Today’s Humor

One dark night outside a small town on the Wisconsin – Minnesota border, a fire started inside the local chemical plant and in a blink of an eye it exploded into massive flames. The alarm went out to all the fire departments for miles around. When the volunteer fire fighters appeared on the scene, the chemical company president rushed over to the fire chief.
‘All our secret formulas are in the vault in the center of the plant. They
must be saved. I will give $100,000 to the fire department that brings them
out intact!’
But the roaring flames held the firefighters off.

Soon, more fire departments had to be called in as the situation became desperate. In the distance, a lone siren was heard as another fire truck came into sight. It was the nearby Norwegian Rural Township volunteer fire company composed mainly of Norwegians well over the age of 65. To everyone’s amazement, that little run down fire engine roared right past all the newer sleek engines that were parked outside the plant and, without even slowing down, drove straight into the middle of> the inferno.
Outside, the other firemen watched as the Norwegian old-timers jumped off right in the middle of the fire and fought it back on all sides. It was a performance and effort never seen before. Within a short time, the Norse old timers had extinguished the fire and saved the secret formulas.
The grateful chemical company president announced that for such a superhuman feat he was upping the reward to $200,000 and walked over to personally thank each of the brave fire fighters. The local TV news reporter rushed in to capture the event on film, asking their chief,
‘What are you going to do with all that money?’

‘Vell,’ said Ole Oleson, the 80-year-old fire chief, ‘Da first ting ve gonna do is fix da brakes on dat stoopid truck!’

Did You Know…?

Did you know that SEAL Team 3, Michael Monsoor’s unit is the most decorated team since Vietnam?

Did you know that Michael Fumento is the only reporter that has written about Monsoor’s CMOH, that was embedded with the team?

Get on over and read Fumento’s piece here.

Congressional Medal of Honor – Monsoor

Our nation’s highest military award. It is awarded for extraordinary valor in action against an enemy. To quote the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, “The Medal of Honor is the highest award for valor in action against an enemy force which can be bestowed upon an individual serving in the Armed Services of the United States. Generally presented to its recipient by the President of the United States of America in the name of Congress, it is often called the Congressional Medal of Honor.”

Today this award is being presented by the President of the United States. Did you know that? Did you read it in today’s USA Today, NY Times, Washington Post? Did you see a blurb on CNN? I certainly haven’t seen a word. Now in fairness, perhaps they like to report after the fact but still this day has been on the schedules for a while now. There should be some attention being paid to it.

I was going to write a lengthy rant on this but, I think it is in appropriate. Instead, I ask you the head over to Blackfive. This is what we should be doing. If you cannot get to B5 you need to find a way, because you need to know Michael Monsoor. You need to know that there are heroes among us, and that there are folks who will / do / did “water the tree of liberty” without hesitation.

When you get to B5, take the time for the video clips.

If you are still interested go to the CMOH Society site for the history and background of the CMOH.

Today’s Humor – Father Murphy

Father Murphy walks into a pub in Donegal, and says to the first man he meets, ‘Do you want to go to heaven?’

The man said, ‘I do, Father.’

The priest said, ‘Then stand over there against the wall.’

Then the priest asked the second man, ‘Do you want to go to heaven?’

‘Certainly, Father,’ was the man’s reply.

‘Then stand over there against the wall,’ said the priest.

Then Father Murphy walked up to O’Toole and said, ‘Do you want to go to heaven?’

O’Toole said, ‘No, I don’t Father.’

The priest said, ‘I don’t believe this. You mean to tell me that when you die you don’t want to go to heaven?’

O’Toole said, ‘Oh, when I die, yes. I thought you were getting a group together to go right now.’

Monster Hunter International – Review

I recently read Monster Hunter International by Larry Corriea. I have to tell you I waffled on buying this book. I mean I had this fear of Night of the Living Dead, Zombie Apocolypse stuff that was poorly written and didn’t fit into anything that interested me. But, I read some of the reviews and I picked up on Larry’s website and I thought I would take a shot at it. So, I duly brought up my Amazon account, and ordered the book. At the same time, I was ordering a bunch of other stuff so I thought of it as kind of a impulse buy.

Best impulse buy that I ever made. The book is a page turner, and one I had a hard time putting down. There is little or no, slow spots in the read. From the first few pages this thing moves the plot along quickly and efficiently, introducing characters as necessary and providing just the right level of detail to set the visuals of the situation.

Is the plot predictable? Maybe at times but for the most part it twists and turns, and just when you think it is going to go straight on for a bit, it pulls a wild left turn and zig zags all over the place.

Larry pulls in aspects of many different historical cultures and weaves them almost seamlessly into the story telling . Sorry Larry, there were a couple of abrupt points so you don’t get the full seamless comment. However, I think that they abruptness may have been appropriate to the scene on occasion.

I wish I could write a story that is half as entertaining, and half as well written.

This is a damn fine book that you need to go out and read.

Head over to Amazon and get yourself a copy. Do not be put off by the Out of Stock message, or the long lead time that Amazon will give you on your order. This is a Publish on Demand book, and I received mine in about 1/3 of the time that Amazon quoted.

I can’t wait until the next volume is published.

While you are at it, check out Larry’s Blog here

Latest Gun

So, I have been a bit remiss in providing a report of the purchase of a new handgun and the requisite range report that follows. Here is the object in question….

A bi-tone Springfield XD Tactical in .45 ACP. I really like this weapon. Easy to operate, easy to disassemble, easy to clean and it shoots very nicely.

I’ve run about 400 rounds through it so far. It is breaking in nicely and the groups are closing up fairly tightly. I still need to spend some more time working with it, both on my skills and learning the best point of aim, etc. Once I start generating some consistency in my groups I will post some results.

Blonde Joke Alert

A Blonde, recently hired, began her first day at the office this morning.
Hoping to integrate well into the office environment and eager to prove
her worth to her new bosses, she offered to go out and buy coffee for everyone.

She grabbed a large thermos and hurried to the nearby Duncan Donuts.
She held up the thermos so that the server behind the counter could view it
and she asked, “Is this thermos big enough to hold six cups of coffee?”

The server looked at the container and said, “Yes. It looks like about six cups to me.”

“Oh good!”, the blonde sighed in relief, “Give me three regular, one black, and two decaf.”

Presidential Funnies

Political satire and editorializing through cartoons is a tradition that goes back a very long time.  We see it is alive and well in 21rst Century America as well.  While some of the work is very biased and is really providing a viewpoint that is centric to the imaging there are some that transcend the message.  It really doesn’t matter who you are, or what you political opinion is the artist manages to strike a chord that is plain funny.  Here is one of those images.

I really can’t stop chuckling every time I see this.

Best Friend / Worst Enemy

You know that whole best friend, worst enemy saying that hangs around Marines.  Well, it looks like that attitude never goes away and I am really glad about that.

SANTA ROSA – A boy in his mid-teens learned Wednesday afternoon that it is not a good idea to try to rob a former U.S. Marine at knifepoint, even if the former Marine is 84 years old, police said today.

Santa Rosa police Sgt. Steve Bair said that’s what happened around 2 p.m. in the 1600 block of Fourth Street. The elderly man was walking with a grocery bag in each arm when the boy approached him with a large knife, Bair said.

The boy said, “Old man, give me your wallet or I’ll cut you,” Bair said. The man told the boy he was a former Marine who fought in three wars and had been threatened with knives and bayonets, Bair said.

The man then put his bags on the ground and told the boy that if he stepped closer he would be sorry. When the boy stepped closer, the man kicked him in the groin, knocking him to the sidewalk, Bair said. The ex-Marine picked up his grocery bags and walked home, leaving the boy doubled over, Bair said.

The man reported the attempted robbery to police 45 minutes later.

This one has been floating around out there for a few days.  I would like to think that this is true.

Tasha

Nothing deep and meaningful in this post.  Just need to vent a little bit as I am really depressed about my dog’s (Tasha’s) deterioration.

Tasha is over fourteen years old, and a black Lab.  She is not a show dog, not a breeding dog just my friend.  We got her from  a breeder halfway across the country that was a family friend of a colleague.  Reputable, champion dogs, all that good stuff and she has been with us a long time now.  When I picked her up after a plane ride across the country (14 yrs, and 2 months ago) she sat in the car next to me howling for her siblings and the farm.  A bath, and a few hours on the floor with her curled up next to me and she became an integral member of the family.  A year or so later we got a second lab to round out the clan.  His life’s path was shorter than Tasha’s but no less joyful.  The decision time with him was not this hard.

Given Tasha’s age I think I have known that this day would come sooner than later but she has deteriorated rapidly over the last couple of weeks, and days.  She is not able to walk without pain, she is incontinent and her quality of life has been drastically reduced as has that of those around her.

The kids don’t really understand (they are all 6 and under).  Tasha will be the fourth pet that we have had euthanised in the oldest one’s lifetime.  I knew that this would happen, and I know that it is the right thing to do under the circumstances too.  It just isn’t easy to know when.  Is there anything reasonable left in the veterinary arsenal to try or are we really at the decision point?

Personally, I think we are to the point where the pain cannot be controlled.  She cannot keep her legs under her sitting or standing.  Yet a week ago she was playing and running (as best she could) with the rest of our canine pack.

Damn it, why do I become so damn attached to my pets?  Why can’t they just pass easily in their sleep, overnight?

The doc just changed her meds around.  Not sure if we will be able to control things any better or not.  If we can, we’ll have to evaluate her quality of life.  If she is not able to get around the house, and around the yard I know what the decision has to be.  I am ready to make that call.  I just need to know that we are at the end of the road when I do.  I just need to give the meds sometime to work some magic, or not.

I am going to be relatively rude here and keep the comments closed.  I am sure that everyone has wonderful thoughts and comments but right now I will not enjoy them.