As I have said before, don't be a dick.  It never works out well for you and more often than not it bites you quite squarely on the ass.

For those who haven't seen it yet, a new kid on the block came out today and shoved their own foot down their throat.  Now initially I didn't really see a need to comment on this because Uncle jumped on it and many others have blogged about it as well.  What got me though was this comment from Tango through a DM.  

The forum link? "You must be a member." Become a member and it forwards you to The High Road.

Wait, it did what!?  You join, providing a username and password, and then it sends you to another website where you have to use a different username and password.  Immediately upon reading that alarm bells started going off.  Many people have a nasty habit of using the same credentials across multiple websites, but you reading this know better, right?

So my immediate conclusion from that type of behavior is that they are farming credentials, why I am unsure.  But it is obvious that they are engaging in some back handed dealing listing people who aren't members, thus inducing them to sign up to complain, or inducing others to join thinking the site is legitimate because of the trusted membership.

Miguel went and did a nice post showing exactly what type of user listing I'm talking about.  Those are the types of prominent users that would instill trust, trust that might cause you to sign up for a membership.  Of course being a blogger, you would probably use your blog handle and very possibly the password for your blog if you do that bad thing of the same password across multiple sites.

If you signed up for a membership with these numb-nuts I suggest changing all your other passwords if you violated that rule.  This site is anything but trustworthy and by their actions thus far makes them a house of ill repute.  This is all speculation but given the facts as presently seen, I would be concerned if I had any transactions regarding secure credentials with them.

If you need a good password manager, I suggest KeePass which also has an Andriod Application. 

We’ll I’ve known that for a long time.  I would say I’m short bus special but alas I never rode it.

Now there’s been a blogger award running around amongst the gun blogs, geared at the less read blogs.  Arms are the Mark of a Free Man put me in his award list. 

Liebster Blog Award:

The rules are:

1. Copy and paste award on your blog. Check.
2. Link back to the blogger who gave you the award. Did you miss the link?  Check.
3. Pick your five favorite blogs with less than 200 followers and leave a comment on their blog to let them know they have received an award.  Huston we have a problem,  yeah most of the blogs I follow are well beyond the 200 mark.
4. Hope that the five blogs chosen will keep spreading the love and pass it on to five more blogs.  Yeah, I could care less, it’s up to them if they want to or not.  God knows I’m having trouble finding 5 that haven’t been done.

I’m probably flirting with the 200 followers now.  I have 124 subscribers when I just checked feedburner, that’s a more accurate count than just looking at google reader stats.  However my daily traffic is now about 120.  I say flirting because a lot of that traffic aren’t really daily readers but people searching for stuff.

So I will try and come up with 5, that haven’t been listed, and these are in no real particular order:

1. Gun Geek Rants 
2. Men Are Not Potatoes
3. Bayou Renaissance Man
4. The Clue Meter
5. Black Sunday Society

*As a random note, my cat failed me and I was attacked by a spider while writing this.  Best part is it looks like she pulled the insulation out that runs around my antenna wires which is how it got in.  She’s planning to kill me!

So evidently I really must have done something right this month.  I dang near went double my previous best.  For anyone who has decided to stick around, sweet, I’ll try and keep the cream flowing. 

The big item that really shoved this month over the top was my Open Response to Joan Peterson.  Evidently that was a verbal lashing that people seemed to appreciate.  For the record, when I wrote it I didn’t even really expect it to even be a blip on the radar so that makes it doubly awesome.  By the way, as expected, there has been zero response or acknowledgement of my response by Joan.  Given how it spread like fire it is hard for me to believe that she didn’t see it.

I also got a bunch of feedback that proved how much of a wonderful job I’m doing.  I will have more on that later though.  Sebastian touched on it today but I noticed something this afternoon and I need to do some research and connect the chronological dots.

Thanks to everyone who linked me, and thank you to Uncle that pushed me over the 7000 mark linking my A Taste of Home post. Which I’m glad to say is starting to take off. I’ll blog more on that tomorrow night though.

So I wrote a post and evidently it was well liked.  I do have a few comments.  First, thanks to all those who linked it.  The quick list I’ve found thus far.

A Girl and Her Gun

OldNFO

Weer’d

Newbius

Sebastian

Irons in the Fire

Light seeking a subject

3 Boxes of BS

North Carolina Gun Blog

Only Guns And Money

Daddy Bear

Newbie Shooter

I’m sure I probably missed someone but the reason I am saying thanks was because like when I get a link from Uncle or Joe, it’s noticeable.  (Thanks to Uncle and Joe for when you have linked me too BTW).  How noticeable?

Evidently I said something that a lot of you reverberated with. Awesome, and again thanks to those that linked it.  Now for my comments.

I am fully aware that wrestling with a pig is pointless.  Just the same I think that arguing with Joan is pointless.  So why would I bother writing that response?  I did it because no one had stitched her statements together for all to see the hypocrisy she spouts in a clear cut form.  I doubt Joan has read the post, I doubt even less that she’ll respond.  As my mom said, “I’m not sure she will be able to read the whole thing and comprehend what you’ve said.”  My mom would be right, Joan wont understand, neither will anyone in those groups.

The fence sitters however can understand, they can read, and they can understand what I’m saying. It’s the fence sitters that come new to this debate that may not be exposed to a clear cut statement of what each side really represents.  I finally stepped in and wrote that because I saw a simple and easy hit to lay damage.  Joan made some statements that were down right appalling and that were not exactly the most kind.

Ultimately I did what I normally do.  I sat in the corner ignoring what’s going on, unnoticed myself, until someone does something down right rude, mean, and inexcusable.  They made the double mistake of saying it about two people who are unbelievably nice and kind.  Then I became the 300 lbs. gorilla in the room, hitting them so hard that I knocked them out of the room with nothing left to say.  I know neither of them really care about Joan’s negative comments on a personal level, I just found them down right rude and offensive, especially given the theme of the post.

I saw a way to throw down while remaining clean relatively clean.  If the pig comes back I’ll deal with it at that time, but I doubt she’ll respond because to do so she would have to acknowledge the facts.  She hates can’t do that, she doesn’t know how.  In writing that post though I also provided a pile of new ammunition for those who like wrestling with the pig.  I don’t support it, I find it for the most part pointless, but some find it necessary.

The only reason I’ve been tacking up the CSGV, Brady Campaign, and Joan is because they started it.  I participated in a vigil and they said I was most offensive.  I remembered victims of violence I know that they would not count and they called me offensive.  I remained civil through the whole exchange, I haven’t issued one piece of profanity.  I haven’t even resorted to name calling.  Joe’s right, they brought this on themselves.  Besides, now they’re calling me a Jerk. (Feel free to go post comments in there.  CSGV has no control of them.)

While some may view this as me fighting a pig, I view it as me standing up and saying “NO”.  I stood up to support friends that while they may not have needed my support, but they certainly could use it.  There comes a time when even a fly has to be swatted.  There’s a phrase, choose your battles wisely.  They choose to start this battle and they did not choose wisely.  I didn’t set out to, “Nuke it from orbit,” but I will not say I’m displeased with the results.  If I have one actual weakness it’s that I have a nasty habit of standing up to defend my friends.  Even if that means I need to drop kick a pig that wants to roll in the mud.  If that’s a weakness though, I find it a good one to have.