The Rusted Musket

Some weeks ago, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake flattened all there was to flatten in Haiti. The world, in response, sent money and aid to a Haitian nation that was literally down for the count. I believe I was watching a football playoff game the following weekend when the Red Cross asked viewers to donate ten bucks, for use in Haiti, by texting 90999. I seriously thought about doing it, then didn’t. Later on, I was looking at video game stuff on the internet and saw that Bungie (Halo franchise) was selling T-shirts and giving 100% of their profit to Haiti; I bought the T-shirt. Did I buy it for Haiti? No, it was for me. Dear reader, the heart of man is always about ulterior motive, selfishness over self sacrifice.

The Lord though, whose light shines most bright in darkness, highlighted my selfish foolishness and paid me back. When the T-shirt arrived, I opened the box and out came this wad of cloth the size of a bed sheet, basically, it was way too big; I can’t even wear it without looking like an idiot. Ha! serves me right…

Image Credit: Gamespy.com

So I was surfing the web and came across this headline story about Trijicon. Apparently the founder of Trijicon was a christian and decided to put discrete biblical references on the optical sights they make.

If you are like me those numbers/letters look pretty random at first glance. I only noticed that they were references to verses because the stories said that they were. The interesting thing about all of this is that Trijicon has been doing this for 20-30 years and no one has said anything in all of that time… Why you may ask? Because its not a big deal, in fact it is a total non-issue. Only people looking for trouble are going to call these sights Jesus sights or some such crap. This whole “situation” is laughable, people are so ignorant and intolerant now that they can’t stand a discrete biblical reference. Get a life!! It is not proselytizing by having these on military equipment, especially considering they didn’t seem to notice or care before it hit the spotlight… They aren’t trying to convert anyone or force their beliefs on anyone, its just a reference….

Air America, Al Franken’s and Rachel Maddow’s alternative to Rush will be shutting down this next week Monday because really, the media was saturated enough with identical ideology easily found on MSNBC, CBS, and ABC. Ironically, this could hurt conservative talk radio in the long run as the polar opposite liberal viewpoint has disappeared, whereby making the possibility of tantalizing options such as “The Fairness Doctrine“, a counter weight. Because of this, I, along with other Conservatives lament the lose of this outlet for professional Liberals.

If only Air America had followed a format similar to NPR maybe they’d still be in business. The bottom line is this, despite its Liberal bent, NPR is so well produced that even me, a well versed Conservative, can still enjoy it…

It’s something I’ve known for some time, even though I’m not military and don’t even own one of these fantastic cutting edge scopes, at least not yet. For me, it was a fun little trivia fact that the serial number on an ACOG looks something like this: ACOG4X32JN8:12. Notice the end of the serial number, the JN8:12 part, it’s a reference to John 8:12 which says: “Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” Apparently New Zealand does not think it’s a fun little trivia fact and wants it removed from all of their 260 scopes, scopes they’ve been using since 2004. The reason, supposed religious tension that may ensue, because, as New Zealand already demonstrated, it’s such an obvious faux pas.

Trijicon is a individually owned, free market business, as such, they should be free to make their products, and their serial numbers as they see fit. They not need remove the serial number from their products and if you insist on thinking it may be offensive, then let me put it this way. Do you think knowledge of an obscure scriptural reference on a scope would spur Iraq’s and Afghanistan’s usurpers of political freedom any more than a secular, mostly reference free, guest army?

New Zealand, not Trijicon, needs to make a decision, do we use the best scopes in the world, scopes with a scriptural reference on them that took us six years to figure out, or not…

Update: And it looks like Trijicon caved in.

Photo Credit: Rifleshootermag

Apparently, the idea of a new wallet winds me up the same way my woman gets wound up over the idea of skinny jeans. God help me if this is truth, because I think it is. Verily, every time I pass a retailer showcasing brown leather billfolds I slow down in order to get an eyeful of that singularly glorious folded cowhide. Reality my friend, reality though, has always kept me at a safe distance. I’ve already got a good, strong, medium brown bi-fold wallet with a magnetic money retainer at its core. Alas, I can smell it, the cod fish like stench of defeat, I’m going to buy another wallet and jettison the current, perfectly suitable version, as you would an old toaster; shame on me for even thinking that…

Charles Woodson, All Pro Cornerback for the Green Bay Packers, has been named the AP Defensive Player of the Year.  Our congrats go out to Charles on his stellar season.  You can read more about it at JS Online.

When my cousin Danny and I were kids, we spent every Wednesday night at youth group being complete pukes to our favorite youth pastor Harry. It went like this, we’d sit in the corner, or up front, or wherever amongst the sixteen or so regular attenders and giggle, joke, and goof off uncontrollably until Pastor Harry told us to shut it, then maybe we’d go silent for a minute or two but as sure as cereal gets soggy we’d start up again. Honestly, we were the kind of kids you like to loathe, oblivious to the feelings of others, utter juvenile attention seekers.

Now we’re thirty and have both worn the mantel of youth leadership; I was a youth worker for a few years and Danny is currently a youth pastor. Recently, after a massive fondue party, we reflected with embarrassment on how tough and probably disheartening it was to have been tasked with basically babysitting us unruly jerks for all those years.

So Harry, if you somehow ever see this spot of words, please know that you are awesome and that we’re sorry. You meant the world to us as an adult who listened and cared about our frivolity filled lives. Though we never deserved it, you always gave above and beyond, you inspire us still.

Love, The Giggle Queens

One of my favorite things is when a Federal Judge decides it is his/her responsibility to legislate from the bench.  Ok, so I guess sarcasm doesn’t necessarily come through in a text posting.  This is just another case of “what the ( _ )…”  (fill in the blank.)

Enjoy this fine nugget, courtesy of the Associated Press.