Poor dear Madame Speaker. Hot off the video presses here we see her…well, I am not sure she is emotional due to her constant and voluntary overdose of botox, but she seems to be feeling somewhat emotional.

She is a good politician. She is no coming out and saying: You all rednecks that hate my President have to shut the hell up and bow to the superior intellect.” but you know that is where she is heading. Specially when she mentions the “balance between Safety and Freedom” which whenever a politician mentions it, Freedom takes a serious hit.

Maybe she is finally getting the message that people are tired of their BS. Maybe somebody shook her from her daily reverie to the altar of Noam Chomsky and pointed to her that there is something going on because the serfs are revolting.  Maybe she was only getting her information from the ABC/CBS/CNN/NBC/MSNBC clique who are designed around the ignoring of the facts and the truth and thus missed stuff like ACORN personnel voluntarily agreeing to help pimp underage girls, that Czars are politically positioned to the left of Stalin and believe in population control or to fellow congresspeople who publicly admit their undying admiration for Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez.

Pelosi reminds us of her sad memories of the violence in the 70s but fail to mention that it was her fellow political leaning terrorist the ones playing with explosives or dealing drugs to further the cause or executing police officers to later be nominated for the Nobel Peace prize.

Maybe too much botox is really harmful to the brain or maybe she is just LYING! Yes, I am gonna use that word before the Liberal Democrats bring back the The Sedition Act.

According to the great “trustworthy” Mass Media types and with the official confirmation of none other than Super Former President Jimmy Carter, I am now a Racist because I am against the ultra-left wing policies of this administration. That kinda gives you a load of warm-fuzzy, doesn’t it?

How desperate can the Ultra Left must be to be throwing the Race Card around with such agility? Note to the first I-Hate-America-and-I-sucked-as President Jimmy Carter: A majority of voters elected President Obama. So when you state that ““There is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president.” there tends to be a contradiction with reality, you know, the one that real people live and work? That one you do not seem to understand? Yep, that one.  If a majority of voted for him it would be a good guess that also a majority of Americans is not racist and they are just fed up with the LIAR in a very short time.

I really don’t give a flying crap how the melanine in your skin diffracts light and gives you that particular shade or if you light candles to a particular deity or not or if you engage in private  games involving Crisco, a bottle of milk, a saddle and a tuning fork with a consenting adult (apologies to Return of the Killer Tomatoes) or even your political views as long as they do not interfere with the Rights recognized in the Constitution. However, I am prejudiced to hell against those assholes that swore to protect and defend the Constitution without any reservation or purpose of evasion but they did just that. Yes, I am prefuduiced against Communist Red because my kin lived under the “wonderful” Communist shitholes. I get pissed when members of congress extol the virtues of Fidel Castro and or Administration Czars that consider the Chavez Revolution as a good thing. Against idiots like that, yes I am prejudiced and no amount of sensitivity training is gonna change that.

And before I am outed and before some enterprising young couple disguised as pimp and prostitute go through my account at WalMart Photographic section, I am displaying a picture of a local KKK gathering I just attended locally.

And in case somebody have not figured out yet, I am a Spic A.K.A a member of the “Oppressed” races with a Hispanic background and I don’t give a damn if you want to call me names, but do not condescend me or tell me what’s good for me because you know better. That is the truest form of racism ever designed.

I guess it is now official: I am a firearms instructor. Two friends from my former job took the plunge and were willing to get the Basic Handgun class. They are expecting to go into Law Enforcement and they were smart to realize their handgun skills were somewhere between none and Black Hole vacuum.

I have to admit it was fun. I do need to polish a couple of points but I feel good about the support material I had prepared… hell I even admit Power Point is a good thing to use as guideline.  Time in the classroom just flew. I had to force myself to keep an eye on my watch for the breaks and not to overwhelm the students with a constant barrage of info. And let me tell you, after a decade and a half of studying, you will have a crapload of info to share. The trick is to decide what info do they need and what they can assimilate then.

Not a bad day at all.  Now gotta find me some more victims students. He He He.

You have to love the Miami Herald’s Jim Morin.  Last November, the New Camelot Ideal was elected, took power in January to the orgasmic happiness of the Left and nine months later things are not as pinkish as they hoped. Taking a cue from the old political scheme books, the fault must be placed not where it belongs but in the perceived enemies: Those who dare to voice their opposition. Accuse them. Try to display them as off the Ultra Right/Racist/Terrorists so the negative attention shifts on them and let the blame game begin. Or if that does not work, ignore them and eventually they will go away. Do not report their achievements (unless they can be displayed in a very negative light) or simply make fun of them shinning a spot light of ridicule on them. Once you have public support against the opposition, create the legislation to hinder them or just criminalize them. If you are successful, you have a free and unencumbered way to your political success.

Only one problem: Nobody trusts the Media anymore. 70% of Americans now believe that the MSM is inaccurate, partisan and irreversible one-sided according to a study by Pew Research Center. How sad is that? Imagine that you are a journalist stepping out of your house to go to work and out of ten of your neighbors, seven firmly believe you are a lying scum. How can you live with that? Then again maybe I am giving journalist the benefit of the doubt and thinking that they are regular folks incapable of being so low, but I know many that think otherwise. Besides, how many times can you be so wrong, so one sided, not correct your stance and still face you fellow human beings without shame printed all over your face?

Maybe they don’t care or have shame after all. They are doing it because they know what’s best for us and they only have their best intentions at heart. Maybe it is time they should be so conceited, have a heart attack and leave me to my own decisions and way of life.

“It’s kind of strange, isn’t it? How the mountains pay us no attention at all. You laugh or you cry… The wind just keeps on blowing.”
Patrick Swayze as Jed Eckert in Red Dawn.

Yes, I enjoyed the heck out of Red Dawn and in the eyes of some makes me a Militia Type Right Wing Wacko.  Fine, let them have it that way.  They are the same ones that they swore that Islamofacist were not a threat to the USA on 9/10/2001.

Patrick did alright. He made good movies, was a faithful husband to his childhood sweetheart, was not involved in cosmic celebrity scandals or sought the limelight through P.R. Stunts. As his good-bye, he left us with The Beast which was as raw acting as anybody can hope to achieve. And he did it while fighting the cancer that eventually took him away.

Rest in Peace Wolverine. We’ll miss ya.

I choose not to forget what the enemies of my country did on September 11, 2001.

I choose not to forget the innocent victims who died at the hands of those enemies.

I choose not to forget those who went against the human tide and faced danger with conviction and fear.

And rescued those in need.

Till exhaustion took its toll and even then continued.

And I refuse to forget the price they paid.

I also choose not to forget the Domestic Enemies that cashed in on the attacks.

Or tried to make a name for themselves on the blood of those who died.

Or wanted a political gain.

To all of the above: I choose NOT to forget

I am a 100%, dyed-in-the-wool, no-holds-barred IDPA shooter. I have to check with HQ but I think I almost have a decade participating in the sport and I am know in a couple of forums of coming down hard on anybody who dismisses IDPA with the old “IDPA will get you killed” crap. I believe that IDPA is the best elementary school in Defensive Shooting anybody can get for the price you get to pay and that it has also introduced more people to advanced Defensive Shooting classes than anything else out there.

Wit that being said, I have this feeling we are seeing a trend in the sport that will render it useless as a starting point for more serious stuff.  Some call it IPSCfication (yes, there is still the Hatfields v. McCoys thing going on) but to me is just Dumbing Down what it was supposed to be a challenging discipline.  I have attended and worked several sanctioned matches and I have seen a distinct trend that shows lots of flash but short of bang.  Lots of cute and elaborate stages with amazing moving props, but short in shooting smarts and techniques. We are turning Hollywood as we become addicted to the special effects and set the script as barely secondary. We are losing what made us in the first place.

Nothing drove this point deeper than hearing a Match Director during a State Match I worked as Safety Officer, say that we were in the entrainment business and to make the match fun.  Silly me I thought that the first duty of a Safety Officer wast to look after the shooters and make sure they were safe. There were tons of props and amazingly designed stages that were for the most part, amazingly vanilla to shoot. Needless to say the match turned out to be an enjoyable carnival but lacked lots on challenging shooters. I am for a challenge and I would agree most of IDPA shooters are also in this category. You can make a match fun if you challenge shooters to push their abilities instead of just throwing lead downrange.

How do we turn this silly tide? Mainly by designing Courses of Fire that follow the true spirit of IDPA as it appears in the rule book:

The International Defensive Pistol Association (IDPA) is the governing body of a shooting sport that simulates self-defense scenarios and real life encounters

So let’s look for true incident out there and design our CoFs around them. Talk to Law Enforcement officers about cases that happened during their shifts, cruise the internet for surveillance video of actual crimes and even incidents that might have happened to fellow shooters or relatives.  If you are home right now, you have a fantastic opportunity to design killer CoFs: Run several What Ifs using your house as stage and imagine what would happen if a Bad Guy entered through a window or busted a door or you hear screams coming from your kids’ bedroom. Or you are at a red light and imagine you are about to be carjacked with no way to escape. Or even your local supermarket while you are with the significant other shopping can provide you with Courses of Fire. And let’s face it, if you are a conscientious armed citizen, you are living in Alert Color Orange and running “What if I am attacked right now?” scenarios every time you are out there.

Write the ideas down so you don’t forget them. You don’t need to sit right there and design a whole scenario right there and then. You can do that later and adapt them to IDPA rules. When you finally commit them to paper,  don’t soften them up just because it is easier to do or give you a nice round count or you don’t have the all the props you want.

About props. Yes, we would like to have a full tactical Blackwater or Thunder Ranch set up in our clubs, but the reality is our clubs may not have that kind of cash around or the space to do it. Think Smart and be minimalistic. Here is an example: We all like to have a car just dedicated to shoot vehicle related scenarios. Our range is public so we can’t just leave a car sitting at the range and our storage space is a small sea container. So, the solution to recreate carjacking scenarios was simple: A chair, a driver side door and a steering wheel.

If you want to work outside the car scenarion, well darn it, you didn’t get to the range walking or by using public transportation, right?

We did learn something, place some sort of protective cover like carpeting or even a towel on the corner. It will save the time and aggravation later of removing the burnt propellant. We use the props trailer with now instead of a vehicle and does the same job. Even a cut out of half a car propped on target stands will do the job.

Use your imagination, make it challenging, make your shooters think and not just shoot and that will be fun enough.