Alarm Tells the Cops Where to Find the Bodies

Thanks to a suggestion by Right Wing Rocker, I'm placing an answer I made to a comment to another of my entries here on the front page for easier access. It's relevant to one of my top priorities: the right to self defense.

The comment, lamenting the irrational and very dangerous Australian version of gun control, is from MK of MK's Views and other blogs:

Yep, we here are paying the price for the fear of guns, parents out here not have an irrational fear of guns, children are taught that guns are bad, there are hysterical campaigns against having gun shops in neighborhoods. It's almost as if people think the guns walk out around killing people or something.

The crime rate might be rising in Australia but i doubt the people will see the only answer.

My answer to the comment is as follows:

There's a tv ad by a home alarm firm here in the Stalag. It shows a thuggy looking guy breaking into a house, with a woman and a child cowering in a nearby room. The alarm goes off. The thug flees at the sound.

At that moment, the phone rings; it's a dispatcher from the alarm company. "Are you all right?" says the dispatcher.

"Somebody just broke in," she answers, looking like a rabbit under the gaze of a coyote.

"We'll be right there." he answers. She, of course, looks relieved.

I always ask, aloud, of whoever I happen to be with, "Lady, where's your gun? Don't you think enough of your child to want to protect him? In real life, the thug might not flee."

I always bring that up, and similar comments whenever I see something in the news in which I think having a gun might've saved a life.

I hope it makes people think.

The point is, whenever someone expresses an irrational fear of guns, of the sort that tells you that individual might be inclined to favor gun control, one must speak up. One has to, without taking on the role of a fire-and-brimstone evangelist, attempt to correct the oft-held view that private ownership and defensive use of weapons shouldn't be allowed.

News, mostly from alternative and local sources, continually offers stories of thugs robbing, maiming and killing unarmed innocents in Australia, England, New Zealand and other gun controlled countries--and of course, it happens here in the various United States too, as we're under a sort of de facto gun control here. Even in states that actually recognize the existence of the Second Amendment, sanctions against weapons carry exist. One need only scan recent US news stories to find many cases in which lives might've been saved had there been one or more weapons-carrying individuals nearby.

One must be vocal. One must write letters to the editorial pages of newspapers. One must write letters to sponsors of pro gun control radio and tv shows, and one must write letters to politicians.

To the extent one can afford the time and money, one should attend pro-self defense rallies and practice shooting at your local gun range. Bring a friend (I've taken several friends to the range; they always comment about how much they enjoyed it).

I'm sure this won't be the end of my comments on this subject, so stand by.

Shoot 'em if you got 'em.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Johann Strauß, For the Third Time!

For the third consecutive December, Debbie and I enjoyed the Andre Rieu Christmas concert at the Honda Ponda in Anaheim. Both of us dearly love Strauss waltzes, and Rieu and his orchestra play them so well, with a sense of light-hearted fun.

Last year's concert was very much a Christmas concert, heavily loaded with season's typical music selections, and done well. While I enjoyed the program and the Reiu arrangements, I missed a number of the Strauss works for which Rieu is famous.

This year, he went the other way. While the orchestra played its traditional version of "Silent Night," the audience sang along. We clapped enthusiastically during "Jingle Bells," and all were smiling during "Winter Wonderland" and the other Christmas songs.

There was more of a Strauss presence this year--a few dozen couples danced in the aisles to "The Blue Danube," and the applause was enthusiastic after a very energetic performance of "Radetsky's March," "The Emperor's Waltz and a couple of others.

While I'm not much of a fan of opera, and know very little about it, Rieu is beginning to turn me around. There are three tenors in his retinue, and three sopranos. Among them, they sang a few operatic excerpts and and other songs that lend themselves to powerful vocals. The most memorable of these was the aria called "O Mio Babbino Caro," from Gianni Schicchi by Giacomo Puccini, and sung by the lovely Carmen Monarcha. Many a tear was shed during Ms Monarcha's performance, even in this setting.

Here is the complete concert:

1. Seventy-six Trombones (M Wilson)
2. Tritsch Tratsch Polka (J. Strauss)
3. Rosen aus dem Süden (J. Strauss)
4. Chianti
5. Nessun Dorma (G. Puccini)
6. Eljen a Magyar (J. Strauss)
7. Song of the Wolga (F. Lehar)
8. Besame Mucho (C Velasquez), Laura Engel, Soloist
9. Silent Night (J. Mohr)
10. The Holy City (S. Adams)
11. White Christmas (I. Berlin)
12. Jingle Bells (J. I Pierpoint)

~~~Intermission~~~

1. Gold & Silver (F. Lehar)
2. Granada (A. Lara)
3. The Girls from the Chantant (E. Kalman)
4. Emperor's Waltz (J. Strauss)
5. O Mio Babbino Caro (G. Puccini), Carmen Monarcha, Soloist
6. The Blue Danube (J. Strauss)
7. Concerto Pour une Voix (C. Saint-Preux), Mirusia Louwerse, Soloist
8. Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again (I. Webber), Mirusia Louwerse, Soloist
9. Bolero (M Ravel)
10. Radetzky March (J. Strauss)

~~~Encores~~~

Rieu's concerts are literally the only ones we've attended in the past three years, except for the ones they have at the Scottish and Celtic fairs in which Debbie's Scottish Fiddlers of LA have performed.

Andre Rieu's concerts are not only a lot of fun, but they're a light-hearted introduction to classical music for those who've thought it dull or too stodgy.

Nineteenth Century rock 'n' roll.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

A Lesson in Gun Control

The following series of statements has been circulating through the e-mails for a year or so. If you've already read it, I'm sorry for taking up your time, but it is a subject I regard as very important--as many of you already know. My brother, the Texan sent it to me most recently, and I thank him for having done so.

In 1929, the Soviet Union established gun control.
From 1929 to 1953, about 20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

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In 1911, Turkey established gun control. From 1915 to 1917, 1.5 million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

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Germany established gun control in 1938 and from 1939 to 1945, a total of 13 million Jews and others who were unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated.

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China established gun control in 1935. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million political dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

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Guatemala established gun control in 1964. From 1964 to 1981, 100,000 Mayan Indians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

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Uganda established gun control in 1970. From 1971 to 1979, 300,000 Christians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

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Cambodia established gun control in 1956. From 1975 to 1977, one million educated people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

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Defenseless people rounded up and exterminated in the 20th Century because of gun control: 56 million.

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It has now been 12 months since gun owners in Australia were forced by new law to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed by their own government, a program costing Australian taxpayers more than $500 million dollars. The first year results are now in:

Australia-wide, homicides are up 3.2 percent.
Australia-wide, assaults are up 8.6 percent.
Australia-wide, armed robberies are up 44 percent (yes, 44 percent)!
In the state of Victoria alone, homicides with firearms are now up 300 percent.

Note that while the law-abiding citizens turned them in, the criminals did not, and criminals still possess their guns!

While figures over the previous 25 years showed a steady decrease in armed robbery with firearms, this has changed drastically upward in the past 12 months, since criminals now are guaranteed that their prey is unarmed.

There has also been a dramatic increase in break-ins and assaults of the ELDERLY.

Australian politicians are at a loss to explain how public safety has decreased, after such monumental effort and expense was expended in successfully ridding Australian society of guns.

The Australian experience and the other historical facts above prove it.

You won't see this data on the US evening news, or hear politicians disseminating this information.

Guns in the hands of honest citizens save lives and property and, yes, gun-control laws adversely affect only the law-abiding citizens.

Take note my fellow Americans, before it's too late!

The next time someone talks in favor of gun control, please remind them of this history lesson.

With guns, we are 'citizens'.

Without them, we are 'subjects'.

During World War II the Japanese decided not to invade because they knew most Americans were ARMED!

Australians will know that those first-year crime statistics are old by now, but the more recent stats have continued the trend. Also, the final comment about the Imperial Japanese refers to a ground invasion, since they obviously did attack Pearl Harbor by air. Had the Japanese mounted a ground attack 'pon the American mainland, it would've been very embarrassing for them.

Shoot 'em if ya got 'em!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

The Case For Freedom in Medicine

The following is a quote from Ayn Rand's novel, Atlas Shrugged. I copied this paragraph once before, but I think the theme of this paragraph needs to be read, digested and understood now, more than ever before. Medicine is perishing in an orgy of government regulation and theft. Doctor Hendricks, a character in the book who goes on strike against government usurpation of his freedom and his medical judgment, tells why he decided to strike:

"I quit when medicine was placed under State control, some years ago," said Dr. Hendricks. "Do you know what it takes to perform a brain operation? Do you know the kind of skill it demands, and the years of passionate, merciless, excruciating devotion that go to acquire that skill? That was what I would not place at the disposal of men whose sole qualification to rule me was their capacity to spout the fraudulent generalities that got them elected to the privilege of enforcing their wishes at the point of a gun. I would not let them dictate the purpose for which my years of study had been spent, or the conditions of my work, or my choice of patients, or the amount of my reward. I observed that in all the discussions that preceded the enslavement of medicine, men discussed everything--except the desires of the doctors. Men considered only the 'welfare' of the patients, with no thought for those who were to provide it. That a doctor should have any right, desire or choice in the matter, was regarded as irrelevant selfishness; his is not to choose, they said, only 'to serve.' That a man who's willing to work under compulsion is too dangerous a brute to entrust with a job in the stockyards--never occurred to those who proposed to help the sick by making life impossible for the healthy. I have often wondered at the smugness with which people assert their right to enslave me, to control my work, to force my will, to violate my conscience, to stifle my mind--yet what is it they expect to depend on, when they lie on the operating table under my hands? Their moral code has taught them to believe that it is safe to rely on the virtue of their victims. Well, that is the virtue I have withdrawn. Let them discover the kind of doctors that their system will now produce. Let them discover, in their operating rooms and hospital wards, that it is not safe to place their lives in the hands of a man whose life they have throttled. It is not safe, if he is the sort of man who resents it--and still less safe, if he's the sort who doesn't."

This statement, along with several other statements made by the striking men of the mind in the novel, crystallize the thoughts of every productive individual who's given it the proper degree of thought. Everyone who works for a living, and realizes that he'd take home roughly twice as much pay, but for the extortion of the slave masters in government, and that everything he buys would cost less than half what it now costs, but for the taxes and regulations producers of goods and services must endure, will see how Dr Hendricks' decision will apply to himself. Then, he must decide how long he'll live and work under the slavery of the parasite.

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Priscilla the Knife

More years ago than can be counted on both your fingers and toes and mine, I was an elementary school student at West Elementary School in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Admittedly, it was a different time, but the principles involved are the same. The stated goal of the government children's prison system is to help parents prepare youngsters to be able to function as adults in the real world. Today, the children's prisons are failing--not only by ineptitude, but by conscious intent. They are trying to make herd animals out of our youth!

I'm not sure they weren't already working in that direction in my skool daze; after all, most people my age are eight-hour-a-day wage slaves just as are those graduating colleges today. Seems like many of the high-profile successes 'bout whom we read in the business journals and society gossip pages got where they are after slipping the yoke in their own youth.

Now, I like what I do, and actually look forward to going to work most days, but sometimes I wonder why I'm not a movie studio executive or a famous writer or a crocodile hunter. Well, with age comes wisdom, and I finally realized that my difficulty is that I've always been afraid to take risks regarding my livelihood. Fact of life. Now, I have to ponder the question of whether it's too late to change.

But, I'm wandering away from the subject: the abominable and purposeful failure of the government children's prison system, and its stubborn and deliberate inability to make educated and functional adults out of children. Parents are also failing at their part, as well--they were inmates of children's prisons in their youth.

Yesterday, according to a story on the website of Local 6 News in Orlando, Florida, a ten-year-old girl, an inmate at the Sunrise Elementary School in Ocala, was arrested for having a knife on school property--a felony in Florida. She had a steak knife that she'd brought from home, and was using it to cut her lunch into bite-sized bits.

There was no allegation that she'd used the knife in a threatening manner. She was transported down to Juvie Hall, presumably to be flogged, then stretched on the rack until she admits membership in a pre-teen terrorist organization. Look for a much taller Priscilla if and when she's released (or when her cabal effects an escape for her).

The long-ago time I referenced earlier in this missive saw me and many of my contemporaries carrying knives to school, and everywhere else, routinely. We called them jackknives, and they were often given to boys as Christmas gifts by fathers and uncles. They were a permanent part of our trouser pockets, and we used them to make slingshots and to carve our initials into the bark of trees. As Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, our jackknives were an indispensable tool, to be used to do the tasks required to earn achievement badges.

I can only assume that young girls learned (in those days) to do Girl Scout things with knives, not to mention to learn to cook and bake under the tutelage of their mothers. And, of course, we all had to learn to handle tableware to dine without taking on the appearance of islamic savages.

What is it this that the Florida Children's Prison System is rejecting? The notion of eating meals like a civilized human being? Will the use of hands next be rejected? I can almost imagine the guards and wardens of the Florida Children's Prison System nodding in approval at the sight of the youngsters bent over the tables, faces in their plates and making snarling and snorting sounds while trying to snarf up gruel at the school cafeteria.

How long until walking upright will be forbidden?

Darwin was wrong. It's Devolution.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Stalag California In Fiscal Deep Scheiße, Says The Gubernator

Well, Duh!

In a story on the Bay area's NBC11 tv station's website, the Stalag will be over $14 billion in the 'rears by the end of the year. The story further observes that the Gubernator is going to announce the crisis in a few weeks.

I've yet to figure out why dopey politicians, in recent years, seem to have adopted the habit of announcing that they are going to announce (whatever).

State spending has increased by more than 40 percent since Schwarzenegger took office after the 2003 recall of then-Gov. Gray Davis. This after running on the platform of fixing state government, holding the line on both spending and taxes, while increasing spending for the children's prisons and the various welfare schemes that keep us all much poorer than our gross pay would seem to indicate. The contradictions are stunning. The fact that residents of the Stalag can't see it is even more stunning.

The Gubernator said, in an address in Long Beach today, that state government is in "fiscal crisis." In the same speech, he promised higher Medi-Cal payments to doctors and hospitals (shudder).

His announcement next month will supposedly declare a "fiscal emergency," which will give his office more power to make spending cuts. Seems he has an approximate 10% across the board cut waiting in the wings. We'll see how this flies with the Democrat-controlled State House.

This doofus actor has no bloody idea what he's doing. I don't think I'll ever watch "Twins" again!

Hasta la vista, Baby!

Warm regards,
Col. Hogan

To Kill A Thief

From a philosophical tenet I first read in an Ayn Rand essay, one has to realize that when a man sets out to take or damage the person or property of another, that's the moment he commits suicide. By not recognizing his victim's right to his life and property, he renounces the concepts of life and property--which effectively is a denial of his own right to his own life.

When his victim then shoots him in self defense, it's the criminal's own finger on the trigger. One needs never feel guilt over successfully defending himself.

Now, if only the law were to be rewritten to support this tenet......

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

The Savage Islam Religion Kills Again

According to a Breitbart story, found on Drudge, another religion-crazed muslim murdered his own daughter for having committed the sin of not wearing a scarf!

Michelle Malkin also has a comment here.

Perhaps I ought to apologize to the many thousands of peaceful, law-abiding, hard working Muslims residing in the various United States, and I do. But, how can a rational being even consider any benevolent thought toward a belief system that demands these kinds of inhuman acts of its adherents?

His name is Muhammad Parvez. He lives in a Toronto, Ontario suburb. Well, he's in custody now, and I hope he stays there for the rest of his miserable life. This beautiful young girl of only sixteen years is now dead because she merely wanted to dress nicely, like her classmates.

I'm afraid, though, that Canada suffers from the same kind of multicultural moral relativism as do many of the Western countries, including leftist US judges. I'm afraid this monster might be given a minimal sentence and be free to live the full life he denied his daughter.

May the rest of his life be short and miserable.

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Another Eight Victims of Gun Phobia

I wish I didn't have all these murders 'pon which to comment. I'd rather comment 'pon cases of individuals successfully defending themselves against attacks by craven savages like Robert Hawkins.

Nebraska's laws allow for concealed weapons carry with a permit (any restrictions 'pon one's right to keep and bear arms is unConstitutional--a requirement for a permit shouldn't be imposed). Theoretically, any individual might have been able to stop this murderer, had he been carrying a handgun. What prevented any chance of this is the Westroads shopping center's policy not to allow weapons inside the mall property. Hawkins obviously didn't heed the signs admonishing that no firearms are to be carried inside the mall.

Aside from the killer himself, who mercifully offed himself after his rampage, liability belongs to the Von Maur mall management for creating a "gun free zone," guaranteeing that any insane monster wishing to commit murder uninterrupted, will be able to do so.

The mall posted signs at the entrances which, in effect, said, "If you want to kill a few people in the mall, come ahead. You will be unopposed."And Hawkins was unopposed. He was only limited by the extent of his bloodthirstiness and the amount of ammunition he carried.

John Lott, Jr has made an undeniable case for legalization of concealed weapons carry in his books, "More Guns, Less Crime" and "The Bias Against Guns." We ignore our own self-protection against these loons at our own peril.

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California