Gonna be busy tonight... Updated!

Listening to the Texas Perspective at 9PM, hoping they'll discuss how Chuck Norris wants to be President of Texas. (I wonder if he'd make everyone take Karate classes, in addition to Concealed Handgun classes? Nah, too many folks would freeze up in a robbery, trying to decide between shooting the bad guy or doing a flying roundhouse kick in the head!)

Updated!!! Some silly little columnist in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram thinks that Chuck is ineligible to be President of Texas because of some silly notion as not being born here! I feel I should point out that NONE of the Presidents of Texas between 1836 and 1845 were born here. (David Burnett, Noo Joisey; Sam Houston, Virginia; Mirabeau B. Lamar, Georgia; Anson Jones, Massachusetts) There's no qualification in the Constitution for a native-born Presidential candidate. To that end, Chuck already has a campaign commercial ready! (Altho I fear that if he was elected, then we truly would have a Chucktatorship!)

Victory Gardens

I've been reading up on these some, and to that end, we're planning on putting in a small-ish plot of a garden (around a 4 x 8 foot section) to see how well we can do. With all the concerns about rising this and falling that, it'll be a good way of insuring some stability for the household, better I reckon than stocking up on dry and canned foods, altho there is some of that. Still, one needs a way to replenish/augment any stored food with a fresh supply, and what better way than growing your own? Plus, we've had a fairly mild winter (seems to follow a hurricane, but I won't swear to it), so everything else is already pollinating and budding (and, according to these folks, we've already passed the date for our last frost, whatever's planted now would be safe from that).

There's a few places out there that will sell you a survival set of seeds, for planting after The End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine). That's great and all, but it reminds me too much of the overhyped "Pay-triots" cashing in on citizen's concerns in an apparent crisis, back during the 90s. Once that first set of seeds is in the ground, you still need to eat while waiting for that crop to ripen, which I'm sure they know someone who'll sell you a years worth of MREs, and while you're at it, they know somebody else to supply you with an "assault weapon" and thousands of rounds of ammo so you can protect your valuable pantry and garden from the Zombie Biker Gangs, who are roaming about like something out of Mad Max or Dies the Fire!

Seriously, I doubt it'll ever get that bad, for that long-- for one thing, if it was, then Uncle Sam can't collect his taxes for bailing us out!

A big part of my encouragement to start this was reading the Fox Fire series of books, about an ongoing class project to interview elderly Appalachians about the old skills, wisdom, and lore needed before and during the early 20th Century in their mountains and valleys. I feel like that knowledge isn't much different than what was needed and used by the frontier Texans of the 1830s and 40s. And I reckon we all need a hefty dose of inspiration from our forefathers, to remind ourselves that they endured much worse in their dreams for independence and liberty, so we should steel ourselves for similar hardships, be they natural, manmade, or "shit happens."

Victory Seeds
Red, White, and Grew website and blog

Happy Birthday Texas!!!

It was 173 years ago that a band of settlers met at Washington-on-the-Brazos to draw up a document listing grievances and declaring themselves independent from Mexico. Some of those grievances sound familiar, if one changed the names of places and countries:

It has sacrificed our welfare to the state of Coahuila those other 49--M., by which our interests have been continually depressed through a jealous and partial course of legislation, carried on at a far distant seat of government, by a hostile majority, in an unknown tongue (read:LawyerSpeak--M.)...

It has made piratical attacks upon our commerce, by commissioning foreign desperadoes, and authorizing them to seize our vessels, and convey the property of our citizens to far distant ports for confiscation. (Sounds kinda like Gov. GoodHair's TransTexasCorridor super tollroad plan run by Spaniards--M.)...

It hath been, during the whole time of our connection with it... hath continually exhibited every characteristic of a weak, corrupt, and tyrranical government...

These, and other grievances, were patiently borne by the people of Texas, untill they reached that point at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue...

We are, therefore, forced to the melancholy conclusion, that the MexicanAmerican people have acquiesced in the destruction of their liberty, and the substitution therfor of a militarysocialist government; that they are unfit to be free, and incapable of self government...

The necessity of self-preservation, therefore, now decrees our eternal political separation...

Now, I don't see any of my kin's signatures on that paper, but I do know that some of them were on site the next month when we forced Mexico to recognize us when we whupped their asses at San Jacinto.

While ol' Sam Houston might not have wanted Texas to leave the Union in 1861, I think he might be strongly in favor of us breaking away and being independent again if he saw how the Federals treat us and every other state now, especially during this time of "economic troubles." (See the above excerpts from the 1836 Declaration of Independence.) Thankfully, there are folks working toward that end, building grass-roots support for a new Texas Independence. The movement's president hosts a online talk show Wednesday nights at 9 PM Texas Standard Time. (The rest of the week, they play nothing but Texas-themed "red dirt radio" country music. Good stuff!)

Kevin Fowler - 100% Texan!

Here's some music to get you, my faithful readers, in the mood for tomorrow!

Gunnie stuff

(I originally titled this "Gunny stuff", but I didn't want to confuse Uncle Sam's Misguided Children any more than they already are.) ;)

While I usually expound on how Texas is better off without the US, I will admit that our founding documents were echoed in many ways from their's, especially the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I haven't heard of any other country in the world whose founding documents allow, nay, demand that its citizens be armed (US Second Amendment; Texas Article I, Section 23); most countries have some article which makes noise about right of security and safety, but never explains how to do that.

As the US Founding Fathers saw, the only way to do that is make every citizen responsible for themselves: individually, folks could protect themselves from criminals; altogether the People would be able to overwhelm any army the government could hope to tyrannize them with. To that end, there's no Constitutional stipulation of a "Royal Armorer" or government approval to make guns. As such, the recent actions of various government agencies (noises about a renewed "assault weapons ban" and ammo taxes and restrictions thru "micro stamping" every bullet with a serial number(?!?)) would make it seem prudent to learn how to make firearms from common household materials, so that the People could fight back, when various laws and agencies make it near impossible to buy guns and ammo thru traditional, legal means.

Mind you, I've heard from assorted gun-rights philosophers that just because the People have the right to own firearms, doesn't mean they also have the enthusiasm necessary to use them when the Government has infringed that right one too many times. Folks seem complacent in thinking, "it doesn't matter that I toil for nearly half the year paying off the taxes from various Federal, State, and local agencies, I STILL HAVE MY GUNS!" or "it's terrible that I fear an IRS audit for the smallest accidental infraction, but I STILL HAVE MY GUNS!" What good is having a right if one is too afraid to exercise it, because of some imagined retribution by tyrants? (I'd point out, that retribution can come all at once, or a little at a time, like we're suffering under NOW!) Even Thomas Jefferson said "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time by the blood of patriots and tyrants." (It's kinda pathetic that this link is to a Canadian site, the comments there are pretty fired up for being our far northern neighbours, I should expect that host to be in the US.)(Here is a link to the whole letter, from which that quote comes.)