You’re awakened at 5:30 in the morning by your wife who seems either scared or aflutter. She shows you an oblong item and a book. Being the way you are, you’re not real perceptive having been awakened that early. You’re thoughts are:

Did the dog chew up a book?

Should I be prepared to investigate a noise?

What the Hell is going on?

It takes a few minutes and you look at the oblong object. You realize that it’s a home pregnancy test and the book is about being an expectant father (definitely a misleading name). The home pregnancy test has a rather identifiable bright blue plus sign right there in the middle. You look at your wife and realize that she is aflutter and not scared. The proper way to address this races through your mind. You contemplate what the next words out of your mouth will be. Your ideas include:

My boys can swim!

Gooooooaaaal!

Cool! Oral sex is no longer completely ruled out!

My pistol isn’t loaded with blanks!

Jumpin’ Jesus on a pogo stick!

So, you peed on this and now I’m holding it?

Instead, you do the right thing and hug your wife. She remains aflutter informing you that we need a name, have to call the ObGyn, prepare a nursery, decide who should we tell first, should we wait, and it goes on and on.

Words can’t describe how you feel.

We weren’t bloggered. We were Hosting Mattered.

A couple of Democrats are trying to woo us gun-toting (and God-fearing) types:

Two moderate Democrat senators are leading an effort to improve the Democratic Party’s image among churchgoers and gun owners with the hopes of recapturing Congress and the White House next year.

Sens. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) said Democrats have adopted the wrong political strategy when it comes to countering Republicans on cultural issues like religion, gun rights and family values.

“If we appear to be hostile to individuals of faith, hostile to those who own guns, indifferent to the concerns of traditional families and weak on national security issues,” Bayh said, “that is not a winning prescription for the Democratic Party.”

Somebody gets it. I’d like to see more pro-gun Democrats. Hell, I’d like to see any prominent politician come out against the Assault Weapons Ban.

For the record, I plan on voting for Howard Dean in the primary and protest vote to the Libertarian candidate in the general election. Why would I do that? I’m hoping people like me will cost the Republicans the election so that they will learn their lesson and get back to being the party of small government. And Dean is the Democrat most in tune with my views. I still predict Bush will win and it won’t even be close.

From WATE:

Tennessee ranks seventh in the nation in the frequency of bomb incidents.

A new FBI report based on 1999 figures shows bombings, attempted bombings and accidental detonations were reported 58 times in the state that year. One person was hurt.

Of the 58, 22 were attempted bombings.

Nationally, 23 people were hurt and nine died that year.

Two years after the study, most local bomb squad units across the state and the country were strengthened because of the terrorist attacks.

I don’t recall these bombings being covered by, you know, the news.

From the WaPo:

Defying weeks of intense White House lobbying, a narrowly divided Senate voted last night to convert half of President Bush’s $20.3 billion Iraq rebuilding plan into a loan that would be forgiven if other donor nations write off the debt incurred by the ousted government of Saddam Hussein.

I’d bet $20.3B that the loan will never be paid back.

Not that they have far to go but they insist on polluting the comments section of my old posts (not even particularly popular posts) with their uselessness.

Via Unknown News comes this:

A Nashua man has been sentenced to 6.5 years in prison after city workers found crumbs of marijuana in his trash and called police.

Steven Montbleau, 32, pleaded guilty to possession of marijuana with the intention of selling it.

Police found 161 pounds of marijuana in Montbleau’s basement and $182,000 in his bedroom closet after being tipped off by two public works employees in August 2002.

The trash haulers said several garbage bags that Montbleau threw onto their truck smelled, so they stopped to check them out. They said they found bits of what appeared to be marijuana, so they called police. Officers got a search warrant and found the other drugs.

Big Brother is going through trash. Wouldn’t a city worker going through your garbage be an unwarranted search and seizure?

Guy is telling people how to find the world’s most infamous left fielder. If I were that guy, I’d buy a gun and run like hell (to a place like sunny Florida).

Update: I forgot, I don’t blog baseball as some say. I blog the reaction of people to baseball.

Any blog that features gun porn warrants a blogroll addition. Welcome Argghhh!

You decide but neither lends to their credibility. Moore has, unsurprisingly, made factual errors. So has Dowd.

Via Insty.

Marc seems to stay gone for a while at times. But when he comes back, it’s with a vengeance. Just go here and start reading.

I find it funny that most news accounts I see of baseball state something like Cubs Lose! You realize that another team actually won, right?

The VTP is up over at Les Jones‘. Go read.

Ain’t that America! Old buildings are more important than your right to enjoy your property:

Reversing a lower court decision, the Tennessee Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that Cherokee Country Club cannot tear down an 87-year-old mansion on its Lyons View Pike grounds.

The three-judge panel unanimously found the city’s historic overlay ordinance, which calls for a 180-day moratorium on demolitions in areas under consideration for historic zoning, functions more as a building code than a zoning regulation.

Note to all you historic preservationists: Eventually everything will be old.

Dunno what it is but it looks kinda cool.

Via Paul Muller, comes this article:

The fundamental difference between the decent and indecent left is their contrasting views of American power. The indecent left views American military might through the lens of Vietnam and therefore regards our armed forces as the greatest threat to world peace. Walzer wrote, “The leftist critique, from the Vietnam years forward — has been stupid, overwrought, grossly inaccurate. It is the product of what Philip Roth, in his novel ‘I Married a Communist,’ aptly described as ‘the combination of embitterment and not thinking.'”

This is very similar (in my opinion) to being one of those liberals. I like those liberals. The mindless moonbats are a nuisance as are the wingnuts. To be fair and balanced, there is a decent and indecent right also. You can’t convince the indecent left that there is a decent right; nor can you convince the indecent right there is a decent left.

I have created a new category for this blog called Notes to Junior. Me and the Mrs. are trying to bring a little Uncle into the world (he’d be your cousin, in case you wanted to know). And I am establishing this category so that I can document advice that I want to give him. Advice such as:

Slots are for suckers.

When you move, unpack and assemble your bed first. Otherwise, by the time you’re tired and realize you want to sleep, you’ll be pissed because you have to put your bed together.

The stripper is not going to go home with you.

When you’re out and drinking is the order of the night, stick to one drink. In fact, establish your standard drink so when anyone asks What’ll you have? you have something to say other than Uhh, lemme think about it.

It is sort of funny that I refer to our future child as him and he and the Mrs. refers to him as her and she. Advice posted here will be as it occurs to me and will remind me later what to talk about.

Brian has a good read on road conditions in the US and Tennessee. Worth reading.

Big Stupid Tommy and Mike said I should talk about baseball and boobs, respectively. So, for Tommy, I thought this was funny:

People who minutes earlier had been dancing and singing the praises of their home team suddenly turned their wrath on the fan who grabbed for the fly ball. Obscene chants echoed from inside the stadium and from the surrounding streets, where thousands had gathered to celebrate what they hoped would be the Cubs’ first trip to the World Series since 1945.

Ballpark guards escorted the man, who was wearing a Cubs hat, from his seat along the low outfield wall and into a security office as the game ended. He covered his face with a sweater as he walked past fans who pelted him with cups of beer and shouted obscenities. Some chanted “kill him.”

Maybe people take this silly game a bit too seriously.

And for Mike, the Boobie-Thon. And give a couple bucks, it’s for a good cause.

For the first time, the number of posts in the guns category (conveniently located at your right if you don’t want to click that link) has exceeded all other posts. Maybe I should ease up.

One observation however is that taxes and pets and responsibility are equally as important to me. But these issues get less press coverage. Taxes don’t because they don’t make the news much unless a Democrat is in the spotlight wanting to raise them; and Pets because they don’t make the news much unless a pit bull bites someone.

And as always, if there’s something you’d rather I talk about, let me know.

The good guys have scored a couple:

Per this:

A Senate committee voted Monday in favor of a bill that would allow Wisconsin residents to carry concealed weapons.

Three Republicans on the Senate Judiciary, Corrections and Privacy Committee approved the proposal, adding a few changes that address some of the public’s concerns before voting on it. These changes include permitting private businesses, churches and homeowners to prohibit concealed weapons.

And then this:

Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) have introduced similar legislation in Congress that would reestablish the Second Amendment right to bear arms for the citizens of the District of Columbia.

“The District of Columbia Personal Protection Act,” or H.R. 3191, which currently has 111 co-sponsors from both sides of the aisle would reverse the ban on guns in the District of Columbia, which has one of the strongest anti-gun laws in the United States.

The current prohibition on firearms in the nation’s capital disallows law-abiding citizens from owning a handgun and severely limits the use of a rifle.

“The District of Columbia is a failed laboratory experiment for gun control,” Souder contended in defense of his bill. “It has one of the most comprehensive bans on firearms in the nation, and it also has one of the highest violent crime rates in the nation.”

Souder says the connection between the crime rate and citizens not being able to defend themselves in the District of Columbia is clear.

“In 2002, [the District of Columbia] had the highest per capita crime rate of any city in the nation,” he cited. “This is not a coincidence.”

Werd!

Remember, however, that DC is a city that the our elected federal representatives made. It’s awful because federal politics are awful. Oh and that gun thing.

Wow!

Accounts Receivable Tax

Alcohol Tax

Building Permit Tax

Capital Gains Tax

CDL license Tax

Cigarette Tax

Corporate Income Tax

Court Fines (indirect taxes)

Dog License Tax

Estate Tax

Excise Tax

Federal Income Tax

Federal Unemployment Tax

Fishing License Tax

Food License Tax

Fuel permit Tax

Gasoline Tax

Hunting License Tax

Intangible Tax

Inheritance Tax

Interest expense (Tax on the money)

Inventory Tax

IRS Interest Charges (Tax on top of Tax)

IRS Penalties (Tax on top of Tax)

Liquor Tax

Local Income Tax

Luxury Taxes

Marriage License Tax

Medicare Tax

Property Tax

Real Estate Tax

Septic Permit Tax

Service charge Taxes

Social Security Tax

Road usage Taxes (Truckers)
Sales Taxes

Recreational Vehicle Tax

Road Toll Booth Taxes

School Tax

State Income Tax

State Unemployment Tax
Tobacco Tax

Telephone federal excise Tax

Telephone federal universal service fee Tax

Telephone federal, state and local surcharge Taxes

Telephone minimum usage surcharge Tax

Telephone recurring and non-recurring charges Tax

Telephone state and local Tax

Telephone usage charge Tax

Toll Bridge Taxes

Toll Tunnel Taxes

Traffic Fines (indirect Taxation)

Trailer registration Tax

Utility Taxes

Vehicle License Registration Tax

Vehicle Sales Tax

Watercraft registration Tax

Well Permit Tax

Workers Compensation Tax

For the punchline, visit Rodger.

The Rocky Top Brigade welcomes into its fold:

Beyond the Whispers
Drawing Dad
Filthy Hippy Speak
SemiPundit

Welcome all!

Remember Lyle Barkley? I blogged about him here:

Lyle Barkley is bulldozing four-foot berms around his three acres in Bay Township and requesting support from conservative militia groups to prepare for a possible armed confrontation with county law enforcement officers over a zoning dispute.

Well, he’s got his own blog and another here. His actions lead to the sheriff meeting him and potentially avoiding an armed stand off:

The Barkley family and Charlevoix County and Bay Township officials agreed Thursday to put off any confrontation over a contested zoning violation until after a circuit court judge has ruled on the matter.

They agreed on:

“First, we got a commitment from Mr. Olson that he would have control of the militia and that they would take no aggressive action.

“Second, we will all await the decision of the judge (Circuit Judge Richard Pajtas) in the appeal process, and until then there will be no arrest of Mr. Barkley and the township will make no effort to remove the trailers in that period of time.

“And third, we will meet again after the judge’s decision and before any enforcement action is taken.”

Spoons details the origins of his distrust in the media based on an experience when he was ten years old. Read it.

In a similar incident to Spoons’ story, my dad sent George Bush 1 an invitation to my high school graduation. I received a fancy envelope from the White House, with a fancy letter inside. It read (paraphrased): Regretfully, the President can not attend your wedding.

Analysts say gun control is a non-issue in 2004. Well, I guess I’ll stop blogging about it then. Highlights:

Though a spate of gun violence has torn through schools and offices of late, hardly a word has been spoken on the campaign trail, angry moms are not marching and few lawmakers are waving their fists, leaving some to conclude that gun control is no longer a vital political issue.

Gun control advocates blame a lack of media interest and an aggressive pro-gun lobby on the inattention to gun violence.

“The modus operandi of the gun lobby is to keep the discussion down,” said Eric Howard, spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Handgun Violence

Of course, the Brady Campaign’s modus operandi has been to lie about gun violence. And this is a total lie. Gun folks like to have the discussion because when it’s discussed, pro gun folks win the debate.

Read the whole thing for some more political insight into the gun issue.

The Blount County Commissioners engaged in some shady activities prior to voting their own pay raises. A local resident is suing to have the raise rescinded:

His lawsuit alleges that commissioners met “secretly by electronic means, discussed the proposed raise, and polled the members prior to the meeting in direct contravention” of Tennessee Code Annotated 8-44-102, 104, 108 — the state’s public meeting laws.

Day filed the suit Monday in Blount County Chancery Court.

In August and September meetings, he promised to take each of the commissioners to court and — acting as his own attorney — put them on the witness stand about the vote.

“It was the biggest slap in the face to citizens, and to county employees,” said Day. “It was done surreptitiously.”

From the WaPo:

Saad bin Laden, one of Osama bin Laden’s oldest sons, has emerged in recent months as part of the upper echelon of the al Qaeda network, a small group of leaders that is managing the terrorist organization from Iran, according to U.S., European and Arab officials.

I really wish baseball season would end. I personally don’t like baseball because a game lasts for about nine hours and it’s boring as Hell. Out of that nine hours, it’s maybe fifteen minutes of actual game play. The rest consists of watching men spit & scratch; listening to idiots state some arbitrary & meaningless statistics (this is the first time this has happened on the second Tuesday, with a full moon since the last time it happened); more spitting and scratching; the occasional fight; and overweight men (spitting and scratching) while standing around looking like they’re discussing something important.

But that’s not why I want baseball season to end. I want it to end so that all of those great bloggers out there will stop talking about baseball.

There is apparently a bit of a scuffle involving the proposed name change of Atlanta’s airport:

A push to add the name of former Mayor Maynard Jackson to the title of the city’s airport pits the legacy of two popular mayors against each other and has reignited simmering tensions of new Atlanta vs. old, and black vs. white.

snip

This really shouldn’t be about what the white business establishment would allow,” state Rep. “Able” Mable Thomas, a former city council member, said at a public forum. “It’s really what the strength of the African-American community will allow. What will we stand for?”

While community leaders ponder this important issue in race relations, SayUncle estimates that in the US today approximately 20 black people will be murdered, 506 black people will be arrested for drug trafficking, and 22 black people will commit a murder. Glad our priorities are straight.