account, to be transferred into my account.

Only, in too many cases, the transfers are not happening.

Our question is Why the hell not?

My gut feeling and opinion is because Ben Cannon and Gpal have already spent it, and are now having to wait on more money to come in so they can cover the outbound transfers. Ponzi scheme, anyone?

Ben Cannon has been spotted on several "lifestyles of the rich and adventuresome" websites and forums. He goes by the handle of "artherd" and has a smarmy picture of himself leaning on a silver foreign car and holding up a copy of the Wall Street Journal. http://www.luxury4play.com/business/43468-bank-bank-wire-transfers-2.html

There are literally countless more threads and links one can follow within the gun (and now guitar world, it seems) owners community to read about more tales of woe from Ben Cannon and Gpal.

The one thing that is obvious is that there is more than enough smoke billowing up to indicate a raging, out-of-control fire in the bedroom/office inside his parents' house where the latest "love 'em and leave 'em" business adventure by Ben Cannon is taking place.

Problem is, it's honest, decent law-abiding gun-owners who are getting burned. And for some of them, no amount of first aid can come fast enough as some have already had to shut their doors due to having their money disappear while entrusted to Ben Cannon and Gpal.

And that's what the most despicable of all.

Tweet

Liberty and Justice. . . is it still alive?

I am a contributing member to one forum and one forum only. I have "signed up" for several others, but am a "lurker," meaning I am a "read-only" guy. Have no interest in contributing my thoughts or opinions. On a couple of them, having to do with aviation and leatherworking, I can't contribute--the regular members on there are light years above and beyond my knowledge and experience.

The one forum I do contribute on shall remain nameless, but it is one where I feel very comfortable and very much a part of the community. So much so that I even send money to help support it.

It is not a political forum, but does have an "off-topic" area in which politics are often discussed. Normally I'd rather discuss autopsies and bowel movements over politics, but seeing as how they are so often similar in nature. . .

A member asked, "Is Liberty and Justice still alive in the United States?"

The answers surprised me, enraged me and encouraged me. But a response from one of the younger members evoked this response from yours truly:

I don't know how old you or any of the younger generations here are or if you served any time in the military, or in a war zone or in a foreign land, but. . .

I have. And I'll tell you--and anyone else reading--that while we have our warts, we are still a helluva lot better place to be than just about anywhere else in the world.

Our problem is that we're a bunch of spoiled, lazy, pathetic, whining do-nothing, MTV, American Idol, Survivor, Lost watching malcontents who are scared of sweat, callouses, physical pain and most of all, SACRIFICE.

Jesus Cristo! Talk to some of our WWII vets who lived through the Great Depression--and then WENT TO WAR for crying out loud! Listen to them talk about not having food to eat, about having to trade a family horse or mule for friggin' lard and flour JUST TO MAKE BISCUITS. Go to the library and look up pictures of the endless soup lines in the big cities. Look at the foreclosures. Look at the poverty. Look at the suicides that occurred.

Liberty and Justice?

I damned sure have Liberty and Justice. I have it in the U.S. Constitution. I may have to work a bit harder for it today than I would have twenty or thirty or forty years ago, but by God I still have it.

I have it because I still have a First Amendment that allows me to raise hell and speak out and call my elected officials a "dirty stinking crooked rotten sonofabitch" right to their face without getting tossed in the gulag for such a transgression.

How do I know? Because that is EXACTLY what I called U.S. Senator Phil Gramm back in 1989 and to his face. It didn't do my career advancement in federal law enforcement any favors, but I also didn't get tossed in jail or even reprimanded.

Why do I have a First Amendment? Because I also have a Second Amendment. I have a Second Amendment because I spend less time watching Lost and American Idol and eating Big Macs and more time writing letters and raising hell with my politicians and putting Big Mac money towards groups like the NRA and GOA and TSRA, plus supporting politicians that still believe in, and support, the Second Amendment and the rest of the Constitution.

Hell, we have people RIGHT FREAKING HERE that whine the NRA "isn't perfect" and has "betrayed them." They use that as justification to sit on their sorry dead asses and let the rest of us do the heavy lifting when it comes to defending our freedoms.

Well, BULLSHIT to that!

Without them or any of the other groups, we probably would not even be able to have this discussion. For sure, 90% of anyone who writes or even reads a blog would be tossed in the gulag.

But no, let's whine whine whine like a bunch of junior high girls who lost their tampons.

Liberty and Justice? It's all spelled out in the Declaration and Constitution. If you want it, you got to damn well FIGHT for it and DEFEND it. Preaching and whining to the choir don't cut it. You take the fight to the enemy and you kick them square in the testicles and hit them square in the mouth. You knock them down, then you kick the fecal-matter out of them while they're down and then you finish them off.

"But that's not civilized, Mr. Ordinary American," some will whine. Well kiss my uncivilized ass because that is what it took up through 1776, that's what it took in every major war or battle we've successfully fought and won, and that is what it will take to keep our Liberty and Justice secure for us and generations to come.

If you think it can't be done or don't want to "risk" anything such as your bank account or your house or your belongings, then get the hell out of my country because you're the problem and not the solution.

Apathy is exactly what the enemies of freedom--be it religious or political--count on. Apathy breeds comfort and comfort breeds fear. I was taught in the military to always take a little fear with me as it kept you sharp and focused. Same thing was taught to me in law enforcement.

Liberty and Justice? It's here. It's up to us to KEEP it here!

So, do we still have liberty and freedom here?

Only so long as we continue to fight like hell for it. Marxist Muslim sympathizing pieces of fecal matter like our present President make the fight all the more harder, and often times treacherous.

But that is when the men are separated from the boys. Anyone can--and will--do it when it's easy and risk free.

It's times like these when the real Americans have to stand up and be counted.

And God Bless them, so far they are. I see them in Tea Parties. I see them in rallies. I see them in groups railing against incumbents. I see them in those who supported and got people like Scott Brown, Governor Christie and an entire Virgian top-executive group elected--tossing the incumbent support and mentality drones out on their asses in the process.

These people took tremendous risks, and look at what was gained.

You want Liberty? You want Justice?

Then fight for it, damnit!

An Austin Plane Crash & National Stupidity

You knew it was going to happen.

A small airplane did not crash into the IRS building in Austin today. It did not crash into the building anymore than an SUV swerved into a lane of oncoming traffic and running head-on into a flock of nuns.

A pissed off, deranged wackjob flew his airplane into the IRS building in Austin. Same as some unattentive numbnuts was paying more attention to his or her cell phone and text messaging while behind the wheel of a Suburban or Expedition.

Yet, the liberal dumbass rags immediately jump on general aviation. One of the more liberal, dumbass of the flock, The Christian Science Monitor, points out

"The incident has “revealed a weakness we have been aware of since 9/11.... It’s an issue that Congress definitely needs to look at,” he said.

This idiotic statement was made by a Texas RINO, US Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.).

I thought Repubics were smart enough to realize that inanimate objects are incapable of acting on their own. I also seem to remember many Repubics not wanting to hold an entire group accountable for the actions of a few.

Maybe we should just dump every damned Repubic this November since a few of them sided with Hussein Obama in passing this stimulus garbage that resulted in the largest national debt in our history.

Talk about revealing a weakness, in the Repubic's own words. . .

I have a couple of true passions in life. One is guns and another is flying. Both get maligned by Pravda and Tass (aka national media) and the Democraps whenever possible.

The Democraps and those who flock to them are terrified of law-abiding citizens who dare to exercise their Constitutional rights. Never mind the facts. Never mind that guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens are used a gazillion times each year to defend honest citizens against the Democraps' core base, er, excuse me, I meant "criminals."

Freudian slip. Mea culpa.

But when the Democratic base uses guns in a felonious manner, it is naturally the law-abiding gun owner's fault somehow. Either we didn't lock our guns up securely enough, or we had too many or we sold it/them to the "wrong" person, blah blah blah.

What the Democratic mindset purposefully ignores, with the aid of Pravda, is that if my gun is stolen because I didn't lock it up well enough, that act of it being stolen is a CRIME. A crime committed by a CRIMINAL--a criminal who then uses my stolen property to commit another crime.

And somehow I'm responsible for that?

Bullshit.

Likewise, some wackjob flies his single-engine airplane into the IRS building in Austin, and I--pilot and operator of a single-engine airplane myself--am now branded a threat?

Bullshit again.

There are only three groups of people in this country stupid enough to believe that: Elected Officials, Reporters and the Sheople who blindly follow and believe them.

But lest you be surprised, need I also remind you that these are the same three groups who also got us "Hope and Change you can believe in." Talk about National Stupidity.

Anyone reading this who thinks that small airplanes are a danger should ask themselves this question about today's event in Austin:

Who poses a greater threat to your individual freedom, liberty and pursuit of happiness--the Internal Revenue Service or private pilots?

This is in no way excusing or defending Joseph Stack's wackjob stunt today. Personally, I'm glad the pukebag died in the crash. It was the least he could do. And I hope he has some serious explaining to do up yonder.

But for all the hype and BS I've read in the national and local rags about "those dangerous little airplanes" and "no way to defend against them," I've yet to read one stinking, solitary word about the antics and shenanigans of the IRS and that there is no way to defend yourself against any allegations made by the IRS.

And finally, I've yet to read any story regarding the reason such anger exists against the IRS that would cause someone to kamikaze themselves into the very open arms of Hell itself, which is what many refer to the IRS as.

Instead, we're being told that something else is the problem.

Is it any wonder that so-called "mainstream media" publications and broadcasts are losing money faster than Jennifer Anniston changes boyfriends?

Next, the media will tell us why we need to bail them out.

And that will be the ultimate National Stupidity.

Airlines wonder why they're going broke?

Had the misfortune to fly to Phoenix this past week for a wedding.

The misfortune had nothing to do with Phoenix, a town I enjoy visiting, or the fact that my nephew was getting married--he's a good guy and he found a jewel of a lady to settle down with.

The misfortune was once again having to deal with an airport system that would give George Orwell a bad case of indigestion, not to mention the shakes.

Compounding this experience was the fact that we flew with American Airlines. As usual, late arriving on both ends of the flight despite severe-clear weather throughout the entire route.

But what really steamed me was having to pay $25 to check one piece of luggage. What pissed me off royally was that if I'd wanted to check a second piece of luggage, it would've been an additional $35 dollars.

I have no brief with the airplane people at American Airlines. None whatsoever. The airplane people are those folks who drive the planes, attend to the passengers, load the bags and fill up the fuel tanks, take my tickets and tell me to "have a nice flight." They are all outstanding, hard-working people.

No, it's the alpha-hotels who run American Airlines. Alpha-hotels like Gerard Arpey, the CEO, and Don Carty, the ex-CEO.

For those of you who are not ex-military or ex-law enforcement, "alpha-hotel" is an acronym for asshole. People like Arpey and Carty sometimes get a bit testy about being called an asshole, so hence, the use of alpha-hotel.

The alpha-hotels who run American Airlines continue to badger the airplane people--those who do the work--into making and taking less so that the executives, who don't know a pitot tube from a pressure gauge or an aileron from an amperage indicator, can make and take more.

In the Air Force, generals who do not have pilot's wings are looked at as little more than political pissants--which they are. After all, the job of the Air Force is to fly airplanes. Everything else around the Air Force is designed to support the air portion of the mission.

Likewise, in the Marine Corps, you will not find a Marine that is afraid of guns and who does not know how to shoot one.

In the Navy, you'll find a lot of Admirals who still think that port is an after dinner alcoholic beverage and starboard is what their grandchildren look at when visiting the planetarium.

Like the Air Force, these pissant admirals and generals often end up in senior management at the Pentagon, where they can do the least amount of harm to the actual warriors out in the real world.

However, at American Airlines, pissants like Arpey, and Carty before him, rise like the proverbial turd floating in an overused toilet bowl to the very top of the organization--put there, in large part, by fellow incompetents who were appointed to the Board of Directors by previous incompetents.

In the military, we used to refer to such antics as a circle-jerk.

Just as pissant admirals and generals look out for each other, often at the expense of the troops, so does today's breed of corporate CEO and board directors.

Who pays?

We do, of course.

We have to pay. Carty sucked the airplane people at American drier than a stadium full of vampires with keys to the blood bank. Arpey, not to be outdone, turned his pencil-pushing hyenas loose and found more scraps of meat here and there from the airplane people (pilots, attendants, mechanics, handlers, etc) that could be picked and gnawed away at.

Then the pencil-pushing hyenas struck gold.

The passengers hadn't been fleeced yet.

So now, no matter what you pay for a ticket on American Airlines, if you want to be able to change clothes when you get to your destination and you have to check that suitcase because it will not fit in the overhead, fork over $25 smackers. That's $50 additional for a round trip.

Think American is finished? Hell, no.

If you want to take a nap and ask for a pillow--that's $8. EIGHT DOLLARS for a pillow you can buy at Walgreens for $2.50 all day and every day. EIGHT DOLLARS for a pillow that you don't even get to keep.

What if you catch a chill on an American Airlines flight and ask for a blanket? $8 more dollars. EIGHT DOLLARS for a blanket you can get at Wal-mart for ONE DOLLAR all day long.

What's next, a surcharge for ringing the bell to get an attendant's attention? A surcharge for saying, "Hello, how are you doing?" to the flight crew as you herd your way into the airplane? How long will it be before there is a surcharge for logging onto the American Airlines website just to see what the newest surcharges are?

I wish I could say American Airlines was the only airline that is doing this, but the sad fact of the matter is that they are not.

But American Airlines got a dumptruck load of our money--public tax dollars--after September 11, 2001 to stay in business. Carty walked around Washington DC with his hand out more than a New York City panhandler. Arpey likes to hint and threaten at bankruptcy and re-organization.

In the midst of the Obama-cession, it boggles my mind how businesses who are struggling insist on raising prices, then whining like a jilted prom queen when customers flip them the finger and shop somewhere else. Or, when customers simply refuse to shop at all.

This is yet another example of what happens when our government gets too involved with our private sector businesses. Businesses begin picking up the bad habits of our government.

Growing up, when times were tough, my parents taught my brother and me that we had to "tighten our belts and watch our spending." Government is just the opposite--they spend more and charge more.

Hey Gerard Arpey! Here's some advice:

Listen to your passengers and customers. I saw two dozen empty seats on our flight. Empty seats don't make money. Discount them. It costs the same to fly that MD-80 from DFW to PHX whether you have two empty seats or 60 empty seats. Making a little money is better than making no money.

Good advice, eh?

That'll be $25 Arpey owes me.

Maybe we customers should start charging businesses for our patronage. . .