Combine Two Great Loves

The smell of bacon frying in the pan? The smell of powder at the range?

One creative genius has devised a way to combine the two. Check it out over at The Gun Blog.

Thanks to my daughter Raquel for the link to this culinary/ballistic delight.

A Call to Corporate Repentance

When national disasters strike, very few contemporary American Christians ask, "What is God trying to tell us?" After the 911 attack, for example, most prayer was directed at those filled with grief & suffering (not a bad thing) and at "making the 'ragheads' pay" (a very presumptuous thing).

Very few asked, "What sins has America committed against God & the nations of the Middle East to bring this judgment down on us?"

We now face another national disaster: Obamacare.

Like Americans in general, Christians pray for deliverance as they plan to mobilize politically. What they don't do is recognize this legislation as judgment upon nation with no soundness in it and a Church delinquent in its responsibilities.

Over at my other blog, I have a post entitled "Obamacare: Who's to Blame?" I recommend that Christian Martialists read & heed. If we don't, God will certainly visit greater judgment upon us.

Women's Self Defese & Computer Security

The following comes from the "Attackproof" newsletter. I verified it at the Snopes site. I thought it might be helpful to pass it on:

"So many of these warnings about viruses and malicious code turn out to be bogus, but I think this one is worth heeding. It was sent to me by a friend whose son is in IT at the National Transportation Safety Board. He received it from the Chief Information Security Office."
Microsoft released a security advisory today warning users to ignore Web sites that nag you to press the F1 key.  This key is sometimes referred to as the Help key.  Doing so allows malicious code to execute using the permissions of the current user.  Microsoft is developing a patch to fix this vulnerability and expects to release it within the next few days.  This vulnerability affects all users of Windows XP and Internet Explorer.
What Does This Mean To You?
Do not press the F1 key if prompted by a web site
Doing so will cause your computer to become compromised and could require a reformat and software reinstall to remove the malicious code.  The OCIO will be watching closely for the availability of a patch and will advise if any additional measures should be taken prior to its deployment.
--[Thanks to Barry for the above].

 As long as I'm referencing "Attackproof", I want to you to see the free women's self defense video they have made available. Attendees of the WARSKYL seminar will recognize some of the same principles I emphasized there.


BTW, guys, don't think that this is only for women. If it will work for women (who typically have less size & upper body strength than men), it will work for you, too.

Defending against a Knife Attack, 7

Continued from "Defending against a Knife Attack, 6"

What do I do if I"m out and about, and I don't have my batons with me? I carry my keys.

As an interesting aside, those who have studied the peculiarities of the socioeconomic classes tell us that the more keys one carries, the lower his class. The janitor and the night watchman with their big rings of many keys are pretty much at the bottom. If you're a Rockefeller, Kennedy or DuPont, you probably don't even carry car keys, because your chauffeur and aides take care of most situations that require them.

My key ring screams, "Proletarian!" I have loaded it with as many good old, heavy brass keys as it will hold. The key ring is affixed to an old dog collar of the choke-chain variety.

I have recently tried to make it a habit when away from home and I'm going to and from my vehicle to loop the chain around my hand. This turns the key ring into a mini-mace that -- because of the velocity possible -- will generate a surprisingly powerful impact.

Since the improvised mini-mace is already in my hand, I do not have to draw or retrieve it in case a knife-wielder attacks. The chain adds to my reach, and the bunched keys will deliver blows to his knife hand, face, head -- whatever I can reach.

Defending against a Knife Attack, 6

Continued from "Defending against a Knife Attack, 5"

I no longer take my cane along on my walks. I found that if I have it with me, I tend to use it, which (for some odd reason) results in lower back discomfort.

Now I carry my batons. NOT typical police issue batons, mind you.

My batons hark from my days of training in Goshin Ryu Jujitsu. They are 26" wooden dowels about 1&1/8" in diameter.

They also differ from police batons in that you hold them in the middle rather than at one end. This gives the ability strike with either end. In addition, you can thrust with either end.

It may be difficult to picture how this is done, but once you see it, it is very easy to learn the basics. Also, the moves are all gross motor skills, which is a plus when you're under adrenaline stress.

My plan is to paint a pair of batons day-glo orange , mount a small reflector on each tip & wrap each end with reflective tape. Thus I will have a couple of sticks that help make pedestrians like me more visible to motorists.

They are not only safety sticks because they increase my visibility, they are also exercise sticks because I perform aerobic movements with them as I walk. The fact that one might use them as weapons is entirely incidental to their main function. (right?)

I could carry them in my car, because they would also serve to direct traffic at the scene of collisions, road hazards, etc.

Finally, if someone should accost me with a knife while I have my safety/exercise sticks in my hands, I could use them to exercise my right to safety from attack.

P.S. I am available to teach baton safety/exercise classes. gravelbelly@gmail.com

To be continued.

Doing Right

Not all battles are fought with guns, knives or fists. The greatest battles are often unseen.

I wrote "Doing Right" about 25 years ago, when I was going through some difficult times. I hope it will encourage all you Christian Martialists out there.

                   Doing Right

When you are all alone, and no one sees you but God,
Doing right is still the right thing to do;
When you think you can do wrong, and no one will ever know,
Dong right is still the right thing to do;
When the whole world marches to the jazzed-up beat of the devil's drum,
Doing right is still the right thing to do;
When the choice is between doing wrong or suffering personal loss,
Doing right is still the right thing to do,
When the temptation comes to do wrong in order to preserve your good name,
Doing right is still the right thing to do;
When the right choice may threaten the loss of friend, job, loved one, security, or even life itself,
Doing right is still the right thing to do;
Some people say that life is a gamble. If that is so, I want to place my bet--I will risk it all on the bet that all the pain, suffering, rejection, criticism, poverty, and persecution that I may endure for the Savior will evaporate in the warmth of one "Well done!"
Then may we see that doing right was not just the right thing to do, but the only thing to do.

DoE Buys Tactical Weapons

The U.S. Dept. of Education has advertised that it is taking bids to supply them with 27 tactical shotguns. The weapons are to be fitted with 14" barrels. (Click here to see.)

The Remington 870's designated "are designated as the only shotguns authorized for ED based on compatibility with ED existing shotgun inventory . . ."

EXISTING SHOTGUN INVENTORY?

James Muncil of the Patriots of America Blog asks the appropriate questions:

Since when did the DoE become an agency that needed firepower? How do the Dems and Libs justify this purchase while passionately protesting for gun-free schools? Is there some sort of enforcement arm of DoE that we don't know about? Or is this just in preparation for the enforcement/expansion of the liberal agenda in our nation's school systems?
. . . .  In the grand scheme of the out-of-control spending by our government, 27 shotguns is a tiny waste of money, but it doesn't negate the irrelevance of the purchase by a non-law enforcement agency.

Yahoo News provides some answers. Unfortunately, the answers are at least as disturbing as the questions:

The department and other federal agencies have weapons because the Homeland Security Act of 2002 and some earlier laws empowered agents in their offices of inspector general to carry firearms.

More than just eagle-eyed numbers crunchers poring over records for waste and fraud involving federal tax dollars, special agents for the inspectors general actually hit the streets to round up the bad guys.

"Major (inspectors general) not only perform audits and review the efficiency of federal programs, they also conduct extensive criminal investigations," said Paul Feeney , a spokesman for the inspector general at the Department of Agriculture . "Many people may not be aware of the dangerous circumstances that agents may encounter."

All this underscores the fact that government-controlled compulsory education grows out of the barrel of a gun.

What's next? DoE SWAT teams to raid home school families? Oh, wait . . . that's already happened . . . more than once!

Lorica of St. Patrick

Today is a good day to review the words (and music) of Patrick's Lorica.

Here's the link to a St. Patrick's day post where you can do that:

Patrick's Lorica

Christian Freedom Fighters in Burma, 2

Continued from "Christian Freedom Fighters in Burma"

The Karen people of Burma (or Myanmar) have always been a persecuted minority. For the past 60+ years, the hostility has taken the form of a civil war.

Both the post WWII Marxist regime and the more recent military junta have tried to wipe out the Karen minority. The hatred of the Karen is partly ethnic, but more than a little stems from a hatred of Christ and His kingdom.

In 2007, an allegedly official Burmese document came to light. According to a London Telegraph article,

The text, which opens with the line "There shall be no home where the Christian religion is practised", calls for anyone caught evangelising to be imprisoned. It advises: "The Christian religion is very gentle – identify and utilise its weakness."
The article also states:

Its discovery follows widespread reports of religious persecution, with churches burnt to the ground, Christians forced to convert to the state religion, Buddhism, and their children barred from school.

Human rights groups claim that the treatment meted out to Christians, who make up six per cent of the population, is part of a wider campaign by the regime, also targeted at ethnic minority tribes, to create a uniform society in which the race and language is Burmese and the only accepted religion is Buddhism.

It further reports:

In the past year, an estimated 27,000 members of the predominantly Christian Karen tribe were driven from their homes in eastern Burma.

While the U.S. spends hundreds of billions to fight for the "freedom" of peoples in the Middle East who never asked for it, Karen and other ethnic Christian groups are systematically wiped out in Burma.

Maybe it would be different if Burma sat atop a huge pool of petroleum reserves.

Christian Freedom Fighters in Burma

Some time around 1990, I became aware of a people known as the Karen (ka RAIN), a persecuted minority of Burma. A large percentage of them are professing Christians, due to the early 19th Century missionary work of Adoniram Judson.

The story of their conversion is remarkable enough to reproduce here from Wikipedia:

The Karen people were a hunted minority group of ancient Burmo-Tibetan ancestry scattered in the forests and jungles of the Salween River and in the hills along the southeast coast. Judson was the first missionary to make contact with them about 1827 when he ransomed and freed a debt-slave from one of his early converts. The freed slave, Ko Tha Byu, was an illiterate, surly man who spoke almost no Burmese and was reputed to be not only a thief but also a murderer who admitted killing at least thirty men, but could not remember exactly how many more.

In 1828 the former Karen bandit, "whose rough, undisciplined genius, energy and zeal for Christ" had caught the notice of the missionaries, was sent south with a new missionary couple, the Boardmans, into the territory of the strongly animistic, non-Buddhist Karen. There, he was no sooner baptized than he set off into the jungle alone to preach to his fellow tribespeople. Astonishingly, he found them strangely prepared for his preaching. Their ancient oracle traditions, handed down for centuries, contained some startling echoes of the Old Testament that some scholars conjecture a linkage with Jewish communities (or possibly even Nestorians) before their migrations from western China into Burma perhaps as early as the twelfth century.

The core of what they called their "Tradition of the Elders" was a belief in an unchangeable, eternal, all-powerful God, creator of heaven and earth, of man, and of woman formed from a rib taken from the man. They believed in humanity's temptation by a devil, and its fall, and that some day a messiah would come to its rescue. They lived in expectation of a prophecy that white foreigners would bring them a sacred parchment roll.

To be continued

My Rifle, Pony and Me

A few weeks back, my daughter Merrianna bought a DVD of the John Wayne movie Rio Bravo. We enjoyed watching it again -- it has been a favorite for years.

The theme of strong men trying to do the right thing against all odds appeals to me. Then there are tactical survival hints, such as what John Wayne's character does just before he sits down to talk to Ward Bond's character in the hotel lobby.

Another attractive aspect is the mutual respect and camaraderie among the main characters. Nothing forges bonds like facing hard times together.

At one of their low points, the main characters are hunkered down in the jail house. In the providence of the writers, it's just the time for a song -- and thanks to good casting, Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson are on hand to do the singing.

(Note to my barber: In our personal dark times, we never broke into song, bro, but we did hunker down and laugh at the absurdities of the evil around us. Enjoy the song.)

The Supreme Court Hears Gun Case

With all that's going on in U.S. politics, it's nice that there's a hopeful glimmer in the vast darkness. Personal Liberty Digest reports:

In one of the biggest cases to come before the Supreme Court in years, justices are hearing arguments today in McDonald v. Chicago over the city’s 28-year-old handgun ban. It has also prompted both proponents and opponents of the ban to once again voice their cases.

The NY Daily News adds:

The case involves 76-year-old Chicago resident Otis McDonald, who claimed the city's 1982 ban on handguns left him prey to street gangs.

Brethren, let us pray.

Pro-Gun Links for Christians

My barber sent me a link to this web page:

Christian Gun Owners

The site has a lot of good info, and it promotes the idea that guns can be a legitimate part of fellowship among Christian men. My one caveat is the blanket endorsement of the U.S. Constitution. (I believe that the Constitution is not the solution, but part of the problem.)

Also, here is a link to an interview by Crane Durham, host of the AFA channel's "Nothing but Truth":

Gina's Got a Gun