And Now, A Rare mid-blog Update:

Howdy Gang!  A couple items of business here:  First, concerning my last blog on "wood wars".  I’m going to clarify something here.  This topic is relevant and made it into my blog for two reasons: 1. it affects guitar players and, 2. it affects US manufacturing.  It was not intended to be political; a few of you seem to have taken it that way.  Please note that I did not mention that in 2008, when the Lacey Act was expanded to include plant species and Gibson was first raided, George Bush, a conservative Republican, was the president.  I also did not mention that liberal democrat Barack Obama was in office at the time of the latest raid.  These types of things, you see were not, and are not my focus.

Most folks, even if they had a political drum to beat on one side of the isle or the other, have been cordial; a few have not.  I’m sad to report that a couple of comments were deleted because they contained vulgarity and/or curse words.  As a diverse world-wide community united by our love of guitars, amps, and sweet tone, we are better than that.

Now, my second item of business:  Last weeks T-shirt is still unclaimed!  User "at9799" - you need to email me your address by the end of the day MONDAY, or I’ll need to pick another winner from last week.  Tuesday I’ll be announcing this week’s winner ... or maybe TWO new winners.  Oh, and remember that one of the three t-shirt winners will also win a new WGS speaker.  For weekly winners, your odds of winning a speaker are one in three!  How ya like them odds? :)