Sean sent me this link and I pulled the following insights from it:

During his six months at the Colorado State College of Education (and thereafter in California), Sayyid's hungry disapproval found a variety of targets. American lawns (a distressing example of selfishness and atomism), American conversation ('money, movie stars and models of cars'), American jazz ('a type of music invented by Blacks to please their primitive tendencies - their desire for noise and their appetite for sexual arousal'), and, of course, American women: here another one pops up, telling Sayyid that sex is merely a physical function, untrammelled by morality. American places of worship he also detests (they are like cinemas or amusement arcades), but by now he is pining for Cairo, and for company, and he does something rash. Qutb joins a club - where an epiphany awaits him. 'The dance is inflamed by the notes of the gramophone,' he wrote; 'the dance-hall becomes a whirl of heels and thighs, arms enfold hips, lips and breasts meet, and the air is full of lust.' You'd think that the father of Islamism had exposed himself to an early version of Studio 54 or even Plato's Retreat. But no: the club he joined was run by the church, and what he is describing, here, is a chapel hop in Greeley, Colorado. And Greeley, Colorado, in 1949, was dry

...

Qutb is the father of Islamism. Here are the chief tenets he inspired: that America, and its clients, are jahiliyya (the word classically applied to pre-Muhammadan Arabia - barbarous and benighted); that America is controlled by Jews; that Americans are infidels, that they are animals, and, worse, arrogant animals, and are unworthy of life; that America promotes pride and promiscuity in the service of human degradation; that America seeks to 'exterminate' Islam - and that it will accomplish this not by conquest, not by colonial annexation, but by example. As Bernard Lewis puts it in The Crisis of Islam

'This is what is meant by the term the Great Satan, applied to the United States by the late Ayatollah Khomeini. Satan as depicted in the Qur'an is neither an imperialist nor an exploiter. He is a seducer, 'the insidious tempter who whispers in the hearts of men' (Qur'an, CXIV, 4, 5).

...

Qutb is the father of Islamism. Here are the chief tenets he inspired: that America, and its clients, are jahiliyya (the word classically applied to pre-Muhammadan Arabia - barbarous and benighted); that America is controlled by Jews; that Americans are infidels, that they are animals, and, worse, arrogant animals, and are unworthy of life; that America promotes pride and promiscuity in the service of human degradation; that America seeks to 'exterminate' Islam - and that it will accomplish this not by conquest, not by colonial annexation, but by example. As Bernard Lewis puts it in The Crisis of Islam

'This is what is meant by the term the Great Satan, applied to the United States by the late Ayatollah Khomeini. Satan as depicted in the Qur'an is neither an imperialist nor an exploiter. He is a seducer, 'the insidious tempter who whispers in the hearts of men' (Qur'an, CXIV, 4, 5).

...

The fact of expansion underwrote the mandate of heaven. And now, for the past 300 or 400 years, observable reality has propounded a rebuttal: the argument from manifest failure. As one understands it, in the Islamic cosmos there is nothing more painful than the suspicion that something has denatured the covenant with God. This unbearable conclusion must naturally be denied, but it is subliminally present, and accounts, perhaps, for the apocalyptic hurt of the Islamist.

...

As a Sunni military man put it, Iraqis hate Iraq - or 'Iraq', a concept that has brought them nothing but suffering. There is no nationalist instinct; the instinct is for atomisation.

...

We may wonder how the Islamists feel when they compare India to Pakistan, one a burgeoning democratic superpower, the other barely distinguishable from a failed state. What Went Wrong? asked Bernard Lewis, at book length. The broad answer would be institutionalised irrationalism; and the particular focus would be the obscure logic that denies the Islamic world the talent and energy of half its people. No doubt the impulse towards rational inquiry is by now very weak in the rank and file of the Muslim male. But we can dwell on the memory of those images from Afghanistan: the great waves of women hurrying to school.

...

What would happen if we spent some of the next 300 billion dollars (this is Liz Cheney's thrust) on the raising of consciousness in the Islamic world? The effect would be inherently explosive, because the dominion of the male is Koranic - the unfalsifiable word of God, as dictated to the Prophet:

'Men have authority over women because God has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because God has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them, forsake them in beds apart, and beat them. Then if they obey you, take no further action against them. Surely God is high, supreme' (4:34).

Can we imagine seeing men on the march in defence of their right to beat their wives? And if we do see it, then what? Would that win hearts and minds? The martyrs of this revolution would be sustained by two obvious truths: the binding authority of scripture, all over the world, is very seriously questioned; and women, by definition, are not a minority. They would know, too, that their struggle is a heroic assault on the weight of the past - the alpweight of 14 centuries.

...

I will never forget the look on the gatekeeper's face, at the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, when I suggested, perhaps rather airily, that he skip some calendric prohibition and let me in anyway. His expression, previously cordial and cold, became a mask; and the mask was saying that killing me, my wife, and my children was something for which he now had warrant. I knew then that the phrase 'deeply religious' was a grave abuse of that adverb. Something isn't deep just because it's all that is there; it is more like a varnish on a vacuum. Millennial Islamism is an ideology superimposed upon a religion - illusion upon illusion. It is not merely violent in tendency. Violence is all that is there.

They think of us as inferior, arrogant, and sinful. It might have been acceptable for us do so in isolation but we, the west, tempt and corrupt them. And even worse we have been destroying their culture via our temptations and demonstrating their inferiority. It's sort of an extreme case of When Prophecy Fails. Not only must they increase their proselyting when their prophecy of superiority fails they must convert or kill the unbelievers.

The suggested solution here is interesting and worthy of throwing into our multiple front attack on Islamic extremism--liberate the women.

Twenty people wounded or killed. Hundreds of people were present but none of them were allowed to legally possess a firearm there. The person willing to break the law prohibited murder obviously wasn't that concerned about the law against possessing a firearm. The victims were disarmed by their own government and that government bears a large portion of the responsibility for those injuries and deaths. And notice how the attacker was stopped? By people with guns. Don't give me any crap about "bringing a gun into the situation just increases the violence". It put a stop to the violence. If the victims hadn't been disarmed they could have stopped the violence much sooner.

A 25-year-old man who mounted a deadly shooting rampage at a downtown Montreal college had posted pictures of himself on the Internet with a rifle and said he was feeling "crazy" and "postal" and was drinking whiskey hours before the attack.

The man, identified by police as Kimveer Gill, also said on a blog that he liked to play a role-playing Internet game about the Columbine High School shootings in Colorado and wanted to die "in a hail of gunfire."

In the end, Gill dressed in a black trench coat like the Columbine shooters put his own gun to his head and pulled the trigger during a shootout with officers at Dawson College on Wednesday, police said.

Gill, wielding a rapid-fire rifle and two other weapons, had already wounded 20 other people by the time he took his own life. One of his victims, an 18-year-old woman, later died. Four others remained in critical condition Thursday, including three in extremely critical condition and one in a deep coma.

...

Police initially said Gill shot himself but later Wednesday they said they thought officers killed Gill during an exchange of fire. On Thursday, however, Francois Dore of the Quebec provincial police said "preliminary results of the autopsy showed that he died of self-inflicted wounds." Dore said police shot Gill in the arm before he turned his gun on himself.

"Remember September 13th" should be the slogan of the people of Canada as they march in the streets by the tens of thousands and demand their government stop infringing their inalienable rights.

The state is a divine institution. Without it we have anarchy, and the lawlessness of anarchy is counter to the natural law: so we abjure all political theories which view the state as inherently and necessarily evil. But it is the state which has been in history the principal instrument of abuse of the people, and so it is central to the conservatives' program to keep the state from  accumulating any but the most necessary powers.

William F. Buckley, Jr.
[So why do conservatives think it is so important to get the state involved in sexual preferences and practices?--Joe]

My way overdue survey for Boomershoot 2006 is now available:

http://survey.boomershoot.org/

It doesn't matter if you were there as a shooter, spotter, spectator, or even if you just heard about the event and didn't attend. There is a survey for everyone.

I want feedback of any type. But just because I'm listening doesn't mean I'll change. But I will consider it. And if you want to send an email or give me a call that works too.

I plan to announce the dates and prices for Boomershoot 2007 sometime this weekend. If you have input that might affect that please get it to me before then. But even if you run across this posting in March of 2007 the survey will probably still be up and I'll still be listening.

Thanks for your input.

Saturday I put in a culvert for easier access to the Boomershoot explosives magazine Ry named the Taj Mahal. This will make it easier for Boomershoot helpers (who are ATF approved explosives handlers) to get to the explosives magazine. I had been thinking about it for a while and finally made it happen. It was either that or get snorkel kits for their 4x4s. More pictures are here.

While I was in the neighborhood I talked to our neighbors just across the road from the Boomershoot site. I want to help them get high speed Internet access (currently they are just on dial-up) and then making the entire Boomershoot site a WiFi hot-spot. They seemed quite agreeable to it and I'll probably work on that enhancement early next spring. It depends somewhat on the survey of Boomershooters and potential Boomershooters I'll be doing this week (sometime tonight I'll be posting the survey link here and sending out emails). If no one is interested then I might not bother with the hassle and expense.

Boomershoot--It's not just one weekend a year, it's a year around commitment.

If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.

Emma Goldman
[I'm not quite that cynical but it does have a grain of truth in it. Think McCain-Feingold.--Joe]

Part of due process is being able to confront your accuser(s). Apparently that isn't part of the law in some cases in the UK and this guy spent five years in jail before they figured out the accuser was a liar:

A father who served five years in jail for sexually assaulting a woman had his conviction quashed yesterday after new evidence suggested his victim was a liar who inflicted her own injuries.

Warren Blackwell, 36, embraced his wife, Tanya, outside the Court of Appeal in London, saying he would always love her for standing by him. But the ordeal made him "a very angry man indeed".

"It took the police and the justice system nine months to convict me of a crime that not only did I not commit, but a crime that never even took place," he said in a statement read by his solicitor.

And not only that she still can't be named:

"It has taken almost seven years to clear my name." The court was told that the woman, who cannot be named, had made strikingly similar claims of other sex attacks, had an ability to lie and a possible propensity to self harm.

...

Mr Justice Tugendhat said that when Parliament passed the law granting lifetime anon-ymity to complainants in sex cases it did not contemplate someone acting as she had.

"There may, in future, be another case in which she makes allegations against another man."

We have a Constitution which was designed to prevent these sort of abuses by government. It's too bad our government doesn't abide by it. But at least it gives us a clear goal in our pursuit of regaining our freedom.

This wouldn't work with me and I can't imagine it working any better with Columbian gang members:

BOGOTA, Colombia, Sept 12 (Reuters) - They are calling it the "crossed legs" strike.

Fretting over crime and violence, girlfriends and wives of gang members in the Colombian city of Pereira have called a ban on sex to persuade their menfolk to give up the gun.

I have some suggestions for Jeff Soyer in regards to his last sentence in this post where he advocates some changes in the hunting regulations:

• There are no bag limits.
• The season is year around as with other varmints.
• There are no restrictions on hunting with various lures, calls, traps, poisons, calibers, spot lights, magazine capacity, rate of fire, or use of sound suppression accessories as long as a reasonable person would conclude that the hunting methodology would normally be expected to result in a humane kill.
• The markings and other means of identification for the various species should be published in the hunting regulations and be regarded as definitive.
• Hunters are required to notify authorities of wounded animals who have escaped as soon as is practical so others can be engaged to track and put down the animal in a humane manner.
• All carcass disposal is the responsibility of the local government body. The government body may do this in any manner it so decides as long as it does not endanger the public health. This may include, as decided by the local government body and local public health officials, the sale of the carcass in whole or in part for any lawful use.
• Hunters are required, if they can do so without endangering themselves or other innocent life, to guard the carcass until the police have arrived to properly strip the carcass of valuables, identify the species, verify it was a legitimate kill, and search for evidence as might be needed in civil or criminal cases.
• Sales of valuables found on carcasses shall be used for the purposes of carcass disposal by the local government body. Except:
  • Valuables identifiable as stolen property shall be returned to their rightful owners or their heirs.
  • Valuables needed as evidence in criminal or civil cases shall be retained as necessary.

When someone tells me "anyplace is fine" when we are trying to decide where to go for a meal I frequently tell them "Sankt Gertruds Kloster". When they ask where it's at and for directions I tell them it's in Copenhagen, Denmark. They then get this confused look on their face (or a frown as in this case). You shouldn't tell me anyplace is fine. If you don't mean what you say or say what you mean I'm likely to expose to you your inability to communicate accurately and amuse myself in the process.

Regardless, my boss and his wife are really into fine restaurants as well as travel. I suggested this unique restaurant in Copenhagen for his benefit. I'm not sure I would travel all the way from the Pacific Northwest just for dinner but if I were spending time in the area anyway I would be sure to go back again.

I was there in ’79 so I’m sure things have changed some. But my impression from the website and a few of the other hits I got looking for it is that it is still a very nice place to visit.

I got a call yesterday from someone I have only seen once in the past six years. He barely introduced himself and immediately went right to the point. He talked so fast that I didn't get quite get all the words. What I did get was that he was in a domestic violence situation, had restraining order against him and had to get his guns out of his house as soon as possible. He had some other possibilities but wondered if I would be able to hold on to them for a couple months until he could get things all straightened out.

I agreed but didn't have secure storage for all of his guns here in the Seattle area. I said I have plenty of room but he would need to buy a cheap gun safe to put them in. He said he would check out his other alternatives and get back to me.

I ended up with his gun safe, filled with his guns, next to my bed, and the keys to it in my pocket. He then told me his story about the incident with his 18 year-old son, about spending the night in jail, and his search for a lawyer.

I gave him a little bit of advice--If this were to turn into the worst case scenario how much money would you be willing to spend to have a better outcome? "A lot", he said after about 1.5 seconds of thought. So I told him, "Then spend that money now on the best lawyer you can get." As painful as it is to hire the best up front hiring a better lawyer than your first pick to go back in time is beyond the means of everyone I know.

Dave, of Ozark Pyrotechnics, and I exchanged several emails in the past few hours and he pointed out something I sort of knew but it hadn't really bubbled up to full awareness. He is planning an explosives shoot next month. The format is a little different than the Boomershoot but the targets are similar. If Missouri is in your "neck of the woods" you should check it out.

Reader, friend, and Boomershooter Sean sent me a link to this article in the Weekly Standard, Return of the Tribes. It's kind of a long article but all very interesting. Near the end is a section on Magic vs. jihad and from there Peters goes on to explain that "magic" is an essential part of dealing with people and how the magic of the forests and jungles in the hands of people that didn't even have the wheel defeated the Muslim jihad that had swept through nearly every other culture the Muslim encountered:

The spread of Islam into Europe and Africa struck very different, but equally potent, barriers in the north and south. In Europe, it could not overcome a rival monotheist faith with its own universalist vision. In West Africa, Islam stopped, roughly five centuries ago, when it left the deserts and grasslands to enter the African forest, that potent domain of magic.

It should excite far more interest than it has that a warrior faith with an unparalleled record of conquest and conversion dead-ended when it reached the realms of illiterate tribes that had not mastered the wheel: In the forests of sub-Saharan Africa, Islam could not conquer, could not convert, and could not convince. On their own turf, local beliefs proved more powerful than a faith that had swept over "civilized" continents.

His thesis is that essentially all people need magic in their lives. In our country we have our own substitutes for it. As Sean rightly surmised this would push a button of mine. Magic???? We don't need to stinking magic! Well... maybe I don't but most people do and failure to take this into account will result in unexpected results when you deal with them.

As Barb points out at times I am frequently bewildered at the unexpected results when I deal with people. Apparently it's not that they are stupid, as I would like to claim, but that they believe in magic. I guess I can buy that. From airplane security to gun control to socialized medicine they all believe in magic not realizing it's nothing but a comforting illusion.

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.

Ozark Pyrotechnics is now selling binary exploding targets.

Barb and I visited Dave and his family a month ago and I saw a small stock of the targets ready for shipping. We didn't ask for a demo so I can't report on functionality but I fully expect they will work as advertised.

If you test them please send me a report.

From the Seattle PI:

TORONTO -- First, General Motors. Then gun control, followed by George W. Bush. Now rabble-rousing filmmaker Michael Moore has turned his irreverent camera on health care in America.

Socialized medicine will be his inevitable conclusion.

"Michael Moore is a political activist with a track record for sensationalism. He has no intention of being fair and balanced," Johnson said.

Yup.

Here's something you don't see-- a gun ban struck down on constitutional grounds, thoughbeit a state constitution:

"The Utah Supreme Court on Friday struck down a ban on guns at the University of Utah, saying campus officials cannot adopt a policy that runs counter to state law."

Did I read that right?  State institutions cannot enact policies in violation of the constitution?  This is groundbreaking stuff (well, outside the issue of public funding for Maplethorpe or Piss Christ exhibits, et al, being claimed as "free speech" elsewhere).

Here is the pertinent language out of Utah, courtesy of the Second Amendment Foundation:

Utah Constitution Article I, Section 6

The individual right of the people to keep and bear arms for security and defense of self, family, others, property, or the state, as well as for other lawful purposes shall not be infringed; but nothing herein shall prevent the Legislature from defining the lawful use of arms.

Take note that security and defense of self, family, others, property, or the state are mentioned as the primary reason why the right to keep and bear arms should be protected.  That blows the whole "Sporting Purposes" test concept all to hell, doesn't it?  But Utah reserves the right to define “lawful use”, like, I guess, not allowing shooting at your local community range at 03:00 for instance, without an effective sound suppressor.  That makes sense.

And "...defense of...property"?  There's an obscure concept.

Now, if we could only get the several states to recognize the U.S. Constitution, it wouldn't matter what any state constitution says about the keeping and bearing of arms (unless I am mistaken, the U.S. Constitution prevents, ostensibly, your home state legislature from banning newspapers, forcing Catholics to wear crucifix arm bands, for example, or reinstating slavery, but maybe someone could correct me on that).

The NRA linked to the story also, but had little to say about it as of this writing.

I was thinking all morning about posting on this subject, then a pen pal in Israel, Howard, a marksmanship instructor for the IDF, sent me an e-mail along the same lines.  I therefore can simply post the exchange I had with him:

From: Howard in Israel
Sent: Monday, September 11, 2006 9:46 AM
To: GPOSUMMARY
Subject: Fw: Headlines and Editorials

Friends:

The other night Israeli TV news reported that a recent survey in the USA determined that a third of all Americans believe that there was US government complicity in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  I find it hard to believe.  I also find it hard to believe that a group of 75 (?) university professors say the evidence of such complicity is undeniable.

If the TV report is correct, all I can do is shake my head in disbelief.

Howard
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

To which I replied:

Funny you should mention that.  I was just commenting to my wife this morning that I believed I had identified a parallel between Holocaust deniers and 9/11 deniers.  Yes, it is true that there are a number of Americans, many of them college professors and administrators, who are touting the notion that the twin towers were brought down in a “controlled demolition” and the Pentagon was hit with an American cruise missile.

My hypothesis is that, just as Holocaust deniers are the very ones who agree with the Nazi’s “Final Solution”, so too are the 9/11 deniers the very same people who hate capitalism and especially international free trade.  To put it another way, they agree with the premises of the terrorists, though their rationalizations may be slightly different.

I’m no psychologist, and I cannot begin to explain why those who most agree with the anti-Semitic premises for the Holocaust would be the ones most likely to deny that it happened, or that those who most agree that Western capitalism is the root of all evil in the world would deny that the attack on the World Trade Center was perpetrated by anti-Western, anti-capitalists, but I find this fascinating.

Lyle

------------------------

Update, 9/12/:

Lyle:
"Fascinating" is the politest term used so far.
Howard

------------------------

They just lost another soldier this morning in Gaza.  He isn't joking at all about any of this.

Today, America is fighting a war that is testing our Nation's resolve. We are once again answering history's call with confidence, and we know that freedom will prevail. Our brave men and women in uniform have stepped forward to fight our enemies abroad so that we do not have to face them here at home, and we are grateful for the courageous individuals bringing terrorists to justice around the world.

We are also confronting the extremists in the great ideological struggle of the 21st century. September the 11th made clear that, in the long run, the only way to secure our Nation is to advance liberty and democracy as the great alternatives to repression and radicalism. By working together with our friends and allies, we are helping spread the blessings of freedom and laying the foundations of peace for generations to come.

George W. Bush
President of the United States of America
September 7, 2006
Patriot Day 2006

Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.

Isaac Asimov
[One of my pet peeves is that most people, including nearly all the scientists I have worked with, don't distinguish between a theory and a hypothesis. The gun control advocates who do this are particularly irksome to me when they do this.--Joe]

During Wednesday’s drill, a K-9 trooper put the Semtex on the rear bumper of a pickup truck parked in a Massport pool lot. Troopers have so far disassembled a street sweeper in the hope of finding it sucked into the device. Last night it remained as lost as luggage.

O’Ryan Johnson
September 9, 2006
Security breach at Logan — ‘It’s Keystone Kops’
[If I lose explosives, either by misplacement or theft, I have to report it within 24 hours to the ATF. I hope these Troopers have the same paperwork and hassles I would have if I would have done this.--Joe]

The worst thing in this world, next to anarchy, is government.

Henry Ward Beecher
[Which is why we are supposed to have a limited government with enumerated powers.--Joe]

This weekend we borrowed my parents boat to go out on Dworshak Reservoir (pictures here). The air was filled with smoke from the wildfires to the west but we hadn't been boating in a couple years and it was originally planned to take all our kids out and do some water skiing as well as check on a geocache that was reported to be missing. Kim and James ended up not going so it was just Barb, Xenia, and I.

We arrived at my parents house and the boat battery had a charger and my brother's van jumpered to it. My brother showed up and said he had cleaned the points and other minor maintenance that had caused problems with boat before. It wouldn't start until he jumped the battery but it ran fine once he did that. We disconnected the charger and the jumper cables and tried starting it again. It started just fine. Great! We hooked up the pickup to the boat, transferred our gear and took off for the lake.

While Xenia and I put the boat in the lake Barb used the restroom. We were blocking someone about to pull their boat out of the lake so I pushed us off and hopped in the boat expecting to start the boat, hover just off shore until Barb came back, pick her up on the dock then take off. The boat was quickly drifting away from the dock with the help of a breeze when I turned the key and instead of being awarded with the roar of the 140 HP Chevy II engine I heard just "click, click, click" as the solenoid alternately engaged and disengaged without the engine even turning over.

Xenia and I extracted the paddle from underneath the life-jackets and ropes in the side of the boat and I managed to paddled to the tip of a point before we drifted far away from the shore. With Xenia pushing the boat away from the shore every time it came close I pulled it back to dock with the rope tied to the bow. Barb arrived about then and I ran back to the pickup and found jumper cables behind the seat (I had planned to transfer our jumper cables to the pickup with our other gear but had forgotten). We got a jump from the good Samaritan next to us and took off.

I made a big loop out in the open water with the boat at cruising speed while watching the ammeter. The battery was charging at the rate of about 7 amps. Everything appeared normal but I wasn't comfortable yet. I went back to dock, turned the engine off and then restarted the engine. It instantly roared to life. Great! We are set to go. I turned around and we took off upstream to the nearest campsite to have our picnic lunch before going further on upstream to the missing geocache. We had a pleasant lunch and took lots of picture and then I tried to start the engine again. "Click, click, click." Barb asked, "Now what?" "We're dead", I replied. It was a gross exaggeration of course. We were only about three miles from dock and there was a trail alongside the lake if we wanted to walk back and get help. I decided we probably could paddle the boat back if we didn't mind spending the time and there was a good chance we could get a jump from one of the other boaters. I started paddling, first from one side then the other. Then Barb came back and sat on one side and we traded the paddle back and forth. I estimated we were moving at about 1/2 mile per hour. Arrival at dock, even without getting help, would be before dark. Good. I could pull out the GPS and get an accurate number if I wanted and do a better estimate of our ETA but I wanted to wait until we got our rhythm going. Barb suggested we use my Boomershoot cell phone (my usual cell phone has zero service in that area) and see if the sheriff had a boat on the lake and could help us if needed. Inland Cellular (the Boomershoot cell phone provider) claims coverage but it was on the extreme fringe of usability. It took something like five calls to call my brother's wife, tell her the problem, and get her our GPS coordinates. We continued paddling and when a boat went by we stood up and waved the paddle and shouted. The boat went on by without anyone acknowledging us. We padded some more and another boat went by. This one stopped in response to our waving and gave us a jump.

As we were waiting for the battery to get charged enough to start we talked with our benefactors. It was a man, his wife, and a another couple which we surmised were one of their adult kids and their spouse. It turns out the older woman mother was a good friends of Barb's mom and her dad was Barbs biology teacher. The man was a retired soil conservation officer and had spent a lot of time on the farm helping lay out grass waterways and gully plugs. He had even had dinner with my parents at least once. I recognized his name from my parents and brother talking about him.

The engine started, we zoomed back to the dock where the first thing I did was to use the two-way radio (the cellphone signal was still barely registering) in the pickup to contact my sister-in-law and tell her we didn't need the assistence from the sheriff. As we were about to put the boat on the trailer Barb noticed a sheriff's vehicle pulling up to the launch area. Xenia and could handle getting the boat chores she went to see if he was about to go looking for us. It turns out he was and he told Barb that he was disappointed that he didn't get to go out on the lake. He was looking forward to doing a little boating. Apparently his office hadn't gotten the word yet via my sister-in-law.

We went back to the farm, put the boat back in the garage, I gave my sister-in-law and my niece the complete story and then gave her $60.00 and asked her to have my brother get a new battery for the boat. This wasn't the first time we had been stranded on the lake with this boat with battery problems (it was a different battery that time) but I wanted it to be the last. Because the boat is used so infrequently they share the battery with the combine (a grain harvester) which "worked fine all fall".

It wasn't a disaster, just an adventure--another one of those stories you tell when people are telling stories of things gone wrong.

There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.

John F. Kennedy
[Appliciable to freedom activists as well as our fight against Islamic extremists.--Joe]