This was the geocache we placed near Dworshak lake on Sunday.  It has the nickname of Elk Creek Cliff.

I recommend boat access but I suspect it wouldn't be all that difficult by road with the last 1/4 mile or so walking through some brush.  It's probably 150 yards of walking through trees and brush even by boat.

Piewacket, our 18 year-old cat, was gone for a couple days and came home Saturday night.  He was in bad shape.  He hasn't been well for some time but came home gaunt and limping.  He would drink but not eat.  Barb and Nancy took him to the vet today and had him “put to sleep“.

More vehicle problems too.  Barb's Jeep was barely running by the time she got to work today so she turned around and came back.  She made it back okay.  Martin's Auto Service fixed it for her.  Said it was the spark plugs.  They gave it a tune up and Barb has a vehicle again so she can work--as soon as she has recovered from the loss of Piewacket.

Saturday we picked up Xenia at camp and brought her home.  She survived but it was tough for a few days.  They didn't pick up on her being a vegatarian (despite the fact that we told them three different ways).  She survived on green salad for several days before finally asking for more food.  See her stories and pictures for more detail.

Sunday Barb and I took her brother and his grandson on a boat ride on Dworshak.  We found a geocache and we placed a geocache there while we were at it.

The AP reported last night

Off-duty and retired police officers would have the right to carry concealed weapons in any state under legislation the Senate approved by voice vote Wednesday and sent to the president.

The bill, passed by the House last month, would override some states' prohibitions on carrying concealed firearms. Many states do not recognize other states' concealed weapons permits.

The President is expected to sign it.  Although this isn't everything I want to see (every free and sane person, every place, should be able to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves and other innocent people) it is a good first step.  The anti-gun people have a difficult time articulating effective opposition to it and as more and more people carry these type of defensive tools it becomes more and more difficult for the general population to understand why some people start foaming at the mouth at people being allowed to use the best tools for the job of self-defense.  One step at a time.  That's how we got here and that is the best way to get back to where we belong.

Sunday Barb and I dropped Xenia off at Ross Point Camp where our little witch risked being burned at the stake or being drown.  We continuted on to Missoula where we spent the night.  Monday we hiked around Lolo Hot Springs then continued on to Jerry Johnson Hot Springs.  It is about a mile from the road and it was a nice walk through the woods to it.  We took a few pictures with my new digital camera which generally turned out well.

Kim is moving out this weekend.  She's not 18 yet but we co-signed her lease on an apartment in Moscow.  She will have two roommates and they will have a two bedroom apartment to share.  She is taking the old sofa we were going to throw away and one of them will sleep on the hide-a-bed.  It comes not a moment too soon for some of the others in the family.  Xenia wrote me a long email and attached eight pictures (with circles and arrows) explaining why it was no longer tolerable for Kim and her friends to be hanging out at our place.

Also related to Kim is that a couple weeks ago I checked the oil in the pickup and found it did not touch the dipstick.  I told her she should not start it until it was filled.  I checked it a couple days later after she had driven it and it still didn't touch the dipstick.  I told her she was done driving the pickup for a while and disabled it so she couldn't start it even if she wanted too.  I filled it up with oil and enable it last weekend.  But it had a knock in the engine.  Kim drove it a little bit the other day and it came home with a very bad knock.  It's done.  That's two vehicles she has totaled.

I read nearly all of the “gun violence“ postings on Join Together Online.  Most of the time they are condensed versions of news stories with an anti-freedom spin.  Occasionally they will have their own writers or a VPC or Brady Bunch press release or 'report'.  Here is a story from someone who I believe to be one of the Join Together Online staffers:

http://www1.jointogether.org/gv/news/features/reader/0,2061,572284,00.html

With the recent passage of a "shall issue" handgun law in Ohio, the number of states that have eased restrictions on concealed gun carrying has risen to 35. But in the face of this onslaught, four heartland states are holding fast to their long-time laws that prohibit the carrying of concealed guns by people other than police officers.

[snip]

Activists in these states say that the task of keeping shall-issue laws from passage is a difficult one, but as Bonavia stated during the recent legislative fight in Wisconsin, "Proponents of (concealed carry) laws claim that concealed weapons will provide individuals with an unparalleled means of self-defense while offering society an effective method of decreasing crime. Experts, scientific evidence, experience, and common sense contradict these claims."

If it isn't painfully obvious to them then surely it is to all rational people--if people legally carrying personal protection tools are a threat to society then why isn't there data to support that conclusion.  Is the best conclusion their “scientific evidence“ can come up with is this?

... Stanford University Law School economist John J. Donohue has conducted an exhaustive study of the effects of all shall-issue states and found that these laws don't reduce crime and may actually increase it.

The vast majority of studies show violent crime is reduced when people are not prohibited from exercising their inalienable right to self-defense.  They found one researcher who was willing to say it “may actually increase it“?  If it did actually increase it then with all the states recognizing peoples right to self-defense should provide lots of data to support that claim.  The data doesn't exist and all they can do is whine about it.  It's about time they had to come face-to-face with their lies.  It makes me smile.  If I didn't know that these people won't give up until someone, figuratively, drives a wooden stake through their hearts I would open a bottle of champagne and toast to their demise.  Anyone have some wooden stakes?  I haven't had a glass of champagne in a long time.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59948-2004Jun22.html

First off I need to say I was wrong about something. I implied that the worst our soldiers did in the Baghdad prison was to humiliate some prisoners. It turns out that wasn't true. At least one actually died and there were some activities that bordered on torture. The people responsible are being punished. Compare that to the consequences to the scumbags killing innocent people. Are any of them being punished by their peers? Are any of them even being publically opposed by their peers?

It is my belief they will continue to kill innocents as long as there are mild or no consequences for their actions. I believe one solution would be to announce, and then follow through if necessary, that we will bomb a mosque every time they murder an innocent (non-military) person. As I said in a comment on the Kim duToit blog:

Leave no stone on top of another -- hell don't leave any stones -- turn them all into dust and their fundamental molecular components and put that dust high into the wind. Don't leave anything but a gaping crater behind. Let them know that as far as they are concerned we are their gods and that these gods have a fury and a fist they have never seen the equal of.

Do it 3:00 AM or some such time when the chances of mass casualties are reduced. But be sure we do it. They will fill their mosques with innocent women and children but we could chose the one with the minimum number of casualties and then the second and third time there will be far fewer willing to risk death to support the murders.