Primordial Slack

What Are You Looking At?

2010-08-26T07:57:00.001-04:00

PrimordialSlack.com

2010-07-07T21:35:00.003-04:00

Pretty basic, for now. But it seems to be up and running.

You may wanna change your linkage. [Or not. . .]

It's still summer and I still don't feel the need to be interesting. Apparently neither does much of the 'sphere.

See you at Primodial Slack, I hope.

"Women Spanked By Pirates"

2010-07-06T08:32:00.004-04:00

Filed under Those Kinky Brits.

I don't know what they were looking for, but the landing page leads me to think they were quite disappointed.

But it's a good financial re-read, because history is moving so fast that just a few short months can cause us to lose our focus, forget useful things.

The Internet. Useful like that.

From Freedom's Holy Light to Free Stuff!

2010-07-04T16:21:00.004-04:00

Verse Four of Samuel Joe Smith's My Country, 'Tis of Thee reads thus:

Our father's God to Thee,
Author of liberty,
To Thee we sing.
Long may our land be bright,
With freedom's holy light,
Protect us by Thy might,
Great God our King.

In an age that increasingly seeks to usurp what is holy and exalt what is profane I found this verse quite stirring as we warbled it out during Sunday morning's prayer service.

Is freedom a holy illumination, available only to those who have sought divine guidance? How quaint! Howprecious. As though a rational people couldn't rule their lives and fortunes without the silly and repressive fairy tales?

That entire peoples or countries have sought liberation from oppression is not new; it's as old as Exodus, at least. But this idea of an individual destiny and personal possibility used to be a thing won by individual might and tyranny. It was not a "given", or self-evident truth.

The idea of individual freedom is only 200+ years old. On the linear scale of history, that makes Freedom young, hip and now. It was missed for so many milennia, and only in recent history did it come to be an Idea worth dying for. And now that is slipping past us. What is necessary for Freedom to thrive, or at this point, survive?

The landscape of freedom has been allowed to go feral and wild, like a renters' unkempt lawn. Lack of vigilance reveals a lack of ownership. Our leaders have devalued the uniqueness of our Freedom, treating it like it runs on air instead of hard work, wisdom and careful accountability. They have taken the ownership of our corporate fate out of the picture and replaced it with comfort and entitlement and ...indentured slavery to the State.

The parable says, the Shepherd cares for and defends his sheep, and the hireling runs away from danger because he has no investment in the life of the sheep. We've invited hirelings to rule over us, whose only care for us is not our eternal soul, nor or our temporal freedom, but the promise of lining their pockets with cash.

Worst of all, our legislators have mocked Truth right out of the picture, time and again. Spinelessly and selfishly have they awarded sloth by cloaking it with "compassion" and they've depreciated human value in the process. They have usurped the warmth and parentage of the family and replaced it with something so cold, thin, and short-sighted as to enslave an entire generation to dependence and slavery. But they've sold it as caring and helpful, so how could it be a Lie? Time and again they've rewarded the externals of race and color and tenure, and have failed to require an account of what has been so freely given and received.

Mostly, they have mocked the Truth out of Life itself and have offered... what? in its stead? A thin veneer of personal freedom and choice that quickly fades as the years progress.

Our leaders and public servants neither lead nor serve, and now tell jaw-dropping, easily refuted lies with the temerity of tyrants. The Lie is First and the Truth lags behind, trying to be heard over the din of the sound bite. Our leaders are footling creatures who know that nothing succeeds like success, no matter how it's earned. Lie first. Lie fast. Lie loud,and Truth will die, one lie at a time.

Not to speak of the echo chamber of their lies, the incurious Media, as indoctrinated by our schools. And our schools, as indoctrinated by tenured liars, safe in their ivory towers of soul-sucking delusion. There they live and work, like vivisectionists of our culture, who find upon dismantling it that it has died on the table.

Like it or not, our country was founded on a moral Absolute. Without this vital ingredient, the concept of Freedom cannot stand. Lacking the sense of our birthright of Freedom and lacking the conviction that it is endowed by a greater Truth, we will lapse quickly back into tribalism and penury. Law, founded on that birthright and Truth will lapse into the manipulative and capricious creature it is quickly becoming.

Truth came before Freedom, and Freedom, that delicate notion, cannot stand on its own without it.

Lies flower, Truth withers, and while the good and the decent are vilifed as contemptible hypocrites, the selfish and unserious are voted into office on their promise of Free Stuff.

That's how far we've fallen. From the sacred (unique and set-apart) heights of Freedom to the common flatlands filled with uninvested renters of the corporate weal, a land of tenured hirelings, afraid of the wolves now threatening at the door as economic Night is falling.

We are rejecting the Author and Source of Freedom's Light as a mere fantasy. Out of the fear of appearing foolish, like some two-dimensional caricature of religion as portrayed by those (upright and pure of heart!) Hollywood moguls who love our country so much, we reject it all without so much as a reasoned thought of how it came to be. The answer is not as easy as you think. How did this fragile notion, so unique in the world, fall into our laps?

"Wait. Don't answer that. Look! Free stuff!"

Long may our land be bright...

[Re-posted from Jan 8, 2009]

Not Giving Up Without a Fight

2010-07-04T08:56:00.005-04:00

All the nice and inspirational things posted already this morning were serving to make me maudlin; I'm not feeling the freedom. I guess today all I could muster was a dubiously patriotic pout.

Until LeeAnn smacked me up side th' haid with a big, bad ClueBat of Better Thinking [tm].

“A John Wayne movie,” I said. “That’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it? We think war is a John Wayne movie. We think life is a John Wayne movie- with good guys and bad guys, as simple as that. Well, you know something, Mr. Limey Poofter? You’re right. And let me tell you who those bad guys are. They’re us. WE BE BAD.
“We’re the baddest-assed sons of bitches that ever jogged in Reeboks. We’re three-quarters grizzly bear and two-thirds car wreck and descended from a stock market crash on our mother’s side. You take your Germany, France, and Spain, roll them all together and it wouldn’t give us room to park our cars. We’re the big boys, Jack, the original, giant, economy-sized, new and improved butt kickers of all time. When we snort coke in Houston, people lose their hats in Cap d’Antibes. And we’ve got an American Express card credit limit higher than your piss-ant metric numbers go.

“You say our country’s never been invaded? You’re right, little buddy. Because I’d like to see the needle-dicked foreigners who’d have the guts to try. We drink napalm to get our hearts started in the morning. A rape and a mugging is our way of saying ‘cheerio.’

Hell can’t hold our sock-hops. We walk taller, talk louder, spit further, fuck longer and buy more things than you know the names of. I’d rather be a junkie in a New York City jail than king, queen, and jack of all you Europeans. We eat little countries like this for breakfast and shit them out before lunch.”

P.J. O’Rourke, “Among the Euro-Weenies”

God Bless America, and the rest of the world can just step off.

I'd say I'm phoning it in, but I'm too much of a Luddite to know how.

2010-07-02T08:29:00.003-04:00

So yeah, the blog-status remains in limbo until I can shake free and get the desktop computer for a protracted length of time, but that would mean prying the J.R. away from re-runs of Married, With Children and old kung-fu movies.

When I can do that, I may just transfer this whole operation to something more sophisticated and might even write something.

It's summer. Blah.

Old Spice: Fantastic!

2010-07-01T21:14:00.002-04:00

It doesn't have the same impact as the first round, but it is still lots of fun:

Blame The Anchoress.

Some Things Should Never Be. However:

2010-07-01T07:14:00.001-04:00

Cringe, and wait for the big chorus. You'll thank me:

Blame The Corner.

The Ugly Face of Evil

2010-06-30T08:49:00.007-04:00

Inside and out, Elena Kagan is vile and ugly (and I rarely, if ever, comment on a woman's unfortunate genetic endowments but will forego that compact just this once, her outer being more likely a product of her inner self.) [Ha! I was wrong. I already forgot Helen Thomas!]

Her collusion with the American Council of Obstetrics and Gynecology just proves what some women have secretly known about their doctors: that some of them are filled with bloodlust for killing babies. I've met women like that only once or twice in person. I still shudder to think of the encounter.

These vile sorts of women serve in the highest offices of administrative power and they continue to gain power through their compact with death.

I would say I don't care what you think about abortion, but I do.

I will say however, that anyone who adamantly defends partial-birth murder has an agenda so dark and unspeakable as to make the bravest amongst us quake at the unknown depths of it. Lest you think my raw opinion to be hyperbole, I shall counter by questioning the humanity of the beyond-all-reason method of stabbing spinal cords and sucking brains as a viable medical procedure in any imagined world of danger.

That the procedure was found to be unnecessary in any scenario is the plain fact. That Elena Kagan manipulated that fact out of all plain meaning, and that the ACOG's legislative director went along with it is easy enough to verify. [so let's verify. let's ask her.] But why do you think it was important enough for an ~~attorney general~~ policy staffer to suborn a professional body of practitioners and scientists for her own ends?

What it all means for civilization is up to your imagination. In her own words to Clinton, Kagan worried thus:

Todd Stern just discovered that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) is thinking about issuing a statement (attached) that includes the following sentence: "[A] select panel convened by ACOG could identify no circumstances under which [the partial-birth] procedure ... would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman." This, of course, would be disaster -- not the less so (in fact, the more so) because ACOG continues to oppose the legislation. It is unclear whether ACOG will issue the statement; even if it does not, there is obviously a chance that the draft will become public.

Read it twice. Let it sink in. The face of evil has a name: Elena Kagan.

The Best Way to Assure Propagation of a Species Is To Make It A Valuable Commodity: Dinosaur Meat!

2010-06-29T18:19:00.005-04:00

And in order to assure Laura that we will always have T-Rex around, what could be more sensible than T-Bone Rex Steaks? Behold the Jurassic Butcher's offerings:

Of course, you'd need a special freezer to keep it as fresh as the Paleofrostbite Age:

Blame foodiggity, of course.

I See an IRS Audit In His Future

2010-06-29T07:32:00.005-04:00

And if Biden doesn't lower Scott Borkin's (and every small business owner's) taxes, I see a bill for $4.95 plus tax in Biden's mailbox. A revealing interview after the fact:

"Bite Me" Biden acts offended at the idea of lowering taxes like, "why would I want to do that?" The aristocracy is in full umbrage at the notion!

They would do well to remember that the little people can still fashion politically effective solutions from nothing more than a bit of lumber, rope and sharpened steel. The basket would be for our convenience, not their dignity.

h/t Gateway Pundit.

Oh Yeah? Make me.

2010-06-28T20:11:00.002-04:00

Don't wanna blog.

So, there.

Veggie Seppuku: From Totally Nuts to Soup

2010-06-25T17:55:00.005-04:00

A little summa-summa for your summer:

Blame Foodiggity.

How Does the Air Conditioner Know That We Have Company Coming Tomorrow?

2010-06-23T19:55:00.003-04:00

Eleventy million Crazy Joan Heads TM of heat index and we have no AC.

I shoulda stayed at work.

Update: Crew arrived at 8:00 p.m. Fixed by 9:00. Awesomeness!

A More Efficient Way to Kill the Internet: Summer.

2010-06-21T20:33:00.004-04:00

Summer is soooo lame.

And hot.

I'm working my ass off at work. I could put in 80 hours this week and not be caught up. My assistant doesn't start for another two weeks.

Working my ass off at home as I have company coming on Thursday, staying through the weekend.

And tomorrow the Jolly Roger has a birthday.

And the next day we commiserate 31 years together. Uh. . . celebrate. Yeah. That's the word.

Too hot to use too many words.

That's all for now.

Big Butter (Touchdown!) Jesus and Me

2010-06-20T16:06:00.005-04:00

Wherein I discover just this past week that:

a) there was ever such a thing as the Big Butter Jesus,

b) that the style of its rendering seemed vaguely familiar,

c) that it has its own wiki page,

d) that, yep, as I suspected was true, I used to have an adjoining office to the designer and he used to have a bunch of maquettes around that looked like butter sculptures of Jesus.

e) that the statue was struck by lightning after even God got tired of it.

f) that there is a wonderful song that mocks the grotesque idol:

No Checkered Flag For GoDaddy's Web Hosting

2010-06-20T08:23:00.004-04:00

Looks like either Wordpress.org has been hacked, or GoDaddy has, but the two of them aren't speaking to each other. I see that where WordPress had listed GoDaddy as a preferred web-host on Friday night, no longer does so this morning.

Wordpress.org's "Where to Start" page is a Nigerian email spam this morning. [I see they fixed it now!]

GoDaddy can't answer their phones in less than a 6-minute wait. It'a Maaaddddhouse!

Got my money back. I'll give it a go in another couple of weeks. I have no time between now and mid-July.

They don't call 'em the Intartubes for nothing.

Working on Saturday

2010-06-19T13:25:00.003-04:00

Meh. GoDaddy is holding my new site hostage for 24 hours.

So, I'm at work trying to catch up on things. Amazing how much you can get done when everyone else isn't hogging all the copiers!

:o)

Later.

useless update: still later. GoDaddy is still holding everything hostage. I'm very nicely told I'm "in line" and I must be patient. Meanwhile, my weekend is disappearing under the crush of coming company, birthdays, anniversaries and events.

I guess I'll camp out at Blogger one more week, though it kills me to do so.

Done with Gmail. Done with Blogger. Done with Google Chrome. Done with Google.

2010-06-18T08:03:00.002-04:00

I don't have the time to transfer my blog outta this format, but I'm going to give it a go this weekend.

So, if this blog suddenly disappears, and someone actually notices it, well . . . won't that be special?

See ya on WordPress soon. I've had an account there forever and mostly use it as an alternate for hosting pics that I want to post elsewhere.

I thought to roll it out on the Fourth of July to celebrate my independence from all things Evil, like Google, but the spoofed emails convince me I've been hacked. No time like the present.

'ta! Off to work.

Dale Peterson: He's Got Your Six

2010-06-17T14:41:00.001-04:00

If possible, it's even better than the last one:

Change-up

2010-06-16T07:32:00.003-04:00

Moving from the fast-ball series to a nice change-up, high and inside, found at Whiskey River:

ANY MORNING
Just lying on the couch and being happy.
Only humming a little, the quiet sound in the head.
Trouble is busy elsewhere at the moment, it has
so much to do in the world.

People who might judge are mostly asleep; they can't
monitor you all the time, and sometimes they forget.
When dawn flows over the hedge you can
get up and act busy.

Little corners like this, pieces of Heaven
left lying around, can be picked up and saved.
People won't even see that you have them,
they are so light and easy to hide.

Later in the day you can act like the others.
You can shake your head. You can frown.
- William Stafford

Still Semi-Conscious

2010-06-15T20:02:00.008-04:00

And I'm still unmedicated, but will soon remedy that and wind down. The day's stresses are still seeking an outlet so I shall post until the dials go back under eleven.

I think Etheridge is the worst sort of age-ist. You know he treated those college men the way he did because he disrespected their youth. That kind of shittiness from good ol' boy patriarchs makes for the great "authentic" Southern voice in the memoirs of the sons of the South. I half expect Vman to weigh in with wistful anecdotes. I also wonder if Etheridge's grown kids saw the video and nodded in sad understanding of the heavy hand. That all came too quick and natural for the man. He got shook like a seltzer bottle and what is really inside him came out under the pressure.

***

I stole this pic from Westsound Modern (where Morgan makes a brilliant observation in the comments) because I think it to be the perfect summary of Obama the man: juvenile, and tremendously able to suck at every opportunity, Mr. I can't suck it all up with a straw. Well, he could try.

Okay, I now have a drink that would knock Obama on his ass. (It's helping, Fran, honest!)

****

One other thing I heard on Bob&Tom this morning: it costs 5 cents to make a dime, and it costs 10 cents to make a nickel. Seizing opportunity, Obama has ordered the making of 350 million nickels in order to stimulate the economy. I LoL'd.

Stream of Semi-Consciousness

2010-06-15T08:15:00.004-04:00

So some of you fessed up to never having anything in draft form for publication, but you just "put it out there, stream of consciousness."

However, being the smallest of eight kids has left me with an inevitable reticence to just spout things and await the avalanche of naysaying comments, derision, scoffing and torment.

And like you, my mind ain't right-- and nobody needs to see it naked.

But if I did drop another fan in my dance, it might look like this:

Man, the 8'oclock drivers are way better than the government worker and lawyer 9'oclock drivers. They are faster, more focused and know what lane they want. I've always maintained that who we really are is who we are when alone in our car. Me, I'm a director: "You there! You are too timid to be out on the streets at this hour!! Go home and collect yourself, sir, and come back when the soccer moms are out and about yammering on their phones and ignoring back-seat demon-spawn. That would be more your speed!"

If a town could be measured in assholery by the sheer number of BMWs on its streets, Charleston takes the prize. If a town could be measured for pretentiousness by the number of bow-ties and seersucker (I LOVE that word!) suits, Chucktown would take the prize just as soon as it can stop looking at itself in the mirror. South Carolina men all sound a bit gay as they lisp through their drawling take on the English language. That's why all the NASCAR guys sound so gay. It really is how most men around here talk. Like Nicki Haley's accuser with the bad rug and lisping drawl. . . just. . . no.

Dear sweet Lord, it's only a blog, not a Statement of Intent for Life Itself. Some bloggers get all sniffy about disclaimers and comments and rules and etiquette about never changing or editing content or comments or whatever stick-up-the-ass thing they can conjure. And it's not the basic "please don't sue me" paranoia we all feel at times, but it's the "my words are my sacred bond with the Internet. I value them more than life itself. I will ever be true to this medium and promise never to sully it with late, unannotated edits, fits of pissiness and deleted comments. All corrections will be a remorseful acknowledgment of my failure as a human encyclopedia and will be duly noted with parenthetical, pathetic attempts at integrity." Feh.

What the Hell was that sound? It sounds like someone sledgehammered the wall. Crap! That's the third garden hose in a month that has exploded from the water pressure. Charleston Public Works has got the whole water pressure situation nicely arranged. While it does concern me about hoses and my inability to remember to turn off the spigot, it does make for wonderful showers in the morning.

I have been late for work because of trying to write and publish before I could look it over. I have very little time to write and when I do I type furiously and madly, like now at 8:45 a.m. while running outside to stem the gushing tide of water threatening to was my Apocalypse ride into the side trenches of the yard. Yes, trenches for rainfall runoff. And open trenches along the street where drunks routinely miss their driveway at 3:00 a.m. The gravel business in Chucktown is where the money is at because this neighborhood is so old that trenches seemed a good idea to the town fathers of engineering.

And while I'm at it, I was still considering last night, upon my pillow, that we think we're all so civilized or not based on who threatens, or helps, or supports or denies or politely asks or demands whatever of whomever. But the Whole Truth, the Abiding Principle of Civilization is Water and Sewage Management. I was serious about this way back when I first started this blog and have seen precious little out there to disabuse me of this view. We could live quite handily for quite a while without electricity, but the plumbing and water logistic is the back-breaker, the last, tenuous hold on civic order. Come what may, without sanitary input and disposal of life's most basic need, we're all animals.

And if everybody is "okay," you, me, bi-polar bears, communists, transgendereds, anti-Semites and the terrorists, (but NOT Christians!! fuck them) then why do we still have psychiatrists? Is the "science" settled to a point where everything is permissible, understandable, and perfectly reasonable or at least blame-shiftable? If so, why do we have prisons? Or cops? Or judges?

And now I'm late for work.

Public Servant: Congressional Assault

2010-06-14T08:43:00.004-04:00

Democrat Congressman Bod Etheridge (D-NC2). Not fit to serve:

Boots on necks. They mean to rule.

And btw, "heels on throats" and "boots on necks"? You heard it from me before you heard it from Obama.

Voting In South Carolina

2010-06-13T20:56:00.002-04:00

Man, I thought all the rukus was about Rev. Al Greene:

I'll Show You Mine

2010-06-13T07:13:00.001-04:00

But of course mine was political. So. What's the oldest, mouldering and unpublished thing sitting around in the draft mode on your blog?

This one was from November, 2007, still in shorthandish style:

Justifiable Contempt: the contempt that congress holds the electorate in is perfectly reasonable. I don't blame them. After a while, how can you respect a populace that votes in robt byrd year after year, or denise lee, or any of them? I can well imagine they sit around a local restauarants and say, "watch this" we'll screw 'em like a cheap whore and they'll still re-elect us. We're the only pimps they know.

Cynical much? Sheesh. Unfortunately, I think it stands up to the years.

So, post yours in the comments or link it up or whatever. Let's see it!

.

The Post That Was Here Earlier? Gone.

2010-06-12T10:01:00.002-04:00

Thanks to anon tipster who alerted me to the hoax. And it was an OLD hoax in Internet terms.

Man, I don't wanna live in a world where you can't trust the C&S.

At any rate, I'll leave off the name of alleged difunto to keep the hoax from spreading.

Must be summer. . .

Chrome and Zone in a Battle to the Death

2010-06-11T07:55:00.002-04:00

Which product will I dump first? Google Chrome or Zone Alarm?

They're not getting along. I blame Google Earth for the situation. Ever since I tried downloading that piece of crap, and then uninstalling the huge file, and then ZA insisting on a restart, well. . . that's the end of Chrome's ability to see the Intartubes. IE has no problem, so it's all on Google's intrusive part.

But, ack! I hate to go back to that memory hog, Firefox.

What next? Opera?

Crap.

Thursday Cafeteria Offering: Meatloaf

2010-06-10T08:28:00.001-04:00

Just because:

Steeeeee--rike!!

2010-06-09T08:19:00.003-04:00

Just when you want to hate Major League baseball, a real, true Phenom steps up and steals your heart all over again. Gonna be a great summer for baseball:

Update: MLB corporation still sucks ass. The best video out there gets pulled by them. Their lame-ass video on the official site is NOTHING as good as this one was. Idiots.

h/t iOwnTheWorld.

Death by Degrees

2010-06-07T09:03:00.004-04:00

Is it better to die from heat prostration while vacationing in the middle of Florida, (geological description: the Great Sandy Ridge, local description: Hell) miles away from any hint of seabreeze, surrounded by great sweating hulks of overweight tourists, as the faint strains of It's a Small World (you're welcome) are being slowly replaced by the high-pitched whine of blood pressure building to a crescendo as you fall to the searing-hot pavement and the world really does become small, focusing to an ever-tightening aperture of regret and disappointment, or. . .

. . . shivering and eventually giving into peaceful sleep from hypothermia in the cold streets of Chicago in mid-February, an idea which I, having no practical imagination for such things must leave it to your imagination as to how cold that sort of cold is-- wait, I remember reading about Eskimo cabins wherein the wood freezes so solid that the steel spikes back out of the walls and have to be re-hammered in the Spring, that kind of cold?

Discuss.

Verse the Fourth: Quaint Religious Sentiment

2010-06-06T11:29:00.003-04:00

Or an abiding sense of things that transcend our dulled senses? A video is making the rounds this morning, which prompts a bit of unbidden clarity from my heat-addled brain pan.

66 years ago this morning, young men "stormed" the beaches of Normandy, if sheer numbers be a reckoning of men as agents of the Furies. We have no concept, no frame of reference for that sort of sacrifice until we are called to it. What mere mortal man would you follow into a place like that? What trifle of flesh and blood, no matter how strong, would induce a young man to go against all self-preserving instinct three thousand miles from peaceful home, unless it be a Word, an Idea, a Something that is greater?

I don't care if you don't believe in something greater, you're a beneficiary of those who do. Today would be a good day, Europe, to return to your better angels, or at least remember the ones who gave all in that extravagant sacrifice for Something your leaders no longer believe in. A good day for Americans to hold fast to that which remains.

God bless a Marine with a great voice and an even greater heart:

The fourth verse of our National Anthem:

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Best Hangover Headline Evah: “Drunk parrots litter Australian town”

2010-06-05T08:57:00.006-04:00

Via Don Surber, the best beat reporter on the Internet, who points us to the Malaysian Mirror:

“Hundreds of seemingly drunk parrots are falling out of trees and the sky in a northern Australian town, mystifying veterinary surgeons who are struggling to care for them. The brightly coloured lorikeets are showing classic signs of drunkenness by losing all coordination and passing out, and then cowering in cages as they recover from their hangovers.”

Pffft. Could happen to anybody:

"They fall out of trees... and they're not so coordinated as they would normally be. They go to jump and they miss the next perch."

Just be glad they're not seagulls. Seagulls are angry drunks:
.
.
.
.
.
.

How Hot Is It?

2010-06-04T21:05:00.004-04:00

Dear gawd, it's too hot to have an alcoholic beverage.

I know.

I'm afraid if I have a drink and walk outside I will spontaneously combust.

Go here, here, here, and here. for important heat index updates.

Ugly. Very.

2010-06-04T19:24:00.002-04:00

Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes to the bone. Sooner or later the outer troll starts to conform to the inner one. And the ugly truth of Helen Thomas --who no longer gives a rip-- comes out:

Helen Thomas is a Nazi. I think I can say that without reservation or fear of overstepping the bounds of reason.

We Con the World

2010-06-03T21:13:00.004-04:00

Van der Leun has the lyrics posted. He says pass it on:

How long before the copyright lawyers yank this?

Get Happy. Be Free.

2010-06-03T12:45:00.000-04:00

The Beatles never had this much fun:

Christopher Titus is Following Me. Should I Be Concerned?

2010-06-02T19:41:00.004-04:00

Looky here at this bit of fine judgment displayed by one of my all-time favorite comedians:

I love Christopher Titus for the same reason I love Pat Conroy: I don't feel it unique or necessary to have to write a book about my youth or growing up in a 1200 sq ft house with seven other brothers and sisters. Between the two of them, they've pretty much covered all the bases.

Which means I can blog about blissfully boring oddities and non-dramatic passages in life.

And I don't have to mention that someone emptied their six-shooter at 3:00 a.m. this morning on the street in front of my house. What? I counted the shots: 1 . . . 23456. I checked the clock. I lay in the bed listening. No car. No shouts. No nothing. I peeked out the window from the darkened bedroom and saw more nothing.

I went back to sleep secure in the thought that I had more guns and ammo than they.

I think.

Excel

2010-06-01T21:50:00.000-04:00

why shouldn't days be parted
by columns of night?
or added to rows of hours?
by any calculation
the sheet is spread
with figures
multiplying joys
and dividing sorrows
it all adds up
even if you're no good at math.

Al Gore Loses His First Convert

2010-06-01T19:26:00.002-04:00

Forty years. Must have seemed liked 40 minutes. . .

. . . under water.

Westsound Modern has the best, wryest, succinct take on this situation. Won't take ya 60 seconds. Go.

No Contest.

2010-05-31T16:37:00.003-04:00

Kennis the Menace
is not safe for work.
His blog's a pastiche
of South Afrikaan jerk.

But if you're a glutton
for bloodsport in rhyme
Go see what you'll find there
and then vote for mine.

Remembrance is Survival

2010-05-30T18:33:00.012-04:00

Richard Fernandez has a sober post about memory and surviving our "selfish mutant":

In a society without traditions the “free riders” may gain ascendancy and even suppress history to aid their increase. Gradually they may destroy a society’s capacity for mutual altruism and take it over for themselves. Yet even so their victory may be short-lived. Within their mutation lie the seeds of their own downfall. For “if the pathogen’s virulence kills the host and interferes with its own transmission to a new host, virulence will be selected against.” Eventually they kill the host and then themselves die.

I was pondering that post again as Gerard Van der Leun linked it, when out of the blue my long-estranged brother emailed me this fine example of teaching children to remember the vital lesson of liberty's cost. I hope you enjoy the simplicity of what an amazing teacher gave to his students when he taught them to sing this song:

Even after many years of disconnect, it's important to remember family. And to survive you may want to add God and Country. The Enlightened Elite may scoff at such simplicity and backward sentiment, but they will not live long enough to see their Utopian dreams fulfilled. Ever.

We already have, in the glow of Freedom's holy light.

May we all be worthy of the sacrifice.

A Bikini Brief Encounter With Hell's Angels

2010-05-29T15:56:00.008-04:00

Sheri is blogging about her Harley-ridin' badassery and it's a great fun bit of cultural clashing of stereotypes.

Unfortunately, as much as I love the idea of my Peggy Hill dream of a Harley, I must say that my earliest encounter with them as a young teen left me scarred for life. An image seared. . . seared in my memory.

Rogers Park on the Weeki Wachie River was one of those pristine and undisturbed little gems of old Florida. Weeki Wachie was a jungle-like river that had attracted lots of homesteaders and was graced with a small park made with lovely beach sand and carved into an area where the main road crossed over the river. We spent our summers in our own little fish camp just around the bend from the three-acre park.

Brown as a berry and in no small danger of growing gills, I lived at that park for several summers. I swam until my ears grew fungus and would slay me with pain and fever. When not there, I was to be found fishing from our dock, hanging out with my cousins at their dock, or rowing the boat upriver only to splash over the side and float back down with it, diving amongst the silky river grass and ogling the mullets and bream and crabs. Could I have sprouted fins by dint of sheer oneness with the silent deeps I would have.

Every summer a group of bikers would descend upon the park for a weekend. My little Catholic girl/river-rat self regarded them with equal parts pious umbrage and redneck curiosity. My older sister and her friends were quite intrigued by the spectacle and would hike down to the park and laugh at all the mysterious "old guys" and their wrinkly girlfriends. My dad assured us all that most of them were businessmen and lawyers and thus upstanding citizens (my dad was full of mixed messages), but in my imagination they were Hell's Angels and one stop away from breaking bad on some unsuspecting citizenry that looked at them sideways. Bad people for sure.

But it would take more than the prospect of unsavory types to keep me from my appointed morning at the beach and so I went to the park that fateful Saturday to behold the party animals. Beer, music, cigarettes, weed, and various states of dress were all there waiting for my 14 year old self to witness. I wished to appear unmoved by the mob so I coolly laid out my towel to bask in the sun for a few minutes to get properly braised before leaping into the 74-degree water. I was enjoying the warm sun, I remember how it felt on my stomach when the warmth would reach way down into my insides and sooth my nerves and synapses into a malleable state of emotional nirvana.

So, I was handling the situation pretty well, I thought, until I heard a man's voice saying lewd things to me while his girlfriend laughed. I kept my as-yet innocent eyes closed for another moment, but when I opened them to espy my tormentor I saw that he was wearing a tiger-striped fur bikini. With some sort of huge misshapen lump in the front! Not! Not! No! He was about 40 years old. . . old. . . with a deep tan, gold chains and a small beer belly over long, skinny legs. And a tiger-striped fur speedo.

He and his chick kept walking and I tried not to gape in horror and a little fear as they walked away. In all my years growing up and living near water in Florida, I had never witnessed such a sight to dismay all my prudish and proper avoidance of all things sexual. I am not sure I even knew about such things at that time except for a few whispered amazements from my older sister. of a night while we drifted off to sleep. I didn't believe any of it anyway, and yet here was disturbing proof of Hell's Angels just waiting to drag my soul to perdition!

I gathered up my towel and my bare feet fairly flew over the stony road back to home, a short block away. Decidedly, it was a day to scurry back to our place around the bend and catch some bream and mullet for supper. I did see the sight once again as I was riding my bike to the store. As I crossed the bridge and looked down at the revelers I was safely far enough away to take in the scene and there was tiger-fur-speedo man laughing and swilling beer amongst all the other old people and gleaming chrome and leather and right there and then I felt sure that I had met an unnamed disquiet and I had escaped with my soul intact.

I would go on that summer to be approached by all sorts of guys with all sorts of intentions to distract my virtue, but the drugs were declined and the kisses scorned and I already knew about alcohol and didn't enjoy it. I still knew little or nothing about sex, except that it was Wrong. My encounter with tiger-fur-speedo guy just confirmed it.

No, my youthful rebellions were always much more idealistic and principled. They still are, I guess, but I came pretty damn close to buying a sweet little Harley a few years ago. And I would have gone and bought it but for that first and unfortunate imprint still rotogravured into my psyche.

Oh hey there, Conservative Carnivores! Welcome to the Slack.

Tweeting The Chavez

2010-05-28T08:35:00.004-04:00

Hugo Chavez is tweeting!

Big Government is sending you on a mission.

You know what you must do: Tweet him until he blocks you.

Go. http://twitter.com/chavezcandanga

May the Force be with you. Or something.

Point of order: In Spanish, the letters "ch" together are called the "Che". It is always pronounced with the hard sound, like Chuck. And the "z" is always an ess sound unless it's after an em sound. And the "h" in Hugo is silent.

If you can't remember all that, just pronounce it grapesqueezer, asshat, Idi Amin of the New World, Sean Penn's Wet Dream. . .

"Unlike the USofA, the state of NJ can't print money"

2010-05-26T18:44:00.002-04:00

Sexiest man in politics, here for your viewing and voting fantasies:

h/t Hot Air

The Landscape Game

2010-05-25T23:30:00.003-04:00

Gerard Van der Leun, the Poet Laureate of America, is playing an age-old game with us. With you, and with me.

Go see if you want to play.

No. I never have played it before.

Shall I Put That Down as a No?

2010-05-25T19:16:00.007-04:00

Or as a No, but with a nodding approval and sympathetic understanding for the plight of the SEIU's thugs? Like Saul of Tarsus, I'm guessing he'll just hold everyone's cloak while they stone me.

Since I've begun asking questions, and since 'mouse has been checking in here more and more as his President's plans are taking form and taking over, I was not surprised that he finally had enough.

That's the good of finding out where the lines are drawn. From what I can ascertain, 'mouse himself is not beholden to the public sector for his income and is quite content with his taxes, as he counts them:

Y'know, Joan, you got me thinking about bloated government and how I'm supporting all these deadbeats and stuff, so I looked at my extremely large tax bill for 2009. I'm in that ugly stratosphere where most of the write-off and deductions have phased out and I'm paying at least 10x or 20x or more compared to the government services I use directly or indirectly. I'm self-employed so I get to pay both sides of the Social Security contribution.

Y'know what? My combined state and federal bill, comparing total taxes paid to raw, gross $ made is a mere 21% This is far less than I paid under your Ronnie Raygun when I was a starving college student.

I just can't get real offended that someone can do 20 years in the military and 20 years in the police force and then retire comfortably or that teachers can work in shitty jobs for years but in exchange get a reasonable retirement package. (I am offended with dumb tenure rules and hate unions for that stupidity but that's a different rant).

Greek taxes are 40% in the upper brackets on top of a 10-20% VAT.

I'll believe Obama has turned me into a Euro-socialist-pussy the moment I decide not to work harder and earn an extra dollar because 50% of what I make goes to The Man. At 21% I'd happily pay more for shorter lines at the DMV and better salaries (and even pensions) to attract good teachers judges, prosecutors, etc.

Seriously, Joan, what was *your* total raw tax rate (gross income to actual taxes paid) for 2009?

Now the first thing that hit me was the projection of his personal anecdote onto such as myself. I'm not sure what he imagines my lifelong fiscal status to be, and I'm not sure it matters, anecdotes being, well, anecdotal to the larger issue. [If I were to venture a guess, it would likely be that my entire rented living space would fit into 'mouse's rec room. See how that works as a self-righteous and indefensible dig? Who cares what the issue is? 'Mouse is a well-heeled lawyer! See how easy this guilt-tripping crap is?]

Second, we apparently must leave off the myriad hidden taxes paid by every citizen who buys a car, house, DVD player, electricity, or fuel, and pays impact fees, zoning laws, property taxes, vice taxes, sales taxes, commuter tolls, farm subsidies on products, and notwithstanding the larger personal taxes that that mean old Reagan exacted from him while his skull was still full of mush. Even so, 'mouse is still quite comfortable.

Now he trots out the military and police and every worthy and vital part of our public sector workers as proof that I'm a cold-hearted lass that has no understanding of their selfless dedication and work. As if I personally would deny them the comforts they've earned.

Well, even if that straw man bit were true, does it make me worthy of having SEIU thugs beat me up when my money is gone? I'm guessing it will be useless to call my lawyer. I'm obviously guilty because. . . ? Moreover, I am supposed to open my wallet, up to 50% worth apparently, with nary a complaint as to how the money is spent, and nary a question as to the intent of anyone who has use of it. 50% seems to be 'mouse's threshold of pain. I hope his clients find that out! I'm sure he would never pass off his tax burden to his clients and it has no bearing on his price scales. And I'm sure they would never consider paying his myriad business taxes with their hard-earned money.

If having met a payroll from both sides of the tax tables is an example, then I'll see his RR pout and raise it with my father's working two jobs to raise eight kids on an Navy CPO salary and finally having to close his private business during the days of LBJ and Jimmy Carter because it cost more to pay taxes on his longstanding TV repair business than was feasible. Oops! That was an anecdote, but it was repeated by the hundred-thousands back then.

My question, as it remains, is to people of good service or bad, vital necessity or adjunct corruption jobs, who are beholden to the corporate weal of our nation. I've asked it before, making quite clear my appreciation for the real use of my tax dollars: potable water, waste treatment, and a bit of order and protection. And even those could be private-sector provisions.

But there is one glaring, humongous, gaping, yawning abyss in 'mouse's argument. And just take his argument it for what it is, accept the ludicrous premise, accept that he is sympathetic to soft terrorism of private citizens (as evidenced in St. Louis, New Orleans, and now in PA) and think about where his comfort level is at this moment.

Anyone want to help out my dear detractor? What HUGE thing is he omitting (because I know he knows what it is, it's no lapse of thought, it's a sin of omission.)

And feel free to help Rob out, too from the same comments. He seems to think that redirecting the argument to Iran . . .

Now then, there was a whole lot of silliness here earlier that I have deleted along with the attendant comments from someone named Rob, about whom I made a flippant and feeble attempt at satirical humor. I deleted it not to cover up, but to amend a wrong and end it. I do not know Rob in any way, shape or other communication and any statement I made concerning his personal conduct was nothing more than a tired attempt at silliness. It was an attempt to play the disprove a negative card that failed. It offended him for real, and that was never my intent on that level. My intent is not important, what he took it to be is, and I am not so unfeeling as to not understand that. I apologize to Rob and hereby delete any and all comments or reference to the same.

I have offered to link to any argument of his own about Iran that he would wish to bring up on his own blog, where it would be more appropriate than in the comments of my blog post on a totally different topic. I will let you know if he so chooses.

[Update: Simple question: you gonna hit me when I run out of money? I just want to know. I have a feeling the good people on the Left are having a bit of a problem seeing themselves in the mirror of their ends-justifying-the-means philosophy. That whole cracking a few eggs thing. Nasty business.]

Here's What It's Gonna Sound Like

2010-05-24T20:55:00.007-04:00

[Update: I was looking for this link while writing this because it is what set me off. Dr. Zero's The Feral Vanguard.] A must-read.

Teachers, all public union workers, civil servants, government employees and every postal worker I meet henceforth will be cheerfully asked if they plan on firebombing me when I can no longer support their greedy pensions and fat paychecks. I want them to think about where their union leaders are leading them.

My neighbors will be asked as well, "will you firebomb me, or attack me when I run out of money and energy to support your welfare, your children, or their education?" I want them to consider where their support for class warfare is taking them; the logical end of such madness is chaotic violence. Real warfare. Like we've seen in Greece. Like we're seeing such already. Planned, supported by, and carried out by agents of our overlords in D.C. and seemingly directly(or indirectly, like it matters) connected to our President. Didja ever . . .?

I just want to know where the lines are falling, as fall they must.

I plan on asking. I plan on making some people think. They're not going to read it here, but they're going to hear it there, on the street, in the store, at work, wherever.

I'm not gonna be silent.

Charleston RiverDogs and a Fox in the Outfield

2010-05-23T14:26:00.010-04:00

Local minor league baseball in a great little field last night was the best baseball in years. The Charleston River Dogs [co-owned by Bill Murray, Director of Fun] were teh awesome! In the sparkling little stadium on the banks of the Ashley River and trailing 6-2 in the bottom of the ninth, the 'Dogs were struggling and half the crowd had already gone home. The pitcher barely held on in the top of the ninth and everyone breathed a sigh of relief when the comically named Savannah Sand Gnats were retired.

Seriously? Naming a team after stinging little gnats is like naming your boy Sue. Tends to make them a bit scrappy.

After a disasterous middle inning the fans were glad to have the 'Dogs hanging in there at bat, and sometime during the 6th inning a rather large red and grey fox bolted into right field! The Gnats outfielder had to shoo him back to the swampy reeds and marshes just outside the stadium but for a few moments the crowd was smitten by the Real RiverDog!

The Gnats outfielder put on a pretty good show all around, winning admiration from the friendly crowd as he slammed into the first baseline wall after a foul ball. We were not too far away away to hear the crunching of body parts, but he was A-okay after all. Everyone gave a good effort and the crowd was very sportsmanlike to pass along accolades to the visitors when merited.

Oh yeah, bottom of the ninth, and the first home-run of the game goes sailing over left-centerfield fence and the crowd wakes up. Then, with two runners on base, a solid, sweet home-run in just about the same spot absolutely makes the crowd nuts! 6-6 and we're into extra innings!

10th inning was almost a three-up three-down for both sides. Tension mounts. The jumbo-tron operator puts on the Kid Vid before the bottom of the eleventh, and the crowd is perplexed at first and then cheers in agreement. This is OUR time! A flawless performance by the Gnats falls apart when their pitcher goes wild, the bunts are sacrificed and an instinctual foul-ball catch on a single out sent the runner home after the tag.

RiverDogs win! And the crowd goes wild!

I just love America.

The Gift of the MadGuy

2010-05-22T17:44:00.006-04:00

Oh, darlings! If you are sick and tired of the Internet and politics and shallow things, never forget that transcendence and beauty may still be only a click away. If your curiosity hasn't been completely jaded by link after disappointing link, if you click nothing else today, please click over to The Doorway Buck and read The Gift of the MadGuy. Just. oh!

It is especially for anyone with a loved one who is serving, or has served in the military. But it is for the boy in every man.

CM Sackett is the same of The Art of Manliness website forum.

I hate myself for having lost track of this wonderful writer. I attempt redemption by linking him now. Go.

Friday Night Feel Good

2010-05-21T21:26:00.001-04:00

h/t: Ace

You Know What We Must Do:

2010-05-21T20:13:00.002-04:00

We all have to move to Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, and secede from the Union and start building a new country from scratch. I wonder what sort of international support we could could get for that.

Key West doesn't have the huevos to actually secede, unless Jimmy Buffet funds their Slack single-handedly. I think he'd turn into a flaming racist when the ungovernable shores of the Keys turn it into a haven for drugs and crime.

But I think AriTexiMex would be a great country with good food, great hunting and fishing, offshore drilling, cotton, agriculture, cattle and tourism. And a space program. We could devise a way to finish off the San Andreas Fault and send California out to sea, thereby gaining passage to the East for trade with Taiwan and Singapore and Vietnam.

The only setback would be the Musica Norteña, but I think it would fairly easy to outlaw such an offense to the ears.

Like you have a better plan.

Imagine Tyranny. I Wonder If You Can.

2010-05-19T09:02:00.004-04:00

A comment left elsewhere. Seriously, I should've just written a blog post. I never know what will set me off:

Much of the unspoken pseudo-religious intent of the progressives is John Lennon's ImagineNation of no borders or boundaries. Ever. At all. Anywhere. Even personal ones. (Can we all agree to stay clothed, please? At least that?)

Their Ultimate Utopia is one that makes no demands on the individual and dreams of everybody just getting along, flowing into and out of each others' bank accounts, houses, relationships and bodies. The idea of ownership is anathema unless they are the ones doing the owning-- er, . . . "caretaking" of all the resources. So borders, ownership, and personal accrual of goods or property are all concepts that will be targeted in their quest for power over the individual. So consumed are they with their self-delusional vision that sexual age limits will be the next boundary to be conquered, for they truly imagine no limits to their licentious nature. Indeed, that area is already under assault, thanks to our educational system and NAMBLA. [Update: it has begun in our courts, naturally.]

The opposing and equally dubious power struggle by those who want it all for themselves and could care less how they come by it works from the other side much more quietly and perhaps more effectively. At some point in the last decade, these two forces have allied themselves against the middle, who were busy minding their own business-- which, it turns out, was silly and wrong of the middle. Wrong and wasteful and narrow and bigoted and evil and stupid.

If I'm exhausted just thinking about it, think of how long and how many hours and days and years of devilment and planning it has taken to get us to this point.

I don't think that, among people who just want to be left alone to pursue their own lives, there is that much patience and dedication to running the lives of others. I think that by our nature, we are subject to suffer at the hands of those who have nothing better to do or think about, but how they may control and manage the lives of others.

You meet these sorts every day: they never once give an inward thought as to why they are unhappy, so assured are they that all of their problems flow from people they can't control. When these naifs meet up with political puppeteers who know how to properly groom such shallow minds, the result is Congress.

God help us all.

Too Soon For Candy Corn?

2010-05-18T20:31:00.002-04:00

You may very much like Motel Zero's depiction of the term. Most satisfyin'.

Click it and smile. Verrry shiny!

Who Knew That Ag Commissioner of Alabama Was Worth This Sort of Awesome?

2010-05-16T15:19:00.007-04:00

Damn!! That was all I could say after watching this "take no prisoners" political ad. Just see for yourself. Crank up the sound for full body impact:

May his kind increase!

h/t to Allahpundit.

Update for the trigger-happy in the comments.

Obama Invokes "Trust, But Verify." Tempting, isn't it?

2010-05-15T09:40:00.009-04:00

In his latest iteration of The Daily Excoriation From the Office of the President, Obama dared a thing he should have been more chary to consider. He invoked Ronald Reagan's famous "trust, but verify" as a weird addition to his amalgam of finger-pointing-as-decisive-action.

Oh, it was aimed at the Oil Industry and their cozy partners in government. Or something. As it was pointed out by others, Oil and Government haven't mixed in a long, long time. Oil money and politicians have dressed more than a few greens, to be sure, but our satraps and governors have seen fit to leech as much from the industry as possible without killing it. At best, they've left it weakened enough that it may not be able to withstand a concerted government effort to end its corporate life.

But Obama, like Prince Humperdinck, waxes officious with stern warnings and trots out what he thinks a killing grace: trust, but verify.

I would not say such things if I were he.

Time for a poll!

*****

Dreaming

2010-05-14T21:15:00.006-04:00

Feh. What to write, and why would I? I need to quit dreaming and get back to my art. Here's a saucy number for a Friday night. She sold as soon as I framed her and put it on the wall in my long-lost studio/gallery:

Click to get entire pic. (Fixed the embiggen issue.) I bet that some of you didn't know that if you click on my sidebar picture you can see that I haven't added a thing to my portfolio in almost five years.

Sigh.

The New Standard For My Vote: Chris Christie

2010-05-14T08:15:00.006-04:00

So, you want my vote, do you Mr./Ms. GOP or Tea Party or Independent? Until you can know who you are and what your constituency wants as clearly as this man, and can stand up to stupidity and a hostile media as fearlessly, you can just "go play with yourself".

It's time to quit fucking with people's lives and start serving the public that elected you. In case you've never seen what that looks like in action :

This Blog is Dead, But the Hills of Italy Are Alive

2010-05-13T19:48:00.004-04:00

EEEeeencredeeeeblay!

h/t to the Internet Caretaker.

******

Talk about plummeting property values! And disappearing lot divisions. . .

Whatever happened to the psychology of boundaries? Don't we all remember the self-help books and Dr. Phil episodes and even Cesar Milan's dog whispering?

We could argue, like Robert Frost's neighbor, that good fences make good neighbors as a template for border security. It doesn't mean we don't like or interact with or even share with our neighbor on the other side of that fence, it means that we are a sovereign individual with a sovereign Will that must be entreated, befriended, tolerated or warred with, whatever the other side chooses.

Have you met adult people without social boundaries and suffered their ministrations to your unspoken needs, shortcomings, bad habits and intrusions? Then you've met a Progressive Liberal Marxist Communist.

******

The exhausting energy it takes to control everyone is what keeps government hacks and the East Coast intelligentsia occupied. No wonder they feel like they're doing something. They have to stay up at night to devise so many ways to make people miserable. That's why they think it's what the rest of us are doing. But we're not. We're just trying to mind our own business and work and raise kids and stay out of the Eye of Sauron.

Not for nothing did your grandmother say, "an idle mind is the devil's plaything." Is it any wonder that the Tea Party flag is the Gadsden Flag? "Don't Tread On Me" is all we ask. It's not about getting along, it's about being left alone to merely exist according to our individual dictates and our common necessities.

******

Mongol. A really cool flick available on DVD. It's kind of like Batman Begins for Genghis Kahn.

******

So, Does a $4/hr. Raise Help?

2010-05-13T08:04:00.004-04:00

Why, yes, it does. And with a second job I'll soon be able to afford health insurance! I'm clawing my way back up into a living wage. It's been a strange and awful two years.

My employment contract with the placement agency was fulfilled and my new employer is paying me the extra cash they were paying the agency. Sweet! Not only that, but they treat their employees like grown ups and professionals. Plus, nobody knows how to manage the million-dollar project I've undertaken and nobody wants to learn it. So I'm in like Flynn.

Now, to study for the Series 7 and 6 exams. While the world still has money.

Ameliorating Puppy Love

2010-05-12T20:17:00.008-04:00

Jaded Haven, true to the mind of its mistress, Daphne, alternately alights on a theme like a dragonfly on the water, or rends it stem to stern with a ferocity to dismay the stoutest troll.

It's more than a talent to write like that. It's a channeling of Something Beyond, and I'm glad-- most very pleased-- when she yields to that prompting and writes a thing that has never been written so well:

I’ve been watching my boy, this second son of mine, venture into a place where soft hearts get crushed on the inevitable steps to manhood. I remember a raw-boned girl, Appalachia singing off her young skin with a sharp tang, a splash of freckles crossing her tawny cheeks, take my firstborn by the throat and slay him with her sweet love. A girl twelve years old, more capable and swift out of sheer, natural-born instinct, commanded his heart with fluid ease and treated it gently. She hadn’t yet learned to do otherwise.

I like where she goes with this, taking on the pervasive derogatory attitude some adults tend to have toward a young man's first brush with love. If you're the mother of a son, you will appreciate her tender care for her man-cubs.

Yeah, just go ahead and put her on your RSS feeds and you can bypass the schlock here for something a bit . . . more.

Happy Ending to Piracy Attempt

2010-05-12T07:05:00.003-04:00

Dead pirates floating in the water.

Western officials were very surprised when the Russian authorities dropped plans to put the pirates on trial in Moscow, the BBC's Richard Galpin reports from Moscow.
Now there is even more surprise the pirates were set adrift in the Indian Ocean to make their own way home, he adds.

I'm sure the boat was a sound vessel. I'm sure the batteries in the signal beacon were fresh. I'm sure the C4 charge was dry. . .

The Russians may be many things, but they have historically never suffered an identity crisis. At their core, their blood runs quite chilly.

*****

One person at the book-signing asked the good captain if the piracy problem wasn't due to over-fishing in the ocean leaving people with no other choice of survival. He answered very straightforwardly that it was not destitution, it was thuggery. As an example, he cited the fact that Haiti, in all its penury, has never resorted to piracy as a state policy. Somalia uses it because it is a small-risk investment with large returns. Max noted that dead bodies in the water is likely the only deterrent.

h/t to the SeaBlogger.

Secret Mission: No duct tape or zip ties involved

2010-05-09T12:23:00.005-04:00

Unlike Laura, I have respect for my fan-girl crushes and no delusions of running away with them to live happily ever after. Plus, the Miata is too small to hide a hostage.

More details by Tuesday.

Van Morrison and Verizon Wireless Amphitheater: Can you hear me now?

2010-05-09T12:05:00.004-04:00

Van the Man was awesome. Incomparable and peerless, relaxed and . . . awesome.

The VWA venue in Alpharetta sucked canal water. Seriously. It was a lousy venue for the likes of Van and his promotions team should be canned for it. I do hope they made loads of money off of sardine-cramming as many people as possible into the most uncomfortable arrangements since the Black Hole of Calcutta.

Plus, the sound team couldn't get the sound up and balanced, or keep it from feedback until about halfway through the 90-minute concert.

Van had it dialed up to 11. Maybe I shouldn't blame mere mortal Union thug stage hands for not understanding that kind of genius.

What You Didn't See On The News: Nashville Under Water

2010-05-06T20:43:00.002-04:00

One of the first few pics just made me gasp! It's heartbreaking and inspiring, however to see this compilation:

"If anyone asks, I'll be over here buried in biscuits and gravy until late May. "

2010-05-04T19:22:00.004-04:00

That's the latest email I got from LeeAnn, who writes from a secret location where she is a victim of forced labor. However she is only being held hostage by the fringe benefits of pampering and sawmill gravy so how bad can moving furniture be? She's mostly out of contact and I suspect she's enjoying it way too much.

Seems there's a plethora of anti-social behavior out in the blogs:

The Hippie Cops are coming for Sheri. She has touched the third rail of corporate branding offense: mockery. So if we don't hear from her, I'll suspect she's shopping a lawyer. Or being roughed up by nancy-boys in their khakis and crocs. Hey, if the Mormons can find her house behind all the privacy hedges, I'm sure the patchoulie patrol can, too.

Laura is planning on a restraining order from George Clooney's lawyer. Hilarity or habeas corpus --or maybe both-- are in play.

Jean is just plain breakin' bad. Rules are for fools and Jean is tired of both.

Froth is toeing the line of domestic tranquility by outing Mr. Froth's sesame seedy past.

The Trooper's Gal is reveling in non-conformity. She's definitely not a joiner. It's a Texas thing?

Daphne is under the influence of too-many-idiots-so-little-time syndrome, but as she also is from Texas (almost seeing a pattern here). Her antipathy is well-aimed at the Pacific Northwest.

Go click 'em or don't. As if I care.

Nancy Pelosi Has Alzheimers

2010-05-04T08:28:00.005-04:00

Or else she's just a liar. You decide. Just a quick little YouTube memory enhancement for her benefit. This is sooooo sweet to watch again, after all that has happened:

Nothing to see here, either.

Lux Aurumque sung by Internet Choir

2010-05-02T08:58:00.002-04:00

For your Sunday morning:

Two Bad Guys 1.5 Miles Away. Two Shots. Three Seconds. Two Kills.

2010-05-01T20:21:00.006-04:00

A new record from a British sniper hot-shot:

Craig Harrison, a member of the Household Cavalry, killed the insurgents with consecutive shots — even though they were 3,000ft beyond the most effective range of his rifle.
“The first round hit a machinegunner in the stomach and killed him outright,” said Harrison, a Corporal of Horse. “He went straight down and didn’t move.
“The second insurgent grabbed the weapon and turned as my second shot hit him in the side. He went down, too. They were both dead.”
The shooting — which took place while Harrison’s colleagues came under attack — was at such extreme range that the 8.59mm bullets took almost three seconds to reach their target after leaving the barrel of the rifle at almost three times the speed of sound.

He's apparently had an "interesting" tour of duty. Read the rest at the link.

"He teacheth my hands to war. . ."

Spring Thoughts

2010-04-30T21:23:00.003-04:00

spring thoughts
like untamed horses
should remain in the corral

for some reason
i like to
let them run
and watch the truth unfold
from flashing hooves
and shaking heads
i call out after them
but it's too late
they nicker
never looking back

spoken and wild
my thoughts
will return
when tired and hungry
in winter

Image credit:Steve Somerville @ fineartamerica.com

Dangerous Strays

2010-04-28T21:42:00.004-04:00

Within the first week or two of bringing a child into the world, everything about the world changes. And you can't help what changes come over you, your thoughts and feelings, your world view. Of course, you don't know this has happened in the deep bliss/stupor of sleep deprivation, but you have changed deeply and forever, and so has your world.

You have become an investor in the Future of the World. You have become a Protector of the Innocent. You can't help it, you and the wee bairn are actually one person for a brief time. It's an indescribable time of delight and danger to realize how vulnerable you are to that red-faced bundle sleeping there in your home. He owns you, heart and soul.

Some of the mundane alteration is vividly brought home fiscally or physically but you just don't know how deep the Primordial Parent instinct runs until some Line is crossed-- its very existence an unimagined thing just days earlier.

Fortunately it was a small, but indelible event that woke the Primordial Mom in me when my own wee bairn was but two or three weeks old. I had left him napping while I went out to sweep the porch and carport in the blazing heat wave of that summer afternoon. The entrance to the back yard was wide open between the house and the back utility room, no one ever bothered to gate it, although the yard was fully enclosed otherwise. So I swept the carport as I headed toward the back yard and patio only to see a strange medium-sized dog there. It was alarmed that I was between him and his exit. He seemed rather unhappy about it, so I used my broom to make a small gesture of "Git!!" as I moved into the patio area, making sure he had plenty of room to make for the exit. No harm, no foul.

But he stood his ground and snarled at me.

Oh yes, he was claiming his ground and daring me, on my own property, to make him move! He bared his teeth and repeated the warning growl and for the merest instant I thought myself afraid. The merest of a nanosecond. . .

The full --I still don't know what to call it-- and frightening welling up of the Something inside of me that I had never met before came roaring out like. . . do I have to say it? A mama bear protecting her cub. But it wasn't a waking thought, it wasn't rage, it wasn't fear. It was indignant righteous wrath. The nerve of the creature to stand within my boundaries and threaten me--and by extension, my child-- as though it had some claim to the ground under its own feet was just too much.

I wish I could tell you what happened next, but suffice it to say I think I was able to quickly convince the creature of all of my intentions toward it, reciting all of my maternal rights and his infernal wrongs in a single breath of fire and fury. I barely remember how he left the yard, only coming to myself once back inside, shaking and breathing heavily as I went to check on the safe and sleeping innocent part of my very heart and soul. Of course he was fine and was never in any danger. I still marvel at the moment, these many years later.

It still scares me a bit, to know that particular and spectacular Something-- that vulnerable part and that primal protector all somehow tangled up in more complex emotions and arrangements of fact-- is still there. It shouldn't be awakened needlessly nor called upon lightly.

Yet I see dangerous strays within my boundaries, their angry, snarling faces telling me that they're going to stay no matter what. Shouting epithets at me and challenging me for the country I have worked for, paid for, paid taxes on, and cherished with all my heart, all my life. They want to grab at what many others have worked to earn and hide behind the gleaming teeth of their power-grabbing masters.

They don't love my country, and they seek to harm it for their own ends, these strange, hireling caretakers who are allowing the Estate to crumble while they greedily steal the silver of our Industry and the golden lamps of our Liberty.

My soul is stirred. . .

Furthermore: [Important Update: Puerto Rican Statehood Vote!]

2010-04-28T09:30:00.000-04:00

In the Just Because You're Paranoid department we might do well to consider what Obama's next target for a crisis is. He and Dodd and Frank have brought down the economy with a Freddie and Fannie manufactured crisis exacerbated by the demands of so-called "housing rights" agitators, and community organizers.

Apparently our Health Care system is in shambles but he could only scare up some small personal tragedies on that score. The H1N1 just never delivered as they hoped so they just had to muscle that one across the line. I see where "officials" are telling people with AIDS that it's okay to not tell their partner. I guess that's the next angle, along with an extreme crisis of care for the elderly during hoped-for power outages as our grid gets hacked by the Chinese.

More, please?

We all know that he's a big enemy of coal and domestic oil and now, two horrible and conveniently tragic coincidences for our Administration to exploit as another good crisis or two. I don't really think he had anything to do with Elya the Volcano either, but what's your point? As long as his plane isn't grounded, it's all good.

So what next? Jobs! Obama hates non-union labor that he can't get money from. He's letting the numbers slide quietly until the right time to ~~announce~~ allow a job crisis. As jobs become more and more scarce, he knows that unions will gain power. Employers will have an increasingly talented pool of available candidates to choose from, and we can't have that. Union lawsuits are the only assurance for the dilettantes who want more money for less performance. Immigration reform is still on the agenda, but I think they've tabled it as unnecessary for 2010 but vital for 2012. So don't get cocky. [UPDATE: Oh. Puerto Rican Statehood vote this week! Ha!]

(Oh, and if I were an illegal in Arizona, would I return to Mexico out of fear, or head to more friendly states? Looking at you, Oregon! I lived in the thick of Mexico City for almost 5 years and I can posit that those moving north are not so much seeking work as they are seeking better handouts. Very few have a dream of freedom anymore as the newest generations have only known Socialism and corruption as a way of being governed. What is happening to us must seem very familiar to them. And no one knows how to organize a community and a march on Power like the Mexicans. They perfected the permanent institutional revolution, PRI. Feh. Their brave heritage has been swallowed up by the graft, drugs and corruption of its government officials and community organizers.)

But for the icing on the cake--or the chilling of the veins in this case--you must go to Glenn Beck. Front page news stuff. Seriously, seriously corrupt, evil, and arrogant.

Happy Wednesday!

The Sistine Chapel Virtual Tour

2010-04-27T21:15:00.003-04:00

Gobsmackingly incredibly beautiful! I had no idea of the scope and dimension of the chapel, but this link takes you where you can navigate around and zoom in. Breathtaking and every other adjective of beauty I could conjure all fall short. Just. . . wow.

Baby Goat vs. Fox: Must-see TV!

2010-04-27T21:11:00.002-04:00

The little Ibex guy is barely a week old. I loved this for the sheer instinct and skill with which the little guy arrived into this world. Amazing:

Boobquake! And a Poll!

2010-04-26T08:01:00.006-04:00

Leslie reminded me by way of posting her rockin' rack, so here ya go, ya crazy-ass Mullahs:

(I don't think Good Vibrations qualifies in this category but Beach Boys, Summer, and bikini weather would qualify as evil for the mullahs. I know, it's hard to even try to think like that, but there's the problem.)

One of These Things Is Not Like the Other

2010-04-25T17:32:00.003-04:00

Well one of them has the full weight of a tax-enforcing governing body behind her. The other is much more polite. But the outcome is approximately the same:

I still have a serious, serious problem with the attitude displayed in the teachers' demonstration last week.

Anyone providing services within a public sector should be subject to review by the same public that pays their salary. Not by a self-serving BoD or Committee, but a free-standing citizens's committee with solid rules for oversight and brief membership for safeguarding the public trust.

We are asked to give more and more and are scrutinized and vilified by the paid-for mouthpieces if we object or call for accountability. We are maligned and denounce and bullied with, "give us the bucks."

Tell me, anyone, how such an attitude backed by the governing tax body's threat of fines, punishment, or jail is any different from any person standing in my living room, backed by a force I cannot resist without suffering serious harm--- tell me how that is different in scope or kind than outright armed robbery?

Going Galt Before It Was Cool: Richard Zimmerman

2010-04-25T08:37:00.004-04:00

God rest his unique soul. Not many men figure out who they are. Fewer still get a lifelong nickname and a smattering of fame for not being on the public radar. R.I.P. Dugout Dick:

Most, like Zimmerman, came from someplace else. Drawn by Idaho's remoteness and wild places removed from social pressures, they came and spent their lives here, leaving only in death.

Some became reluctant celebrities, interviewed about their unusual lifestyles and courted by media heavyweights. Zimmerman was featured in National Geographic magazine and spurned repeated invitations to appear on the "Tonight Show."

"I ride Greyhounds, not airplanes," he said in a 1993 Statesman interview. "Besides, the show isn't in California. The show is here."

Cort Conley, who included Zimmerman in his 1994 book "Idaho Loners", said that "like Thoreau, he often must have smiled at how much he didn't need. É What gave him uncommon grace and dignity for me were his spiritual life, his musical artistry, his unperturbed acceptance of life as it is, and being a WWII veteran who had served his country and harbored no expectations in return."

His metamorphisis to Dugout Dick began when he crossed a wooden bridge over the Salmon River in 1947 and built a makeshift home on the side of a hill. He spent the rest of his life there, fashioning one cavelike dwelling after another, furnishing them with castoff doors, car windows, old tires and other leavings.

"I have everything here," he said. "I got lots of rocks and rubber tires. I have plenty of straw and fruit and vegetables, my dog and my cats and my guitars. I make wine to cook with. There's nothing I really need.

Boz Scaggs: Miss Riddle

2010-04-23T21:46:00.001-04:00

Love this. The production is so laid back, understated. Just right for a Friday night:

Apparently, There Is a Clinic For Rabies

2010-04-23T20:14:00.007-04:00

Just around the corner from my place is a school that is teaching rabies. This is where your tax dollars are going if you live in Charleston. I'm just not sure if it's supposed to cure you of them, teach you about living with rabies, or what. In fact, it sounds like it could be a blogmeet:

It seems that Charleston's big concerns are sunken home foundations and rabies and I'm wondering who in their right mind 400 years ago thought building a city on a swamp was a good idea. But rabies clinics are everywhere. Took Pepper Dog to the beach a couple of weeks ago and as she was due for her shots, we stopped in at the little fire station and the next thing the old girl knew she was getting gigged like a frog. She was all, WTF was that?? I thought we were going for a walk!! But she's apparently safe from the rampant rabies around here.

I just swallowed a gnat. Ack!

(I'm posting this in "new world order" for when the google-bots come scraping my blog. That should make the ol' bot scratch his ass in confusion. I'm a wicked Interwebs-ninja I am!)

Friday Fun Stuff

2010-04-23T17:53:00.004-04:00

h/t GSR

"It's over. We're Here. It's over."

2010-04-22T19:17:00.006-04:00

I had a fine lather of outrage worked up this morning but I've pulled back from full-on vent. Still, I'll wager that you are possibly unaware that 120 Muslim "tourists" fully prepared and coordinated with walkie talkies invaded a Catholic Church in Andalusia during the Good Friday service, and attempted to "pray" during the service.

And by "pray" I mean, get down on their hands and knees and face toward Mecca and loudly "claim" the ground they were on. And they stabbed the security police who attempted to dislodge them.

If you read the NYT you would get an entirely different story. One that conveniently leaves off at historical convenience, and deliberately paints a narrative more to their liking.

If, like me, you have a smattering of reading and history at your command concerning Islam you'd likely believe that you really don't need to read one more thing about it. There's plenty of Internet Lore to pick up the general idea. But there's nothing more surprising and pertinent to today's news than Winds of Jihad's [Correction: originally from Jihad Watch. -ed] thorough background of the attack. Settle in for a definitive, brilliant, and sober look at what you may not know about the ideology of Islam, or the New York Times for that matter . . . and what the so-called paper of record is teaching your political leaders. It is seriously well-written and captivating. Historical background can never be exhaustive, but WoJ's essay takes great pains to bring a well-rounded citation of historical fact to bear on its report. You will never regret taking 2o minutes to read it.

And it's far less emotional than Glenn Beck.

On the bright side, it is an excellent indictment of the New York Times and should serve to take your mind off of Wall Street.

Caution: Still want to have warm fuzzies about Islam? I suggest you do not scroll around in that site because Sheik Yer'Mami does not hold back from posting pictures and proof of the violent heritage of Islam.

The Audacity of an Au Pair Insurgency

2010-04-20T20:02:00.006-04:00

Since we've all gone off to work and allowed the State to raise our children, should we be surprised that our own children have embraced the State?

Oh, blather on about the hypocrisy of the Left and the Media. I don't see the point in any more self-satisfying observations about the outrageous duplicity of our overlords. They mean slavery for you and I, but not for them.

We may not be able to turn this tide from the top down, since it got its votes from the bottom up and now controls the vote count as well. I hate to think of myself as a pessimist, opting rather for the role of likely realist. And I'm as likely as the next to soar on inspiration and belief and urge others to it, but the ground and gravity will win out, I fear.

So let's go to ground and make it our ally.

I found myself mulling all of my own fine recommendations for the job of au pair. I raised one fine son, why not another's? Music, art, and classical literature, bi-lingual, up-to-date on computer technology (except for BlackBerry. Crap!) and a more-than-casual Judeo-Christian theological background. Why not rock another's cradle and raise up a leader or at least a voter? And who has the sort of money to pay me my worth and keep me in comfort and security while I do such a dastardly deed? At this rate, only a government employee.

I am sure they would be delighted to see many once-prosperous and well-educated Americans doing the important work of raising their children to at least be able to read and write, do math, and hold a knife and fork correctly. If anyone understands the failings of the public school system, it is those who foisted it upon us. We could be the next bragging point for the Foggy Bottom set:

"Our au pair used to run an international financial management concern!"

"Oh how nice, but you just must meet our over-qualified Margaret. Our kids adore her administrative skills and ability to fend off spammers and telemarketers from their iPhone! She used to be an executive secretary for Goldman-Sachs!"

You just know that will go over big with their footling under-secretaries, goading more of them into a clamor for our services. And Hollywood celebrities would follow suit, like the thralls they are. Mexican gardeners will be as last-season as the petunias. Desperate Housewives or Househusbands will have fantasies about the professional educator and companion they've hired for their spawn. We've already seen a propensity for Nanny-chic from our government and the reality TV shows. I think it could work. Of course, someone will need to manage a fine stable of modern philosopher-slaves for the nouveau elite and I'm downtown with that idea. Perhaps I could score a sweet government grant if I knew just the right politician.

I would start a series of community au pair organizations around the country and only hire like-minded oppressed classes of small business owners, office workers, insurance adjusters and engineers. Wouldn't hurt to have a bevy of building contractors and some carpenter framers for families that want their kids to have a summer camp experience of old-fashioned diligence, building barracks for the poor (and getting an earful of real political sedition.) Plus, busy government moms need eye-candy, too.

This would work fine for doctors, as well. Children love and respect the Doctor. Why shouldn't a small army of patriot health care providers be involved in the home-health of the children of privilege, reporting their parents to one of the soon-to-be Health Committees? How nice to be the Obamas' doctor and report them to the Authority for Home Health because they smoke around the kids and use salt and butter. I'm sure that would serve some political adversary's goals for drawing political blood in a political shark tank.

If we shall be reduced to begging for work, make it a point to position ones self where menial labor becomes the very first shot in organizing ourselves for a better future. After all, our enemy (yes, I believe that's a proper definition at this point) started from the cradle up. We may not like the long and patient way ahead of us, but truthfully--all the feints and brave talking aside-- you will never take up arms against your stupidly benign neighbor who is hiding securely behind the State's Authority, so it's best to get started now.

You can practice writing your CraigsList ad in the comments, if you like. I'm nothing if not all about padding my resume with attributes like helpful to strangers.

Is Bill Clinton Really Guilty of Torturing and Murdering Waco's Children?

2010-04-20T11:31:00.004-04:00

The supposed "goods" on Clinton that Reno was holding over his head reported from The Volokh Conspiracy:

The plan Reno approved and took to President Clinton for approval contemplated the children choking in the gas unprotected for forty-eight hours if necessary, to produce the requisite “maternal feelings”. By taking aim at the children with potentially lethal gas, their mothers would be compelled, according to the FBI plan repeatedly defended by the Clinton administration afterwards as “rational” planning, to flee with them into the arms of those trying to gas them. [Emphasis added.]

An independent report on Waco written by the Harvard Professor of Law and Psychiatry, Alan A. Stone, for the then Deputy Attorney General Philip Heymann, says it “is difficult to believe that the US government would deliberately plan to expose twenty-five children, most of them infants and toddlers, to CS gas for forty-eight hours”. Unfortunately, however, that appears to have been exactly the plan.

The effect of CS gas on an unprotected infant exposed for only two to three hours is discussed in the report; in that case report, dating from the early 1970s, the child’s symptoms during the first twenty-four hours were upper respiratory; but, within forty-eight hours his face showed evidence of first degree burns, and he was in severe respiratory distress typical of chemical pneumonia. The infant had cyanosis, required urgent positive pressure pulmonary care, and was hospitalized for twenty– eight days. Other signs of toxicity appeared, including an enlarged liver.

Read it and weep for our country, but don't let this one go. Grip tight, and don't be shaken from making this man give an account of his decisions.

h/t to Confederate Yankee.

True Blue Heeler

2010-04-20T08:06:00.005-04:00

I've shown this to the Pepper Dog and, true to form, she was unimpressed. But the Blue in this video looks so much like her it's amazing. Ear worm alert: the song is actually quite good, if you're gonna sing about a dog:

No extra charge:

Going For the Big Picture at Boston.com

2010-04-19T21:06:00.005-04:00

I read and read all day, but the Internet as a news source can be a mite stingy with pictures. And when it does have some, they are bound up in gak-filled scripts of page-loading madness and slideshows.

A guy at work put me wise to the Holy Grail of news-junkie photo-journalism. Boston.com's Big Picture site. Teach yourself how to move around on the archives/category menus and I'll see you in a couple of weeks.

Do not doubt me, dear reader. Go and see for yourself. And then come back here, dammit, and thank me for my munificent kindness. You're lucky I even let you read my blog.

Especially cool are the volcano pics.

Summer Vacation? Start Here.

2010-04-19T18:31:00.003-04:00

A name of literary renown almost forgotten, Herman Wouk, has emerged again with a marvelous life-work-in-progress book out called The Language God Talks. A short excerpt is all I needed to draw me in.

Calculus, atomic bombs, science and transcendence. Could be any summer story. Could be this summer's reality. It will certainly be my summer extravagance.

What with the latest quantum measurements finding Schrodinger's Cat both alive and dead, and parallel existence as unimaginable-become-probable, it's no time to shrink away from the Mind that draws us to Itself. The world is big, my peeps. But as Wouk hopes to determine, a stage not too big for the drama.

Then I'm gonna re-read A Trip of Goats by Kim Crawford because it's a timeless wonder.

An extremely grateful tip of my wide-brimmed Outback hat to Mr. Reynolds at Instapundit.

Srsly Funny: What if Gamers Fought WWII?

2010-04-18T10:51:00.005-04:00

The Curmudgeon Emeritus at Eternity Road proclaimed that Saturday had to be observed with frivolity. Jeff Medcalf delightfully complied:

Churchill: wtf the luftwaffle is attacking me
Roosevelt: get antiair guns
Churchill: i cant afford them
benny-tow: u n00bs know what team talk is?
paTTon: stfu
Roosevelt: o yah hit the navajo button guys
deGaulle: eisenhower ur worthless come help me quick
Eisenhower: i cant do **** til rosevelt gives me an army
paTTon: yah hurry the fock up
Churchill: d00d im gettin pounded
deGaulle: this is fockin weak u guys suck
*deGaulle has left the game.*
Roosevelt: im gonna attack the axis k?
benny-tow: with what? ur wheelchair?
benny-tow: lol did u mess up ur legs AND ur head?
Hitler[AoE]: ROFLMAO

It is so worth reading the whole thing.

What? It's old? Who cares! You will be too, someday. Hope you're still funny by then.

Update: as a FaceBook page. Even funnier! Well, not really, just more up-to-date.

Delta Lady

2010-04-17T12:27:00.002-04:00

I'm a latecomer to the discovery of Joe Cocker, but can't get enough of this song:

This Is How They Buy You

2010-04-16T10:13:00.003-04:00

You simply must read this poignant eyewitness to Hitler's ascent to power.

No, it's not astounding or erudite or pithy, it's mostly just matter-of-fact, as an eyewitness account must be, else it becomes journalism and by modern definition, specious.

This is how they buy you:

Little by little,
Line upon line,
Precept upon precept.

And yet we continue with our stimulus-response-repeat cycle as we tilt at politicians and media windmills instead of building a better future. One person at a time.

Someone Was Seeking Permission to Drink at 4:44 p.m. today

2010-04-15T21:13:00.006-04:00

Yes, somebody had had a long day and was dreaming of beer o'clock. Or someone's spouse was seeking ammo for another round of, drinking already? But it amused me no end to see a Google Search hit for "when does the sun cross the yardarm?"

You know, technically, if you're reading this pirate blog after the sun has crossed the yardarm, I don't care where you live, it's officially okay to bend the ol' elbow and slow life down to an idle.

what noise does
the ocean make
except to slap
and lap
against a wooden hull
or break upon
a silent shore?
left to itself
it rolls and runs
silent, wordless
keeping a thousand

mysteries
un-uttered
and singing

only when stirred
by a wind or a sail

a silent sea
promises nothing
expects everything
but yields up treasures
as quietly as she takes them
and yields up pleasures
as joyfully as she makes them

Like the Scots, only not so frivolous with her money.

2010-04-14T23:11:00.003-04:00

I used to have a boss that would lament that the standard post-it notes were usually only half written on-- the top half. It bothered her so much that she took to ripping the post-it in half down the middle so as to make the pad last twice as long.

One day I found a pad of post-its in my drawer with a torn sheet on top. Obviously she had needed to jot a note and grabbed the pad from my desk.

So I took the half sheet, now 1.5 x 3 inches of amputated usefulness and threw it away.

I'm crazy-daring like that.

As if.

2010-04-13T21:59:00.004-04:00

My muse goes whistling now,
having left song and instrument
for the careless warmth of a new sun.
She gives me a knowing glance as she turns
quickly on one heel,
strolling devil-may-care
and by-your-leave
upon the bowers of spring blossoms.
Swinging hips
and saucy thoughts
were never so determined
to march me into madness
as I follow along, helpless...
trying to keep apace
lest I lose sight of her
and she fall into some mischief
or merriment
and leave me wanting and wondering.

Ah, she is grand, to let me find her!
She playfully waits for my addled senses
to arrive in the moment she has made,
and there stand I,panting for breath,
and she, laughing and sighing.
One more sidelong smile, a flash of inspiration,
and off she goes, with swinging hips,
saucy thoughts,
whistling some forbidden tune.

Cats are Evil: A Series. What Next? Opposable Thumbs?

2010-04-12T19:35:00.002-04:00

Turn the sound down. Trust me on that.

Update: From sheri, in the comments:

That just creeps me OUT. You just know that there is a secret society of them, the Feluminati or whatever, all STANDING around in robes in a subterranean chamber doing EVIL.

--- --- ---

Exalted Ruler Leader-Cat: I bid ye STAND now and face the ALTAR OF EVIL! For tonight we launch . . . Operation Fancy Feast!

Worker-Bee Cats: [monotone] YESSSSSS Your Lordshipness of Evil.

R.I.P. The Coroner of Munchkinville, Meinhart Raabe

2010-04-11T19:56:00.003-04:00

I've been too busy to check the entry pages of this useless blog until now to notice a most unwelcome increase in a particular bit of Internet traffic.

Meinhart Raabe was 94 years old when he passed away in Orange Park, FL. The J.R. was acquainted with him by way of business and I spoke with him but once, mistaking his high voice for that of "Mrs. Raabe" to my shame.

I never knew that Mr. Raabe had also enjoyed the fun of driving the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile about the country for 30 years. A long and not unpleasant life was Meinhart's lot, fortunate more than most.

He'll be most sincerely missed.

The Weatherman Gets an "A"

2010-04-11T15:41:00.002-04:00

Having some of the few normal members of my family up in Charleston for the weekend meant we finally, after six months here, got around to doing touristy things for the last two glorious days. We enjoyed a nice walk South of Broad as we gawked at the homes and architecture. My brother is a professional building inspector so we had no end of official narrative as to the condition of each of the many gorgeous homes up for sale. We pretended to the airs of Old Money and spurned one mansion for its being held together by turnbolts on long pipes, another for the color of its shutters, yet another for its landscape lacking the necessary amenities of a single iron bench in the garden. Oh yes, we said to ourselves. We would buy that house except for the appalling lack of a gardener's quarters.

Charleston was in full glory with nothing less than their biggest home and garden tours, Spring Break's last weekend, the Farmer's Market in full swing, and a huge regatta that made the riverfront view as delightful as a balloon race when the boats came about and ran with the wind, their chutes as sassy and bright as the bankside gardens full of azaleas.

We had so much fun. No drama, lots of walking, good food, quiet conversations and lovely, beautiful scenery. No television and cool nights meant another bonfire, of course, to round out the weekend.

Being from Florida, we're kinda used to being bilked by cheesy and overpriced attractions of historic interest *I'm looking at you, Fountain of Youth* so we balked at the entrance fee to Charleston's Magnolia Plantation this morning, but found it to well worth the $15/per person. At least it was today. Glorious garden colors, long winding paths, cool breezes. Less than 10 miles from our home, it made for an outdoor cathedral of worship and appreciation of all things Good. I bet I've walked almost 7 miles in the last two days, just sightseeing.

The Holy City really, really showed me its best side this weekend, and it surpasses so many other Southern cities for elegance and congeniality that I highly recommend it. I swear, it was the first lovely weekend in six months and I'm so glad I was here for it.

Someone told me there was golf tournament this weekend? Is that right? How dull.

Philanthropy's Adverse Affect

2010-04-09T16:46:00.003-04:00

A hundred years ago, when foreign aid was unthought-of (except as a tribute or bribe), we were a respected and admired country. After a century of philanthropy, everyone hates our guts.

-P. J. O'Rourke

Hmmm. . . we need to consider how to use such a tactic to make the ~~Democrats~~ Socialists despised by those to whom they would most like to distribute our wealth.

h/t The Sanity Inspector

You Have Never Read a Blog Post Like This In Your Life

2010-04-07T21:45:00.003-04:00

Why the Blogosphere still kicks Twitter's ass. You just can't cram Barbies and dinosaurs and Green Army men and M72LAWs into a Tweet. You can't fit them all into any sort of story either, unless you're Laura.

You go. Now.

Annoy The Media Every Chance You Get

2010-04-07T20:52:00.002-04:00

Stupid questions are their stock in trade, after all:

h/t The J.R.

Skiing and Explosives. Mostly Explosives.

2010-04-07T09:29:00.002-04:00

Here's a nice daily dose of things that go boom. Skiing behind the ship is cool, but the second half of this little clip shows the HMAS Torrens being used as torpedo bait. Pretty cool:

HMAS Torrens Skiing from Mark Ferguson on Vimeo.

h/t Last of the Few.

"Only A Sucker Fights Fair"

2010-04-06T21:30:00.002-04:00

Dammit, but that's the stuff!

Piracy and theft are a serious business in the wide expanse and natural anarchy of the seas. Like the wild waves, pirates obey only the winds of chance and the law of possession. The sea takes and rarely gives it back. So too a corrupt nation, a scamming receiver, or even a greedy charterer. It's not fair, but it works pretty well for the ones bold enough to go get what they want.

What's needed is a man with strong convictions about the nature of bullies and why they must be taught a lesson. If that means a bit of the ol' rope-a-dope or sleight of hand or outright lies, so be it. Bribe an official, buy an extra hour, paint a fake name, kidnap the guards, fool the bridge tender, or just supply lots of alcohol, but get what you came for. Even if you have nothing but the fickle mercy of the wind for an ally, it's better than letting the bad guys win. Or rotting in a South American jail.

Max Hardberger's latest book, Seized, has what his highly acclaimed Freighter Captain had, but plenty more to keep the pages turning. A brighter narrative , more colorful characters, and even more high-stakes prizes such as the airplanes of East Germany's dismantled bureaucratic booty. Arrgghh!

Despite Mr. Hardberger's near-nonchalant approach to the risk of flying foreign aircraft under the radar in a rapidly dissolving country, he celebrates the Teutonic passion for order in discovering the plane's mechanical and flight logs thoughtfully tucked in for the ride. Other European adventures were a bit more rough around the edges. Russian mafia? Fuggedaboudit. Bulgarian Secret Police? Well, Max leaves it to a formidable woman to settle that score so sweetly that the memory of its extremely satisfying outcome still brings a smile.

In this book I relished a bit more background into the how and why of Max's unique line of work repossessing stolen freighters, and the eventual crossroads with Michael Bono that led him to make a real business out of it. His complete curriculum vitae evokes the image of an ADHD Indiana Jones. Mostly I just enjoyed each escapade for its unique set of circumstances and interplay. Any one chapter has enough plot to make for an entire adventure film, enough so that I might worry that the payoff in compiling them into one book is offset by the liability of the compounded interest in story upon story. It can be almost exhausting.

But only if you're a wuss. I read it in one sitting because I'm a greedy little adventurer-wannabe. Still, it's easily enjoyed one chapter at a time and makes for a great summer read.

Personal glimpses into the man himself, while welcome, manage to keep the reader at a comfortable arm's length to glean what they may about the spitzensparken that drives him to do and be and live more life than that of six men. The formation of such a character is plain enough a matter of nurture against nature, the frictional drag of a restrictive boyhood working with an accelerated imagination to create that lift, up where things are clearly more exciting.

A favorite little meme running through the story is "Not yet, by God. Not yet!" as Max eludes the Fates and beats the odds one more time. It pops up, here and there like a biblical Selah, and if you ignore that opportunity to pause and reflect on the sheer terrible chances, the odds, the untold price of such a life, you will find yourself unprepared for a bit of a rogue wave at the end of the book. But such is the way of the sea, and of life.

It doesn't fight fair.

****************************************

FCC note (curse them!): I received no remuneration for this review and will receive no remuneration if you click the Amazon link above.

You, however, will make me very happy if you make Mike Bono's sitemeter stutter like a President without his teleprompter if you'll just click here.

(It makes him think I know people. . . but really it will just be you guys! Shhh. . . )

Sure, I trust Obama. But let's verify:
	Where he goes when he ditches the Press.
	That his golf game has improved with so much practice.
	If he can function one day without Valerie Jarrett.
	That he's made enough money at this point.
	His birth certificate. (Not that I care, but that he does.)
	Other (detail in the comments).

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	They Call the Wind Mariah
	Stormy
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