Posted 12:29 PM by Matthew Kennicott
Fed up!

I'm fuckin' fed up with blogger, so go check out my new digs...

Stars 'n Stipes

Posted 10:56 AM by Matthew Kennicott

No New Taxes

Duma Votes to End Sales Tax, Lower VAT

I'm not normally one to say that the United States should take a lesson from a foreign government, but in this case we need to look really hard at what we're doing, and change it. Our tax system is oppresive to people who make this economy turn, and punishes people who work hard to earn more money. Russia, on the other hand, is taking proactive steps in ending their sales tax, lowering the value added tax by 10% (kind of like a gross reciepts tax), and moving to a flat tax system, all in the name of getting the economy off the ground and moving in the right direction--upwards. It now seems as though that the United States has more Communists than the former Soviet Union did, in that now the Democrats want to take more money from hard working Americans than the new Duma does in Russia. A tip of the hat goes out to Russia for taking steps to make their people more free, and to grow the economy of their nation. American politicians really need to go study what the Ruskies are doing, and come back to apply those same principles here.

Posted 8:46 AM by Matthew Kennicott

Spec Ops Boys

Secret Armies of the Night

Believe it or not, Time has written and excellent article about American's Spec Ops Forces. It's fitting that this article comes out at this time, because many of our Spec Ops guys are just now coming home. They've been overseas since long before the war started and are now returning to some sort of normal life. The article gives a great synopsis of what many of them have been doing for many months now.

Posted 1:22 PM by Matthew Kennicott

Happy Birthday Army

An Army Birthday

Happy Flag Day and Happy Birthday to the United States Army, the finest fighting force in the world! Thanks to our troops, past, present, and future, that keep America the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Click on the link above and get an account of a Happy Birthday salute from Sgt. Hook, one of America's finest. He does a much better job than I ever could in wishing our Army a Happy Birthday, especially since he's served for so long.

Posted 1:12 PM by Matthew Kennicott

Flag Day History

The Fourth of July was traditionally celebrated as America's birthday, but the idea of an annual day specifically celebrating the Flag is believed to have first originated in 1885. BJ Cigrand, a schoolteacher, arranged for the pupils in the Fredonia, Wisconsin Public School, District 6, to observe June 14 (the 108th anniversary of the official adoption of The Stars and Stripes) as 'Flag Birthday'. In numerous magazines and newspaper articles and public addresses over the following years, Cigrand continued to enthusiastically advocate the observance of June 14 as 'Flag Birthday', or 'Flag Day'.

On June 14, 1889, George Balch, a kindergarten teacher in New York City, planned appropriate ceremonies for the children of his school, and his idea of observing Flag Day was later adopted by the State Board of Education of New York. On June 14, 1891, the Betsy Ross House in Philadelphia held a Flag Day celebration, and on June 14 of the following year, the New York Society of the Sons of the Revolution, celebrated Flag Day.

Following the suggestion of Colonel J Granville Leach (at the time historian of the Pennsylvania Society of the Sons of the Revolution), the Pennsylvania Society of Colonial Dames of America on April 25, 1893 adopted a resolution requesting the mayor of Philadelphia and all others in authority and all private citizens to display the Flag on June 14th. Leach went on to recommend that thereafter the day be known as 'Flag Day', and on that day, school children be assembled for appropriate exercises, with each child being given a small Flag.

Two weeks later on May 8th, the Board of Managers of the Pennsylvania Society of Sons of the Revolution unanimously endorsed the action of the Pennsylvania Society of Colonial Dames. As a result of the resolution, Dr. Edward Brooks, then Superintendent of Public Schools of Philadelphia, directed that Flag Day exercises be held on June 14, 1893 in Independence Square. School children were assembled, each carrying a small Flag, and patriotic songs were sung and addresses delivered.

In 1894, the governor of New York directed that on June 14 the Flag be displayed on all public buildings. With BJ Cigrand and Leroy Van Horn as the moving spirits, the Illinois organization, known as the American Flag Day Association, was organized for the purpose of promoting the holding of Flag Day exercises. On June 14th, 1894, under the auspices of this association, the first general public school children's celebration of Flag Day in Chicago was held in Douglas, Garfield, Humboldt, Lincoln, and Washington Parks, with more than 300,000 children participating.

Adults, too, participated in patriotic programs. Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior, delivered a 1914 Flag Day address in which he repeated words he said the flag had spoken to him that morning: "I am what you make me; nothing more. I swing before your eyes as a bright gleam of color, a symbol of yourself."

Inspired by these three decades of state and local celebrations, Flag Day - the anniversary of the Flag Resolution of 1777 - was officially established by the Proclamation of President Woodrow Wilson on May 30th, 1916. While Flag Day was celebrated in various communities for years after Wilson's proclamation, it was not until August 3rd, 1949, that President Truman signed an Act of Congress designating June 14th of each year as National Flag Day.

Posted 1:02 PM by Matthew Kennicott

A Toast to the Flag



Here's to the red of it-
There's not a thread of it,
No, not a shred of it
In all the spread of it
From foot to head,
But heroes bled for it,
Faced steel and lead for it,
Precious blood shed for it,
Bathing it in Red!

Here's to the white of it-
Thrilled by the sight of it,
Who knows the right of it
But feels the might of it
Through day and night?
Womanhood's care for it
Made manhood dare for it,
Purity's prayer for it
Keeps it so white!

Here's to the blue of it-
Beauteous view of it,
Heavenly hue of it,
Star-spangled dew of it
Constant and true;
Diadems gleam for it,
States stand supreme for it,
Liberty's beam for it
Brightens the Blue!

Here's to the whole of it-
Stars, stripes and pole of it,
Body and Soul of it,
O, and the roll of it,
Sun shining through;
Hearts in accord for it,
Swear by the sword for it,
Thanking the Lord for it,
Red, White and Blue!

--John J. Daly

Posted 9:48 AM by Matthew Kennicott

No More

I'm currently working on a new site powered by something other than Blogger. I'm fucking fed up. I've tried to post three different things this morning and each one of them was lost.

To Blogspot: FUCK OFF! You have the worst blogging website out there and I wish I never would have signed up for your shitty site anyway.

To my readers: be patient, I'll post here until I get my other site set up. It probablly won't be the volume I usually put up though.

Posted 1:04 PM by Matthew Kennicott

Greenie Camp

Forest activists plan 'boot camp'

Next week, greenie nut jobs are planning on holding a boot camp for forest protection activists in Missoula, MT. The most disturbing part about the camp is that the domestic environmental terrorist group Earth First is the main sponsor of the camp. These nutz have destroyed more personal property and business property than many people could even imagine. They will be teaching new people within their ranks these same disturbing, and economically devastating, tactics.

Kreilick, whose group is headquartered in Missoula, said the Bitterroot forest was selected as the training site because of the national attention it has received since the 2000 wildfire season...

...The Bitterroot will almost certainly be the target of some of the newly trained activists, he added.

"I cannot say what the campaign will look like this summer, but there will be an increasing amount of scrutiny of the Bitterroot. We will continue to work on monitoring post-fire logging and restoration and will continue to scrutinize the Forest Service's actions."

This is very disturbing in that these same groups prevent the forest service and private logging companies from coming into our forests and clearing out the overgrown areas to prevent forest fires from occurring. If it wouldn’t have been for these idiot activities in the first place, our forests in the west would never have burned to the extent that they have. Now, we must go in with extensive forest management when, if allowed in the first place, the forests could have managed themselves.

Kreilick claims that his group will scrutinize the post-fire logging in the forest. My guess, from experience in watching these types of groups, is that they will whine about every single tree that is cut and every single endangered grass that is stepped on. Remember Kreilick, its groups like yours who put us in the situation we're in right now.

A group in Santa Fe, NM has been bitching about the city cutting trees and overgrowth in the watershed for years. On a recent hike up there, it was nearly impossible to pass through sections. I would say that their watershed will go up in flames in a matter of a few years, and then a city already short on water will be in even more serious trouble. Without a watershed, a city in the mountains is not a city at all. The problem is, this situation is not unique to New Mexico, but is found all over the west. We are extremely dry because of a continuing drought that we've been plagued with for years. In order for fires to be stopped, we must first fight the enviro nut jobs from allowing us to manage our forests in a proper manner.

Posted 11:40 AM by Matthew Kennicott

Ann Coulter Day

True Grit

Today is Thursday. That means it's Ann Coulter Day for all of the geeky conservative boys out there. Today, the queen of liberal slayers takes on Hillary's book, Lying History. Go read...I know you'll like it!

Posted 7:12 AM by Matthew Kennicott

(More) New York Stupidity

'Defend your family, go to jail'

A man in New York has been locked up in Rikers Island for defending his family and his home.

A Brooklyn man who shot and wounded an intruder while defending his family will spend three days in Rikers Island, the same jail housing the burglar who terrorized his home, because he owns an unregistered gun.

Ronald Dixon, a 27-year-old father of two, caught an intruder rifling through drawers in his son's room early on Dec. 14.

"I went in. … I looked in his face. I didn't know this guy; I was so shocked. … In a nervous voice I said, 'What are you doing in my house?' and he ran toward me yelling, 'Come upstairs!' like there were other people with him. I shot him 'cause I thought more people were in the house," Dixon told the New York Daily News.

This is disgusting. The man is lucky he didn't break into my house. I would have done a lot more damage with my 12ga shotgun than with a dinky .9mm handgun. Of course, if I lived in New York, home to many of the most loony gun laws in the country, I probably wouldn't have been allowed to own a 12ga. If I had to choose between defending my family and going to jail, or being beat to death in my own home, I think I'd rather defend my family and take my chances of going to jail for killing a criminal who clearly deserved what he got.

Authorities charged Dixon with illegal possession of a firearm when they discovered his gun was not legally registered in New York, a charge that carries up to a year in prison.

When Dixon proved he had obtained the firearm legally in Florida and tried to register it in New York, the prosecutors agreed to a charge of disorderly conduct.

Dixon pleaded guilty to the disorderly conduct charge, which will allow him to do time without carrying a criminal record.

There's no way in holy hell that I would have pleaded guilty to any type of charges, disorderly conduct or not. I would have fought the damn charges all the way to the top on principal alone. This could be a great test case for doing away with many of the ridiculous laws that we have today regarding firearms in private citizens hands, if Dixon is willing to fight that far and that long.

The intruder turned out to be Ivan Thompson, a career criminal with a 14-page rap sheet. Thompson has been arrested 19 times and been convicted of criminal trespass, burglary and attempted assault. He currently is on parole until 2004 on burglary charges.

"Clearly [Dixon] was justified in shooting this burglar, and the burglar is going to get as much jail time as we can get him," Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes told the News.

But Hynes will not budge from his tough anti-gun policy.

"If you get caught with a gun in Brooklyn, you're going to do jail time," said Hynes, who has held that stance since taking office in 1990, when, he says, "Brooklyn was like Dodge City."

It's morons like this Brooklyn DA that make things so bad for law abiding citizens like Dixon, people that are just trying to defend what they hold close to their hearts. I don't think the DA really believes that the intruder got what he deserved. After all, he's treating Dixon the same way as the criminal is being treated by throwing him in Rikers Island for any period of time.

A Jamaican immigrant, Dixon served in the Navy from 1994 to 1997 in weapons ordnance...

It seems to me that Dixon would know how to handle a firearm and handle himself in a proper manner when he is threatened. The military teaches our men and women how to behave in such circumstances, and he followed through on his prior teaching--defend yourself or be killed. What this article does not mention is that Dixon moved from Florida to New York, and had his firearm in his possession. Unfortunately, since the firearm laws are so messed up in New York, Dixon was told he'd have to wait up to a year to obtain the permit. What's the guy supposed to do, bury his .9mm in the back yard until he gets the permit? I don't think so. Dixon did the right thing by keeping the firearm in the house in case he needed it to defend himself. Hopefully, this case will shed light on these horrible laws and they will be changed once and for all (wishful thinking).