Obama and Voting in the United States

First we have Acorn, being sued in several states for voter fraud in favor of Obama. Now, we have Obama’s administration letting Black Panthers off the hook for voter intimidation – again, in favor of Obama – even though it was caught on videotape.

There are two major aspects to this. One is voter fraud. The other is racism.

How do you think this would have gone down if those were white men intimidating black voters, all else being the same?

There are many things that should be held to a high standard, and voting is one of them. This country is founded on the principle of one man – one vote, without coercion – and colorblind. You would think that of all administrations, this one would avoid any hint of discrimination – or favoritism.

-Popgun

Self Defense in a World Without Guns

I was reading comments on another blog the other day, and some guy posted something like this:

“I wish they’d just get rid of all the guns and then nobody would have to worry anymore.“

Idiot.

What do you do when you’re in a lonely place and are confronted with, say, three thugs, one with a knife and two with baseball bats?

Guns are still the only available means of self defense that can handle that sort of situation. A taser won’t do it, pepper spray won’t do it – you’re outnumbered. A gun is the only available type of weapon that will let you defend yourself effectively against multiple assailants, unless you are some sort of martial arts wizard.

Even a gun won’t help you if you are caught off guard – but if you’re paying attention and have a gun, you have a chance.

-Popgun

Several Items of Interest

Several interesting things going on.

It may be that most of the Chrysler dealerships being shut down are run by Republicans.

Some in government are considering a national sales tax. Personally, I wish they’d quit trying to slide in new taxes to pay for things. I should note that, again, this would violate Obama’s campaign promise not to raise taxes on the poor. We need just one single tax that funds all government, like maybe the Fair Tax proposal. When we have multiple taxes from various directions, it is clear that some people get scalped, while others get off light. Besides that, if we only had one tax to pay, we could decide for ourselves when the government was spending too much – we could see in our pocketbooks, in one place, how much they take from us.

-Popgun

North Korea

For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, North Korea has stated that it “no longer considers itself bound by the armistice that ended the Korean War”. This is a very strong statement.

This is triggered by the U.S. and South Korea searching North Korea ships for nuclear components that it may be selling. Obviously, North Korea objects to attempts to restrain its trade in nuclear arms.

This is non-trivial. It may lead to war, possibly nuclear. North Korea has nukes, and it has missiles, and it has flung down the gauntlet: if any ships are searched, it will respond with “immediate, strong military measures”.

Now that they’ve said it, they’ve got to do it. The rest of the world can either allow them to spread their nuclear technology, which will make much bigger problems later, or provoke them to war. Neither choice is palatable.

This is not a situation that can be resolved with ’sanctions’ by the U.N.

Obama can either get tough and call their bluff, or he can bow to them. I wonder which it will be?

-Popgun

Obama’s Pick for the Supreme Court

“I would hope that a wise white man with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a black woman”…

Sounds racist, doesn’t it?

What Obama’s pick for Supreme Court Justice, Sonia Sotomayor actually said was, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male’…

That’s one.

Another quote – … “court of appeals is where policy is made. And I know, I know this is on tape and I should never say that” …

That’s two.

The purpose of the Supreme Court is to pass judgement on whether a given law is consistent with the Constitution of the United States. Period.

They do NOT have authority to mandate policy. This woman thinks they do.

Big problem.

-Popgun

Death Statistics in the U.S.

The CDC says that 2,426,264 people died in the United States in 2006. I don’t think this number includes abortions.

The AbortionFacts website shows a total of 760,849 abortions in 1995, in the U.S.

The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform shows a total of 1,370,000 abortions in 1996, in the U.S. Of these, 93%, or 1,274,100 occurred “because the child was unwanted or inconvenient.”

I didn’t happen to turn up abortion statistics for 2006, so this isn’t apples-to-apples.

The above information is based on published statistics and is probably reasonably accurate. The next statements are my personal opinion on the matter:

I conclude that pro-choice women, in 1996 – thirteen years ago – murdered no less than 1,274,100 unborn babies for their convenience. And this trend continues.

This number is equal to about half of deaths from all other causes in 2006. Killing babies (or adults, for that matter) because they are “unwanted or inconvenient” constitutes murder, in my book. This statement may offend you; if so, I won’t apologize. I can’t see any other way to describe it.

Based on these facts, I’d say that it’s no wonder that God seems to be removing his blessings from this country.

-Popgun

The Magnitude of the Deficit

This is an interesting site – the U.S. National Debt Clock. The numbers on this site are pretty close to those on Wikipedia (United States public debt).

As of this morning, the number is $11,291,611,466,770.96. This is about $36,873.24 per person in the United States. This is the CURRENT state of things. Obama’s policies are making this number climb radically, almost exponentially.

The age of the universe is estimated at between 13.5 and 14 billion years old. If we use the median number of 13.75 billion years, that comes out to 5,018,750,000,000 days.

Thus, we are in debt for about $2.25 for each day since the creation of the universe!

Funny, I just plugged the national debt into my calculator to figure that, and it went into scientific notation… we now have to use exponents to describe the national debt because the display isn’t wide enough to accommodate such a number.

I’ve always heard that the thing to do when you’re in a hole, is to quit digging. Odd that our government, supposedly representing the will of the people, has no grasp of this concept whatsoever. Not now, and not for many decades past.

Neither political party has demonstrated the self-discipline that I am personally required to have to stay out of trouble with my bank. If I wrote hot checks like the U.S. government does, I’d be in jail right now.

We, the people, need to hold our elected officials accountable for what they do in our name. We need to be kicking out these senators, congressmen, presidents, and other elected officials when they do not exercise common sense.

We, the people, need to vote based on performance, rather than popularity. If the majority of us continues to vote based on popularity, this country will eventually fall due to the lack of competent management – ultimately, the people’s management of the government.

-Popgun

Joseph

When I was around 13 or 14, we had a dog named Joseph. I don’t know what breed Joseph was, but he was short-haired, about knee high, with perky ears, reddish tan colored, and very smart. Joseph was my constant companion, except for the week when he got sprayed by a skunk.

Back in those days, we lived out in the boonies – I could shoot my .22 in any direction, and if I missed the house, I really didn’t have to worry about hitting anything or anybody. So Joseph was free to come and go, inside and outside, as long as he could get somebody to open the door. He slept indoors, usually on my bed. Except for the week when he got sprayed by a skunk.

We had noticed for about a week that he’d go down in the woods in the evenings, and we’d hear him barking down there several hundred yards from the house, and then he’d show up for bedtime. So after a week or so of this, one night we didn’t let him out.

My family and I were all sitting around the kitchen table that evening, shortly after dark, when we heard a thumping at the door. So of course, we got up to see what it was.

It turned out to be a possum. So we opened the door, and Joseph took off. He and the possum ran down into the woods, side by side as they disappeared into the darkness. And a few minutes later, we heard that barking start up again down in the woods.

Joseph, apparently, had found a friend to play with.

Life really is amazing, if you pay attention.

-Popgun

Pulp Wood and Snakes, #1

Once, when cutting pulp wood, Rick and I had cut down a lot of trees – we’d cut the trees down first, then go around cutting them into lengths to stack on the truck. So the ground looked like we were playing pixie sticks with trees – they were laying every which way, complete with all foliage.

I was moving through the mess, marking lengths on the trees with a machete, so we’d know where to make the cuts. I looked down at one point, and saw, framed by pieces of wood and leaves, the middle of a snake. Probably a cottonmouth moccasin, I didn’t see either end. So, I reached down with the machete and cut it in half.

Later, when we had finished cutting the wood and were loading the truck, I found the tail of the snake.

I never did find the end with the teeth, though.

-Popgun

Motorcycle Tires – Finally

Well, I finally got the tires mounted on my Suzuki.

As mentioned earlier, I mounted the tires myself, to save the $150 the dealer would have charged. Of course, I had to buy a set of tire irons, and altogether, it probably took me around four hours.

I did the back tire first. Removing the wheels went exactly as predicted by the manual, and with a little help from my son, J, I finally broke the bead off the rim with the use of a middling-sized C-clamp. It took several tries.

These are spoked rims, so the tires have inner tubes. First you use the tire-irons to pry one side of the tire bead off of the rim, then you fish the inner tube out, then you pry the other side of the tire off the rim. This takes about three hands, but it is manageable with just two. It helps to set the wheel on the floor so you can use your knees. Ow.

Also, note: tire irons, when left in place to hold a position, are under tension. They can hurt you if the tire moves and they can flip around when your hand isn’t on them. Ow. At one point I had the end of one narrowly miss my face – an incident from which I learned, and made darn sure it didn’t happen again.

Pay attention to the rotation arrow on the tire. Motorcycle tires are unidirectional, unlike car tires. Even though I knew this, and checked it, I still somehow managed to put the back tire on backwards, and had to take it back off. I made doggone sure I had the front one on the right way!

In removing the front tire from the rim, I managed to pinch the tube, which punctured it. So I had to go find a 21″ inner tube. That, and rain, caused a week-long wait to finish the job.

After assembling the front tire, I used the shaft and a couple of jack-stands to spin the wheel to balance it. Not having any of the proper weights, I used some heavy gage copper wire that I happened to have on hand. I’d spin the tire gently and see which side came to the bottom. Then I cut a piece of wire and taped it to the spoke closest to the top of the wheel (opposite the heavy side). Repeat until the wheel no longer brings any particular side to the bottom.

Remove the taped-on wire and lay it all in a line, cut one piece that length. Weave it between the spokes, centered on the one spoke that the pieces had been taped to. Bend the ends around the spokes near the end of the wire (hard, because it was seriously stiff wire). Crimp to the spoke at those bends, and put a bit of tape in the middle to keep it from moving around.

Mounted the front tire on the bike, checked everything, and test rode it. It’s all good, so if there’s still air in the tires tomorrow morning, I’ll be riding it to work.

I plan to buy actual made-for-the-purpose motorcycle tire weights to replace my improvised weight. What I did works fine, but looks tacky.

-Popgun