Links

I thought I should list a few links to some of my favorite web sites. Eventually I may even include links to web sites of organizations with which I disagree just to provide some balance.

First and foremost is a link to the National Rifle Association The NRA is a good place to start if you have any questions about gun control or firearms safety or any other aspect of the shooting sports. These guys are the experts on anything related to guns. While the NRA covers all aspects of shooting including political activities, other organizations specialize in specific aspects and I will list a few here and add to this list from time to time.

If you are interested in Cowboy Action Shooting the site to check out is the Single Action Shooting Society's home page. Cowboy Action Shooting is a shooting sport that requires shooters to use firearms from the mid to late 1800's and to dress in clothing appropriate to the same period. Shooters are also required to use an alias out of the old west. The game is one of speed and accuracy but which maintains a very non-competive atmosphere that makes it a lot of fun for those shooters who are not at the top of the game (most of us). Check it out but be prepared to get hooked. There are many local clubs throughout the United States and indeed the rest of the world that are devoted to this sport. For an example check out the Rattlesnake Gulch Rangers These guys are having a lot of fun.

Another area that I really enjoy is motorcycling and specifically sidecaring. I am often asked by friends why in the world I would want to hang a sidecar on my bike and screw up the handling. The only response I can make is that while it does indeed change the handling of the motorcycle (leaners not withstanding), it changes it in a way that makes the machine much more challenging to ride. Sidecar rigs are asymmetric in nature. They handle entirely differently when turning towards the sidecar (to the right in the U.S.) than when turning away from the sidecar. Unlike a solo motorcycle which leans into a curve, sidecar outfits want to lean away from the curve in much the same manner as an automobile does. This means when turning towards the sidecar, the sidecar wants to rise into the air and in fact flying the sidecar a popular stunt among sidecar pilots. On the other hand, when turning away from the sidecar, the bike wants to rise but due to its weight the sidecar wheel will break traction and the outfit will skid around the turn. To find out more check out the United Sidecar Association which is the largest national group in the United States. Another good site for info about sidecars is the Fantasy Sidecar World Wide Links page. When it comes to the motorcyles used to pull a sidecar virtually every motorcycle type ever made has been used at one time or another somewhere in the world to pull a chair. I currently have a Yamaha XS650D with a Velorex sidecar attached. It is undergoing one of its periodic restorations. My wife and I took this outfit on our honeymoon many years ago. It was a 2000+ mile journey to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and we have a warm spot in our hearts for this outfit. While other outfits have come and gone we have held onto this one and will probably keep it as long as we are able to ride. For more info about the XS650 check out the XS650 Garage

One last area of interest to me I want to mention today is Astronomy. I am about half way through a graduate program working towards my Master of Science in Astronomy. Unfortuately finances have put a temporary halt to my studies but if I find suitable employment (my wife wants me to go back to work to get the house paid off so she can retire as soon as she turns 60) I will return to my studies. I am what is called a place bound student so am unable to move near a college offering an astronomy program. My wife had taken some computer based courses through Washington State University while working towards her degree (Go Cougs!) so I decided to search the internet to see if there were any colleges courses in astronomy that could be taken online. I discovered a school in Austrailia that offered an complete program online. I have spent about three and half years working towards my masters thru Swinburne University of Technology near Melborne. Check it out. I have about three years left to go (I only take one class per semester as I am doing this for fun so can't see overloading myself).

This list of links is a work in process and I will add additional links to the areas of interest already discussed as well as new areas. Please feel free to post any links you think might be interesting.

NEW LINKS

U.S. Senate - Write your Senators. Please be aware that their staff will handle the letter. be courteous and give the staff credit (e.g. ask your Senator to have his staff look into your concern). Ask for a positive response.

U. S. House of Representatives - Write your Representative. Please be aware that their staff will handle your letter. Be courteous and give the staff credit (e.g. ask your representative to have his staff look into your concern). Ask for a positive response.

Social Security Administration

Neal Boortz

Conversations with John

My cousin John is your typical Liberal. A denizen of Seattle, he is a lawyer and is politically active with the Democratic party. His views are to say the least bizarre. Unfortunately they are typical of the views of most liberals I have had the misfortune to come into contact with. Trying to carry on a conversation with him is disheartening for two reasons. First his ideas are based on such an outlandish world view that it is difficult to grasp that there are people who actually harbor such ideas and secondly, he has spent his entire life (he is rapidly approaching retirement) as a gol durn criminal defense attorney and so is very good at arguing for lost causes.

We recently had a discussion over the Thanksgiving table in which the division of the country into red and blue states came up. I pointed out that there were really no blue states. When looked at on a county by county basis, the entire country, all 50 states, is red. There are only a few cesspools of blue such as New York City, Washington DC, Boston, Seattle, Los Angeles etc. John was very quick to respond that these cesspools are the source of all of Americas strength, all of it's greatest universities, the home of the nations movers and shakers, the great financial institutions and industries and the center of the worlds art community.

I had to give him that one. Although as I observed, they would not be able to feed themselves for even three days without all of the rest of the country supplying their needs. Besides the fact that these cesspools can't even feed themselves, it must be observed that while they are so strongly liberal that they often overwhelm the rest of their state, these big cities are not 100% liberal. There are many conservatives who make the ultimate sacrifice and live among the liberals in order to bring us the industry that provides the wealth of our nation and the financial institutions to facilitate our economy and the movers and shakers he seems so proud of. Of course the great universities are certainly liberal but fortunately, enough students are able to retain their native intellegence through four years of indoctreination at these great institutions, to assure that we have plenty of young conservatives coming out each year. The great community of artists exists, largely because taxpayers like myself, are forced at the point of a gun to hand over a substantial part of their earnings to suppost these 'great' artist. Take away the subsidy that I and the rest of Americas workers are forced to give them and see how long they last in the market place. If all of the lousy, so called art, we workers are pay for had to sell in a free market place in order for these artists to feed themselves, the big city cesspools would be home to a much smaller community of artists. If you removed all of the conservatives from the big city cesspools, you would be left with nothing but big liberal "B-Arcs."

Perhaps we should call for those consevatives who are willing to make the sacrifice to do so and move to the nearest bis city to increase the percentage of registered voters who would support conservative causes and perhaps we could even eliminate the remaing few patches of blue.

Gun Control ~ The Right Way

OK, I admit it. I'm a dyed in the wool NRA member and supporter of our Second Amendment rights (as well as all other rights granted by the Constitution). As a result it is not hard to figure out which side of the gun control issue I'm on. From my point of view it makes sense to allow the citizens to be armed. After all the only possible rational the government can have for denying arms to its citizens is that those citizens are either too stupid to safely posses arms or those citizens can't be trusted with firearms.

Now I have to ask myself which of those two catagories most liberals place themselves in? After all if they want the government to deny them the right to possess firearms they must consider themselves to be stupid and untrustworthy. Of course as a conservative, I am neither, but I can certainly see how liberals would have such low opinions of themselves. I have similar opinions of them.

Put all that aside, however, and consider the argument made by liberals that gun control is needed to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. A worthy goal indeed. Having already demonstrated the ingrained stupidity of your typical liberal I do not wonder that their approach to this goal is not to disarm criminals but to disarm law abiding citizens. (Of course this whole arguement presupposes that liberals are telling the truth when they say their goal is crime prevention, but hey, I'm willing to take them at their word.) Therefore I am proposing a plan which would actually help to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.

As it stands today, when I go in to my local gun shop and buy a gun, they call Washington, DC and check to see if I am a criminal or otherwise debarred from possesing guns. In other words, they have a list of all the criminals...THEY ALREADY KNOW WHO THE CRIMINALS ARE! So why should I, a law abiding citizen, be pestered by this silliness? Of course this only happens if I go to a gun store or to an FFL (Federal Firearms Licensee) to buy a gun. If I purchase a gun from a friend or sell a gun from my collection to a stranger, I am not only not required to make any such check, I am actually barred from using the national instant check system.

My proposal is simple. Since we already know who the criminals are (they have a list of them in DC, remember) lets identify them as being restricted from possesing firearms by placing a restriction code on their drivers license or state issued ID card. Simple huh? Then when I go into a store to buy a gun, I show my identification and if I am not "firearms restricted" I get to buy the gun. This would work just fine for private sales also. If I sell a gun to a stranger, I can ask to see and get a photo copy of his ID so I can prove I checked him out.

This of course would be enforced through both criminal sanctions for possesing false ID showing a "firearms restricted" person was not restricted from possesing firearms (automatic 5 years and actually enforce it) and though liability laws. Anyone who sells a firearm to someone who is "firearms restricted" would be exposed to liability for damages caused. Hence the reason I would require a photo ID of a buyers ID before selling them a gun. With that in hand I would be shielded from any law suit as long as I did not otherwise have cause to know the individual was "firearms restricted." Law suits would similarly assure that any gun store that sold firearms to anyone who was "firearms restricted" would be sued out of business overnight. Gun shops, FFLs and private citizens would have an instant way of determining eligibility. The onus would be placed on the criminals and not on Me.

If you like this idea, please forward it to your Congressman and Senators. Who knows how often this would have to show up before it would get some attention. Of course we all know that the stupid liberals are not in the least bit interessted in keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, it is law abiding citizens they want to disarm so I don't expect any liberals to go for such a simple and elegant idea.

Giving Thanks? (the racists lost)

We just returned from Seattle where my wife and I spent Thanksgiving with the family and then ran the Seattle Marathon on Sunday. It was a very rewarding and memorable week. Of course I broke the one rule my wife has laid down for me in life: Don't talk politics at the dinner table! I couldn't help myself. You see, most of my family are conservative Republicans except for my brother (a public school teacher) and his wife (a gol durn Seattle lawyer) who are certified Seattle, bed wetting, latte sipping, gortex panty wearing radical left wing liberals. In addition to suffering the indignity of having to ride around in my brothers VW van with the Kerry/Edwards posters in the window, I had to share my Thanksgiving dinner with not just one but two gol durn lawyers! My cousin John who is also a gol durn lawyer was there with his wife. Now my cousin and my sister in law are not just a couple of typical radical left wing America hating, lunatic fringe liberals, they were both actively involved in the national and local campaigns. They took the decision of the goood citizens of the United States rather poorly and I suppose my gloating did not help their disposition on the matter either. Once again they can't seem to shake the idea that somehow they really won but the evil Republicans managed to steal the election from them.

The Washington State gubnitorial race has been (and still is apparently) rather contentious with the Republican winning by 42 (yes you read that right FORTY-TWO) votes out of 2.8 million votes cast as of the official machine recount. The original count had him up by about 260 votes but durring the recount process the democrates in Seattle managed to find 10,000 new ballots that had never been counted the first time and since they were all from that radical left wing looney bin called King County they were sure they had made up enough ballots to put them over the top. Unfortunately they miscalculated by 42 votes so now the democrates are demanding a HAND recount in selected liberal precincts. They just can't wait to get their hands on those ballots so they can cast a few more votes and this time they know exactly how many more votes they need.

The discussion at the table did not revolve only around the State elections, but ranged rather widely as to how the country was possibly going to survive another four years led by a man that actually talks to God. Imagine that...a christian that talks to God! I strongly encourage that sort of comment from the radical left because it actually alianates much of the democrate base. They never seem to get the fact that most democrates actually profess religous beliefs. I suppose that if they keep this up we will have to stop calliig them RADICAL liberals and just boil it down to STUPID liberals. Eventually the converstion turned to possible candidates from both sides for the 2008 election. When I put forth Condi Rice to counter the Hildabeast, I was stunned by the pure venom in my cousins voice as he started tearing into her. It was quite obvious that he simply can't stand the thought of a black woman who does not know her place. I find racisim ugly at any time and especially so when I find it in my own family. Normally I do not hesitate to express my feelings about racists but my wifes admonitions about not getting into political fights, especially with family, kept ringing in my mind so I simply tried to get him to explain exactly what he thought a National Security Advisor was supposed to do. He actually laid the blame for 911, not at the feet of Arab terrorists, but on Condi Rice and George Bush! And they wonder why they are no longer relevant. To avoid the issue of racisim I decided to see how far his rather strange paradigm regarding conservatives went. I informed him that like most conservatives I know I was dissapointed the Bush had not simply nuked Mecca. I pointed out that as a liberal he probably thinks there are good Muslims as well as bad muslims but that I believed all Muslims were just waiting to be called to duty. I kept hoping that at some point he would say something like "you can't possibly believe that" but his cartoon caracature image of Republicans is apparently almost as bad as my steriotypical view of liberals and gol durn lawyers.

I have had the race discussion with other liberals and they just don't get how racist their ideas are. I have heard liberals refer to Condi Rice as Aunt Jamima and Colin Powel as Uncle Tom just because they are successful. The liberal world view holds that blacks and other non-white groups are too stupid and untrustworthy to ever be able to make it in the world without the benevolent help of a white liberal. In order to assure that is the case they implement public policy to make certain that minority groups are not allowed to succed in the market place based on merit regardless of whether that market is one of commerce or politics or ideas. They have a large minority base who they have conned into believing the democratic party is looking out for them and is their only hope for the future. These people are not stupid because they are blacks or any other minority. They are stupid because, like my cousin, they are liberal.

The Hangfire Journal

The Hangfire Journal is my opportunity to rant about those things that drive me, motivate me, annoy me or simply amuse me. I make no claim to be superior to anybody either intellectually or physically. I welcome input of any sort but don't expect me to take you too seriously just as I hope you don't take me too seriously. There are some topics that are important to me and some I find boring. Sometimes a boring topic becomes important and vis a versa. For instance, while working towards a Master of Science in Astronomy (which I am still working towards) I looked forward to studying the Sun. After all, if your interest is stars, the Sun is a nice one and it's up close and personal. On the other hand I thought I would find cosmology rather boring as it can't really be thought of as "science." As it turns out, solar astronomy was ok but did not stir my soul while I have found cosmology to be endlessly facinating. Who knew.

I like politics. I tend towards the conservative end of the spectrum on some topics and towards the liberal end on other topics. All-in-all I am glad Bush won. I am saddened that the Rublicans did not get at least 60 Senators but I suppose will will muddle through till the next election when we can improve matters.

I am a competitve shooter and both I and my wife compete regularly in Cowboy Action Shooting. We also enjoy motorcycling although we have not had our sidecar rig out much over the last couple of years. I am retired, although in an effort to get the house paid for so my wife can retire, I am [sort of] looking for a job. Retirement is fun and I really want my wife to join me. We are both diabetic but have seen the light and put our lives back on a healthy track. We have both lost over 70 pounds in the last year. We are both off of insulin (my wife was insulin dependent for almost 30 years!) and we just completed the Seattle Marathon along with the oldest daughter.

That is enough about me. I will start loading this blog up with stuff of interest, at least to me, and links to interesting and provocative web sites.