now i'm laughing

oh, mother duck, you got there before me again! i just fixed a killer frittata, and thought that i'd post it because i know you and allan are foodies. decided to look around before i posted, and what did i see? why a recipe for dinner that's what i saw. beat me to it.

so anyway, i'm going to go ahead and post mine regardless of the duckling appearance, because it's more a matter of great minds thinking alike than of imitation. at least in this one, specific instance!

this is my "what's in the pantry" frittata.

preheat oven to 350 degF
4 chicken and apple sausages, sliced into rounds.
6 eggs, beaten
4 small yukon gold spuds, cut into eighths
1 red bell pepper diced big
1/2 red onion, diced small
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 zucchini, about matchstick size pieces
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

nuke spuds for about 5 minutes in the microwave to get them started.
when they are ready, toss them into an oven safe saute or frying pan with a tablespoon or so of olive oil. i got a new saute pan that is perfect for this, but my old cast iron skillet did the yeoman's duty for years with this dish. whatever you use, make sure it will be big enough for all of the ingredients!
once the spuds start browning, toss in everything except the eggs and cheese.
when things look like they are browning up nicely, turn off the burner, and mix in eggs and cheese. put into preheated oven for about 5 minutes. you know it's really really ready when the egg starts pulling away from the edge of the pan.

it's really, really good. i try different seasonings each time, but my favorites always include kosher salt (to taste) and ground pepper. from there it could be creole seasonings, any number of different seasoned salts, i've used fresh basil and thyme from my garden, parsley from my garden...whatever strikes your fancy. i've used spinach too, which is pretty darned good.

i figure servings based on number of eggs typically. so this makes 3 normal, 2 big boy, or one bothenook servings. (joking, i'm joking. 1 1/2 bothenook bigboy servings. yeah, that's the ticket).

whole thing, start to finish, including prep time is about 15 minutes

see, i could be one of these guys instead of a gun nut

now, doesn't this look like a bunch of fun? boys and their toys...

hooray for debra saunders

debra saunders is one of my favorite columnists in the san francisco chronicle, even if she is dead wrong about gun control (bothenook editorial). she usually runs down the middle of the road, which in san francisco labels her as a conservative... anyway, sometimes she pops up over the horizon with a great column. Today's column is an example. i'll snip a little out for those linkage challenged folks.

Bottom line: The Democratic Party did not have to nominate a candidate who supported the war, but Democratic voters for some reason chose to do so.

Item: According to a New York Times/CBS News poll, three-quarters of Democratic voters opposed the war.

Item: The same poll found that 86 percent of convention delegates opposed the war.

Item: 100 percent of the Democratic ticket voted with GOP President Bush on Iraq.

she whacked one out of the park today. sometimes i really really get the impression the dems (at least the folks way up at the top) don't want this election, so they can run bill's business partner in '08. can't do that if kerry wins. going to be an interesting couple of months.

a very quick glance at the news

you know, i am not a neophyte, and i've been exposed to enough over the years to have no illusions as to the typical honesty (or lack thereof) of politicians, especially state and local ones. but this article by dan walters in the sacramento bee just reafirms my belief that they should just go down town, and toss the entire bunch in the slammer.

and on a sad note for scientists and wizards everywhere, James Crick, one of the team that discovered the double helix shape of dna molecules died at the age of 88.

another one of those darned talented folks

so here is an image by my amiga Ali. this works on so many different levels that i probably won't do it justice. but let me play art/photo critic for a moment, if you please. actually, you have no choice, since it's MY blog.



i met this nice lady in a different web world, one centered around music, and the use of the cd signifies the importance of music. of course, she probably just saw a clear plastic disk and thought it would make a cool picture, but i'll repeat... it's MY blog. so it's symbolic of music, but note it's a clear/blank piece of plastic. symbolizing music yet to come?
the eye, cd hole, and reflected camera image is amazing. is she using the camera to subsititue for her eye, so that we can see what she sees? and how does music fit into how she sees the world, and by extension, how we see the world through her eyes? blah blah blah. like i said, it's MY blog. and ali, i really like the stuff you put into your galleries.

some talented folks out there

i have this amigo that goes by the name of Allan. he's a quiet sort, but possesses a quick wit, and a marvelous eye with a camera. i stole this picture off of one of his galleries, and if you like it, i suggest visiting him to see more.

and ali, i haven't forgotten you, nor are you off of the hook. you're next!

wow, who'da thunk it?

in spite of many questionable lifestyle and recreational choices, and despite the dire predictions of many, including my parents, i have now officially lived for one half of a century. cool

foolishness

a call to the "retrosexuals" of the world

to stand up, scratch their butts, and belch. this lady cracks me up. hooyaaa. buurp

unconfirmed reports about al zarqawi's capture

one of the really bad actors in this whole iraqi hostage beheading imbroglio is Mo al Zarqawi. there have been reports bouncing around the web about his capture. Command Post is following this, and updating as info comes along. another blogger at Satr has been following it as well. guess i'll watch and see what developes. the gov. says they don't have him, but that would be cool if they are just wringing him out to get info on more murderers before announcing they have him in custody.
and Command Post GWOT also has info regarding a $25million bad guy that the paki's have captured. if it was osama, we'd know by now, but i would just love to be in the room when an aide leaned over and whispered in kerry's ear that bin laden had been captured. oh, the dem's would be spinning so hard they'd start fires under their feet. "you had him all along, and only brought him out now to kill the elections!" would be the loudest sqawk. tell you what, i don't care when they catch that bastard, as long as it's sooner and not later.
oh, and poor poor saddam, his health is poor. read it while looking around Pravda. no link to a "major american daily" yet, but i'm sure we'll be hearing about it.

zounds. a conservative brit?

i just read an article in the uk spectator by mark steyn about metrosexuality and politics. he compares the us vs. europe, and bush vs. kerry in light of metrosexual sensibilities. pretty damn good, and funny to boot. guess i'll have another writer to keep my eyes on. and don't let the fact that it's posted to freerepublic.com throw you off. it's just that i could post a link there without having you need a login and password for the spectator.

submarine pix from the "evil empire"

follow the link to Pravda , russia's premier government run news organization. why? for the submarine pictures, of course. click on the pic to toggle the next one. also check out the weapons a to z link under the boat pix for a 75 picture gallery of some sweet looking firearms.

musings late at night

i took my target rifle out of the safe tonight, intent on tinkering. i'm going out to the range this weekend, and wanted to make some adjustments to the scope mounts and the trigger stop. i had it taken down to component parts, cleaned and reassembled except for the final barrel insertion back into the stock. i realized i was humming.
i've been harassed for years about my whistling. i'm always whistling some tuneless soundtrack i hear playing in the background of my life's usual symphony of noise. but hum? not usually. it struck me that i was content, that i was doing something that brings me great peace and contentment. it seems weird that working on a gun would be peaceful, but it is. i don't have anything else going on to distract me while working on my firearms. they are the center of the universe for the time i've got them stripped down, parts soaking in solvent, considering what i'm going to tinker with next. it's not really a zen thing, as opposed to actually shooting them is, but more a centering and focusing of my manual skills and knowledge of mechanics. the world still exists, it just doesn't matter. when i'm shooting, there is nothing in the world but me, my firearm, and the target.
i've become something of an amateur gunsmith. i've done some machining, hand fitting, modifying, the sorts of things most active and dedicated shooters learn to do if they stay with the sport. i've rebuilt a loose and sloppy 1911A1 from a gun safe queen to a pistol range king. i've taken a spare receiver and trigger group, and built a tack driving target rifle around them. i have learned to reload ammo, not for the economy of the enterprise, but for the sheer joy of hand building the very best custom ammo for each weapon. i've developed loads that are capable of delivering off hand groups that are significantly better than any commercial stuff with the weapon in a machine rest. i'm a gun geek. i'm like the kid in an electronic store buying gizmos to bump his computer up just another notch.
i puzzled over this a little tonight. why guns? why not something a little more socially acceptable, like pewter soldiers or rebuilding cars, or tying flies for fishing. and i don't have a real solid answer other than because. because i grew up around guns. because i derive an almost euphoric pleasure from manufacturing the ammo to shoot through a gun that i've worked on to make it better than the manufacturer thought possible. because i feel a sense of accomplishment when i walk out to the 25 yard line, and can cover the 50 or so bullet impacts from my .357 with a silver dollar on those days when everything, including me, works just right. or finding the 100 yard target has one hole in it, caused by 10 bullets from my target rifle.
and i'm a closet zealot. well, that's bullshit. i'm openly pro-gun. why? first of all, i think that this country has succumbed to the hand wringing crowd that think all guns are evil, and should be melted for art projects. now why would that be? bad people with weapons have done bad things. ok. so put them in jail the first time they use a gun to commit a crime, and don't let them out. but guns are easy to obtain! sorry, but it would be a lot harder if everyone that owned a legal gun kept it in a safe when they weren't home.
and one other thing. here's where people always roll their eyes, and give each other THAT LOOK. oh god, he's going to use the defense of our country spiel again. yup, i am. i'm no gun crazed militia yahoo, living in a cabin in the backwoods, plotting the overthrow of the heathens running our great country. nope. i'm just someone that firmly believes that the founding fathers of this country knew a thing or two about despotic governments, and the likelihood of one occurring on these shores if the populace wasn't vigilant and prepared. that's why i like politics. keeps "them" squarely in my sites, and i know what it is they are trying to do. if i don't like what my government is doing, i stand up and tell them so. letters, public discussions, and voting are my tools. but my hole card is always my weapons. if the government becomes too onerous, or if the worst happens and we are invaded, i will, and am prepared to take the steps i feel are necessary to protect my family and my community. this isn’t wackjob musings, but well considered and thought out beliefs. one of my favorite sayings (thanks monty python) is that nobody expects the spanish inquisition. the jews, gypsys, homosexuals, jehovahs witnesses, and others certainly didn't expect the rise of the third reich, nor did they anticipate the repercussions of that horrific regime. and what was one of the very first things done upon the reich's ascendancy to power? gun control, and gun confiscation. just because things have been ok so far doesn't mean they couldn't take a radical shift. i was a boy scout, and have taken that motto to heart: "Be Prepared"
ok, done with my raving. guess the next sound i hear is the black helicopters swooping overhead as the swat team blows through my windows. ha

hey kids, home science projects

yes, kids, you too can perform science projects just like the big kids do at colleges and corporations world wide. need some ideas? just check THIS out.

some new blogger stuff, and an amazing lady

so i wandered over to townhall.com, simply because i've been told that bad people reside there. i feel quite at home, thank you. and here is an article by Michelle Malkin that examines 5 reasons why not to vote for the dems. from a different perspective, one that i hadn't even thought of. learning new things is good. her blog is located at Michelle Malkin. i've got to say that for a 1st generation immigrant, she's damned tough on illegal's. her archives are a wealth of information.
good discovery.

the ever expanding quest for my old bookmarks

so, sometimes i'm smarter than the average bear. not usually, but sometimes. i've been known to email myself cool websites i've found while surfing in other climes, or if i get one emailed to me from an amigo. here are a couple of them, and this way i can actually bookmark them too.

very cool stuff:

Submarine Channel. this is nothing like what you think it is. it's a tres cool site with interactive flash modules for different graphic novels and other neat stuff. check out "the killer". one of my fav's and i've actually gone back and watched it several times. unusual for me.

FHM games. some pretty neat games for the price of registering. i'm not a game person, but i must admit that they have a couple that are freaking addicting. stay away if mesmerized by bright shiney objects, or near nekkid women for that matter, since we all know what FHM magazine is all about, right? i will say that this was posted on a links forum from a previous life. (did that sound convincing?)


Cockeyed. cool sacramento site, but you don't need to know anything about sacto to laugh your keister off at some of the funny stuff herein.

My Cat Hates You. i crack up every time i visit this site. glad i mailed the url to myself a long time ago. went back tonight, and i'm still chuckling. hohoho. and follow some of the linked sites from the main page, there are some real gems.

ok, enough bookmarking for one night. i still have a bunch left in the inbox, so this may take a couple of days to wade through.
this is fun. hope i'm not boring you

someone else i'd like to be able to write like

wow. i just finished reading one of the best defenses of the second amendment I’ve come across in a long time. it’s buried on december 22’s post at ejectejecteject. it’s a long one, but damn, this dude says what’s in my head. i’m going to lose some sleep trying to catch up on all of his archives. bothenook sez ... check it out.

just because

i'm sharing this photo from yahoo, just because i really like the colors. i guess you could say this was a piece of "industrial art", eh?

ouch. frontpage magazine on eurabria

FrontPage magazine has a pretty tough analysis of the current political climate in the EU regarding the us and isreal. eye opening.

tickled by pickle

from pickle city:

the job interview

A guy goes to the Government to interview for a job.

The interviewer asks him, "Are you a veteran?"

Yes, I served two tours in Vietnam."

Good, that counts in your favor. Do you have any service-related disabilities?"

I am 100% disabled. A mortar round blew off my testicles so they declared me disabled, it doesn't affect my ability to work, though."

Sorry to hear about the damage, but I have some good news for you, I can hire you right now! Our working hours are 8 to 4. Come on in about 10, and we'll get you started."

If working hours are from 8 to 4, why do you want me to come at 10?"

Well, here at the government, we don't do anything but sit around and scratch our balls for the first two hours. No point of your coming in for that."

cali property taxes and the schools

i present Exhibit 1 for those of you gentle readers who may reside in the state of california. i've heard a lot of noise about how the schools are underfunded in this state because property taxes were held down by prop. 13. you will note that in the last 26 years, cali's property taxes have been on par with other states, with an explanation of how that has happened. so, why are our schools in such a mess?

and i say again...hahahaha

boy, usatoday stepped in it. Here is an article addressing the firing of Ann Coulter, the right wing conservative's answer to Mike Moore. usatoday hired her to cover the dem's convention, and moore to cover the republican's. they fired her after the first column. now i'm not saying that they couldn't or shouldn't excersize editorial control over content. but unless they were morbidly stupid, they knew what they were getting right up front. she has never made any bones about how she feels, and quite often expresses her opinions and analysis in print and on tv. so what were they thinking? are they going to fire MM? doubt it very much, since he speaks their brand of language, and is of course the patron saint of the left. too bad. another print news organization prostitutes itself in public for all to see.

haha i say, haha

hey bothenook, what do you do?

well, THIS is where i get to play. can't really call it work, because it's too much fun. i am one of the really lucky people in the world that has a job i look forward to going to.

good question

a tidbit of humor

not a bigbit, just a snippet of humor, from our friends over at scrapple face

a modicum, a tad, just one part of a finely divided whole, a parsed portion of the pot, a jot of humor. you know, not much. but funny

today's bumperstickers are:

been remiss, sorry.

Heart Attacks: God's Revenge For Eating His Cute Little Animal Friends

and

TV. Why do you think they call it programming?

back to the socialist state

i quote

The direction we the Greens support is the course of renewal coupled with social justice. I think when you look at the discussions of the last few days, where for example top DaimlerChrysler managers jerked around employees in pay negotiations, then you realize there's a chance that those who are greedy will get ahead and that the system of social security could be destroyed. I think that's enough of a reason to keep trying, to bear the responsibility and say: We'll make this happen

this is from DW world. now, i'm trying to figure out how DaiChry jerked employees around by trying to get a compromise solution that didn't require closing the factory and moving to where the labor/overhead costs would allow the company to remain competitive (i.e. still keep making stuff so people could and would buy it at prices competitive to those of other companies in their market). that's why i have such a problem with the "socialist left" in this country as well. they don't, or refuse to, see that it's not always about screwing the little guy. screw the big guy, he takes his marbles and goes to play somewhere else, he's still a big guy, and the little guy is fucked.

how similar things are different

vague, i know. but consider this. in frankfurt, they just released a Class I heat warning ( that's really really bad; lots of folks died when they experienced one of these a couple of summers ago). that means the temperatures will reach 90 to 95 degrees f. it was 98 degrees in sacramento today when the wife and i went up to visit a couple of our kids living there. and there must have been 20 or more folks sitting outside of the coffee shop we stopped at after lunch, basking in the sun, drinking coffee, and smoking cigarettes. 98 deg. ho-hum for a place that typically has more than 15 days a year over 105 degrees. people don't even turn on their air conditioners (which you need) until the temps get over 95.
guess it's all in what you are used to.

put away those skull caps, scarfs and crosses people

looks like berlin is following suit after the french began banning "religious symbols". only instead of banning them for students, in berlin, it's the public sector employees facing the ban. quite frankly, if this were tried here in the us, the hand wringers would be up in arms over the apparent abridgement of freedom of speech and freedom of religion, and the rest of us would be saying: right on. keep 'em seperate folks.

9/11 commision report.

i've been reading the papers state over and over that the 9/11 commission report won't be available until sometime in september or november. i wanted to see if i could find an executive summary, just to read the source rather than get it filtered thru the news and radio talking heads, and guess what my search engine turned up? this link will take you to the government printing office website with the document broken down into chapters, available for download in pdf format. the executive summary is 35 pages long, but it contains some interesting stuff that after mastication and cogitation, i may have to expound upon. happy reading

"intellectuals"

Here is an article found linked off of the command post site. i commented over there, so i won't recycle that post totally, but i will link it here.

basically, i see the difference between iraqi intellectuals and american intellectuals as one of experience in the real world. no weighty philosophical tomes and self-important exposition. bullets, midnight raids, daughters stolen, raped, killed, and then dumped on your doorstep. mighty big difference.

quote for the day

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling, which thinks that nothing is worth war, is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

John Stuart Mill (1868)

damn, that was one expensive self administered donation

hey guys, if you are thinking about being a sperm donor, you may want to think again.
and "she" probably didn't even lend a hand...oh, i'm sorry. stuff like that just happens around me...

more on the ongoing clark/berger controversy

cool to see ads other than kerry or kerry/edwards, like in most of the papers i visit on line. this one cracks me up. says it like it is, though. yeah, i'm a tried and true republican.

anyway, here is another in the ongoing series of articles i've been gleaning from the net. this one is from the weekly friday column by Bill Gertz in the washington times.



and aprapos to nothing: boy, i sure like these Kim-chi noodle bowls (think korean cup-o-soup). nice snack on those days i blow off lunch, but it's not dinner time. hooray for COSTCO!!

a link for humanity

so, i don't usually post anything political (cough cough), but occasionally i get something that just demands immediate action. check out the link the the Simon Wiesenthal Center home page, read the plea for petition, and ACT.
i hope the isrealis are strong enough to stand up against this horse manure, and i hope the US is strong enough to back their play in the international community.

well, this is cool!

i was doing the old ego thing... type in your nik and see what pops up. so i did the old "bo the nook" thing, and look what i found. i'm honored. a boat sailor from another boat found one of my little essays from a now dead, but hopefully soon revived website. this is so cool.

bookmark search continues.

hope ya'll aren't getting bored with my ongoing bookmark search. this is just a way for me to get off of my duff and reestablish my bookmarks. i guess you could probably figure out a little about me, based on my surfing habits i publish here.. so, if you get bored, ignore these posts!

right wing news and opinion stuff (going to put this in my links section):

lucianne.com i always end up surfing back to lucianne when the left wing wackjobs start making too much noise in my head.. helps me recenter and get wildly amused at the same time. there are some serious right wing whackjobs running around, and a lot of them congregate here. kind of a blog precursor, if you will.

gun stuff

Numrich Gun Parts. this is a huge gun parts catalog on the web. i've used these guys for some tinkering i've done building target rifles. good folks too.

Smith & Wesson. makers of my favorite revolvers, the 686 and 686+ in .357. oh, yeah.

news/opinion stuff

Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting. a daily check. use it so often i haven't bookmarked it! have now.

SpinSanity. another site i use so often i haven't bookmarked it. that's been rectified.

humm. may have to update my links on the sidebar again. damn, i'm going to end up with one of those blogs where you go to look for current posts, and it's so cluttered with a bazillion links you can't find anything.

must resist.

another gem from my buds at the sub board.

this is getting ridiculous. but, for most of the folks out there, submariners aren't usually topics of conversations. so, i'm sharing stuff i find there with those gentle readers that would never get exposed to things like this. having said that, i found this article fascinating. not just because this is about a couple of boat sailors playing in the sand, but for what the message they report about conditions in iraq. you know, that place where everyone hates us, and we really really need to get out of there before anyone else starts hating us.
i wonder where they got subdued dolphins for their uniforms...


this guy is way out of his normal hideout in the ship's office typing reports for the weekly naval reactors letter.

if they can find them

to take a picture



why can't they find them to kill them?

stolen from the sub board

PS: Oh yeah, Normandy, although he may have made other jumps as well. A long time friend (now gone) was approached by a "PARATROOPER!!" (300 plus jumps)! WOW!! The man asked "How many jumps?" Doc replied "Two, Normandy and the Rhine River"

End of conversation.


thanks carl

today's bumperstickers are:

Cat: The Other White Meat

and

I'll bet you a new car that I can stop faster than you can!

more junk about sandy berger

i'm a little confused. no i'm not. yes i... well, anyway. i'm really amused by this whole political marionette act going on in washington over the berger national archives theft, and the predictable damage control being foisted on america. i listened to NPR's All Things Considered okok everybody stand back. i will not give up my right wing wacko card just because there isn't anything else to listen to in Jamison Canyon while the CalTrans folks hold traffic for 45 minutes to blow up a chunk of the cliffside along the road at 0-dark-30.

anyway, they had some left wing wonk who's name i don't remember, and an NYTimes columnist David Brooks . i like brooks, even thought i don't always agree with him.

welcome to short attention span theater. now what were we talking about??? oh yeah, sandy berger...
go figure.. question is: what's up with the sandy berger story... left wing wonk replies instantaneously with "I'm really concerned with the timing of the release of this story." well la te frikin' da, buddy. someone in washington was probably afraid this was going to get swept under some dusty back room dealing carpet. that's NOT the issue. the issue is: what did he take, did kerry know he took it, and what the hell was this information being used for and/or hidden from us for? i for one would like to see what it is that's so all fired important that berger risked JAIL time (apparently he assumed kerry would win, and pardon him like his boss did a bunch of other miscreants just prior to watch turnover). silly man. reminds me of the HUGE hullabaloo over the PDB (pres. daily briefing for those not in the know). WHO KNEW, and WHAT WAS IN IT, and WHY ARE YOU AFRAID TO SHOW IT TO THE AMERICAN PUBLIC... sound familiar? the 911 commission's dim-o-rats really thought they had the smoking gun, and it was loaded with blanks. i guess it's payback time, eh? and i really am interested in what it was that berger risked all to hide from the american public. what was he thinking?

and here's a triple article (talks about 3 things, and they are things i've droned on and on about). oh by the way, it's from the New Republic. an interesting sidenote: i notice that the old church i used to belong to (Presbyterian)is really performing unnatural sex acts with canines. siding with the Palestinians? no wonder so many of the folks i used to go to church with have bailed. me, i lost any faith in the church (and all religion for that matter) when a very respected missionary lady came to our church youth group, and spent an hour and a half reviling the catholic church and all of it's members (one of whom was my very bestest best friend .. well, i was 13 at the time). WAKE UP you church people out there...it's all just a way to control your mind.

looking up some more bookmarks

well, here we are again, surfing to rebuild the bookmarks back to usable levels:

CAR STUFF:

Fred's TDI page. THE site on the net for us VW diesel owners.

Space and Science:

Dave Ransom Software home of the STSPLUS program. this is too cool, especially if you are a space geek. lets you track a boatload of satellites, and the shuttle when it's flying. tons of links too for past shuttle missions.

Cooking:

Gail's Recipie Swap from Epicurious. very very cool site for the cook/chef/wannabes out there. that includes me.

Home Cooking site by the Mining Company.

and last but not least, the Misc. file

Paladin Press. of course, visiting this site may make you subject to the Patriot Act, and bring down those pesky swat guys. cruise at your own risk. definitely NOT POLITICALLY CORRECT

think workman's comp

a quote from here
"If a premature explosion that kills a terrorist is called a “work accident” does it mean that Qassam rockets launched at Israeli schoolyards, houses, and streets are considered “exports” ?"

i wonder if w.f. buckley looked like this, would more people have read him?

political blogger, bikini model, aussie lass living in Kansas redefines the phrase "getting your point across". sorry, couldn't help myself.
and she's a conservative to boot! who'd a thunk it? (special thanks due to an aussie submariner who posted this on the sub. bbs. thanks blue)

want proof things are different in iraq?

Here's a little something that might open eyes in the west. (that's a young iraqi lass holding the rifle)



i'm getting lost in all of the iraqi blogs. i would never have believed there was that much support for america in iraq. of course, these are pretty well educated iraqis, but even still, it's just amazing.

voices from the middle east

i know that one blogger isn't the entire population. i know that i am not the voice of americans from coast to coast. i know that the author of the following doesn't answer for all iraqi's, yet it still does my heart good to read things like this. and now,:

"Glory and honor to the U.S. and Allied men and women whose blood is irrigating the tree of freedom in this land; and their sacrifices, suffering, and toil is laying the foundation for a future renaissance of the Mesopotamian People. Hail soldiers of freedom and enlightenment. Do not be dismayed by the trouble and turbulence of the present, for the future generations will remember and appreciate."

why are we in iraq? perhaps this may at least answer some of that question.

stirring, stirring, stirring

so here i am, sitting in the computer room with colin quinn on comedy central. no apologies. i like that show, and will stop to watch it if it's on. otherwise....food network baby.

back to my post. colin tossed off a one liner that has really gotten me thinking, and i'm curious where these musings will take me.
"there is an unreported schism in the american jewish community. the old lefties are having real problems, because they are finding their groups are backing the palistinians." does make me wonder...


oh, and now for something completely different: they have wild west technology on the history channel. weird thought passed through my head, and it just shows how conditioned i have become. they showed a condemned man climbing the 12 steps up to the gallows, and all i could think of was "there's no handrail". damned OSHA, damn them damn them.

today's bumperstickers are:

Boldly Going Nowhere

and

I’m only driving like this to PISS YOU OFF

tonight's bookmark search found these:

Jet Propulsion Laboratory. one of my favorite "what's up" sites.

and a couple of cooking/recipie sites:

Top Secret Recipies on the Web.

and

Tabasco Pepperfest. this is a really fun site to just poke around in.



and last but not least:

Shooting Advice From the Master

sandy berger, feloniously stupid, or something else, to be determined

ok. when i was in the military, i personally know of one officer who not only lost his rank, his career, his standing in the military, he also went to Ft. Leavenworth for some r & r compliments of the federal bureau of prisons. his crime? he missed ONE piece of paper stamped CONFIDENTIAL-NOFORN in the bottom of a burn barrel. a piece of paper, by the way, which had no writing on it. just a blank log sheet. prison.

and then you have sandy berger, former head of the NSA of all things, admitting he did a boo-boo by placing pieces of classified material in his pockets and pants, and possibly in his socks (?) (that was reported on the radio news on my way to work). WTF? why isn't this man in jail? just what did he "lose"? he was provided marked copies of several reports, and when asked for them back, what he gave the FBI (missing pages as well) did not carry the markings placed on them by the archivists at the federal records archives. what is he trying to hide? what is it that is so damning to him and/or the clinton administration that he would risk prison for? inquiring minds want to know. and if he gets away with this, then there really is something wrong with our country.

some movement on the web

well, Ali and Allan have moved their blogs to typepad. so Mme. Aligator, how does it feel to be a cyber momma duck with her little ducklings following along behind? i am going to be stubborn, and stick with blogspot for the time being. i'm comfortable here, but may have to make the move if i start getting too complex with the postings.
and i like both of the new blog looks. very nice.

out looking for long lost bookmarks

so i bought this really nice computer a little while ago. timeframe based on state of the art available, i have a P-4 3.4gighz machine, so that should settle the ancient history time frame for you. i mean, what, it is up to 38terra hertz machines now, right? so anyway, when i bought the new computer, my old trusty buddy went to the boy child for his college work. which he never uses for anything other than stripping cd's so he can load them into his ipod, but i digress.
computer leaves with son, dad pulls backup cd out of sleeve, reload all my netscape stuff, like mailboxs and ... bookmarks. worked just fine while downloading my wife's saved stuff. i lost almost everything of mine. ghost in the machine? thumbprint on cd recording media at the time of upload? dumb shit operator at either up or down load time? don't know, but it definitely sux. so i have embarked on a mission. find all my old bookmarks. or a least the ones that stuck out enough for me to revisit over and over.

today's bookmark: Scrapleface. think the onion, with a political twist.

humm, wonder what i'll go searching for tomorrow?

ah, to hell with waiting for tomorrow. here's one of my favorite off beat bookstores, located in the real world in baltimore: Atomic Books. best be quitting for now, otherwise i'll get zip for sleep tonight. this is what working swing shift is good for. late night on the computer, no interferences like sales calls or well, anything. real quiet except for me and my keyboard clicks

Sharon pushes some buttons in europe

wow. Sharon knows how to jerk chains, and i mean JERK chains. while the french continue to escalate the whole anti-semitism issues, Sharon figures the best way to combat the issue is to get folks out of the line of fire. makes you wonder how bad Sharon thinks it is in france if he's telling the joooos they'd be safer living next door to the palestinians along the gaza strip. you know, it's a really (expletive deleted) world out there sometimes.

oh my

This kind of gives the old phrase "just hanging around" a whole new meaning. damn. i get sweaty when donating blood. can't even imagine. damn

new cartoon strip for the kids at heart

ok, i've linked a new cartoon strip to the left. just started in the local sacramento paper. a bit conservative, but pretty balanced. it joins day by day and get fuzzy as the must reads every day.

Prickly City

more info on the young arab marine

still following the story of the young marine that was at one time reported decapitated, but is now back at quantico in the hands of marines. i sure would like to know the story behind this whole mess, as would a lot of others, i am sure. i think what i find most facinating about this whole thing is : does marine training overcome religious training? too simple. does marine training overcome the potential conflicts that may arise from religious zealots? too complicated. anyway, i sure hope this kid has good council one way or the other. the navy and marine hierarchy have a tendancy to kill everyone associated with a problem, in the hopes of getting the right one. been there, done that, still have the stencilled t-shirts.

gazing at belly button lint, contemplating the universe

i was reading Ali's blog about hanging out and shooting the breeze with cyber buds and i realized that there are some folks that i used to hang out with that i really miss. not enough to go back to the venom pit from whence i came, but i do still miss them. there are some intelligent, caring, humorous, ... (fill in the blank with good words) that wonder around these electronic pathways. something about dipping in and out, sampling, greeting, moving on, it appeals to the gypsy in me. never stood still long enough to establish many long term friendships, and the net is a great place to meet, greet, and then move along.
i went to a really fun get together a couple of months ago, where a bunch of music freaks that stumbled upon each other via the net decided to gather, drink, shoot the breeze, and then go away. i really enjoyed that. for a while, we were the physical manifestation of a cyber community, and our evening was shared worldwide via cams, pix downloads, and posting to a bbs. never in the history of the world has this been so easily accomplished, short of throwing disparate groups together in times of war. and hell, the only fighting we were doing was over who was buying the next round. it was fun, and yet, kind of sad. sure, i met some good folks that live nearby, but the ones i connected with all lived on the other coast. oh well.

and today's bumperstickers

If You Can't Dazzle Them With Brilliance, Riddle Them With Bullets

and

If you try to fail, and you succeed....Which have you done?

well, this sounds like a good idea

so, how much did you pay in taxes last year. bet it was probably about the T. Heinz-Kerry did. humm, i wonder. naaa, the dems wouldn't pass a loophole that would benefit themselves, would they?

why socialism and its pandering to unions fails

ok, so we have it pretty damned good here in the usa. unless you talk to someone from canada, france, germany or any of the other "socialist" countries that take extraordinary care of their populace from cradle to grave.

guess what. someone has to pay for all of those benefits. seems the germans are slowly but surely coming to realize that the "old way" just isn't working. their auto worker union is getting that lesson handed to them attached to the back end of a shovel...across the head. hummmm, let's see, you get some of the greatest benefits in the world, but we are no longer able to keep the doors open because of how much we are paying into the system for those benefits. take a zillion dollar cut, or we close and move to south africa, where they want to work, and for a lot less money.

it's a hard, harsh world out there. and guess what? the folks that are paying and paying and paying and paying...are starting to say WTF? that goes for this country as well.

question is: what does a redneck divorce and a tornado have in common

the answer is, of course, someone's going to lose a trailer.

god, i wish i was clever enough to make stuff like this up, because i'd be writing some of the funniest humor in america, and getting paid for it.

a gator. pu..leeeze. guess it could have been worse, could have been a pissed off cottonmouth or sumpin.

gotta love our governator

hahahaha. oh how i am loving watching the squirming and hand wringing ahnuld has caused over thebuget impass this weekend. go ahrnuld go. we've got your back man. we won't let any girly-men creep up behind you.

damn, may have to change my argument

so it looks like i may have to change my argument regarding bringing back nuclear power. you are aware, i am sure, that greenhouse gases have been given the blame for global warming. so i, as a good nuke, have contended on many occasions that we should build nuclear power plants and scrap the fossil fuel plants that generate so many stack gases. damn german and swiss scientists, now i'll have to come up with a whole different argument. of course, i shall keep it in reserve, because the loony enviro's haven't had a chance to try debunking this report. they'll probably just stick their fingers in their ears and sing lalalala and not hear anything that doesn't meet their preconceived ideas. ho ho ho, santa doesn't need to go to miami for a suntan anymore.

a right wing jooooo boy from N.Z.

ah, the blogsphere. i am spending too damned much of my life wandering the back alleys of the internet, and i am getting exposed to a whole range of new pissed off people that put what i feel into a lot better words than i, and a bunch that probably should have finished the third grade before attempting to write a blog. anyway, here's a link for my most conservative liberal left wing dem, since there really isn't a way to initiate entries on his blog. so dwardo, enjoy. goes along with your last post. just think, you really might not be a dem after all. a lot of your anger shows through in silent running's blog.

our quiver....is full of death arrows.

"We would like to break the bad news to you — Allawi — that if the death rockets have missed you ... our quiver, thank God, is full of death arrows," said the statement, which carried al-Zarqawi's signature."

man, who dreams this stuff up for al-Zarqawi? a frustrated gamer? he best be careful those "death arrows" aren't really boomerangs. uh, sorry, but i couldn't resist

this should be an interesting story

i'll be damned interested to hear the whole scoop on this story. either that young marine is the luckiest man alive, or he is in some seriously deep kim-chee. either way, he's going to need backup just to keep his head screwed on straight. i've been through a itty bitty court of inquiry, that i was not the subject of, and it sucked. can't imagine what it must be like to be the focus point. guess we'll have to sit back and see what unfolds.

hahahaha

good grief. poor dems. their power guys must be throwing up their hands over this. kind of reminds me of the really really old joke about how to tell when a politician is lying. you know that one, right? when his lips are moving.

today's bumper stickers are:

If We Quit Voting Will They All Go Away?

and

I’ve never seen an American flag burned at a gun show.

iraq the model

holy shyte flying rodent man. wish i'd come across this site sooner, but now is as good as any. iraqthemodel blog.

i am going to have to spend some time reading these posts. talk about an on the ground perspective!

just shows ta go ya.

not all people should be allowed to own a gun.

it also proves the old adage, guns and alcohol don't mix.

some people are so stupid, it should be legal to shoot them on sight.

now this would be really cool...

how about the paki's deliver osama's head in a box during the dems. convention. that would be cool cool cool. i don't care how or when, as long as it is sooner than later. that would be a day of celebration. go pakis go.

wow, somebody has been reading my blog

i refer you to the president's remarks at Oak Ridge. damn, the guy is pretty smart. he got most of my points right on!

i've been ruminating (kind of chewing things up in my brain), and i'd like to steal a line from jenine garaphalo (spelling?) regarding the election. she stated that anyone voting for bush after watching f911 obviously had a personality flaw. i propose using the same statement, except for kerry supporters that still believe the lies and disinformation the dem. party has put out since november2000. a little simple and open minded research will show that the basic tenants the dem party are using as a foundation are all built on lies and deceptions.

ok, my soapbox, my blog.

Ali, i told you not to spend too much time at the computer

exploring the claim Bush stole the election in florida

alright, i'll concede that The National Review is not a non-partisan publication. but as in any other piece i read, i always try to see thru the ideology to the truth. if you don't have blinders on, perhaps the following articles might help you see the light. of course, some of us don't need these articles to know what's what...eh?

Civil Rights Commission member

and a followup article here.

i particulary like the statement regarding the recount by the miami herald that shows if the "looser" standards advocated for by the gore campaign, bush would have won by a bigger margin.

today's quote:

"We were used to such messages in the communist days. Everybody has open eyes and can understand that this is propaganda. It was a weak film that tells us nothing new."


-- VACLAV KLAUS, president of the Czech Republic, after watching the MICHAEL MOORE documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11."

today's bumperstickers are:

Anyone who thinks old age is golden must not have had a very exciting youth.

and

Well behaved women rarely make history

the end of the world is at hand

ok, maybe a little melodramatic, but but but ... i just saw roger frikin' daltry, front man for one of the supreme rock groups of all time, (the WHO for you younger readers) on the boob toob, shilling for a time-life music collection. i'm so sad.

insert paddle, stir, stir, await results

so here i am blipping around on the internet, reading news from here and there, and end up in germany, home of the socialist green party ruling elite, the group that the presumptive democratic presidental hopeful wants to appease. so just how progressive is this socialist green party in regards to things we american's are begining to take for granted? THE FIRST woman on a german corporate board. holy moley. we sure have a lot to learn from them!

ok, i'll turn off the sarcasm now. go back to whatever it was you were doing.

more on the nigerian uranium

first of all, let me say that i am having a blast buzzing around the internet's blogsphere. i am learning more this way than on my own just putzing around. sorry if i'm boring you with repetitive stuff like MM or now this, but it fasinates me, and you don't need to follow the links. having said that:

here is a link to another blog and an analysis of the findings regarding joe wilson...you remember him right? that is the husband of the cia employee that was outed last year. well, wilson has stated for the record that he couldn't find any evidence of iraq trying to buy yellowcake (stuff they extract uranium from) from nigeria. well surprise, surprise. i'll let you read the article for yourself.

this is hopeful news

looks like that evil drug company Merck, those wanton wasters of american pocketbooks, may be on to a new drug for use in the fight against aids.

so, the company spends a boatload (that is more than a pot load) of money developing this drug, and it pans out, should they be able to make a profit off of it? i'll tell anyone that asks, and a lot of those that don't ask, because that's just the kind of guy i am, that they should make as much money off of it as they can. how do you expect them to

1. fund the next drug's research?


2. pool funds for the inevitable lawsuits because it probably won't work in every case, or there may be some diminishingly small percentage of patients that have a weird reaction to it, causing massive lawsuits and astronomically criminal judgments against them


3. pay for the corporate officer's winter retreat to the bahamas to map out the strategy for the next drug price gouge because we all know that the only reason the company exists is to rape the american medical consumers


4. ok, maybe that one was a little over the top, but consider google search of Merck returns about 100 to 1 websites raging over the pharma's "greedy and unethical tactics"

last time i looked, there were no charities funding drug research in this country to any great effect, if at all. at least, i haven't read about them in the paper.

ok, it's like a missing tooth

i can't leave it alone. sorry. i really feel bad for myself. i'm a victim of a terrible school system that renders my ability to string coherent thoughts together in a logical and intellegent way inoperable. i have to hang my head, diminished by comparison to someone like this when expressing a viewpoint or opinion. i think i'm going to sue the schools, yeah, that's what i'm going to do. i refuse to accept responsibility for my own inability to sparkle with intellegence and wit. i think this blogger is going to become a staple. really good stuff, and presented in a way that makes me jealous. drat the oregon public school code, drat them, drat them.

stealing something i wrote

i posted this as a comment to allan's blog, and now i'm stealing it back. i've been thinking of the vagaries of life, and my off the cuff comment keeps coming back. so allan, i'm going to borrow my comment back. thanks

"when we were children, time crawled so slowly that we measured it in summer vacations. then as we grew older, we discovered months, weeks, days, minutes, and seconds. what we take for granted to be our forever can be cut off with no warning, and then time stands still"

not morbid in intent, simply an observation. live your days as though they were your last, and never ever forget to say i love you to the ones in your life every day. you may never get another chance.


my wife's aunt/cousin (it gets very confusing) had a headache, so her husband took her to the hospital. gone. after 56 years of marriage, he's alone. sorry hubert, we'll all miss josie.

i want to hear how the american press spins this one

golly, you mean the iraqi's really might have been in the market for nigerian uranium. funny, i haven't seen much in the local press about this. i see all of the anti-bushies are losing ground on the things they've been harping about since march2002. but it's easy to pooh-pooh the findings. all you need to do is stick your fingers in your ears and sing la-la-la-la, and you won't hear any of this stuff. to use an argument that was dropped on me a while ago discussing why and what regarding the war on terrorism...if you don't listen, you'll never hear the truth. and if you listen with a closed mind, you're not listening.

oh, and here's another link to some of the same stuff.

i went to read the source document at the financial times (british, donchaknow), but i'm just too damned cheap to fork over $150 just to get a copy of one article. so, here's the caveat: i haven't read the refered to article. take it for what it's worth.

*scratches head*

uh, well, OK i guess Timothy McVeigh was an islamic terrorist. i always thought he was a pissed off white guy intent on bringing destruction down upon the u.s. govt. because of whacko militia ideals. guess i was wrong, according to this one woman jaggernaut of investigative reporting. maybe she'll be able to finally focus on where jimmy hoffa is now that she has her book written.

my point exactly

sorry, but you might have to register to read the article posted at the Telegraph.co.uk about food hygiene as demonstrated on TV cooking shows. this kind of gets back to what my amiga Ali has posted in the past about being TOO ANAL when it comes to your kids and cleanliness. i like what the chefs had to say about it all.

a quote from the article:

Antony Worrall Thompson, who presented BBC2's Food and Drink show for nine years, said: "If I am at home and I drop a 6lb steak on the floor, then of course I'll pick it up and dust it off. Who wouldn't? This paranoia about hygiene is the downfall of modern society. We are too hygienic, if anything, and it is destroying our immune systems."

mom's saying

so, my mom is a pretty funny lady. goofy, outgoing, big hearted, and just plain silly sometimes. she has this philosophy of life that i've never heard her vocalize, but she demonstrates it on a daily basis. that philosophy can be stated in just a few words: It's easier to be happy than to be sad. not real earth shattering, but it's still one of the best philosophies i've ever come across. she's dealt with more crap and turmoil than i could or would relate to the world (that's her business). and through it all, she's a chipper camper. not ALWAYS, but then, we all have our moments. she is the quintissential half full glass personality. she forwards stuff she gets from her friends (hey mom, learn to get rid of those damned ">>" thingies. it's called cut and paste!) some of them are so saccarin that they make your teeth hurt. hey, i cut her some slack...after all, it's just mom being mom. and then she sends me the following. it is my mom from the first quote to the last, and is now officially part of my philosophy of life.

"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather the plan is to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming-- WOW -- what a ride!"

thanks mom

a couple of things:

it's in german, but i don't think it will take too long to figure out. made it 33 meters . just a little time waster.


and now for something really serious.


stay away from my guns, or the cat gets it.


and a short joke for my non-bush supporter friends. hey, i have a sense of humor, and if a joke is funny, it's funny.

Three Marines were driving up the highway between Basra and Baghdad when they came upon an Iraqi insurgent who was badly injured and unconscious.
On the opposite side of the road was an injured American soldier who was semiconscious. As the Marines gave both men first aid they asked what had happened. The American said "I was moving north along the highway when I ran into this guy. We pointed our guns at each other and I said,'Saddam Hussein is an asshole.' Then he yelled, 'George Bush is an asshole.' We were standing there shaking hands when a truck hit us.

today's bumperstickers are:

IF YOU'RE CLOSE ENOUGH TO READ THIS,
YOU JUST VIOLATED YOUR RESTRAINING ORDER

and

I'M HUNG LIKE EINSTEIN AND SMART AS A HORSE.

second amendment

i quote Jeff Cooper the gunners guru from the latest issue of Guns and Ammo magazine:

"Let us remind ourselves again that the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution should be referred to as the Statute of Liberty. That practice has not caught on, as we wish it had, so let us keep up the fight."

you can read archived commentaries from one of the true leaders in american firearms training at Cooper's Commentaries.

i always go the the last page of G&A to read Coop's column before i read anything else in the magazine.

things are getting ugly out there

ok, let's get this cleared up. just who's frickin' business is it what two consenting adults do with their lives? are we going to "preserve the sanctity of marraige" by denying gays the right to all of the stresses and hassles and joy and companionship marriage brings to a relationship? what sanctity? when the courts allowed the first divorce, they killed any hopes for maintaining sanctity. hell, even my hero ron reagan was divorced. who cares? want sanctity in marraige? have a civil ceremony that everyone has to have to get married, then take your ass to the local church of your choice for sanction by your diety of choice.
this is, of course, diametrically opposed to my fellow right winged bretheren, but i would like to put forward that our founding fathers did not place an exclusionary clause on "the right to the persuit of happiness" to exlude gays. and i can understand the passionate support gays feel towards acceptance in our society. i feel the same way about my life style choices. i don't want the american version of the taliban dictating to me what is or is not acceptable.

on the other hand, this kind of behavior by gays against gays is beyond deplorable. i can only say "for shame". it's not only NOT my business, it's none of there's either.

perhaps some gay lib will read this and realize that some of us 2nd amendment nuts are not dangerous to the world, and that the constitution of this land didn't come with caveats. quit trying to take my frickin' guns, and i'll quit supporting anti-gay legislation.

and now, for something completely different

i found this picture over on yahoo news, and liked it so much i thought i'd share it.

odds and ends

so here is a link to an article regarding 56 deceits in MM's 9/11 movie. all i'll say about it. i'll let you read and decide.

and here is an article about how MM may bump up against campaign finance reform issues. i'm laughing, i'm crying, i'm digging how the reforms that abridged the 1st amendment are coming around to bite the same political groups that put them in place.


and regarding the 1st amendment... you can't have one without the other. r.e. 2nd amendment. bumper sticker i saw on a surplus cop car driven by a baby faced 16 year old today on the way to work. (i paraphrased, because i'll be damned if i can remember exactly how it was worded. i know, i know, memory is uh, either the first or second thing to go. can't remember which)

how did i miss this?

1.8 metric tons of enriched uranium and other highly radioactive materials removed from iraq by u.s., IAEA pissed because we didn't ask mother may i. how the hell does natural uranium (very low level U235) become enriched (higher than natural level U235)? what were the wacki iraqi's doing with enriched uranium? the highly enriched (bomb grade) stuff was sent to russia after gulf I according to this article. well, what about this stuff? how did it get from yellow cake (which is still at the facility) end up enriched? and how far was the enrichment process going to be taken? was it going to be used as fuel for a breeder reactor to make plutonium? as materials for dirty bombs? what? and why isn't this news reported on the nightly news? kind of like the issues witht the sarin gas bombs that have been purchased by poland to keep them out of the terrorist's hands. where the hell they coming from?

sure glad old sadly insane didn't have any WMD

today's bumperstickers are:

He Who Hesitates Is Not Only Lost But Miles From The Next Exit

and

Sorry my car is a piece of shit. My parents didn’t buy it for me

a question of ethics...

a joke from my buddy bill, another one of those scumbag submariners.


An elderly Italian man who lived in the outskirts of Monte Cassino went to the local church for confession.

He said, "Father, during World War II, a beautiful woman knocked on my door and asked me to hide her from the enemy. So I hid her in my attic."

The priest replied: : "That was a wonderful thing you did, my son and you have no need to confess that."

"It's worse than that, Father. She started to repay me with intimate favors."

The priest said: "By doing that, you were both in great danger. However, two people together under those circumstances are greatly tempted to act that way. But if you are truly sorry for your actions, you are forgiven."

"Thank you Father. That's a great load off my mind. But I have one more question."

"And what is that?" said the priest.

"Should I tell her the war is over?"

these stupid tests get addicting.

now why am i taking all of these tests out there on the internet? am i trying to figure out who i am? am i striving to define myself using other people's words? or am i just bored stupid, and they help pass the time? i'll leave it up to you, gentle reader, to select.

so here's the score:


Wackiness: 14/100
Rationality: 60/100
Constructiveness: 64/100
Leadership: 64/100


You are an SRCL--Sober Rational Constructive Leader. This makes you an Ayn Rand ideal. Taggart? Roark? Galt? You are all of these. You were born to lead. You may not be particularly exciting, but you have a strange charisma--born of intellect and personal drive--that people begin to notice when they have been around you a while. You don't like to compromise, but you recognize when you have to.

You care absolutely nothing what other people think, and this somehow attracts people to you. Treat them well, use them wisely, and ascend to your rightful rank.


and the test is linked here

ha!! found it.

This article has eluded me for some time. i read it in the sf chronicle sometime last year, and i've kicked myself for not finding and bookmarking it. i've quoted it many times since reading. thanks to another blogger Baldilocks i have it in hand. it is worth the read.

uncivil behavior

here is a cut and paste from the command post blog (linked to the left):



It's clear to me that the policy of posting banned IPs and their comments in question may only be making things worse. I have turned off the comments in the prior post, and have turned off comments on all new posts across all other pages, until Michele and I can huddle and decide where to take this element of our site, including the feasibility of comment authentication through TypeKey.

Frankly, I've had it with the disrespectful and un-civil commentary ... from the left and the right. What's more, I believe it will only get less civil between now and the election (a depressing prospect indeed).

My father always has said: "If it feels good, do it. If it don't, stop." Our comments no longer feel good, and I no longer have fun reading them … primarily because I now read them to police them, not to learn something interesting, or to hear a compelling perspective from someone with a different point of view.

Didn't used to be this way, but now it is.

:

i guess i am not the only one experiencing this incivility, and past web paradises have become war zones full of uncivil people posting uncivil things. sad

oh the PC police are everywhere

i'm just laughing my keister off. this is too funny. must have been american expats in britain, 'cuz the locals would know better. hell, i was only in england a couple of times, and i know what that means.

why i'm a crazy right wing gun toting crazy

so i took this little test (linked elsewhere on these pages) to determine what kind of political animal i am, and i scored somewhere near wuss, and wimp. suprised the hell out of me. so my left wing commie pinko friend Edvardicus started giving me grief about how he doesn't understand why i'm ranting one thing, but based on test results, i should be a bleeding heart lib that thinks mike moores shit doesn't stink. so in one paragraph or less, i'll explain myself. ready?

it's an ugly place out there, and there are bad people that want to do bad things to us. the democratic party has time and time again shown that there is absolutely no way i can feel safe, or my family can feel safe, if they were in power. they are a party of appeasers, and history has show that really means victims without the sack or grit to stand up and say enough. there is not one member of the dem party's presidential ticket/staff that would be willing to make the kind of decisions needed to stop terrorism in it's tracks. not one. they are all a bunch of lightweights, lead by a self confessed war criminal. while domestic issues are highly important, and what my government does to me is damned important to me, the final line is that our ability and willingness to stand in the face of adversity and take the war to THEIR soil, and keep it off of OURS, outweighs and overshadows all else. it is not an accident that there have been no major terrorist activities on american soil since that clarion wakeup call where over 3000 Americans lost their lives. any one that thinks these islamic warriors will go away if we ask them to is fucking stupid, or crazy, or both. and right now, they concern me more than just about anything, because they have impacted our lives directly more than anything our govt has done, or is doing to us now.

it's already starting

so i'm just going to cut and paste from the original, and i'll provide a link following:

THE DEMOCRATS DAN QUAYLE [Jonah Goldberg]

One need not go trolling through Nexis for quotes from prominent Democrats (and pundits) insisting that Dan Quayle lacked the qualifications to be vice president. He was elected to two terms in the House and two terms in the Senate (the youngest man ever elected to the Senate from Indiana). Quayle's foreign policy credentials simply blow away Edwards' by comparison. Whether foreign policy experience was more important in the declining days of the Cold War were more or less important than in the early days of the war on terror is an interesting debate.

Neverthless, I think one quote is worth dredging up. In 1988 John Kerry got into a lot of trouble -- and eventually apologized -- for telling the following joke when asked about Quayle's qualifications:

"The Secret Service is under orders that if Bush is shot, to shoot Quayle."


and this one too: (i'm giggling, and that's not a pretty sight)
From the AP:



Marijuana Advocates Forget to File for Ballot

LAS VEGAS (AP) - An initiative to legalize pot in Nevada might go up in smoke after organizers forgot to file 6,000 petition signatures by a June 15 deadline.

Clark County (search) Registrar Larry Lomax said Billy Rogers, president of the political consulting firm seeking to qualify the petition, is pleading for him to accept the 6,000 names.

"Unfortunately, the state law says they have to turn it all in by June 15," Lomax said

these were from the National Review .

those wacky spaniards

one of the links i have posted is to Iberian Notes . i suggest cruising over there to see the 6 july post about prison abuses in spain. quite an enlightned country... sorry, can't help the sarcasm. natural reflex.

immigration

going to go out on a limb here and expose the dusty cobwebbed corners of my mind. actually, that would comprise almost the entire volume, but i digress.

i was listening to a PBS radio show this weekend, and they were discussing the mexican immigration issue. they reported that the second largest industry in mexico is mexicans living in the us and sending money home. it's so big, that their government has adopted a program to match certain funds sent back to villages by workers in the u.s.

now, i don't have an issue with workers in this country doing work. but what i do have an issue with is workers in this country that refuse to adapt even a little to their surroundings. one of the women on the program commented that they call california "the other mexico" when they speak of it. sorry, but it isn't. and if you are going to live here, use the facilities, enroll in the programs (the damned few that exist) and decide this is the place to be, join the club. do not expect me to appreciate the fact that in your village so and so is the case, or this and that are the customs that I should be adhering to. nope, not happening. this is california, not jalisco. deal with it.

what has helped make the u.s. such an amazing place is the massive infusion of ideas and cultures that were mixed into the blend. but it doesn't work if you don't join in, and for most (i admit not all) of these workers and their families, they haven't left mexico, they just moved to another part of mexico. they are not assimilating into the culture, they are not joining in on the grand experiment. instead, they isolate themselves, or demand (yes there are groups here in california that are up in arms because we aren't giving illegals drivers licenses, as one example)that we provide all the services and benefits of citizenship, to people that have no desire to become part of the mix. remaining seperate, holding the cultural tide at bay, as it were, does not add to our society. they are like the lumps in the gravy, doughy, floury, that detract rather than add to the flavor of the mix. (hummm, using food analogies...kid must be hungry)

ok, i am rambling. but you get the drift, i hope.

it's an upsidedown world

so, i'm reading Ananova and come across this article about mourners at an iraqi wake for bombing victims getting blown up. at least 13 dead. now, if i were an iraqi, i'd be looking for the crazies that do this sort of thing, and either take them out myself, or make sure the authorities know what i know.

on that note, this gives me hope that the iraqi's are finally deciding to do something about all of this nonsense. the times has an article about a local iraqi group that is going to kill al-zarqawi, the jordanian that is causing so much trouble in iraq lately. he's the head of the group that decapitated berg, and others.

oh, and if you are a news junkie like me, world front pages is a really cool website. may have to put that on my links section. i look there almost every day, and i must admit to the world that it would be really cool to read that "NOTHING BAD HAPPENED TODAY" on at least one of them.


and last but not least, it's pretty obvious to some of us (ones with our blinders removed) that the ny times is firmly in the kerry camp. look at the front page of today's times, or go to the home page on line. all kerry, all the time. their reporting generally leans in that camp as well. WAKE UP! i saw you nodding off reading this.

more later, but right now i have to get back to work.

howdy doc!

everyone, please say hi to allan. allan, please stand up so the whole class can see you. now kids, allan joins us from a far different sandbox, where people talk funny and eat strange things. so if you see him eating a food you've never heard of, it's just because where he comes from they eat corn kernal skins, and like it. i know, i know, but hey, there are people that eat snails and think it's good. ok allan, you can sit down now. now class, please turn to page....

i'm starting to like this guy

i've discovered eric johnson over on the commentarypage.com (linked to the left). his article today about issues in iraq, and how they are being reported on is pretty good. and it's good to see that this whole sudan issue is starting to get a little traction in the world press. i read about this months ago, but it was a blurb in a paper sidebar, without a lot of explanation. i've got to hope that the un, which sat on it's collective hands (as did our govt.) during the whole rwandan genocide, will get off their ass and do what it is they are supposed to be doing in the first place. how many people's deaths does it take to get the world moving? obviously, in iraq, an infinite number. fortunately for the iraqis, gw stepped up to the plate, and didn't sit for an intermidable time arguing. here are the facts as we know them, this is what we are going to do about it. spend the next 9 months or more trying to get the rest of the world lined up. say f*** it, and take out the garbage on our own. well, you know what i mean, there were a bunch of countries that helped out either financially, militarily, or simply by stating their support. but not the collective known as the un. it's ok to issue tract after tract and resolution after resolution, but not one of them stops a bullet or feeds a starving child, or prevents a rape until they are acted on. how long before the un acts in the sudan? they are still waffling in iraq, so i don't hold a lot of hope for the poor people trapped in the middle of this latest genocidal jihad.

following other's links to gold

i love this whole idea of blogging/blogger linkages/ blogger sharing. i've been zipping around wooden al's superhighway via the blogger onramp, and i'm finding stuff like i couldn't believe. i can see why a lot of bloggers have something like 50 or more links to places they visit. i'm going to try to keep that number down, since the places i link to have a ton of links already. so i'll provide starting points, and let you, gentle reader, wander on your own. however, having said that, The Command Post global war on terror section has some amazing info, as well as links. i have to thank my frenchified expat Ali for throwing me head first into this river of information. it's simply amazing who and what is out there. just need to find it.

Huzza King Abdullah

wow. things are changing in the middle east, and they don't bode well for the hang wringing folks over in the kerry campaign headquarters. Look who is offering troops to help out the iraqi interim govt.

wow. now (a couple of hours later, this is an edit.. as if you couldn't figure that out on your own.) i read in the NY Times that it isn't just jordan, but yemen offering to send troops as well. well, well, well. send them on folks. the more meddle eastern countries that send troops to support the new govt., the more people in that region get exposed to the grand experiment in democracy going on in iraq. and as a benefit, more troops coming in, more american troops leaving. or if not leaving, more troops to dilute the individual danger to each.

yemen has been a thorn in the west's side for years, so it's good to see that there is some reapproachment at play here. considering the fact that they have a shoreline that ships travel along, it's a good thing to get these guys lining up on our side, even if it's only because they are helping in iraq.

stolen thread

ok, i used to do this a ton on another garden spot of the universe. at least until the humor went from, well, humor, to venom.
i'm back on the submariner's board, and they started a thread making captions. caption this. feel free to add your own below. so far, my favorite one is: Yo! Mikey Moore. You da man!

bill cosby is one brave dude

my hero bill cosby is one brave character. he is railing against the whole "victim" mentality prevalent in large swaths of our society today. he is becoming a relentless campaigner for "getting with the program" for america's black youths. his total lack of fear is refreshing. he has slowly become america's dad, through years of "the cosby show" and various venues including books and concerts. it's good when dad finally talks tough. the only problem: who is hearing him? his intended audience or guys like me?

one of the funniest movies ever made

so, i have a deep, dark secret. i am a monty python fan of the first order. i can recite whole passages from "in search of the holy grail". the holy hand grenade of antioch scene is one of the funniest ever put to celluloid as far as i am concerned. but of all the python stuff ever done, "the life of brian" has to be my favorite. it was a perfectly biting look at a plethora of issues surrounding religion and culture. i was pleasantly surprised to see this in the national review, a magazine not normally associated with a sense of humor. i confess here publicly two things: a, i am a card carrying athiest, and am proud of it, and b, i read the national review online daily for it's politics. it's good to get a little balance to the constant tripe i'm exposed to on a daily basis from the rest of the news world.

now this is just silly

where else but in america can you have politics and food (read consumer products) mix? this is just silly. it's like something i'd expect from the moveon.org folks, but in a sad way, it is kind of funny.

and here is the latest pet rock. let me know if you buy one, so i can publicly deride you and taunt you and things.

NRO has some funny stuff on it.

welcome mac

i'd like to introduce you to the one and only Macbeau. he is a certified crazy, in that he spent 12 years in the army jumping out of really nice airplanes for a living. and as a participant in one of the great oxymorons of all time (military intellegence) he brings a different, and in my opinion, informed analysis to the world of blogging. so say howdy to mac.
now that i think on it, maybe he isn't so damned smart after all. let's see.

1. he jumped out of airplanes, day and/or night


2. he was a green beenie, instead of something a little safer, like a submariner


3. he participates in civil war reinactments (based on his blog profile photo), but chose to be on the losing side

i guess i could go on for a while, critiquing his blog entries, but since they make sense, maybe i'll cut him some slack

Welcome aboard Mac

today's bumperstickers are:

The Face Is Familiar But I Can't Quite Remember My Name

and

Excuse me, but I have minds to twist, and values to warp