davehayes.org

it’s no wonder so many people are (unreasonably) terrified of firearms and the owners/enthusiasts of said firearms. the indianapolis star ran a story on november 28th by AP reporter rose french with the headline “Tinkerer hits the mark with powerful rifle” (most other news agencies ran the headline “Gunmaker Arms the Military and the Stars”) about the .50 BMG rifle, specifically the barrett gun that’s produced right here in tennessee, no more than 45 minutes from where i sit now.

anyhow, yesterday, the fifty caliber institute ran their own story, with the headline “With ‘Powerful Rifle’ article, journalist shoots self in the foot” by their own michael marks as a rebuttal to the AP story. very, very interesting (and entertaining, enlightening, etc) indeed…

how do we let the news media get away with such blatant misinformation? now, i’m not trying to come off here as a rush limbaugh dittohead shrieking about the left-wing biased media. surely all of us can relate to how some reporter in our home town did a story on something close to us and completely mucked it up. surely there has been a time when you picked up a paper to read a story on something you actually knew a fair bit about only to come away thinking to yourself “that darn reporter doesn’t know her ear from a hole in the ground…” only to go on and read the rest of the paper, taking all of its so-called information at face value without even a hint of skepticism.

hell, it’s obvious none of the hundreds of news agencies across the country that published this article didn’t take the time to do their own research before they took it to press, otherwise they would’ve seen straight off how un-true it is and either re-written it or cut it altogether. this particular issue hits home for me, but 2nd amendment rights may not be first and foremost in your mind. however, i can guarantee you there is some topic to which you are particularly endeared that is being distorted and misrepresented by the media as we know it, and i think we ought to set ourselves to holding them accountable for it.

my dad loves sending me ads for cars that i want but can’t afford. constantly. to add insult to injury, they’re usually not that far out of my reach, and often an amazing deal (he has a knack for finding those). anyway, yesterday i opened my inbox to find this little gem staring me in the face:

it’s a 1963 ford fairlane. my dad knows that i’ve been wanting one of these for quite some time now. the description that accompanied the pictures in the email only enhanced the draw of this car. even though it isn’t an FE, i can’t be picky about 501 cubic inches of big block goodness. please dear reader, read on…

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i had a great time at thanksgiving this year. i went home to my parents’ house in illinois. my mom and dad made dinner for only 5 us: themselves, my sister, my cousin jessica and i. i took pictures of everything since there are so many people who read this site religiously and are so interested in what i did over thanksgiving anyway, here come the pictures…

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first off, let me say that this is not in reference to open source theology, the open view or any other such ideas about Christianity that are currently coming into discussion in the church. if you’re looking for that kind of stuff, you can head over to brian drinkwine’s xanga, as he’s the expert on those things. this is something entirely different.

i had an interesting discussion last night with some acquaintances about firefox, an open source web browser. as many of you know (either by the links down the side of this page or by talking to me), i’m a big advocate of free open source software (an explanation of which is beyond the scope of this writing, please visit the link there for more info) and as geeky as it may be, it’s something about which i can be rather passionate at times. this stems primarily from my role as a network administrator and a web developer (or webmaster, web designer, whatever you want to say) and the inherent frustrations (i am a frustrated person, aren’t i?) associated with the software tools that i utilize in that role. let me provide a little bit of history…

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copy and pasted from another site. i find this stuff incredibly interesting. –dave

Hello to all my fellow gunners, military buffs, veterans and interested guys. A couple of weekends ago I got to spend time with my son Jordan, who was on his first leave since returning from Iraq. He is well (a little thin), and already bored. He will be returning to Iraq for a second tour in early ‘06 and has already re-enlisted early for 4 more years. He loves the Marine Corps and is actually looking forward to returning to Iraq.

Jordan spent 7 months at “Camp Blue Diamond” in Ramadi. Aka: Fort Apache. He saw and did a lot and the following is what he told me about weapons, equipment, tactics and other miscellaneous info which may be of interest to you. Nothing is by any means classified. No politics here, just a Marine with a bird’s eye view’s opinions:

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