Free In Idaho!

So, the coffee is made, my Sweetie and the dog are both asleep here on the couch beside me, so it’s time to do some Saturday morning reading.  Let’s see…

Fiscal baloney.  Yup.  Reason has “Five Lies About The American Economy“.

How can the American economy keep getting worse under the intensive care of an interventionist economic team almost universally praised for its brilliance? The answer may be that the Obama administration is dealing with a fictional economy, one that bears little resemblance to the economy the rest of us inhabit. And when the difference between fact and fiction becomes too apparent, they just make stuff up.

The American people don’t want it. But Obama doesn’t care. IBD has “Why The Health Bill Makes No Sense“.  But really, who needs 15 reasons?  The American people have said NO.  That oughta settle that.

Health Reform: So it’s come down to this — desperate Democratic leaders strong-arming members on the worst bill ever before they go home to explain to constituents why they decided to commit political suicide.

I was at the Sheriff’s yesterday getting my CWL renewed. A lot has changed in the years since I was there last.  Then it was a small desk tucked away in the back of the drivers license office.  Today the weapons permit desk has been moved out to the main lobby, and made much bigger. There are now two ladies working it because, let’s face it, they’re doing a lot of business. At 11am there were five or six folks behind me and two ahead of me. Only a couple of these were renewals, so the ranks of those carrying concealed is growing daily. Here’s a short article with some good tips for those just beginning.

So select the size of your pistol first and foremost, and base it on what you need in order to carry it 24-7, 365 days a year (all the time).

Something to think about, concerning the differences between libertarians and conservatives (esp neo-conservatives). Is Libertarianism Real Conservatism? Give this a read, see what you think.

Considering their new, radical definition, it’s easy to see why Rush and other mainstream conservatives don’t consider libertarians part of their movement — because they’re not. And while it remains to be seen how the irreconcilable differences will play out between limited government libertarians (whose numbers are growing) and big government neoconservatives (whose ideology still dominates), let there be no more ignorance about which philosophy is truly more alien to the historical American conservative movement — and let there be no further delusions about which philosophy was most responsible for creating it.

Did you know that 36% don’t pay any taxes at all now? Actually, when you think about it, it’s worse than that. How many of those 36% actually get cash payments _from_ the government? Spreading the wealth. If you tried to open a restaurant and fed 36% of your “customers” for no charge, how long could YOU stay in business? Here’s a couple of interesting charts on who pays taxes these days.

Well, enough of that.  It’s getting light out.  Time for some fresh eggs and bacon, then load some rifles in the truck and head for the range.  Hope you all have a great day!

From NRO today

Stupak notes that his negotiations with House Democratic leaders in recent days have been revealing. “I really believe that the Democratic leadership is simply unwilling to change its stance,” he says. “Their position says that women, especially those without means available, should have their abortions covered.” The arguments they have made to him in recent deliberations, he adds, “are a pretty sad commentary on the state of the Democratic party.”
What are Democratic leaders saying? “If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That’s one of the arguments I’ve been hearing,” Stupak says. “Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America? If money is the issue — come on, we can find room in the budget. This is life we’re talking about.”

My emphasis. Democrat death panels for babies… truly evil.

The stupid hippies over at the Boise Weekly paid money for this and put it on their cover this week.  I guess that just goes to show, some folks don’t have the sense God gave a goose…

I don’t usually listen to Glenn Beck.  Better things to do I guess.  But this morning I was driving and caught a few minutes of the show.  In particular, I caught the advertisement for the “survival seeds”.  Wow.  Guaranteed non-hybrid seeds, enough to grow a full acre, and save your family from starving to death in the coming fill-in-the-blank apocalypse…

Oh my, where to start?  I hope that nobody falls for this BS.  Seriously, 98% of America hasn’t a clue how to grow a seed, much less a full acre’s worth.  Do you even have access to a full acre of good dirt, in a defendable spot?  And assuming you lucked out bigtime, and your acre of survival food -did- grow, then what?  That same 98% of America hasn’t a clue how to preserve an acre’s worth of food, all at once.  Or how to save some of the seeds for next year.

$149 for all kinds of beans and cabbage and corn and tomatoes and lettuce and spinach… seeds.   All with different growing requirements, water and soil needs.  Some are cool varieties, some are hot.  Go ahead, plow up your front lawn (are you serious?) and plant all those seeds.  Do you know when to plant them?  Do you have tomato worm problems in your area?  Or corn fungus?  Slugs? 

Sheesh.

It reminds me of some of the “how many and which guns” conversations, or the arguments over how much ammo to store.  Fine.  But can you shoot and do you practice?  Or is all your experience from your mom’s basement playing shooter games on the computer?  Same thing with gardening.  If your total gardening experience is the bean you sprouted in grade school, forget it.  And if your food storage expertise stops at the pizza under the front seat of your car, an acre of food, even if you could grow it, wouldn’t do you any good.  Take your money over to the freeze dried food site and buy a case instead.  You’ll get a lot more real food that way, and despite what the seed guy says, it’ll last a lot longer than his seeds will.

The commercial was good for a laugh though…

Spring chicks at the feed store.  Almost irresistable.  “Almost” being the key word.

The transition from winter to spring can be crazy here in SW Idaho.  One day it’s gorgeous and 60 degrees, the next it can be snowing.  Yesterday evening my Sweetie and I sat on the deck with coffee and cookies, admiring how nice the garden looks with all the work we’ve been doing these past few sunny days.  I just watched the local weather guy forecast mid 50s, then rain, then light snow, temps in the mid-20s, then back to the high 50s… all this week.  Hmmm.  I guess I’ll keep some of the early starts under a double crop cover blanket for another day or two, put the tarp back over the run on the chicken coop, and hold off transplanting the extra strawberry plants till the end of the week.

I was noticing the back of the truck shows off the double nature of the season right now too.  Chains, shovel, and sand bag.  Snowshoes and poles.  Hiking boots and staffs.  50 and 100 rolls of drip irrigation line, and a bag of new drip fittings.  Pile of black compost where the bales spilled on Saturday.  Oh, and a couple of loose shotgun shells left over from duck season.

Yeah, I know, I need to clean out the truck.

Oh wait, they were just college students

A major San Francisco Bay area freeway has been shut down in both directions by college students protesting budget cuts at California campuses.

About 150 people who were part of a much larger group demonstrating in downtown Oakland clambered onto the I-880 freeway at the beginning of the evening rush hour Thursday.

Shades of the late Sixties and early Seventies! But now, instead of protesting a foreign war, they’re protesting the fact that the well is dry, and the golden goose is dead. We saw one young one on the news vid last night loudly proclaiming “education is a right”. No dear, education is NOT a right, and you aren’t entitled to demand that the working people hold still while you steal their wallets to pay for 5 or 6 years of your self absorbed quest in Lesbian Studies.

But that’s what children do, eh?

Oh look, here’s an article about an anti-government, pro-marijuana activist, 9-11 Truther shooting up the Pentagon. hmmm… seems like the Left is losing its grip faster than the Right is these days.

I don’t really have a dog in the “open carry at Starbucks” thing.  I’ve never given it much thought when I see someone open carrying a handgun, although even here in Idaho it isn’t an everyday thing.  I personally don’t open carry in town, but I do when I hunt or hike, especially if I’m carrying a pack.  It’s a matter of personal preference, and I just prefer to carry concealed.

My Sweetie and I took a few minutes to stop into a Starbucks yesterday afternoon.  Nobody knew there was at least one person in the shop with a concealed handgun, so no one’s worldview was threatened or challenged, and no one’s day was ruined.  As a matter of fact, if some of the other patrons knew there was an armed man in the place they might have been more at ease.  Another customer in the shop was dressed rather oddly, even for downtown Boise.  Bug Out Bag, black ninja pants, some sort of handheld radio clipped to the web gear on his chest, a sheathed knife, hardwood cane with metal handle, and a 24 inch riot baton on his belt… no, he was definitely not BPD (they have even cooler uniforms with badges).  At the risk of sounding unkind, he looked somewhere between “Mom’s basement” and “halfway house”.  I guess though, with him in the store, I could have open carried and no one would have noticed.

Happy is when you come home and find the Brown Truck Of Happiness has brought you garden goodies!  For all you gunnies out there, it doesn’t only bring things from Midway, Brownells, and all those other C & R and CMP type places… sometimes it comes from garden spots, like Maine.  Who knew?

I love March.  The seed catalog orders are arriving.  The sun is actually warm in the afternoon.  I’ve been working on prepping the raised beds, and building some new trellises for the beans, cukes, and cantaloupes.  It was 62 degrees out there yestereday!  I’m so sick of layered clothing I could spit.  And yet, with all the promise of Spring, we’re still planning to get a snowshoeing date later this week.  We can see the lights of the ski hill from our backyard, and they still call to us.

March is when baby chicks start showing up at the feed stores.  I went to “chicken class” at one of the local stores this past Saturday morning.  I told you about the Victory Garden classes we’re taking, and how full it was.  Well, the chicken class was even bigger.  By the time the class started it was standing room only in the stockroom of the feed store.  They had around 50 or 60 folding chairs set out, all the wheeled chairs from their office, bales of pine bedding set out, and when they couldn’t get any more in the room (I counted 76 people) they turned away another 25 folks who couldn’t get in (they’re going to schedule another class later).  I think this whole backyard garden and backyard chicken thing is going to be big this summer, in ways that it hasn’t in the past.   Bing vegetable gardening, square foot gardening, and backyard chickens, and you’ll find a ton of great information from the hardcore folks who do it every year and always have.  And of course, newbies join in every year as well.  But this year, something is different. 

When I sat down, the man next to me asked “how many head are you running in your herd?”  Cracked me up.  I told him two.  He and his wife have 30, but they live on a small acreage and let their flock free-range.  The experience range in the class was all over the board.  And after the hour long class, the Q & A went another half hour or so.  I understand that a large number of the pre-order for chicks at this store is already promised out to customers, and a lot more names went on the list Saturday morning.  Chicks may be scarce this spring.  The economy and the dark clouds on the horizon have more than the normal number of folks thinking about how they can produce some of their food from their own yards.  Our paper had an article about backyard chickens last year, and my Sweetie’s cousin sent us an article last fall from the paper in her large Texas city.  How is it in your town?

Another thing I like about March is all the shows coming up at the fairgrounds.  This weekend it’s the Sportsman’s Show.   I think I need to go to “Mule Deer College”, and I’ll see if they have an archery class as well.  I wonder if there’s a turkey hunting class too?  Hmmm… I’d better get there early Saturday. 

The week after that it’s the biggest indoor car show of the year, the Boise Roadster Show.  We never miss it.  By the way, it’s been fun around town the last few days with this spate of “warm” weather we’ve been having.  Nice toy cars are popping out like crocuses all over.  Yesterday, to go with all the Vettes I saw, there was a gorgeous convertible GTO, a sweet first year convertible Malibu, and a very tasty ‘37 Ford driving around.  I oughta dust off the ‘56 and see if it still runs, eh?  Right.  Put it on the list.

That same weekend is the St Paddy’s Day shoot that IAWCA puts on.  That’s the first range day of the year and it’s a great way to clear the cobwebs if you haven’t already.  What’s the old saying?  “Happiness is a warm beltfed”… Let’s see, what’s in the safe that I haven’t shot all winter?  (no, I don’t have a beltfed)

Then there’s the Home and Garden Show.  Then the flea market.  Then it’ll be April.  Then the Semi-Auto Match, and the CMP matches start, and then the gun show.  And I have to figure out how to get all the plantings done… whew.  I love March.

Did I mention Girl Scout Cookies?

What’s so hard about calling Obama a socialist?  He is.  We were flipping channels the other night and got to see O’Reilly drawing his silly line around the word socialist, and we thought he looked like a fool.  But then, it was O’Reilly, so what did we expect?  Brits and Europeans know it when they see it and they don’t have the same problem calling what it is.

I have a lot of respect for Bill O’Reilly, but to a Brit who has seen his fair share of socialists and lives in a socialist country run by a self-described socialist party by a self-described socialist prime minister who has taken over for another self-described socialist prime minister, it is puzzling why self-described independents like Mr O’Reilly are doing backflips in an attempt to avoid the obvious fact — President Obama is quite clearly a socialist.

All these verbal gymnastics that are used to avoid stating the obvious may be rather humorous for someone watching from over the Atlantic, but for Americans, such delusion is a very serious matter. It is important, not just for the American right, but for the American people as a whole, to realise just exactly who it is they have elected to office.

Time grows short. America isn’t perfect, and never has been, but what it is becoming is a nightmare. I had an octogenarian friend this past summer tell me he was glad he didn’t have to live through what I and his kids were going to see…