You can not bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You can not help small men by tearing down big men.
You can not strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You can not lift the wage earner by putting down the wage payer.
You can not help the poor man by destroying the rich.
You can not keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
You can not further the brotherhood of men by inciting class hatred.
You can not establish security on borrowed money.
You can not build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence.
You can not help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.
--Abraham Lincoln

We are getting ready for a long weekend in Chicago. We will leave early Thursday morning and come back mid day Monday. This is just a little adventure for no other reason then the bride said “let’s go to Chicago over labor day weekend”. As I do most of the time I said okay. The only down side I see to this is the fish are really biting out at Wilard bay. It would so much cheaper if I just stayed home and went fishing. Maybe I should talk to the bride about this?

 

Fishing wwas great last night. We threw back more then we kept.  I have my fish in the Smoker right now, should be done just about bed time tonight. 

Ava expressing herself

My weekend started this morning with the dogs deciding that I was no longer tired. That is okay I had to get up to get my coffee anyway. The bride and I both work a compressed workweek. We work 9 hours a day Monday through Thursday and 8 hours every other Friday. That adds up to 80 hours in a pay period. So every other Friday is a day off. We love this arrangement. This is also payday, and we tend to run around and take care of errands.

I have been calculating what my retirement will be when I decide to pull the plug, the numbers look pretty good I have 18 months until I am eligible. 36 months until the house is paid off. Talking with some people that have retired already and they claim everyday is like Saturday. How cool is that?

My daughter and her husband had to run down to Salt Lake City last night; they were buying a used car from private party. So the bride and I had to care for the new granddaughter. Oh my, she was a fussy little thing last night. I had forgotten how much a little bundle of joy could cry. Ava is about 9 weeks old and crying is the only way that she can express herself. No one will ever have to wonder what this child is thinking. She can express herself. But it was fun. The bride would get her all calmed down and hand her off to me. I would hold her until she started to express herself then hand her back to grandma. I like this arrangement.

The bride comes home this afternoon. She has been gone for 8 days. It will good to have her home. I am cooking a spaghetti sauce in the crock pot. The house is pretty much clean; I just have to run the vacuum a little. That is mainly because the dogs are still shedding. I have been feeling a little under the weather the past few days, just tired and achy in my muscle and joints. It seems that something is going around. I know the bride would want to go to the spaghetti factory down in Salt Lake (one of her favorite restaurants) but I don’t think I am up to it. So I am cooking here at home. I am heading to the store as soon as I post this. I need to get some French bread for garlic bread and some cheese.

I never did get to go fishing, my neighbor invited me over to have a bar b qued steak so how could I turn him down. We watched preseason football, Chargers vs. Bears. My Chargers lost big time it is just preseason and it does not count. They play mainly second and third string and to see who will make the team.

I hope everybody has a great weekend and Nate gets over having to fax certificates to the training monitor ;-)

I am planning a fishing trip Friday afternoon. The bride comes home on Saturday so Friday is the last day I don’t need to get kitchen pass. I am hoping to catch a bunch of fish. I want to try out my new smoker on them. I love smoked fish. I bought the smoker for the fish I plan to bring back from Alaska ( I leave in 30 days). But I am going to smoke a chicken tonight. Please no joke about how am I going to light it or how big are my papers. We are all much to mature for low brow humor like that. Besides the chicken wings kept poking holes in the papers, I’ll use a pipe this time. ;-)

My friend Dave from Dave’s place( http://akshot.blogspot.com/ ) is taking a hiatus from blogging. He has had a thorn in his side with an over the top and obnoxious fellow that calls himself prophet of god (pog). I know my buddy Dave used his blog to share about his life his excitement in severing God. I am going miss his posts and hopes he enjoys his new grandson. I am a Christian and I do believe in the ministry of laying on of hands. If I could find pog I would be willing to minister to him with the laying on of hands real fast and frequent. But that is an issue between me and God.

I am looking forward to a quite evening at home with the dogs. I have been staining the deck for the past couple of days. I am at the point where it is all the little stuff that takes so long. So I will put the chicken in the smoker when I get home put on some grubby clothes and get to work.

My sister came home from the hospital today. she says she is feeling alright, just tired.

The bride is gone again; she will be back next Saturday. So again it is me and the dogs with no adult supervision. My buddy Nate from Wasted electrons and I dropped the bride off at the airport 5:30 AM yesterday and headed for the desert with a truck load of guns. We got to my shooting place about 6:30 and it was a beautiful morning. There is nothing like the desert in the morning. I just love it.

We wandered around for a couple of hours, the rabbits were breaking a ways a head of us and we didn’t get many good shots. That is okay it was more about hanging with a friend and shooting guns. We walked back to the truck set up some targets and increased the lead content of my secret shooting place. Nate had gone to a thrift store and bought a bag of plastic figurines that we used for targets. Yes we picked up our trash when we were done. There were a couple of Mickey Mouse figurines; you have no idea what a 230 grain bullet out of a 45 acp can do to Mickey until you shoot the little rodent. All I can say is Mickey went away.


Before the bride left me we went to the movies. We saw World Trade Center. For me it was a very powerful movie. I think it is a must for folks to see. The only knock I had on the flick was they did a Hollywood gun thing. They had a gun start to cook off rounds. The gun started to fire by itself. I am here to tell you there is no way in God’s green earth that this could happen the way they depicted it. But Hollywood makes movies to make money.

I talked to my sister this afternoon, things are going very well. She told me not to make here laugh because it hurts. So I hung up. Not much else going on, I think I will go and stain the deck before I make myself some dinner.

The surgery is done and she did well. She should make a full recovery. Praise God. I only have one big sister and I would like to keep her around for awhile.

I just got a phone call; they canceled my sister’s surgery at the last minute. It looks like the patient before her had complications and it took longer then they had planned. So they wheeled her out of pre op and she is sleeping off her morphine. She is going to go sometime tomorrow

My sister is having a triple bye pass on Wednesday.

Bad News, my sister is in the hospital. They think it may be her heart

Some of the forums I read on line tend to support the second amendment. Most lean a little to the right when it comes to politics. But what I have noticed in every forum there is a thread that warns about a shortage of ammo coming. I am sure that most have noticed an increase in price and a decrease in availability. I bought some ammo at sportsmen’s warehouse at lunch yesterday. Not much, 150 round of 357 mag, 100 rounds of 22 wrf and 50 rounds of blazer (aluminum case) 45 ACP. I want to make sure that the 45 and 357 feed and ejects reliably before I buy a bunch. The price was not bad, $10.99 a box for the 357 and $10.49 a box for the 45. I believe I will head for the gun range this evening and shoot holes in paper. I may post a range report later.

I do have an appointment this afternoon with my eyeball doctor, so the range will depend on what he does to me. There is a chance that I will have my eyes dilated. If that is the case I will not be going to the range. I will sit around the house and watch TV with my sunglasses on.

Back to the ammo, those of you that own guns, I would suggest that you buy as much ammo as possible as soon as possible. It never hurts to be prepared.

Despite cleanups, trash along smuggling routes piles up faster than everBy Tony Davis Arizona Daily Star Tucson, Arizona Published: 07.30.2006After three years of cleanups, the federal government has achieved no better than a 1 percent solution for the problem of trash left in Southern Arizona by illegal border-crossers. Cleanup crews from various agencies, volunteer groups and the Tohono O'odham Nation hauled about 250,000 pounds of trash from thousands of acres of federal, state and private land across Southern Arizona in 2002 to 2005, says the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. But that's only a fraction of the nearly 25 million pounds of trash thought to be out there. Authorities estimate the 3.2 million-plus entrants caught by the Border Patrol dropped that much garbage in the Southern Arizona desert from July 1999 through June 2005. The figure assumes that each illegal entrant discards 8 pounds of trash, the weight of some abandoned backpacks found in the desert. The trash is piling up faster than it can be cleaned up. Considering that the Border Patrol apprehended more than 577,000 entrants in 2004-05 alone, the BLM figures that those people left almost 4 million pounds of trash in that same year. That's 16 times what was picked up in three years. And that doesn't include the unknown amounts of garbage left by border-crossers who don't get caught. Diverse trash found all over "We're keeping up with the trash only in certain locations, in areas that we've hit as many as three times," said Shela McFarlin, BLM's special assistant for international programs. The trash includes water bottles, sweaters, jeans, razors, soap, medications, food, ropes, batteries, cell phones, radios, homemade weapons and human waste. It has been found in large quantities as high as Miller Peak, towering more than 9,400 feet in the Huachuca Mountains, as well as in low desert such as Organ Pipe National Monument and Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge. It's even started turning up in smaller amounts in hiking areas closer to Tucson, such as Josephine Saddle in the Santa Rita Mountains on the route to Mount Wrightson, says the Southern Arizona Hiking Club. "In the Huachucas, you are almost wading through empty gallon water jugs," said Steve Singkofer, the Hiking Club's president. "There's literally thousands of water jugs, clothes, shoes. You could send 1,000 people out there and they could each pick up a dozen water jugs, and they couldn't get it all." Cleanup not cheap, easy While nobody has an exact cost estimate for removing all the garbage, it's clearly not cheap. But McFarlin agrees with several advocacy groups that without a tightening of controls on illegal immigration, a guest-worker program or other reform of federal border policy, the trash will just keep coming regardless of what's spent. The financial details: ● In 2002, the U.S. estimated that removing all litter from lands just in Southeast Arizona — east of the Tohono Reservation — would cost about $4.5 million over five years. This count didn't include such trash hotbeds as Ironwood Forest National Monument, the Altar Valley, Organ Pipe and Cabeza Prieta. ● Since then, Congress appropriated about $3.4 million for a wide range of environmental remediation measures in all of Southern Arizona. This includes repairing roads, building fences and removing abandoned cars. ● The five-year tab is $62.9 million for all forms of environmental remediation for immigration-related damage across Southeast Arizona, including $23 million for the first year. Waste unhealthy, unsightly Most of the garbage is left at areas where entrants wait to be picked up by smugglers. The accumulation of disintegrating toilet paper, human feces and rotting food is a health and safety issue for residents of these areas and visitors to public lands, a new BLM report says. "It's particularly serious in areas where there are livestock," said Robin Hoover, pastor of the First Christian Church in Tucson and president of Humane Borders, a group that puts water tanks in the desert for the entrants and coordinates monthly cleanups of Ironwood Monument and other sites. "I've even found injectable drugs in the desert," he said. "It's rare when we find that kind of stuff, but there's tons of over-the-counter medication out there. If some cow comes along and eats a bunch of pills, that would be a real sick cow." The trash also isn't good for wildlife, said Arizona Game and Fish spokesman Dana Yost. Birds and mammals can get tangled up in it or eat it, causing digestive problems, Yost said. It's not at all uncommon to find the trash in bears' stomachs, he said. Plastic bags, foil wrappers and certain foods are all problems. Remote areas need more help But clear inroads are being made into the trash problem, said BLM's McFarlin. Using the U.S. money, various local and federal agencies, the Tohono O'odham Tribe, the conservationist Malpais Borderlands Group and student youth corps remove trash from the most obvious and accessible areas, she said. What needs tackling now are more remote areas such as wilderness, mountains and deserts far from major roads, she said. A couple of times, authorities have had to use helicopters or mules to haul stuff out of such areas. This summer, with Border Patrol apprehensions of entrants down, the Tohono O'odham Tribe is seeing less trash on the ground than usual, said Gary Olson, the tribe's solid-waste administrator. "I don't know whether they're hiding their trash or whether they are just not coming," Olson said. But only six weeks ago, No More Deaths, an advocacy group that looks for injured, sick and lost entrants, came across a 10,000-square-foot area five miles west of Arivaca littered with hundreds and hundreds of backpacks. "I've never seen anything that size. It's unbelievable," said Steve Johnston, who coordinates the group's camp near Arivaca

How Long has Islam been at war with us?

November 1979: Muslim extremists (Iranian variety) seized the U.S. embassy in Iran and held 52 American hostages for 444 days, following Democrat Jimmy Carter's masterful foreign policy granting Islamic fanaticism its first real foothold in the Middle East. —

1982: Muslim extremists (mostly Hezbollah) began a nearly decade-long habit of taking Americans and Europeans hostage in Lebanon, killing William Buckley and holding Terry Anderson for 6 1/2 years. —

April 1983: Muslim extremists (Islamic Jihad or possibly Hezbollah) bombed the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 16 Americans. —

October 1983: Muslim extremists (Hezbollah) blew up the U.S. Marine barracks at the Beirut airport, killing 241 Marines. —

December 1983: Muslim extremists (al-Dawa) blew up the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait, killing five and injuring 80. —

September 1984: Muslim extremists (Hezbollah) exploded a truck bomb at the U.S. Embassy annex in Beirut, killing 24 people, including two U.S. servicemen. —

December 1984: Muslim extremists (probably Hezbollah) hijacked a Kuwait Airways airplane, landed in Iran and demanded the release of the 17 members of al-Dawa who had been arrested for the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait, killing two Americans before the siege was over. —

June 14, 1985: Muslim extremists (Hezbollah) hijacked TWA Flight 847 out of Athens, diverting it to Beirut, taking the passengers hostage in return for the release of the Kuwait 17 as well as another 700 prisoners held by Israel. When their demands were not met, the Muslims shot U.S. Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem and dumped his body on the tarmac. —

October 1985: Muslim extremists (Palestine Liberation Front backed by Libya) seized an Italian cruise ship, the Achille Lauro, killing 69-year-old American Leon Klinghoffer by shooting him and then tossing his body overboard. —

December 1985: Muslim extremists (backed by Libya) bombed airports in Rome and Vienna, killing 20 people, including five Americans. —

April 1986: Muslim extremists (backed by Libya) bombed a discotheque frequented by U.S. servicemen in West Berlin, injuring hundreds and killing two, including a U.S. soldier. —

December 1988: Muslim extremists (backed by Libya) bombed Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 on board and 11 on the ground.

February 1993: Muslim extremists (al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, possibly with involvement of friendly rival al-Qaida) set off a bomb in the basement of the World Trade Center, killing six and wounding more than 1,000. —

Spring 1993: Muslim extremists (al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, the Sudanese Islamic Front and at least one member of Hamas) plot to blow up the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, the U.N. complex, and the FBI's lower Manhattan headquarters. —

November 1995: Muslim extremists (possibly Iranian "Party of God") explode a car bomb at U.S. military headquarters in Saudi Arabia, killing five U.S. military servicemen. —

June 1996: Muslim extremists (13 Saudis and a Lebanese member of Hezbollah, probably with involvement of al-Qaida) explode a truck bomb outside the Khobar Towers military complex, killing 19 American servicemen and injuring hundreds. —

August 1998: Muslim extremists (al-Qaida) explode truck bombs at U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 and injuring thousands. —

October 2000: Muslim extremists (al-Qaida) blow up the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Cole, killing 17 U.S. sailors. —

Sept. 11, 2001: Muslim extremists (al-Qaida) hijack commercial aircraft and fly planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, killing nearly 3,000 Americans.

A random gallery of "lone" shooters
By Michelle Malkin · July 29, 2006 06:44 PM
***updated...10pm Eastern-new details about Haq via AP - he "forced his way through a security door by holding a gun to a 13-year-old girl's head"...told 911 dispatcher, "These are Jews and I'm tired of getting pushed around and our people getting pushed around by the situation in the Middle East..."***
***new photo of Haq via AP...***
July 28, 2006Seattle, Wash.Naveed Afzal Haq, 30, is arrested and charged with killing one woman and wounding five others at the downtown Jewish Federation building. The shooter declared "I am a Muslim American, angry at Israel," according to eyewitnesses. "There’s nothing to indicate that it’s terrorism related," according to the FBI.
10pm Eastern update: AP now reporting.
The man suspected in a fatal shooting rampage hid behind a potted plant in a Jewish charity's foyer and forced his way through a security door by holding a gun to a 13-year-old girl's head, the police chief said Saturday. Once inside, police say, Naveed Afzal Haq opened fire with two semiautomatic pistols. One woman, Pam Waechter, 58, of Seattle was killed at the scene. Five more women were wounded.
Haq, 30, was ordered held on $50 million bail Saturday pending formal charges of murder and attempted murder. Haq, a Muslim, told authorities he was angered by the war in Iraq and U.S. military cooperation with Israel. "He pointedly blamed the Jewish people for all of these problems," Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske said at a news conference Saturday.
July 25, 2006Dickinson, Texas.Dr. Wameeth Fadhli is charged with shooting an unarmed bicyclist, who was hit in the chest and shoulder. According to witnesses, the victim was riding his bicycle when a sport utility vehicle pulled alongside and Fadhli reportedly began firing what they described as a pistol. The witnesses told police the shooter was alone and wearing what appeared to be surgical scrubs. Galveston Daily News: "Assistant district attorney Xochitl Vandiver, who recommended [$60,000] bond after conferring with investigators, said the amount was higher than usual for that charge because of concerns for community safety. “At this point, this looks like it could have been just a random shooting, and that makes it a pretty scary crime,” she said." More.
June 25, 2006 Denver, Colorado.Michael Julius Ford kills one and injures five in a shooting spree. Rocky Mountain News: "Reports that Ford was upset about being taunted and harassed at work about his Muslim beliefs were downplayed by police and Safeway Monday, although they continue to look into all possibilities."
June 15, 2006 Owings Mill, Md. Mujtaba Rabbani Jabbar, 24, guns down Paul Schrum, 62, in a movie theater. WBAL: "Detectives said there was no motive for the shooting and that Jabbar did not know anyone in the theatre, including Schrum." WJZ: "The family of the Baltimore County man accused of shooting and killing another man inside an Owings Mills movie theater says the suspect suffered from a mental illness..."
October 2002Black Muslim convert John Mohammed and protege Lee Malvo are convicted for their roles in a three-week, terror shooting spree that claimed ten innocent lives and injured three others. Malvo pleaded insanity. The jihadi snipers revisited.
July 4, 2002Los Angeles, Calif.Hesham Hadayet opened fire at Los Angeles International Airport while standing in line at the ticket counter of Israel's El Al Airlines, killing two and wounding four others before an airline security officer shot him dead. FBI officials initially discounted terrorism and reported on his "despondency" over personal affairs. A year later, the FBI admitted Hadayet's anti-Israel views and characterized his bloody acts as terrorism.
Update - more:
Feb. 23, 1997New York CityAbu Kamal, a Palestinian teacher shoots seven tourists on the 86th-floor observation deck of the Empire State Building, killing one. AP: "'[He carried a note blaming the United States for using Israel as "an instrument' against his people. The note found in Ali Hassan Abu Kamal's pocket contains 'rambling, angry stuff,' and appears to contradict claims by the man's family that the shooting had nothing to do with politics, a high-ranking police source said last night. The letter also expressed anger at France and England for using Israel as 'an instrument' against Palestinians, and indicated that Mr. Abu Kamal planned to vent his anger at the Empire State Building, the source said.'"
March 1, 1994New York CityRashid Baz, a Lebanese livery cab driver, opened fire on a van full of Hasidic Jewish boys on the Brooklyn Bridge, killing one and wounding several others. He was sentenced to 141 years in prison. ME Forum: "The Federal Bureau of Investigation (F.B.I.) at one point ascribed his motive to 'road rage.' But then, in December 2000, federal authorities changed their minds and announced that Baz’s actions were 'the crimes of a terrorist.'"
***
Good companion reads/links:
LGF notes that mosques are getting extra protection following the murder of Jews.Hugh HewittAndy McCarthyIt's Just DanHyscienceComments at Belmont ClubMatt Rosenberg at SoundPoliticsDaniel Pipes flashback: Sudden Jihad Syndrome
Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch:
[O]nce again the media will ignore the question of why a man who describes himself as a Muslim American angry at Israel would think that murder of innocents was an appropriate outlet for his anger. No one will ever consider whether such behavior is encouraged by the texts and atmospherics of Islam, and if so, what can be done about it.
The shooting came a day after the FBI had warned Jewish organizations nationwide to be on alert after Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon and al-Qaida's second in command urged that the war raging in the Middle East be carried to the U.S. However, the law-enforcement source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there is no evidence Haq was involved with any group.
When (if ever) will law enforcement officials realize that it is enough for Zawahiri and others to say this sort of thing? That that in itself is enough to move some Muslims to act? There doesn't need to be any organizational connection for there to be an ideological connection, an identity of motive and goal.
Yup.
It's the jihad, stupid.

The air conditioning is out in our building at work. It has been out for most of the week. The outside temperatures have been hovering around 100 degrees +/- a couple degrees all week. I just saw a thermometer and it is 84 in the building. This is not motivating me to turn and burn here in the office. By the time I get home I want to do a whole bunch of nothing.

The bride bought a new freezer last night. It will be delivered sometime Friday. She has decided that it will go right where my gun safe is. So I will have to unload the safe and drag to a new home in the basement. The biggest problem I can see with this is the bride will want to help and then she will see the guns. I can hear it now “why do you have some many” She knows I have a bunch but she does not see them all at once. I can only hope that when I say I don’t need any help she will take me up on it. It will just be easier all around.

The bride does not really like guns, but she wants me to own them and she likes the fact I carry one when we go out. I have taken her shooting a couple of times but it is like pulling teeth to get her to go. But that is okay as long as she is happy life is good.

The bride is home safe and sound, it looks like she will be home for three weeks and she is off again. I had a nice dinner for her when she got home. I had the house spotless. But this morning I noticed that under the kitchen sink was flood. Yes I had a leak. I got it fixed for a little bit, but I had drug everything out from under the sink to let it dry out. So the house was not as nice as I had hoped. I spent most of the day cleaning house, splitting wood (winter will be here before you know it), and cooking dinner. I am a tired boy, good nght and God bless.

Talked with the bride last night and it looks like she is coming home Saturday instead of next Tuesday. It will be good to have her home. The heat and humidity back in Okalahoma has taken its toll on her. She is looking forward to coming home, but I think it is more to see the dogs then me. With that I will leave you with “WORDS OF WISDOM”


Two guys from Daniels County are quietly sittin' in a boat at

Fort Peck Montana fishing and suckin' down beer when suddenly

Karnes says, "I think I'm going to divorce my wife - she hasn't

spoken to me in over 2 months."



Earl sips his beer and says,

"You better think it over - women like that are hard to find."