Reports are still sketchy, but it appears that a servicemember has been caught with military grade explosives at the airport in Midland, Texas.  I see three things as possibilities for this:

1. This is an American jihadi ala Nidal Hasan who was stupid enough to try to take his bomb in his carry-on
2. This is a soldier coming home on leave with a little something to show the people back home
3. This is a soldier PCS’ing to a nearby base who has a little something extra 

On the whole, this has been a good year for us.  Irish Woman and I are still gainfully employed, and everyone is in good health.  Knock wood, but no major catastrophes have hit our little family.  The kids continue to do well.

I’ve met a lot of wonderful people this year, both in the real world and on the web.  I may not speak to all of y’all every day, but I read what you write and it gives me new perspectives on the world.

Thanks for putting up with my bad jokes and rants.  I promise more of the same for the new year.

We watched the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie tonight, and it’s a pretty good flick.  Review is pending.

One drawback – everything I read now has the voice of Captain Barbossa in my head.

It was amusing until I read something by the beautiful and not a scruffy pirate at all Nancy R.  Just doesn’t sound right.

Not Nancy R.

I’m off to figure out why the rum is gone, and if it’s not, to make it so.

Yesterday I listed the top 25 songs played on my iPhone.  Just from that list, you’d think I was pretty white bread in my tastes, and to a point I am.  But that list skews towards family friendly stuff because I usually listen to music in the car when I have the family with me.  If I’m alone in the car or listening to headphones, I usually listen to podcasts.  Curiously, listening to the sound of people talking in a  podcast helps me to drown out the sound of people talking in the office.

So here’s what I normally listen to when I’m listening for myself:

• Bryan Suits on KGO – A podcast made from the daily show on a San Diego radio station.  Center-Right politics, but the snark is strong with this one.  Lots of reminders of why I’m glad I never moved back to California.
• Coffee and Markets – Libertarian/Republican economics and politics
• Common Sense with Dan Carlin – Libertarian politics and current events.
• Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History – Essays about historical topics given from the standpoint of a dedicated amateur
• Dark Secret Place – Weekly show by Bryan Suits about the military, politics, and military technology
• Down Range Radio – Michael Bane’s weekly talk about guns and shooting, from the secret bunker high atop the Rocky Mountains.  Bonus points if you’re familiar with the music he plays at the beginning and end of the podcast.
• Empty Mags – JP does a bang-up job discussing shooting topics for the everyman.
• The History of Rome – Good semi-weekly show that’s been going for years.  Great chronology of the Roman civilization, starting with the founding of the city.  The series seems to be winding down, as the host is just about to the point where the western empire dries up and blows away, but all of the old episodes are available for download and it took me weeks to listen to all of them when I decided to restart.
• Vicious Circle – A guilty pleasure.  Good talk between good friends, but definitely not something I’d listen to with the kids around.  Sometimes very insightful, always entertaining.  Warning – DaddyBear is not responsible for loss of sanity points due to listening to Vicious Circle.  Especially if Weerd and Stingray are having a “Who can find the grossest stuff on the Internet?” contest or if the participants are indulging in porno theater of the mind.  You have been warned.

I did a lot of my Christmas shopping in the Internet this year.  Most of it was laziness, but a lot of it was just that I hate crowded stores.  The advent of free shipping means I can usually get what I want, with less effort, at at least a comparable price without having to leave the house and put up with people.

This morning I woke up to almost 100 spam emails from various vendors.  So here’s my take on it:

• I know what I need and most of what I want.  If I’ve done business with you in the past, I will check your website for good prices before buying something.  Getting 5 emails from the same company in one day moves that company down the list.
• If I’m already sending your charity a check every month, rest assured that it’s the most I can afford to send at the moment.  As things improve, my donations will also improve.  There really isn’t a need to ask for more.  And yes, I already tell my friends about your cause.
• If you’re a charity and you sell my information to other charities so that they can spam me, kiss my donations goodbye.  Look at it this way:  My charitable donations budget is a finite amount of money.  Every additional charity that catches my attention and gets a bit of it reduces the amount of money for those causes that I already support.  Is the couple of bucks you get for my email address enough to compensate for having my donations reduced or eliminated?
• If you’re a political party, candidate, office holder, or advocate organization, the quickest way to lose my support is to start sending me requests for funding more than once a month or so.  I had 15 emails in the past three days from a large gun-rights organization.  Guess who’s going on the naughty list?
• Being sneaky is a bad idea.  One clever lady sent me an email that read like a family Christmas newsletter, but all of the information was about how her agency could save me money on insurance, and the family-sounding link at the bottom of the email led me to her business site.   Nice try.
• NFL teams – I either hope that you will dominate or I hope you lose in an epic way.  Sending me emails directing me to your team paraphalia store isn’t going to get me to like you any more. Honestly, I already have a Raiders tee shirt and a Vikings hat.

So, that’s what I don’t like about solicitation emails.  Here’s how to do it right:

• Send me emails when you come up with or start carrying new products, preferably once every month or so.  That way I know what’s going on with companies I’ve done business with in the past, but don’t feel pressured.
• Send me emails when products go on sale that are consumables, such as ammunition, cleaning supplies, or camping food.  If I know it’s something that I will use and then have to replace, I’m more likely to stock up if I see a good deal.
• Be honest.  If you’re emailing me to try to get me to buy something from you, be up front about it.
• If you’re a charity, an occasional email telling me about what y’all have been up to recently is nice.  No need for daily or weekly updates.
• I use my smart phone to read my email.  Send emails that can be read easily on that platform. Bonus points for plain text.  Big minus is to just send a picture that links to your website.

Hi guys,

Just read this, and I have to say, that’s not Christmas.

A child is given a medical device that allows him to sit up without someone holding him, and your flight attendants insist that he instead sit with his parents keeping him from falling over for a flight.

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m intimately aware that you have to follow all FAA regulations.  I understand that most child seats are indeed inspected by the FAA and approved for airliner use.  However, I think that something that’s being used as a medical device falls outside those guidelines.  It probably would have been better to follow the same rules as you do for someone who is strapped into a wheelchair without use of the lower part of their body.

I see that you are already apologizing and trying to make things right for this family, and I give you full credit for that.

Hopefully you learn from this.  Southwest is one of the last good domestic airlines left, and I’d hate for y’all to lose that reputation.

Sincerely,

Daddy J. Bear

It’s over.  Thank God.

Putting some woman who has delusions of grandeur because her elementary school music teacher told her she had a good voice on the TV because she won a Facebook contest is not journalism.  Letting her belt out a few bars of the latest ballad from pubescent romance fantasies is the opposite of journalism.

Here’s a rule of thumb:  If it gives you a warm and fuzzy, it’s probably not news.  If it can be classified as a “human interest story”, save your breath, I’m not interested.

It’s the Illudium Q-38 Explosive Space Modulator!

 A Louisville teenager had a scare today.  While he was home alone today, a couple of thugs broke into his home, held him at knife point, and ransacked the house.  One of the fine upstanding proactive property redistributors held a knife to his throat and asked if he wanted to die.  How charming.

This one hits close to home.  Girlie Bear spends about an hour or so every afternoon at the house alone when she gets home from school.  Also, sometimes we can’t get a whole day off work to be home with her if she’s home for a day off of school, so she may spend half a day alone.  We don’t worry about her doing anything she shouldn’t.  She’s a responsible young lady, and we haven’t had any issues with her being by herself so far.

But what should she do if she’s surprised by someone in the house when she gets home or if someone breaks in when she’s home alone?

My advice to her has been to run.  She has to fight as hard as she can to get away, but she has to get away.  I’m under no illusions that even my hellcat of a daughter can physically subdue or drive off robbers.  Because Boo is so young, all of our guns are religiously locked up, and Girlie Bear doesn’t have the combination to any of the safes.  To be honest, I would consider myself a fool to think that a 13 year old, either boy or girl, would have the wherewithal to unlock a safe under stress when I have to practice it regularly myself.

So what do y’all think?  Do you tell your kids to defend themselves and the home, cooperate with the thugs, or run like their ass was on fire and get help?