A Dixie Carpetbagger

The reason I’ve had a time getting posts up is that the Fall semester has started– and for the first time in… a long time, I have more than one physical class.  And, since my new educational institution doesn’t have the same common sense the old one did*, I’ve been on negative time.

*My old college was set up with a commons surrounded by a large group of class buildings, with parking lots surrounding all these, a ring road feeding the parking lots, then auxiliary buildings around the outside of the ring road.  The new one is a hodgepodge of lots, a trolley system that makes no sense (wait, there’s no trolley stop anywhere near Building XYZ, why is that lot restricted to Resident only?), and a sheer mass of red tape.

… but you’ll take what I dish out, and like it!

Between mowing, trying to finish cleaning*, cleaning the household blasters and feeding Patrol Donkey and Sentry Goose**, it’s hard to find the time to scribble.  But I do have to comment on this video.  My comment is– these people vote; maybe we should rethink that whole universal franchise thing?

* I have books everywhere.  Because I have no book-case built yet.  But to clean everything else, I need to move the books.

** The neighbor’s farm went belly-up, and he sold everything but one donkey and his geese.  Donkeys dislike being alone, so Jake promptly figured out how to get out and began wandering the area.  He makes an excellent night watchman with his partner, the sole surviving goose.  (Oddly enough, a Chinese goose, not a Cotton Patch goose, even though he does weed…  and Cotton Patch geese are rare now?)  Some people hire a security company– I use nature’s own intruder alarm.

Well, well, it’s my blogiversary…  one year, today.  Well, one year tomorrow by the date, but I first posted 52 weeks ago…

Oh, and to my NRA handlers– I’m still waiting for my truckloads of cash.

From Newbius:

What is the average length of time that a normal person should be expected to perform an unpleasant job function, without receiving any positive feedback or additional monetary motivation upon successful completion of the taskings?

Well, for me, it was over three years.  But it I had to do it over again?  I would have told my employer where he could place my job after the first 11 month stint.  (Worked for him for 11 months, worked for myself, then came back– after my former supervisor begged me– for two years and a few months.)  The job was (quite literally) Hell with fluorescent lights.

Why is Newbius’ question timely?  Because it was a year ago Friday that I told my employer that I wouldn’t be in on Monday– or any day after that, for that matter.

That means that Friday is my blogiversary…

Oh, wait, what’s this?  A blog?  Hmm, I vaguely remember writing this drivel… ahh, well, let’s get back to it, eh?

Well, I seem to be falling down on that whole “regular posts” thing.  I’ve been… busy.

Feasting on the flesh of fallen giants

One thing I’ve been doing is raiding pillaging visiting all of the Movie Galleries that were going out of business.  I visited the one in my hometown the day after the liquidation sale started, and began hitting all of the others as I could get to them.  The prices were “okay” at first, but they got much, much better– gallery (older) movies at $1.49 each, or $7.50/10 and new movies for $1.99 each or $10/10.  As you can imagine, stuff began flying of the shelves then– at one store a guy bought two moving boxes full of movies, and he wasn’t the only one buying in bulk…  What was great was finding out from the employees where all the unsold movies were going to be shipped– that way I knew which store was next in line to close, and could hit it right as they put on the final sale.

I felt sad the entire time, though… Movie Gallery was founded in Dothan, which used to be an old haunt of mine– great places to eat, pretty good selection of stores… too bad they’ve turned into Chicago South.  (The local paper– the Dothan Eagle– is like a RFDTV version of the New York Times.)  And yes, I hit the Dothan store before it closed– not only was I able to see where it all started, all of the unsold movies from every other store were there.

As an example of why Movie Gallery became unprofitable, I can point to the fact that I bought a copy of The Package on DVD.  This was a new purchase– the disc was unscratched– of a twenty year old movie.  Last time I saw any numbers, it cost a movie rental house around 40 bucks to purchase a movie for rental use… and for a new release, you can double that.  At around a buck a night, that means it would take at least five weeks of constant renting to make the movie a profit item– which makes it obvious why Movie Gallery is kaput.   (Blockbuster has a different system (profit sharing) in place with the studios, but they aren’t going to hold out much longer.)

In short, I purchased 71 DVDs (no games, because console geeks are even faster than I am) for around $275, or about $4 a disc.  I did buy quite a few older movies (look, at $0.75 each, I’ll buy it, watch it, and then sell it if I don’t like it…), but I got quite a few newer ones– including both of the new(er) Stargate movies for $5 and The Core for less than $2 new, in the shinkwrap.  (Yes, the science is horrible.  Yes, the acting is bad.  But it’s a good B movie.)  I also picked up used copies of the Stargate movies… and Disc 2 of The Kill Point.  Not a single note that there’s two discs, and they ain’t in the same case…

Anyone want to trade Disc 1 of The Kill Point for used copies of The Ark of Truth and Continuum…

Findin’ the soul food

One thing I love about the South is the fact that we have good food right at hand.  One of the benefits of going to Dothan was that I went through Hartford, Slocomb and Melvern… and you can’t throw a rock in that area and not hit a produce stand.  The tomatoes don’t seem to be that good right now, and I wasn’t interested in any fruit… but they had I what I needed.  Which was a bushel of pinkeye purplehulls and a bushel of speckled butterbeans, both unshelled.

For those of you wondering what in the blazes I was looking for… pinkeye purplehulls are a variety of cowpea– like black-eyed peas– but with a purple hull.  Speckled butterbeans are a Southern name for a variety of lima bean… that’s speckled with darker colors.  Unshelled means I wanted them still in their shells (hulls), and a bushel is 8 gallons, 4 pecks, or two hampers– enough to produce 8 quarts of frozen produce.  Add in some okra to batter and fry, and you have a meal.  Okay, you also need some tea, cornbread, and some bacon to toss in the pot with the peas and butterbeans…

Is it hot in here to you?

Alabama summers are hot.  Which makes it a bad time for your car’s A/C to decide that it needs to lie down and rest.  Which is what my car’s A/C did while I was traipsing across lower Alabama.  Needless to say, I was doing my best impression of a steam locomotive– drinking water and blowing off steam every chance I could– the entire day.  Luckily, it was just a Freon problem, but I do appreciate what it took to travel by road before cars had all of these new gadgets… heck, the Buick doesn’t even get decent airflow into the cabin when you roll the windows down.  Maybe it’s time for the little moveable vent windows to make a comeback?

So, I’m not dead (yet), and you can expect your regularly scheduled snark to pick back up next week.

Forgive, dear readers, my poor showing
My absence you might pin on snowing
Not here in Florida
That’s for the rest of ya-
Down here the wind insists on blowing!

Now, we certainly don’t raise a fuss,
Much less yammer like a stupid cuss
Like the dolts on the TV
Who’ve let loose their wee-wee-
They insist that we leave on a bus!

This truly is extraordinary
They think us quite daft to tarry
But they should know by now
That ’til it kills a cow
The wind can be drowned with Chuck Berry!

Me, dear readers, don’t be quick to judge
No need to fill your drawers with fudge
As a matter of fact,
You’re seen as shy of tact
If from the hurricane bash you budge!

But now that will be enough of that-
I must continue our little chat
About things various
Challenges before us
Like how we must stop the Congress stat.

On second thought, let’s not go there now,
I’d rather behind a old mule plow-
Least then I could harass
Or even command the ass!
But I feel my blood boiling, so chao!

In short: I’ve come to the point where my fuse is shorter than my attention span.  Every time I try to cool down, I hit another land mine of glaring stupidity.

A Whale clean up the oil spill?  No, no– it doesn’t make the water 99.9985% pure!  (The Gulf wasn’t that clean to begin with, nitwits!)

Large groups of people coming together to clean the shore?  No, no– they’re holding “Hands Across the Sand”… apparently they think they can ward the oil off… or something.  (Draw a Venn diagram consisting of three concentric circles.  The first is “not-so-bright people,” the second is “leftists,” and the last is “eco-nuts.”)

The economy going down faster than Ashley Dupree when Mr. Spitzer walks in the room?  Hey– it could be worse!  (Don’t worry, Obama voter, it will be!)

The President doing everything shy of putting on a tricorner hat and speaking with a bad Corsican accent?  Hey, at least he’s not Bush!  (Yes, an Obama voter has told me this.  I almost lost it.)

In short, it’s come to the point that I have to either take it easy, or go buy a horse and change my name to Quantrill.  Maybe I can just do funny stories…

Yeah… it seems I have a case of the Mondays.  I have family over as company, my mojo has left, and well, my rage-o-meter is pegged on MURDER-DEATH-KILL.  So, see ya’ll next week– maybe explosions on the 4th will bring my muse back.

McDonald came down in our favor.

Link to a PDF of the decision here.

The Second Amendment now applies to the states through the 14th Amendment.  Alito wrote the majority opinion, Scalia wrote a concurring opinion, and Breyer whined (a spine, grow one, Stoddard*).  Weer’d points out that this will have huge impacts on state laws (and points to crying at The Huffer’s Postings).  Jay G., Laurel,and Roberta X gloat a little bit, while Curt points to the VPC whining and Newbius points to some sobs by Dennis Henigan. Then Paul Helmke declared victory, while Uncle points to Pajamas Media debunking the VPC… with their own stats.

Breda points out the guy who did quite a bit of the work (Alan Gura), and to a movie critic being… stupid.  Alan posts the picture Laurel referred to (yes, the Bradys are a hate group).  Joe Huffman has a quote from the NRA– finally, a right promised is a right honored.

There are four quotes quotes I want to use here.  The first is from Jennifer:

The gun banners have a warped view of the human race. They simultaneously believe that an inanimate object will turn a law abiding citizen into a crazed maniac and that the crazed maniac could peacefully exist in a society without the same inanimate object. Personally I do not believe that a person bent on violence will not be changed by a lack of tools. Likewise, a normally peaceful person will not be changed by the presence of said tool.

The next is from Tom at SCOTUSblog, via Uncle:

When Heller was decided, we had our biggest day ever, by far — 300,000 hits. Americans care about gun rights.

Then one from the Wall Street Journal, via USCitizen:

All of this suggests that the liberals have decided to bide their time and wait for a fifth vote so they can overturn both Heller and McDonald. This means that the matter of Second Amendment rights is far from settled, and the National Rifle Association and other advocates had better keep their legal guard up.

Finally, one from Steve Harris (a pro-gun attorney) via Massad Ayoob:

I think we need one more Supreme Court case on guns to make it clear to the circuit courts what they mean about reasonable regulation. That will take about 3-5 years to percolate.

So, after putting it all together, we “gun nuts” just took a big step towards real freedom.  But we have to be vigilant for the next few years, until all the kinks get straitened out.

Senator Byrd is now facing the Eternal Elector.

Or, as Tam phrased it: “The Grim Reaper invoked cloture on Robert C. Byrd’s filibuster today.”

That’s right, the only Klansman in the Senate has passed on to his eternal reward.  The left is already trying to spin his past involvement with the KKK in a positive light– the South made him do it!  Yes, us dastardly Rebels made him join the Klan, made him become a KKK recruiter, and made him vocally support the Klan.  Don’t venture south of the Mason-Dixon Line, Yanks, or we’ll turn our magical KKK Ray on you!

As both Weer’d and Mike W. pointed out, if Byrd did change his mind, where was his change in actions?  If the former Klucker was no longer a Klucker, where was his activism AGAINST the Klan?  You see, of the people in my blogroll, some of the most outspoken are those who had been in the groups they speak out against.  (Mike Vanderboegh and Weer’d come to mind…)  I mean, this is the guy who said this:

I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side… Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.

— Robert C. Byrd, in a letter to Sen. Theodore Bilbo (D-MS), 1944

Which brings me to a quote by Linoge:

Should Senator Byrd be remembered? Absolutely – as an shining example of what not to do. However, as sure as I am that he and Teddy are bumping knuckles today, I am just as certain that the Democratic Party and Mainstream Media (but I repeat myself) are doing their absolute damnest to ensure that Robert’s disgusting legacy is celebrated… which kind of says something about those folks with the “D” after their names, does it not?

Indeed– if the Dems were truly as nice, kind, pro-minority as they proclaimed… well, they wouldn’t be the Democratic Party.  Just remember, folks– this was the song the DNC used in 1864…  they were Copperheads then, and they’re Copperheads still.  For reference, compare the treatment of Byrd to the treatment of Thurmond.

Though I do wonder what Byrd was thinking when he was waving the flag as a “race mongrel” became President…

General McChrystal forgot an old adage.

You know, the one about how “the slow blade penetrates the shield.”  The fact that Rolling Stone was the one that brought him down is ironic, because… well, I’ll quote from this op-ed:

Since the end of the draft, the officer corps has become increasingly conservative and libertarian, and it is a rare officer who votes as a Democrat. [...] [C]urrently, the overwhelming majority of senior officers are registered Republicans, and there are very few registered Democrats. Special operations officers are even more conservative than their traditional brethren… [...] Ironically, McChrystal is a registered Democrat, a social liberal, and an Obama supporter in the 2008 election.

General, what did Barry say to you in that meeting?  Was it “YES, I CAN!”  Having said that (with as much snark as I can muster), I’m sorry to see the General retire–  McChrystal reminded me of Colonel Hackworth, who was one of my favorite writers and a man I much respected.  I just think it’s ironic that a leftist mag took down a leftist General who supported the leftist President that fired him… and replaced him with a General who has won an award from the AEI and been attacked by the Left.  (Dear MoveOn– choke on your “Betray Us” line.  We remember it, bet on that.)

* Oh, come on, somebody has to catch that…

Later on today, I have posts coming up about Elena Kagan and the MacDonald case.

For now, just keep Brigid in your prayers… she has pneumonia.