Updated: Now the NRA Bans Prohibits Guns

If you're coming to Charlotte for the NRA Convention, don't come carrying. The venue doesn't permit licensed carry and is going to put patrons through metal detectors. I wouldn't attend now if I was offered free tickets and dinner with Sarah Palin. You are, of course, free to give the NRA and Charlotte, N.C. a lot of money for the privilege of being disarmed.

When you disarm the people, you commence to offend them and show that you distrust them either through cowardice or lack of confidence, and both of these opinions generate hatred...
--Niccolo Machiavelli

After I Used the Picture

I used an image in my last post of the headstone of Alan Dihn Lam. Later, I thought about him, who he was, how he died.

He liked Shakespeare, wrote for his high school newspaper, was talented at drawing. He went to Southern Alamance High School in Graham, N.C. and joined the Marine Corps shortly after graduating. He was the youngest of five siblings, and the only son. His father had bought him a car as a surprise and it was sitting in the family driveway waiting for Alan to come home when he died.

He was killed in a training exercise. A group of Marines were being familiarized with enemy weapons, and a RPG malfunctioned and exploded while he was firing it. Two other Marines were also killed, Chief Warrant Officer Robert William Channell Jr. and Chief Warrant Officer Andrew Todd Arnold. A larger group of Marines were wounded by the explosion. Here's a list of the names of the servicemembers lost in Iraq. As it has always been, America sends her best, and every loss is irreplaceable.

Freedom is not free, but the U.S. Marine Corps will pay most of your share.
--Ned Dolan

Religious Symbols of Many Faiths

I went looking to see what sorts of religious symbols were available for military tombstones and found this link . It has pictures of everything from Wicca to atheist. Here's the Buddhist one, hit the link to see them all. I really like the idea that a service member can self identify themselves as the religion of their choice and it will be represented for them on the stone that marks their grave. I have a sneaking suspicion that it is closer to the ideal of the Founders than the complete suppression of individual religious expression that is being promoted by the left in our country today.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...
--the opening clause of the 1st Amendment

The Cross in the Mohave

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4, that a metal cross mounted to a rock can stay in the Mohave desert. I guess that's a victory. It looks like so much discussion over nothing to me. The Constitution speaks of prohibiting the establishment of a state religion, not about what sort of symbolic gestures citizens can make. This cross was put up to honor those who died in World War One. It's been there for 75 years. After one complaint, it's a problem?

The four liberal judges say that any religious symbols on public land are Constitutionally wrong. They are all in Washington, D.C., aren't they? They ought to take a short field trip across the river to Arlington National Cemetery. Want to discuss just exactly how many crosses there might be on federal land?

Jesus answered, “I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out!”
--The Book of Luke, Chapter 19, verse 40

A Pair of Videos from Quincy Illinois

These were taken at a Tea Party protest in Quincy Illinois. The first video is a better overview of the assembly. I would really like to know what the guys in the riot gear marching out to stand and pose in front of the grandmothers were thinking. Because what the men that ordered them to do it are thinking is pretty clear. At one point you can hear someone say, referring to the police I think, "They're not doing anything wrong."

I disagree. They're not doing anything violent, but what they are doing is wrong. It is an overt threat of violence against a very controlled and peaceful assembly. Watch the police march in, and I mean march, this is not Officer Friendly any more. Here's a picture of the grannies that were such a threat it justified calling out the riot police in their black tacticals.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
--Martin Luther King, Jr.

A New Shooting Sport

Having tried trap and sporting clays, Garand matches, and USPSA pistol shoots, I am always on the lookout for something new, and here, in the opening scene of the movie Top Secret, I have found a sport I'd really like to try. With the new composite finishes and synthetic stocks, I think skeet surfing may a sport whose time has arrived.

Surfing soothes me, it's always been a kind of Zen experience for me. The ocean is so magnificent, peaceful, and awesome. The rest of the world disappears for me when I'm on a wave.
--Paul Walker

Ford, GM, and the Taxpayers

Recently, General Motors CEO Ed Whitacre has been on the radio crowing about how GM paid back it's government loan "in full, with interest, 5 years ahead of schedule." The truth is something different.

Basically, GM will be using a portion of the $50 billion in TARP bailout money it received to in turn repay another portion of the TARP loans.

The reason GM can do this is because when it emerged from bankruptcy, it struck a deal with the Treasury Department to carve up its obligation to the government in four different ways.

They are, briefly: 1) $986 million remained an obligation of the old GM, the husk of the company left behind through its bankruptcy restructuring, and will never be seen again, 2) $6.71 billion remained as an interest-bearing loan, 3) $2.1 billion of the obligation was converted to preferred stock, which is a form of equity ownership that pays a fixed dividend, and 4) the rest was converted to a 60.8 percent equity stake in GM.

So, for GM to completely pay back the government, GM would have to completely repay the $6.71 billion loan with interest and purchase the government’s preferred shares (as well as keeping up dividend payments), and Treasury would have to make a pretty penny, in the range of $40 billion, selling its common shares after GM goes public again.

In a comprehensive overview (PDF) earlier this month, the GAO deemed that scenario “unlikely.” The former chief of the auto task force went further, saying that $20 billion of the $50 billion given to GM probably won’t be coming back.

GM hasn't really paid anything back, they can't. The company is still losing money. GM hasn't made a profit in years. Between 2004 and 2009 the company lost $88 Billion. It lost $4.3 Billion in the first 6 months after emerging from bankruptcy.

Meanwhile, Ford announced quarterly profits of $2.1 Billion. Wonder what the difference is?

It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages.
--Henry Ford

The Difference

I could report something from any news website or newspaper on any given day and use this quote.

Every now and again, I am forcefully reminded that the biggest difference between humans and baboons is that we have to paint our butts red.
--Tam, at View From The Porch

Blogroll Edits

Correcting an oversight, I am adding Bayou Renaissance Man. By way of introduction, I offer this post from April of last year, titled Don't Ask an Idiot to Teach You to Shoot. Well written and punctuated with a series of videos, it is an example of the quality of his posts. His site has been a regular stop for me for some time.

Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.
--Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Hitler Meme is Gone

One of the funniest things on YouTube is gone. All the parodies of events seen from the point of view of fake subtitles dubbed onto a scene from a 1994 movie about Adolf Hitler were stripped from the website at the request of the film's owner. Here's their explanation, for what it's worth. Here's a link to a site that has collected a large number of them and is up. And, from another site, one last Hitler video, of Hitler reacting to his reaction videos being removed. A reference so self-referencing as to be the interwebz equivalent of a snake swallowing it's own tail.

The parody is the last refuge of the frustrated writer. Parodies are what you write when you are associate editor of the Harvard Lampoon. The greater the work of literature, the easier the parody.
--Ernest Hemingway

At Least They Weren't Armed

Luckily for the robber, this happened in Chicago, where he could be reasonably sure his law abiding victims were unarmed. Because if they were armed, they might have shot their attacker.

A robber attacked them with an aluminum baseball bat near railroad tracks in the 1800 block of North Damen. After the attack, the man stole their purses and ran away. Both women were beaten unconscious and taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Hospital, where they are in the intensive care unit....During the attack, Jurich was struck in the back of the head and dazed, her mother said. She stumbled and the attacker went after McShane, striking her in the head two or three times. McShane crumpled to the ground unconscious in a pool of blood.

When Jurich tried to help McShane, the robber struck Jurich in the head again, her mother said. Jurich knew she needed to escape and screamed for a cabbie to stop his taxi, but the man saw the blood on her clothes and kept going. A second cabbie then stopped and called 911. That’s when Jurich passed out.

This afternoon, Jurich was lucid and able to speak to her mother, although she was having seizures.

Beaten nearly to death, it's likely that both of them will have long term injuries. If they had been armed and shot the man as he threatened them, people would ask, "Why'd you shoot him? He just wanted your purse."

Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion... in private self-defense.
--John Adams

Memories

I miss having a bumbling, lying, skirt chasing politician that gets on TV and says something like this only to have the woman in question come up with a dress that he splooged on.

Memories, may be beautiful and yet,
what's too painful to remember
we simply choose to forget.
So it's the laughter we will remember,
whenever we remember,
the way we were.
--Barbara Streisand, "The Way We Were"

Bill Clinton, Waco, Oklahoma City

Bill Clinton wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times that served to remind me of just what a skillful liar he is. Blaming inflammatory political speech on the right for the Oklahoma City bombing, Mr. Clinton said this in his Op-Ed:

Finally, we should never forget what drove the bombers, and how they justified their actions to themselves.

Mr. Clinton, whatever twisted decision making lead to the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, it was related not to political speech, but to the actions of your administration that lead to the siege and death of approximately 80 people in Waco, Texas. Decisions to use tanks, CS gas, and very likely to shoot people to prevent their escape. You ordered things that do not bear close scrutiny, and looking back, even public television's Frontline program on the massacre leaves people wondering what the U.S. government did to it's own citizens. Just as Waco does not justify Oklahoma City, telling me that children might have been abused in that compound does not justify killing them all. Both you and Timothy McVeigh used terrible violence to make a political statement, the only difference is you had the power of government behind you. America had mostly forgotten about your use of the military and law enforcement in what you yourself called the "assault of the Branch Davidian compound near Waco", and your writing only ripped the scar open.
It was hard to go back and read about those events, both in Waco and Oklahoma City. To remember those days, and to condemn Mr. Clinton's rewriting of it in his editorial, is to remember a dark time in American history. I want to close by saying that I do not in any way condone either Mr. Clinton's or Timothy McVeigh's use of violence, in both cases it just lead to the death of innocents and did not serve any meaningful purpose at all.

We had to destroy the village to save it.
--Unidentified U.S. Army Major, Bến Tre, Vietnam, 1968

Safety, it's Not Just Downrange

Sometimes, a lesson on holding the stock tightly into your shoulder and the relationship of eye to scope can only be learned the hard way. (Short ad before video)

...some savage tribes determine the power of muskets by their recoil; that being considered best which fairly prostrates the purchaser.
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Amendments and rights

The first group of Amendments to the Constitution were added because some of the founders recognized that a time would come when rights that were not clearly enumerated would be encroached upon. The 10 that passed became known as the Bill of Rights. There was some opposition to listing out rights under the impression that other rights, unlisted, would not be secure. To answer that, the 9th and 10th Amendment were added.

Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Keep those two in mind. The rights that the States and the People have are not just those listed in the Bill of Rights, our rights are a broad and expansive list. It is the powers of the federal government that are limited and carefully kept in check by the Constitution.

The Framers of the Bill of Rights did not purport to "create" rights. Rather, they designed the Bill of Rights to prohibit our Government from infringing rights and liberties presumed to be preexisting.
--William J. Brennan, Jr. , Supreme Court Justice

Historical Context

Without historical context, it is impossible to understand how we got the Constitution we have, how important it is, or even what the Founders meant by the words they used. Here, in two sections, is a short history that outlines the conditions in the Unites States after the Revolution that lead up to the Constitutional Convention, and the Convention itself, the debates and compromises that resulted in the primary document of our government today.

Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government.
--James Madison

Someone Else Who Found the Constitution Important

Breathtakingly brief, here it is in it's entirety as the closing quote. I recommend the second paragraph to you as an example of the importance of the Constitution to the Founders.

Second Inaugural Address of
President George Washington

Philadelphia, Mar. 4, 1793

Fellow Citizens:

I am again called upon by the voice of my country to execute the functions of its Chief Magistrate. When the occasion proper for it shall arrive, I shall endeavor to express the high sense I entertain of this distinguished honor, and of the confidence which has been reposed in me by the people of united America.

Previous to the execution of any official act of the President the Constitution requires an oath of office. This oath I am now about to take, and in your presence: That if it shall be found during my administration of the Government I have in any instance violated willingly or knowingly the injunctions thereof, I may (besides incurring constitutional punishment) be subject to the upbraidings of all who are now witnesses of the present solemn ceremony.
--George Washington

Challenged

In the comments, I found this:

...Napoleon's dictum is true - there is one (and only one) place on the battlefield that is the point of decision. We need to focus on that point.

I have been thinking about it for a couple of days. If there is one point, one thing we need to focus on, what is it? I came to the following conclusion.

It is the Constitution. The Constitution sets the limits on the power of the branches of government. It clearly states the limits of federal power. It worked well until the federal government began to move unchecked beyond the proscribed boundaries. Electing new members of Congress, and a new President, that would honor the oath they take to uphold the Constitution and spend their terms in office dismantling laws, regulations, and government agencies that exceed that Constitution's reach would be the goal.

The Constitution was taken so seriously that Amendments were used to end slavery, to give women the right to vote, even to ban and un-ban the legal use of alcohol. The recent health care bill, based on the idea that health care is a right, should have first been a Constitutional Amendment, proposed, passed, and ratified by the States so designating health care as a right. Then, the legislation could have been passed as means to establish a system to provide for the exercise of that right.

A Constitutional Amendment should be proposed to hold Congress accountable for a balanced budget, another to limit the percentage of income that can be taken from people in taxes for any reason, and perhaps a third to reestablish the relationship between the power of the States and the federal government.

The country only exists because of the Constitution. The Supreme Court needs to stop finding making up new things. They need to rule that the Constitution is mute on certain issues, and push it back to Congress and the States to propose Amendments. Amendments are difficult to pass, they are meant to be. It is that way so that an overwhelming agreement from the many States and the Congress must exist to pass one. This protects the minority from the whims of a simple majority. If a Amendment cannot be passed, then that power is retained by the States and the People and the federal government is constrained from those actions.

This is my answer to what the one and only focus needs to be. The individual issues of the day will come and go. It is up to the States and the People to see this as critical to their survival. Like fire escaping from a hearth, the power of the federal government has escaped the limits that were designed into the Constitution. If we don't find a way to make the federal government our servant again, instead of our master, it will consume everything.

Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
--George Washington

This is not a Joke

Well it is, but as far as I can tell it's a true news story. This from the Ottawa Citizen:

The European Union has declared travelling a human right, and is launching a scheme to subsidize vacations with taxpayers' dollars for those too poor to afford their own trips.

Sure, why not? Once one service is a right, why not the rest of them? I've always wanted to go on a safari. I think I have a right to do it. The rest of you should have to pay for it. Maybe next year, I'll take a driving tour of the West, and if the whole house of cards doesn't collapse, in two years, I'd like a fully supported bicycle tour of the wine regions of France.

If the EU is doing it, I expect Pr. Obama will jump on the bandwagon and get legislation passed to pay for my vacation, too. Man, I could get to like socialism. You just have to relax and enjoy it.

Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.
--Thomas Sowell

Who Provides for Your Security?

There was a recent murder of a woman from a politically connected family in Raleigh, N.C. and a suspect has been arrested. This crime got a lot of press, and the courts put the investigation under a gag order for weeks. So the news of the arrest made the front page. The announcement came under this simple headline:

Police say Taft slaying was random act

An unemployed 30 year old man that lived nearby, broke in, sexually assaulted her, and injured her so badly that she died. He had a criminal history of burglary and drug use, but nothing violent until this.

What's your perimeter defense look like? Alarm system? Motion activated lights? Barky dog? If the perimeter is breached, then what? Just like a fire escape plan, you need an intruder defense plan. Because it might be a burglar that wants your TV, but it might be a disturbed or drug addled predator that plans to take your life.

Oleg Volk takes wonderful photos, and makes posters on 2nd Amendment type issues. Here's one I remembered when I read the article about Ms. Taft.

A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan next week.
--General George S. Patton

So, Comparing Obama to Hitler is Bad

But comparing Bush to Hitler is good.

A free and open society is an ongoing conflict, interrupted periodically by compromises.
-- Saul Alinsky

And Now, a Word from Hillary Clinton

This should clear up any questions you might be having about the Tea Party.

I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration, somehow you're not patriotic, and we should stand up and say, "WE ARE AMERICANS AND WE HAVE A RIGHT TO DEBATE AND DISAGREE WITH ANY ADMINISTRATION!
--Hillary Clinton

Then and Now

1965
The decline had already begun. Peak population was around 1950, about 1.8 million. Still, the city commissioned this video, which can viewed in 6 parts on YouTube. It is a window into a Detroit that is as dead as ancient Rome. Here's part 2 of the series, the introduction was long, and it's self explanatory, anyway.


2010
10,000 abandoned buildings, population at 2010 census expected be ~800,000. Not enough taxpayers to pay for essential city services like fire and police. No money to tear down the empty, decaying heart of the city. Here's a short report from ABCNews.

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
--P. B. Shelley, writing in "Ozymandias of Egypt"

Taxation Without Representation

Former Pr. Bill Clinton pointed out that the Boston Tea Party, and by extension the American Revolution, was about taxation without representation. He then tried to discount the current Tea Party movement by suggesting that since we have elected representation, protesting additional taxation and spending by a runaway government is wrong, and potentially dangerous, because protests might become violent.

Well they might, BillyBoy. You're right about that. But from what I see of the videos of the Tea Party protests, it looks mostly like taxpayers, solid middle-class workers, that have finally found something to rally around as they try to get control of their government through the ballot box.

But you're wrong about the Representation part. The country lets everyone over 18 vote, taxpayers or not. This year, 47% of people paid no Federal income tax. Worse, 40% of household were net beneficiaries of Federal dollars. They received more money back as "refund" then they paid in. This has consequences, as this quote from Fox News points out:

The people who don’t pay federal income taxes are, as the phrase goes, “rational economic actors” just as much as anyone. Like all people, non-taxpayers respond to economic incentives. Their demand for entitlements and government programs is naturally insatiable because they don’t care at all about the cost. Non-taxpayers don’t have any “skin in the game” and are completely indifferent to the government raising income taxes. So they will always support increasing government programs as a long as they get even a small benefit from them because it does not cost them a cent. It’s also perfectly rational for non-taxpayers to support politicians who favor more spending. Non-taxpayers get something for nothing, at least until the country becomes insolvent.

The result of this is that the people being taxed, the actual payers for everything, are dangerously underrepresented. Underrepresented to the point that their voice is not being heard.

So here's my proposal. You have be in the percentage of people that pay in to vote. Ten dollars or a million, you want to be a citizen, be a contributing citizen, and when your money is accepted, you'll get a voter registration card. If you're living on the dole, then accept what is being given to you, but don't think you can vote in elections that decide who will represent the taxpayers in Congress.

Invention is continually exercised, to furnish new pretenses for revenues and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without tribute.
--Thomas Paine

Rank Has it's Privileges

If you're an officer, you make more money, you eat better, you get better quarters. If you're a General, you get a lot more money, much better chow and the best accommodations on the base.

But no matter what your rank, the Four Rules apply. Just ask Canadian Brig.-Gen. Daniel Menard, who recently ordered himself investigated for an accidental negligent discharge on the base at Kandahar.

In keeping with the idea that people learn visually, I have created an aid that should help illustrate the situation the General was struggling with. Now, boys and girls, when you look at the illustration, the key learning I want you to take from it is this: If you keep your booger hook away from the bangmaker until you are very, very sure sure that you want a bang, the possible pain and death won't happen accidentally due to your negligence.

Safety is something that happens between your ears, not something you hold in your hands.
--Col. Jeff Cooper

18%

Revisiting the New York Times article on the Tea Party, I was struck by a glaring, and very interesting statistic. 18% of Americans self identify as Tea Party supporters. Really. 18%.

There's 307 million people in the United States. So, let's see, 307,000,000 times .18 = 55 million people. Two years ago we couldn't get enough people to the polls to influence the primary elections and ended up with Republican-lite, John McCain. Now 55 million people say they are Tea Party Supporters?

Vote.

Vote. But before you vote, get involved. Help shape the election by working for real Constitutional conservatives, so that we have clear choices in November. Vote in the primaries. 55 million people decide elections. 55 million people can make the difference and make Pr. Obama a lame duck two years before we vote him out.

Talk to your friends. Post this on your blogs. The New Times says there's 55 million of us, and we're just getting started. This is hope. It's ours to use or throw away.

We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debt, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our calling and our creeds...[we will] have no time to think, no means of calling our miss-managers to account but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers...
--Thomas Jefferson

AARP

Being on the high side of 50, the AARP seems to think I should be a member, sending all manner of solicitations and cards. I tear them up and discard them, and you should, too. The AARP is a left leaning organization, willing to sell your Constitutional freedoms for a little security and a promise of support for future Social Security payments.

One line, taken from their website, say everything I need to know:

AARP supported the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act.

That's it. We're finished. I will never join your organization. Whatever good you might think you are doing, this alone overwhelms it.

I don't much care for your stance on a number of other issues, either.

If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were ever our countrymen.
--Samuel Adams

From Fighting for Liberty

Fighting for Liberty has pictures and comments about a Tea Party rally in Concord N.H. a couple of days ago.
The New York Times reports that Tea Party supporters are both wealthier and better educated than the general population. In the midst of the article was this quote

"Tea Party supporters’ fierce animosity toward Washington, and the president in particular, is rooted in deep pessimism about the direction of the country..."

I think that just about sums it up and I want to give credit to the New York Times for finding that nugget of truth.

Who is John Galt?
--Ayn Rand, writing in Atlas Shrugged

Buy a Gun Day -- April 15th

Tomorrow is the day. If you really don't own any, I recommend a 20 ga. pump shotgun and some shells suitable for home defense. If you own a couple, and shoot them enough to be familiar with them, them make your own decision. If you already own several, and your family buys you Gun-Nut gag gifts on your birthday, you already have the next one picked out and don't need my reminder.

See you at the gun store tomorrow.

All you need for happiness is a good gun, a good horse, and a good wife.
Daniel Boone

Once Upon a Time in America

Wherein companies made products and people purchased them and the government had not yet completely overrun it's Constitutional boundaries.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.
--Ronald Reagan

The Tea Party Movement

Bill Whittle explains the Tea Party and the historical background behind it. There's a 30 second intro video, and then it will play. It will be the best thing you listen to this week.

Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.
--Abraham Lincoln

Meanwhile, Back in New York

From the New York Daily News, comes the details of the Al Qaeda plot to blow the subways during rush hour.

Zazi and his two Queens friends allegedly planned to strap explosives to their bodies and split up, heading for the Grand Central and Times Square stations - the two busiest subway stations in New York City.

They would board trains on the 1, 2, 3 and 6 lines at rush hour and planned to position themselves in the middle of the packed trains to ensure the maximum carnage when they blew themselves up, sources said.

Tell me again that the real threat is white right-winger extremists in the United States. Tell me again how peaceful and misunderstood our enemy is. Keep lying to me until I believe you.

I'm fighting so I can die a martyr and go to heaven to meet God. Our fight now is against the Americans.
--Osama bin Laden

2200 Miles from Georgia to Maine

I did 60 miles on the Appalachian Trail from Franklin, N.C., to Fontana Dam, N.C., hiking with a group a people that plan to thru-hike. They are just getting started, figuring out what to carry, shedding weight from their gear, starting to toughen up, so I was able to stay with them. Joining a thru-hiker later on, after they get to Virginia or beyond, with the idea you're going to stay with them, is a dream.

Several thousand people start the hike at Springer Mountain, Ga. every spring. Most of them leave the trail in the first few weeks. Some get injured, some decide they don't like it as much as they thought, and some, I suspect, learn what it was they came out there to learn and let it go. The remainder, a few hundred of them, continue on, making 10 to 15 miles a day, until sometime in the fall they arrive at Mt. Katahdin in Maine's Baxter State Park.

What I learned the last few days is that I can still do this. I made the climbs in the hot afternoons, handled the distances, slept on the ground, and most importantly, I enjoyed it. I can feel the call of the long green tunnel.

Take nothing for granted. Not one blessed, cool mountain day or one hellish, desert day or one sweaty, stinky, hiking companion. It is all a gift.
—-Cindy Ross

I'm Back

Hiked the Appalachian Trail in western North Carolina from Franklin to Fontana Dam. Updates and more pictures over the next few days. It was awesome. I wanted more.
Picture taken on the climb up from the Nantahala River as the sun was setting behind the ridge.

I dream of hiking into my old age. I want to be able even then to pack my load and take off slowly but steadily along the trail.
—Marlyn Doan

VLB

Very Light Blogging. I'm going to be doing it for Easter week. I promise to return to the keyboard next weekend and resume.

Spring makes its own statement, so loud and clear that the gardener seems to be only one of the instruments, not the composer.
--Geoffrey B. Charlesworth

Now I'm Boiling

The latest thing that was found buried in the Obamacare bill just boggles the mind. Not enough that that the government takeover of health care includes taking over the student loan program, now it turns out it also tries to tackle global warming. The "2010 temperate control provisions" aim to influence the supposed effects of global warming by changing the melting point of water from 32 degrees to 37 degrees.

Nancy Pelosi apparently supported the idea. When questioned about it this week in her home district, the Speaker of the House said the following:

We didn't address the upper temps, as 212 was seen as still within the normal range, but chose to limit current legislation to the lower end where we can have the most impact. Even as global temperatures rise, this bill ensures that the ice caps will not melt in our lifetime.

Provisions in the bill allow them to come back and re-address this change in three years, possible adjusting the melting temperature up or down based on the thickness of the ice caps.

Here's a chart of the various temperature scales currently in use, found on Wikipedia. As always, click to biggify.

The implications of this change were not well thought out. This is not just about the Arctic ice cap, this change will affect thermometers in use in refrigerators and freezers, will influence the temperature that meat must be stored at, even to some extent, the reading at which your air conditioner will turn on and off. This is the most far reaching and potentially influential thing that Congress has done in my lifetime.

If you call a tail a leg, how many legs has a dog? Five? No, calling a tail a leg don't make it a leg.
--Abraham Lincoln

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Update April Fool's!