Campus Carry!

......at UT, as in Utah Via CNN.

Presenting: A Dog's Night In!

Liberal CCW Productions Presents: "A Dog's Night In".

~An evening of vocals and interpretive dance~

Tickets on sale now: $45.

The award winning "A Dog's Night In" features canine artist "Mr. Stinkle Stankle" performing his famous solo vocal numbers:

• Who's at the Door?
• Death to the Mailman.
• I Have to Go Outside Now!
• See, You Should Have Let Me Out (I Wuznt Fakin).

Mr. Stankle will also be performing the following beloved interpretive dance routines:

• Clearing the Kitchen Counter.
• Venetian Blind Tornado.
• The Carpet Scooter.
• The Hork Ballad.
• Dance on three legs (to the tune of Singing in the Rain).
• The Carpet Brownie Waltz.

Critics are rabid over "A Dog's night In":

"A Scatological Tour De Force!" ~ The New York Times.

"I laughed, I cried, I got bit on the ankle." ~ The Denver Post.

"Rarely has an artist shown so much energy and directed so much anger and feces at a carpet during a performance" ~The Tampa Tribune

"The Who... Scmoo, Mr. Stankle has set the bar for artistic destruction of the stage". ~ The Rolling Stone.

Obama, Foreign Policy, and Image

You don't often find folks in foreign countries holding campaign posters for US Presidential Candidates.

CNN reports that President Bush found some Obama supporters in Tanzania:

I picture Bush looking out of the window in his limo only to realize that the world can't wait to replace him.

Positively Hillary, Schwall!

Gentle readers, there are times that people you know and respect do and say things that they might later regret, things that make them look foolish or even hateful. When confronted by the careless and wanton acts of your friends, you can act on the base human response and burn with white hot rage, or choose the higher path of forgiveness.

Liberal CCW was interviewed this morning as part of a President's Day special for the WBIR television segment Positively Schwall. The interview went as follows:

Ken Schwall: "So who is your favorite President"?

Liberal CCW: [Thinking] "FDR....but that's not funny." [Blurting Exuberantly]: "Hillary Clinton"!

Schwall was not impressed with my answer and was even less impressed with the NY Yankees ball cap that I was wearing. They re-filmed the take with me explaining that Hillary was my favorite President, that Hillary had already run the country from the White House for eight years, blah blah blah.

I am afraid that Scwhall will edit out the end of the clip and just have me saying that Hillary is my favorite President ever. And so, I beg your forgiveness, dear reader.

For the record, Charlton Heston is my favorite President.

The battle of the accountants

The other day our office received a purchase order from an outside firm, (Widget Devices LLC) addressed to the incorrect department (our former department, The Department of Nothing to Do), and made out to someone who had retired several months ago. Normally this is not a big deal. However, the accountant (Accountant 1) in our new department (The Department of Dirty Looks) has three major professional behavioral flaws:

1. Laziness
2. Nitpicking
3. Turf Protection

My boss and I decided that instead of forwarding the incorrectly addressed purchase order to Accountant 1, we would contact the outside firm ourselves and thus avoid the extreeeeeeemly sloooooow mooooootion traaaaaaaain wreeeeeeck of having Accountant 1 deal with the problem.

And so, I the engineer, contacted the company via Email stating that the address was incorrect on the Purchase Order, and giving the correct address, department name and contact person. An hour later I got a reply from an Accountant at the outside firm (Account 2) with the request for a document (Zed) and the note to read the attached email. The attached Email contained a heated internal corporate discussion between Accountant 2 and her boss (Accountant 2a) about the issue that involved calling me names!

I resisted picking up the phone and calling Accountants 2 and 2a and then 1 and putting them on a conference call and calling them all names. I realized that Accountants 2 and 2a were suffering from the same problems as accountant 1, without 1's half-ounce of dignity and professionalism.

I did what any good employee would and asked my boss what document Zed was and where to get it. He suggested that I ask our old, (and I mean old) accountant (Accountant 3) of the Department of Nothing to Do for a copy. I went to see old 3, and after staring at me angrily with his rheumy eyes, he slowly and creakily started to finger through his files with his liverspotted hands. He found a copy of document Zed, and handed it to me. I examined it and found that it was half a decade old. He had been sending this out of date copy of document Zed to companies since before I started working for the firm. Sensing that it was quite possible that 2 and 2a were worse nitpickers than 1, I decided that sending a copy of Zed so old that I would have to fax the Rosetta stone along to decipher it was probably a bad idea. Old 3 growled that my best bet was to go to the Department of Peace and Prosperity and ask if they had a more recent copy of document Zed.

So, off I trudged, the office of Peace and Prosperity is a half a mile from our building. I know what you are thinking: Call first, you dummy. Aha! I've got you. I always used to call first but if you call first in this organization, you will get a secretary who has all of the failings of Accountant 1, minus the sparkling personality. Inevitably, you get transferred to a voice mail box that is full, without the secretary giving the number of the person that you need to reach. I am convinced that these office workers have phones in empty locked rooms that no one can possibly get to so that they can efficiently transfer all calls requiring actual work to a dead end.

I arrived at the Office of Peace and Prosperity and waved my yellowed copy of document Zed at the front desk secretary, who looked confused and went to get the Accountant of the Office of Peace and Prosperity (Accountant 4). 4 bustled out of the door with more vigor than I have seen in an office worker, and I thought to myself:

"4 might have the answer".

However, 4 proceeded to examine my half-decade old copy of document Zed and then suggested that I (and I quote):

"Go to the Federal United States Government website for the Department of Zed and see if the copy of Zed that you have has been superseded by a newer revision, if so, then this copy is no good".

I snorted audibly, and thanked Accountant 4 and left the Department of Peace and Prosperity. 4 undoubtedly went back to watering the petunias in the office.

On the half mile walk back to my office, I noticed that the copy of Zed that I had appeared to be a fax, and had the faint remainders of the issuing department name on it: "The Department of the Source of All Paperwork". (DSAP) I called DSAP and got secretary 2.

"DSAP, Secretary 2 speaking".

"Could you fax me the latest version of document Zed"? I asked.

"Sure". She replied, easy as pie.

I went downstairs and retrieved the fax, with the spanking new document Zed signed and dated last week. Out of goodwill, I made three copies and gave them to old 3, who actually stopped playing solitaire on his computer long enough to thank me.

I faxed NeoZed to Accountant 2, and 24 hours later, have heard nothing.

US spy satellites to look inward.

Via the Associated Press, the Department of Homeland Security is set to use US space based imaging systems to spy on it's own citizens. According to the article, plans were delayed however because:

"Last fall, senior Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee asked the department to put the program on hold until there was a clear legal framework of how the program would operate".

Where are the Republicans on this? Oh wait...it's the big government agency that they created that will do the domestic spying, so it's OK.

Space station crew has gun on board.

It appears that Russian Space Program administrators have armed the ISS crew in fears for their safety should they have to abandon ship only to land for example, in Knoxville's Fort Sanders community after 03: 00 Zulu only to be murdered by the natives. Or should they drift Eastwards from Knoxville, some good shooting could reduce the risk of the astronauts getting eaten by bears in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. After the trauma of falling from space, and fending off a bear attack, the astronauts would be arrested by the Park Service for going armed in a National Park.

Former NASA engineer Jim Oberg has a great quote:

"...crews would be safer if the gun was locked up or left on Earth".

Yes Jim, the crews would be safer in the station without a gun, but I would hesitate to say that their lives might depend on having it, should they be forced to land in a random location on the slightly less idyllic planet below.

A person who can not be trusted with a gun, can not be trusted with a space station.

I hate to admit it, but Rush is right again.

...."The failure of establishment Republicans, whether they be members of Congress, Washington and New York editorial writers, even some talk show hosts who live and work and socialize in that community, the failure of those people to uphold conservative principles during the last decade or more has resulted in the mess that they are now complaining about"....

The whole thing is a good read. I see the collapse of the Republican Party happening, and it makes me happy!

Hot button Issue: Berkeley Protests

Some Liberal Meanderings on the Berkeley city council resolution to keep the US Marine Corps from recruiting inside the city limits:

The Berkeley City Council won't accomplish it's goal of keeping the Marine recruiters out of the city, but the protests will make the US look a bit less, how should I put it..... less Nazi-ish in the view of other nations. I hear it from Europeans, from Asians, and - big surprise from Middle Easterners, we have a big problem with image. Foreign folks love to compare our fearless President's behavior to that of Adolf Hitler. Many have come to see us all as unfeeling, unstoppable marching minions of Bush.

The general consensus outside our borders is that we have gone off of the deep end in search for cheap oil, and we don't care what excuses we use to get it. The most common excuses we use are we that we are "Defending Freedom", or "Spreading Democracy". To the outside however, it appears to be a clear case of "Defending the Supply Chain" and "Spreading Boreholes".

Why do you suppose we have a naval presence in the Persian Gulf that plays tag with Iranian speedboats? Are our ships "Defending our Freedom"? Or "Spreading Democracy". Uh... No. They are maintaining security for the passage of Supertankers.

So when you are disgusted at the sight of a bunch of pink clad young people waving signs and behaving like infants, take a moment to thank your lucky stars that these folks are out there. Pray that video of their misguided antics makes the rounds in the international community. They are one of the few things that can show the world that we are not a monolithic block of oil grubbing sadistic mercenaries. Them and Brittany Spears, of course.

The Superman Position

Our dog loves to sit on the end of the futon and watch out the front window in order to bark furiously at folks walking to the laundry room, which sits next to our apartment. When we first moved in he thought that these Launderers were coming to our place, as they would walk to the building and disappear into it next to his window. He even went into the back closet in our bedroom in search of the people that kept coming in. He could hear them in the laundry room, but could not see them. For weeks, it never occurred to him that not all doors in the building lead to our domain.

Some launderers take their dogs with them to the laundry room, which turns on his canine barkey superchargers, and as he spools up in volume, his motor control degrades to the point that he tends to bark and shake and shimmy like Elvis performing on a King Sized fire ant mound.

The other day, goaded by the presence of a Launderer and her Jack Russell, he accidentally achieved the ultimate in barkey gyrations: The Super Man Position.

The Superman Position is defined the simultaneous absence of contact between all four paws and a supporting surface for at least 3 seconds while the forepaws are stretched forwards and the rear paws extended rearwards. In real world physics, this is impossible except for in free fall for at least 60 feet, or with the use supporting cables and harness, or in the case of our dog, the following series of events:

Sensing the presence of Laundering Person accompanied by an Infuriating Canine Companion, our dog put his paws on the wooden futon arm rest to maximize his height for the purpose of intimidation. However, in the heat of the moment he made a critical mistake as he forgot that the futon armrest is slippery. He lost his balance and pitched nose forward, his chest supporting his weight on the armrest with his front paws unable to touch the ground. His tail and rear legs extended skywards, like the stern of the Titanic during it's final plunge.

A true trooper, he never completely stopped barking during this pitch forward, but his barking became sporadic and muffled as his head got buried in a box of network cables.

He started kicking his elevated rear legs in an attempt to shift his CG rearwards and get his head out of the box so that he could direct maximum volume at the Russell, and after several seconds of frantic kicking and muffled barking, his nose started to rise out of the box, a few degrees per second, like a shot up B-17G on two engines trying desperately to clear the cliffs of Dover, painfully inching it's chin turret upwards towards the horizon.

As his eyes slowly cleared the top of the box, he could again see the Russell, and his volume increased. Re-invigorated by the realization that he might just make it, he managed to pull level and balanced on his chest on the arm rest, and suspended as if by super powers, he barked his best for a good thirty seconds, his front legs jerking straight forwards and his rear legs extending straight rearward with each bark.

The Russell looked worried, and with good reason, for the Dog in the apartment next to the laundry room is so territorial that he can levitate.

It's called what?

We were at a far Eastern friend's place for what to this point had been a truly excellent dinner. We were talking about movies and movie stars as the host brought out dessert. I looked down to see my dessert dish filled with about 3 ounces of quivering gray goo. I tentatively toyed with the dish with my spoon before raising it to my lips. I gave it a discrete sniff, found it to be odorless and then gingerly tasted it. Unfortunately it was not tasteless. It had a distinct oily and slightly fishy flavor.

The host looked at me for approval, and not wanting to seem rude, I put the entire spoonful of the goo into my mouth, just as the rancid aftertaste started to set in. At precisely the moment I realized that the rancid goop was shot through with crunchy granules, the heavily accented host asked:

"Do you like cat brain schit"?

I two simultaneous thoughts:

1: So that's what it's made of.
2: The name fits.

After downing the vile spoonful of goop what I actually said was:

"What"?

The host repeated:

"Do you like the actress, cat brain schit"?

To which I replied:

"Oh, Cate Blanchette, yes we like her"!

Now when the Centrist CCW and I are confronted by odd foreign foodsorts, we refer to them as "cat brain schit".

I just thought that the world should know:

Scooter the Mouse loves plantain chips.

More thoughts on changing public opinion on Second Ammendmend rights

After reading all of the comments from readers on the "Tyranny in Red Tights" article and response, and spending a long weekend thinking about the issues, I came to the following conclusions:

American Citizens want more personal security.

However, the American Public is in the midst of the decision to forgo self reliance for personal security in favor of a complicated and slow to respond Government run system of personal protection.

The US Government is offering security, and delivering it to the American Public, albeit piecemeal and with high financial overhead. The consequences of this Government provided personal security are a loss of liberty, the gradual creation of a police state, and a general sense of public fear and un-empowerment.

The most glaring deficiency in Government provided personal security is the one to fifteen minute delay between the call for help and the delivery of service. Add to this the delay between the perception of threat and the call for help, and there is a sizable amount of time for a criminal to act before help arrives.

The time delay between perception of threat and armed response for a citizen with a holstered side arm can be measured in a single heartbeat. This is a truth that no amount of anti firearms bias can overcome.

Currently, citizens that choose to arm themselves are marginalized in society, and viewed as backwards at best, dangerous at worst. This weekend, I spend hours thinking about how to change this public mis-perception. I realized that the way to accomplish the change was to sell and offer an alternative form of personal security to the public: Self reliance.

I believe that the best manner in which to demonstrate the superiority of self reliance for personal security to the American Public is to take a multifaceted approach:

• Maximizing the promotion of media stories in which gun owners defend themselves.
• Emphasize the failures of the police state in providing security for it's citizens.
• A Minuteman approach to neighborhood safety.
• Grassroots activism.