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What is the stupidest thing you’ve heard somebody say in the last two weeks?

I’ve been told I live in a MAGA bubble. If I wasn’t brainwashed by FauxNews and actually cared about others, I would no longer be a Maggot.

The reality is that I can’t escape their noise and opinions. It is everywhere.

Ally and I noticed a while ago that every cop show on TV talks about “legally registered guns.” Every single one of them. NCIS was horrible about this. Law and Order had the excuse that it was taking place in NYC where all “legal” guns are supposed to be registered.

Though an egregious one popped up recently. The detectives of L&O were investigating a “sniper.” They tracked the gun back to the FFL that sold the gun.

They then accused the FFL of attempting to hide the identity of the purchaser because the signature on the 4473 was illegible. They made a big deal about it.

Every 4473 that I’ve ever filled out requires me to fill out the form with my printed information and the FFL then copies my government ID information (DL) onto the form. If the left didn’t lie they wouldn’t have anything to say.

The Question

What is a trope or common “everybody knows” that you see in movies or shows that is pure left-wing talking points?

The right to self-defense is what keeps us from having mass graves.

I disagree with everything you said. I will defend to the death your right to say it.

Rights exist. We are all born with them. Every person in the world.

We are lucky to live in the United States, where many of those rights are protected by our constitution.

Those are not our Second Amendment rights. Those are our Second Amendment protected rights.

The same is true of all of our rights. Some are explicitly protected through the Bill of Rights, others are implicitly protected through the body of the Constitution and other Amendments.

TCK is wrong. Civil rights do apply to everyone.

My morals are not situational. Ally’s morals are not situational.

TCK’s seem to be situational. Rights for him but not for them.

When Dickwad was accused of sexually molesting the daughters of my best friend, I waited until I had seen enough evidence to know it was true.

When the detective asked me what I thought should happen to him, my answer was simple: After he is found guilty and sentenced, I want him placed in genpop.

Dickwad still had rights. He had a right to a jury of his peers. He had a right to face his accusers. He had the right to not incriminate himself. He had a right not to be tortured.

When he was convicted of the crimes he was accused of, he was sentenced, and his rights were removed from him.

He lost the right to vote, he lost the right to keep and bear arms, and he lost the right to move freely. And I fully expect he will lose his right to life will be removed from him before he gets out of prison.

Now I’m going to put on my administrative hat.

TCK: Feel free to leave. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

If you do stay, drop the insults. Ally put on her administrator hat and gave you the rule.

She told you that “Go fuck yourself.” is unacceptable. I echo that. “Go fuck yourself.” is unacceptable.

Her reply was thoughtful and did not attack you. She expressed her opinion clearly without attacking you.

Your reply again resorted to insults. You can’t point to a single thing in her original article or her reply that even remotely sounds like she’s being an “asshole.” You are wrong. Take a step back and read her article again and her comments without taking it personally.

Civil rights apply to everyone. You might not like it, but they do.

Do you even know what gaslighting means? Ally’s perspective is incredibly valuable to me, and I hope to the blog in general. Because she isn’t a “far-right conservative”. She’s barely right of what center used to be. Her perspective brings how the left perceives things.

She isn’t telling you this is a reality; it is how the left perceives things.

Are their fears irrational? Absolutely. If the Trump administration was disappearing people, like they claim, they wouldn’t know it was happening. If they were out of control, they would be rounding up those insurrectionists and throwing them in the oubliette, never to be seen again. That’s not happening. This means their fears are irrational.

“[Y]ears brutalizing the innocent” doesn’t seem to match with my memory. Those people up in MN didn’t brutalize the innocent. Maybe the Joe Biden puppet masters did, but not those people.

You might think “they” are guilty, you haven’t even presented enough evidence for me to consider them guilty. Regardless, people don’t lose their rights because they say nasty, evil, horrible things. They have to commit an actual crime.

If they haven’t committed a crime but what they did should be a crime, then we need to work to make it a crime.

We don’t get to say, “They committed a moral crime” anymore than they get to say it to us.

The reason they are called “civil rights” has nothing to do with social contracts. They are called that because they are “civil” cases, not criminal cases.

Criminal cases can only be initiated by the state. Civil cases can be initiated by anybody. A boundary dispute between to neighbors is a civil case.

A case about a violation of your Second Amendment protected rights is a civil case.

Here are three to think about:

1. Is it an assault with a deadly weapon to use a Super Soaker in -7F tempetures?
2. Should Don Lemon be charged for his participation in the invasion of the church in MN?
3. What is the thing your SO will decide they must have once the snow has started?

I’ve been having a difficult time being motivated to write. I made a promise to myself to post at least once a day when I started writing for Miggy, and I’ve kept that schedule ever since.

The number of readers seems to have dropped to a very few core readers and my guess is that I just don’t write the things people want to read.

At the same time, when I hear about something interesting, it is normally because somebody else has already chimed in.

So the question of the week:

What do you get out of this blog? What is it that gets you to click back to see what is new?

Thank you

I should title this, “I don’t know what I don’t know.”

Bitnami stopped providing free WordPress images. This means I have to create a container and docker compose control file that will plug in and replace the Bitnami version.

This isn’t horribly difficult; it just takes a bit of work. Even now, I just realized that I can make a change that will make my life a little easier, so it is something I will do.

The problem is that there is a possibility of crashing the site. Not something I want to do.

So I’ve been putting it off.

The good news is that we went from a point fix to a point release. We were on 6.8.2; 6.8.3 came out. I found out the need to redo the containers.

Before that happened, 6.9.0 was released.

I have a policy of waiting for the point fix before migrating. The point fix would be 6.9.1.

In the meantime, Google changed the way they handle reCAPTCHA, that annoying thing that asks, “Are you human?”

The robots found The Vine and proceeded to register around 450 users before I shut down user registration.

Those have been cleaned out. Unfortunately that took a bit of time, and now I have to look into the newest version of robot defenses.

Argh, why can’t this stuff be simple?

Meanwhile, on a different screen, I’m looking at a 3D model with dropdowns for “work”, “RPM”, “boiler pressure,” and a few other things that feed into the built-in spreadsheet. That spreadsheet then drives the 3D model.

This has required learning things that every backwoods machinist used to know. Now it requires reading books published in the late 1800s.

Oh, getting my AI to give me trustworthy numbers is driving me bonkers.

Simple question: What are your hopes for Second Amendment litigation in 2026?

I am hoping that the vampire rule has a stake driven through it, killing it and sensitive places altogether.

I am hoping that we get another example of temporary disarmament when the Supreme Court issues their opinion regarding weed and guns.

Finally, I’m hoping that we get a ruling that says that my Second Amendment rights do not end at my state’s borders.

I hope you all had an excellent Christmas. That you connected with your family and friends.

Two feasts are done, and it is time to find places for all the new loot.

For me, the two most happy making gifts were a pair of (expensive for my son) fur lined moccasins and a small book, “The Constitution of the United States and Other Founding Documents”

What was the most surprising in a good way gift you received? What was your favorite reaction to a gift you gave?

The first feast day is done. Friends and family gathered, and we exchanged gifts for those that will not be in the house today.

Santa arrived and filled our stockings with Christmas joy.

Here is wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas!

This is the second Christmas without my parents. Last year, about now, I was finding out just how nasty my brother actually is. Which gratefully caused me to connect with “The Cousins”.

This year I am doing a bit better. Not great, but better.

Growing up, Christmas had rules. You got three “major” presents. Mom made sure they matched you and, to her, more importantly, that the value of your set of presents exactly matched your siblings.

I swear that Mom would make that balance within a few nickels every year.

As the number of grandkids grew and Mom became more mentally fragile, she couldn’t keep up with matching presents to kids. She switched what she was doing.

Each kid, grandchild, spouse or significant other, and “adopted” child received the same thing: a beautiful Christmas ornament and a cash gift.

The first time this happened, it was difficult for me; I was broke, so that cash was extremely helpful. But the ornament matched me, and that was what I was truly thankful for, but I also needed to express my gratitude for the cash. I didn’t want my parents to think it was just the cash that was important to me.

Over the years Mom’s ability to choose personal ornaments declined, but it was still a staple.

Last year there were no ornaments from Mom. She and Dad were gone.

As Christmas started growing nearer this year, I felt the loss of my parents overwhelming me. Knowing that there would be no ornaments, no cash from Mom under the tree.

I fixed it. I got the addresses of all the cousins, the names of their spouses and significant others, any children they had, adopted or natural. Then I got ornaments for them all. The female adults got ornaments from one collection, and everybody else got them from a different collection.

Those ornaments with a $10 bill were packaged up and sent out.

Everybody that Mom would have sent a gift to received a gift. Even my brother.

It worked. All who have reported so far have been very pleased.

The Question

What is a Christmas tradition that your family has that you took over when your parents passed or that you want your offspring to take up when you pass?