On ignoring hurricane warnings…

Worried that…what, again?

Worried that residents ignored warnings about Hurricane Ike because it only registered as a Category 2 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale, forecasters will de-emphasize use of the scale this year.
The National Hurricane Center is changing the well-known scale’s name to the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale on an experimental basis and is removing all references to storm surge from explanations of the scale.

Only registered as a Category 2…with winds of over 90 mph. I guess some folks might tough it out through that, but I don’t think I’ll ever quite understand why. It might not sound like much, but as for me whenever they advise evacuation I’ll be doing it. I’d just rather not deal with the immediate uncertainties of winds like that blowing stuff all over the place. Maybe that’s just me…

Now this is interesting…

…Alice Cooper on Marty Stuart’s American Odyssey, on Outlaw Country, Sirius Ch. 63: “Lines form on my face and my hands, lines form on the left and right, I’m in the middle, the middle of life…I’m a boy and I’m a man, I’m eighteen and I like it…”
I never thought of Alice Cooper as ANY kind of country, even though that particular channel is a bit out there sometimes. But that was a great song, from a great artist, and I guess it IS quintessentially American. Alice Cooper’s another of those artists who seems to have just one song played on classic rock radio, namely “School’s Out.” And that’s a great song too, but there was so much more to his catalog than that one song. I am glad to be discovering more of that catalog.

The pharmacist might have done the wrong thing…

…but still the mother of the thug he shot is way off base…

OKLAHOMA CITY — Confronted by two holdup men, pharmacist Jerome Ersland pulled a gun, shot one of them in the head and chased the other away. Then, in a scene recorded by the drugstore’s security camera, he went behind the counter, got another gun, and pumped five more bullets into the wounded teenager as he lay on the floor.
…
“He didn’t have to shoot my baby like that,” Parker’s mother, Cleta Jennings, told TV station KOCO.

Mmm. Well, maybe your baby didn’t have to be holding up pharmacies. But of course you’ll never say that, will you? I can definitely understand why some might say that the pharmacist overreacted, but I sympathize more with those who are saying don’t second-guess a man who finds himself in a situation in which the adrenaline’s being pumped through his system as it would be in a situation like that. Jerome Ersland might well have overreacted, but then I can’t judge him for that because who’s to say I wouldn’t have done the same thing had I been in fear of my life? When it’s all said and done I just can’t help but think the man was defending his life and his property. And there was always the chance, however slim it might have been, that the thug he shot would manage to get a shorter sentence, get out of prison and come back for revenge. It’ll be interesting to see what happens to Mr. Ersland, especially considering the support he’s getting from the community with the evidence of his deed out there for all to see. Personally, I just can’t help but hope he’ll get off. Looks like the chances of that are pretty good, but we’ll see.

“I give, you take, this life that I forsake…been cheated of my youth, you turned this lie to truth…”

Ooh, another tune I ain’t heard in years…

…from the great Merle Haggard, at Willie’s Place, Sirius Ch. 64: “…And she had the likeness of a girl I’d seen in my dreams…but lights can do wonders, with makeup and faded blue jeans…”
A cut from Merle’s 1980 album Back to the Barrooms, “Make Up And Faded Blue Jeans” seems to be one of those forgotten Hag singles. I don’t even remember the last time I heard and don’t have a clue as to how it did on the charts, but I always did like it. Single-wise that was a pretty strong album, though; it also featured “Misery and Gin,” “Leonard,” and my favorite tune from Merle’s stint at MCA Records, “I Think I’ll Just Stay Here And Drink.”

Well, that’s exactly what they’re doing, isn’t it?

Suppressing free speech, that is…

Gun supporters say colleges trample protest rights
PITTSBURGH — Colleges nationwide have unconstitutionally barred students from handing out literature, protesting and gathering in support of the right to carry weapons on campus, students and an advocacy group say.
Christine Brashier, a freshman at the Community College of Allegheny County near Pittsburgh, said a dean recently told her she had to stop distributing fliers for the group Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, which has chapters at many colleges, and destroy the pamphlets she had designed.

Yep, that’s about the most clear-cut violation of the First Amendment right to free speech that I’ve ever seen, as are the other examples mentioned here. I’m all for working with the colleges to get these protests and discussions allowed, but failing that, well, I’d be letting slip the dogs of war if I were the advocacy group mentioned here. Not letting students carry a gun is one thing, but not even letting them discuss it or foster debate on campus is another thing entirely. I thought institutions of higher learning, collectively speaking, were supposed to be the one place free discussion and debate about everything would be allowed, even encouraged. It would seem that some topics of discussion are more worthy of protection than others. Good grief, we’re not talking about sedition or actively encouraging violent overthrow of the government here! I wonder what people would say if the colleges were telling people to tear up their pamphlets on homosexuality, sex education or birth control. You know exactly what they’d say — they’d call it out for the violation of the First Amendment right to free speech that it so obviously would be. The stifling of the discussion on campus concealed carry shouldn’t be seen any differently. One wonders what the colleges are so afraid of — perhaps that if the discussion is allowed, people will come to see that, in the words of Mike Vanderboegh, “‘gun-free-zone’ is a lie every bit as much as ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ and every bit as deadly — and then demand their God-given, natural right of self-defense with the best tools available be denied no longer?

More proof that irony is completely lost on some people…

right here…

Hip-hop star Akon spoke to students in upstate New York about gun violence as part of a plea agreement for tossing a fan off stage at a concert nearby.
…
Poughkeepsie Mayor John Tkazyik said Thursday’s forum fulfilled some of those hours. He said Akon will return to Poughkeepsie in September and participate in a Project SWAG – Society at War Against Guns – back-to-school conference.

Hot-tempered, violent rapper telling people, “guns’r’bad, hmmmkay?” Words fail me. And don’t you love how they talk of a War Against Guns as opposed to say, A War Against Getting Violent With People Just Because, They “Disrespected” You? Of course, if they did that with thugs like Akon as their spokesman they’d come off like a group of hypocritical morons. Oh, wait…they ARE hypocritical morons.

A song I’d always heard about…

…but never heard before, until today, Guy Drake’s “Welfare Cadillac”…

I’ve never worked much, In fact
I’ve been poor all my life
I guess all I really own
Is ten kids and a wife
This house I live in is mine
But it’s really a shack
But I’ve always managed to somehow
drive me a brand new Cadillac.

Wow. Bet THAT one pissed some folks off back in the day. How true it was and is I don’t know, but just…damn.

Wow, never thought I’d see this…

…watching JAG on the USA Network, the episode in which a TV reporter runs with a story based on a videotape…but the TV reporter leaves out critical facts and lies to a congressional committee. Harmon Rabb asks, after it came out that the TV reporter lied “Why are people so ready to believe the worst of the military?” Now, if you’ll remember, JAG first aired on network TV. I honestly never thought I’d see someone like a journalist portrayed like that on network TV…or to have such a question asked about the military, even though it was asked by a member of the military. Now if they’d just leave the gun owners alone on the OTHER shows…

One-a my faves from CCR’s Garage cd…

…at Outlaw Country, Sirius Ch. 63: “I don’t wanna hear about your Lollapalooza tour, yeah, I just woke up and where I am I couldn’t say for sure…I ain’t the kinda guy to come and break all your records, but then again I might…could ya try to keep it down, I was up kinda late last night…”
I don’t know why some might consider that particular cd a bad one, to be honest. Of the Cross Canadian Ragweed cds I have it might be my least favorite, but I still thought it was pretty good once I gave it another spin or three. The live version of “Late Last Night” from the Live And Loud At Cain’s Ballroom set is better, but the studio version ain’t half-bad though.

Not a particularly pleasant read, here…

…but for the most part the man is right on the money. I need to read Mr. Bracken’s books. They’ve
always intrigued me.