Les Miserables

Last night my wife and I went to watch Les Miserables. The story line was good and I don't mind some musicals but usually the don't sing EVERY line.
The movie could easily have been an hour long if all lines were spoken however it turned into almost 3 hours.


I suggest they should have produced the movie with all speaking and called it Les Miserables then they could have produced this musical version and called it More Miserable.


Maybe it's a good thing I don't produce movies

Christmas and Drive-by's

Christmas Day Massacre

I went for a little walk this morning mainly to relieve some guilt for over-eating yesterday and today, anyway I walked past a yard with this Christmas display










A few doors down I saw this display, obviously victim of a 'drive-by shooting' during the night.

Is nothing sacred anymore.

Merry Christmas to all my friends.

Christmas Shots

I have been a little slack lately welcoming new followers but I want to say welcome to Izzy 2184, she has a blog called   The Compound please be sure to stop by and say hello. I would also like to welcome Badger Medic.
I always try and answer all comments and questions in a timely manor.

On another note I was reading over on Stephens blog and it reminded me I had intended to buy him a new AR lower for Christmas, Oh well not much chance of that......maybe next year.

Santa is not coming this year.

Don't tell the kids. Santa is not coming this year......

Are we still here ?

Did I miss anything?  Somebody pinch me.
 Did the world end or are we still here ?

Gun Sales, Gun Bans.

I was reading the paper this morning and saw where congress was thinking of banning high capacity 'clips'.......if that will make them happy and solve the problems I can live with that as long as they leave magazines alone, see I could compromise.

 On another note, I went by a local gun store today to check out some supplies, the parking lot was packed and I had to wait for a parking spot. Once inside people were stacked 10 deep at the counter and the line was around the store for the cash register.
Here is prices I overheard quoted to customers.
Stripped AR15 lower, $500 (CMMG $110 last week)
S&W stripped lower, $600
Plastic  30 round AR mags, $35
Basic Bushmaster AR15 $ 3000
I understand many stores are sold out but this one had a good supply however they were way down from normal supply levels, I guess they decided to gouge as much as possible.
BTW, this is probably the largest gun shop in NE Florida and I have bought a lot here in the past, don't think I will forget their price gouging any time soon.
No..... I did not buy anything.

Adopted....Special Day.

Yesterday was a special day for our family, my son and daughter-in-law formally adopted two little boys.
It was a neat day, the court hearing was the last of the day and the Judge was very relaxed and let the kids climb around in the jury box then afterward she posed for pictures in front of the bench with the new expanded family. We then went to a local park and had sandwiches and they learned first hand what an ice-cream truck was. When the ice-cream truck arrived I commented they did not know what it was because they did not run for it like the other children however that was soon rectified shown here with their Snow-Cones. It will be a special Christmas.

Sure solution, no joke.

Yesterday I was making light of the governments ideas to stop future school shootings but I propose a serious solution.
We have thousands of military veterans who need jobs, with minimal extra training we could station 3 or 4 armed guards at every school.
 I'm not talking about a pudgy guard with a 9mm but  battle trained soldiers with a AR15's, and make them highly visible. This idea is being used in Israel and you won't see  a school shooting there.
Talk about a 'win-win' situation, we solve a problem and give a boost to returning vets who need work, you see these cowards who prey on the weak, helpless and unarmed do so because their victims are weak, helpless and unarmed but armed guards/troops would solve this.
I can just hear some left wing bed wetter saying "but what about some crazy guard with PTSD going nuts" The answer would be to screen all applicants but also by having 3 or more at each school it would prevent something like that happening. I know this is a drastic measure but we have created a society where these measures are needed and this would work, guaranteed. 
Anyone who wants to argue with this 'fix' really doesn't want to solve the problem and doesn't mind seeing more dead children they just want to ban guns, and we all know which path the government will take.

I know how to fix this.

After the recent school shooting in Connecticut there seems to be a willingness of many in Congress to shove new gun laws down out throats.  One thing being talked about is banning high capacity magazines hmmmm,  so lets use that logic to  prevent other deaths, lets see.....there are more people killed than the school shootings every day on the highways, even infants so lets ban cars that travel more than 30 MPH or maybe if people could only buy one gallon of gas a day we would drive less. Even better, we could ban all gas powered vehicles, I don't think very many people get killed in golf carts.
Another idea is to not allow private gun sales at gun shows without background checks. So lets make it a crime for you to also sell your car to a private individual unless you run a check to prove they have a valid drivers license, proof of insurance and have not had any accidents or speeding tickets in the past 10 years.

You see and I have said before this is the trap you fall into when you let politicians argue you don't need a AR15 with a 30 round magazine to hunt deer because they are correct but the simple fact is the second amendment was written not for hunting or home protection but for protection from government abuse of power.

If you want a common sense solution to the evil black rifles just make it a law to make them all pink or white and only the military and police could have black rifles. I could support this kind of legislation because after all making evil rifles black is a very underhanded form of racism. We would also have to ban black spray paint or at the very least don't allow it to be sold without a background check. Now I think this would be good legislation at lest till someone uses a sawed off shotgun to kill with then we will have to look at banning hacksaw blades but I think would draw the line there.

Shootings, who do we blame ?

The recent school shooting in Connecticut was indeed a tragedy, I can't fathom the grief the parents have. You know many of them have a Christmas tree and presents already wrapped under it's branches for some of these children. I know Christmas morning for them will never be the same for the rest of their life.
The most asked question is who or what do we blame?  Some blame the gun, mostly because they have an agenda to disarm the American public, which is fairly stupid when you think about it. With that logic we could blame bad police shootings on the gun as well or maybe wars (although some do that) but we have been fighting wars and killing long before guns came along.
Some blame God, which is absurd when you think we as a society have kicked God out of every aspect of public life  like schools, government, public property etc.  So we ask why would someone do this ? many will blame his upbringing and all kinds of social issues, some which may factor in to a degree but I believe we have raised and bred a whole generation of people who are taught via government schools, TV, movies etc that there is no moral absolutes and that we are only responsible for ourselves and we should do what makes us happy and seek imitate gratification if needed. When this is accomplished in a person they essentially become no different than an animal, they will prey on the weak and helpless with no regard for anyone else.
I do however believe as hard as someone may try to act as if they are no different than animals something clicks at some point and they realize they do have a soul thus the reason some commit suicide after such a horrendous crime because you never see a lion commit suicide after killing a baby goat. 
 John Adams said in 1798  "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."  
Maybe we as a society need to start putting down the "animals", just a thought.

School Shooting, really going out on a limb.

I, like all of you were sickened and saddened by the recent school shooting in Connecticut and my heart goes out to the families of those children.

 I have never been a big conspiracy theorist but I firmly believe that the hard core left wing, socialist, communists have no soul. They will stop at NOTHING to forward their agenda, a few children is a acceptable sacrifice to pay for their goal of total control through the disarming of the American public. Having said that I do not doubt that this tragedy could have been engineered for maxim effect because lets face it a mall shooting does not cause large support for gun bans, a theater shooting did not do it, a high school shooting failed to bring about the needed outrage but an elementary school might just do it. Those who wish to control the United States have to deal with a pesky little clause called the Second Amendment, if it were not for that I have no doubt guns would be outlawed here or as difficult to obtain as they are in England or Australia.

Maybe this was not a evil plot by the anti-gun crowd but at the very least the left wing politicians have publicly stated they will not let a "good tragedy go to waste" which in itself is despicable and proves they have no soul and no redeeming qualities. I also lament the fact I feel the need to voice this opinion in the wake of this tragedy however when dealing with the likes of 0bama and the liberal Democrats we need to fight fire with fire.
 I also have no qualms in saying after 0bama gave his little teary speech and went back to his cronies they were giving each other 'high fives' knowing they had been handed a golden opportunity to push their anti-gun agenda further. If you think this is a little harsh look back through history to the narcissistic control freaks like Hitler,  Saddam Hussein, Mao Tse Tung, Stalin, Lenin etc, they all had no qualms in seeing innocent people slaughtered for their own agenda and they all had the ability to gather public support to a degree. Kinda makes Home Schooling look more attractive doesn't it.
Go ahead tell me I am totally heartless, uncaring, cruel and out of touch.

Classy Lady

We have all seen the emails of the trashy dressed Walmart shoppers so I thought I would share this,
 It was sent to me by a friend and is reported to be a Walmart shopper in Alaska where you can open carry.....shows what a real classy lady looks like.

Slacking Off

Heathen Blog Followers

I feel I am slacking off.
 It is the middle of the Christmas Season (or winter holidays for any heathens reading this) I have had family in town for a few days so I am enjoying time with them.
 It seems like when I get a chance I spend more time reading others blogs than working on my own. Rest assured I have not assumed room temperature just preoccupied with others.
Thanks for checking in, more later, Duke.

Liberals and Guns.

Ever wonder why Liberals are so against guns, I mean owning a gun does not make you a killer any more that owning a fork makes you fat (OK bad example maybe it does contribute to it) but you get the point.
A killer could use a baseball bat or a car to kill but you you don't find support for banning you driving to ball games.  You see it really is not about the guns, it is about control. If the government has the guns they have control, and they want liberal government to have the control that is why they are so anti-war when conservatives are in control but how many anti-war demonstrations have you seen in the last four years?
Don't EVER get sucked into believing they are worried about the general safety of us overall. They are worried gun owners may one day foil their plans to control everything, make no mistake about it. 

Rattlesnake Salloon

While visiting family during Thanksgiving my brother decided to take us to a little restaurant he had found out in the middle of nowhere. It was the Rattlesnake Saloon. We traveled over 60 miles to get there and there is nothing within 20 miles of this place.








Upon arriving in the parking lot shown we waited for the "Saloon Taxi" shown below to take us to the restaurant.

 We were driven to a gate and down a narrow trail, the first 200' or so seemed like an impossible slop to navigate in a pickup, here the trail had leveled out a little and we descended in a open cave where this place had been constructed.

At the bottom we unloaded

 Here is the Saloon/Restaurant nestled in the cave.














You can see some tables here outside. The food was good and the prices reasonable.

 The front of the Saloon.

 We ate outside, there were tables inside as well as out but we sat and ate with thousands of tons of rock over our heads.










Here is a picture looking straight up to a tree on the edge of the cavern over our heads.
 The Rattlesnake Saloon is located in NW Alabama not too far from the Mississippi and Tennessee lines. Below is the menu, it was an adventure worth having.
 How can you go wrong naming a burger after the "Duke"

Saddlin' Up
$4.00 Campfire Chips & Salsa	a basket of fresh cooked tri-colored tortilla chips with fire roasted salsa for dippin'.
$4.00 Hay Stacks $5.00 (loaded)	a basket of our fresh hot spicy fries to get your taste buds goin' or try them loaded up.
$5.00 Skunk Rings	a big pile of crispy golden onion rings with dippin' sauce.
$5.00 Cowboy Buttons	golden deep fried whole mushrooms with dippin' sauce.
$5.00 Giddy-Up Sticks	6 of our melty cheese sticks with marinara for dippin'.
$7.00 Chuckwagon Nachos	fresh tri-colored chips smothered with chili, cheese, and jalapenos.
$5.00 Snake Eyes and Tails	fried sliced jalapeno peppers and fried green beans with dippin' sauce.
$5.00 Bronco Bits	tangy breaded and fried pickle slices with dippin' sauce.
$30.00 Tombstone Platter	a huge help'n of various Saddlin' Up vittles.
$5.00(6) Wild Bill Cody Wings $9.00(12) $17.00(24)	freshly cooked wings like you want'em. Mild, Medium, or Hot.
Chow Time
$7.00 Polish Trail Dog*	tender polish sausage on a hoagie with cheese and tangy sauerkraut.
$8.00 Buckaroo*	smoked ham, turkey, cheese, and bacon on a hoagie with all the fixins.
$8.00 Prairie Fingers*	our chicken tenders cooked fried or grilled. ask for the mild, medium, or hot sauce if you want'em
$8.00 Prairie Sandwich*	our chicken tenders cooked fried or grilled on a Kaiser roll with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, onion, and pickles.
$8.00 Rustler Burger*	half pound burger on a Kaiser roll with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, onion, and pickles.
$9.00 The DUKE*	our famous Rustler with bacon and snake eyes on an onion Kaiser roll.
$6.00 Saloon Salad	choose from grilled or fried tenders, ham, or turkey on a bed of lettuce with tomato, onion, pickles, and cheese.
$5.00 The Fred (kids 12 and under only)	choose from a grilled cheese, giddy-up sticks, or prairie fingers served with fries and a drink.
* selections come with choice of fries or onion rings
End of the Rope
$4.00 Don't Forget Dessert!	get some apple fritters or deep fried cheesecake with raspberry sauce... you will be glad you did.
Waterin' Hole
$2.00 Drinks (with refills)	Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Dr Pepper, Sierra Mist, Mt Dew, Diet Mt Dew, Lemonade, and Tea
$1.00 Coffee
$2.50 Draft Beer $9.00 Pitcher Beer	Budweiser, Bud Light, Miller Lite, Coors Light, Michelob Ultra, and Yuengling