Finally caught a break. The kids hang out with a girl and boy down the road whose father is a contractor. They're the big paintball crew, and while I didn't think much of paintball when I watched it, the kids had a blast.

We live adjacent to a corn field and while there is a row of trees between us and the field we get ferocious winds that sweep across it. Some years ago we lost a big chunk of siding across the back of the house and recently we lost a downspout.

I have an extension ladder, but it won't reach the roof in the back of the house (it's on a downslope and has a walkout basement), so I went and called the guy I know. Hell, if I'm going to pay someone, it may as well be someone I know and like. He wasn't in, so I left a message. Two days later two guys simply showed up, replaced the downspout, took all of the bent downspout with them and left. Just like that.

So I called and left another message. He called me back this morning and I asked him what I owed. I know it was $400+. It was estimated at less than our $500 deductable, but just barely less. "I don't know", he said, "just buy the boys a case of paintballs next time we go out". We're talking $25 bucks.

If anyone wants to know a good contractor (and a good guy) in central Maryland, drop me a line.

"Dr. Stangelove or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb" came on the other night. It's one of those films that I just can't stop myself from watching. It's the darkest of dark comedies, but the deadpan performances by the actors and the whole way it's put across make it an incredibly compelling film.

It's an anti-war film (soldiers aren't necessarily pro-war, they just recognize its inevitability) by the Master of the Strange, Stanley Kubrick. If you haven't seen it, well, put it on your list. It has to do with "noocular" annihilation of the world, but Kubrick and his bent staff do things along the way you couldn't imagine. The characters have incredibly imaginative names, but I have to wonder about the sex lives of the guys who came up with the names.

First, there's Gen Jack D. Ripper. No explanation required.
Then there's Gen Buck Turgidson--"Buck" being a young, studly man and "turgid", well, you know
The hero of the film is a British exchange officer named Mandrake and, of course, Mandrake is known as an aphrodaisiac
The Soviet Ambassador is named Alexis Desadeinski--could the Marquis de Sade be far behind?
The US President is named Merkin Muffley. The two words have something in common. Ask me if you don't know.
The Soviet Premier is named Kissov (kiss off).
There are some gratuitous names such as Col. "Bat" Guano and Maj. "King" Kong, but the above ones are the best.

There are even things like a B-52 Pilot reading a Playboy centerfold and later the same woman (who I think really was a centerfold) showing up in Gen Turgidson's bed.

And then the lines:
When Gen Ripper loses his marbles, he calls Wing Commander Mandrake and informs him that the "big one" has started. In an understated US stereotype of British officers Mandrake replies "Oh, damn...are the Russians involved?"
Or when Gen Turgidson catches the Soviet Ambassador taking photos he tackles him prompting the president to declare "You can't fight in here, it's a war room".
Or, "Shoot, a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff" (You'll have to watch it).
And I don't know why this is my favorite, but it is. You'll have to watch the movie: "That's private property. Ok, I'm gonna get your money for you. But if you don't get the president of the United States on the phone, you know what's gonna happen to you?....You're gonna have to answer to the Coca-Cola company".

Murf asked that I keep up-to-date on my little tiff with the county health department.

So far: phone call transferred three times, each time they claimed to have tried to get in touch with someone else who was "not available". I'm awaiting a return call from the Deputy Health Officer.

My question is simple: What authority does the county health department have to make me prove that I had my daughter's eyes examined?

A dispatch from the Libertarian front lines...

A couple of months ago the county sent someone to conduct visual screening throughout the county--even, apparently, private schools. We received a report that the screener had detected possible issues with the Bear's vision.

That set off immediate warning bells with me since I'm nearsighted and I know that myopia (nearsightedness) is a genetically dominant trait. I have watched in absolute amazement and gratitude as Junior approaches 14 with perfect vision. Possibly my "dirty" gene is mitigated by the fact that my wife possesses the vision of an eagle. Nonetheless, we immediately scheduled an appointment with a pediatric opthamologist.

For those not familiar with it, there are optometrists and opthamologists. I routinely go to optometrists, who conduct a vision assessment and prescribe and fit glasses. Opthamologists are MDs who can conduct a full medical examination of the eye. So we went the full route and had her evaluated by an opthamologist, including the infamous eye drops that make daylight look like a nuclear burst.

The opthamologist gave her a clean bill, with the usual disclaimer of "right now". She may someday need glasses, but as we speak, she's good to go. As one who has worn glasses for almost 40 years now, I hope that she never has to.

But nothing is ever good enough for the nanny state that the Democrats have created here.

Today I got a note, sent through the school by the county, demanding that I provide the school (It's a private school that has nothing to do with the county) with proof that I've either had her seen by an "eye professional" (whatever that is) or have scheduled an appointment with an "eye professional".

In retrospect, the first note may have had a piece on the bottom to be filled out documenting the fact that we'd had her evaluated, but I honestly doubt it. My wife has a very good eye for that sort of thing and has none of my "Eff you" response to overreaching authoritarianism. She'd have filled it out and submitted it.

So where we stand now is that the county is demanding that I provide evidence that I have followed up on the findings of some minimally trained troglodyte who conducts mass screenings of children throughout the county. Yes, I've followed up. I had her evaluated by an MD, thank you. And I will never, ever, ever skimp on health care for my children. More to the point, I know what it's like to sit in a classroom and not be able to read the blackboard. That was when my parents realized I needed glasses. I will react immediately should that ever occur with one of my children.

I intend to have a very interesting phone conversation with the county tomorrow. I would never *not* take her to the doctor, but I'll be a stone sonuvabitch if I know how the county can force me to submit proof that I've taken her to someone with the nebulous title of "eye professional".

More to come.

I have got to get one of these hot dog grillers. Not only is it practical and a conversation piece, but it will keep my wife from eating the hot dogs...



Hot Dog Griller

I should dread this season, and I do, sort of. The phone calls, the scheduling, the ill-disguised anger in their voices when I call managers to tell them there is no umpire for their game, the shuttling back and forth between baseball and softball...

I should hate this time of year. But I don't. It's a time of rebirth, renewal, and the resumption of the game I love just as much as it hates me (sounds like a marriage).

Well, beat the drum and hold the phone - the sun came out today
We're born again, there's new grass on the field
Roundin' third, and headed for home, it's a brown-eyed handsome man
Anyone can understand the way I feel

I guess everyone knows that's John Fogarty's song "Center Field". Rumor has it that the "brown-eyed handsome man" is Jackie Robinson.

Almost got to umpire at Bear's softball game tonight. Got to game time with no umpire in sight and I approached the manager and told her I had been an ASA umpire in the past. She cleared it with the other manager and I was on the field when the league official, who has thus far been invisible, materialized and announced that she needed to find an "unbiased" umpire. As though I'd throw a slow-pitch softball game involving nine-year olds. She dragged another dad away from his daughter's game and he did an ok job. His calls were good, if not done in the "official" manner, but he had to miss his daughter's game. I understand her point in bringing in an "unbiased" umpire, but I was a bit put out by the inference that I might be biased.

The counterpoint to that is Junior League baseball, a highly competetive league composed of 13, 14 and 15-year old boys who have been playing organized baseball for eight to nine years running. I had to cancel a Junior League game tonight when the scheduled umpire called to say he couldn't make it. I gave the managers the option to hold a scrimmage on the field and incredibly, they were able to find a dad in the stands to umpire the game. I'm glad that they did--but contrast that against the much younger girls in the softball league and me, with experience, being turned down because I just might be biased.

I'm sweating schedules, trying to get rosters from managers, looking for slots to reschedule Saturday's rained out games, tracking down managers to deliver paperwork, distributing balls, umpiring games, shuttling between girls' softball and baseball, shoveling and raking dirt on the field, begging people to work the concession stand, placating parents and going to pointless meetings when I could have a night off.

And yet all I keep thinking about is how how much I love this stupid game and how much enjoyment the kids derive from it.

Well, I've seen paintball now...

My son has been bugging me about it for months. Then this past weekend it turns out that one of dainty nine-year old Bear's friends goes frequently with her father and brother. I reluctantly gave in and ended up with half the boys on the road as well as two small girls. Even though paintball has no appeal for me (who wants to play army with paint when you've done it for real with bullets...), I approached the whole scene with as open a mind as I could muster.

Didn't work. I saw the most pathetic bunch of wannabe losers you can possibly imagine.

I was turned off right away by the sight of tens of thousands of paintballs everywhere. I watched people fill their paint hoppers at tables, dump balls all over the place and simply walk away. The ground was also covered by hundreds of nine-volt and AA batteries. Turns out some of the guns have electronics. The people just threw the batteries on the ground. By the end of the day they'd added dozens of water bottles, paintball boxes, bags, sandwich wrappers and so forth to the mess, despite plenty of trash containers.

They discharged the guns compulsively. Inside the maneuver lanes they'd discharge dozens of paintballs while they waited for the signal to go. After being "killed" they'd stop just before leaving the lane and shoot more. Outside of the lanes they'd remove the paint hopper and walk around discharging blasts of CO2. It got to be annoying very quickly.

The action inside the maneuver lanes was incredibly lame. There could not have been one person in the entire park who had the slightest idea of infantry tactics. There was no fire and maneuver--they would simply walk to an obstacle or tree and stand there pouring literally hundreds of rounds in the general direction of the opposing force. They had two-finger triggers they could jiggle their fingers on and approximate the cyclic rate of fire of an MG-43. With a thousand rounds in the air at any one time, people did manage to get hit, but most of them simply had to leave because they ran out of paintballs. No problem there--they just went back to their table, reloaded while dumping paintballs on the ground, then headed off for the next paintfest.

And one last thing, guys: Desert camouflage doesn't work in a deciduous forest.

Rain... Big time.

Opening day didn't happen. First day of the season and I already have two games to reschedule. Sigh.

I can deal with the rescheduling, more to the point everyone anticipates opening day and it just didn't happen.

Things will resume Monday evening, but it's just not the same. Weekday evening games are rushed affairs, with parents charging home from work, kids squeezing in homework, hurried dinners--you name it. Much better had we had a nice opening day when everyone was rested and anticipating the games. The weeknight games can then follow, but a Saturday opening day would have been nice.

Ah, Cynthia McKinney.

One of the most arrogant people ever elected to a body dominated by arrogant people.

She has pulled out the race card time and time and time again over her dappled career. Now that she actually lives in the US (she was living in Jamaica when her duped constituency voted for her on the strength of her father's political career), she takes a chauffeured limousine two blocks to the Rayburn building each morning. Two blocks. When someone (likely a fellow Democrat trying to preserve image) called her on it, her reply was "I'm a queen".

Well, she apparently does view herself as a queen. Last week she burst into the Rayburn Building sans the lapel tag that congresscritters wear to exempt themselves from the metal detector scan that the common falks have to endure--to ensure the safety of the congresscritters. A guard, not recognizing her, chased her down and asked her three times to stop. After the third request, he grabbed her arm and was rewarded for his efforts to keep congresscritters safe by having her slam her cell phone into his chest.

Immediately, Mckinney took her usual tack by saying she was attacked by a guard because she is black. That assertation is every bit as stupid as it would be for me to assert that she attacked the guard because she's black. She assaulted the guard because she's an a$$hole. White, black, purple, chartreuse....it doesn't matter. She's an a$$hole, and she'd be one if she was taupe or ecru.

Now things have come to a head and the Capitol Police have filed charges against her for assault. Suddenly she's repentinent and there's no whiff of race in the air. She's simply sorry for what happened, and sorry things had to go so far.

Well, she's the one who did it, she's the one who took things so far--it's kind of late to just brush it off with "I'm sorry". The charges are real--BUT--I'll get down on my knees on the baseball field and kiss my son's coach on his a$$ if Cynthia Mckinney ever actually goes to trial for her assault on a sworn officer. Her position and her interpretation of race will keep her safe from prosecution.

Apparently NASCAR is annoyed by a proposed NBC television show. The "reality" show will seek to explore American prejudices against Arabs and Islamics by placing them in venues NBC is sure will be hostile to them and then taping the results. NASCAR is rightfully hacked off at being identified as a venue sure to be hostile to Arabs and Islamics.

Before you say, "well it's only fair and NASCAR fans are overwhelmingly white", think about what a setup this is. And think how NASCAR has suddenly become the symbol of Republicans in the US. Just a few years ago the Republican party was the "party of the elite" and it was, to some, symbolized by captains of industry and cigar-smoking young movers and shakers. It was the party of the rich. With the election of George Bush, the Democrats moved to make it the party of stretch pants and teased hair, Wal-Mart and NASCAR. It will remain a modern miracle how Republicans went overnight from being rich and elite to being Wal-Mart shopping NASCAR fans.

I have a huge suggestion for NBC---rather than look in every crack and crevice for prejudices against Arabs and Islam in this country, why not just go to the middle east and soak up their intense, unhidden hatred for Westerners and anyone else who doesn't subscribe to Islam?

Baseball looms large again, so the baseball posts will resume.

Actually, we're already a week into girls' softball season as well, so I'll have posts about that, too.

This evening I went to the field to set the pitcher's rubber in place. A team started practice while I was lining things up and I hoped that they might offer to help. Instead, they started practice all around me while I strung lines from home plate to the pitchers' mound and the manager actually had the temerity to complain to me about the amount of dirt on the mound while one of his coaches batted balls past me. I have some history with that particular manager and just ignored him (the alternative would have been telling him to get stuffed. He's a 400+ lb., 5' 5" tall jerk with red hair and a beard who looks exactly like a garden gnome. I detest him for good reason {he screwed me hard one day last year} but I figure it's no way to start off a new season). I finally got hacked off and left the field with the rubber barely in place. I had to take a wheelbarrow to another field, anyway.

I got back after practice, and the team had ignored the fact that the rubber was only half in place and had stomped on it until one of the anchoring spikes migrated upward through the rubber, ruining it.

I got the last new rubber and dug the site out, put new clay in it, leveled it out and emplaced the new rubber. I hope garden gnome notices it and appreciates it, but I suspect that's waaaay too much to ask for.

On the other side, the Bear has a softball game at 0900. Granddad is coming up for it, so the Bear is psyched. Her games are a bit frenetic--nine-year old girls chasing after balls, but their team spirit and fortitude can't be matched. I get a huge charge out of their games.

Baseball kicks off at 1200. I'll be there by 1130 to hand out balls, and to make sure that the flag gets raised. I'm kind of funny about that. There will be a flag flying over the field as we play ball.

Got a call tonight asking me to umpire two games as well. I didn't return the call as it came in after 10:00 and I was busy with kids, but I'll return it tomorrow. I feel badly for the guy--he's doing the same job I had last year and I know first hand how horrible the job is. I really hadn't planned on being an umpire this year since I'm the junior/senior league commissioner, but I'm feeling pulled to fill in. I will, though, use one tactic I learned from an umpire last summer. He'd line the coaches up and read the riot act to them ending with "You get two warnings, and this was the first one".

It's gonna be a good, fun season. Baseball and softball.

This is the first year that the Bear has played ball, so it's my first year to evaluate her league. So far--two thumbs up.

Her coaches are great. Instructive, somewhat demanding--a perfect mix. Even the one coach who comes across as loud and demanding is actually a terrific guy who will work with any of the girls at any level. Simply put, the three coaches on the team are great people who want to see the girls succeed. They lost tonight--big time. But not one of the coaches dwelled on that. They emphasized the positive aspects of the game. And, truth be told, there were a lot of positive aspects. Despite losing, they played a good game. In the parlance, they may have been beaten, but they didn't beat themselves. That is to say, they lost the game to a team that outscored them, but they didn't lose simply because they were inept at the game.

Opening day of softball. The Bear prepares to send that ball on the ride of its life.

Note the pink helmet with ponytail hole...


Bear

Barb posted a reply that gave me some thought about the UN. Nothing new, mind you, just old thoughts brought back to the surface.

How many here remember the League of Nations? The LoN was established after the First World War exactly along the lines of the present UN. The problem was, nobody took the LoN seriously. Nobody gave a damn what it said. Having no military force, it utterly lacked teeth to enforce anything. Civilized nations continued to be civilized and uncivilized nations thumbed their noses at the LoN. It lasted maybe 15 years, if that long.

So, given the present state of the UN, somebody please tell me just how it differs from the League of Nations. I'll forgive minor spelling and punctuation errors, but gross misrepresentations of politics and personalities will be penalized.

I've been quiet for a while. I've seen the news, but so has everyone else and by the time I sit down at the computer I'm left wondering what I can add that hasn't already been covered a thousand times. But nonetheless, there are things to address.

WMDs. We've heard that expression countless times now. President Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq based on two justifications: Their possession of WMDs (and inclination to use them) and links to al-Quaida. Despite the protestations to the contrary of such luminaries as Teddy "can I take your daughter for a drive" Kennedy, we know g*dd*mn well Saddam had WMDs. He used poison gas liberally in the war with Iran, then he killed tens of thousands of Kurds with poison gas, which is--well, was--considered a WMD. I say "was" because once Teddy, Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer et al realized that recognizing gas as a WMD would stymie their "I hate Bush" crusade, they decided to raise the bar. At this point I think we'd have to witness an Iraqi-built Death Star before Teddy and Nancy would admit that they might just possess WMDs.

But facts are facts. We KNOW he had gas, which until the Democrats lost their majority was considered a WMD. And it gets better. Recently translated and declassified documents indicate that Iraq did, indeed, have a continuing WMD program. Not only that, but ties to al-Quaida. And just as I suspected (because I pay attention to people smarter than me), the weapons were shipped to Syria. I'm not stupid enough to hold my breath to see if Teddy wants to eat any crow, but I'll keep it in mind. I'm also curious to see if France, which pledged support should we uncover evidence of WMDs, has anything to say. Peut-être nous avons été confondus...

My guess is nobody will admit they might have been mistaken. Teddy Kennedy is a bloated, self-righteous horse's a$$ who killed a woman and got away with it, yet somehow manages to look himself in the mirror every morning while he shaves. Robert Byrd--the “soul of the Senate”-- is an unreconstructed Klansman who to this day thinks it's acceptable to call people n**gers. And these are two of the senior Democrat senators, if not the two senior Democrats. France as a country pledged to contribute to efforts in Iraq as long as we found evidence of WMDs. Well, we found evidence. Hello, France--Là où êtes vous maintenant? All of the above are so invested in their denials and denunciations of the war that none can afford at this point to make good on their promise of support once their original standards have been met. Can you imagine the fallout if Ladykiller Kennedy would announce to the Massholes who keep electing him that he was wrong, and there truly is some justification for the invasion of Iraq? But, “Wrong” isn't part of Teddy's lexicon. If it were, he'd have admitted long ago that he was wrong that night that he killed Mary Jo Kopechne.

By the way, if you think I need to lighten up on on my criticism of Teddy, try again. It's a matter of record that he killed a girl and swam back to his hotel room to catch a night's sleep before he even bothered to report the accident. He then used his father's connections to get away with it. A police diver testified that given the attitude of the auto and her body position, Mary Jo likely survived quite some time after the crash—maybe even while Teddy was back at his hotel room and in the shower...And now, with 44 years under his belt, he's considered by some to be one of the most august members of our most deliberative body. Congratulations, Massachusetts. I believe in redemption, but Teddy has done nothing to redeem himself. Even post-accident, he has a history of sordid behavior.

Point is, we have discovered evidence that Saddam had a WMD program in place, beyond even the chemicals he was already using. Most likely, we already knew that through other means before the war. Even the most clueless president (oh, say, Billy Clinton for the sake of argument) has at hand a very sophisticated, professional intelligence network. So Bush didn't just charge into Iraq—he had information. And it's pretty unlikely he would set himself up by ordering the invasion with no justification, knowing that sooner or later the facts would be sussed and he'd be labeled a villain.

This one's for NOTR:


Firefox

What was it Ward Churchill said? Something about chickens coming home to roost?

And so they have:

Jane F**da's 1972 trip to North Vietnam is haunting her again. The Georgia Senate on Thursday nearly unanimously defeated a resolution that would have honored the actress' charity work in the state.

Can't say I feel in the least sorry for her.

There's just a certain "unthinking-ness" on the left. They exist on platitudes and prepackaged assumptions. Anything Bush does is wrong and if they don't know why, they'll invent a reason.

Some years ago a couple moved into a house out on the main road. I was incredibly unimpressed with them at our initial meeting, so I've not gone out of my way to get to know them. They claim to train race horses--I suspect they probably muck out the stables. Their property abuts ours in the back and they maintain an amazing collection of animals on their property. Three steers, four horses, 29 goats and an indeterminate number of chickens, dogs and rabbits. They don't milk or eat any of the animals--they simply collect them.

Saturday we were working in the yard and a number of people walked into the goat pen. For some reason my wife felt obligated to go down and have a neighborly chat. I stayed away for a while, then finally broke down and joined her. At that point most of the people (who apparently were boarding an animal there for a 4H project) departed, leaving just the woman who lived there. We talked for a bit and I was beginning to feel guilty about having written her off as a moron when she started on politics.

Utterly clueless, she started ranting about the now failed deal to have a UAE-based firm administer US ports. She shouted "How could Bush not have known it was an Arab firm? What an idiot". At that point I declared my arthritic knee was bothering me and headed for the house.

Bush knew damn well the company was from the UAE. Hell, he pushed the whole idea. Now, I disagree with him on it, but I can offer cogent reasons for my disagreement--not an utterly fabricated reason just because I hate Bush, ergo everything he does is wrong.

I disagree because handing control of ports also means handing over knowlege of security procedures and response capabilities to a firm that more than likely will be populated with Islamists, or at least people sympathetic to Islamists. But that's too much for people of her intellect to grasp. She can't even wrap her mind around the fact that Bush was fully aware of where the company is based. She justs hates Bush, and that makes it so.

Friday was a bad day.

A Marine from here was killed in Iraq last week. He was a member of the parish where the kids go to school, so funeral services were held there. A number of children from the school were chosen to line the route of departure (on the way to the cemetary) with flags--it was a class act.

I thought long and hard about attending the funeral mass, but finally decided that since I didn't know anyone in the family I'd almost be something like a spectator. While I wanted to pay my respects, I didn't want to be some guy nobody knew, lurking on the fringes.

Then I thought about the Fred Phelps crowd and the Patriot Guard Riders. Fred Phelps, for those who don't know, is a pathetic lunatic who styles himself as a Calvinist minister. He claims that since the US military doesn't actively persecute gays it is an evil institution. He somehow feels he has the authority to speak on God's behalf and claims "God hates fags". His mind is so twisted that he feels he has to attend each and every military funeral to compound the hurt that parents, relatives, spouses and children are feeling by holding a little protest rally attended by signs bearing messages such as his signature "God hates fags" as well as even more hurtful signs thanking God for smiting US troops, and in the case of Catholic funerals, signs declaring that the pope burns in hell. Incredibly, he has followers. Maybe not so surprising as even Charlie Manson and Jimmy Jones had followers. For the record, Phelps, a lawyer, was tossed out of West Point and has been disbarred, with the Kansas Supreme Court noting that he has "little regard for the ethics of the profession".

The Patriot Guard Riders, on the other hand, formed up specifically to counter Phelps and his pathetic followers. It's a motorcycle-based outfit, but they won't turn anyone down. They exist specifically to screen funeral-goers from the Phelps lunatics, and often escort the funeral procession on their bikes. A true class outfit, but it's a crazy world when people have to band together to protect mourners from hateful cretins.

Well, I decided that the Phelps crew wouldn't even be able to find this town on a map, and since I didn't want to be relegated to a spectator's role, I skipped the funeral mass (while delivering paperwork and a huge deposit to the school Snakeeater, Jr. has chosen to attend).

Got home to find out that Phelps' morons do have their sources. Apparently some of them actually can read. My son related to me that they were glued to the window at school watching protestors at the funeral. I hit the ceiling so hard that my wife actually hid newspapers from me. Those G*dda*m freaks actually hit our town and protested at that young man's funeral.

I spent Friday evening boiling and kicking myself for not attending the funeral. It wasn't a good night. I became a bit more philosophical today, realizing that had I attended the funeral there WOULD have been an incident, and I'd have spent the night in jail trying to figure out how to pick up the soap, all on the account of some worthless, hateful prick. The Riders are a class act, screening the mouners from the Phelps crowd. I'd most likely have failed their expectations and decked one of the morons.

As it was, the school principal went out and informed the cretins that they were on private property and not welcome. Police were then called. My son claims that some billy club action and at least one pepper spraying ensued. Unfortunately, he's given to exaggeration, but in this case I truly hope he was accurate.

The Army has traditionally named helicopters after American Indian tribes. Off hand I can think of Iroquois, Chinook, Kiowa, and Apache. Some exceptions would be the Cobra, Skycrane and Little Bird. Even some munitions are named after American Indian tribes, such as the Zuni rocket.

NOTR reports that the new armed reconnaissance helicopter is slated to be named Arapaho, and makes an amusing (and, in my opinion, entirely accurate) observation on what the troops will likely refer to it as.

I always enjoy photos, videos, etc. of troops cutting up and having fun. Reminds me of the good old days and shows the clueless attack dogs of the left that military personnel aren't just "serial killers", but real live people with intellects.

Got the following link from my brother-in-law. Mardi Gras in Iraq--who'd have thunk it? The troops are from the 256th Infantry Brigade, LA National Guard serving as part of the 42nd Infantry Division, NY National Guard.

Duck your heads and hide the women--there's a new law firm in town.




Law Firm 

While typing out the previous rant I remembered this old chestnut. Just to show you this stuff goes back a day or two, we had this posted in the teamroom back in 1985.

Nine useful phrases when traveling an Islamic country

AKBAR KHALI-KILI HAFTIR LOTFAN.
Thank you for showing me your marvelous gun.

FEKR GABUL CRADAN DAVAT PAEH GUSH DIVAR.
I am delighted to accept your kind invitation to lie on the floor with
my arms above my head and my legs apart.

SHOMAEH FEKR TAMOMEH OEH GOFTEH BANDE.
I agree with everything you have ever said or thought in your life.

AUTO ARREREGH DAVATEMAN MANO SEPAHEH HAST.
It is exceptionally kind of you to allow me to travel in the trunk of
your car.

FASHAL-EH TUPEHMAN NA DEGAT MANO GOFTAM CHEESHAYEH
MOHEMARA JEBEHKESHVAREHMAN.
If you will do me the kindness of not harming my genital appendages I
will gladly reciprocate by betraying my country in public.

KHREL JEPAHEH MANEH VA JAYEH AMERIKAHEY.
I will tell you the names and addresses of many American spies
traveling as reporters.

BALLI, BALLI, BALLI !
Whatever you say!

MATERNIER GHERMEZ AHLEIEH, GHORBAN.
The red blindfold will be lovely, excellency.

TIEKH NUNEH OB KHRELEH BEZORG VA KHRUBE BOYAST INO BEGERAM.
The water-soaked bread crumbs are delicious, thank you. I must have
the recipe.

I'm sitting here feeling enervated after what has been a very rough week (and there are still two days left to go!) and checking through a few blogs.

It's been my feeling for a very long time now that if Muslims really want to break down western preconceptions and biases against Islam, they need to take stock of themselves and their own actions. Bombing pizza parlors, school buses, airline terminals, aircraft, pushing old men off cruise ships, beating Navy men to death, bombing discos, bombing embassies, bombing peacekeepers in their beds and flying aircraft into buildings packed with thousands of people after gutting stewardesses with boxcutters—that's all Islamic territory. The Basques and the Irish separatists don't even rate on the global scale against what the Muslims have done. Pikers all.

There have been a few—a very few—lukewarm condemnations of 9/11, but that's about it. A few governments (Qatar, Pakistan, UAE, Saudi) have pitched in, but by and large the people are not behind the actions of their governments.

I have at least three books on the relationship between Islam and the west. All are written by Muslims and I thought that I could read them and learn. I have been unable to plow through any of them because each of them begins at page one saying the problem is that the west doesn't understand Islam. That certainly is the case, but the world is a two way exercise. Islam doesn't understand the west, either, but the west has so far resisted using the middle east as a nuclear testing ground. Now, as of late we have indeed invaded two countries, but that my friends, is a matter of finally having had enough. Afghanistan was a vacuum, most of which was ruled by the Taleban, a vicious group of fundamentalists who fully supported terrorism and took great delight at whipping women bloody with automobile aerials. That part of Afghanistan was acknowledged as one big terrorist training base. The Taleban was never a legitimate ruling party. They sheltered bin Laden, we asked them to turn him over and in the name of some all-consuming Islamic fundamentalism they allowed themselves to be destroyed and lose control of Afghanistan all over one man. Despite the shoutings of the left, Saddam also supported terrorism and had weapons of mass destruction. We know he did, because he used gas (defined as a WMD) on his own people and either VX or Sarin (maybe both) have been found in Iraq since the invasion, although the left keeps raising the bar on what they'll consider a WMD. Saddam murdered his own people by the tens of thousands, he imprisoned tens of thousands on trumped up political charges and the children of political prisoners were themselves jailed under horrific conditions for the duration of their parents' sentences. So yeah, we finally invaded two of your countries, but it was a long time coming and richly deserved.

So, with all of that on my mind I found this post at RofaSix. Like NOTR says: “About Sez it All”.

It's not safe for work and definitely “R” rated, but absolutely recommended viewing.

Bumper Sticker 

Well, I'm set up to skew television ratings. Got a postcard a while ago saying that we had been selected as a "Nielson Family". I never replied, but they kept up and yesterday we received a log along with five crisp one dollar bills. They only ask that we keep the log for a week, so I figure "why not?".

BUT--while no one family can actually skew ratings, I'm going to do my best. I'm not unaware of popular programs (though I never heard of "Ghost Whispers" until local moms starting begging off of planned activities so they could watch the show rather than watch their daughters growing up), but I just don't watch them. I've never seen "ER", I've never seen the crime scene show or any of its spinoffs, I've seen "JAG" once and thought it was the most unrealistic piece of garbage I've ever seen (hot babe aside), I've never seen "Beverly Hills 9whatever", I've never seen "Friends", and I only ever watched "Seinfeld" twice. The second time was the farewell show, which referenced previous shows. Needless to say I was utterly baffled.

I guess I'm a legitimate demographic--the networks need to know that at least some of us don't watch their garbage--but it feels weird. On the other hand, the Discovery Channel and the History Channel might get a boost from our log.

I came across this quiz at Toni's website and just had to take it. Thing is, Toni came out 60% weird and I, of all people, only came out 50% weird. I'm a bit concerned about Toni at this point...

You Are 50% Weird

Normal enough to know that you're weird... But too damn weird to do anything about it!

How Weird Are You?

I have tried to avoid watching opening ceremonies for the Olympics since the Winter Olympics in France, because the "entertainment" frankly resembles what I imagine a hallucinogenic trip to be.

I got out of much of the opening events as one of the Bear's friends was planning to go to Fun Night at school and asked Bear to go with her. At the last minute the friend's mom, who had planned the whole thing, opted out so she could watch something on TV called "Ghost Whispers" (I have no idea what "Ghost Whispers" is, but it must be compelling as that's the second time a mom has derailed premade plans in favor of watching it). Nice guy that I am, I picked up her slack and took the girls to Fun Night.

Got home too soon, unfortunately, and the wife and son were watching the opening ceremonies. I was OK until the US contingent entered the stadium. Right off the bat, some moron broke ranks so he could do Hulk poses in front of the camera. Next, the camera focused on some piece of fluff who was showing utter contempt (or, more likely,ignorance) for the import of entering the Olympic Stadium as a member of the United States Olympic Team by yakking on her cell phone as she slouched into the stadium. Some day when she wins the gold at the ice licking event, her grandchildren will see clips of her squawking into a cell phone, utterly ignorant of the fact that she was marching into history. And Hulk Boy, well, he may never really grow up.

Lastly as regards the US contingent—whoever designed those hats should be maimed and left to die on an ice floe.

I'm intrigued by the skeleton sleds. It's a new sport, but they look to be incredibly fast and the sledders must be pretty ballsy. Apparently the standout male in US skeleton sledding has been using a hair restorative that contains a compound that can mask steroids and allegations were made against him. He went to some international sports court with the issue and they looked at records and ruled no wrongdoing on his part. He just happened to be using that particular product. Fact is, he is getting pretty bald, which lends credence. Nonetheless, the anti-US International Olympic Committee banned him from this years Olympics. This would be the same committee that was revealed as big-time partying, hooker-buying toads during the ramp up to the Salt Lake City Olympics.

As far as the Olympics as a whole, I'm just not sure any more. Time was you had to be an amateur. Remember, Jim Thorpe was stripped of gold medals for the pentathlon and decathlon because he'd once made a few bucks playing semi-pro baseball. Baseball has nothing to do with pentathlon or decathlon, but as far as the committee was concerned, he'd been a pro. It was an open secret that the Soviet teams were state supported and the athletes received stipends. In fact, for many years the Soviet hockey team was made up entirely of active duty Soviet special forces troops. But for a long time we rose above it and sent our amateurs, who actually beat the Soviets at their own game from time to time.

Then, suddenly somebody somehow convinced the Olympic committee that professional basketball players should be allowed. So we sent teams of loutish NBA players who didn't do all that well in competition and managed to embarrass us with their behavior all the same. Then pro tennis players were given the clearance. I haven't kept track since then, but my impression as of this Olympics is that pros aren't barred at all.

Takes something away from the event for me.

Wayne 

Had an interesting encounter this morning. After dropping the kids off at school I came across a small truck sitting dead at a stop sign. Figured I'd see what I could do.

I got out and walked up to the truck and sked the girl driving it if I could help. She told me she's had trouble starting it, and now it had stalled and she couldn't get it started. My first thought was that the alternator croaked and she had a dead battery. The cross road had a nice downhill slope to the right, so I considered shoving it down the hill and push starting it. Of course that only works with manual transmissions, so I asked her if she had a manual or automatic transmission. She told me she didn't know.

300 million people in this country and I manage to find the only one who doesn't know whether she's driving a manual or an automatic. I looked at the floor and there was a clutch pedal--sort of a giveaway. I said "You know that stick thingy you move around? That's a manual transmission". "Oh".

She turned the key at that point and the engine cranked, so the alternator theory went out the window. She just wasn't getting fuel. After she cranked it a few more times I told her I could either pull her back into the parking lot or push her down the hill where she could pull over to the curb. She opted for the second choice, so I gave her a push. While I stood there yelling "Turn, turn", she went straight across the road and onto a sidewalk at the middle school.

I ran across the road and she told me she couldn't turn the steering wheel. Sigh. "Turn the key on so the steering wheel lock disengages". "Oh".

At that point she turned the key all the way and the engine finally decided to fire. I left, but not without misgivings--Some people simply shouldn't be allowed access to motor vehicles.

Well, rodent girl strikes again.

The Bear just has this thing for rodents. We've had hamsters, miniature hamsters and a gerbil. The first two hamsters died of natural causes, the miniature hamsters met their maker at the hands of the father hamster who then died either from his own meanness or from the gastric results of consuming his family. The next hamster got caught in an access tube in its cage and most recently the gerbil passed, apparently due to natural causes.

Well, now the Bear is the thrilled owner of a guinea pig. It's about two years old and like all of the above save one hamster, it was a giveaway, cage and all.

I never thought I'd say this, but I kind of like the thing. It's big enough to feel like you're actually interacting with something more than an animated dust bunny, it makes interesting sounds and it's very docile, unlike the gerbil who was just a mean, aggressive SOB.

On the other hand as I'm reading up on guinea pig care I'm learning such tidbits as I'll have to clip its toenails--oh, and do it somewhere where you won't drop it when it bites you. Nice.

They're apparently big on fresh vegetables, so I offered it some iceberg lettuce. It snatched it from me with a lightning strike then shook it like a dog trying to break a rat's neck before consuming it with great alacrity. It was an interesting enough performance that I gave it another piece to watch it again. Then it struck me that I now have competition for the iceberg lettuce. The pig and I may come to disagree on this issue. Along the line of fresh greens, apparently white clover is one of their favorite foods. We have white clover aplenty around here. Free food! But wait...it also gives them gas. I have a labrador retriever for that. I don't need a flatulant guinea pig as well.

Apparently scurvey is an issue as well. One page recommends feeding them cabbage to address this, another page says to avoid cruciferous vegetables because...they give them gas. Guess I'll have to give it a lime along with its rum tot.

And yes, so far it's an "it". I'm still reading the page on how to sex the things. Suffice it to say it's not as obvious as, say, John Holmes. Fortunately the Bear picked a generic name for it: Fluffy. Although as with all of her names, it's subject to change.

Let the baseball blogging begin!

Well, at least let it creep slowly to the fore. It's still only February.

Had The Big Meeting tonight. Around a week ago the league president called me and asked what i was doing this year. It seemed like something of a trick question. I told him that I knew someone else had picked up the umpire coordinator position, so I wasn't doing much of anything. I honestly had no idea why he was asking me that. If ignorance was bliss, I'd have been positively orgasmic at that point.

As it turns out, he wanted me to take over as commissioner for the junior and senior leagues. We talked a bit about the responsibilities and I finally told him that I'd attend tonight's meeting and consider taking the position. The meeting kicked off with a reading of minutes from the last meeting. Well, miracles do occur in small town baseball. According to the minutes, I accepted the post a month ago!

Well, I thought, at least I know my son will make the all-star team this year...

There are a few hurdles ahead: We only have enough guys for one senior league team, which presents something of a problem. Senior league is high school age and they eschew Little League for high school ball so they can wear their uniforms on game day and pull chicks in their wake as they walk from class to class. Can't blame them a bit. I tried the same thing back when, but the band uniform just didn't work very well.

Scheduling umpires played hell on my cell phone. I'm expecting the commissioner gig to play hell on the answering machine as parents call me to complain about mean umpires. "He called my son out just because the ball got to the base before he did. Little Billy just can't run that fast, he's a husky boy. I don't know what you expect of him. He had to come home and spend three hours on his Nintendo XBox just to wind down after that call".

Or: "Little Zachary's coach only lets him play seven innings out of each game. Aren't there 18 innings in a game, like golf?"

Maybe I'm being pessimistic (but on the other hand, pessimists are never disappointed), but I'm anticipating an "interesting" season.

Another fun survey. Got this one from Righty in a Lefty State. It's pretty close to the truth.

I'm a Dodge Viper!

You're all about raw power. You're tough, you're loud, and you don't take crap from anyone. Leave finesse to the other cars, the ones eating your dust.

Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

Can't find any internet references in a quick search, but the newspaper today reported that John Kerry, the paragon of class who marries rich women and lives their lifestyle, walked out of the senate yesterday fuming over the appointment of Judge Alito. He announced that the Democrats had not brought out their "expletive" knives. Well, that's pretty clear--no need to speculate on what he said.

A US Senator walked out of chambers and announced to one and all that his fellow Democrats allowed Alito to be confirmed because they neglected to employ their "f*cking knives".

Oh, and this is the guy who made a phone call from Davos, Switzerland where he was playing with his jet setter friends to try and set up a philibuster when he couldn't even be bothered to be in DC.

A true class act, he is.

Several years ago the company I worked for was collaborating with another company which was developing a device they were hoping to market as a temporary device to support patients through acute renal failure.

Renal failure is when your kidneys shut down, and it's a death sentence. Sometimes a medical situation will overload a patient's kidneys, causing a temporary (acute) shutdown until the situation is resolved. While complete renal failure always leads to death, if a patient can be supported through a temporary shutdown, they have a good chance of surviving.

The device had been through Phase One clinical trials with surprising results. When testing medical devices they don't want you experimenting with people who might survive (and possibly screwing them up), so trials are limited to people whom the odds say are going to die. The survival rate with this device was astonishing. They had a list of people who "should have" died, but didn't.

For certain reasons I was called in as a cell growth guy to do some work and help out with the project. I did my part, got more thanks than I really deserved and moved on. I can't even remember the name of the company.

It will, of course, be years before the device hits the market--and that's assuming that it meets FDA approval. It may, it may not. I only know about the Phase One trials. There are two more levels to meet before the FDA even thinks about approving it.

In the mean time, relatives of two people close to me have perished due to acute renal failure, and with each death I've found myself thinking back to that project, wistfully, hoping that someday that thing hits the market.

I've been meaning to write something about Navy Commander Scott Speicher for a while now, and RofaSix gave me the push with his post.

My wife gave me a book called "No One Left Behind: The Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher Story" for Christmas. It's a compelling story. Before I go any further, I referred to him as Commander, while he's generally known as Lt. Commander--when his status was changed from KIA to MIA he was promoted to Commander based on time in grade.

Cmdr. Speicher was one of, if not the first, casualty of the first Gulf War. He was flying a strike mission in his F/A-18 when a MIG-25 blew through the formation. There was some confusion and the fighters were not given clearance to fire on the MIG until it was too late. Cmdr. Speicher's aircraft was hit, either by the MIG or possibly by another F/A-18 fireing on the MIG.

The author of the book, Amy Waters Yarsinsky, isn't known to me, but she appears to have the bona fides to write an authorative book. She's a former Naval Intelligence officer and her husband is a retired Naval aviator. She's written several other books, mostly historical. While the book is pretty lightweight and there are very few footnotes, she doesn't appear to be, say, an Eric von Daniken.

What the books claims as fact are that his ejection seat was found intact and separated from the wreckage of the aircraft and that the condition of the canopy, including burn marks from the explosive charges, is consistant with an ejection. Apparently review of satellite photography too long after the fact revealed that someone had constructed, and maintained, distress signals which matched his code letters.

I have my doubts that he is still alive, but we should not stop searching for him until we know for certain.

Years ago a character in the Doonesbury comic strip declared "The president is a lot smarter than you think".

The character was "BD", and he was on his way to fight in Vietnam. He was prickled by one of his friends about the validity of the war and finally blurted out the above.

The premise survives. Whether or not you think George Bush is the brightest guy in the world (as though Gore, Kerry, Harry or Teddy are), as the president he's constantly briefed with the latest findings of the most effective intelligence network in the world. He gets a prepared brief every single morning--seven days a week. And you can bet that when things change, he gets yet another briefing regardless of the time of day. Some things can wait, but unlike a certain dictator when Allied forces landed in France, you can bet that he wants to be aroused when serious events occur.

So, as it turns out, just maybe there is a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda. For me, the radical Islamist connection is enough--They hate us, they want to kill us--'nough said. But the Cindy Sheehans, etc. would rather suck Islamist d*ck than tolerate a Bush presidency.

Well, just maybe the president is a lot smarter than Teddy thinks. Seems drips and drabs of information are making their way into the press to indicate that there are, indeed, links between Al Qaeda and Saddam's Iraq.

From Deroy Murdoch and the National Review:

Drop by drop, isolated news stories and emerging documents are eroding the popular myth that Saddam Hussein had no connections to Islamofascist terrorists. These revelations undermine war critics’ efforts to whitewash Baghdad’s ancien regime — such as when Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid declared: “There was [sic] no terrorists in Iraq.” Likewise, Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.) describes a “nonexistent relationship between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.”

There's much more there to read. Just bear in mind that the president is more informed than any of us.

At least locally, the fetal/embryonic stem cell debate is coming to a head. Maryland fancies itself a center of biotechnology, conveniently ignoring that its seriously anti-business environment begs highly mobile industries such as biotech to relocate. There is a biotech corridor in Maryland, due to the proximity to regulating authorities, but that may be coming to an end due to the oppressive business environment.

Anyway, MD has chosen to place itself at the forefront of the stem cell debate.

I think that I've discussed this before, but while looking for another article, I found an essay by a very intelligent guy that backs up what I've been saying. To whit: fetal/embryonic stem cells just don't work.

Supporters claim solid ground in the stem cell debate. Stem cells are like a piece of sheet metal that can be hammered into any shape. It just takes the right conditions to force a stem cell to differentiate into a particular cell, be it cardiac, pancreatic, whatever. BUT--fetal/embryonic stem cells have been a total bust. There have been numerous advancements in medicine related to stem cells, but in every case they have been adult stem cells. Said cells exist in the blood of adults as "peripheral cells" and in adipose (fat) tissue (possibly America's most abundant resource). Additionally, there have been a number of successes in transplanting already differentiated cells from a healthy heart to a diseased heart, a healthy pancreas to a diseased pancreas, etc. I've been a part of some of those projects.

The one and only clinical trial involving fetal/embryonic stem cells was not just a bust, it was a spectacular failure. Cells were injected into the brains of people with Parkinson's, and the result was that no one got better, and a significant number of subjects declined dramatically. They went in with the shakes and emerged as droolers. Nobody knows why, but nobody wants to speculate because to do so is to lend the appearance that you are anti-abortion, a cardinal sin. It goes right up there with the terminated pregnancy/breast cancer link. There is a ton of anecdotal evidence that women who have had terminated pregnancies--be it abortion or just miscarriage--are at higher risk for breast cancer than the general population, but nobody will touch it lest they be cast as anti-abortion.

I sometimes think that the fetal/embryonic stem cell thing is an issue of preserving grants and jobs. Unless they've ignored the literature, they know damn well that their research has yielded nothing, while adult cells are an absolute gold mine. But by casting opponents as stifling research for religious reasons, they're able to stifle those opponents in turn and continue lining their pockets.

There's a tremendous potential in stem cells and cell therapy, but until we stop barking up politically proper trees and limiting ourselves by refusing to admit that fetal/embryonic cells don't work, we're going to spend a lot of money on failed research, all the time feeling so much better because we're being so open minded about stem cells.

In the latest scandal to hit Capital Hill, apparently Secretary of State Rice slept with Ted Kennedy...



Small

Must be global warming.

Yep, definitely.

One of my big pet peeves is that a lot of people--mostly on the left, of course--see the troops as a bunch of losers. Dumbasses who can't get a real job and who function as automatons for Chimpy Bushitler. A woman whom I care for very deeply would rather gouge out her eyes than see her sons in the military, because they're destined for greater things than military service, you know.

That's why in the past I've linked to movie clips of troops cutting up and whatnot. They actually do have personalities and intellects, not that Hillary would notice. Hell, I once knew a SSG who was a member of Mensa.

By way of Toni's excellent blog, I've come across an incredibly well written blog authored by two treadheads tankers. Enlisted swine, no less.

All that aside, while the entire blog merits continued reading and I'll put it in my list of required reads, Toni specifically links to “A Man of Honor Needs Our Help”. Read it and think about lending support.

Meanwhile, I'm going to try and figure out how they did the sidebar thing with their “racks”. Mine isn't quite as big as SSG Mike Gulf's, but I figure the wings and SF tab lend some weight for me.

The local newspaper is absolutely rife with misspellings, factual errors and the like. I mostly find them amusing, such as the time a columnist wrote about "cream of crap soup" (crab being a local delicacy), but sometimes they annoy me such as when a columnist wrote about the "82nd Engineer Armored Tank Division". Obviously "Armored Tank" is redundant, and there are no Engineer divisions. It took me, an amateur (compared to a paid columnist), all of five minutes to find out that there is a 82nd Engineer Battalion (separate) and that said battalion marries with the facts in the column. I sent a strongly worded email to the editor and, of course, never heard back.

Now I'm seriously annoyed with them. I don't obsess over the obituaries, but I do scan them. At 45 I periodically see the parent of someone I know, and sometimes even a person I know. Last year I read the obituary of a girl I had dated in high school (she was taken down by the "Big C", an unfair disease of there ever was one, and unlike the "Big A", it can happen to anyone). Well, I was scanning them today and it caught my eye that the paper referred to internments.

I'll spare everyone my initial reaction, which turned the air blue. Bodies are not interned. They are interred.

The editor is a big city liberal who presumed to come out here and subject us to his opinions. Ok, fine. But at least exhibit a familiarity with the English language as you do so.

I see that "Brokeback Mountain" got the top award at the Golden Globe award ceremony (funny, "golden globes" sounds like what a tawny-skinned woman would have under her shirt). I guess it's very artistic and sensitive and all that, but it's still not doing well at the box office.

I guess not all that many people want to watch a movie about two guys who ditch their wives and children so that they can push in each others' stools.

Monday night was a blast.

I ended up sitting in a gravel driveway at 10:30 at night, in January, in the rain, replacing the front brakes on my wife's Explorer.

I'm expecting the Vatican to announce my beatification any day now.

This is just too precious. I posted on the so-called "Fair Share Health Act" a few days ago and managed to get a reply from Blue Shield of California.

They must have had some sort of search bot looking for references to the act, and it then posted a reply to the Blogger reply page, rather than the Haloscan page which is the button labeled "comments".

The reply was to the effect that "I" am glad because the "fare (sic) share health act" will enable more people ot have insurance.

What they meant to say is that it'll mean more money in Blue Cross' coffers.

I can't find the links yet, but I'm told by a very reliable source that Ray Nagin is backpeddaling from his statement that God wants New Orleans to be a chocolate (black) city.

Nagin, who is mostly known for his mishandling of the hurricane Katrina crisis and his blaming of the devastation on the federal government isn't fooling anyone.

I'm told that he backed off of the original "chocolate" statement, saying that "chocolate is a mixture of white milk and chocolate syrup". Nice try, Ray. We all know what you meant the first time.

The fact remains that Nagin dropped the ball big time, and now he's showing his true makeup.

What on earth is it about that "American Idol" TV show?

Now, I have to profess complete ignorance as I've never seen it. Not even two seconds' worth.

But a couple of summers ago we had a mom on the baseball team who was addicted to the show and would actually become angry and berate her son if a game ran long and started cutting into "her" American Idol time.

Now the Bear called one of her friends about getting together. Turns out they can get together here, but not at the friend's house, because the friend's mom is watching American Idol and can't tolerate the disturbance. And, I have to pick the friend up (not that I mind), because the mom can't tear herself away from the TV for five minutes (yes, it's minutes away, but the road is not a good place for nine-year old girls any more).

Racism is a double edged sword, as Sondra K shows. First, Ray Nagin (the failed mayor of New Orleans who has chosen to hide behind his pigmentation) states that the new New Orleans needs to be a black city. It does? It can't be 50/50? Or whatever? Why can't we just get along?? Sheesh. Can't it just be American?--If you want to play colors we have white, brown, black, red, yellow, tan, ecru--hell, you name it. Imagine Nagin's chagrin if the new New Orleans ended up 49% black. He'd have a fit. What if a white politician had, in some fit of extremis, announced that this was the opportunity for white people to take over a profitable seaport and tourist destination? He'd be denounced in the loudest of terms, yet Nagin's plan for an all-black city meets no denounciation.

Imagine if all cities were all black and all white--none of us would have the foggiest idea that we're not so different. People who call for all-white or all-black cities are a$$holes. So far, though, I've only seen a call for an all-black city.

I have two rants on hold, but for the time being I'll do another roundup of good pieces at other blogs.

Jack Army notes that an SF soldier was awarded the Silver Star for actions in Afghanistan. Some might recall that while Iraq is in the news, there are still things happening in Afghanistan.

JB comments on the president's speech the other day. Goes back to my own analysis that the left hates Bush more than they love their own country.

Blackfive relates One Marine's View of the war. I liked his first response a lot. His story about the little girl and the Pepsi caused a bit of lachrymal leakage from this big, tough old guy.

Uncle Jimbo posts about the non-scandal of NSA listening to the bad guys. Fact is, that's been NSA's charter from Day One--fifty years ago. Communications eminating from or terminating in other countries are not subject to Constitutional protection. Plain and simple. Add to that the fact that we're listening to people who would do anything to kill us...Fact is, the left hates the right more than they love their own country.

Some Soldier's Mom's sons are all home.

Caelestis puts it pretty bluntly in Makaha Surf Report--Some Democrats want all of us to lose so that they can win. Once again, the left hates the administration more than they love this country.

I'm growing pretty tired of the lazy abuse of the English language myself. Just the other day I had to remind a vice-principal with a Masters' degree that his invitation to me to "hang out with my son and I" was wrong. It's "my son and me". Now, he's a good guy and very smart, but proper English eluded him. It's not at all an uncommon shortcoming. Mauser Girl notes it here, and Murf notes it here.

Maryland moves one step closer to being a socialist (communist) state. The legislature overrode the governor's veto of the "Fair Share Health Care Act", locally known as the "Wal Mart Act".

The act requires employers to spend at least eight percent of their payroll on health insurance. It's called the "Wal Mart Act" because Wal Mart is the one and only employer in the state affected by the act. Sort of a "gotcha" from Democrats who hate others' success.

I'm not a Wal Mart fan by any stretch. I used to hold my nose and go in because John Walton was Special Forces and ran recon with SOG and by all accounts was a genuine hero, though he apparently never had much to say about it himself.

Unfortunately, John is gone now, having crashed in an ultralight, so I have little motivation to navigate the crowded, stinky aisles of a store patronized by 300 pound women wearing stretch pants and dodging motorized carts navigated by obese people being kept alive by cannulas.

Getting that out of the way, I think I've established that I'm not an apologist for Wal Mart. But the act is purely socialist. An employer offers a potential employee a compensation package. That package includes wages, paid time off, insurance and possibly pension. If you don't care for the package, you move on to another employer. Employers, in turn, make themselves attractive to qualified candidates by offering attractive compensation packages.

I haven't the foggiest idea what makes the state legislators think they have any business inserting themselves into the compensation packages of private corporations. On the other hand, check the compensation packages that legislators vote for themselves. I think you'll be shocked.

I'm going to do something a bit different, as my muse has deserted me, and offer a roundup of links at other sites.

First, Gunn Nutt documents just how classless the left can be--demonstrating in front of a hospital treating wounded GIs, and if that's not bad enough, they callously steal signs asking them not to protest in front of a hospital.

Then Daisy Cutter comments (tongue in cheek) on the 10 Worst Americans Ever.

Texas Music has a nice story about a redtail hawk.

Chin Music has some things to say about Dachau and Auschwitz. I've been to both as well. Dachau is beyond belief. Auschwitz manages to take it to a whole new level past "beyond belief". That's all I'll say now.

Bluto notes that the so-righteous Democrats (led by Klansman Byrd and Girl Drowner Kennedy) got up on their soapboxes and abused Alito to the point where his wife left the hearings in tears. Not that noted misogynist Kennedy gives a damn.

If hearings for Supreme Court nominees weren't a fairly serious matter, it would almost be funny listening to that bloated reprobate Ted Kennedy harrumphing and pontificating and acting as though he is some sort of arbiter of right and wrong.

Drowned any little girls lately, Teddy?

NOTR floats a pretty damn good idea for military recruiting at ROFASix.

We've been watching something of a stop-action nature scenario for the last couple of weeks.

Some weeks ago we were walking to the main road to catch the school bus and I noticed a lot of snow and ice thrown across the verge where our road meets the public road. I put it down to an inattentive driver who nearly lost it, then veered back onto the road.

While waiting for the bus, the Bear called my attention to the reason for the snow and ice--someone had struck a deer which landed mere feet "upstream" from our verge. It was quite cold at the time and the deer was frozen in the ignominy of sudden, violent death; its mouth in rictus with the tongue lolling out.

Not long after, the temperature rose. The deer began almost literally melting into the earth. But that would have been a long, unsavory process. Enter the vultures. Black vultures and Turkey vultures descended upon the carcass. As of two days ago there was literally nothing left but a backbone, a rib cage, four legs and skin. Yesterday the rib cage disappeared. I can't account for that...

But all in all, it's been an interesting "circle of life" thing.

Wow. The left is just frothing at the mouth over Alito. Makes me like the guy more all the time.

They're actually running television ads against the guy. It's the first time I can ever remember seeing a TV spot opposing a Supreme Court nominee. I wonder how many minority Katrina victims they could feed and house for what they're spending on the commercials...

A quick and dirty search revealed a number of anti-Alito web sites as well. One of them makes these absurd claims, things like: Alito will allow discrimination against minorities. Alito will allow discrimination against the disabled...Stuff like that. Broad generalizations that somehow this one guy is going to change the character of an entire country.

Even better, they based the minority discrimination claim on the case Bray v. Marriott. In that case a black woman sued Marriott, claiming that she was denied a position because of her race. The court upheld her claim, with Alito dissenting. It's very clear here, that Alito dissented because he didn't believe she was not selected the position due to her race, but rather the other cadidate was selected simply because she was better qualified for the position. Reading the case notes, I have to agree with Alito. But in the hate-twisted world of the left, saying she wasn't the best qualified candidate equals “allowing discrimination”.

Keep going guys—you're just showing the world just how incredibly hateful the left has become. So much for the “loyal opposition”. You simply hate, with an unreasoning fury. Hate flows through your veins like a venom, literally poisoning you, destroying your ability to reason.

Golda Meier (past Prime Minister of Israel, in case someone from Kos, Nimmo or Willis stops by) once said, “Israel will have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.” I think that there's a lot of truth in that line. Lately, I've taken to borrowing that line and applying it to the left in this country. Frankly, I think we'll get a lot more done around here when the left learns to love this country more than they hate Bush. Right now they're perfectly willing to feed this country into a shredder just to “get” Bush. Witness the “outrage” over the idea of listening in on people who reflexively hate us and will die by droves just so that they can kill anyone not like them (not to mention said monitoring is overwhelmingly supported by the US public).

Keep it up, Howie Dean, Harry Reid, et. al. You're just showing the world what a bunch of low class trolls you really are.

My attendance has been spotty as of late. I've been working on a post, but it's not ready yet.

On the plus side, besides spending much of my time trying to earn the next house payment, I've been caught up in two very gratifying projects.

A group from our scout troop (including my son) is headed off to Philmont this summer where they will spend 12 days hiking some 70+ miles, at times at elevations over 10,000 feet. I had to make the hard decision that I'd be foolish to attempt the hike with my current knees, but I've been spending a lot of time working the admin end of things for them.

Best of all, we now have what's called a Venture Crew. Ventures are the next step in scouting, open to boys and girls from 14 to 21. I've been extremely vociferous in my criticisms of behavior and promotion standards in the troop, so it's justice of a sort that I am on the leadership staff for the new crew. We'll be launching in a few short months and there's a lot to do there. The down side is that I have to get "trained" again, which involves watching a child protection video that literally makes my skin crawl.

Well, I just had to go take the "Which Red Dawn Character are You?" quiz. I guess I should have expected the answer...


Robert Morris...-The Executioner-...You are loyal
and brave(to a fault) but you are also a
psychotic killing-machine. Seek professional
help NOW! ;-)


Which Red Dawn Character Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Ok, I'll admit it. I had one foot on the pogo stick just now. The little guy on my left shoulder wanted me to go for it. The little guy on my right shoulder reminded me that I'm 45, I have bad knees and it would be incredibly embarrassing for my wife to come home and find me on the floor.

I'm still not ruling it out, but I decided to proceed on the side of caution this time.

And then there are Christmas presents.

Presents on any occasion can be hit or miss. You might pick out that one thing they really wanted, or you might buy them something that's "nice".

So it's always good when you know that you've scored a hit. Snake Eater, Jr. got a knit hat that reminds me of a Tibetan style hat--tassles and so forth, but it's apparently very stylish. He has been wearing it for some 36 straight hours now. He also got a lacrosse stick--the only part of the lacrosse ensemble he had been missing. He already had a helmet, gloves, etc. I've had to throw him and his stick out of the house several times already.

The Bear got a pair of Winnie the Pooh socks that make me laugh every time I see them, and of all things, a pogo stick. She specifically requested the pogo stick. I never had one, but I had friends who had them, and every pogo stick I've ever seen looks cheesy next to this thing. It's one seriously hot pogo stick. Neoprene handles, the business end looks like a Monroe shock absorber...

And then there's the dog. Zephyr got a dog bed from Santa. Part of the fun was when the Bear went downstairs to let Zephyr out of her crate and found that Santa had left Zephyr a bed, the rest of the fun has been in just how much Zephyr enjoys the bed. She's one active dog, but she does come in to get some rest from time to time. She knows the bed now and heads right for it. She definitely enjoys the new bed.

There's a story out that Michael Jackson is in the hospital, having tried to do himself in with alcohol and demerol.

I have an acquaintance with demerol. I had a chronically dislocating shoulder (trashed it while being dragged across a drop zone in Minnesota in February--I was actually headed for the front door of the officers' club when two guys jumped on my parachute and collapsed it). After they surgically fixed the shoulder I was put on demerol for a few days. I was quite the comic act after that. I couldn't sleep on the fixed shoulder, obviously; I couldn't sleep on the other side as the fixed shoulder would flop over, couldn't sleep on my stomach as the shoulder would flop forward—I could only sleep on my back. So they'd come in with this HUGE needle and stick the demerol in my posterior. The needle was, indeed, HUGE. I left blood streaks on the sheets every night. Given that I could only sleep on my back and I'd just been lanced in my buttocks, I'd pace back and forth, pushing my IV bag on a stand, until I was literally staggering around the room. My roommates got a big charge out of it. "Let's watch him stagger around the room again..." Once I was sufficently “under the influence”, I could flop into bed and go to sleep.

It's hard to impart it, but I was quite a comic act for a while.

As far as Michael Jackson...I'm not going to hold my breath.

A doubly special day tomorrow. Not only the 25th of December, but also 25 Kislev.

So to all, a merry Christmas or a joyous Hannukah. If if you celebrate neither, enjoy the warmth and fellowship of the holidays.

Busy week here, but I look forward to ranting to all of my online friends.

I've posted recipes in the past, but I haven't posted one in quite some time.

The recipes I've posted in the past have mostly been “family” recipes, handed down. This one's a bit different. I originally got it from a magazine and it immediately found a place as a holiday staple. After moving back to the US I misplaced the recipe, but just by luck I recalled that it was credited to The Inn at Ormsby Hill. I sent them an email asking for the recipe and they responded that the chef who prepared it was longer with them, but they took the trouble to forward my email to him and he responded and sent me the recipe. So, many thanks to the inn as well as to Chef Don Burd. I don't know where Chef Burd is cooking these days, but I'd definitely recommend it. He's a terrific cook and a great guy. I'd also recommend the inn. Never been there, but after living in New Hampshire, I can tell you that any inn located in New Hampshire or Vermont is worth staying at.

This might well be the ultimate holiday lunch/brunch recipe. You make it up the night before and throw it in the oven the next morning—the perfect answer to a busy Christmas morning or a New Year's day when you're not necessarily up to standing over the stove. Those are the two times each year that we make it. And believe me, we spend the rest of the year waiting to make it again. It's good. Very good.

Without further ado, Vegetable Cheese Strata:

5 SLICES WHITE BREAD, BUTTERED ONE SIDE
1/2 lB. SHARP CHEDDAR CHEESE COARSELY GRATED (ABOUT 2 CUPS)
1/3 CUP CHOPPED RED BELL PEPPER (ABOUT 1/2 PEPPER)
1/3 CUP CHOPPED GREEN PEPPER(ABOUT 1/2 PEPPER)
1/3 CUP CHOPPED ONION (ABOUT 1/2 MED.ONION)
1/3 CUP ZUCCHINI (ABOUT 1/2 SMALL ZUCCHINI)
3 LARGE EGGS
2 CUPS WHOLE MILK
1 TSP. ENGLISH STYLE DRY MUSTARD
1 TSP SALT
1 1/2 TSP DRIED BASIL CRUMBLED
FRESHLY GROUND BLACK PEPPER TO TASTE.

Butter 8" sq. baking pan, Cut bread in cubes and arrange in pan. Top bread
with cheddar. In bowl toss together vegetables and arrange evenly over the
cheese. In bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, mustard, and salt and
pepper and pour over vegetables. Chill strata, covered, overnight.
Pre-heat oven to 350 F. Sprinkle strata with basil. Put strata in pan
in a larger baking pan and add enough hot water to large pan to reach half
way up sides of strata pan. Bake strata in middle oven 1 hour, or until
top is golden, and remove from oven and its "bath"

Cut into 6"squares; serves six.

In way of apology for my "Brokeback Mountain" post, I'll offer up this weird reply to a Blackfive post regarding the Patriot Act. Blackfive prefaces the post by saying that many of the provisions of the now "Patriot Act" were approved under the Clinton administration. As it turns out (and I already knew this), Clinton Official Jamie Gorelick built upon the Frank Church enacted restrictions on the intel community and quite joyfully hobbled us in our ability to predict terroist attacks. But the point remains that Bill Clinton, the Saint of the Left, approved of many of the measures that now exist under the reviled Patriot Act.

It wasn't all Dubya, boys and girls. I know most people agree with the President, but for the tremendously vocal contigent on the left: Billy started it.

Let me know where you want to start from there.

At any rate, here's the reply. I just found it too entertaining and too moronic not to share:

Have you ever noticed that most supporters of George W. Bush have the mental, moral and emotional development of a five year old who suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome? One of the most common "arguments" that Bush supporters offer when their boy, who so many of them are positively queer for (in the Brokeback Mountain sense of the word), screws up and does something illegal, incompetent, corrupt or stupid is "Well, Bill Clinton did it, or something like it, or something that can be construed to be like it in the tiny little mind of a drooling wingnut like me, too!". For those of us who have progressed beyond the developmental level of a retarded five year old this is a lame defense, when I tried this kind of crap as a kid my Mom or Dad would inform me, quite sternly, that two wrongs don't make a right. I guess that most Bush supporters though had lousy parents who never imparted this valuable lesson, or that they were too stupid to understand it.

Posted by: Jamie Jamison | Dec 20, 2005 7:05:09 PM

Notice he takes the "Queer" route. So much for my comments on "Brokeback Mountain". He's positively contemptuous. Sorry, but I'm not the "homophobe" here. And, of course, he calls people too stupid to see everything his way "retards" and then jumps into fetal alchohol syndrome. What a f*cking jerk.

Sorry guys, but this is why the next election will go Republican, too.

Well, mirabile dictu, something finally worked. I suspect the fault was with Blogger, though I still advise against updating to Firefox 1.5 or 5.1 (check with them--you'll find it listed both ways). The upgrade loses all of the neat toolbars. And Opera is still fast, but still can't interface well with Blogger. So, I'm back in action and only slightly more frazzled.

As promised, my email for the week.

I finally got to my non-business email address after a week or so of neglect. I was amazed at all I had accomplished.

I've added eight email addresses to my PayPal account (which I haven't used in four years), I've won four state lotteries with a total winnings of four million dollars, I got a nice note from right wing infiltrator Peace Moonbeam, another nice note from presidential condidate Suldog, some excoriation from Murph, notices from three banks I have don't have accounts with that “unusual activity” has been observed on my accounts and a reminder that “bottom line” is a unique turn of phrase when applied to a homosexual situation.

Not only that, but two 419 Scammers actually took the bait when I replied to their request for personal information that my name is Barney Rubble and I reside at 301 Cobblestone Way, Bedrock, CA 70777.

And best of all, I've been reminded that my nose hairs require trimming while I may be in need of male enhancement.

You just have to love the world of email.

That particular email provider doesn't do a great job in filtering email, but he's a good guy trying to provide a service. I'm not the smartest guy on the planet by a long shot, but for what it's worth, I can spot a bullsh*t email and I take great pleasure in reporting spoofing and phishing schemes to the institutions involved. I take great offense with people who try to take money that simply is not their's by virtue of having earned it.

Here's one moron's followup to my reply identifying myself as Barney Rubble. Oh, and by the way, Mr. Mario, don't hold your breath for a reply:

ATTN: Barney Rubble

Thanks for your mail,

I need you to send me the following information?s as soon as possible For the payment to be send to you, and i will tell you on how you are going to send me the balance as soon as you have collected your 10% out of the total amount sent to you.

I hope all is clearly undertsood .

Info needed

1 full names and age.
2 contact house address.
3 personal direct phone and mobile numbers.
4 company name.

Immediately you have send me all the information?s the payment will be sent to you as soon as possible.

I wait to hear from you now.

Mr. Kelvin Mario

Do Not--DO NOT--Upgrade to Firefox 1.5 (or is it 5.1? They don't seem to know). It is horrendous. None of my toolbars work anymore, and I can't type in a word processor and copy the result to Blogger.

By the same token Opera is a nice, fast interface, but it doesn't work well with Blogger at all (the toolbar contains exactly zero tools).

I don't care much at all for Explorer, but I'm back there until Mozilla gets its act together.

I just checked my non-business email for the first time in at least a week. I'll have to describe the contents later, but I apparently had a very busy and profitable week.

In addition to the above, I got this link to a very special news item from Murph. Doubtless someone will find it in pooor taste , but I had to chuckle while reading it.

Twice now Blogger has boned me and lost a post I spent way too much time on. I have to go back to writing them in OpenOffice and saving them until they show up on the blog.

Ben Stein recently wrote his final column for E! Online. It's a great read. Here are a few excerpts:

...I no longer think Hollywood stars are terribly important....How can a man or woman who makes an eight-figure wage and lives in insane luxury really be a star in today's world, if by a "star" we mean someone bright and powerful and attractive as a role model?...A real star is the soldier of the 4th Infantry Division who poked his head into a hole on a farm near Tikrit, Iraq. He could have been met by a bomb or a hail of AK-47 bullets. Instead, he faced an abject Saddam Hussein and the gratitude of all of the decent people of the world.

NOTR regularly posts links to blog "carnivals"--roundups of notable posts on particular subjects.

He recently linked to Carnival of Comedy, and two of the posts in particular just about had me on the floor.

First, we have "Suldog's" campaign promises, then Peace Moonbeam infiltrates the religious right.

Sigh--two more blogs that I'm going to have to read on a regular basis.

I want this T-shirt.

Better yet, it should be issued to our military.