Wait for it…

So, here we are. One week past our alleged due-date of October 27, and wondering if our child will ever be born. Our sources tell us that no one has been pregnant forever, and we are keen to believe them. However, we do remember one news story a few months ago about a woman in some third world country who had been pregnant for some 40 years. We don’t remember all of the details, mostly because it seems like we’ve been there ourselves by now.

Nathan, Shiver, Robb, and I have set out to do a pheasant hunt. That date, we know for sure. It will be Saturday, December 1 2007, at the Lookout Creek Farm hunting preserve, near Mentone, AL. For the meager cost of $200 per gun, we each get to pot seven cock pheasants. Now, I’ve never seen a pheasant on the hoof or on the plate, but I have read “Danny Champion of the World.” Mr. Dahl was down on the idea of shooting pheasants, and I can tell you why…. This is the description that the pheasant hunting establishment nearest my house game me as an idea of good sport:

…at this time I don’t have a place to do a quality pheasant hunt. I don’t have a place that offers adequate cover for the large birds. Let me suggest something that I think you and your friends would really enjoy. I offer a European pheasant shoot that is great fun. Here is how it works. We need a group of ten people to stand in a large circle here on our property. We then throw 100 pheasant into the air one at a time. It is just like a driven hunt like the Europeans do it. Shooters are 100 yards apart, we rotate every 10 birds to keep things fair for everyone. At the end of the shoot there are usually several missed birds. We will then take the dogs and shooters and hunt the birds on the ground.

Eww. None of us was happy with that idea. Perhaps when we are 90 and much less ambulatory.

Lookout Creek Farm is about two hours from my house. I know this because when it became abundantly clear that Amy wasn’t going to have a baby today, we packed it in, and drove out there. The place is easy to find, and seems quite scenic. As we were in the neighborhood, we took the opportunity to checkout DeSoto Falls and the DeSoto State Park. Both of these were quite nice, but due to the drought, the Falls had been reduced to a small trickle. The canyon they poured into was still quite impressive, and every Alabamian needs to make the trip at least once.

One of the interesting historic tidbits posted on the park’s bulletin board was that the park contains the ruin of what appears to be a fortification built by Welsh explorers circa 1140. This would seem to suggest that the Welsh founded Alabama slightly less than 75 years after the Norman invasion, and about fifty years after founding Cardiff Castle.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Step Right Up

And take the Civics Literacy Quiz!

Let’s see how you match up. For what it’s worth, I scored %76, which is seven percentage-points higher than the average senior at Harvard. Harvard seniors scored the highest of all schools surveyed.

So, give it a try, see how you do, then work on improving your score. (Hint: You improve your score by reading more, not by going back and taking the test multiple times).

Here is an excellent article I found this morning on The American Thinker.

In this article, US Army Major Greg Reeson responds to bleating screed written by supposed historian Howard Zinn. Among Mr. Zinn’s absurd notions are the silly suggestions that Switzerland lacks military power, that American Exceptionalism is a fallacy, and that we should be embarrassed both of our history and what we as a nation have become.

Major Reeson disagrees, and so do we. If Mr. Zinn has such a distaste for American Exceptionalism, we would like to take the opportunity to remind him there are plenty other places on this ball of mud to hang his hat. He needn’t salute the colors on his way out the door, but no amount of hand-wringing or bleating on his part cause me embarrassment when I do. Mr. Zinn’s hasty departure to greener pastures can only make the place better.

Major Reeson’s article is right on target. We are proud and blessed to be here, and we know that if we had been born anywhere else on this planet, we would have made it our business to come here.

Here is the money quote from the article:

A former commanding officer of mine summed it up beautifully when he said, “When we deploy our forces, one of two things happens: people either say ‘Thank God, they’re coming, or they say, ‘Oh shit, they’re coming.’” Both speak to the greatness of this nation.

Once again,

Orson Scott Card knocks one out of the park.

I’m always stunned by his analysis. If someone in the administration isn’t listening to him, they damn well should be.

Some of the best parts, any text in bold is my emphasis…

History does repeat itself. Never exactly — there are always enough differences in the details that people who are determined not to learn anything from the past can find an excuse.

But history shows patterns precisely because human beings don’t change.

…

American politics in the decade of the Zips (it’s zip-seven right now) aren’t British politics in the 1930s. American strategy in the war we’re currently fighting isn’t anything like the specific strategies that Hitler or Churchill needed to follow in order to win.

In fact, in one key way, we are living through the opposite of the run-up to World War II. America has a President who has taken the early action against the maniacs who seek world domination that Chamberlain refused to take.

But there are still some very important lessons we must learn:

1. When the press has decided to report only one side of the story, the public is ill served.
   …
2. If you do not believe the threats of an insane enemy and destroy their war capacity early, when it can be cheaply done, you will pay for it in blood and horror.
   …
3. Only fools believe that an enemy cannot do what he threatens to do.
   The Brits really believed that because they had a long reputation for ruling the ocean, Germany could not really challenge them. They ignored all the intelligence reports about Germany’s effort to rebuild its army and, particularly, its air force.

   They seemed to believe that just by being Britain, they could stop Germany whenever they wanted to.

   Similarly, Americans seem to think that no matter what weapons Iran develops, when it becomes necessary we can stop them.
   …

4. Only fools allow their best allies to be neutralized before the war begins.
   …
5. Remember the big picture.
   …
6. Everybody makes horrible mistakes; the side that learns from its mistakes and relentlessly moves forward is the one that will win.
   …
7. Without leadership, the cause of democracy cannot be won.

   Here is the place where I have finally come to despair of the Bush administration. There is no one — no one — who speaks with a voice like Churchill’s.
   Right from the beginning of the war against Islamic terror, I have been saying that President Bush needed to ask us for sacrifice, to work together for victory. Instead, his message was to ignore the war and just go about our business. This is not how democracies win wars.

   We only win when we are stirred in our hearts, convinced of the righteousness of our cause, united in a common struggle, and asked to make sacrifices. In other words, in democracies the people have to believe it is their own war.

   The sad thing is that our cause is righteous — freedom from religious oppression and from the dictatorship of madmen. We are right now in the business of saving the world from a Muslim empire that will make Hitler look like an amateur, when it comes to murder and oppression. And yet nobody is telling that true story to the American people.

   Instead, it’s as if the administration were trying to hide the war from us so we won’t get annoyed by it. Meanwhile, the appeasers are telling their false and dangerous story and getting away with it. Even the bloggers and the Republicans in Congress waver, because they have no voice leading them.

   President Bush has made the right decisions. But he is, in fact, a manager, not a leader. Nor has he found a Churchill and brought him into the administration to do that job. All the faces are grey, all the voices are dull, and so the opposition dominates the public conversation.

It gets better. You should read for yourself.

Welcome to America

We have a strong affection towards President Theodore Roosevelt, and we accept it as a good omen that our first-born’s due date is on the anniversary of his birth. We are pleased to pass along these words that Mr. Roosevelt wrote shortly before his death in January of 1919.

In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man’s becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American…

There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile…We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language…and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.

We certainly are ready for another like him. Now for those of you paying attention, yes T.R. was once the mayor of New York City, but Mayor Guiliani is comes nowhere near the same ballpark.

Election Selection

We have no love of Republican POTUS candidate Ron Paul. He seems to be an isolationist with little clue as to how the world actually works. The one thing that he did get right was to point out that our founding fathers cherished the idea of liberty and not the idea of democracy.

It seems to us that democracy was meant only to be the vehicle, and liberty the destination.

Expound.

132 is old.

Today marks the 132′rd anniversary of the birth of Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill.

We suggest you mark the occasion with Sir Winston’s usual: a splash of Johnnie Walker in the bottom of a tumbler, add ice, then fill with water. We are told that he preferred the Red labeled version, of which we have a small supply on hand. If you do not, then now is the time.

Did you learn anything?

Last week, whilst in Vietnam, an idiot reporter asked President Bush a question, to the effect of, “Do you think that there is anything that the {failed} Vietnam war could teach you about how you should be handling the Iraqi war?”

I didn’t listen to his response because I was talking over it. My response was, “Of course. When there’s a war that needs to be won, best get in, win it decisively, and above all, do that fast before the democrats get a chance to get themselves elected to a majority in congress just to make sure you loose it.”

That should be the lesson we learned from Vietnam.

Reading List

I have recently finished reading Mark Twain’s Roughing It. This book is a fine account of life in the American “old west,” and has much to recommend it. The above link is to the Project Gutenberg electronic text in its entirety.

Previous to this, I had the pleasure to indulge in Jerome Klapka Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat. I had never before heard of this second author before I stumbled upon him one day whilst repeatedly mashing the Random Article button at Wikipedia. I can’t imagine why I’ve never heard of this book before, but nothing that I could say would add anything to the book’s excellence. Just read it.

The most striking feature of these books is that both of them were well worn by the time the year 1900 rolled around, but they are both compellingly modern.

Most recently, however, I have come across the writings of the late Col. Jeff Cooper, deceased just this 25th of September. Col. Cooper’s commentaries are located here.They are nothing short of amazing. If you don’t have a sense of humor, don’t bother. Col. Cooper’s writings will probably make some people madder than they would be after being forced to listen to hours of the Rush Limbaugh Show.

Col. Cooper was harsh, unyielding, macho, sure of himself, honorable, and as sharp as they come. He had a wonderful gift of language that I am jealous of. Even if you disagree with him %80, read his commentaries anyway because you will learn something new. Start at the beginning, and understand that it will take a bit of time to understand that he’d been writing these commentaries for many years prior to 1993, but they were published elsewhere. So you will find that there is some context missing.

Among other things, you will learn of the tyranny committed by our government in the 1990s against our own citizens. I don’t remember much about the Waco, TX incident because I was in high school at the time, and was thus rather disconnected. Col. Cooper points out that whilst the Branch Dividians were all nuts, they hadn’t broken any laws, and the ATF really didn’t have any good reason to go kicking in their doors. You’ll also learn about another episode in which an ATF sniper assassinated the wife of a suspect while she was holding her baby. Why don’t I remember any of this?

For some reasons unknown to me at this point, I feel it necessary to insert the disclaimer that I think both David Koresh and Randy Weaver were unqualified nut cases. Col. Cooper asks the questions that I never heard during that time, namely, since when is it ok for armed agents of the United States Government to assassinate our fellow citizens, no matter how crazy they may be, without even holding a trial. I should also disclaim that shooting our citizens is a far worse offense than the warrant-less interception of phone calls made to or from known enemies over-seas. I can’t wait to read up to the Elian Gonzalez debacle. The fact remains that Janet Reno is still walking around in freedom. In a just and righteous world, this would not be.

Another thing that I learned was that the Clinton administration ordered the destruction of many fine Springfield Armory 1903 and M1 Garand rifles, as well as a number of M1911 Colts, despite the facts that these are not weapons that you find in the hands of your typical street-thug. These weapons won WWI and WWII for us. They were our heritage. Our grandmothers and grandfather paid for them with their scrap metal, their war bonds, and often with their lives. It was our right to collect them and hold on to them as living snippets of our shared history, and pass them to our children and grand-children, preserving the stories of how they saved nations and ended the holocaust. In many ways, this was the parallel of melting-down the Liberty Bell, crumpling-up the Declaration of Independence and hurling it into the recycling bin, or demolishing Montecello to the purpose of installing a parking garage. This was a great shame that will never be reported.

Col. Cooper advocated granting the franchise only to those who had read and understood the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, and de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. Upon reading this, I hardily agreed, even though by those standards I would be disqualified. I have not digested the last two of the four mentioned, as they are talked-about, but never seriously studied in our public (Government) schools today. Before the next election, I will have read them all, and perhaps the anti-Federalist papers for good measure.

The great thing about Col. Cooper is that he was tough as nails, and unapologetic for it. His writings demonstrate what it means to be a man. He wrote them in a way that is convincing because his words are plain, but they are not simple. Col. Cooper was an educated man, and that becomes very clear due to the depth of his words.

In this age of the modern, sensitive “man,” reading Col. Cooper’s work makes me want to stand up and shout “Yes!” He got it right. He reached me. I, for one, will not be feminized.

So this is the new year? (Hat-tip: "Death Cab for Cutie")

I don’t do New Year Resolutions. So, this year will be no exception. However, it is not all that uncommon for me to set a few goals from time to time. So this year, I think that I’m going to dig up some books by and about the founding fathers of our country. The goal being mostly to remind myself that the people who founded this country were all right-wing-kook-extremists, just like me. As the post-election left-wing meltdown continues, with liberals screeching about how “Red State” people are ignorant morons, it will be nice to read the words of these intelligent men, and to remember that they are largely responsible for me
thinking the way I do. I am a conservative, I do believe in God, I am patriotic. I am not an uneducated simpleton fool. I sense that I’ll probably write two or three screeds about this in the coming year.

Specifically, I want to look through the Federalist Papers, some Washington, some Jefferson, some Ben Franklin (particularly, I’d like to reread his autobiography), and revise on some of the minor/obscure founding documents like the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Also, I intend to finish the 9/11 commission report.

Also, for career development this year, I’d really like to learn to write useful code in C. Really, as a full-time UNIX systems administrator, I am often ashamed of that fact that I can’t program in C. Perl is great, and as a rule has gotten me out of (also in to) many sticky situations, but really I should learn C.

Finally, I’m really going to try to write more. I will probably use this LiveJournal thing as the medium, since it is easy enough. Nobody but Chris will read it anyway, and the only reason that he will is that he gets all of my posts emailed to him automagically. Chris, read-on. I promise it will be hella boring.

Some things I want to write about:

• Chapter 8 in the new Ann Coulter book, and how she isn’t quite right.
• Good/Bad points in the new Bill O’Reilly book.
• Dr. Strangeconserviative, or How I learned to stop worrying and love the US.
• The current un-official charter of the United Nations
• Canada: Frozen Bombing Range of the North
• Linux Hippies are ruining it for the rest of us
• My favorite line to use at parties: “I’m slightly to the right of Rush Limbaugh.” That one always gets GREAT responses.
• My prediction that the “Half-Blood Prince” in J.K. Rowling’s new book is . . . Haggrid.
• The real American Idiots, Anna Nichole, Paris Hilton, Reality TV, MTV, etc.
• My life-change from Linux+Windows on PC to OS X on Apple G5, how I have adjusted, and if it was worth it.
• Several other topics I can’t remember right now.

I had no champagne for the new year, I’m afraid. I had a nice bottle of Chimay Grand Reserve (a.k.a. Chimay Blue) that I was going to enjoy, but decided to save it. At $9 per bottle, it is packaged like champagne (750 ml, cork finished, wire bale), but tastes better than any champagne I’ve ever had, and is WAY less expensive. Vouve Clicot is probably the best tasting champagne I’ve ever had. It is currently at about $45 for the same 750 ml bottle. Also, I have one bottle of Left Hand Imperial Stout that I am saving for a cold night. I am worried that winter may be over though. We had those two days, just before Christmas where the high
was in the 20’s. Right now, we’re having upper 60’s. Happy January in North Alabama.

I got several new books for Christmas, including the Bill O’Reilly book, Who’s Looking Out for You? Anyone who thinks that O’Reilly is a conservative after reading this book should go have a mental exam or perhaps go look at a dictionary. This book was closer to a “Self Help” book than anything I have ever read before. As it turns out, I like Bill’s writing style much better than his interviewing/commentating style on his TV show (I’ve never listened to his radio show). Perhaps it is because he’s not interrupting someone else’s every third word. I’ll talk more about the book in another entry later because I thought it was actually good and made some points I hadn’t thought about.

Oh, and I swore off Slashdot just over a month ago. Haven’t found a good replacement for it yet, we’ll see how long it lasts… Annoying pratts. So far, I have done well. Been there less than 3 times in the last month. Haven’t missed it, per se. But I do miss having a good source of computer geek news updated several times per day. If not for their agenda of left-wing politics and slamming any company out there that has the nerve to actually try to (gasp) make money, I’d still be a (many-times-a-day) daily visitor.

In summary, happy new year to you all. Really, I plan to live 2005 just like I lived 2004. Keep moving forward, doing what I do, brewing a few beers, fixing a couple of computers, and generally enjoying life in North Alabama with my wife.