philoshop

I've been showing your pics to my own Dad in the hope that he'll take an interest. He's a recently retired dentist and could use a low-impact hobby other than computer games and jigsaw puzzles, which are great for the brain BTW. If he finds some interest I'd like to put your Dad and mine in touch with one another.

It's politics season. Then again, that season runs year round. I know it wasn't direct at me be I feel compelled to respond. I spend the vast majority of my time on this site in the politics section because I care about what my actual neighbors think about issues. On other sites I have to deal with Liberal Canadians and Australians. ;-] Also I don't move around so well any more, so actually hunting is becoming a rare occurrence for me.

Kids have always been taught to 'do as they're told'. The problem is that ALL of that teaching has been handed to over to people with questionable goals.

My brain immediately rotated to smelt and tater tots while reading this. And the 1970's "Frybaby". Hmmm. Flashbacks are cool.

I'm coming to the conclusion that the leftists just don't like to accept the fact that the U.S. is different. We're bigger, stronger, more economically powerful, and more independent than other countries. I find it strange that people would object to being part of that, and part of this amazingly successful experiment in self-governance. The next person who tells me that we need to be more like some other country is gonna get a punch in the nose.

It's not about incompetence. It's about corruption and malfeasance. The Broward County Sheriff's Dept agreed with the county school administrators several years ago to help them improve their student arrest records. In exchange for that reduction they all received substantial federal monies for these 'improvements'. Broward County had a problem with dropouts and student incarceration rates. It hurt the funding. Their solution was to simply not report student criminal activity, and the Sheriff went along with it. The numbers, for funding purposes, improved of course. But it was only because the crimes weren't being reported. This is how Nikolas Cruz was able to pass the NICS test and buy an AR15. His history had never been reported because it would have hurt school system funding. This is a sickness.

You've basically answered your own question. European countries are government-controlled Socialist societies. The citizens have abdicated their rights of individualism to 'the collective'. In most cases those citizens were coerced by 'the collective' simply because of their proximity to one another. That's how the EU was formed. America was founded on individualism, and a fair number of us don't want to give that up. We're a very unique nation in many ways and it's a patriotic duty to make sure that we don't become "more like Europe". If you worship European Socialism, American individualism grants you the Liberty to move there at any time, no questions asked. Suggesting that America should (or has to) adopt European values is what doesn't hold water.

Well said Jdubs! Tucker Carlson hit the nail on the head with a very simple question: How and why does our society produce more and more people like Nikolas Cruz? The broad-brush answer to that, I would posit, is the incessant creep of Progressive Socialism in this country. It has many tentacles including the public school indoctrination system, the attacks on masculinity in all forms (real and perceived), the attempts to erase history including the historic failures of Socialism itself, the emphasis on 'the collective' rather than individual rights..........

When you're a hard-left socialist sheriff and even CNN's Jake Tapper is beating up on you, you have a real problem: https://theconservativetreehouse.co...ward-county-sheriff-scott-israel/#more-146260 Make sure to watch the second video in the link where the sheriff all but swears his allegiance to allah.

Tucker Carlson put it very simply and effectively: The big question is why is our society producing more and more Nikolas Cruz's?

It's all about politics in Broward county. Here's a good overview, but if you want to get deeper into it I would recommend reading consevativetreehouse.com for all the background. https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/02/exposing_the_deep_rot_in_the_deep_state.html

I haven't seen any real, hard proposals yet. I got the impression he was only talking about the 'scary looking type guns' and not all long guns, and that it was a restriction on purchase but not actually on ownership. We'll have to see what the actual legislative proposal is on the matter. I don't think that removing a Constitutionally enumerated right from someone just because of their age is a good move. At 18 years of age a person is able to vote and able to voluntarily go to war for the country. How can we trust them with those responsibilities but not a gun purchase?

I think it does take a bit of fitness to scrub the the ice like they do. Until those particular muscle groups are in shape for I'd guess most people would damned sore for a week. And if I ever got into the position of the person launching the rock, I'd need help to get up from it.

Olympic Men's Curling Gold!!! Hoorah!! It's like a combination of bocci, billiards and bowling. Love it!

Three 'chicken-fried' squirrels in the frying pan last night. Potatoes and veggies on the side. Sorry, no pics. I was happy to get out there and back.

I don't ever remember hearing a breaker 'buzz' before tripping. They're generally instantaneous. If that was my call from a homeowner I'd start by trying another breaker, like you suggested. A breaker 'going bad' is pretty rare, but not unheard of.

I was arguing with a guy on another site who claimed that 'active shooter' situations were just like fire drills, and that we don't expect teachers to be putting out the fire but rather getting the students out of harm's way. The fire is generally a known point source, not a madman running around. There is an almost 100% chance of running away from a fire in a school, but it's about 50/50 that you might actually be running toward a shooter without knowing it. The standard practice in an 'active shooter' situation is to shelter in place because the shooter's location is not known. Teachers aren't, and won't be, expected to chase down the bad guys in the halls. But if the gunman should enter that teacher's shelter space they should have the ability to adequately defend themselves and their charges. It's not about turning teachers into Rambo, but that's precisely the argument from the gun-grabbers.

When someone makes a 'smart' gun that doesn't require batteries or a hackable computer I'll think about it. IOW, I'll never consider it. "Excuse me Mr. Intruder, but you've just shot me in my right arm and I now have to switch to shooting with my left hand. Please give me just one moment to re-train my 'smart' gun to recognize my left hand." I don't think so.

Crumbs...hehehe. Nasty Pelosy will drop a thousand dollars on dinner with her husband in San Francisco. Of course she considers it 'crumbs'. Nice gun, BTW!

Ahh...I just need to air this armpit out for a minute...I'll get back to ya...

Be careful about who you say that to, and in what context. ;-]

I watched a juvenile red-tail take a grey squirrel off a tree limb in my back yard not too long ago. They went to the ground, and the squirrel fought back and won. I had no wagers on the contest, but that little red-tail found out what it's like to mess with an adult squirrel. I laughed for a couple of hours.

I can't do chowder with freshwater fish. No problem at all when it's fried, grilled, etc., but unless it gets up to certain temperatures it affects me like the mushrooms and peyote I don't remember using never used in high school. Violently ill followed by seeing things for several hours.

Maybe place markers on the stumps in the plot as ranging tags. Keep it simple, it's a deer lure.

I would suggest you work around the stumps with your planting. The deer don't really care if the rows are all straight. Just a suggestion.