(Hey, all the cool kids are doing it…)

Today was a good range day. I took my son out to our local county range for a bit of firearms drill.  It has been colder than usual this winter, and today was no exception: sunny and about 50 degrees, windy enough to bring tears to your eyes.  I figured today would be a good day to introduce my 13 year old son to shooting in less than ideal conditions than he was used to experiencing. Since we live in Central Florida, yes, 50 degrees is chilly.  Wind chill must have pushed the ‘feels like’ down to at most 48.  (Sorry to all you Northerners who might be jealous.)

My son was going to get in some practice with our simple .22: loading drills, point of aim return, shot grouping, etc.  Meanwhile, I was there to try out a new ammo I just received in the mail from BulkAmmo.com:  Federal Premium Low Recoil ammo in .380 shot through my Beretta 84BB. This is a 90 gr ammo just like the cheap range rounds I usually use for practice, but these are hydra-shok rounds.  The entry hole was so much more crisp on the paper that the flat-nose rounds would make.

I even went so far as to load one magazine half and half with the new-to-me Federals and half the cheap junk I use for practice.  Each round leaving the pistol felt the same. When I say that, I mean that just because it says ‘low recoil’ on the box, I had always been wary of using it, thinking it somehow was a wussy of a round, that it wouldn’t cycle the chamber correctly or stovepipe or some other disaster would occur to me or my pistol.  I LOVE this pistol. If it got damaged from bad ammo I seriously think I would grieve.  So I was worried.

My normal carry round is obviously also a hyda-shok, but full power.  Since my health isn’t the best due to nerve damage, I would rarely actually shoot the regular power load at the range.  So I figured to be fair, to give it a fair test, I should shoot a mag of the good stuff too.  I was surprised at the results.  The groups were of a size, but the time required to come back on target was MUCH faster with the low power load.  And really, from 7-10 feet away, there isn’t going to be any appreciable difference to a goblin in the hit.  But it could make a BIG difference how fast I could get off that SECOND accurate shot.

Overall, I’m very pleased with the ammo and am going to switch it for my regular ammo.  I never would have believed it, but if no other reason than the recovery speed, I am now a convert to low recoil.

Trying to wrap my head around this whole mosque thing.  Help me out.

A faith, any faith, buys land to build a church.  The Mormons come to town in dribs and drabs and eventually they have enough Mormons in town to justify building a ward.  They go buy some land; they hire the contractors, and build a church.  Big deal.

The Catholics decide they need to build a new church in Nevada somewhere, because they have a population of Catholics, which has grown enough to make it more comfortable to have an extra church rather than everyone squeezing in to one.  They buy the land, hire the contractors, and build the church.

The Methodists, the Seventh Dayers, the Moonies, the Scientologists, whoever it is, buys the land where ever they want, hires the contractors, builds a church or a reading room or a worship center or even just a quiet place to think about the man in the sky.  The Salvation Army wants to open a mission downtown to cater to the needs of the homeless and the hookers. The Church of Dan wants to declare his living room a holy shrine to Ayn Rand. Whatever.  Each and every one of these people has been told yes, because for some reason, they had to ask permission of some governing body for it.  Whether that was simply for tax free status of the property taxes given to a ‘legitimate’ church or whether is was for a tax dodge, some govt official had to say yes or no.

And that is the problem.

At some point, we the people allowed churches to have tax free status because we respected the work they do or just to promote the status quo or even because we secretly wanted some semblance of state notice that our churches were ‘real’ because they got treated special.

So now come these guys who want to build a mosque.  Not just any mosque, but named for freaking Cordoba, the virtual capital of Moor occupied Spain.  And not just any place, but in the still bleeding heart of an American tragedy.

Can anyone, ANYONE, show me where in the Constitution we are guaranteed the right to not be offended?

No? Really? I thought maybe it was in the good and plenty clause I’ve been hearing about lately but can’t seem to find either.  Perhaps it is contained in that whole “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” line and a mosque makes you unhappy. Oh wait, that was the DoI, not the USC.  Hmmm. Help me out here, really.

Do we, as a country, REALLY want our government to tell ANYBODY what he or she can’t do with his or her private property?   I know that I for one was outraged by the Supremes telling the country it was ok for a local government to take land from homeowners and give it to a developer.  How is this different?

Irrespective of the religion being honored, do we really want our government, at any level, to fold, spindle, mutilate, or create law just to keep that religion from practicing what it feels to be its due honoring to their version of God?

And if so, what next?  Do we tell the Scientologists they can’t give away free literature on the steps of their church?  To we stop the Mormons from going door-to-door? Are hospitals run by the Shriners, or the Catholic Church, or the Jewish told they can’t expand to serve their community by adding on a children’s wing because they would have to buy land and the land they want to buy (which the owner wants to sell!!!) is somehow too tragic because a fire there killed two kids and their mother.  Are we to assume that anyplace, anywhere, where someone has died is somehow too perverse or tragic or historical or whatever for a private owner to build a church there?

I somehow am betting that there will be a shrine to the dead placed in Shanksville, if there isn’t one already.  But will the place over Texas, Palestine ironically, where the Colombia broke up on re-entry have a building halt handed down because it is somehow rude to the crew members families to build a Baptist church, or even a freaking Qwikiemart, NEAR where it happened?

This is not about whether or not we, as a people, agree with the deliberate slap in the face the mosque and community center builders want to deliver to us.  Especially since they have chosen September 11 as the dedication date.  They are absolutely trying to get a reaction from us.  They WANT us to either halt the deal so they can say “Look, the Americans are breaking their own Constitution to stop us from building this” or to let it go through so they can say “Look, the Americans are so weak they didn’t even try to stop us from building this.”  Either way, they get their propaganda. Either way, they can turn to their Muslim brethren and boast about how they outwitted us.

Only ONE way makes us change who we are as a people though.

Only ONE way weakens our own law, our contract with our children and ourselves.

Only ONE way leads to somebody with bad intentions turning up the volume and saying, “Whom can we mess with next.”

I think I would rather be called coward and know that it isn’t true than be called bully and know that it is.

Come April 1, the fed govt is going to start taxing us smokers like never before, with an additional $1.01 per pack. The old fed tax was 39 cents.  That is almost tripled.  The object of this higher tax:  to pay for the new  SCHIP program that covers “children” up to, what,  age thirty-something for health care insurance.

In the next breath, the fed says that new tax will make adults stop smoking and prevent kids from starting.

So which is it?

Does Uncle Sugar want to pay for the healthcare of people who should be getting jobs and paying for insurance themselves, or does Uncle Sugar want smokers to quit? And if smokers quit, what will the fed govt turn to to make up  for the lost revenues to pay for the damn program that shouldn’t be there in the first place?

Hey, just asking.

So, here’s what I’m going to do.  Since I refuse to pay a voluntary tax for a program that is completely communist in nature, I will quit on April 1, 2009.  I LOOOOVVE to smoke.  I quit both times when LG was busy making babies, and I stopped for a pack on the way to the delivery.  I quit for a year two years ago until I finally figured out it was the diabetes, not the smoking, that was making me sick.  I even quit smoking during boot camp, “A” School, and my first deployment.  But I wanted to smoke every single gottammed day during those times.  I know I can tough it out, but it ain’t gonna easy.  Nicotine is a pain reliever, and I deal with pain every day.  But getting anally violated everytime I buy a pack is painful too.  So, no thanks.

I have been thinking about this whole “Tea Party” thing in conjuction with the new cig tax.  Wouldn’t it have more impact, wouldn’t the “Tea” in “Tea Party” make more sense, if we actually, you know, threw something in the harbor?

Just asking.

The American Revolution was started by about one third of the population of the thirteen colonies. This one third encompassed the landed wealthy, the educated, the middle class, the yeoman farmers, and the illiterate.  Basically every strata of society in terms of money, education, prestige, personal or political power. But it was ONLY one third of the population. And the reasons theses thirteen colonies eventually revolted against England were what exactly? Come on class, I know you know.  Yes, the young lady in the back.  Correct. They rebelled because they were sick and damn tired of not being represented by their government, weary of abuses by that government, and convinced upon logical, moral, philosophical, legal, and spiritual reasons that their government no longer cared about the well being of it’s subjects.  After the war was over, the Loyalists were allowed to keep their homes, farms, businesses, and lives.  The loyalists went on to become citizens in a new country; free to engage in commerce, free to hold public office, worship how they wished, and be an integral part of their local and state communities.

The French Revolution was another animal altogether.  The French rebelled not just against their king, but their entire wealthy class.  The revolutionaries at this point were the poor and the scant middle classes. They were essentially used as pawns by figureheads. Figureheads who, after the revolution, engaged in bloody purges, expropriation of property, and let us not forget the systematic redistribution of wealth and lands.  The idea of Liberté, égalité, fraternité, took a while to really catch up when pitted against the public spectacle of watching your particularly boorish former landlord get his head whacked off.

And then there was the American Civil War.  To say that the Civil War was fought to end slavery in the southern states is to say that pushing the gas pedal makes the car go.  The complex myriad issues of that time cannot be recounted by anything less than a thorough study of American history and law since the founding of freaking Jamestown up through the actual night Fort Sumter was taken by the Confederates.  Over a deuce and a half centuries of uniquely American jurisprudence, legislation, taxation, bank failures, bitter fights in the new Congress, personal injustices and rivalries, philosophical antipodes of thought, and what exactly our own law (as embodied by our Constitution and Bill of Rights) stood for and exactly how much power our federal government had over local and sovereign rule of the individual states came to a head.  The argument over states’ rights verses federal power grabbing was lost in the emotional impact of the Emancipation Proclamation.   During that little revolution, innocent and apolitical people in the South were murdered and had their homes burned to the ground during Sherman’s march to the sea.  Outnumbered, outgunned, under financed, and with the moral low ground, the Confederacy still managed to stave off Federal oppression for the four bloodiest years in American history.  After losing their revolution, the Confederacy was subjected to punitive taxation, forced labor, direct violation of the Third Amendment for the only time in US history, it’s citizens were locked out of political power for over a generation, its wealth divided by fiat, and property rights trampled.  Aside from the question of the injustice of one person being able to own another person, every single OTHER aspect of the Union’s prosecution of the Civil War was illegal, immoral, and contrary to the very things this country was founded upon.  On the other hand, our country was still young enough that if it had been torn asunder, foreign powers would have looked at the pieces as just something else to fold into their own empires, which could have just led to the cycle repeating itself as in paragraph one.

So what’s my point?

Good question.

When I started writing this, I was thinking about how each time a vast revolution has occurred in the last couple centuries, the warfare has been bloodier and the victors more harshly treated the losers.  (I obviously left out most of the turmoil the world has witnessed as petty dictators and avowed socialists/fascists fomented revolution for their own ends. I left out the changes that happened as progressions of a political nature as well.  I was thinking more about a popular, democratic type of revolution rather than say, a communist one.) As I got to the part about the US Civil War, however, I realized that no fight is more bitter than a fight between brothers.  No one fights more fiercely than the man who knows, in his heart, that his enemy should be his friend and their goals should be toward the common good, not the good of one over the other.  No man, who has to face his brother, or his neighbor, or his friend, across a line of battle, is more aware of that voice in his head that says, “how could he be so wrong about this?”

So folks, pick your flavor. Choose your fate. Decide NOW if we need to keep heading towards civil unrest, disobedience, and outright rebellion.  Then decide what it will look like, based on history, and extrapolate out from there.  Decide if what you believe is true and right and good will keep being true and right and good if you have to go a-soldier for it.  I think I know my answer.  I hope I know what the people who hold public trust would answer.  I only fear that both they (and far too many of us) haven’t even thought about the question yet.

cross posted at The Line Is Here

Folks, we don’t usually link to Rush or Beck or Hannity or whoever else because we don’t want to sound like parrots, or mind-numbed robots, but mostly because we think those guys are still worried about losing their licenses and don’t really take things far enough when it comes to giving the whole story.  Today I am suspending that guideline to link to this.

What Rush doesn’t say it that there was more to that little fireside chat with Joe Scarborough.   ZB also mentioned that J. P. Morgan led the charge of the Rich in this country by essentially holding others of his ‘class’ in a locked library until almost 5AM one crisp morning in 1907 to fund “the banks” or they would all be reduced to mere millionaires instead of billionaires.  The Rich of that day were covering their own asses, hedging their bets, and trying to gain a little bit of control of the mechanics of government for themselves.

(Sound familiar? But that’s another show.)

So this dried up old failure from the Carter Era is trying to say it’s time that the Rich do this again, for their own good and for the good of the country?  And if they don’t, the Federal Government should do it to for them?  What the fuck?  I know that there are already “discussions” within our government to decide the feasibility of  nationalizing all of our 401K and IRA funds.  I know that the stimulus plan is going to shithammer the salaries and bonuses of private enterprises if they were stupid enough to believe the government when it said there were no strings attached to the TARP program. I know that GM and Chrysler are teetering on self-immolation due to interference from the Federal government and the immutability of the Mob’s the Union’s will.  I know that the Treasury is printing money, literally, like it has never been printed before to monetize the stimulus plan.  I even know that the Patriot Act has made US citizens liable for up to fifty fucking percent in taxes for any money they decide to put in an overseas bank, regardless of whether or not the citizen has already paid taxes on said money.   What I don’t know is what ZB thinks the government is going to do that it isn’t already doing to private citizens or corporations.  More importantly, what does he, as a former muckety-muck and current talking head, think the government should do? Raise taxes up to 90 percent for the richest of the rich? Or just make some electrons dance like Richard Pryor in “Superman III” and suck the money of the accounts of everyone who has more than million in the bank?  Maybe just pull a FDR and confiscate all the gold, after all,  surely only the Rich own gold, right?

As for the riots ZB predicts, I say this:  Let them come.

I know, I know, I can already hear it. “But MLG, surely you know how bad that would be for our country, don’t you?” Yes, I do. And don’t call me Shirley.  But exactly how in the hell can we, free citizens of a formerly free country, say that this is OUR country anymore when we allow horseshit like the stimulus bill, or any of that other shit up there, happen.  How can free men and women sell the future of our grandchildren like a mortgaged property in “Monopoly”?  Our grandchildren WON’T BE free men and women, goddammit!  They will be tax slaves, subjects under the rule of our governors.  So let the riots come.

We are allowing our freedoms to be sold at auction like Kunta Kinte.  We are giving away the power that our constitutional republic is supposed to be based upon. We are allowing our government to demand things OF us, rather than remind it that it is answerable TO us.  We write letters and emails and telegrams or call the bastards in DC on the phone just to get disconnected from voicemail boxes. They are not listening to our voices.  So let the riots come.

When the government tells an employer how much he has to pay his employees, or which doctor they can go see and get which medical treatment, the government then controls the workers. Let the riots come.

When they tell businesses what products they MUST produce, regardless of demand at the market, or which one they CAN’T produce, or who they are no longer allowed to import from or export to, the government then controls the very means of production. Let the riots come.

When the federal government owns or controls huge swathes of land and will not allow businesses to utilize that land for farms or livestock or mining or timber production, the government controls the food in our mouths and the ability for a private citizen to even build a home. Let the riots come.

These people in DC are trying to turn us into a socialist or communist state, shredding the Constitution in the process.  Let the riots come.

I was talking this out with Liberty Girl over the past few weeks.  We disagree on many aspects of the entire clusterfuck of a situation, but we are solid on this one: The system needs to be rebooted.

Let the mutherfucking riots come.

Let the snakes in DC see what happens when they decide that 535 of them know better than 300 million of us.  I want to see the fear in their eyes when they realize that they aren’t.  Let these 535 protazoa find out what happens when the host organism they are attacking from the inside finally call in the white blood cells to fight the infection.

These people are stealing our government, our way of life, and our future.

Let the riots come.

As of this moment, this household is a PFZ.  A Pepsi Free Zone.

No more shall we allow my formerly-beloved Mountain Dew to cross our threshold.  Never again will I sing the sweet song of Dr. Pepper.  All YUM restaraunts, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Long John Silver’s, etc., are forever barred from access to my hard earned post-tax dollars.

Pepsi, you have  abandoned the final vestiges of corporate decency in favor of giving a  zillion dollar blowjob – the likes of which can usually only be found in the highest priced whorehouses of North Korea – to the ego of The One.  (I mention North Korea here because that the only place I can think of off the top off my head that actually has giant posters declaring the people’s adoration of their Dear Leader.)

PepsiCo, you are now offically the Whore of a New Generation.  Willing not only to proclaim your love like a drunken prom date, but willing to put out to the whole football team like LouAnne Gadfly, belle of the Sub-Deb spring cotillion, just because Daddy didn’t give you the pony you REALLY wanted for your fifth birthday.  Your cock-juggling is going to end up with you at the free clinic hoping that penicillin can take care of that rash on your twat (and strangely enough on your feet; Christ bitch, what the hell did you let them do to you?)  When you suddenly can’t meet any good boys anymore and your momma tries to tell you that you need to bathe more often and all the other girls won’t even be in the room with you anymore, let alone let you borrow their make-up, you will only have yourself to blame.

Your ulitimate punishment will be a creeping decent into syphilitic madness, punctuated only by the brief times on stage in Tijiuana when your last remaining friend, Pedro the Donkey, will show you that even though he doesn’t really love you, he can make you hurt just a little bit more.

The end for you will come finally when you will see Tommy-boy one night out the audience.  Tommy-boy, the only boy who treated you decently after your gash-opening party.  Tommy-boy, who when you were both five years old said he would always love you.  Tommy-boy, who grew up to join the Navy and is on his first weekend pass from San Diego, will see you and Pedro up on stage and not even recognize you.  And when you reach out for him, that sweet clean cut boy from your innocent youth, he will pull away from you so fast that you will fall from the stage and break your neck. Another dead whore, and a lesson to Tommy-boy to stay the fuck out of Mexican bars that only serve piss-warm Chongo and Pepsi Cola.

Fuck you, Pepsi.  Have the decency not to infect anybody else before you die.

UPDATE: Thanks to a few commentors and emailers who let me in on some spin-off and distribution info.  Keeping that in mind, I went researching:  Wiki is your friend after all.  The following is a list that wiki says Pepsi owns. Damn I hate it, but all that shit is getting tossed:

• Pepsi, Caffeine-Free Pepsi, Diet Pepsi/Pepsi Light, Caffeine-Free Diet Pepsi, Caffeine-Free Pepsi Light, Wild Cherry Pepsi, Pepsi Lime, Pepsi Max, Pepsi Twist and Pepsi ONE.
• Other U.S. carbonated soft drinks, including Mountain Dew, Mug Root Beer, Sierra Mist, Tropicana Twister Soda and Frawg,
• 7 Up (Globally, outside the USA)
• Other U.S. beverages, including Aquafina (Flavor Splash, Alive, and Twist/Burst), Tava, Dole, Gatorade, Izze, Mountain Dew AMP, Propel Fitness Water, SoBe, Quaker Milk Chillers, Ben & Jerry’s MilkShakes, and Tropicana
• Beverages marketed outside the U.S.: Alvalle, Concordia, Copella, Evervess, Fiesta, Frui’Vita, Fruko, Junkanoo, Kas, Loóza, Manzana Corona, Manzanita Sol, Mirinda, Paso de los Toros, Radical Fruit, San Carlos, Schwip Schwap, Shani, Teem, Triple Kola, and Yedigun
• Frito-Lay brands: Baken-ets, Barcel, Bocabits, Cheese Tris, Cheetos, Chester’s, Chizitos, Churrumais, Cracker Jack, Crujitos, Doritos, Fandangos, Fritos, Funyuns, Gamesa, Go Snacks, James’ Grandma’s Cookies, Hamka’s, Lay’s, Miss Vickie’s, Munchies, Munchos, Nik Naks, Ollie’s Meat Snacks, Quavers, Rold Gold, Ruffles, Rustler’s Meat Sticks, Sabritas, Sabritones, Sandora, Santitas, Smartfood, The Smith’s Snackfood Company, Sonric’s, Stacy’s Pita Chips, Sun Chips, Tor-tees, Kurkure, Tostitos, Walkers, and Wotsits
• Quaker Oats brands: Aunt Jemima, Cap’n Crunch, Coqueiro, Crisp’ums, Cruesli, FrescAvena, King Vitaman, Life, Oatso Simple,Quake, Quisp, Rice-A-Roni, and Spudz