"Shelter in Place"

As you know by now, there's been a horrific mass murder at the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Dozens were wounded and numerous teachers, administrators and students were killed.  At this time the number is being placed at 17.  Sad.  Very sad.  And almost entirely preventable.  And the reaction of the authorities?

Shelter in place!

What sort of dumbass crap is this?  That's an insult to our intelligence!  First you disarm us, and then you tell us to hide when Bad Guys come to kill us.  Instead of doing everything possible to "harden" these targets by making mass shootings more difficult, it seems that the "authorities" are working overtime to do the exact opposite. The elected dodos who infest the Blue State Capitols, the District of Columbia, the Lap Dog Media, Hollywierd-types, and pampered snowflake weenies made that way by years of socialist policies, have declared almost all shopping malls, theaters, government buildings, airports, train stations and schools "Gun Free Zones."

Like the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School...

Lemme' see here.  If I'm inclined to whip out a heater and go on a shooting rampage, murdering all thither and non, do you think it's even remotely possible that I - or anyone else - would choose a police station, where everyone's armed?  How about a gun show?  Maybe a gun store?  How about a shooting range?  Maybe a Costco in south Texas?  No?  Why?  

Because everybody would be armed!

Hello!  I'm not one of those highly-paid Congressweenies whose job it is make sure this stuff doesn't happen.  But I am fairly intelligent, filled up to the brim with common sense (a commodity in very short supply among our Fearless Leaders these days!), and well-trained in owning and using firearms.  And I can tell you that...

...if we we were to adopt the "Israeli model" and arm a small percentage of our teachers and administrators with concealed carry weapons, making sure they're well-trained first, and agreeable to packing heat, and advertise that fact, plus employing retired police and military to guard the exterior of schools, then school shootings will be stopped.  Right now.  Since adopting this plan there's been...zero...school shootings in Israel. 

A few years back those fun-loving Palestinians were blowing up themselves and a bunch of Israeli school children almost daily.  The Israelis did something about it.  We could too.  Why haven't we?

...we should install metal detectors in all schools and lock the doors after the last child enters.  And don't open them until school is out.  If the FL school had been "hardened" in this manner the shooter could not have gained entry.

...be prepared to "Run, Hide, Fight."  When somebody's trying to kill you it's a good idea to hide.  But if that doesn't work, run like Hell!  If that fails then fight!  Attack the shooter. Hit him with a table.  Or throw a chair.  Anything.  It might not work and you might get shot.  But you might be shot anyway, so be proactive.  You might wish to take in the movie "15 - 17 to Paris" if you'd like to see how that's done...

In short, you can either try to control events, or events will surely control you... 

And a short commentary on AR-15s, the weapon the FL shooter used.  The Left is telling you that this weapon is for "assaults only," is a "weapon of mass destruction," and is "for military use only."  You should know that there are (1) more than 10 million ARs in circulation, (2) it is considered the most popular Modern Sporting Rifle in America, (3) it is used for hunting everything from squirrels to Alaskan Brown Bear, (4) and that less than 3% of all murders in America are committed with long guns, including ARs.  

A reminder, the 26 people shot at Sandy Hook Elementary were murdered with a pistol.  And at the church in Charleston.  And at Fort Hood.  There's a bunch more, but you get the idea.

The Democrats' answer to mass shootings is to outlaw - and ultimately confiscate - guns.  They've even begun to suggest we do what Australia did and confiscate all guns.  With more than 100 Million Americans owning more than 300 Million guns, that ought to be fun to watch.  They think the common man/woman/other isn't smart enough to own a gun.  They've been singing this tired old tune for decades, apparently unaware that they are at odds with the Constitution.  Or maybe they just don't care.

And the Republicans are steadfast in their protection of the 2nd Amendment, as they should. So the answer lay, in my opinion, with a change in the law to tighten gun background checks for certain individuals who've earned enhanced scrutiny, such as those with a mental disability, and a change in the public's attitude regarding the hardening of "target rich environments," like schools. The authorities have to get serious on making it legal to force those suspected of having a mental illness to get the help they need.  And you and me need to understand that the Gummint cannot protect you from cradle to grave, regardless of the liberal crap shoveled your way since birth.  So you have to take charge of your own safety, and the safety of those you love.

Oh, and on my way out the door, I might mention that there's never been a mass shooter who's been a member of the National Rifle Association.  Is that a surprise to you?

There are those who will surely disagree with my prospective solutions.  Fine.  Opinions are like belly buttons.  Everybody's got one.  Including me.  I rest my case... 

Europe's, and Maybe America's, Slow Motion Suicide...

I, The Chuckmeister, used to live in Paris.  

Yes, my friends, and you are my friends, I was stationed in Paris for a time while serving my country in uniform.  That's Paris, as in France, doncha' know.  Not in Texas.  In France.

It seems His Majesty the Queen thought that I, The Chuckmeister (if The Donald can be The Donald, then I can be The Chuckmeister!), could prove instrumental in saving America from communism. That was several decades before Bernie made socialism, a grade-school form of communism, supposedly cool.  Which it isn't, unless you're a dumbass Millenial and want me to pay for your college. Or pay you $15.00 an hour, more than a recent enlistee in the military earns, to flip my burgers.  Just take a hard look at Venezuela if you need a little proof.

And so, they sent me along to Western Europe to accomplish that feat. And damned if I didn't! Or maybe better put, at least I didn't lessen our chances for victory over the Forces of Darkness...

My plane to Europe landed at the Flughauf in Frankfurt ("flughauf," or "fly place" is Kraut for airport, doncha' know). As I got my bags I heard my name called over the P.A. system.  I was directed to a little room where I was met by a young Army officer.  He told me I had been "TDY'd" to Paris. TDY means "temporary duty" in military-speak.  In its infinite wisdom, the U.S. Army decided that America was better served by having me in Paris than in some little town in Germany shooting people and breaking things.  And so, off I went on the midnight train to the City of Lights.

Why, you may ask, was I sent to Paris?  Me, a boy from a little town in Missouri?  It seems that a few months earlier, New Year's Eve, 1966, to be exact, one then-President Charles DeGaulle, all statuesque 6' 8" of him, decided that we, America, would have to pack our bags and leave France by not later than New Year's Eve the following year.  Gave us only one year to make our exit, he did.  That sumbitch!  

Good ol' Charlie must have forgotten that we saved his Froggy bacon back during W. W. Part Deux. We not only tossed the Nazis out of his France, we actually let this bozo march down the Champs Elysee ahead of our own troops during the parade in 1945 at War's end, just like he had had something to do with that victory. Which, by the way, he most assuredly did not!  

Yes, this dude managed only to lead his French troops into exile while the Germans took control.  And they took control over a one-day period when the French learned the Germans were marching on Paris.  And the Frenchies bolted mach schnell!  Mach schnell means "pretty damn fast" in Kraut, it does.

Think I don't have much confidence in the French?  You'd be right.  Ever seen a picture of a French war hero?  He's the guy on his knees, with his hands on his head, fingers interlaced.  I saw an ad for a WWII French military rifle the other day. The ad said it was like new, having only been dropped once (heh, heh).  Another cartoon showed a guy in a beret with a sign.  It said, "Will work part-time for fromage (cheese)," Etc., etc.

Anyway, I was put in charge of making sure that hundreds and hundreds of large wooden crates of American military property, gathered from far-flung forts and posts and depots in France, more than 400 of them in all, there were, and then transshipped to one of the hundred-plus truck bays in the south of Paris, was inventoried and then placed on big 18-wheelers for their one-way trip out of the country.  

And by "out of the country," I mean any country.  Some went to Luxembourg, some to Belgium, and some to Germany, along a thousand-mile contiguous border abutting France. These trucks made their way across whatever border and then unhooked the trailer and left it sitting by the side of some road or other.  And they did that 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for a year. And my job as the officer in charge was to check off those crates on a clipboard with my #2 Ticonderoga as they went on their respective trailers, and then off to parts unknown. 

I was called upon to do this 12 hours a day, five, and sometimes six days a week.  It was boring, hot, dirty, laborious, unglamorous, thankless and tedious work, in a country that didn't much like me or my employer. But I did it, because that was my job.  And I did it well, 'cause that's the way The Chuckmeister, and any other true patriot, does things.

On my days off I got to know Paris.  I hung out in the Montmarte area, the famous Meat Market district memorialized so famously in the movie "Irma LaDouce."  And around the Sacre Coeur, the beautiful white cathedral atop a hill surrounded by cool little bars and shops and art galleries. And the cafes and strip clubs around the world-famous Crazy Horse Saloon. And the many museums.  I got to know Gay Paree (can I still say that?) as well as my own home town.  

And I got to know its people.  Paris is, without question, the most beautiful city on Earth.  And that's from a guy who's been to most of the state capitols of the world, and toured most of the beautiful places there are to see.  In fact, I would say that the only thing that could make Paris better is if it boasted fewer Parisians. They were, and I emphasize were, generally lazy, smelly, nasty, often drunk, condescending, American-hating and smoked like chimneys.  Not that there's anything wrong with that. They were known at the time for bathing only every week or two, whether they need it or not. They considered Americans either gangsters or cowboys, take your pick.  No, I don't care much for the French. If you're French or of French extraction, and I've offended you, please accept my tepid, unserious apology.  

(In fairness, I've spoken with some friends lately who have been to France since I left and they tell me things are much better then when I lived there.  So, perhaps I should cut them some slack. Okay.  If you insist...)

In my spare time on weekends I would travel to southeastern France's Wine Country.  You could hop a train and be there in just a few short hours.  I toured the region extensively. I got to know the wineries, and the wines.  I made friends with many of the old winemakers, most of whom were aging Jews who had survived the German concentration camps.  I actually met and learned at the feet of one Mr. Rothschild, scion of a 500 year-old family, whose name is synonymous with fine French wine.  He was actually incarcerated in a concentration camp, although one much nicer than those that were designed to murder millions of his fellow Jews. After all, the Nazis wished to keep him, and those like him, in good shape to make wine for them after they had conquered the world.  That plan didn't work out so well, did it?

It was there I learned to love good wine and to learn how to speak of it and teach it to others. My love of fine wine was firmly established and nurtured there and continues to this day.  But enough of that. That's for another posting.  This one is about something entirely different.

It's about Paris, and France, and the rest of Europe committing slow-motion suicide.  And about us perhaps doing the same thing if we don't change the course of action upon which we're now embarked by the liberal weenies if they actually get their way.

While in Paris a local French guy with whom I used to get together and drink, often heavily, began to tell me just how freeeeeking lazy the French really were, and might still be. He, a Parisian policeman, confided in me that the French were so lazy they would not clean their own houses, or wet nurse their own kids, or wash their own clothes, or mow their own lawns, or do any of the domestic crap that comes along with living a normal life.  

And how did they get around it?  They imported domestics from less well-off parts of the Third World. Most generally those parts were places the French had at one time colonized via their once-fine military, such as in India, North Africa and the Middle East. Remember the French Foreign Legion?  Tough boys, they were.  And the area they helped conquer and control provided cheap labor for the folks back home.

They brought in hundreds of thousands of mostly Muslims to work as maids and babysitters and domestics and gardeners. Life was good for the Parisians, because they offloaded tedious domestic work to their lessers.  Not so much so for the disaffected, mainly Muslims who wound up with a supposedly better life serving as maids and babysitters and groundskeepers and scut workers, but were enjoying it far less than they had anticipated.   

And they were (and are) pissed! 

And so they chose not to assimilate. They all gathered together in small parts of what had been slum areas of Paris. They lived together 8 or 10 to cold-water, walk-up flats.  They suffered often without heat. They were paid poorly and had no alternative, having been forced to sign non-recourse agreements to cover the cost of their passage to France. So they lived together, and bitched, and moaned, and built mosques, and planned to get their revenge once they had out-produced their French employers. And by out-produced, I mean, out reproduced.  

The rate of "replacement" in France was, and is, about 0.6 to one.  That means each French family of two now produces only 0.6 children, or less than one child per couple. Whereas, the average Muslim family of two produces an average of 7.8 children! As you can see, it doesn't take too many generations for the Islamic families to grow from a mere fraction of French society, which they were, into a significant minority, which they now are.  Recent stats put that minority in the major cities at somewhere above 15%.  A minority that is now so vocal, so demanding, and so dangerous that they must now be considered a force within French society.  A force that scares the Hell of the French, and now, with uninterrupted and unrestrained immigration, the rest of Europe.

Think of Flint, Michigan.  Its population is now more than 50% Muslim. It's city council is owned and operated by Muslims.  A big chunk of Flint operates, illegally, I might add, under Shariah Law. That's the strict Islamic code that admonishes to you beat your wife, cut off the hand of someone who steals from you, and stone to death women who embarrass their husbands.  

Now take that example and blow it up many, many times and overlay it on Paris and you have a glimpse of what France is currently experiencing - and fearing!  They do pretty much whatever the Hell they want. And no one, no one can stop them.  

When I was there they began to experience a rash of car burnings in that area of Paris dominated by Muslim Middle- Eastern expatriates. And I mean exactly that; they would all get together and burn somebody else's cars each and every weekend, by the dozens!  For sport! The police couldn't stop them, and didn't even try, as to venture into their stronghold would be to put their own lives in mortal danger.  Many tried, and many died. So they just put up with it.  

Let me restate that: Police won't go into these Muslim-controlled neighborhoods!  At all!

Where were they?  And are?  In the south and southeast of Paris, there's Noisy-Le-Grand.  In the southwest is Marais.  In the north there's Argenteuil, and Epinay-Sur-Seine, and Tremblay-En-France and Bobigny.  All are Muslim enclaves. And all are dangerous to anyone who isn't of their particular persuasion.  

Flash forward to now.  The local press doesn't even publicize the number of cars burned each weekend until it surpasses 600!  I'm thinking the car companies are happy about that, as they get to sell more cars.  Especially French cars, which nobody else anywhere on Earth wants. At all.  But the insurance companies must be apoplectic. And just imagine what your car insurance must cost if your zip code is anywhere near one of these Parisian cities?

The rate of Muslim migration to Western Europe will exceed one million during 2017.  One Million!  And near as I can see there's simply no way to vet them.  No way to determine which ones are running from violence and intimidation toward liberation and freedom, and which ones are running to a place where they can wreck havoc.  Kill, maim, stab, wound, shoot and blow up.  No DMV where they come from to check with.  No central registry of those desirous of heading out for better places. Their lives suck.  And so they have so little to live for.  They're fodder for the Imams at the local mosque to talk them into blowing themselves into little bitty parts while taking a whole bunch of innocents with them, fast on their way to collecting those 72 virgins. Think Boston Marathon Bombing if you doubt me.  

Have you seen the many TV reports of "migrants" flooding into the Greek Isles and Italy and Europe?  Did you see the recent footage of the boatload of young men washing up on a Spanish beach while vacationers watched, mouths agape, and simply walked into their new home?  Have you noticed that nearly all those "migrants" are young men, in their mid-twenties?  Have you noticed there are almost no women and children?  Have you ever wondered why?  

So while German Chancellor Angela Merkel is importing a whole bunch of "migrants" this year, and is incurring the enmity of her countrymen by so doing, the Muslim "migrants" are not so quietly amassing the strength they will need to physically take over Europe.  They have already made a nuisance of themselves in the Netherlands and Belgium and Luxembourg and Spain, and now they're doing the same in Germany. One Rebecca Sommer, founder of the immigrant-focused organization called "Working Group Asylum," was just quoted as saying, "It's too late for Germany."  Sad.

I'm told that whenever their population exceeds 5% of the population of any country they begin to exert their negative influence.  It's now happening in Germany, Holland, and Spain and many of the Baltic countries. 

(Google Geert Wilders, Dutch politician, if you need some proof.)

You probably know that London has just elected its first Muslim Mayor. And London, which is well on its way to becoming majority Muslim, is now being called "Londonistan."  London! Think about it.

You surely know that Islam is 1,400 years old.  And for all of those 1,400 years, Muslims have been exhorted to either (1) convert all "nonbelievers," or (2) tax the hell out of them via "jizyah," as they call it, for being second class, non-Muslims, or (3) cut off their heads. There is no other choice for true Muslim followers.  The Quran (however it's spelled) exhorts them to do so.  It's only 600 pages long.  Read it if you doubt me.  I have.  

They have pillaged, and plundered, and killed, and maimed for the entirety of their time on Earth. And they still do. 

We are often reminded of the crusades, Christianity's response to Islamic forays into what's now western Europe. But what you don't often hear is that Muslim hordes were wrecking havoc all over the place for more than 300 years before the crusades began. They have not stopped.  They will not stop.  And we have to be aware of that fact.

Consider all the mass shootings and bombings you've read and heard about over the past decade or so.  Nearly all were the result of jihadist Islamic radical assaults on our freedom. Fort Hood. San Bernardino. The Navy Yard. The Boston Marathon.  Orlando.  And what have our leaders done to protect us from such savage assaults?  They've declared schools and malls and shopping centers and forts to be "gun free zones."  How stupid is that?  And they've done whatever they can to expedite increased gun control measures. Europe is almost entirely a "gun free zone."  It's a special sort of dumbass fool who feels the need to disarm the public when people who hate us and want us dead are hunting us down like dogs.  

And recognizing that guns are hard to come by over there, the jihadists have resorted to simply mowing down dozens of innocents using rented cars and trucks.  Like just happened in Spain.  Sad.

America is importing Muslims by the thousands to America. There's a small town in North Dakota of less than 10,000 that was ordered to receive 10,000 Muslim refugees a couple of years back.  Another small town in Rhode Island was told to welcome several thousand more.  They overwhelm our schools and our hospitals and our police.  What sort of craziness is this?  

We as a society must maintain our vigilance against any threat that could damage our society.  So should the rest of the world.  But it seems that they are so eaten up with political correctness that they will risk their very existence to prove they are not anti-Muslim.  Not so very smart...

Well, my friends, as the old saying goes, if it walks like a duck, and it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, it's most likely a duck. Perhaps we should look to the boys on Duck Dynasty to tell us how we should respond... 

You Think Your Home Town's Cool?

Well, your home town's got nuthin' on mine...

Everybody's proud of their home town.  Thatzafact.  'Cause that's where "home" is.  Or was, if you decided to bail on it and head out to "The Big City."  Like me.  But no matter, it was, and shall always be, your home town.  

But very few home towns are special due to some reason or other.  Like Boston is special because of that whole "Founding Fathers" and "Paul Revere" and "Tea Party" and "Freedom Trail" thing.  And Chicago's famous for being really windy while boasting the most murders in America.  And San Antonio for the Alamo.  And Seattle for the Space Needle.  But for every Boston or Chi-town or San Antone or Seattle, there's a Pumpkin Center, Missouri.  I know.  I used to drive through it to get to my college town.  And it was one of those "don't blink," wide-spot-in-the-road, one stop light places, for if you did, you'd miss it entirely.  

It was a dark and stormy night.  Oh wait, that's another story.  For this one we'll focus our attention on small towns and for what they are known...if anything.  Most are bucolic, comfy little unimportant burgs which mean nothing at all except to the people who live there.  But my home town is one of those "special places" from whence neat little things have happened. And my home town, Chillicothe, Missouri, was special for an unusual reason.  Ready?  Sliced bread was invented there.  Really...

It was 1928.  An Iowa inventor named Otto Rohwedder moved to Chillicothe, a small, quiet, 10,000 population farming community in the Green Hills of northwestern Missouri.  Perturbed that bread came in a big loaf, forcing somebody desirous of a slice of bread to, ummm, slice it for themselves, he decided to take matters into his own hands and invent a solution.  He came up with the Rohwedder Bread Slicer.  And forever after our puny little lives were changed.  No longer did we need to rip off a chunk of bread into which we dunk our au jus, we now had a way to create a one-handed meal.  In fact, I could argue that this one invention was why America became the Great Country it has.  Think of it.  We all know that fully 90% of all our goods and merchandise is ferried by trucks.  And we know that a truck driver can drive his big ol' truck down the highway at flank speed while holding his double ham and cheese in one hand.  If he had to pull over and stop to grab some grub, he would no longer be productive, robbing us of his productivity until his gut was filled.  Not good, 'Murica!

So, not knowing about this Earth-shattering invention, Chillicothe continued upon its merry way for almost 90 years.  And then someone sort of mentioned that, maybe, sliced bread was invented there, and the town came to life.  The Sliced Bread Corporation was put together back in 2003 to capitalize upon this momentous discovery.  And, aided by Rep, Rusty Black (R-Chillicothe), and the State grant that the City was awarded, the building where the bread was first sliced is being restored and prepped as a museum.  

So, my friends, and you ARE my friends, Chillicothe has formally adopted the slogan, "Home of Sliced Bread."  I ask, can your hometown stack up against mine?  I doubt it, Pilgrim.  Every time I pull a couple of slices of bread out of the wrapper and prepare to make a sandwich, I'm reminded that I came from a wonderful place that can boast about a bit of its past history that has impacted everyone's life.  And, if you ever find yourself in Northwestern Missouri, please stop by and pay your respects.

I hear you thinking that sliced bread isn't all that important.  But how'd you like to call Cawker City, Kansas your home town?  It's known as the home of the "World's Biggest Ball of Twine."