Obamageddon 2012 Survival Packages now available!
In keeping with the highbrow intellectual tone of this website, I am offering the “Obamageddon 2012 Survival Package” for sale on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Each package includes a New In Box Norinco SKS rifle in 7.62×39 and one unopened crate of 7.62×39 ammunition. It’s a simple yet effective way to survive whatever 2012 brings us.
The price is $600.00 cash, or your grandma’s old gold teeth, whichever is worth more at the time of our patriotic transaction.
Call the office at 717 232-8335 or email me, info@joshfirst.com
Politics As Usual: Loyalty, Disloyalty, Etc.
Politics is the proverbial “sausage making” process, a series of steps that in the aggregate results in something recognizeable and useful, but as individual steps, it looks pretty gross because along the way you get to see what goes into it. It ain’t pretty.
And so it has been for yours truly, lately, one of the political sausage makers. Happy to help, happy to get messy, take risks, make sacrifices, work hard to see some people move up…focused on the outcome. But also expecting help cleaning up after the party.
Nothing bugs me more than disloyalty. Perhaps that expectation is an inverse result of my own fierce loyalty. Even kids know the importance of loyalty, and there’s nothing quite so frustrating as watching someone benefit from your own team spirit, risk taking, sacrifice, and commitment to the success of the group, and then waltz off at the end of the party without helping out.
Call me naive, but I do expect more from the adults who run our government.
Thanks, guys. Guys…?
Why isn’t the Koran ‘hate speech’?
After a stroll down the international headlines this Sunday morning, one thing I took away is that Muslims really hate non-Muslims, and they are motivated by the explicitly hateful, violent, sexist, racist words of the Koran.
In the Koran, Christians and Jews are called “pigs,” “monkeys,” “donkeys,” and “cows,” and incitement to kill Christians and Jews is rife throughout this supposedly “holy” book.
You gotta ask yourself: What kind of a “holy” book calls for genocide against people of faith who are your next door neighbors and work colleagues?
To me, in my innately American mindset, a book that calls for the murder and enslavement of Jews and Christians is more Satanic than holy.
Think about how the Biblical prohibition against male homosexual sex is treated by the general media: Open disbelief! Open rejection! And excoriation for any American who says they believe in the injunction. But somehow the Koran’s calls for murder and rape are acceptable to the same people who cast aspersions on the Bible?
And you gotta ask yourself: What kind of government do we have, at the local, state, and national level, that allows the Koran’s cruel hatred to be broadcast?
Somehow, Americans have been brainwashed into being so open-minded that they now accept the viciousness of the Koran to stand on an equal basis with the Bible, and to be taught in our schools. We may be reminded that the Bible, both the Hebrew Torah and the Christian Scripture, are the basis for Western Civilization and all that is good in America. There’s no equivalence between the Bible and the Koran.
Americans are now so tolerant that they are tolerant of the grossest intolerance. That makes no sense, and is turning the whole principle of openness on its head. At some point, America has to stand for something, and standing against genocide is probably a pretty good place to begin.
Does this tolerance of intolerance make sense to you, logically? Why are we allowing the Koran’s open intolerance of everything that is America to infiltrate America and shape its culture?
Near my home is an Ahmadiya mosque, recently opened in an old Lutheran church. The cross still stands on top of the building, but the gradual conversion of the outward signs is taking place.
It’s not an alarming experience, however, as Ahmadiya Muslims are about as popular in Pakistan as are Jews and Christians, which is to say that their faith is officially outlawed, and their members are subject to murder, rape, and forced conversion (a la the Koran).
Ahmadiya Muslims are a different bunch. They have found the peaceful aspects of the Koran to inspire them, and they have largely written out the racist aspects. If Islam were so widely configured, then it would be a movement that fits into America.
However, as it stands today, the Koran is the worst of modern hate speech, advocating unimaginable cruelty, genocide, sexism, and bigotry. Why does the Koran receive preferential treatment?
Isn’t it time that our elected leaders stand up and demand that the Koran be treated the same as any other book?
Pennsylvania Hunters: Army of The Republic
Pennsylvania Hunters: Freedom’s Bulwark
By Josh First
Like it or not, the Obama administration’s failed gun-running scheme, “Fast and Furious,” is viewed by tens of millions of Americans as the tip of the administration’s ice berg aimed at sinking the American tradition of gun ownership.
You’d only be kidding yourself if you stated that the Obama administration supports Second Amendment rights. This administration has done everything it can to hamstring legal gun ownership. Growing up in Central Pennsylvania, where Democrats strenuously, overwhelmingly, even defiantly promoted Second Amendment rights, it saddens me to see the party having lost so much ground on this issue. To tens of millions of Americans, with many regional exceptions across rural Pennsylvania, that political party increasingly represents a direct threat to the greatest Constitutional right we have, the one right that guarantees all the others.
Last week marked the beginning of another two-week Pennsylvania deer hunting season, using firearms, and about 750,000 licensed hunters are afield here during this time, down from a high of over one million twenty years ago.
Every year I am one of these licensed hunters, toting around a Remington 700 BDL in .30-06 in our steep, majestic mountains. It is extremely accurate out to hundreds of yards and it has taken countless deer, and one bear, when called upon at a second’s notice. Its open sights are designed to acquire the target quickly.
Having my rifle across my shoulder, cradled in my arms, slung over my back, clutched in my hand, or at my shoulder, ready to fire, is one of the most natural and comforting feelings I know. Along with my beautiful custom hunting knife made by John Johnson (JRJ knives, in Perry County) and bullet wallet on my belt, and a pack on my back containing food, water, drag rope, and survival essentials, I feel as ready to hunt as Oetzi the Snow Man of the Alps felt the day he died while hunting over 5,000 years ago. As we modern humans are essentially dolled-up Pleistocene hunter-gatherers in fancy clothes, it is as natural a feeling as a human can have. It is who we are at our core, like it or not.
Like many guys out there now, I enjoy hunting alone, stealthily reconnoitering remote cliffs and washes, or with one or two other friends stalking independently of one another, knowing that any of one us could connect with our quarry, or bump them to a buddy. About a zillion years of programming goes into this heightened sense of anticipation and satisfaction when it happens. Until a hundred and fifty years ago, failing to kill a deer meant the family went to sleep hungry, so there should be no surprise that successful hunting evokes the strongest feelings of pride, and happiness. Eating and living to see another day is pretty much the happiest thing a person can do. Today, we just take it for granted, and contract out the inconvenient killing to a hitman, more or less.
However, most of my deer and bear hunting is spent in the company of many friends, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Disaffected. As we move around and across the landscape, carefully coordinating with one another in long lines designed to drive game forward and to stay out of one another’s shooting lanes, I am re-amazed every year at the proficiency with which our guys move across that rough terrain, at the way they safely handle their high powered rifles, at the way that they snap that rifle to their shoulder and kill a far-off deer in only a second or two, before the window of opportunity closes. These folks are shooters, serious, excellent woodsmen. Focused. Formidable. Impressive. I’m proud to be among such company.
These are real men out there, and real women, challenging themselves to succeed in ways that most modern humans have no idea about, sadly. However, there is another group out there that can somewhat relate to how we live during this period, and that is the men and women in combat uniform.
If Pennsylvania hunters were an army, they would be the fifth largest in the world behind China, North Korea, India, Russia and the United States, the last of which has an army only fractionally made of actual shooters. Although I did not receive military training, and although most of my experience with firearms has been rooted in hunting and target shooting, my attitude about my right to own an assortment of firearms is pretty damned militant. And that same attitude is shared among the other 749,999 licensed hunters here, not to mention the other few million Pennsylvanians who stopped hunting years ago but who retain homes full of firearms and bullets. We are a bulwark of freedom, a silent army that need not say anything nor give word to what it represents. Its shadow is faint but long.
In that context, and in the shadow of “Fast and Furious,” one of the thoughts that repeatedly crossed my mind over the past few weeks in our beautiful mountains was, “Mr. Obama, if you want our guns, then come and take ‘em. Really, give it a try, pal.”
It ain’t happening. Our army is bigger than yours.
Pennsylvania’s Two Seasons: Road Construction Season, and Deer Season
Pennsylvania has two seasons, road construction season, and deer season.
Road construction season starts in May and ends in October, while deer season starts in October and ends in January. Four empty months of in-between time are filled with football playoffs and the Super Bowl, and trout season.
The Keystone State’s labyrinthine road system is infamous. Looking at a map of all public roads in the state reveals that there’s barely a square inch of place that is not within a mile of a road. Convenient say some, expensive operations and maintenance say others.
And for deer hunters and others who seek brief periods of solace away from the sounds of men and machines, such proximity to infrastructure is usually frustrating.
Today, for example, I hunted a local farm that I manage. It’s a lovely place, adjoined by about 50,000 acres of public land on either side, so theoretically it is buffered. Hunting there should be a relatively quiet and contemplative affair. Unfortunately, the valley it is in is not so quiet. Endless tires on pavement, whether going to work in the morning or returning in the afternoon, just hearing the quiet, peaceful chirp of a nuthatch or a chickadee takes effort.
It usta be, in the old days, that building roads was the answer to employment problems. Roads were built helter-skelter, without regard for their function, service, or cost. The Casey Highway (To Nowhere) in northeastern Pennsylvania is a prime example. Roads do serve a critical function, but they also cost a hell of a lot to maintain. They impact the open spaces around them, and introduce what were remote deer populations to the hoods of cars across the state. Therefore, it would seem to be a prudent use of limited public funds to focus on fixing the roads we already have instead of building new ones.
Let’s not have road construction create a new deer season for motorists.
“Climate Change” Takes a Stake Through its Heart
Once again, recently unearthed emails from publicly funded climate researchers in Britain provide bomb-grade damage to the claims of global climate change.
Not only do these newly revealed, previously secret emails show collusion among researchers to overcome problems with their data, suppression of evidence that defies their claims, and their private doubts about global climate change, they also explicitly show what critics have claimed for years: The BBC news service has secretly colluded with the researchers to exclude their critics from getting air time, to match BBC reports with unfounded, essentially political claims by the researchers, and to cast aspersions on their critics.
In other words, the BBC is a willing tool to deceive the taxpayers who underwrite the BBC.
This is exactly the situation that America has with National Public Radio, a news service captured by politically partisan activists.
Like BBC, NPR also advocates for unfounded claims of global climate change, like today’s (6:30 PM on 11/29/11) interview with the US envoy to the United Nations climate change group, which ignored the recent bombshell reports (see below) and instead gave an unchallenged platform for a global climate change evangelist.
And what bothers me is that there are genuine, real, measurable environmental problems that need attention and funding, but which are undermined by the false issue of the sky-is-falling crisis of global climate change.
Read more at
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2066706/BBC-sought-advice-global-warming-scientists-economy-drama-music–game-shows.html
…and more at
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2066240/Second-leak-climate-emails-Political-giants-weigh-bias-scientists-bowing-financial-pressure-sponsors.html
Bear season, it’s all about the views
Bear season in Northcentral Pennsylvania came and went this year.
Although no one in our cabin killed a bear, or saw a bear, we all hiked in beautiful country and admired nature’s miracles.
Time alone is rare. Time alone to contemplate God’s creation, the wife, the kids, work…well, it’s hard to make.
In remote areas, sitting on a steep mountainside, no one else within a half mile at least, admiring the views, I was able to center myself.
One of my guests is a Wall Street guy, taking a turn in his career. He said his first time hunting was really about the scenic views. He has traveled the world, but said he never felt so alone, or so at peace as this week. He called it a success.
Bear season, it’s all about the views.
Santorum Opportunism Pisses Off Penn Staters
I like him, but last week, presidential candidate Rick Santorum appeared to be riding the Penn State scandal as a wave to carry along his campaign. Penn State should not play in a bowl game, Santorum said, regardless of the football team’s final standings.
As I write this, Penn State has just defeated Ohio State and looks to be headed to a well-deserved bowl game.
Why would Santorum have anything to say about the scandal beyond some well-placed and justified reflections on the university’s failed leadership? Why would anyone seek to punish the players, whose hard work deserves to be rewarded?
Well, over the years Rick has made a name for himself as a voice for morality and clarity in a world full of moral relativism, and I often support him. Even when I occasionally disagree with a particular position he may take, I appreciate and support his outspoken advocacy for morally clear decision making in government.
Rick certainly has a lot of friends in Pennsylvania, and he can normally count me among them.
However, I share the reaction among many Penn Staters who are pissed off at Rick over his recent criticism. It appears to be nothing more than political opportunism by a candidate seeking to get his name into the headlines. By criticizing the Penn State football team, Santorum appears to many to be trying to take advantage of a difficult situation to make himself look good, or to attract attention to himself.
He would not be the first political candidate to do that, but for someone who has been rightly recognized for having clear thinking, this looks like aberrant and mean-spirited thinking.
In 2000 and 2006 I was a volunteer on both of Santorum’s re-election campaigns, and if he were doing better in the polls, I might volunteer for his presidential campaign now. But what I am looking for right now is a statement from Rick that he mis-spoke, and that he does not want to punish a group of people who had nothing to do with the scandal, or further damage Penn State.
Penn State is already going through a lot of difficulties, and it will continue to do so for years to come, not to mention the kids who were (allegedly) subjected to Sandusky’s abuse. Santorum’s criticism does nothing to remedy the situation; it only throws fuel on the fire, punishes more innocent people, and further damages Penn State’s standing.
Come clean, Rick, admit that you made a mistake. If you do that, I think you’ll prove to people that you are indeed a good guy, and not the opportunistic headline grabber that you recently appeared to be.
The Bluefish, Ocean Challenge
The ubiquitous east coast bluefish is a monster, a predator, a giant piranha. Growing to twenty pounds and foraging in huge packs, bluefish with friendly-fire bite marks are often caught by saltwater fishermen.
Bait fish are so terrorized by bluefish that they will throw themselves up on a beach to escape them.
Bluefish are tough, and aggressive. They bite lures and bait readily, usually bringing a smile at the tug and then a grimace to the face of the fisherman. Pulling a hook on a bluefish that you intend to release unharmed is a bit of a delicate maneuver, because bluefish will just as readily bite off your nearest finger as they will stare at you with their devilish yellow eyes.
While they do put up a fun fight, bluefish are notoriously fishy tasting and difficult to make into a meal that will satisfy most fish eaters.
Having eaten bluefish since I was a kid, I have seen them baked, fried, broiled, and pickled in a variety of recipes that have to one degree or another addressed that fishy taste.
Last week I returned home from a successful fishing outing with about fifty pounds of bluefish filets (and 30 pounds of whiter meat from another more desirable game fish).
Having so much material to work with, I was able to experiment widely.
Some of the bluefish filets were baked, some broiled, some were smoked.
For baking, any way with any ingredients, I learned that bathing the filet in lemon juice for at least 45 minutes before baking got rid of 95% of the fishy smell and taste. A good cup of lemon juice poured over a filet, which is then laid face down in the juice to marinate. Some Rosemary and salt, and then after 45 minutes or longer, it’s ready to bake with butter or sauce. The lemon juice can be used with it.
Speaking of sauce, I made a sauce of spicy brown mustard and worcestshire sauce mixed together. About two ounces of each. Then pour it over the filet and broil at 500 for fifteen minutes or until it’s turning dark brown.
It was delicious.
For smoking, I found that again, brining with not just salt and sugar, as usual for fish, but also with lemon juice added, for at least 24 hours, got rid of 95% of the fishy taste.
Probably the best post-brining addition was adding lots of Old Bay over the more or less pickled fish; it also added a lot of flavor.
I’ve done a bunch of batches of smoked bluefish and I think I’ve finally discovered how to get the best tasting result, consistently. Never before did I have so much meat to experiment with and I can’t imagine too many other people willing to spend the amount of time trying to overcome the bluefish challenge.
By the way, I did remove the brown meat from the lateral line in one batch, and it made a small but noticeable improvement.
So there you have it, new recipes and processing procedures for bluefish from Central Pennsylvania. Probably the last time that bluefish were eaten so heartily along the banks of the Susquehanna River would have been three hundred years ago, when up-river striped bass migrations would have brought the Susquehannocks and other local Indian tribes into direct contact with saltwater fish and trade for smoked fish from the northern Chesapeake Bay. I am pleased to continue in that tradition.
Chelsea Clinton: One of the 1%, Happily
Chelsea Clinton is daughter of impeached president Bill Clinton and his wife, current US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Chelsea has grown up exceptionally wealthy and connected to people in positions of power. She has never had a “job,” certainly not a professional job, not a career where she developed as a person, but she just got hired by NBC News.
Chelsea Clinton is going to be a top-level reporter and commentator for an international news program.
Chelsea is accomplishing something that 99.99% of college graduates her age can only dream of. Except that those people know that in order to land a job like that, they have to gradually prove themselves from job to job over time, over decades.
Chelsea is very much a member of “The 1%” as the Occupy ________ folks call hard working, successful Americans.
You can’t help but wonder how her achievement looks and is perceived by the people with whom she shares so many political views. She has it made. She has Easy Street. Her dad made a phone call and got her the job of a lifetime, and she didn’t have to work for it at all.
But you just know that once Chelsea is in there, reporting just the facts, of course, that she will stand as one with the Occupy _________ people. And they will give her a pass, because she is the right political party…so much for any principles in any of this situation, right?
And it is just one more example of how the politically correct in America choose to say one thing, but do another.