I met Fred Thompson the first time he was running for the Senate. He was a tall drink of water and his voice was impressive. Did I forget where I met him? Nashville, at a gun show.

No entourage, no sycophants trailing him. Just on his own, talking to folks and more importantly, listening to them. We shook hands and asked me for my vote, I was so dumbstruck, my buddy told him jokingly “He is a damn foreigner.” Thomson looked at me and said “You make sure you become a Citizen.” I promised I would do so.

I saw him again years later at the Pancake Pantry, again in Nashville. He was in his second term as senator and came in to have breakfast with his family. He waved a people like a long time neighbor saying good morning to the folks and people responded in kind: no fuss, no awes, everybody being Southern polite. For a moment I was tempted to go over his table and let him know I followed his “order” but it would have been impolite of me to do so.

He is going to be one of the few politicians I will miss.

CSGV doing what they do best.

Don’t forget, they went “heavily armed.”  And that comes straight from the article in FreakOutNation.com.

A couple of weeks ago, Open Carry Texas hatched a plot: a “secret mission.”As it turns out, the ‘mission’ was C. J., along with a group of armed individuals, strolling around the UT campus Tuesday afternoon to engage with students and conduct bizarre exercises with them.On Facebook, he describes in detail how he had them all say out loud “BOOM BOOM BOOM” in 15 second intervals for 150 seconds to simulate a classroom shooting.

Source: Armed Open Carry Group Goes To Texas Campus To Conduct Bizarre Shooting Drills | FreakOutNation

And they have the screen captures to prove it!

Or do they? I went to the OCT Facebook page, found the thread pictured above, expanded it and some things were immediately noticeable: There were no photographs attached. The main text was the same (It was modified later with an update at top, but the rest remains the same) and not even the comments matched. How could this be?

Photosop.

I checked the photo folder of OCT and those pics were not in the month of October or September or even 2015. Using an image search engine, I was able to find references of when they might have been originally posted..and found them:

So, FreakOutNation used photographs from 2012 and 2014, photoshopped (badly) some text to them in order to apparently falsely illustrate something that happened on October 27, 2015.

I mentioned at the beginning of this year (I think) that the Opposition was getting desperate because they were losing and to expect them to dial up their efforts including going off the rails. I think in the case of CSGV and some in the caboose area, they are not only way off the tracks but already downhill in the Highway of Stupidity.

Hey guys! Keep doing that stuff. We love expose you for the lying scum you are.

That is why we win.

Mea Culpa. I should have posted before yesterday and warn you to watch this theatrical version of Rocky Horror Show that shown in BBC America. From what I could gather, there has been other versions in years past, but I doubt they came close to this year’s. David Bedella does a fantastic Frank-N-Furter managing to both stay faithful to Tim Curry’s and making it his own.

I also loved it was done in a small theater. It gave it a more personal touch which you can feel in the interactions between the Narrators and the crowd. Speaking of Narrators, two words: Stephen Fry.

I won’t go on about the rest of the cast or the music, both were also spot on. If you local Cable or Satellite provider carries BBC America, set your DVR now. You will have fun.

There are two political movements going on, on America’s college campuses that are dominating the news: campus carry and safe spaces.  There is no better illustration of the difference between the Left and Right in America.

The Safe Space movement is pusillanimous and infantilizing.  Colleges are creating rooms where college students can hide from ideas that differ from their own, challenging thoughts, or heresy against the liberal orthodoxy.  Safe spaces are adorned like day care centers “cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets and a video of frolicking puppies, as well as students and staff members trained to deal with trauma.“

Trauma.  Trauma?  Trauma!?! WTF!?!  Is this what passe for trauma in modern Liberalism?  Forget getting shot at or having limbs blown off with IEDs, Liberals can be emotionally damaged by having an invited speaker hurt their feelings by telling them their facts are wrong.

The Safe Space movement is an offshoot of the trigger warning movement.  Trigger warnings are warnings put by professors on texts and/or subjects that might cause students anxiety if they read them.  Again, we’re not talking about some combat veteran jumping at the sound of a car backfiring.  We’re talking about pampered, middle class kids flinching at the sound applause.  This is so absurd that when The Onion makes fun of it, it reads like every other article I’ve cited so far.

The Left treats American college students, young men and women who a generation and two ago were old enough to be sent off to South East Asia, the islands of the Pacific, North Africa, and Europe to defeat Fascism, Nazism, and Communism, and defend freedom, and treats them like spoiled kindergartners.

On the other side of the aisle, the Right wants campus carry.  We look at the these young men and women and have the audacity to believe that they are just that, men and women, who just might have the capacity to take care of themselves.

What is the Left offering as an alternative?  Pee on yourself.

How has the Left responded to campus carry?  By acting like children.  Professors are having temper tantrums, taking their ball and going home.  Liberal kids are responding with the unbelievable petulance.  I’ve written about this before.  The Left, always expecting the least of people while projecting their shortcomings onto others, whines that students will use their guns to intimidate their professors into inflating their grades.

There you have it.  Left vs. Right.  Children vs. Adults.  They want to wrap themselves up in a blanket and suck their thumbs, and hide from anything and everything that makes them feel even slightly challenged.  We want people to rise to the challenge of adulthood and take responsibility for themselves.

This year’s Halloween decoration

One of the most important lessons I learned in grad school was “what don’t I know?”  The answer, of course, is “a lot.”

As you near the end of your studies as a PhD candidate, you have to take a comprehensive examination.  It is a test to see if you have a fundamental understanding of the subject you are going to get your degree in well enough that you can teach it to others.

No it’s not.  It is an academic gauntlet.  The purpose of which is to teach you humility.  You stand in front of a whiteboard while various professors bombard you with questions of increasing difficulty, on a subject, until you have no choice but you say “I don’t know.”  Then they move onto a different subject and repeat the process until they break you.

See, you just completed 10 years of schooling.  You think you know so much.  You don’t, and they have to prove it to you by showing you the boundaries of you knowledge.  You’re like a puppy, let loose into a big yard.  This is your realm.  And so you run until, ZAP!!!  You hit the electric fence.  You run in the other direction until ZAP!!!  You hit the fence again.  Soon you learn that in the whole wide world you can see, your realm is tiny.  You know a thimble’s worth in the ocean of knowledge.

This is an experience I wish more people would go through.  Especially journalists and politicians.

I am an expert on things in my thimble.  When I talk about them, I talk with authority.  For everything else, I research.   Before I opine, I try to learn as much as I can.

There is an expression my graduate adviser used all the time “know just enough to be dangerous.”  There is another one by Charles Darwin that I love: “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.”  Psychologists have proven that this is true, scientifically, it is called the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

For weeks the gun blogosphere has been calling out the politicians and journalists who make stupid statements and push for stupid laws regarding universal background checks, gun free zones, and everything else they claim will save lives but won’t.  How could these people say on TV or in print what they say and be so wrong with so little shame?  They have the confidence of the ignorant.

Politicians and journalists are the embodiment of the Mark Twain quote: “All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.”

Twain also said “Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”  And we know that Twain was a genius.

There is one law I would love to have pass that I believe would help this country like no other, it is this:

“Before a congressperson can vote on a bill, they have to pass a qualifying exam to demonstrate a basic knowledge of the subject matter the bill will address.”

Such a law would most likely bring DC to a standstill.  But once more we yield to the wisdom of Mark Twain “No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.”  So maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

Caught this on the news feed:

My first thought was “Anybody want to bet me that this guy is anti-gun too?”

So I went through his feed a little and lo and behold, he is.

Regarding Ben Carson’s comments on the Holocaust:

Regarding Texas campus carry:

Ahhh… It was almost too easy.

It’s an amazing coincidence isn’t it?  The people with the attitude of “believe what we want you to believe or we will kill you” don’t like it when other people own and carry guns.

This is why WE have guns.  I don’t want to stand before a firing squad because I don’t believe that my V8 pickup is directly responsible for the weather.