Pirate's Cove

Hey, a good old fashioned meme! It’s been years and years since we had one of these. I loved them. This one’s via Proof at Proof Positive, who got it from Chris Wysocki over at Pretty Fly for a Jersey Guy.

There is no voting, no stuffing the ballot box, no campaigning. It’s just a way to bring recognition to other blogs and bloggers that are out there.

Which means, as Ed McMahon used to say, I already may a winner!

Here are the rules:

1. Display the award logo on your blog.
2. Link back to the person who nominated you
3. Answer 7 questions decided up by your nominator
4. Nominate ( no limit of nominations ) other bloggers for this award and link back to them.
5. Notify those bloggers of the award requirements.

Proof’s questions

1. What do you like most about me? (Just seeing if you were paying attention!)

The real #1. Education is important if we are going to preserve the Republic past this generation. Do you think home schooling or private schools better prepare the next generation for life? I really do not know much about home schooling except what I have read and one of my employees homeschooling his kids, who I will say seemed very bright, well adjusted, and respectful. I do know about private school, having attended a boarding school. I learned quite a bit, but, I will say we were kinda isolated from the real world. It prepared you for college, and, quite frankly, I know a lot of people who went hog wild at college. But, considering the state of public education, private or charter makes a hell of a lot of sense.

2. Boxers, briefs, thong or commando? (Hey! Gotta keep this from getting too heavy! You should have seen my first list of questions!) Actually, boxer briefs. Briefs annoy me cause they pinch on the legs, especially when it’s hot and sweaty. Boxers? I personally do not care for them riding up the crack of my butt (you’re welcome for that visual!) when they get sweaty. And I work outside a lot. I’ll never understand how women can wear thongs.

3. What was the best thing you’ve ever written and why? I wish I could answer that with a specific post, but, I’ve written over 14,500 posts. Many are ones like the If All You See… ones, or photo essays, or simple posts. Most tend to be old school blogging, find an article, do some excerpting, add some opinion and facts. Some are actually articles. I know I have one buried somewhere about what a conservative stands for (similar to one I wrote for Blogs for McCain, though I can only access it using the Wayback Machine on my Droid), and some really good ones on “climate change” here and there. Perhaps the best might be one that I didn’t really write. It is the Guardian Story. It is mostly just the full article from the UK Guardian where Charlie Brooker was hoping Bush 43 would be assassinated if he won re-election. Why am I proud of that? Well, it was making the rounds at the time, and for some reason I said “I’m going to save the whole thing to a text file.” And when the Guardian took the article down, I post the whole thing. I might have been the only one at the time.

Shortly thereafter I received a take down request via email from the Guardian. I replied by telling them if they put it back up I’d reduce my post to an excerpt. Then a more threatening email. I replied the same. Then a much more threatening one, to which I replied that how can they ask me to take down a post with a full excerpt on an article that no longer existed? Having only been blogging for a few months, I think that took some balls.

Then there’s a post (forget which one) on Islamic terrorists which got me a legitimate death threat from an Islamic group, which the FBI took seriously, and recommending I not discuss and damned sure not blog about.

Also, consider that I have been doing my Patriotic Pinup posts since 5/4/2005. Every Sunday since that day. I’ve expanded them from just a pinup to including the Fine 15 and Rule 5 linkage. I dare say it might be the longest running weekly meme in the blogosphere.

4. What was the most popular thing you’ve ever written? (Not necessarily the same as #3) The Guardian Story. It might not be a lot to some, but I got around 20-25k hits in a few hours as I got linked by Instapundit and a few other Big Folks in the Blogosphere at the time.

There’s also a couple that have gotten a lot of hits over the years, unfortunately, e-referrer is down at the moment.

5. What’s your favorite book or movie and why? Asking books is asking a lot. I read A LOT! Always have. If I had to really choose one, it would be Starship Troopers, considering I’ve probably read it at least 15-20 times. Heinlein has always been a favorite. Read many of his books many times. There are other books that are awesome too, but, the messages of ST sneak up on you, a very American Conservative book, with themes of earning your way, why we fight, limited government, and others, all wrapped around a fun and well written scifi book.

Movie would have to be Star Wars: A New Hope. Nuff said. Though there are many I truly love. The first Pirate’s Of The Caribbean. Revenge of the Sith (if they had just added about 5 more minutes people might have understood why Anakin turned to the dark side so easily, as was shown in the novel). Abbott and Costello’s “The Time Of Their Lives”. Any old school monster/horror movie.

6. How old were you when you realized that government was not the solution? Probably in mid-20’s. I just never paid that much attention to politics during college. Interestingly, I voted for Clinton in 1996 and Gore in 2000. I’ve always believe government has a role, and in some cases can be the solution. There are some things government can do that the private sector can’t. Such as national security. Unfortunately, even where it is a job that government should do, they often do it for themselves, not for the citizenry. Graft, incompetence, malfeasance, etc.

7. If you could change any law or practice in the USA, what would it be and why? Hmm. I’d love to give the police the power to ticket drivers for being idiots and jerks, particularly since I tend to hit big driving chokepoints with lots of jackasses every day going to and from work.

More realistic, though I wasn’t kidding above, I’d change the law so that most of the burden for illegal aliens would be on employers and such, to the point that no employer would dare hire an illegal knowingly/by accident, no school would allow anyone to attend who was not supposed to be in the country (mostly those who overstay their visas), no one would rent to illegals. If a company wants to hire a legal foreign worker, they would be responsible for keeping track of their immigration status, and providing health insurance. Schools would be tasked with the same. This would seriously reduce the amount of illegals, if they couldn’t work or go to school. The penalties would be severe, both criminally and civilly. Illegals who get busted don’t care. Business owners, hiring managers, school officials, they’d care.

My questions:

1. Why did you start blogging?
2. What is your opinion regarding anthropogenic global warming, ie, “climate change”?
3. If you could go anywhere right now, where would it be?
4. Do you think there is any hope of restoring the United States to a constitutional republic in your lifetime?
5. If you could stand up in front of the elected GOP leadership, what would you tell them?
6. What do you do during your free time (other than blogging, of course)?
7. What are you most proud of?

I’m going to tag

• AAferwit at Raised On Hoecakes.
• Susan at Wake Up America.
• Both R.S. McCain and Smitty at The Other McCain
• The Lonely Conservative.
• Doug at The Daley Gator.
• Bob Belvedere at The Camp of The Saints.

There are many, many, many others I’d like to tag, but I think that’s enough so it can spread.