In light of General Wesley Clark’s incredible weekend faux pas regarding the war record of Senator McCain, I’m going to re-post an old article from two years ago - Faux Brass:

Faux Brass: a class of former military officers who have shed the honor and pride of their commissions in favor of retreatist and defeatist policies.

In recent times, a few former military officers have rendered negative opinions on the War on Terror which includes ongoing skirmishes in Iraq and the current trouble in Gaza and Southern Lebanon. Now, let’s be clear that most current and former military “brass” support efforts worldwide in the certain-to-be-lengthy War on Terror. The major media, however, fail to show the overwhelming support for the effort among military brass.

Jack Murtha comes to mind as a former military-turned-politician who gets it wrong — redeploy, he says, to Okinawa(?!). Murtha also shamefully convicts our military prior to any charges being made.

It’s the same with John Kerry who offers that he could have done better if he were president — the trouble is, he offers no ideas, but only the same retreat and concede policy that has been his lifelong pursuit. Thank God that America caused him to concede the last election.

Another ex-military general-turned-presidential-candidate-turned-pundit, Wesley Clark, always portrays the administration in the anti-internationalization light. This from a former NATO Commander — not actually a U.S. Military function. Clark will always defer to the “international community” for policy answers.

Murtha, Kerry and Clark fail to put America first. American interests must first be served before worrying how the “international community” views things. After all, has the UN ever succeeded with anything they attempt, other than stealing from children’s programs and Iraqi oil profits? Nope.

These three examples of Faux Brass, Murtha, Kerry and Clark, each remind me of a certain loudmouth cartoon chicken trying to look like an eagle.

Bear, our long-time family pet, doesn’t get to go for a ride very often. Most times she goes to the vet or to the kennel in the truck, but today was different. We had to run a couple of errands after our session at the shooting range and we decided to bring Bear with us. Instead of being taken into the usual dog places, she got to explore, sniff and enjoy herself while CB was in the store shopping.

As she gets a little older, we want to take her to more places when we go. Even if the destination is mundane to us, she seems to think we’re having a great adventure. A while back, we got her a little doggie staircase to make the jump into the truck a little easier for her. She was leery at first, but now gets very excited when I get the staircase out, because that means we’re going somewhere.

Fifteen of ‘em, by my count. These Cereus cactus flowers were waiting when we got up this morning. With so many more little flower pods coming out, we should be getting new blooms every day for the next couple of weeks. That’s a good thing, ’cause they only last the night and early morning hours before they wilt.

Click the image below to see high res version. You can see the bees gathering nectar in many of the blossoms.

We don’t get a lot of hits here on Cap’n Bob & the Damsel when compared to some of the hit powerhouses on the net these days. But, thanks to the 200+ hits per day we get most days, we’re finally into six digits on the SiteMeter counter.

Today, Damsel took this photo of our Devil’s Tongue barrel cactus, which just got its first flower of the summer. Do ya think there might be 100,000 of those little pollen doodads in the middle of this little buttercup? Well I don’t have the time, inclination or image resolution to count ‘em, but it looks like there could be.

At any rate, thanks to you who are regular visitors and thanks to all the Google image and search referrals, we’re now past the 100K milestone. Also we made another milestone earlier this month when our Never Forget Tribute, seen on hundreds of websites worldwide, passed the 40 million hits threshold.

Thanks to Damsel for all the beautiful pictures she takes, including this one. Click on the image for maximal magnamification.

The Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s ruling today, that the Washington DC gun ban is unconstitutional. Five justices got it right that the constitution and the Bill of Rights are precious. So to honor the good court’s precious decision, I present you with my precious . . .

I guess that SCOTUS is saving the best for last. The Court, once again, did not announce the DC vs. Heller opinion.

The following is from ScotusBlog:

Guns is not being decided today. Last opinion coming now.

UPDATE: HELLER AFFIRMED! (6/26/2008 10:12 AM EDT)

We can now predict that in addition to Justice Scalia likely writing Heller, Justice Alito is likely writing Davis v. FEC.

The Chief Justice has announced from the courtroom that the Court will issue all of its remaining opinions tomorrow at 10 a.m. Eastern.

To recap for those watching the Heller decision, it will definitely be decided tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow, the Court will issue its remaining three decisions: Heller (DC Guns), Davis v. FEC (campaign finance), and American Electric Power (energy contracts).

Clarification: while it appears that Justice Scalia has the principle [sic] opinion in the Guns case, it is not necessarily a majority opinion. It could be a plurality opinion.

What does that last one mean? (Gulp!)

UPDATE: HELLER AFFIRMED! (6/26/2008 10:12 EDT) Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm. Justice Scalia wrote the opinion. Justice Breyer dissented, joined by Justices Stevens, Souter and Ginsburg. The vote is along idealogical lines, left and right.

I’m wasn’t actually sure that ’spider lily’ is the common name of this flower, but when it opened up today, it reminded me of a spider - well with six legs instead of eight. So, I searched on ’spider lily’ and found out that this flower is actually called that:

Hymenocallis caribeae is an evergreen bulb that is native to the West Indies. It does best in full sun or very light shade. The fragrant 3 to 4 inch intricately designed white flowers are borne on top of 18 to 25 inch tall stalks in midsummer.

With Gas prices so high, it appears that some Southern California moms resort to transporting their kids in a more gas conserving way. At least the kid is tied down to mom with a safety belt and wearing a helmet.

It was a pretty normal day at the range today, albeit a little bit warm inside. We took our usual suite of firearms - the .45s, 9mm, .357s and shotguns. We also did our usual thing by making videos and taking photos to view later and maybe post on the blog. All this was completely normal as Damsel took the video of me shooting the Glock 30 - until the eighth round, that is - the brass flew out of the breech and landed - well - in a delicate place as far as Damsel was concerned.

The red marks from the hot brass casing were visible hours later. Oh yes - I have her permission to include the ‘delicate place’ photo at the end of the video on the right.

Rated PG - this sort of brings a new definition to the ‘tap, rack, bang’ phrase . . .

We both attended a Utah CCW Permit class today that included shooting and a classroom session. That delayed our planned BBQ and due to ripple effect we’re just not going to be able to do anything except post one of the pictures I took today while were waiting for the truck to be serviced. Yes, this view was driving distance from the dealer.

Taken from Point Vicente Interpretive Center, Palos Verdes, CA.

Not much time to blog today, we had to go shopping, fill the tank ($75), sit in the patio and hang out with ‘Bear.’ Tomorrow, the truck to goes for periodic maintenance to the service department and we take the training for our Utah CCW permits.

Our vacation next month will take us to places where the permit is valid, so the maintenance for the truck and the CCW training are mandatory, as far as we’re concerned. Bear is happy for us, as you can see.

I just read a pretty good editorial in the Orange County (CA) Register. The title, “You Can’t Ride a Polar Bear to Work”, intrigued me and so I read the item (hat tip Opinion Journal). So, I thought I would pass it along here. Plus, it gives me another chance to post this silly polar bear picture.

The article starts with this news item about the reversal of John McCain’s attitude toward offshore drilling:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain this week reversed his position and drew environmentalists’ wrath when he came out in favor of lifting the federal ban on offshore oil drilling. Mr. McCain apparently realizes he needs motorists’ votes more than environmentalists’ endorsements. Better late than never.

And concludes with this encouragement for McCain to similarly reconsider drilling in ANWR:

We hope that even if it’s only a crass appeal for votes, Mr. McCain rethinks his opposition to drilling in ANWR and also pledges to overcome Democrat opposition to leasing interior federal lands that may contain 1.8 trillion barrels of oil in solid shale rock, which a RAND Corp. study estimates could be enough to meet U.S. energy needs for centuries.

The U.S. realistically can’t become energy independent, but it can become energy self-sufficient by drilling closer to home, reviving shunned technologies such as nuclear power and by encouraging private companies to seek new technologies and approaches in support of that goal.

There are a lot of good points made in between the start and finish of the article. Take the time to read some interesting things about energy consumption and production in our country.