Somebody on the internets doesn’t like me…

I’m scratching my head over this one.

 

I found this link to my blog and followed it back. 

 

http://plowshareforge.blogspot.com/2008/09/lets-take-break-for-stupid.html

 

Apparently this guy doesn’t like me much.  I’m not really sure why, as apparently it has something to do with the fact that I despise the leadership of the Democratic party, but it isn’t really clear. He quotes a big bit from Mad Ogre, and then talks about how I’m his “protégé”.

 

Okay, whatever, but I’m not sure what the exact subject is supposed to be. For somebody who is apparently so much smarter than me, you would think he would include a reason for my apparent ignorance. 

 

I’m not exactly sure what galls him about “Larry the goateed, Mormon, gun-shop employee” – Another one? Is this some sort of a fucking movement or what?”

 

I don’t know if it’s being Mormon, having a goatee, or working at a gun store, but something there apparently offends him.  Yep, I’m Mormon, proud of it.  I’ve had a goatee every day for the last fifteen or so years (mostly because I have Homer Simpson face and can grow a goatee in less than 48 hours), and I work at a gun store. (technically, I own the gun store, but whatever).

 

If he wanted to truly give me a good fisking, he should pick something I said and then poke holes in it. If he thinks I’m some sort of Republican apologist, he apparently hasn’t read this much, since my opinion of John McCain has always hovered somewhere around bat guano, but that still puts him ten million cool points ahead of Barack Obama, but that’s just because I’m racist… against Marxists.

 

I wouldn’t be too hard on him but for the fact he just grates on me.

 I would welcome him being hard on me, because maybe then I would have an idea what he’s talking about…

 

His stated purpose in his blog is on one hand quite legitimate. He wants to shill his book. No flies on that. Flogging the goods, that’s what I’m doing here (really).

I managed to take a minor self-published book, spam it across the entire internet, get onto a national best-seller list, and get a publishing contract with a major publisher, while every professional in the business told me I was sure to fail. Flogging. Check.

 

But his other purpose, to “make fun of stupid people”… God, he’s making it too easy.

 

If you’ve got the evidence that Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden are in fact, not stupid, I would love to see it.  Nancy is probably the single most ineffective congressional leader in the history of the US (and I’m a student of history, so I would like to hear ONE that’s been worse, ‘cause I sure can’t think of them). Harry is a hypocrite of the highest order, who I hold in special loathing because he’s supposedly in my same religion, while being the leader of the party that champions killing 40 MILLION kids a YEAR.  Both of these highly intelligent leaders are on public record saying how the war in Iraq was lost, and then immediately saying that they supported the troops.  Go Team! Too bad you’re gonna LOSE!

 

Your presidential nominee is a smooth-talking socialist who wants to take money from the productive and give it to every social program you can imagine. His background is as a community agitator. His mentors and friends are criminals, terrorists, and the least crazy one just plain hates white people.  His running mate wrote the assault weapons ban, and this is while he’s now telling us he supports our 2^nd Amendment rights to hunt ducks.

 

This good blogger bashed Mad Ogre because he voted for George Bush.  Dude, I voted for George Bush. Doesn’t mean I like him a whole lot. But I would still take him over Al Gore (destroy the economy for a global crisis that may not actually exist, and if it does, we may or may not have anything to actually do with it) or John Kerry (gee whiz, another east coast elitist prick, who wants to tax us to death and take away our firearms, what a winning combo).

 

If I grate on you, I’m going to try to turn that up to a friggin’ belt-sander. I’m no Republican shill. I’m a Conservative. That means that I mistrust the government, and am of the firm belief that anything they touch turns to crap. So does George Bush suck? Yeah, a lot, primarily when he acts like a Liberal. But that whole killing terrorists thing falls under providing for the common defense, and he does that way better than the schlubs the other side keeps nominating. 

 

The sad fact is, if your people were running the show, Iraq would be a smoking hole, and the bad guys would be here.  In reality, we won, we killed piles of them. I’m actually looking at taking a contract admin gig for a couple of months in a place that Harry Reid, less than 6 months ago, was ready to cede to the bad guys. 

 

We have an energy crisis because the Democrats have stood firmly in the way of using our own resources.  We’re in a financial crisis because most Democrats and a fat share of Republicans who flunked Econ 101 have mandated stupid behavior on the part of financial institutions. (and if you want to call me stupid about that, I spent 6 years as a financial analyst for a Fortune 500 company. I would love to tell you just how useful Sarbanes-Oxley actually is.)

 

I don’t care for George Bush because of things like what we’re seeing this week.  I’m a capitalist. If a business fails, it deserves to fail, and have its assets bought by somebody smarter. When you prop up stupid behavior for years and years, eventually there will be a correction.  We’re seeing that correction now. If government had stayed out of this to begin with, then we wouldn’t be seeing the massive problem we are now. But when you dam the river, with bigger and bigger dams, when it fails, it is going to be a doozy. With the government not jumping in all the time, we would see a constant punishing of stupidity and rewarding of smarts.  But when the government gets involved, it mandates stupidity, punishes the smart, and then takes their money to give to crack whores.

 

So if you’ve got a problem with me, Plowshare, please, bring it to the table. I would love to hear how awesome the Democrats are. Personally I think they suck beyond all comprehension, and the Republicans are slightly less offensive.      

Trouble on The High Road

As some of you have seen, there has been a lot of trouble on www.thehighroad.org

 

If you’ve been following this little internet soap-opera on some of the other boards, let me just say that either way, you’re not getting the whole story, regardless of who you’re listening too.

 

I’ve been a moderator at THR since it was founded. I was the 5^th person to register. I feel like I put a lot of time into making the board what it eventually turned in to. Over the last few years I’ve not been nearly as active, but owning your own business, writing books, teaching, and working 70 hours a week does that to you. 

 

A few months ago it was discovered that THR was worth a significant amount of money. We were the largest gun board that didn’t have any advertising on it. A company approached us with an offer.  And then everything went to hell.

 

There was an ownership dispute between the founder, Oleg Volk, and the guy who did the technical heavy lifting, Derek Zeanah. This went on for a few months in private. Attempts at mediation by some of the mod staff, myself included, failed.

 

Oleg then decided to take the fight public. Which was the breaking point for me. The value of THR isn’t in any physical assets or a domain name, it is in the community. That’s what brings us to where we are right now.

 

I’m not picking a side in this fight. Effective yesterday, I resigned as a moderator at THR. Trust me when I say that as an insider that this isn’t quite as black and white as you may think it is. I do believe Oleg is the owner of THR, but that Derek deserved just compensation for his efforts. I can’t support either side when I think both of them aren’t making good decisions.  I’ve been friends with Oleg for many years, and I’ve always respected Derek. I’m good friends with many of the staff at THR, and it sucks to have friends pick sides.

 

I’m going to miss THR. It was the best forum on the web. Ironically, as I look at my best friends in real life, I originally met over half of them on TFL or THR. I’ll remain a member over there, but I have no idea how this drama is going to play out or if it will survive what’s coming. My company has a web forum at www.fbmg.yuku.com I’ve offered it as a hookup place for members at THR should anything bad happen suddenly.

 

This whole thing has left me sad, and a frankly, a little pissed off. I expected better from some people, and I was let down.    

Annoucement, I’m not teaching Concealed Carry at Cabelas anymore

Ever since Cabelas opened in Lehi, Utah, I have taught their CCW classes. I’ve taught well over 2,000 people there, most of those for free, and they have never once had a single complaint about my class. In fact, every bit of feedback they’ve ever gotten has been positive.

 

But once again, in the corporate world, being good doesn’t necessarily get you rewarded.  I was recently notified that Cabela’s Corporate has instructed the locals that they will be using a new instructor.

 

So looks like I’m done teaching at Cabelas, through no fault of my own. Somebody in Nebraska, or wherever, said use this other dude. I have no idea who he is, or how good of an instructor he is.  Apparently he thinks he’s pretty good, because he costs a bunch more.

 

My class was $40.  His is $75.  His includes finger prints and photos.  Mine included optional finger prints, photos, notarization, and delivery to BCI for an additional $20.  So thanks to the help of Dr. Dave Gardner (notary and finger printer extraordinaire) who has been helping me for the last few months, you got more services for less.

 

Also, I taught anyone in the military, Active, Reserve, or Guard for free. I taught anyone who worked at any Utah school for free, teachers, admin, I don’t care if you’re the janitor, work in a school, free CCW.  And finally, I taught any student of any Utah college or university for free. 

 

I’m told the new guy might possibly offer a small discount for military. 

 

I put my money where my mouth is. I’ve taught over $20,000 worth of free CCW classes to military, students, and teachers in the last year. And one of the primary reasons I was able to get away with that was because I had a really large classroom to work with.  It takes me 5 hours to teach a few people in their kitchen or a room full of 50 people.

 

I’ll still keep teaching those groups for free, because I’m stubborn like that, but right now I’m limited to teaching at my shop in Draper. For those of you that have been in some of the bigger classes I taught there, keep in mind that usually half the people in the room weren’t paying anything.

 

In the past I just told students to refer their friends to Cabelas to get into a class.  Can’t do that anymore, so please contact me at FBMG for your CCW instruction. 

 

If you were planning on going to Cabelas for your class, especially if you were in one of the free groups, be sure to let them know your opinion of their new arrangement.