I.D., please

The Arizona governor just signed a "controversial" immigration reform bill into law. For those who have been under a rock, or just don't follow the news, the main tenets of the bill are:

1)Cops have the authority to determine if someone is in the country illegally, and ask for documentation to determine if they are, in fact, legal residents.

2)People can sue the law enforcement agency if they aren't doing their job by enforcing #1.

So.....where's the controversy?

People are worried about being racially profiled as illegal immigrants. Well, you could stay out of trouble and not give the police a reason to suspect you of any wrong doing. (in other words, DON'T RUN FROM THEM!!!)

True, there may be the occasional rogue cop who abuses this, but for the most part, I don't see this being put into effect 24/7. Like every law, it might only be enacted when, I don't know, people are breaking the law. Go figure.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio is all for this bill. So are, from what I hear, the majority of Arizonans. Only time will tell how this works.

The good ol' days...

How many of you have grandparents (or parents, even) who are like the Grumpy Old Man Dana Carvey plaed on Saturday Night Live...you know, the one who started out sentences with "When I was your age..."?

Now, how many you had parents or grandparents who MEANT it?

Seems like they had it rough....going to school, uphill both ways in the snow, with paper sacks for shoes...

Had to work 18 hours a day, 6 days a week to get enough money to buy a 5 cent hamburger....

Then split that up between themselves and 6 siblings... (And they always liked it!!)

This generation we can't do that. What are we going to tell our grandkids? "When I was your age, we had to lift our arm and point a remote control to turn on the TV set...we couldn't just blink."

"When I was your age, we had to put the car in gear for it to drive..not just tell it where to go!!"

How about these:

"When I was your age, people actually went out, got jobs, and were rewarded for doing hard work. They didn't give over all of their money to the government and were told they were the drain on America because they didn't want handouts."

"When I was your age, we had to earn things like cars, televisions, houses....we didn't just get them because we breathe air."

"When I was your age, we could own a gun and defend ourselves when some recidivistic scumbag broke into our house at 3 am wanting to rob and kill us, instead of being convicted of a crime because we decided the stuff we had was ours...including our family's lives."

And, how about..."When I was your age, we could speak our mind...we had a Constitution, not some "global hate speech" law..."

AND WE LIKED IT!!!

Smokin'...

Didn't post because it was Easter. Yeah, that's the ticket!! Been busy this week. Tired, too. Got some stuff the boss wanted planted in the front yard, been doing other bits and pieces of yard work.

My big news is that I got a new smoker. Yes, that's right, a box where you pop in a big slab of meat, spend about 10 minutes every 3 hours switching out charcoal and wood chips, and voila, in a few hours, you have some delicious smoked meat.

Got it Friday. Was at work, so had to wait until Saturday to use it. First thing I smoked was a rack of spare ribs that would have made Fred Flintsone proud. Took about 8 hours. Fan-freaking-tastic. Then, that night, smoked a brisket the size of a SmartCar and stayed up all night, switching the coal and wood chips out. That, too, was awesome.

Next up on Sunday, gonna throw two (dead) chickens in there, and see what happens. Hopefully they'll turn out.

I'll have a better rant next time. I promise.