Happy Thanksgiving, Y'all...

To you and yours, Happy Thanksgiving. Take the time to spend it with your families; those whom you love and love you. That's my definition of family, and I have people in that category that I am not related to by blood, but are closer to me than any consanguinity could possibly make them. They're really all that you've got in this world, and there's nothing on this earth that you should be more thankful for.

Cowboy Blob Again

He was kind enough to judge me the winner in his photoshop captioning contest again this week. I just love his blog, and not just because I win over there. It's good entertainment.

It's also just pure fun to participate in this contest. I wonder if I can do this professionally anywhere??

Barf Bands

OK, Kim Du Toit was talking about bands that make you want to plunge your head into a vat of boiling oil. He had five, and I think that I can throw a few onto that heap as well:

1. Supertramp–Any time anything of theirs comes on the radio, it induces intestinal cramps. “The Logical Song” is one of the worst songs ever. The singer makes you want to rip your own eyeballs out with a fork. “Dreamer” can cause spontaneous heart attacks in otherwise normal people, and can shatter windows at even moderate volumes. They should be considered a weapon of mass destruction.

2. Cinderella–The worst hair metal band of all time. The lead singer sounds like he’s gargling a crow. When they introduced the “power ballad” in the 80's, Cinderella laid out a major bag of crap with “Don’t Know What You Got ‘Till It’s Gone,” which has been known to produce spontaneous barfing in otherwise un-inebriated people, and probably caused Skylab to plunge out of orbit.

3. Ratt–Everything that goes for Cinderella goes double for Ratt. Stephen Pearcy, the lead singer, has a voice that can only be emulated by demons in hell.

4. Styx–Some may consider this sacrilege, and I do have a caveat with this one. Anything Dennis Deyoung sang is just godawful. I have to leave the room if “Lady” comes on the radio, or else I’ll try and find a rope to hang myself with. “Come Sail Away” leaves me howling on the floor in paroxysms of agony. “Babe” is just terrible. It’s banned by the Geneva Convention. However, “Renegade”, “Blue Collar Man”, “and “Fooling Yourself” are some of the greatest songs in the rock and roll genre. I’d also add that Tommy Shaw was brilliant in the Damn Yankees. The other songs mentioned nicely offset Shaw's genius. A so-called friend of mine called in the middle of their concert to play "Come Sail Away" at me. If he would have been in front of me, I'd have hit him. That is, if I could have gotten to my feet.

5. Madonna–Never has anyone gone so far with so little talent. “Like A Virgin” sounds like it was cooked up on a Casio keyboard that you could buy at Wal-Mart in the 80's. “Like a Prayer” is pretty much terrible. Her voice sounds much like fingernails on a chalk board. Her popularity is only explainable by the amount of controversy she generates. If you think about it, every album she put out had to be bolstered by some sort of shocking stunt. Whether it was marrying Dennis Rodman, divorcing Guy Ritchie, getting faux-crucified, getting naked, etc., she has to do something shocking to sell. That’s not an artist, that’s a publicity hound.

Random Musings

Texas Tech got their collective rears handed to them on Saturday, by OU. That's somewhat disappointing. I was really afraid after they beat Texas this would happen. It's somewhat tradition: Tech beats a big team, but can't sustain the momentum for too long. They definitely didn't look like a Top 10 team. They looked like the ugly girl in the Miss America contest: not quite sure how they got there, pretty certain they didn't belong, and everyone else knew they were way out of place.

HELLBOY II is a decent movie. Not a bad follow-up to the first movie, and the visual effects were absolutely incredible. Very much an eye candy film.

I had a Sig 229 converted from DAO to its original DA/SA, and I love it. It was a somewhat disappointing gun as a DAO. The trigger was much too heavy for decent groupings. Now, it's quite nice. It's even smoother than other Sigs I have handled, and I have a feeling it's going to be carried quite a bit. Like starting tomorrow....

Is it not painfully obvious to everyone; even the liberals, that the media is WAAAAY liberal-biased? Is it not also readily apparent that the wacko branch of the Democratic party is out to destroy the conservative point of view in America? Is it not time for conservatives to fight like our way of life is at stake? Because it is.

WORLD WAR Z is a relentlessly entertaining novel, written by no one less than Mel Brooks' son. I'm absolutely digging this book.

I also finished the latest SPENSER novel, called ROUGH WEATHER. A great read, like every Spenser novel. The characters and dialogue are the best in detective fiction, bar none. It's good entertainment.

For you contemporary Christian listeners, if you can get your hands on Rob Attaway's SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL, it's good music all the way around. Check him out at this link. Not to brag, but I've had the pleasure of jamming with this guy. He has a great voice, plays the piano like a fiend, and he's an absolutely phenomenal guitarist. I'm honored to have played on the same stage with this guy, and I hope to do it again. Not to mention that the guy is super nice, funny, and all the way around cool. The only downside: he makes me realize how pathetic a guitarist that I am. Oh well.

For those who don't gravitate towards that type of music: Coheed and Cambria is quite an entertaining band. I've also discovered the genius of Iron Maiden, after catching one of their concerts on TV the other night. Wow. No, they're not Satanic, despite what their song titles might suggest. Listen to it, and make up your own mind.

Wow, Christian music mentioned on the same page as Iron Maiden. How often does that happen??? I need more eclectic dichotomies in my life....

New Link

Cowboy Blob was kind enough to judge me second place winner in his photo captioning contest. I read his site all the time, so I thought the least I could do was add him in. It's always good entertainment.

Check it out.

Noir

Flying over Dallas/Ft. Worth, I noticed the residential neighborhoods lit by their security and street lights, appearing almost as oases of light against the encroaching darkness. The lights appeared to be tiny, perfect circles of brightness and warmth, surrounded by the sinister blackness that pushed all the way to their borders. It was almost as if the light was the barrier keeping the darkness at bay. It appeared that if the light were to fail at any moment, the darkness would flow in, like barbarians breaching the gates of an ancient city. Once the protection of the wall had fallen, the inexorable force would swarm the city, destroying everything it touched. The walls of light appeared to be holding, each little security light a tiny barrier.

I can remember night lights as a child. The light pushed back the darkness, leaving a red-tinged warmth in its wake. But in every corner the light didn’t reach, I could feel an almost malevolent cold. Toys assumed nightmarish shapes in the shadow-light. Furniture that appeared harmless in the daylight took on sinister, jagged silhouettes in near darkness. The familiar, friendly world became something scary and cold. The sterile brilliance of a flashlight just illuminated the target area briefly. But when the clean light was switched off, the darkness returned, and the objects that I could only dimly perceived re-assumed their frightening identities. My family still remembers me avoiding the main living room at night, convinced the china hutch became a monster in the dark. And it did, at least to me.

I heard something on the radio today that described darkness as simply a shadow cast by something blocking the light. However, looking at the siege of darkness over the city, it didn’t seem there were any shadows cast. It was the complete absence of light that I was observing. Perhaps there isn’t a technical difference in describing the darkness. Maybe all darkness is simply a shadow cast. But it didn't seem that way to me. It wasn't blocked light that caused the creeping blackness. There was no light to be found.

There is a difference in the darkness that I perceive, and perhaps in the darkness that you perceive as well.

Holy Pilgrimage to Mecca....err, Tulsa

If some pinko-commie Democrat would have set off a bomb at the Tulsa Fairgrounds Exhibition Hall this past weekend, they would have probably killed at least 40% of the conservative movement in the South in one fell swoop. You laugh, but I had visions of Janet Reno busting through a wall in an APC, torching everything she could see.

My dad and I made the holy pilgrimage to Tulsa, Oklahoma this last weekend, to witness the awesome spectacle of the Wannamaker Gun Show, which purports to be the largest gun show in the world.

I’m a believer. That thing was awesome.

In the past, the largest gun show that I’ve attended was the Dallas Market Hall show, which is held about once a quarter. It’s big. Wannamaker is 11 ACRES worth of gun goodness. It’s phenomenal.

Plus, it does not have the petty little knick-knack crap that fills up some gun shows. This was purely guns and gun-related stuff.

Rightly fearing a Communist President, gun buyers were grabbing AR’s by the truckload. Along with that, all sorts of AR add-ons were being sold. Also upper receivers, lower receivers, etc. Plenty of AK-47's, SKS’s, FN-FAL’s HK-90's, and other evil black rifle goodies were going like hotcakes.

It was a fun trip, to say the least. Tulsa is one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever had the pleasure of visiting. It’s very forest-y, and has lots of neat old homes. There’s a river running right through the city. It reminds me a bit of St. Louis and Portland rolled into one. Except there was a fairly low number of whacko liberals. This is still the South, after all. Even if Oklahoma wasn’t a state on the right side in the War of Northern Aggression. We’ll forgive them. They weren’t even a state at that point.

It was good to be out with my Dad. We haven’t spent any time together since my Mom passed away, a fact that tears both of us apart. The ordeal of my Mom’s illness has torn him up, physically and emotionally. He’s lost weight. His Parkinson’s is much worse. His breathing is awful, and he smokes more now than ever, despite the fact that lung cancer is what took his wife and my mother away from us. While I want to enjoy the time with him, it’s somewhat bittersweet, with the knowledge that his health declines each passing day, all because he cannot quit a habit that will kill him. What’s worse, he denies that smoking causes any problems, and gets angry when I ask him not to smoke around me, or in my car.

I guess God equips all of us with our own personal Achilles’ Heel that will cause our undoing. Lord knows I could stand to drop the Dr. Peppers.

It was still good to see him, and spend time with him doing something that we both love. It used to be that golf brought us together, and allowed us to spend time with one another. I’m thankful for the opportunities that I had to spend so much time with him on those occasions.

Aw, Crap.

Well, this election comes as no surprise to anyone with more brains than a turnip. I voted for McCain to try and keep Obama out. I didn't actually like the guy. I just had to choose the lesser of two evils. We're going to see at least the attempt to institute socialism on a scale unimaginable to our Founding Fathers. I can tell you honestly that I was not going to vote for him until he nominated Sarah Palin. Truthfully, I was hoping McCain would win it and then die, leaving a real conservative at the helm. Okay, that's harsh, but I'm just saying what most of us were probably thinking, even if the rest of us weren't prepared to say it out loud.

Ann Coulter says pretty much what I'm thinking.

Here's the message that I want Republicans to hear, loud and clear: If you're conservative, God-fearing right-wingers, this is your party. Stay here. Be what you are, be proud of what you are, and don't compromise for an instant on what you know in your heart is right. If you're John McCain or his ilk, go somewhere else.

I think McCain lost because he had no enthusiastic base support from the beginning. Conservatives didn't like him, and like it or not, that's the base of the Republican party. That's as it should be.

Diversity in a political party is a load of crap. If we don't have common ideals, goals, and basic ethical and moral harmony, we aren't a party. I don't like to hang out with people who don't share at least the core principles that I believe in. We can differ on some issues, sure. But if we aren't basically alike, we aren't going to be friends. And we sure don't have the unity of purpose that it takes to win elections and foster our beliefs in the world.

We need a conservative party in America. One that is not afraid of what it is, and is in fact proud of it. Here's a good checklist to see if you're conservative or not. More than one point qualifies you as a conservative.

The checklist is as follows. If you: Think the Second Amendment is good, one point. Think socialism is a bad idea, one point. Think abortion is murder, one point. Think high taxes are a bad idea, one point. Think the Constitution is a binding document that spells out black and white what the government cannot do, one point. Think our form of government should be based on the Judeo-Christian ethic and what God ordained, one point. Think even if you don't buy completely all of the stuff this checklist has on it, but believe you should have the right to live free with your beliefs and everybody else should be allowed to do the same under the great structure the Constitution provided: two points.

Pretty easy, isn't it? So if the Republicans aren't going to be conservative, that's fine. We'll go elsewhere. But to dilute conservative principles and ideals just to get elected is madness. I think this election proves it.

The Ballot of Josey Wales

Clever alliteration, no? You get it: fighting against impossible odds for a lost cause, with only our guns and wits to overcome what appears to be an inevitability. All we lack is a crazy old Indian.....I digress. I was too caught up in my cool title.

I haven't written much. Life has kept me a bit too busy. I also have no internet at home, so I steal time whenever I can. However, I thought that I needed to weigh in on the election.

When I started this blog, it was originally for political stuff. It's turned into my own cathartic ramblings, and I don't think anybody really wants to read that crap anymore. I don't like writing it, honestly. It just helped to get it off my chest. I'm done whining.

Nevertheless, I've been remiss in the original purpose of this blog. Here we are, on the eve of one of the most important elections in our history, and the future looks a bit grim. I haven't done my part to get the conservative side of the story out, and for that I'm sorry. For those of you who haven't voted yet, and are undecided, I'll tell you what my key issues are, and why I voted the way I did. And perhaps that will help. I doubt it, but it's worth a shot.

I voted McCain/Palin. That's out of the way. Here's why:

1. I believe a large government is tyranny de facto, if not de jure. Government does not produce anything on it's own. It is not self-sustaining. It creates no product. It exists only off of what it takes from its subjects. In other words, what it takes from a person in taxes. The bigger it gets, the more taxes it must have to sustain itself. Thus, the less of their hard-earned money its subjects get to keep.

When a government takes money from one group and gives it to another, it is socialism at its best, and communism at its worst. Neither can exist in a society without completely trampling individual freedom.

Obama has said that he wants to spread the wealth around. He wants to bankrupt an American industry. He doesn't think the civil rights movement went far enough in terms of wealth redistribution. That's a communist, folks. His proposed ideas about tax reform will force America into a recession, and hit the middle class harder than ever. In other words, taxes will be raised, the government will expand, and we'll all suffer that much more.

2. If a society does not have the right and the ability to defend itself by owning firearms, then the government can do anything that it wants to its subjects. Weapons in the hands of private citizens simply empowers them, and keeps the government honest. Obama and all the Democrats are against this. Illinois is one of the worst states for so-called gun control. We know what he's about on that issue, his

3. Obama has voted consistently to extend so-called "abortion rights" to include partial-birth abortions, amongst other things. When a person is in favor of killing the unborn, I'm against him. A just, noble society should never condone the slaughter of innocents, no matter what it's disguised as.

4. Obama is weak on national defense. We haven't been hit by terrorists since 9-11-01. There's a reason for that. He's also been wrong about the surge in Iraq, and pretty much everything else regarding our military.

5. I firmly believe Obama is a racist. He sat in the church of Jeremiah Wright for 20 years, and didn't believe in what the man was saying? Wright is a white-hating, America-hating rabble rouser of the first order. Plus, if Obama was part of his congregation, he's not a Christian, no matter what either of them would like to say or think.

6. Obama's political career was launched in the home of William Ayers, one of the most notorious domestic terrorists from the Vietnam era. Once again, people don't associate with folks with whom they have nothing in common. At least, not normal people.

That's all I needed to vote for McCain. Don't get me wrong: I'm not the guy's biggest fan. However, he deserves my respect, and my vote, simply because of his service and captivity during Vietnam. That's my idea of a leader.

I might be the biggest Sarah Palin fan ever, though. She's what we conservatives have been praying for. I have hopes she'll take over if McCain has to step down for some reason. I think she's married, though, and I don't have a chance with her....oh well. She's still my political soulmate....:)

That's my reasons for voting the way I did. If you are undecided, ask yourself where you stand on abortion, on the Second Amendment, on taxes, on the war on terror, and on socialism/communism versus capitalism. Whatever you come up with there should pretty much settle your indecisiveness.

And you protest voters who are going to vote libertarian because you couldn't stand either? If Obama wins, this is going to be partially your fault.

The only thing in the middle of the road are yellow stripes and road kill.