RECCE ROOM

Pastors are people. Nobody is perfect.  That means no pastor is perfect.  Sadly, too many people expect perfection.  To compound problems, many pastors these days are Gammas . This means their responses to imperfection can often draw more ire than the imperfection would have drawn, had the pastor dismissed and ignored . Well, one pastor got the memo. Perry Noble penned quite possibly the most alpha response by a pastor in recent memory. Folks accused him of being imperfect, therefore unqualified to be a pastor. He agreed and amplified: I Am Unqualified   An exerpt: I Timothy 3 Here is a trustworthy saying: Whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task. 2 Now the overseer is to be above reproach,  All so often in my life I was absolutely NOT above reproach. I have, on more than one occasion, gossiped about others. There have been way too many “not so clean” jokes I’ve either told or laughed at. There is no ...

Tell me lies Tell me sweet little lies - Fleetwood Mac When a person lies, they usually have tells.   Here is a good  resource on uncovering written lies. And here are   10 Easy Ways to Recognize Liars (both spoken and written). One tried and true method of determining a lie, for both spoken and written lies, is when the liar becomes defensive. From the second link: A person who is telling a lie will get defensive. They will do everything in their power to deflect your attention away from themselves and will get angry that you are questioning their innocence. People who are telling the truth tend to go the opposite way and go on the offense.  We have watched this with President Trump vs. the #FakeNews on numerous occasions.  It's a really good tell, and it's consistent. Recently, the Rifleman came across a written lie, and called it such - and finished with the statement, given the folks who have left, it reminds me of the phrase 'the trash took itself o...

So again recently, the #FakeNews blog, Pulpit and Pen , published another article about Pastor Greg Locke.  Naturally, there were major inconsistencies with the truth. Naturally, the same exact pattern was followed as before.  But it made the Rifleman wonder... why? Why repeat and rehash the same trash? Some possible explanations come to mind... #Mancrush syndrome. Is it possible that an admin (or admins?) of PP have a homosexual crush on Pastor Locke? Perhaps. The soy-boy faces of a couple of the Gamma  admins certainly would not rule out this possibility. It is the Rifleman's understanding that closet gays do sometimes pronounce their love of another man in this manner.  Follow the money. Generally speaking, this can be a good starting point for investigating motives. Indeed, this is the assertion of one response on the publication: Somebody told you that somebody said that somebody else told them and that makes it a fact. [Admin name redacted] can't raise $...

The Rifleman had this conversation with a poor beta boy sometime back... Beta boy: I see your Facebook posts about an AR-15. I really want one. However, my wife won't let me have one. She says we don't need one. Rifleman: "Need has nothing to do with it. It's a right." Beta boy: Well, my wife still won't let me have one. You know, the kids. Rifleman: "My wife tried saying that once. I took her shooting." And the rest is history. 

From social media comes our quote of the day: The problem is that HR Departments are neither human nor a resource. They are de facto legal departments.

From a reader: I remember a job I had: My ex wife (before she was my ex) went into labor early.  So I had to call out. BOSS:  why did you call out? ME:  my son was busy being born.  He came early. BOSS:  how does this involve you? ME:  well, my son was being born. BOSS:  so you weren’t the one being born. ME:  no. BOSS:  and you weren’t the one giving birth. ME:  well, no, but...... BOSS:  so, you could have come to work if you had wanted to. There is no reason you count have come to work. ME:  the birth of my son is the reason. BOSS:  that’s not a reason. ME:  it is a reason.  You just don’t like the reason. BOSS:  ok smart guy.  Writing you up for unauthorized absence.  Writing you up for insubordination.

As the Rifleman has explained before, marriage, as defined  by the modern US legal system, and marriage as defined by the Bible, are two totally separate entities. This guy gets it . From his article: ... marriage is no longer a real family model. Legally speaking, marriage is now almost entirely symbolic, an optional facade we place over our real family model, the child support system.  Since legal marriage is a matter of aesthetics, there is a certain logic to only constructing the facade if the aesthetics are right. What do you think?

Quoted: To those of you that wail on about guns whenever there's a gun free zone shooting: You bore me. You bore me because you have neither an intellectually valid argument, nor any statistics that validate your side of the debate. All you have is raw emotion. Raw, feminine, immature, pathetic, emotion. You are impervious to fact. Debating you usually takes on the characteristics of the logic of a 9 year old child. Most of you don't even know the origins of, or the reason FOR the Second Amendment; much less the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, the Anti-Federalist Papers, OR the history surrounding the founding of our country. I find you willfully ignorant, socially suicidal, emotionally and morally pathetic. “GUN FREE ZONES” didn’t, and haven’t, stopped ANY of these school shootings. Not a single one. Nor will they. EVER.

Motivational speakers.  When they ask for audience participation with the intent of showing everything wrong, they despise alpha responses. (Agree & Amplify, Dismiss & Ignore, Ridicule & Reframe) They despise sigma responses even more.  This particular specimen met six of the following  seven signs .

It’s that time of year again. #RamadanBombathon has begun.  The Rifleman shall be keeping tabs on the carnage.  Every year, Jihadis start their crime spree against humanity at this time.  so much for being a peaceful religion.

This is a review of the series, Cobra Kai, available from YouTube Red. *** Spoiler alert *** The premise of the series is simple: the life of Daniel Larusso and Johnny Lawrence in 2018. Naturally, they are not the students so much as they are the instructors. Pros: Great acting. Good choreography. Good story line. Good writing.  Just plain fun.  Cons: The Rifleman must admit, it is hard to find fault with the series.  The only complaint might be how quickly all the students make "black belt." However, given that this was also true of Daniel in the first film, and this series has many throwbacks, it is almost understandable.  Notes This is basically a 5 hour movie, chopped up into 30-minute episodes. There are a lot of acknowledgments of the original films. All three of them. There may be acknowledgments of The Next Karate Kid and Jackie Chan's reboot, but I haven't viewed those enough to know.  The Rifleman enjoyed how the writers tackled teaching m...

This past Saturday, Bellator and UFC held events.  Both were pretty solid shows. The Rifleman has some takeaways: Weight Mackenzie Dern defeated Amanda Cooper via RNC. The story here is Dern missed weight (116 lbs.) by 7 pounds - she weighed 123 lbs. Via Twitter: The trend continues. Every fighter this year that has missed weight but goes on to compete in the UFC, wins. #UFC224 - @SandhuMMA This is twice that Dern has missed 115 lbs. Perhaps she should fight at 125 or 135. The real idiots are those who were online implying Dern is overweight.  Ideal female weight charts for 5'3" is 107 - 140 lbs. More women this size would mean a healthier society.  Left Hands Ryan Bader crushed "King Mo" with a hard left hook which set up the finish. Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos finished Sean Strickland via spinning head kick... which was set up by a good left jab. Dos Santos had been using that left effectively prior to the final setup. John Lineker defeated Brian Kelleher ...

New York Times slams AWOL Pompeo, then learns he was rescuing Americans . They are all #FakeNews all the time.  From the article: In an apparent jab at the administration, The Times’ headline said, “At a Key Moment, Trump’s Top Diplomat Is Again Thousands of Miles Away.” The Times’ story noted that “Senior State Department officials were momentarily speechless on Tuesday when asked why Mr. Pompeo did not delay his trip by a day to be in Washington during Mr. Trump’s Iran deal announcement.” It became clear on Wednesday morning why Pompeo didn’t delay his trip to Pyongyang when Trump took to Twitter. “I am pleased to inform you that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in the air and on his way back from North Korea with the 3 wonderful gentlemen that everyone is looking so forward to meeting. They seem to be in good health,” Trump wrote. “Secretary Pompeo and his ‘guests’ will be landing at A...

Ramadan starts next week. Accordingly, the Rifleman plans to keep track of the Ramadan Bomb-o-Thon. Moslems go apeshit and blow stuff up at an incredible pace during Ramadan.  In honor of this fact, here are a few relevant memes:

Earlier this morning, at 2 a.m. Eastern time, President Trump welcomed home former detainees from Korea.  On September 11, 2012, at 2 a.m., then-President Obama ignored pleas from our troops in Benghazi for reinforcements.  If you excuse or rationalize the latter, you're simply against America. 

You want to prep, you want to train, you want to be ready; but what, exactly, should you train? For years, the Rifleman tried to find legitimate instruction.  There would be a group here or there that would say they train, but most didn't.  And the former military folk they had could never agree on what was important.  They'd always argue and fight over what was important... to the point that it would seem like they really didn't know.  The reality of it was this: the military folk who had been there and done that were rarely good instructors.  This is not a knock on them... they were great infantrymen, they just weren't geared to have the patience to teach.  But, as the Rifleman learned more and more, and as progress was made, it became clear what needed to be trained.  This list is not all inclusive  (no list ever is). However, this list has been formulated with the input and advice of several Army and Marine Infantry men, several Forward Ob...

The Rifleman's son, Ninja, was on this bus.  As Ninja tells it, the bus driver became agitated at the noise level, and intended to turn the bus around and go back to the school.  The driver pulled into the driveway of an unknown individual, and tried to back out so as to be able to go back the way she came.  The results was getting stuck as you see pictured.  What's totally insane about this, is the fact that the driver could have used the road she was on to turn the bus around: The bus got stuck at the red "X." The bus had been travelling East to West on the map shown, on the road with the green line. The driver pulled off, onto the side road, in order to execute (or, fail to execute) the turnaround. It takes the average person about 3 seconds to realize that taking a left turn at the end of the side road the bus was on, then another left, and she would be headed back toward the school.  Instead,  this driver let emotions get the better of her.  T...

Nine Ronald Reagan quotes about taxes: 1. “Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”  2. “We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much.” 3. “Republicans believe every day is the Fourth of July, but the democrats believe every day is April 15.”  4. “No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth!”  5. “Simple fairness dictates that government must not raise taxes on families struggling to pay their bills.”  6. “Government does not tax to get the money it needs; government always finds ...

When self proclaimed Republicans fail to adhere to Republican principles, and offer excuses, the resulting cries of finding a "true conservative" are not far behind. Please keep a few things in mind.  Conservatism has failed to conserve anything.  Conservatism is the ideology of principled defeat. Defeat is defeat. Winning is not conservative.  Conservatism does not value winning. The political fight is not "Left vs. Right." The political fight is not "Liberal vs. Conservative." The political fight is Nationalist vs. Globalist.  All those things you thought were Liberal policies, and that the "Not True Conservatives" also espoused: those things are Globalist policies.  Higher taxes are a Globalist policy.  Gun control is a Globalist policy.  Socialized healthcare is a Globalist policy. Abortions are a Globalist policy. Unchecked immigration / invasion is a Globalist policy. The destruction of Western Civilization is a Globalist polic...

An observation: Women who call their angry behavior, "momma bear," are simply trying to excuse being a bitch. 

Tennessee's standardized school tests, called TNReady, has hot multiple snags in implementation.  Th company hosting the online testing wasn't ready (again) for all the schools to log in, so their servers crashed.  They said they were ready on day 2, but the servers crashed again.  And this is where the fun began. The blame game started.  They actually blamed a "hacker." The Rifleman wonders if this was a Russian hacker? Later delays have been blamed on individual schools' respective internet "being down" - despite the fact that these schools could access other websites without issue.  Another delay was blamed on a fiber optic cable between Atlanta and Nashville being cut by a dump truck.  This excuse does not explain how tests were interrupted in Memphis and Bristol on those same days.  What will result in all these excuses? Don't believe a one of them,  for sure!

Too many preppers envision a single scary situation: "This is my scenario I envision." Translation: "I literally have only one plan, and I am completely screwed if it doesn't go down exactly as my limited mind can expect." There's wisdom in training to the most likely scenarios (natural disasters, economic collapse, etc.). But make sure you prep and train for all major eventualities.  But too many train for the most weirdly specific situation imaginable. Don't be that guy.