Drumwaster's rants

2003-06-17T18:22:00.000-07:00

Good evening, and this is it, folks. I would request that you all join me at the news digs, since this is the last post I make at Blog* Spot. Please adjust your bookmarks and permalinks immediately to the new address and domain at http://www.drumwaster.com

Comments will be activated (since I can now selectively ban the worst of the trolls), and most welcome as appropriate. Good-bye, Clog*Spot, and
GOOD RIDDANCE!

2003-06-17T09:20:00.000-07:00

Good morning, all. Perhaps-not-so-Loyal-Reader Garth Blacker refers to my last Saturday's post when he points out (in this Seattle Times Article) that the tiny peninsular emirate of Qatar has decided to go with Airbus, rather than Boeing, and how the American economy is "dependent on foreign investment". Far be it from me to claim any kind of specialized training in International Economics, but I feel it important that I clear up a misunderstanding. A huge trade deficit with France existed long before this crisis - on the close order of $10.54 billion for 2001 (the latest complete year for which figures were available) - and while airplanes (and airplane parts) are one of the largest trade surplus items in the economy, even combined, it still only makes up only 7% of the total "Manufactured Goods" category of exports, and the (approximately) $20 billion surplus it brings in is a proverbial drop in the bucket to the $411 billion trade deficit the nation is operating under.

That works out to better than $1,128,400,000 per day. Every day - rain, shine, or Federal Holiday. So the trade surplus brought into the United States by the aviation industry is used up (and then some) in less than 2 1/2 weeks by all of the other trade deficit items. Such as fuel to push all those aircraft through the skies.

I also need to point out that much of the damage being done to the French economy is not through the aviation industry but in the high-end luxury items (such as wines and cheeses), and tourism. Another item worth pointing out is that the Paris Air Show is not the only marketplace for Boeing, and, further, that Boeing was having troubles before the no-show in Paris.

However, the troubles in France have very little to do with Boeing's troubles, and more to do with the fact that their economy has been shrinking for quite some time, as this report suggests, and this BBC story from last November also speculates. They have their own troubles with labor unions who make it almost impossible for their industries to lay off workers in slack times, and general strikes for increased benefits.

Here in the US, more companies are starting to see how unions can cause more problems than they solve, but in Europe (especially France), they have almost become a fourth branch of government, demanding mandatory retirement benefits after 37.5 years of work, full medical care by the government, and many other benefits that would seem extraordinarily excessive by American workers, including the ones up at Boeing. More information can be found on Steven Den Beste's site: here, here, here, and here. I agree with him, I just can't write as well as Mr. Den Beste does...

In other news, I note with extreme sorrow the passing of yet another screen legend, Hume Cronyn, of prostate cancer. He was 91. While his film career started almost 60 years ago, he is perhaps best known to modern movies audiences as the crazy great-uncle to Richard Pryor in the remake of Brewster's Millions, as the diner owner in *batteries not included, and as one of the senior citizens who were rejuvenated by the aliens in Ron Howard's Cocoon and Cocoon: The Return. (Those last three were alongside his then-wife, Jessica Tandy, before she died.)

He will be missed. May his family be comforted in their time of grief.

I've got to run, because I have an appointment in about 45 minutes. Have a great day!

2003-06-16T08:34:00.000-07:00

In yet another display of namby-pamby UNcompetence (the new buzzword to describe the UN's standard level of inability to actually accomplish anything it is supposed to - spread it around), Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has "appealed" to Iran to "cooperate with additional inspections to prove the peaceful nature" of its nuclear weapons program.

I could answer that in one sentence. The Ayatollah has said (repeatedly) that "... the day Iran gets the [nuclear] bomb is the day that Israel ceases to exist..." A quote from this article: Addressing an Islamic conference in Teheran in 1992, the Iranian vice-president, Sayed Ayatollah Mohajerani said, "Since Israel continues to possess nuclear weapons, we, the Muslims, must cooperate to produce an atomic bomb, regardless of U.N. efforts to prevent proliferation."

The inherent contradiction between the Iranian claim that "... its nuclear program is aimed at producing electricity for energy needs as oil supplies wear down." and the fact that Iran owns approximately 9 percent of the world's proven oil reserves, second only to Saudi Arabia, has yet to be questioned by the UNcompetent IAEA. But this might be because this is the same IAEA that had official seals and monitoring equipment in place in North Korea. The DPRK had undergone inspections and monitoring under the very same team, and now they have nuclear weapons. This is the same team that wants to take "soil samples" outside the power plants, without bothering to monitor what is going on inside the plants.

This is the same guy who was "taken aback by the advanced stage of a project using hundreds of centrifuges to enrich uranium." But hey, Iran isn't quite ready to use it in a nuclear weapon, so it was no big deal. {/sarcasm}

Nothing to worry about, people, there's nothing to see here, and they might even bother filing a report once their meeting is over with. But the good news (yes, there is some good news) is that Iran's younger crowd, who grew up under the thumb of the Ayatollah's theocracy is going to get a chance to see what real freedom is like, once we get Iraq back up and running under a really free system of government. Even the WaPo is reporting that the younger crowds are starting to make their voices heard, especially after the US has shown that it can kick ass, and take names, in two nations, both of which border Iran (perhaps not coincidentally).

We shall see. We may get regime change in Iran without ever having to fire a shot. And North Korea's Kim may collapse from internal rot. I think the world will be a VERY different place by my next birthday.

Have a great day!

2003-06-15T10:53:00.000-07:00

Good morning! It's a very warm Father's Day here in SoCal, and I have just seen an extraordinary example of the rift between the US and France. It was a TV commercial for a local restaurant chain. I'm not sure how far the chain extends, but certainly throughout the Southwestern US. It's called Carl's, Jr., and it used to specialize in hot dogs and burgers. It recently (within the last few years) began expanding to chicken sandwiches. It's latest creation is the 1/4-pound chicken breast sandwich, and the commercial voice-over goes something like this: "At the battle of Waterloo, the French surrendered. In the Franco-Prussian War, the French surrendered. In World War Two, the French surrendered. Don't be a big chicken, eat one. Introducing the new quarter-pound Chicken Breast sandwich at Carl's, Jr."

The fact that a local fast-food restaurant has created a new sandwich isn't the amazing part. (That happens about once a month.) The fact that they have picked up on the zeitgeist regarding the French to such a point that making fun of the French is used as a selling point is. But I suppose their government officials are going to complain about it as an indication of American governmental policy. I suppose since they are used to governmental control of industry to the point where a government agency has final authority over commercial content, they would assume that it works that way in the US, too.

But a free-market economy, where individuals can make their own choices about what they want to buy and why, is one of the most powerful forces in the world. Combine it with Free Speech and the general contempt that the average American has for the way France has tried to interfere with the War on Terrorism and to aid, abet, and assist Saddam's Reign of Terror in Iraq, and you have commercials like the one described above. And there's not a damned thing the US government can do to stop it, even if they wanted to do so.

In other news, the descendents of the most famous family feud in American history, the Hatfields and the McCoys, have signed a truce. As the story mentions, "Reo Hatfield of Waynesboro, Va., came up with the idea as a proclamation of peace. The broader message it sends to the world, he said, is that when national security is at risk, Americans put their differences aside and stand united. If these two feuding families can come together, anyone can, he said." Good point.

Have a wonderful Father's Day. I've got to go pack now...

2003-06-14T18:52:00.000-07:00

One of the busier days of my life has just concluded, and I'm sorry I missed posting this morning. I had to go out to a customer's house and enter in a bid for a very large job. All told, it would be about $5,000, but he decided to "sleep on it", and told me that he would get back to me on Monday or Tuesday. I can hope, but it would take several stages, and several visits. With the move coming up, we're trying to plan for a garage/moving sale next Saturday, with anything not sold to be given to a local charity. I've been thinking of giving it to the local Hospice chapter, but my wife thinks well of the local Goodwill. Six of one, half a dozen of the other...

Anyhow, I'm just a bit miffed, because the French Defense Minister has decided to chastise Don Rumsfeld over the decisions of the American people. Y'see, the French government is trying to smooth over the rifts between the US and France over the clashes regarding Iraq. It came to a boil when the French Air Show (normally one of Europe's finest) fell flat on its Gallic face because no American companies participated. Normally, crowds thrill to the sights and sounds of American-made jets performing precision aerobatics, but (as the aricle points out) "European and American planemakers traditionally battle for airline orders at the Le Bourget air show outside Paris, but top executives from firms like Boeing and Lockheed Martin have all decided not to attend this year."

When added to the sudden loss of American dollars (adding up to several billion over the year, according to some projections), the loss in airplane orders, and the strikes by French labor unions over increasing unemployment, the French economy would be lucky to last for very much longer.

I guess Chiraq is learning what happens when the American public decides to stand up and say, "arrêter! (Stop!)" I'm too busy giggling.

In other news, my mother-in-law will be turning 81 a week from Monday. I'm trying to rack my brain to come up with something nice to give her for a birthday present. I did the "When you were born" thing for her 75th (not to mention a weekend trip up to San Francisco, driving across the Golden Gate, and down Lombard Street. We also visited Pier 39, and had a wonderful weekend.

It's probably going to be something small and personal, but I'm soliciting suggestions.

Anyhow, today is was Flag Day, and tomorrow is Father's Day. Since my father died 10 years ago next month, I would ask that you give your own fathers a hug in my place (if it is at all possible for you to do so). Have a great weekend, and I'll be back tommorow morning, before I get back to packing stuff up.

2003-06-13T09:36:00.000-07:00

Howdy, y'all. I'm a little under the weather this morning, so forgive the briefness of this entry. I've been busting my ass trying to get stuff taken care of with the upcoming move, and the new domain started (even though I haven't actually heard back from the hosting company yet). I also have to renew my auto insurance, update the auto registration for the year, get the brakes worked on, find some boxes for my books, get a prescription filled (my pain pills), etc., etc.

So, I hope you will be patient for a while longer, since this will probably be the last Friday I post using Clog*Spot. It's almost appropriate that it's Friday the 13th, huh? (For those of you who were wondering, there is a long pseudo-Greek term for "fear of Friday the 13th" - "Paraskavedekatriaphobia". Now your lives are complete...) Have a lucky day!

2003-06-12T10:34:00.000-07:00

Good morning, one and all. This is the third time I have tried to get in this morning's entry, and I hope that "the third time's the charm", as the old saying goes. Of course there is always the contradictory saying that "bad things always happen in threes". Have you ever noticed how all the major proverbs have another major proverb that contradicts it?

"He who hesitates is lost" vs. "Look before you leap"
"Many hands make light work" vs. "Too many cooks spoil the broth"
etc., etc.

Anyhow, I wanted to briefly mention the recall efforts surrounding "Shades of" Gray Davis. It turns out that his main opponent will most likely be Arnold Schwarzenegger. He is socially a liberal, but fiscally a conservative, which is what the state of California needs right now. Plus his wife, Maria Shriver, who is the niece of President John F. Kennedy and the daughter of Sargent Shriver (the founder of the Peace Corps and a former Ambassador to France), might provide enough of a shield against Democratic attacks (which have already started, by the way) to get him elected.

We shall see. In other election news, your humble host has been informed that I will be serving as a Precinct Inspector in the upcoming election on November 4th. For those unfamiliar with the terminology, that means that I will be running the polling place, and I will have 3-4 "Judges" working for me. More money, but more responsibility, too.

In sad news this morning, I am sorry to report that esteemed veteran news anchor David Brinkley has passed away. He was 82. He set the standards for TV news anchors, and he will be missed. May his family be comforted in their time of mourning.

(UPDATE: I also note with extreme sorrow the passing of screen legend Gregory Peck. He passed away in his sleep earlier today. He was 87. His legend will live on. May the family of Mr. Peck also receive comfort during this time.)

And finally, I have just about had it with all the claims from the rabidly ranting rats on the Loony Left whinging about the lack of WMD in Iraq. After all, Saddam hasn't been found either, and so, by their logic, he must not have existed either, eh? A few of the most seethingly anti-Bush screechers have even called for Articles of Impeachment to be filed against Bush for "lying" to Congress (even though they can provide no evidence to back up their claims) and for leading us into an "illegal" war. I agree. Let's prosecute all of the people who claimed that Iraq had WMD. Every single one of them, but since Bush wasn't the only one, let's start at the bottom and work our way up, shall we? The full list can be found here.

I've got an important meeting in about half an hour, so I'm going to run now. Hope you have a good day. Oh, and for those of you who wished the missus pleasant birthday wishes yesterday, she sends her thanks. (You know who you are.) We rented the new Harry Potter movie last night, and she enjoyed it so much she wants to watch it again tonight. See you later!

2003-06-11T08:34:00.000-07:00

Good Morning, everybody! Today is my wife's birthday, so if you want to try to talk your boss into giving you the day off in celebration, feel free. (It's not likely you'll succeed, of course, but it doesn't hurt to ask, right?) I'm still trying to get her to decide what she wants for dinner. So far, all she has said is that she wants "breakfast for dinner". (We do that occasionally - eggs, sausage, biscuits, home-made gravy, orange juice, the works.) (Don't look at me in that tone of voice...)

It's an easy clean-up, and only about 15-20 minutes of cooking, plus a few extra minutes for the gravy, but I'm going to have to do a little shopping, because we're out of milk and juice. No matter, she's worth it.

In other news, I see that Hans Blix has decided to lash out at the Pentagon and the White House for allegedly running "a smear campaign". I guess that would be like Clinton complaining about a smear campaign for mentioning Monica Lewinsky. Blix had all the resources of the Untied Nations (again, that was NOT a typo...) but repeatedly said that he was more worried about global warming than Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). I guess if I were the UN's Chief Inspector for enforcing the ban against WMD in a country with more than a decade of sanctions, while that country has been caught (and has admitted to having been) in possession of those very same weapons, and other weapons programs that were also in violation of more than a dozen Security Council Resolutions, I would want to admit to the world press that I didn't care about doing my job, too. After all, Global Warming is going to be stopped by the entire world going back to the peace-loving days of the (Pre-Industrial Revolution) Agrarian Society, when we all traded with barter ("I'll give you two bushels of corn and a goat for your dairy cow."). Never mind that even the proponents of the Kyoto Treaty (who vilify President Bush for refusing to sign, despite the fact that the Senate has stated in a 98-0 vote that they would refuse to ratify it) admit that the best they could hope for is only a slight delay in the effects of global warming, which is affected more by the sun than by anything man has done or could do.

Anyhow, "Ignorance Is" Blix has complained that low-level Administration officials were trying to ruin his reputation, as well as that of the UN. I guess that is why he finished up with saying, "It's true that the Iraqis misbehaved and had no credibility, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they were in the wrong." Of course not, Hans. They were simply doing everything they could to violate international law, lie about it, bribe your own officials, and everything else they could do (including the occasional murder) to cover up their activities, but there's nothing wrong with that, right, Blix-ie? Your fifteen minutes are up, Hans. You can go now.

In a follow-up from earlier this week, Tim Russert of MSNBC said on this morning's "Today Show" that Shrillary has ruled out a 2004 bid, but has already set the wheels in motion for an '08 run at the White House. Either her statement from Sunday night's interview hasn't percolated through Tim's hairpiece yet, or she was (gasp!) lying to us. Again. Because she had claimed Sunday evening that she wasn't planning on running in '08.

A third possibility has occurred to me. She may have changed her mind in the last 48 hours and only told Tim Russert (or, more accurately, one of her people told one of the people who work for MSNBC who do the grunt work). It wouldn't be the first time she has changed her ~~story~~ mind. It's also kind of late in the game to run in the '04 election, especially with the 9 candidates already muddying up the waters, and an extraordinarily popular President who has won not one, but two wars, and is bringing the economy back out of the doldrums. She is very aware that History is heavily tilted against people who have made an unsuccessful bid for the Presidency ever coming back and winning a later election. There has only been one in recent history (who lost an election only to come back and win), and I'm sure that she really doesn't want to have the inevitable parallels drawn between herself and this person. (Maybe you remember him? Richard Milhouse Nixon - he was Eisenhower's VP from 1952-1960, lost to Kennedy in 1960, and came back to win the 1968 election against Hubert Humphrey.)

Anyhow, that's neither here nor there, since Hillary feels she is above the rules, she's going to do what she feels would advance her own power base, and her constituents be damned. Just ask the citizens of Arkansas.

I hope you have a great day. I need to run to the store and pick up some stuff for tonight.

2003-06-10T07:25:00.000-07:00

Good morning, and how are you today? (Don't bother answering, it was a rhetorical question, since I know I won't hear any reply.) It's a TUesday, so that means it's time for this week's episode of "This-or-That Tuesday". It's about "TV shows and Movies", so let's get started, shall we?

1. "The Munsters" or "The Addams Family"? If I had to pick, I'd say 'The Addams Family'. I loved Cousin Itt.
2. "The Sopranos" or the "Godfather" movies? You'd never see the Godfather going to therapy for panic attacks...
3. "The Jetsons" or "Lost in Space"? The Jetsons. I want a car that can fold up into a briefcase, too. And what's the point of having a robot that can recognize danger, but then can't do anything about it? (Except spin in circles, flailing its arms...)
4. "Superman" or "Batman" (either the TV shows or the movies)? Batman manages to fight crime as effectively as Superman, but doesn't have any superpowers to help him. That's pretty impressive.
5. "Sex & The City" or "Friends"? Friends. The ladies from S&TC are obsessed about nothing but sex & nudity, and hearing Sarah Jessica Parker scream just sets my teeth on edge.
6. "The Wizard of Oz" or the "Harry Potter" movies? I'd be too tempted to punch the Cowardly Lion, but I wouldn't mind having a flying broom.
7. "The Simpsons" or "King of the Hill"? The Simpsons, although I'm beginning to wonder how long the crest can last.
8. "Grease" or "Saturday Night Fever"? Grease. My wife just LOVES the way John Travolta can dance, by the way.
9. Old prime-time soaps: "Dallas" or "Dynasty"? Neither. I don't watch soap operas. I never understood how some characters could leave for a Halloween party, run into some trouble along the way, and because of the way the storyline played out, they arrive just in time to open their Christmas presents. There's just the feeblest stab at continuity.
10. Not very thought-provoking this week...do you prefer TV shows or movies? TV shows, because there is more of a variety, and more chance to develop the characters.

That's it for the game, and I just wanted to mention the booking of Martha Stewart. She tried to sneak into New York's FBI office for her fingerprinting and mugshots, but se got taped and photographed coming back out. We'll see how much time she will end up serving. Like Richard Nixon could have told her, "It's not the crime, it's the cover-up.".

Have a great day!

2003-06-09T09:22:00.000-07:00

I'm fighting with my computer again this morning, and (so far) I'm managing to keep up a holding action. I need to pick up a CD-ROM cleaner set, because a few of the CDs I've burned (for strictly archival purposes) are not being read properly for some reason. Only part of the data I put onto the discs is now legible, and since I know that they haven't gotten scratched, the only other option is that the drive needs cleaning. Living out on the fringes of the Southern California desert as we do means that dust settles everywhere. Including inside the computer. I have to clean it out on a regular basis, but I haven't gotten inside the CD drive yet. I am also going to need to pick up a new keyboard and mouse, since they have put up with a lot of respective clicks. Fortunately, I can find good replacements for low prices. About $30 ought to handle both easily, and if I shop around a bit, I can find even better deals (I remember one time when I bought a new mouse for $10, and got a $10 rebate coupon, so, in effect, the mouse was free, except for the 78 cents in sales tax.)

I'm almost through with the second Harry Potter book, and it's plain that the books were written with "young adults" in mind. It's still an interesting read to see how they differ from the screen adaptation, and it's always interesting to see which parts the director/producer/screenwriters decide to cut. Kind of like reverse-engineering a movie. I know a smidge about the Special Effects (SFX) in a movie, and the first time through a movie I usually get taken by surprise by the effects, but the second and third times through, I usually watch it to see how the effects were done, whether it was through computer graphics, or stunt doubles, or some other means. I'm ocasionally wrong, but I don't watch to destroy the illusion, I watch to learn a bit about the thought processes that went into creating the illusion in the first place.

One of the most intriguing movies I have seen in a long time (from a technical standpoint) was one released a few years back called Timecode, which shows the movie in quadrants. The screen is split up into four sections, with each segment focusing on one particular storyline, but the cool part is the improvisation between the characters and the fact that all four parts are shown in one long unbroken take, from start to finish. They occasionally interact, and the spoken dialogue is emphasized from one quadrant, then the next, as the story progresses, even though you can still (barely) hear the conversations from other quadrants. They shot the film in 15 long unbroken takes, over a period of about two weeks, and then spliced it together. If you want to watch a cool film, rent it sometime.

I also hear that Shrillary has decided that she really isn't going to run in '08. I think its because people are realizing just how much of a liar she really is. Bill O'Reilly pointed out one of the most obvious when she claimed that BJ woke her up one morning and told her that there were "some irregularities" in his "relationship" with Monica Lewinsky. Shrillary states that this "revelation" took her totally by surprise, but O'Reilly pointed out that the Lewinsky story had made the front page of the NYTimes the day before, and it seems so unlikely that she would be surprised by this (after her infamous "Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy" allegations) the morning after, that she was either 1) admitting to deliberately sticking her head in the sand over a political fiasco inside her own family, or 2) surrounded by a staff so incompetant that her own management skills are called into question, or 3) ignoring one of the nation's largest news organization's headline stories (one that had been bubbling for several months).

I suspect that it is an attempt to clear the decks for Chelsea. BJ is utterly tainted by the scandals and failures of his Administration and Shrillary has been splashed so thoroughly, she'll never get clean again. Just like Teddy Kennedy can hold onto a Senate seat despite his own personal scandals, Shrillary can desparately cling to her seat, hoping for enough people to forget about Billy Jeff to allow her a shot in 2012 or 2016. However, just like Chappaquiddick has killed any chance that Teddy has at the White House, Whitewater (and the questions around Vince Foster's death and Travelgate and the Hasidic Jewish vote-buying scandal in New York and the Marc Rich pardon (that "just happened" to coincide with a multi-million dollar "donation" to the Clinton Presidential Library and Hillary's election campaign by Marc's wife Denise) and that it has been alleged that she wrote not a single word of her own book, et al.) will forever kill any chance that she has at occupying the Oval Office on her own dime, so to speak.

An amusing story that recently developed was that there are some Democrats who are so hepped on Bill's reputation that they are looking for ways to amend the 22nd Amendment, so that while Presidents are limited to two consecutive terms, they can wait a term and then run again. After looking at the field of nine the Dems have gathered to represent them, I'm not surprised that they would look to BJ as the best they have to offer. However, since he has already done as much as he can legally do, they need to amend the Constitution to allow him to even run for dogcatcher. It'll never happen. That's why I think that Shrillary is stepping aside, to allow Chelsea (who has maintained a VERY low profile for the past decade) to start by running for some safe Congressional district, and then the Senate when she hits the right age (30, according to Article I, Section 3, Paragraph 3). That should happen in 2010 (February 27th, if it matters).

We shall see.

Anyhow, I hope you're having a good day. The weather here is fairly cloudy, although I expect it to burn off later on.

2003-06-08T12:34:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to get into Blogger this morning, and I've not been able to until now, so that's it. Thanks to the kick in the pants from John Q. Public (who sent in the MovableType entry for the Carnival last Wednesday) and the utter generosity of Dean Esmay, I will be switching to Verve hosting within the next week to ten days. The delay is not due to their hesitancy, or even my own, but of circumstances beyond all our control. It is going to take a few days for snail mail to catch up, at which point I will make one last post, and send out e-mails to any and everyone who wishes to be notified. If you wish to be notified of the move, just drop me an e-mail (as soon as possible, because the clock is ticking now), and I'll be sure to let you know the instant the move has been completed.

I'm also going to be looking for ways to switch the archives over, but at this point, if it can't be done due to ClogSpot's ~~incompetance~~ programming quirks, then I won't worry about it. I will just do a cut-n-paste a little at a time. Be patient, neighbors, the process has begun, and it just depends on how quickly mail can cross this great land of ours. Well, most of it, anyway.

I know I'm probably going to receive large amounts of ridicule for admitting this, but I went out yesterday and bought the first three Harry Potter books. IMHO, the first movie (HP & the Sorceror's Stone) was better than the book (which I just finished this morning). I was just curious about the hubbub, and wanted to see if the books lived up to the hype. The jury's still out...

I had gone out several weeks ago to buy the boxed set of the four books of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy (yes, I said 'the four books of the trilogy' - go look it up) and those movies are surprisingly accurate adaptations, with only minor changes so far. I drove my wife crazy since I managed to get through all four books in a very studious weekend. (Yes, I read very quickly. That ability comes after LOTS of practice.)

Anyhow, I'm just starting the second Harry Potter book (HP & the Chamber of Secrets), and expect to have it finished by this evening. I'm not going to publish any spoilers of any of the books or any of the upcoming movies, so you can look elsewhere for those if you happen to pop up from a Google search for the young hero of the series.

The weather has turned fairly humid for the region and time of year, and I'm tempted to go down to the local park and watch the seniors (senior citizens, since there are a LOT of them in this area) play some softball. maybe there will be enough of a breeze to make it worth the trip. I need to go pick up some blank CD (for data storage) and cases, and some other stuff. It's a good day to hit up the local 31 Flavors for a triple dip bowl of ice cream.

My wife's birthday (as well as one of the step-daughters) is coming up this week, so I've got to start planning for her birthday dinner, and decide whether I want to bake her cake myself, or just go to the local bakery and let them try not to screw it up. And don't forget to pray (or just think good thoughts, if you wish) about my upcoming VA hearing. It's coming closer and closer. I really want to win this one. (I also want to punch that jerk right in the nose, but I'd better restrain myself, because since he's a government employee, I'd likely be arrested as a terrorist or something equally inane.)

Have a great day!

2003-06-07T21:19:00.000-07:00

Just got a head's up in my e-mail from MiniLuv, who has made the move that I'm still trying to work out. (Lucky girl!). Please adjust your permalinks and blogrolls accordingly to her new digs over at www.miniluv.com. Then stop by and say "Hi!".

2003-06-07T19:22:00.000-07:00

Good Heavens, and good evening. I just got back. We had to run into town to visit my mother-in-law for the day, and she and my wife did a little shopping, then we all went out to lunch at a local restaurant (Sizzler, for those of you who would recognize the name - it's a Steak & Salad Bar place, for those of you who don't), and then they went to do a little more shopping while I laid down and read for a while.

I apologize for not posting something this morning, but I was running a bit under the gun and simply didn't have time. I didn't even have time to explain why I didn't have time, if you know what I mean, so my most abject apologies to all of you who came by this morning expecting a new entry.

Anyhow, I'll be back tomorrow morning, so have a great weekend, and I'll see you all bright and early tomorrow, okay?

2003-06-06T08:46:00.000-07:00

It looks like Hamas has decided that it is in their better interest to keep killing Israelis, rather than giving up their intifadeh. I mean, if they have to stop killing J-E-W-S, there's no more need for them, and they would end up going the way of the kerosene lamp salesman. Once there is peace in the region, they would actually have to learn to get aong with teir neighbors.

Of course, the indoctrination of the Palistinean youth, where they actually pray for an opportunity to "die for Allah" (rather than grow up and raise a family in peace), is the inevitable result of decades of Arafat's micro-management of the Palestinean people. Of course, he's such an accomplished liar (saying one thing in English to Western leaders, then saying something else in Arabic to Hamas and Hezbollah) that he would probably try to blame all this on the Israelis. But a look at the timeline of recent events is enough to make one wonder about exactly how committed the Palis are to any kind of peace process. The US anounced its "Roadmap to Peace", with the first steps requiring that the Palis stop killing Israelis. There are 5 bombings within the next week, with the apparent specific targeting of foreigners and civilians. The Israelis attempt to capture some Hamas militants (who refuse to surrender, which results in their deaths). Now Hamas is saying that they aren't going to be following any roadmap.

Heaven forbid that they should stop killing each other, right? I would support an "eye for an eye" practice, with the price going up at every incident. Kill an Israeli civilian, a Palestinean is killed. Kill an Israeli woman or child, 2 Palis are killed. If Hamas and Hezbollah want a "Holy War", then give them what they want. They have shown that they are utterly uncaring of the Geneva Conventions, so let them begin to feel what it would be like to actually fight a war under the "no holds barred" scenario, where if you're not a friendly, then you're a target, and subject to a sudden case of acute lead poisoning.

In other news, indicted style maven Martha Stewart has charges being filed against her by prosecutors who claim that when she was asserting her innocence, she was actually involved in a stock fraud by making the value of her company go up. I'm not quite sure what to make of this, because even if someone is guilty of something like insider trading and stock market manipulation, the natural tendency is to deny it. The prosecutors are apparently alleging that her protestations of innocence were an attempt to manipulate the price of her stock. I don't think that one would fly, but the rest of it could send her to jail for up to 30 years, if convicted on all counts and sentenced to the maximum term. I wonder which country club they would confine her to, because they don't send white collar criminals to do hard time. Especially female white collar criminals.

I only hope she thought it was worth it. If she had waited until the news about ImClone was pubic knowledge, she would have lost a few thousand dollars, which is a drop in the bucket to her $1 billion+ personal portfolio. But it's not the crime, it's the cover-up.

This weeks Carnival of the Vanities is still causing tremendous traffic through my site, with more than 400 visitors on Wednesday, and about 370 yesterday. That means more than 10% of this site's visitors have been through here in the last 48 hours. I can only say, "Thanks!" to all those who offered submissions, and again to those who advertised the Carnival on their sites.

Hope you're having a good day. Mine started out on a hopeful note, but is rapidly running downhill. Think good thoughts today, eh?

2003-06-05T08:33:00.000-07:00

Senator Shrillary is making a barnstorming tour to promote her book, which is being published next week, and in it she basically gives the impression that she was utterly taken by surprise by her husband's infidelity. That simple argument says that she is either lying, or a fool. After all the scandals regarding Gennifer Flowers, Elizabeth Ward Gracen, and the lawsuit by Paula Jones (et alia), for her to say that she honestly believed that her husband was the "innocent victim of a Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy (TM)", and that she was taken by surprise by his confession literally hours before his testimony before Judge Starr's investogator (the taped interview that was released to the public, and aired live on multiple channels), means that she was either willfully ignoring the fact that he was spending an awful lot of "alone time" with a young female intern, or that she is not bright enough to have earned the public office that she now holds. "Ye pays yer money, ye takes yer choice..."

I wonder what the good people of Arkansas think of Bill and Hill now? They were all about coming from Arkansas when it was about Bill running for the Oval Office, but the moment it sunk in that she needed to be in the public eye and in high Federal office, they jumped that ship without ever looking back. That may have been the main reason that Arkansas voted for Bush in 2000. Other than Gore's utter lack of charisma, I mean.

No matter, I have no intention of ever buying a copy. I may go down to the library and borrow theirs (like I did with Michael "4F" Moore's autobiography, "Stupid White Man"), but I'm not going to spend a penny on a book that wasn't even written by the person whose name is on the cover.

In other (more personal) news, the Carnnival entry yesterday caused a traffic spike more than 250% of my previous high-water mark. I had more than 400 unique visitors yesterday, and when I woke up this morning and checked the numbers, there had already been more than 90 just since midnight, and the sun was just barely over the horizon. So thank you for coming by, and I hope many of you keep coming back, and to the new domain (if I ever get it off the freaking ground!).

A few minor corrections, though. I misspelled Jack Cluth's last name (it starts with a 'C', not with a 'K'), so I owe him an apology for the error. I was also informed that Da Goddess' entry about giving birth was actually a fictional entry, but it certainly fooled me, so she gets all the credit for managing to induce the "willing suspension of disbelief" in a highly cynical person. (This is a good thing, because she made it seem so real.) She has some real talent, and I hope she decides to write a real book sometime. She'd probably put Shrillary to shame.

Thank you all for stopping by, and I'll chat with you all later. Hope your day is a good one.

2003-06-04T07:33:00.000-07:00

Welcome to this week's "Carnival of the Vanities", and we have quite an eclectic collection (all of it worth a look) so I will waste none of your time by trying to excite your anticipation. Our tour begins:

Graham Lester starts us off by showing us what the the Real Problem is with the United Nations and the European Union. (I especially like the soundbite about the "Coalition of the Billing".)

We next proceed to Daniel's intriguing little entry about a job search. He manages to describe the problems with trying to get people less experienced than oneself to judge one's talent.

And if you'll all follow me to our next entry, where Andrew has posted several comments about the short film he starred in, called The Fallen.

The Advice Goddess has managed to collect a set of humorous concepts she calls "Metaphysics for Dummies". (You'll have to scroll down to the May 26th entries, but it's worth the effort.)

Grasshoppa caused my wife to wonder about my sanity because of the sudden bursts of laughter, as he gives us our HTV. Drink alert is in effect for this one, so don't blame me for ruined monitors.

James Joyner of "Outside the Beltway" has two different submissions this week, both of them quite good. The first is about Webonomics and how most liberals have no clue about the concepts behind Supply and Demand, and the second is about how politics are being mis-perceived. He has shown himself to be worth an extended perusing, so feel free to take some time with his entries.

David Sims at Clubbeaux has an interesting story about an after-light's-out chat at a girls' school.

Da Goddess tells the tale about giving birth in the Town With No Name. Bless her and her new family.

Charyl asks the questions on everyone's lips. Where are the WMD's, Dubya? She then proceeds to sum up some of the information that the Coalition has collected.

MommaBear of "On The Third Hand" snarls about the problems inherent in bringing democracy to a region where theocracy has been the way of life for longer than can be easily understood.

Trish Wilson shows that statistics are being misrepresented by father's rights groups despite the facts on hand. I guess Twain was right when he identified the three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics.

David F. skillfully expresses the despair and anger felt by all sufferers of adult acne, so click here and sympathize. (He was also kind enough to link to me from his new site. Thanks!)

Kevin Aylward of Wizbang finishes his series on "Smart Growth." In "Smart Growth In Loudoun County, VA (Or How To Piss Off All Of The People All Of The Time) - Part II", he covers the fallout from the implementation of "Smart Growth" in a Virginia county and how it divided the Republican party.

Acidman tells an embarrassing story about one particular golf round. Warning, though, the embarrassing part isn't about golf, and a drink alert is in effect.

John Q. Public has included an entry (I think he was trying to tell me something) which links to a tutorial on MovableType. For those of us who are moving to our own domains, this would prove invaluable, but even for those of you who have been dealing with it on a daily basis, it might still teach you a thing or two.

WalterinDenver shares a post about an anti-gun woman who takes a firearms safety course. On a dare, no less. I wish I could express how proud I am of her effort. And his.

Eric Berlin tells us why ethanol is more wasteful than thermal depolymerization. One hopes that Senator Daschle would bother actually learning the facts, too, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Jeff Medcalf blogs about the possible results of the US putting pressure on Israel. A frightening scenario, to be sure, but worth reading (and pondering at length).

Solonor tells those of us who don't live in 'Tornado Alley' why "Oklahoma City is really pretty", and explains the stuff that everyone there needs to know. Drink alert is in effect.

Jack Cluth gives a heart-wrenching tale of "Love, Life, and Lost Friends" on 9/11, and coming to grips with the memories of that terrible and tragic day.

Chris of "The Noble Pundit" blogs about the Economy and the Market, in the fourth part of five. The other parts are worth reading, too, if you follow economic matters beyond your own bank account.

Tiger, in his first submission to the Carnival, rants about something that I agree with. I just haven't felt the urge to rant about myself, because it seems as obvious to me as water is to a fish. He does a wonderful job with it, too, so pay him a visit, and maybe he'll keep coming back.

The Yeti talks about Chivalry and Feminism, and why they are to blame for the problems between the genders. He does a good job, from both points of view.

Laura grumbles as a "fledgling Hawk" about being a "Liberal Lost". Go and read and share the sense of confusion.

Courtney asks us to "Remember the Bill of Rights?", and wonders why the press (which has been so gung-ho to hop on the gun control bandwagon) has completely ignored the attempted violations of the First Amendment.

In Jay's own words: "I grew up to be a social authoritarian who believed in the ability of the Church to determine the moral framework of the government and its people... I grew up with economic ideals that focused on an unsustainable socialist framework in the name of social justice... I have become a Right-wing anarchist as opposed to the communo-fascist that my Philippine upbringing taught me to be." You can continue reading here, although you will have to scroll down to "Metamorphosis".

Chuck Simmins sends along an interesting Archie Bunker quote: Patience is a virgin. Recommend it to all your "Not In My Name" crowd who are screaming about the lack of WMD proof in Iraq.

Suburban Blight talks about nailing that Bigot Bastard, Eric Robert Rudolph. I was thinking that the rookie cop who nailed him deserves a HUGE commendation from the FBI. Many of you might agree. Those that don't are welcome to walk westward until your hat floats.

James DiBenedetto, submitted not one, not two, but three different submissions this week. He is obviously a big baseball fan, even though there is no love lost regarding Commissioner Bud Selig. (I can't really blame him, either.)

"The Smallest Minority" asks an interesting question: "Is the Government Responsible for Your Protection?" You might be surprised at the answer...

John Greyhawk talks to us about "Heat, Speed, and the Johnny Lightning Special", even though he insists it's not all about cars. He's not kidding, and I wonder when we're going back to the moon, myself.

The two co-writers for "Across the Atlantic" have managed to submit an entry each. The entry by Mandrake (the British half) can be found here, and is an interesting 12-step program on how to write sex scenes (for those who could never get it quite right). The American entry, by Shell, is here, and is about Right Wing Terror and Abortion, and talks about Eric Robert Rudolph.

Joe Dougherty sends a message to the waste of oxygen who robbed his parent's home. If I were that waste of DNA, I would steer well clear of that region in the future, 'cause he wants your head. In thin slices. (Luckily, I'm not, and I would cheer him on.)

"The World According To Pete" wonders if Dubya is a raging Power-holic. An interesting left-wing point of view, and one I might not personally agree with, but an intriguing read, nevertheless.

Saltwater has requested a mention of a few URLs in lieu of a regular entry, since she is shifting domains this week, and I am happy to oblige. The first blog, titled "Brazos Cantina", can be found at http://www.brazoscantina.com, and the second, where she is a regular contributor, is titled "Girls! Girls! Girls!", and can be found at http://www.ondragonswing.com/journal/girls. Swing by, and tell them that Drumwaster sent ya!

The Raving Atheist examines the mischief that can arise when jurors in a death penalty case decide to consult Bibles found in their hotel rooms.

David Russell discusses the problems that he has with the religious right complaining about President Bush. I don't blame him, and I even agree. Unfortunately, BlogSpot doesn't like permalinks (no kidding, huh?), so scroll down to "Oh, Please!" under June 2nd.

And, finishing up with this week's Carnival, Jay Solo is wonderfully kind enough to share tips and tricks to those of us (and I'm including myself, by the way) who need to get off of the BlogSpot servers, and onto real domains (and bless him for thinking of us).

Next week's Carnival can be found at (and submissions should be sent to) Overtaken by Events. I hope you have as much fun reading all these entries as I did, and if you have a wish to help out by hosting the Carnival of the Vanities for yourself, please feel free to contact Bigwig at bigwig (AT) nc.rr.com, and he will be happy to add you to the rotation.

Thank you all for stopping by, and have a wonderful time cruising the Carnival!

2003-06-03T09:28:00.000-07:00

Just a brief entry this morning (and I hope you're having a good one) to bitch at Jacqueline Chiraq. He is still condemning the United States for attacking Iraq, even though he says he's "ready to move past it". Mighty big of you, Chiraq, but just because your initials are 'JC' doesn't mean that you share the peace-making qualities. You can attempt to maintain your national and personal relevance on the world stage, but your 15 minutes are up, and just as soon as the people of France (who only elected you because your opponent was just a little too openly Nazi in his politics for the WW2 veterans still in your population) get another shot at you, you are (in the phrasing of that world-famous game) going to "Go To Jail, Go Directly To Jail, Do Not Pass 'Go', Do not collect $200". Once you leave office, they have a nice cell waiting for you.

The other part of this morning's entry is the weekly This-or-That Tuesday. I've got to leave in a few minutes, so let's get rolling, shall we? It's about animals (disagreements over which have spoiled more relationships than anything but money)

1. Cats or dogs? I'm a cat person, but my wife is allergic. Oh, well.
2. Butterflies or birds? Since butterflies are actually self-propelled flowers, I'll stick with birds.
3. Horses or cows? I used to own a few horses when I was a kid, so I'll stick with them.
4. Turtles or snakes? My wife's boss has some of the BIG pythons (ranging from 6-15 feet long), but turtles are just cooler.
5. Frogs or grasshoppers? Grasshoppers. They work better as bait when fishing, too.
6. Lions or tigers? Lions.
7. Elephants or mice? Elephants. After all, how often do people line up to see the circus mice?
8. Porcupines or aardvarks? Aardvarks. Anything that was named just to get the first listing in the dictionary deserves some respect.
9. Unicorns or dragons? Dragons are cool, but unicorns are pretty cool, too, so let's call this one a toss-up.
10. Thought-provoking question of the week: You live in a rather dumpy apartment. A friend offers you a chance to be a roommate at a new place s/he is moving into, but they don't allow pets. You have a pet. Do you find your pet a new home and take the new place, or do you keep your pet and stay put? I would probably stay put.

That's about it for this morning. I'm up to about 30+ entries for tomorrow's Carnival of the Vanities, and tonight is the last chance to send in your submission! The deadline is Midnight tonight (Pacific, GMT-8:00), and I can't be held responsible for delays in receiving it. Whatever the received time is at my e-mail box is the final arbiter. If it arrives at 12:01 a.m. (or later), it will be forwarded to next week's host over at Overtaken by Events. (I promise!)

Thanks for stopping by!

2003-06-02T08:27:00.000-07:00

Early entry this morning, and I'm watching the live press conference concerning Eric Rudolph, the accused Atlanta Olympic Park bomber, who had been holed up in the Carolina hills for the past few years. He has also been accused of several bombings of abortion clinics in the Georgia and North Carolina area. I'm kind of curious to find out what happened to Robert Jewel, the security guard who had been accused of these bombings, and had had his reputation (both personally and professionally) ruined on national TV for months at a time.

I guess he's happy to hear that Rudolph has been caught. Everything else is just gravy.

Carnival submissions are arriving at a pretty fair clip, and I'm giving fair notice (once again) that the deadline for submissions will be Tuesday at midnight (Pacific, GMT-8:00). The next Carnival will be hosted by the very nice folks over at Overtaken by Events, so if you have anything in the hopper, you can send it to them starting Wednesday morning. If you want to be added to the e-mail update notification list, it is in my possession, and I'll be happy to add you, too.

I've got a lot to do today, so I need to go get started. Hope you all have a great day!

2003-06-01T09:41:00.000-07:00

Good morning, folks! Submissions for next Wednesday's "Carnival of the Vanities" are arriving rapidly, so it looks to be quite an eclectic Carnival this week. Get yours in before Tuesday night, so that I can have a chance to at least glance at it before recommending that others take a peek at it. (It doesn't mean that I won't include it, because that's not what I'm about, I just want to briefly describe it to potential visitors. Of course, if you want to include a sentence or two about it with your submission, I'll be happy to include it, but I'll want to take a peek for myself anyway.)

Things are doing well, and I actually had a request for my meatloaf recipe. LOL. Can you believe it? No big secret, just I use ground beef that is just barely thawed (cold enough to make my hands ache, but pliable enough to be kneaded), and put the BBQ sauce glaze on after 45 minutes, and then cook it another 10-15 minutes. Oh, one other thing: just before putting the glaze on, you should dump the excess grease. However you want to do it is fine - I just turn on the hot water, and dump it into the sink, then leave the hot water running for a few more moments. Simple, no?

My appointment with the VA is in a few weeks, and I need to start looking for hotels in the vicinity of the Federal Building in Los Angeles (Westwood). If any of you have suggestions of an affordable hotel/motel just a few miles north of the intersection of interstate 10 & the 405 (between UCLA & Santa Monica), I'd be very interested in hearing them.

Thanks for stopping by!

2003-05-31T11:15:00.000-07:00

Well, I've been running more errands this morning, getting some stuff mailed off to its various destinations, doing some shopping (I needed some Onion Soup Mix for a meatloaf I'm making later today), plus the submissions for next Wednesday's "Carnival of the Vanities" are arriving rapidly, I'm not sure what the standard deadlines would be, but I'll include anything that I get no later than midnight (Pacific Time, GMT-8:00) on Tuesday night (I'll need some time to put them together for Wednesday morning).

So if you have anything you want included, or just want some additional traffic, please feel free to send your submission(s) along. I'd love to hear from you!

2003-05-30T12:49:00.000-07:00

My sincerest apologies for the late entry this day, but I've been running around trying to get things done this morning. Some legal work had to be filed, the car needed an oil change, I needed to have some copies made, yadda, yadda, but it all had to happen this morning!!!

I'm also receiving enteies for this week's stop on the Carnival of the Vanities, so if you're stopping by to check it out and see if you want to submit an entry for next Wednesday, the 4th of June, then drop a URL link (or the text, in the form you want published) to the e-mail address in the left column.

I keep seeing the movie "Shrek" on the movie channels. I really like that movie. Every time I see it, I see something different. Humor for the kids, and subtly sophisticated humor for the adults (like the "Dating Game" spoof by the Magic Mirror). I hear "Finding Nemo" is supposed to be along those lines, but underwater.

I hear that the autopsy of the (Scott & Laci) Peterson baby was leaked to the press, and the traditional media feeding frenzy took place. I am of the mind that things of that nature shouldn't have been published, not only because it releases private information that would be held inside the family under ordinary circumstances, but also because it compromises the prosecution's case, even if it's only to the extent that the shock value that would have been very effective to a jury has had its teeth pulled, and desensitized the jury to the horrific nature of the crimes, and made it just that much harder to get the death penalty.

I'd also like to see some evidence from the defense about these allegations that it was a "Satanic Cult" or the O.J. Simpson-esque tactic of "SOG" ("Some Other Guy did it."). At this point, though, I might be desparate enough to risk anything that might add Reasonable Doubt to the jury pool.

Anyhow, I'm going to go surf the web for a bit... Have a great afternoon!

2003-05-29T10:56:00.000-07:00

Happy Century Day to Leslie Townes Hope, born on this day, May 29th, 1903, in London. He emigrated to the United States and has worked almost continuously since then to entertain our citizens and (perhaps most especially) our military. He has won so many honorary awards that he probably doesn't have the shelf space for all of them, and he also has not one, not two, but four stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame - one for movies, and the other for his work in television. His first movies came out before my mother was born, and he was making public appearances up until the last few years, when his failing health caused him to put off most offers. He's been married to his wife, Delores (whose own birthday was day before yesterday, the 27th), for almost 70 years. Check out his IMDb bio page.

He has entertained our troops with the USO in at least four different wars, and was declared an honorary veteran by the United States Congress for his untiring efforts (the first civilian ever granted such an honor). He deserves every honor a grateful nation can give him for his gift of decades of laughter and movies that are still fun to watch.

God bless you, sir. And may you have a very happy 100th birthday, Bob Hope.

Raise a glass in tribute to one of the greatest entertainers of the 20th Century (filled with whatever beverage you think would be appropriate).

2003-05-28T09:00:00.000-07:00

It seems kind of strange to sit here and pontificate about items of interest. I've hit that point where I can sit back and realize that there are people who actually read what I say, and there are a few people who disagree (and one who specifically chose me as the subject of one of his own diatribes), but as a general rule, people who tend to agree are the ones who keep coming back. That says that I'm either doing a pretty good job or there are people who just can't keep from watching a train wreck. Only time will tell. I'm not looking for a column of the stature of Glenn Reynolds (over at InstaPundit), who gets several thousands of hits every hour, around the clock. I was happy with 50-60 a day, and I know that my real life concerns and family commitments will occasionally interfere. I can only hope that you will keep coming back after such episodes, because I can never really know when they are going to happen. I thank you all for your patience and recidivism, and hope that I will be entertaining enough to make it worth the rough times.

Well, in other news, we (the CIA and I) have "high confidence" that one of the mobile weapons labs discovered in Iraq is, in fact, a mobile weapons lab. It had been scrubbed down in an apparent attempt to disguise the purpose and usage of this lab. But the Iraqis have obviously never seen our CSI teams in action, where the amount of saliva stuck on the back of a postage stamp is enough to get blood type and a DNA sample. And a conviction. They found trace amounts of a "sludge" inside one of the machines (a precipitator, IIRC), and have confirmed that this particular machine had been used to process biological weapons. Here is a link I just Googled to show what I mean. (I especially like that last paragraph about how a weapon is being specifically designed to defeat such labs without destroying the city or killing the population around that lab with the release of chemical and biological agents.)

Just as a personal opinion, I think the judge ought to slap this woman a hefty fine in addition to the court costs. After he dismisses the lawsuit and stops laughing, that is. Let's get it clear. There is no such thing as a "Right" to drive. It doesn't exist. Driving is a privilege, requiring specific tests (at least three that I can think of - eye test, written and a practical "behind-the-wheel" test with an instructor) before anyone can get licensed. One of the other requirement of Florida's driver's licenses is that a picture must be taken of the driver's face, which is displayed on the license.

She is apparently suing (with the help of the ACLU) to get her driving privileges reinstated, because she claims that forcing her to show her face violates her religious principles. The judge would (or should) say, "Fine. Your rights to religious freedom are guaranteed by the First Amendment. Your driving privileges are not. State law requires that in order to get a driver's license, you get your picture taken. You can either keep your religious convictions, or your driver's license. Your call." It doesn't take the Wisdom of Solomon to figure that one out...

Hope you're having a good day. Oh, and let's be careful out there...

2003-05-27T11:09:00.000-07:00

So, anyhow, I was talking about my neighbor. Classy dude. He runs this tiling business, and has taken to throwing his detritus from various jobs that he has done for his customers into our community dumpster. The one that was sufficient for the seven families in the complex for one week gets filled by broken chunks of tile, scrap wood, plaster, and all the associated crap that he literally uses a shovel to get it from the back of his pickup to the trash can. Meanwhile, the rest of us end up having to balance our trash on top of this crap.

The wife and I saw one of his workers driving up and using his truck to dump trash in our dumpster, and the same kind of junk (tile, plaster, pieces of wood, etc.) and because the last time our neighbor did this, he had thrown away a glass door, and because the angle of the door prevented over half of the dumpster (which had just been emptied the day before) from being used, unless people levered the door out of the way, he decided that he wasn't going to be that much of a jerk about it. Oh, no, he was gonna make the whole dumpster accessible, so he picked up a large rock and heaved it at the door, which cracked it, but didn't "break" it, if you know what I mean.

So he reached in, grabbed the rock, and spiked it through the door like he had just scored the freakin' winning touchdown at the Super Bowl. The door, being made of glass, and not aluminum, shattered explosively, but since about 1/3 of the door was actually hanging over the edge of the dumpster, I'll let your imagination linger on the sight of all those shards of glass spreading themselves across the entrance to the parking lot for the complex. The only way in and out, for all seven families.

Now picture him being the adult about it and at least making an attempt to clean up the mess - the dangerous mess - that he has just created. Better enjoy that picture, because that isn't what he did. He ducked his head for a moment, then began looking around like a nine-year-old, and then he hurried away like he didn't want to get seen, leaving the glass there for people to drive over. Guess it didn't matter that I saw him.

What an asshole. Hope you've got better neighbors.

2003-05-27T09:23:00.000-07:00

Howdy, folks, and welcome to the unofficial beginning of summer. Temps are supposed to be in the 90's here, with an associated inversion layer (which traps automobile and industrial pollution), creating "Unhealthful" conditions for most of Southern California. We're supposed to be limiting our physical activity. So I'm just going to sit and blog about stuff. The first entry today is this week's episode of This-or-That Tuesday.

1. Do you prefer silence or do you like background sound (music, TV, etc)? I prefer a TV or music on in the background.
2. Bathe/shower in morning or evening? Evening.
3. Sleeping in complete darkness, or with a nightlight on? Either. Noise/lights don't really bother me. When I'm sleepy, I sleep.
4. Lay out clothes the night before, or just grab what's closest in the morning? Depends on how important what I wear is going to be.
5. Hang up/fold clothes neatly, or just toss them wherever? Toss them, but not just "anywhere".
6. Work out at a gym, or at home on your own (or do you not bother with exercise)? Kinda tough to exercise with all the physical problems, but I used to jog, play basketball, play racquetball, and go on long walks. I mean long walks - my best effort was just under 18 1/2 miles, and I signed up for a 20km (12.4 miles) just to kill an afternoon once. Now it hurts wen I go out to check the mail.
7. Talk on the phone, or via IM/e-mail? Neither. I can communicate using whatever means I have to use, and have no real preference.
8. Are you usually on time, or late? "Better half an hour early than five minutes late."
9. Spendthrift or frugal? If I've got it, I spend it. If I don't have it, I don't spend it. It's just that simple.
10. Thought-Provoking Question of the Week: You work with someone who is not in the habit of bathing regularly. The smell seems to be getting worse and worse! Would you: 1. try to do something about it, or 2. try to grin and bear it? If you said 1, what would you do? I've never run into that situation, and I don't have enough information, so I am going to say "2", until something suggests itself.

My computer is starting to concern me. It's actually working when I need it to... Murphy's Law, where are you? I've managed to maintain 30 hours (according to the elapsed "connected time" on my file retrieval program) at one point. I've found some really good stuff, and found a lot of stuff worth keeping. Stuff I remember from my childhood, and some of the funniest stuff I've seen in a long time.

Thank God for DSL, huh? Heh. Things will be building back up to speed here on the blog, and I'm trying to figure out what I need for the domain. It may take a while to get it up to speed, and even ater that it may take a while to percolate through the DNS routers. For a new domain, it can take up to a week.... I'm still here, and starting to get pissed off about shit again. My neightbor, for instance. He runs his own small tiling business, and... well, I need to spread the posts out a bit, so I'll tell about him a little later.

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	Extreme
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Moderate
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Moderate
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Moderate
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Moderate
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

2003-05-26T08:22:00.000-07:00
Good morning, and please remember to be nice to a Veteran today. Today is Memorial Day, which is more than a Federal Holiday, and a day that marks the traditional beginning of summer. It is the day when we remember those brave Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines who have willingly gone forth and laid down their lives to protect an ideal and a nation that stands for those ideals.

The United States has had many shameful episodes during its 226+ year history, and has done what it could to correct those problems and bring the maximum in freedoms to the greatest number of people on a scope unprecedented since the days of Julius Caesar, when merely uttering the words "Civis Romanus" ("I am a Roman Citizen") would guarantee the safety of any individual - provided, of course, that it were true. In today's world, claiming that one is an American citizen is likely to paint a bullseye on one's chest. But there will always be someone willing to risk the hazards of helping an American citizen, in exchange for the potential rewards. Just ask PFC Jessica Lynch...

This is not the day to celebrate the veterans that are still living (that day is November 11th, Veteran's Day). This is the day to remember our honored dead. President Bush will be laying the traditional wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and honored guests all over the country will be making speeches on such concepts as Sacrifice, and Honor, and Comradery, and the Bonds Built Between Fellow Soldiers, and it will all boil down to the concept behind today: "The noblest fate that a man can endure is to place his own mortal body between his loved home and the war's desolation."

God bless those brave men and women.

In other news, the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit became the first Marine Corps unit to return to the United States from the Iraqi War. I imagine there were a lot of happy people watching them hit the beach. And not a few beers were cracked open in their honor. Good for them, and I wish to offer my own "Welcome home" to those brave Marines.

Go enjoy your cookout and picnic and ball games, and I hope that you don't have to fight any traffic to get safely home again, but let's not forget the reason for today, okay?

PS: Still waiting for a return phone call from the Hosting company. Probably tomorrow (I did call kinda late on Friday afternoon, and it was a Holiday weekend, after all...). Things might get a little kerfluffled until we get this straightened out.

So let me send you to a nice place. Caution: Drink alert in effect.

2003-05-25T10:30:00.000-07:00
Good morning. We got back kinda late last night, and I'm a little under the weather this morning. No, I'm not suffering a hangover, because I don't drink. We went to the National Orange Show yesterday, and walked around a lot, so I had to take a lot of pills when I got home, and now my stomach is a little upset - along with the fact that I hurt, so I can only apologize for the lack of entry from last night, and the paucity of this entry. Unwanted side effects, but expected nevertheless. Forgive me, and don't give up yet. I will be back to top form soon. I promise.

2003-05-24T07:45:00.000-07:00
Just a quick note to say "Good morning!" and to say that I'm going to be visiting with family today, but I'll be back later. Yesterday's activities were subdued but fun. We rented Drumline, which is pretty cool if you're into drums and marching bands in general and such, or incredible displays of rhythm and precision. It was kinda cool. I'll fill you all in later, but I've got a computer to fix and family to visit.

Be patient. I've been told that the new domain will be up on Monday (Tuesday, at the latest), and unfortunately my birthday tends to fall near Memorial Day weekend, so I'm not going to piss them off as my first act.

I'll talk to you all later.

2003-05-23T09:20:00.000-07:00
Congratulate me, today's the day, and I am now exactly 13,514 days old. 37 years, in case you were wondering. For those who are wondering about my math (37 x 365 = 13,505, after all), I can only remind you of the 9 leap years that have happened since that day during Lyndon Johnson's Administration.

An interesting exposure was released last night of the Earth as seen from Mars. The picture was taken by the Mars Global Surveyor, and shows a nice image of our home planet.

It looks like the rumors are flying that Uday Hussein, Saddam's eldest son, may be considering surrender to Coalition forces. He's scared of what might happen if the Iraqi citizens find him first, and with good reason, but the Coalition troops are basically saying, "You want to surrender? Whatever..."

We've got 25 of the top 55, and we're going to find him (or what's left of his body) on our own, sooner or later. So about the only thing we have to offer in exchange for his peaceful surrender is the choice of which arm the needle goes in. He's got a tribunal waiting for him, and the indictment is already pending with multiple "Crimes Against Humanity" charges. Of course, he is also the one who was the head of the Iraqi Olympic Committee, who was accused of torturing and killing Iraqi athletes who didn't win.

This news comes alongside news of a discovery of a truck carrying 2,000 40-pound bars of gold, worth an estimated $500 million. Let's make it clearer. That's 40 TONS of gold. In the back of a truck. Combine that with the estimated $1 billion dollars in cash found earlier, and I have to wonder why we haven't heard all the complaints about how the sanctions were killing children, therefore the United States must be evil because it supported those sanctions (even though france, Russia, and other nations might not have been so scrupulous). There was a warehouse found stuffed with sufficient medical supplies to stock all fifty of the hospitals in Baghdad for a year! There were warehouses full of food found in Basra, where the locals had no idea what was in them.

So will one of the "Not In My Name" crowd please explain why we were wrong to have gone in? if you can? Explain how life would have been better with the children's prisons, the State-sanctioned torture and rape, murders of whole families, and the leaders skimming off billions of dollars while the people starve to death... If you can?

Finally, news of a personal nature. I have been told that my loving wife is trying to make arrangements with one of the web hosting companies to arrange for the web domain, so that I can get away from BlogSpot, and onto my own domain on a real server. Chances are good that it will happen today, but it make take until the first of the month to get the site up and running. I'll post here with links just as soon as I get confirmation that the page is running the way I want it. Patience is a virtue, but it's tough to be patient sometimes, especially when it's something as cool as having my own domain.

I told you it was coming...

2003-05-22T09:47:00.000-07:00
Good morning! I'm sitting here watching the press conference about the bomb blast that occurred yesterday at Yale's Law School in New Haven, Connecticut. While investigations were going on, and authorities have admitted that it was a deliberately planted explosive device (rather than an accidental explosion resulting from, say, a gas leak), no one was hurt and there are no indications of any terrorist involvement. While that could (conceivably) change, I think a terrorist cell operating at Yale university would have been noticed by enough people to have presented their observations. Four different police forces (FBI, ATF, Connecticut State Police, and New Haven PD) plus the dozens of reporters would have found someone to tell their tale if there was a tale to tell. So I'm comfortable with the probability level that it wasn't Al Qaeda.

In other news, SecState Colin Powell is praising the french for supporting the resolution to lift the Iraqi sanctions. I know that some language tweaking had to happen, but I haven't read the text of the UNSC resolution to know what changes france, Russia, and Germany demanded to vote 'Yes' to this lifting of sanctions. We shall see how things go, but it is a promising start. I still won't buy anything from france, and they're definitely still on "Double Secret Probation", but they're allowed to cast the vote.

I'm downloading the old School House Rock songs to give to my nieces (who should be starting school this fall), and I think they would be pretty helpful. I remember the songs as being eminently hummable, and factually helpful, so I figure it couldn't hurt, right? It may even help them. I just don't remember there being quite this many...

For those in the New York City area, this week is Fleet Week, so remember the rules: If they're in uniform (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard), you buy the beers. Good luck on the "12-ounce curl" competitions, guys, and be careful out there.

Last chance to submit your ideas for the looks of the new website. And for that Loyal Reader who had sent in the graphics for the new logo (a few different options), I hope he would send them in to me again, because I can't find them anywhere. I've looked all over both hard drives with no luck, but I do not remember deleting them. So if he still has them, I'm hoping that he will send them along again.

Hope you folks have a wonderful day.

2003-05-21T08:51:00.000-07:00
Good morning! In surprising news, it looks as though the Saudis have foiled their own version of 9/11 by preventing three armed men "who were acting suspiciously" from boarding a plane.

I'm presuming that the suspicions did not arise from the fact THAT THEY WERE FREAKIN' ARMED!! Maybe it's a standard of practice over there for people to fly around with guns - loaded guns - in their possession, rather than locked up in the baggage compartment, I don't know. Then again, given that the Saudis like to blame foreigners for these acts and that these men were Moroccans, and that they do not shirk at a little ~~torture~~ "physical encouragement to induce confessions" (their human rights records rivals that of several members of the UN Human Rights Commission), I'm just a little leery.

In personal news, my birthday is approaching quickly, and the Great Domain Shift will follow soon thereafter. Big news, at least for me, and some other stuff (I know that I'm supposed to be getting a new pair of jeans from the eldest daughter - yippee! - and I've already gotten a card with $10 from the in-laws). I've also finished up most of my archiving. I've got one more large directory that I'm trying to figure out, comprised of 12 different files, all of which are just a little too large to fit on a 700MB (well, technically it's 703.1MB, but who's counting?) CD-R/W disc. It's going to be an interesting challenge, since the 12 files would fit easily onto 13 discs, on a strictly space-measuring definition, but none will fit onto a single disc. That's why I asked for a CD backup software (thanks, David! I haven't given it a try yet, but that's scheduled for later this evening), because they're going to have to span between discs, and I didn't have 500-600 of those little 1.44MB floppies sitting around.

I've been busting my ass trying to get my computer archived, above and beyond the operating system (which I already have archived), and the main programs and freeware (which I can go get again). I have many, many .pdf files (thanks, again, David!), hundreds of sound files (I like to personalize the sounds on my computer), and many dozens of intriguing documents and pictures I have found amusing or interesting enough to hang onto. Once I get my own web space, I'll start sharing some of them with you, since BlogSpot doesn't allow file storage on its free service.

Plus some stuff going on in real life that could prove most helpful that I cannot go into, for several reasons. Just be happy because there is a great chance that things are finally starting to look up. We may actually climb up enough to reach bottom. Have a great day.

2003-05-20T09:13:00.000-07:00
Good morning, one and all. I'd like to welcome you to this week's episode of "This-or-That Tuesday", where we are all challenged to another potpourri edition, so let's get started, shall we?

1. Large or small family? I had two brothers and two sisters, plus two other older half-siblings, so I came from a large family. I think that is why I would prefer a small one.
2. Potato chips or pretzels? Potato Chips. With dip.
3. House or apartment? House. I like having a pet and most apartments don't allow them.
4. Zebras or giraffes? Giraffes. I'm still fascinated by watching them take a drink.
5. Candles or potpourri? Candles, but none of those smelly ones. If I want incense, I'll burn incense.
6. Flowers or trees? Flowers can give shade, so I'd prefer trees. You also can't hang a swing from a flower bush.
7. Right or left-handed? I'm right-handed, along with more than 90% of the population, so no big surprise there.
8. Model trains or dolls/stuffed animals? I'm not sure I'd like all those small parts, so stuffed animals (no dolls). The fact that the wife likes 'em too is just a bonus.
9. Comedy or drama? Both, but if I had to choose, I prefer to laugh.
10. Thought-provoking question of the week: The city of Boston has recently banned smoking in all restaurants and bars. Would you want to see such a law passed in your city/town/country, or not? The People's Republic of California has already banned smoking in restaurants and many public venues, so it's already too late for me, but I voted against it when it was on the ballot. I don't smoke anymore, but that doesn't mean that people who smoke should be treated like second-class citizens. What happens when they say that anyone who drinks a dairy beverage (to keep from offending Vegans and animal right's activists) must do it outside?

Well, we are getting closer to my birthday, and I'm biting nails and beating my head against my monitor, trying to arrange this switch-over to my own domain (my wife assured me just last night that it was going to happen, but she hasn't given me any details as to where or how, and since it's going to have to go through me, I'm a little confused, but she has managed to surprise me before. Her nephew is also a computer tech (and when we get to discussing computer stuff, most eyes tend to glaze over), not to mention her eldest daughter's husband is also a major computer enthusiast, so I guess she does have options. We shall see.

Have a great day!

2003-05-19T12:21:00.000-07:00
Just a quick note to help spread the word.

Bill Whittle, who writes like I wish I could, spinning straw into gold, and plucking pearls of wisdom out of the mud of human history, only to craft a masterpiece of rhetoric, has done it again.

His latest essay, "Magic", is an example of, well... precisely that. Go. Now. Read it. And don't forget his name, because his book becomes available later this year, and it will be worth every penny. Bill's essays should be required reading for every citizen.

2003-05-19T09:29:00.000-07:00
Well, it looks as though we might have ironed out our plans for the next six weeks. I have my hearing at the VA offices in Los Angeles (teleconferencing with the Board which will be in Washington, D.C., no less), scheduled for next month, and my advocate (who deserves a major raise for getting all this done) has said, "I've never been one for accepting conspiracy theories of how 'the VA is out to get' someone, but after seeing what has happened in your case, I'm certainly willing to stipulate the possibility."

We have the facts on our side, we have reams of written evidence, we have phone logs, we have at least three Congressional inquiries (including the one just to locate my freaking file!) on file, and the attempt at Governmental Policy 101 ("Cover Your Ass") with what was termed "a fresh look" (by the same people, start to finish - even though the original Occupational Evaluator had gone into business for herself, they sent me to her new offices) turned out to be a huge black eye, because I had scored so far out on the right-hand edge of the bell curve (nothing worse than the 95th percentile) that any reasonable person would see the potential, and begin to wonder why the only things they could come up with was "Inventory Clerk" or "Telemarketer".

I'm not going to go down the whole list of ~~self-serving~~ ways that I would qualify, because you either already know it, or you wouldn't believe it (for one reason or another), and it's not important here, but the only thing I won't get to do is punch that lousy son-of-a-bitch in the nose, although I will take great pleasure in putting a big black spot on his personnel record.

Now, in other news, Press Secretary Ari "Mr. Congeniality" Fleischer has finally decided to step down. He had said for many months that he was planning on doing so as soon as things calmed down a bit (but before the re-election rush), and considering that he has stuck it out through the 9/11 tragedy, two wars, and the travails of being a newlywed, I'd say he's done pretty well despite the 24-hour news cycle and the Bush Administration's habit of keeping a tight lid on information. I wish him well in his future endeavors.

Lots of changes coming in the next several weeks for my real life, and things are going to be happening at a fast and furious clip. Buckle your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy ride!

2003-05-18T15:38:00.000-07:00
Still working at getting things down, and I'm making progress. I've discovered, however, that when you're downloading large files, it pays not to overtax your operating systems. My computer has developed a nasty habit of locking up when I ask it to do too much, or for too long, and it's approaching the freeze-up point when I ask it to keep major programs all active at once. I'm postponing checking these files for viruses (virii?) until they're completely downloaded, and sometimes just scrolling with my mouse is enough to cause a conflict, and - boom! - the computer is frozen, requiring a hard reboot, and everything has to be rebuilt, and a lot of luck and a little voo-doo dance may be needed to re-establish the same connection. And if I can't manage to re-connect, I have to start the whole thing all over again, usually from scratch. I'd welcome any suggestions. (I already have Go-Zilla, but this is WinMX.)

I'm also looking for a good CD-R/W freeware backup program. If anyone wants to send me a pointer, please feel free.

2003-05-18T08:49:00.000-07:00
Good morning, folks, and welcome! Just a very brief entry for now. I will be back later, but right now Real Life calls me. Insistently. So check out the folks in the blogroll, and check back later today. Thanks for your patience and understanding.

2003-05-17T09:37:00.000-07:00
Good morning, and I hope that you're having a slightly cooler weekend. Temperatures are supposed to be in the mid-90's to triple digits (as high as 102, depending on how far into the desert one goes). But since cold and damp aggravates my joints, this is supposed to be a good thing, right? Well, considering the weather was in the 60's on Thursday and in the 70's yesterday, it just seems odd that the weather should suddenly jump to hot and dry. Well, I guess global warming is to blame, right?

Kofi Annan is asking france to head an international peace-keeping force in Congo, because we all know how efficiently the UN can keep the peace, especially when the french are running things.

In other news affecting an estimated one billion people around the globe, the Vatican has confirmed that Pope John Paul II is suffering from Parkinson's disease. It has been long suspected, but never before confirmed. I'm not Catholic, and I understand that the Pope is in office until his death, but if the Pope becomes so enfeebled that he can no longer manage the affairs of the Church, but is still living, are his official capacities taken over by one of his senior Cardinals? Have they already started politicking for the next (inevitable) election of a new Pope? It just seems a little worldly and cynical to think so, but it would be an almost unstoppable urge.

Today is "World Telecommunication Day", so make a phone call for progress! And let's be careful out there.

2003-05-16T11:36:00.000-07:00
Blogging has proven to be an interesting challenge, because I've been trying to write about things that would be interesting to more people than just myself (and my wife, who would probably praise my output even if it looked like it had been written by the proverbial "infinite number of monkeys"), while also not covering things that are so over-covered by the various types of news media (Internet, TV, print, talk radio, other blogs, etc.). Primarily because of the explosion of these sources, it has proven tough because I sometimes find really esoteric things to be of great interest (like last night's lunar eclipse) and there are just days where I am not feeling my best, requiring me to take a pain pill, which cuts my creative spark down to the faintest of glimmers.

I find myself sitting at my keyboard, spurred by a disquieting urge to write something - anything - to keep you, my unseen Loyal Readers, amused, entertained, and willing to return again and again. Even annoyed and infuriated for those who might disagree with me (and I know there are a few of you). But no matter how you look at it, there are going to be days and even longer stretches where my output just isn't up to standards. Believe me, it's not from lack of trying, or from lack of desire. As the Bible says, "the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." (Matt. 26:41) So if it's slow (or faintly boring) from time to time, don't give up on me, because I refuse to quit until I can no longer reach the keyboard, or some other tragedy arises that is beyond my control.

Enough of that. How many of you watched the San Antonio Spurs unseat the reigning Champion Los Angeles Lakers? Talk about embarrassing, huh? Shaq tried his damnedest (31 points of the 82), but just couldn't carry the whole team all by himself anymore. Oh, well, time for the inevitable rebuilding year.

Speaking of the Lunar eclipse, I'm sorry for all of you out there who had to suffer through cloudy weather or city lights and didn't get to see it last night, because it was something quite impressive to watch. I have heard there is supposed to be another one in November. I haven't looked, but I'm sure there are quite a few good pictures out there on the Internet.

In other news, President Bush has finally filed the paperwork with the FEC (Federal Elections Commission) allowing him to conduct political fund-raising for the 2004 election. If he manages to get the economy moving again, despite the obstructionism being plotted by the Democrats, he will be unstoppable, and not even the "Unnamed Democrat" (who is leading in their partisan polls with a hefty majority) would stand a chance of stopping him, and the only question would be how much of a majority he would win with. I'm guessing that it would rival Reagan's 1984 re-election (which Reagan won with 59% of the popular vote and almost 98% of the Electoral College vote - 525 to 13). But I've always been the pessimistic type...

Today is "National Employee Health and Fitness Day". No, I'm not making that up. Have a good weekend. I'll chat with you all as soon as I can, but tomorrow morning at the latest. Go watch The Matrix Reloaded, I've heard some great things about it.

2003-05-15T09:36:00.000-07:00
Several things to comment on this morning (thanks to Yahoo News), and one personal "anniversary". So let's begin with one that made me recall an early event from former President Clinton's life.

As this brief bio mentions, Bill Clinton was so impressed with meeting then-President John F. Kennedy that he allegedly decided on the spot to enter public service and run for office. Little did the world know that Bill would emulate John Kennedy in so many ways, including running for President (and winning), and even sleeping with White House interns. Talk about coincidences. Both of them incredibly popular, and both of them having sex with the interns. Do you think that Bill was so enamored of the dashing young War hero in the Oval Office that he decided to emulate him in every way possible? Kennedy's exploits were pretty much an open secret around the White House, after all, and there are probably goat herders in Bolivia who knew about Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe.

Next, I mention with sadness the passing of film and TV star Robert Stack, whose career started more than 60 years ago. His most famous role was probably in the old TV series, "The Untouchables", as well as more recent comedies, such as "Airplane" and "Caddyshack II". He will be missed.

Third, we here in North America will be treated to a wonderful view of a total lunar eclipse tonight. Here is a minute-by-minute guide to what we can expect, and the approximate times of those various phenomena (link found thanks to the nice folks over at AMCGLTD, including time zone corrections. It ought to be well advanced by the time the moon rises here in southern California (a little after 8pm Pacific, 11pm Eastern). If the sky is reasonably clear in your area, step out and take a look. It ought to be an interesting show.

Finally, today is the eighth anniversary of me becoming a civilian again. I got out of the Navy eight years ago today, and so I'm going to be raising a glass to all the members of the military who still work hard every day to keep the rest of us protected to the very best of their abilities.

Have a great day! Today is the "International Day of Families". So, no matter where you are in the world, go be especially nice to your family today. Remind them how much you appreciate their presence. It'll be worth the extra effort.

2003-05-14T15:25:00.000-07:00
In a wonderful day for those of us who are fed up with opening the e-mail box, only to discover a deluge of offensive materials, the man known as "The Buffalo Spammer" was arrested for fraud. This man "allegedly" sent more than 825 million unwanted e-mails. In a perfect world, he would be forced to write an apology for every single one of them. But he'll probably get off with just a monetary fine, unless the judge has gotten a few ads for "enhancements" of various body parts, in which case, he'd probably sentence him to hard time.

In a related story, I want to plug a new member of the BlogRoll (I discovered the site over at Misha's site), and while they're just getting off the ground, it's worth your time to keep an eye on them. Permit me to introduce you to "Do Not Spam". A worthy goal in and of itself, but they show promise "above and beyond". Stop by and send them your own greetings.

2003-05-14T11:06:00.000-07:00
I'd love to see how the "Not In Our Name" crowd defends examples of cruelty like this one, yet continue to call the United States a Fascist State, and compare President Bush to Hitler.

Funny, though, there hasn't been many public appearances by Janeane Garofalo, Mike Farrell, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, or any of the rest of them recently, has there? I guess getting laughed at by reporters would be too humiliating to bear.

2003-05-14T08:56:00.000-07:00
Good Morning! It looks as though Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA 29th) isn't going to get that GAO investigation into the costs of President Bush's recent carrier landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72).

Damned shame, really, because it would have allowed both patries to have been investigated, such as Shrillary's and Chelsea's use of the plane normally known as "Air Force One" (a military aircraft only has the "One" designation when the President is aboard, regardless of branch) on their African safari during BJ Clinton's last year in office. Not to mention the concurrent requirement to investigate Federal lawmakers. Such as Ted Kennedy (can you say "Big Dig cost overruns of almost $5 BILLION?"). In the Comptroller Generals statement, he declared, "In my view, it does not pass a cost-benefit test."

I think we ought to investigate Representative Waxman for trying to use a non-partisan office for political reasons, but there would probably have to be a full-time investigator hired just for that purpose, because Waxman has never been shy about trying to sling mud for political gain. Since when is it a "political" thing for the Commander-in-Chief to visit his troops? Or to use a military asset as a platform to deliver a speech? (Clinton did it three different times during his term, he just never did a carrier landing. So I guess it's the fact that the current President is not only a successful war-time President, he was also once a fighter pilot, where Clinton was busy protesting that war from a safe distance - London, if I remember correctly.)

In other news, looks like Al Qaeda managed another coordinated car-bomb attack, but they may have screwed up by setting off those bombs in their own back yard. It tends to make people think along the lines of "chickens coming home to roost" rather than "what did they do to deserve this?" If they were trying to punish "The Great Satan", then maybe they need to check those figures, because according to the latest reports, more Al Qaeda members died than Americans (9 Al Qaeda versus 7 Americans). Not very cost-effective, but in terms of effectiveness, right up there with the 'not-so-smart bombs' in Israel who blow themselves up before they actually get inside the designated crowd of people.

I also find it interesting that the Saudis had been asked to provide additional security for the expatriates, but "couldn't get the Committee to resolve the issue in time". I guess it would have never occurred to them to actually put a few extra men out there until the attack had been deterred, though, would it? Because if they admitted that the foreigners were the targets, instead of the perpetrators, they would have to admit that they have real problems that have nothing to do with their "Holy Lands" (and you can't swing a cat without hitting a mosque or other "holy place" in that region).

Steven den Beste pointed this out, and did so in his usual superlative fashion. Well worth a read, but just about everything by him is worth the time.

Well, I'm not sure what they mean by it, but today is apparently "Underground America Day". I think that means we're all supposed to dig a hole, or maybe go spelunking. Have a great day, no matter what your choice is.

2003-05-13T14:25:00.000-07:00
It's once again time for this week's round of This-or-That Tuesday. It's Potpourri week, so let's get started.

1. Packrat or minimalist? Packrat. (You should see my desk!)
2. Computer: desktop or laptop? Desktop. Laptops are stolen too frequently, and lost almost as often.
3. Seashore or mountains? Since I'm just a touch acrophobic, the seashore.
4. Carpeting or bare floors? Carpets are easier on the old bones, even with the hassle of vacuuming.
5. Drinking water: bottled or tap? Bottled.
6. Shopping websites: eBay or Amazon? Neither. I still don't trust most on-line shopping after I used my credit card on-line - ONCE - and ended up subscribed to some porn site I'd never even heard of before.
7. Cute little kitties or big scary tigers? Depends on my mood. I prefer grown-up cats, though.
8. Front door or back door? Front door.
9. Lots of jewelry, or little/none? Just my wedding ring. I don't even wear a watch.
10. Thought-provoking question of the week: At the last minute, you obtain tickets to an event you're dying to attend. However, you have to work that day! Do you ask the boss for the time off, or just call in sick? I'd ask the boss, and offer to work some extra hours to make up for it, but since I am the boss now, there's not much problem with getting my request approved. Hee.

Thanks for stopping by. Oh, apparently there was nothing assigned to today. So we'll just wish Steveland "Stevie" Wonder a Happy 53rd Birthday!

2003-05-12T21:08:00.000-07:00
I have found a serious threat to our safety here in the United States, and throughout the world. Come and join the Coalition to Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide. This is a extraordinarily dangerous material that can kill without regard to age, race, nationality, color, creed, religion, marital status, or any other condition.

Spread the word, and help stamp this killer out.

This Public Service Announcement has been brought to you by the worshipers of Thalia.

UPDATE: I found another site that exposes the danger of Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO). This stuff is literally everywhere! Measureable amounts can be found in every creek, stream, river, pond, lake, ocean and reservoir in the United States. It is the proximate cause of soil erosion and is the major component of acid rain. It accelerates oxidation of metals.

Why, just last night, I found the wife trying to wash our dinner dishes with it. Will this menace ever be controlled?

2003-05-12T14:02:00.000-07:00
I'm continually amazed at the quizzes that you can find out there. Here's the result from the most recent one I found (thanks to one of my BlogShares shareholders over at Bogie's Blog)

What Is Your Animal Personality?
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2003-05-12T12:41:00.000-07:00
I just had my 5,000th visitor, from somewhere on the West Coast, at 12:35 p.m.. Celebratory dinner tonight, woo-hoo!

2003-05-12T09:58:00.000-07:00
We got another one. Coalition forces have taken custody of the infamous "Dr. Germ", who once said that Iraq "was justified in producing germ weapons for its self defense."

Really? I guess all those UN Security Council Resolutions saying precisely the opposite, and the fact that none of Iraq's neighbors have ever invaded them (unlike Iraq, which has started wars of aggression several times, and gotten beaten back every time), would tend to disagree with her.

Even though she wasn't listed in the deck of 55 (although her husband, Amer Rashid, was), she was one of the people that senior officials want to talk to concerning Iraqi WMD programs.

Speaking of which, a second mobile lab that appears to be configured to handle chemical and biological weapons has been found near Mosul (Iraq's 3rd largest city). Of course, because it doesn't have the pictures of Saddam shaking hands with Osama bin Laden while straddling a nuclear weapon (a la Slim Pickens), there are going to be the inevitable whines from the Tinfoil Hat Brigade that it was either planted or not really a mobile weapons lab. Of course they could be right. I mean all the nations on Earth have ultra-high tech protective systems for the handling of dangerous materials stuffed into camouflaged trailers being hauled around by semis, or made up to look like radar trucks, don't they? There's nothing unusual about this, so let's all stuff our heads back into the sand, and chant, "Blix is the wisest man on Earth. Blix is the wisest man on Earth."

In yet other news, it looks like Tom Daschle (D-Confusion) has done yet another waffle, and he is now supporting the President's decision. I guess the newest South Dakota polls are out, and since Tom is up for re-election this cycle, he's gotta get in good with his constituents. His fellow South Dakotan Senator, Tim Johnson (D), won re-election last November by the slimmest of margins (only 527 votes out of more than 330,000 cast), and both the state's Republican Governor and sole Representative (William Janklow, also Republican) won their elections easily, so Tom realizes that his position might not be quite so tenured, after all. If he loses his cushy job as Senate Minority Leader, he might actually have to work for a living.

Oh, and before I forget
Just 'cause I lost a bet
I wanted to say
Today is 'Limerick Day'
So now I'm just gonna jet...

Don't ask. Have a great day!

2003-05-11T15:48:00.000-07:00
Well, I'm back, and it was an interesting weekend, to say the least. Got to spend a little time with the extended family, and topped off today with a semi-picnic lunch of baked chicken and macaroni salad. "Semi-picnic" because it was eaten in the in-law's living room while watching a movie on their DishTV network. I guess I was lucky that today is (believe it or not) 'Eat What You Want Day'.

I've decided to wait for a week or two and catch 'The Matrix Reloaded' after the crowds have eased up a bit at the theater, but the crowds haven't let up on X-2 yet (it's still #1 at the box office).

Anyhow, I just wanted to let you all know that I'm back. Very tired, but I'm here. See you all in the morning.

2003-05-10T10:12:00.000-07:00
Just a quick post to say, "Good Morning!", and to let you know that today is National Small Business Day.

We're on our way out the door, so have a great weekend, and I'll see you all tomorrow afternoon.

2003-05-09T19:22:00.000-07:00
Apropos of nothing at all, I would like to point out that Ian Anderson, of Jethro Tull fame, is probably the best flute player living today.

Thank you for your attention.

2003-05-09T18:48:00.000-07:00
I've been crunching the numbers, and it looks like I might break the 5,000 visitor mark either late night Sunday, or early Monday. My wife has promised to cook dinner that night, with a nice bottle of sparkling cider (since I don't drink alcohol). But I'm torn between my choices for such a dinner. I've been fond of T-bone steaks (with a baked potato), but my doctor says I have to watch my cholesterol, so maybe some Lemon Herb Chicken on a bed of rice.

Either way you look at it, the threshold level will be reached because of your efforts, not mine. I'm just glad that you find it interesting enough to keep coming back. However, if you happen to read this, and check at the bottom of the left column and see that the Site Meter reads exactly 5,000, that means that you're the one, and I'd appreciate you dropping me a line, just for posterity's sake. I promise to raise a glass of cider in your honor (and you can toast yourself with whatever adult beverage you wish - assuming you are of legal age to do so).

Anyhow, I'm going to go pack my weekend bag. I might get a chance to post something tomorrow morning, but if I don't, I'll be back Sunday evening (the wife won't dare to miss the Survivor conclusion, and she'll also want to record the 2-hour Charmed season finale.)

Good evening, and have a Happy Mother's Day weekend.

2003-05-09T09:53:00.000-07:00
Wow. It's gone beyond the lawsuits, and now the Federal Government has started warning fast-food restaurants about their contributions to obesity. I guess they think that McDonald's and Burger King are kidnapping people and forcing them to cram down the Big Macs and Whoppers (I couldn't find a picture). Whatever happened to free will and personal accountability? Do they think people should be protected against their own choices? I splurge occasionally (I dream of the day the McRib returns), but I understand that I'm going to have to work off the extra calories. I guess I should just kick back and relax, waiting for the check from McDonald's, because it's their fault they make such good food, and offer it for such reasonable prices, right?

In other news, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), has decided that he has had just about enough of the Democratic filibuster threats over judicial nominees, and has started suggesting ways that the filibuster rules could be changed. This is also known as the "nuclear option". It would lower the number of votes needed to stop a filibuster (called 'cloture') from the 60 normally required, reduced by three votes each time the vote is called, until a simple majority of 51 votes is needed to stop a filibuster. The 60-vote limit would be reset with each new filibustered nominee, and wouldn't apply to legislative matters, just the "advise and consent" portions of the Senate's duties (judicial, ambassadorial, and Cabinet nominees). I can understand, but I think that Senator Frist should wait until early next year to start enforcing the filibusters, demanding that the Democrats actually make themselves look bad in the eyes of the voters at the most effective point in the election cycle.

Of course, this could be just a threat and bluff to try and shake loose the votes necessary to get these nominees (some of whom have been waiting for more than a year - Judge Miguel Estrada was nominated to the Federal Appeals Bench two years ago today) voted on, one way or the other. We shall just have to wait and see. I'm not sure that changing the rules over something like this would be a good idea. "Live by the sword, die by the sword", after all.

Blogging is likely to be light over the weekend, because of the Mother's Day holiday. The wife and I will be going to visit her parents, her daughters, the grand-kids, and even my two sisters (and their kids). Heck, my brother might even show up! We'll be back before sunset on Sunday, and I'll fill you in when I get back. We've got a son-in-law who has a birthday coming up early next week, as well as his daughter - our grand-daughter, and a sweetheart in her own right - having a birthday next week, too. I might take her with me to go see X-2 after the standard Mother's Day Brunch (four generations together), but we'll see... Maybe I'll wait until next weekend for The Matrix Reloaded. Maybe.

Have a great day, and a better weekend!

Thanks for coming by, I appreciate your support. Oh, before I forget, today is "Childhood Depression Awareness Day".

2003-05-08T17:45:00.000-07:00
We're starting to hear reports that the Pentagon is going to be tripling the size of the WMD search team in Iraq, and hints that the WMDs thought to have been smuggled into Syria didn't stop there, but went on to the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon (which Syria is open-handedly running through their army, since Lebanon has no civil government in place). With the recent story showing that there are all kinds of intel reports slowly being revealed about various politicians and countries that had been violating UN sanctions against Iraq, the Middle East may see a major shake-up in the next few months.

I've heard reports that some people (who have obviously never served in the military) are claiming that chemical and biological weapons shouldn't be counted as Weapons of Mass Destruction. While they do not commit massive destruction like the nuclear wepons would, they kill indiscriminately in mass quantity, and are specifically designed to kill anyone in range. (Using their definition, the Neutron Bomb - which killed people, but left buildings standing - wouldn't be a WMD, either.)

I found an on-line handbook over at FOXnews.com which may help quite a bit with their obvious confusion. But since the link is at FOXNews instead of at DU, they would probably not bother to learn anything from it. I hope that you do.

I've started logging my local referrers, so that I can tell where people come in. Just an interesting bit of info for my own records. Thanks for coming by, and I hope you're having a pleasant evening.

2003-05-08T09:55:00.000-07:00
Good morning, and welcome! I would also like to extend a welcome to the seven new members of NATO, whose membership was ratified by the Senate earlier today: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. All of the citizens in those countries (of voting age) grew up being taught that NATO was the aggressor, and that the "benificent, peace-loving" Soviet Union was there to protect them. Of course, the tanks and repression and crushing of dissent was for their own good, and something that would make them a happier nation.

When I was in High School, my World History teacher was from Lithuania whose family had escaped during the post-WW2 period of consolidation, and she was never-ending in her condemnation of the Evil Empire (this was even before Reagan was elected). I hope that she is smiling over this news, wherever she may be (it has been more than 20 years, after all).

Oh, before I forget, here's the list of boycotts for last night's "The West Wing" (once again, skipping any movies): GE Appliances, Ford Motor Vehicles (they had three commercials during the hour-long show), AFLAC Insurance (I guess Gilbert Gottfried's voice wasn't annoying enough, since they added Chevy Chase), America's Cotton producers, McDonald's restaurants, Maybelline cosmetics, some commercial against smoking by California's Health Services Agency (I'm not sure whether that means I should start smoking again), Dell Computers, Phillips "Duro-Max" light bulbs, Pacific Life Insurance company, Radio Shack, "Berry-Burst" Cheerios, General Motors, Kay Jewelers, Mercedes-Benz Motor Company, SBC Telecommunications, and Dreyer's Ice Cream.

A new flag over Georgia this morning, one without the "Stars and Bars" of the Confederate Battle Flag. I swear, sooner or later, the "Political Correctness" movement is going to erase our history entirely. I'm not suggesting that the Confederate Battle Flag doesn't have negative connotations, but just changing the flag to keep people from being offended doesn't mean that they won't be offended by something else tomorrow, or the next day. At what point do we draw the line and say, "Y'know what? You say you don't like the color brown, and say that 'it represents the oppression of brown people'? Tough cookies. Chocolate ice cream has always been that color, and we're not going to quit making it!"

The pendulum has swung about as far as it can go in this direction, and the farther they push it, the harder it's going to snap back when it does...

Anyhow, I'm all for speaking the truth, and if people's feelings get hurt, I don't see anything in the Constitution about the protection of bruised feelings. I do see "Freedom of Speech", and when a government (city, county, state, or national) says, "You can't say this because it might offend someone", I say, "Let them be offended. They'll either get over it, or they'll be offended an awfully long time".

{Sigh} Well, I hope you are having a good day.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that today is "World Red Cross Day". Take that for what it's worth.

2003-05-07T09:24:00.000-07:00
Good morning! It looks as though North Korea is doing everything they can to increase the pressure on the United States by saying that they will sell nuclear weapons, or test them, despite the Treaties they have signed to the contrary. Of course they have never let silly little things like treaties stop them.

In other news, Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) made an angry speech on the floor of the Senate criticizing President Bush for making the carrier landing aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, comparing it to "the simple dignity" of President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Sen. Byrd criticized the President for landing in a "fighter jet" rather than in a helicopter.

Umm, Senator Byrd? I'm probably not the first person to point this out, but the S-3 isn't "a fighter jet", it's designed to be a sub-hunter. And while I'm sure you were there for the Gettysburg Address (probably protesting, since your politics of times past - and membership in groups with "questionable ethics" are well documented), the two situations are utterly different.

Lincoln gave the speech (in a cemetary - but no message there, right, Bobby?) to remind the nation why the war (which was still going on at that time) needed to be fought. Bush did the carrier landing to see it from the pilot's point of view (since he was a former fighter pilot), and gave the speech to tell people that the war had been successfully fought to free a nation from a murderous thug, and as a message of thanks to the military members who had performed so well and so admirably. But since everything the Dems do is from the point of view of getting re-elected, they assume that everyone acts in such a craven manner. Since the previous Resident of the White House had done everything based on public opinion polls, I can't fault Bobby for his assumptions because he has yet to catch on to the fact that the President actually means what he says, and says what he means.

And in still more political news, Vice President Dick Cheney has said that there will be no changes in the Presidential ticket. Which means that there will be four more years of Bush/Cheney, and we can start speculating about the Republican ticket of 2008. Since it seems obvious that Shrillary will be running on the Democratic ticket, I'm hoping that (National Security Adviser) Condaleezza Rice will be running against her. I'd be laughing my ass off because there is absolutely no way Shrillary would win in such an instance. On education, on ethics, on national security, just about any subject imaginable (except for the concept of dealing with cheating spouses), Condi would just shred her, and on national TV, too. There would also be no doubt about the winner of a character debate, either. Just ask Shrillary about Vince Foster and Travelgate, and watch for that vein in her forehead to pop up.

Anyhow, I'm going to go poke around some more. Thanks for coming by, and here's a special error page for you, courtesy of Baghdad Bob. Remember that today is "Beaufort Scale Day".

2003-05-06T11:30:00.000-07:00
Flashbunny has learned that Governor Gray Davis has submitted a few coin designs for the California State Quarter (due out in January, 2005), and, in the spirit of full disclosure, has come up with a few designs that reflect the real Gray Davis legacy.

Remember, folks, this is the same Gray Davis who not only has the lowest approval rating of all 50 governors, he has the lowest approval rating in the history of the poll. And with good reason.

2003-05-06T08:28:00.000-07:00
It's time, once again, for This-or-That Tuesday:

The Media Edition

1. TV or radio? Both. TV when I'm at home, and radio when I'm driving in the car.
2. On the radio: talk or music station? Music. Classic rock, to be specific.
3. Actual books or books-on-tape (or e-books)? Actual books. I've been reading since I was very young.
4. Actual newspaper, or web version? Actual newspaper. (There's just something about holding the material in your hands.)
5. Wall Street Journal or National Enquirer? Neither. One is too dry, and the other is too much bullshit.
6. TV news...news channel such as CNN, or your local broadcast news? FOXNews. CNN is too anti-American to want to tell the truth. They're almost Al-Jazeerah WEST.
7. A movie you've been looking forward to seeing gets bad reviews all around. See it anyway, or pass? I've never agreed with movie reviewers anyway, so if they think a movie sucks, I would like it, and vice versa. Usually, anyway.
8. See movies when they first come out, or wait a few weeks for the lines at the theater to get shorter? Rent it when it hits the video stores.
9. TV: cable, satellite dish, or just plain old antenna? Digital cable, if it's possible.
10. Thought-provoking question of the week: If you had to choose only one form of media to come into your home, which would you choose...print (newspapers, magazines) or electronic (TV, internet)? Why? Electronic. It offers a wider access, and can be searched on a whim for anything that crosses my mind, depending on train of thought. It also offers hyperlinks. Print never changes, which is fine for archived material, but the world is changing too rapidly for the print media to keep up.

That's it for this week's round, and thanks for stopping by!

2003-05-05T15:48:00.000-07:00
Imperial:

Of, relating to, or suggestive of an empire or a sovereign, especially an emperor or empress: imperial rule; the imperial palace.
Ruling over extensive territories or over colonies or dependencies: imperial nations.

I'm not quite sure how this definition can possibly be applied to anything that the United States has done at any point in its history.

Let's try another:

Fascist

often Fascist An advocate or adherent of fascism.

Well, that didn't tell us anything we didn't already know. Okay, then, let's try fascism:

A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.
Oppressive, dictatorial control.

So will one of you left-wing twits explain to me exactly how we have "centralization of authority under a dictator", "suppression of the opposition through terror", and a policy of nationalism?

We have a Chief Executive who was elected (although the results in one state were fairly close, the Electoral College results were quite clear) rather than a naked power grab through assassination, whose political and ideological opponents have free rein to say pretty much anything they want at any time they want, and not a single one of them is being terrorized or censored. (A few are being censured, but that is because the public are sick and tired of these dancing monkeys spouting off about things, especially things that they have neither the training, the education, nor the aptitude to understand. The beauty of the First Amendment is that it applies to everyone, not just the unpopular opinions of a few loudmouths.)

As for the policy of nationalism (which implies one nation over all others), let's not confuse that with 'national pride', which is making a resurgence. We have tried to get the International body of the United Nations to actually enforce its own rules (remember UNSC Resolution 1441, passed 15-0?), but france threatened to veto any further resolutions, sight unseen. We had almost 60 nations supporting us in our actions, and more than a dozen of those were contributing troops. So which nation's interests are we enforcing here? Iraq? Israel? Great Britain? Australia? The United States? If it is more than one of these, then the charge of "nationalism" is as fallacious as the rest of their twaddle.

Until (and unless) one of these whiners manages to provide real, substantive, verifiable evidence to back up their claims of "imperialism", "fascism" (or as is most commonly said "facism"), or the rest of the "Loser's EZ Handbook of Insults", they will be relegated to the "Wrong Side of History".

2003-05-05T10:10:00.000-07:00
Good morning, everyone! I'm sitting here watching the legal pundits discuss the Laci Peterson murder, since Scott is going for one pre-trial motion or another. His attorney, Mark Garregos (who had been making money by describing how much of a monster Scott was on national TV for many weeks before being hired), is now saying that he will "prove" that Scott is innocent, and not just by instituting "reasonable doubt".

I remember one famous story where a man was on trial for a murder charge, where there was lots of circumstantial evidence, but no body. His lawyer had seen something he saw in a movie, and thought he'd give it a try. He said, "The prosecution has never been able to produce a body, because there was no murder! Because the victim is just outside those doors!" pointing at the courtroom entrance. Eyes all over the courtroom zeroed in on the doors expecting to see the prosecution's case shatter. The doors never opened, and the lawyer went on, "If you looked, you have to admit to yourself that you have a reasonable doubt that my client didn't kill anyone, and you have to vote to acquit."

After deliberations, the unanimous verdict came back, "Guilty." The stunned lawyer caught up with the jury foreman as everyone was leaving the courthouse, and asked, "Why did you vote that way? Wasn't there any reasonable doubt?"

The juror replied, "Because your client never turned around to look."

Scott wouldn't want me as a juror, because just from the things I've seen, I would not only vote to convict, I would also vote to execute. Anyone who would murder his wife, and cause the death of his unborn son in the process doesn't deserve to be breathing the same air as the rest of us. The death penalty doesn't serve as a deterrent in cases like these, but it sure as hell serves as a punishment.

Kind of a rough way to start the day, but oh, well, huh? Hope you have a good day!

2003-05-04T09:46:00.000-07:00
It looks like I'd be sent to the Second level of Hell.

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Second Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
Level Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers) Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers) Low
Level 2 (Lustful) Extreme
Level 3 (Gluttonous) Moderate
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious) Moderate
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy) Moderate
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics) Low
Level 7 (Violent) Moderate
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers) High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous) Low

Take the Dante's Divine Comedy Inferno Test

I guess it could be worse...

2003-05-04T08:58:00.000-07:00
Good morning to you all. The Democratic Presidential hopefuls:

Carol Moseley Braun, former Senator from Illinois
Governor Howard Dean of Vermont
Senator John Edwards (D-NC)
Congressman Dick Gephardt (D-MO 3rd)
Senator Bob Graham (D-FL)
Senator John Kerry (D-MA)
Congressman John Kucinich (D-OH 10th)
Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT)
Reverend Al Sharpton

have gotten together for a debate (if you can call it that) over the War, health care and tax cuts in South Carolina. I wonder why they even bother. They are going up against a war-time President who is incredibly popular, and who has learned the lessons of his father from 12 years ago. The Democrats in the Senate are doing everything they can to delay any improvement to the economy because that is the only card they have left their hand. No clear winner has yet emerged (which is a sentence the nine - count 'em, nine - of them are going to have to get used to hearing).

The Democrats have already shown that they are not supportive of minorities (by filibustering and delaying the confirmation vote of two minority appointees to the Federal Appeals Court - traditionally considered a stepping-stone to the Supreme Court). They have already shown that they are against the war (except after its already been won - Tom Daschle and Nancy Pelosi have displayed the sudden reversals) to libertae the Iraqis from Saddam's regime. They have already shown that they are against the average American having a lower tax burden. (I guess they don't think we can be trusted with our own money.)

If Bush manages to improve the economy, despite the interference from the Senate, then he's a lock for re-election (which is likely to be one of Reagan-esque proportions), and they might as well put away their posters and banners until '08, when Hillary will step up to the plate. I hope that the GOP will put Condi Rice up against her. That would be a fight to see. I think Condi would slap her around on just about every issue imaginable, but that's a few years off. So I'll wait before I start laughing at Hillary.

I'm sitting here listening to the Classic Rock channel of Digital Music and downloading songs that sound interesting. I just got the Doobie Brothers "Long Train Running". So far, I have just a bit under 500 different musical and comedy selections (ranging from Doris Day's "Slow Boat to China" to Tenacious D's "My Biznitch is the Shiznit" to Weird Al Yankovic's "Pretty Fly for a Rabbi"), and with a CD-R/W burner, it makes it easy to pick and choose my driving music. Or, if I'm sitting here and want to listen to the Eagles, it's just a double-click away. So to speak.

Anyhow, it looks to be a slow Sunday, so I'm going to kick around a bit. Hope your weekend is a good one.

2003-05-03T18:49:00.000-07:00
I had a long post put in earlier about New Hampshire's "Old Man of the Mountain" collapsing last night, how the weather here was clearing up, the Kentucky Derby, and a general riff on the situation in Iraq, but just about the time I was ready to start spell-checking, the computer froze. Maybe it had to do with the fact that I was downloading a large file (which was also a waste of time), uploading two others, surfing the web (in between updating the entry) and listening to music. I have 256MB of RAM and a 733MHz P-5 processor, but it tends to hang whenever I ask it to do too much.

I guess that qualifies, huh? Heh.

Secretary of State Colin Powell has been visiting Syria and has spelled out, in ego-shrinking detail, exactly what changes the U.S. expects to see in future U.S./Syria dealings, and I really have to wonder what Syria must be feeling now that they are surrounded. They have mostly-pro-U.S. Turkey on the north, newly-freed Iraq on the east, and pro-U.S. Israel and pro-U.S. Jordan on the South.

I'm guessing they're beginning to feel a little like Israel did in the 60's. Heh.

Weather cleared up quite a bit over the past eight hours, and there are even a few patches of blue up there. I still feel like I've played a full game of football without pads. Thank God for modern chemistry.

I'm going to go see what the line-up for tonight's TV programming has to offer. Hope you are having a good day.

2003-05-03T12:22:00.000-07:00
It's a rainy miserable day here this morning, and it doesn't look like it's going to let up soon. So it's going to be a rough weekend for yours truly.

A new movie, "X-2: X-Men Reunited", hit the theaters yesterday, and all reports are that it looks to be a great movie. Lots of praise from just about everyone who has seen it. I'm going to have to wait until next weekend when we go to visit the in-laws (Mother's Day, don'tchaknow?) and I have a few hours to kill. Maybe the weather will clear up enough to let me enjoy it with a clear head. But if you are looking for something to do, and enjoy good comic-book action movies (like Spiderman or the first X-Men), then it is probably worth your time.

In Iraq, the U.S., the U.K., and Poland are splitting the country up into three regions under international control just until things are stabilized a bit. Poland will take the north, the U.S. the center, and the U.K. will cover the south. The U.S. and Britain are also preparing a resolution for submission to the Security Council which will allow the UN to assist with humanitarian aid, but not with administrative or military control. I think that is a good thing. Put them where they will do the most good, and can't do any real damage, and make sure they understand they are there to assist, not to advise.

In tragic news from New Hampshire, The Old Man of the Mountain collapsed last night. It is such a recognizable landmark for New Hampshire that it appears on their state quarter (released in 2001). New Hampshire state officials knew that it was going to happen, but didn't know when. It has the emotional impact that the collapse of Mount Rushmore would.

There is supposed to be a Democratic debate between the 9 candidates in South Carolina this evening, and they could only get ABC to videotape it (and air it at 1:30 a.m.). Coming off the visit to the USS Abraham Lincoln by President Bush, it's just not quite the same thing. If Bush manages to cause an economic rebound in time for the election, the Dems might as well relax and start thinking about the 2008 election.

Hope you're having a good day.

2003-05-02T09:05:00.000-07:00
Good morning, everyone! I've been invited to begin posting over at one of the new sites in my blogroll (in the left column) called "The Wrong Side Of History". It's goal is to document the innaccuracies, mis-statements and utter idiocies spoken by public figures of every stripe (politicians, celebrities, sports stars, news personalities, religious leaders, foreign leaders, and activists of all type) and all political or personal affiliations. That includes conservatives as well as liberals, Republicans as well as Democrats, domestic as well as foreign.

Since it is almost a law of nature for many people in the public eye to speak whenever asked, about every subject under the sun (and none of them are likely to demur for lack of actual insight or knowledge), it shouldn't be too long before one of them says something that is either blatently illogical or proven wrong by subsequent events, putting their comments on "The Wrong Side of History". See?

I'm also shamelessly fishing for submissions, since I am by no stretch of the imagination omnipresent enough to catch them all. There are all sorts of sites which deal with Hollywood celebrities primarily (and while they would be enough to keep a passle of sites busy all by themselves - and they do!), we at WSoH also want to include the rest of the public personas who seem to enjoy the taste of their own feet.

Anyhow, that's my shameless plug for the new site.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

2003-05-01T20:56:00.000-07:00
That was one hell of a speech by George W. Bush from the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln earlier. First, he sets history by being the first President to land on an aircraft carrier in a plane rather than a helicopter. Then he does it again by being the first President to give a nationally-televised address from the flight deck of a moving aircraft carrier.

They delayed the arrival of this carrier so that he could pull this speech off, and there wasn't a sour face in the group. I know that most of the Carrier Air Wing had already departed the ship, so these sailors (ship's company) had been away from home for almost ten months, but for a chance to get a picture or shake the hand of POTUS, they were just happy to be there. And Dubya was happy to oblige them. (His Secret Service detail was less happy, but they would have been much happier to be back on dry land, no doubt. I'm not doubting their bravery, just their seasickness levels.)

This is a revitalized military that has come a long way back from the morale-busting social experimentation of BJ Clinton, where food stamps and double incomes just to get by were the rule, not the exception, where morale was at an almost all-time low, and where "esprit de corps" was replaced with "don't ask, don't tell". When I was in the Reagan-Bush navy, I was proud of my service, and I wore the uniform with pride and honor. I found that the Class A uniform (complete with full-sized medals) was the civilian equivalent of formal tuxedo, so I wore it happily whenever necessary. And lesser ones as the occasion merited.

That all changed in the early 90's, not long after the Gulf War, and it was never more prevalent than when we went to San Francisco for Fleet Week. We were specifically told not to wear our uniforms off the ship, because we didn't want to cause any problems with the local populace. I was stunned, because we were not 10 miles from the largest Navy base in Northern California (at Alameda), but we weren't allowed to wear our uniforms, because it might "offend" some people.

Then a few months later, I was transferred up to NAS Moffett Field (which was in Mountain View, much closer to San Jose than San Francisco), and I began to get an inkling of what they were talking about. One time, I drove from Moffett Field up to Alameda on official business, which meant "in uniform". I decided to drive up the 101 into "the city" and across the Bay Bridge to Oakland. I got caught in a traffic jam not far from the peninsula end of the bridge, and I was actually glared at, when I hadn't gotten such looks when driving around in mufti. Same car (old Nissan), same driver, same haircut, diferent clothes. The only conclusion I could draw was that the uniform was the problem.

I've been back once or twice since that time, but I never went through there in uniform ever again..

But now we have a military that is proud of themselves and their accomplishments for the first time in a decade. Bubba had been using the military as his own personal experiment to see how his social programs would fly with the rest of the nation, and as an occasional distraction from his domestic problems. Limiting the ability and responsiveness of the military he would send into harm's way virtually guaranteed that they would pay the price in blood. And they did. Time and time again.

But now they have shown the world what we can do (freeing not one, but two nations in the process), making it less necessary to actually have to use it a third time. We've shown the big stick, making the carrot seem all the more tempting to those who would oppose us and support terrorists in the future.

Syria? france? North Korea? We're watching you. Closely.

2003-05-01T10:59:00.000-07:00
Good morning. I've been fighting with the computer this morning, and a very slow connection (which is odd because I have DSL). I have this week's list of West Wing advertisers, but (as usual) I'm going to ignore the movie ads, because their financing has already happened, and the stars have already gotten paid.

The list: Ford Motor Company, Sprint PCS, Johnson & Johnson Baby Wash, ank of America, Target, Visa Check Card, Mercedes-Benz, Canon Printers, the Hummer (SUV?), Kentucky Fried Chicken, General Electric, Claritin-D, Loreal (an easy one - it's also french), American Express, Best Foods Dipping Sauce, Mazda, and Automobile Association of America (AAA).

I've gotten some questions about why I have quit capitalizing the word 'french'. If it is a proper name (French Stewart) or a brand name (French's brand mustard), I will capitalize it, but if it refers to the country or the people (or the language), then I feel that they have done so much to damage their reputation and legacy that they no longer rate the capitalization, which is, after all, a mark of distinction. I am not just speaking of the treachery of Jacques Chirac, but also of those ruffians who took the opportunity during a protest against the US to beat up on a few Jews. I'm referring to the scum who vandalized the cemetary where the brave men who fought and died to free that land from the tyranny of Nazi Germany lay buried.

Colin Powell once said, "The only land we ask for is enough to bury our honored dead." But even that is too much for the whiny french, who apparently think that between themselves and Germany (along with the company or two that Belgium and Luxembourg will supply) they can provide some kind of EUropean counter-balance to NATO. I can see the french need for urgency, since it has been made clear that they will be made to suffer consequences for their treachery and spying on behalf of Iraq.

They will have a lot to make up for, and I don't think it is going to happen within the next few years, because they are now arguing that they are going to take over the reconstruction of Iraq, now that we've done the hard part. They don't yet understand that the "Jacksonians" (to use Steven den Beste's term) among us have a very long memory.

Things will get interesting over the next few months, to be sure.

2003-04-30T18:05:00.000-07:00
Loyal reader David (who helped me with the HTML) had found a really interesting page explaining (in intimate detail) the truth about Iraq and Saddam Hussein. He's has done so much to help out with this page, and he continues to send in the good stuff.

Here's the page. I thought it was interesting, with some interesting data about Iraq, and I hope you find it as intriguing as I did. Thanks again, David! (I've offered him the chance to write and post, but he just prefers to work behind the scenes, I guess. Hell of a nice guy, nevertheless.)

2003-04-30T09:37:00.000-07:00
I gotten a few nice letters from some of you, and I wanted to thank you for your concern. I started this blog to have some fun, and it has been tremendously fun so far. There has been one hacking attack (that I'm aware of), but I was fortunate to catch it quickly and I had a solid copy of the HTML template, so it didn't do any damage.

Unfortunately, I had to remove the comments ability because some on the Loser Left had decided that since they couldn't argue the facts, they couldn't argue the logic, and they couldn't argue in any adult fashion, that they would try and impugn my name by posting in the comments section using my name. They insulted me, my wife, my mother, you name it, and while most of their comments made me laugh, it wasn't worth trying to defend against any of it, because even responding to it would encourage them to continue their tantrums (with all the emotional maturity of your average pre-schooler), and I have better ways to spend my days.

If that is the best they can do, then we have already won. I also apparently have what could be termed as an "anti-fan" club. (I guess you could still call it a "club", even though there's just the one member.) Someone who wants to spend (presumably) her time nitpicking my blog. Since I'm not speaking as an official (or even an unofficial) spokesman for anyone but myself, I guess that she thinks I am a big enough threat to her continued delusions that she is going to spend her own blogspace to argue the points I raise.

The trouble with that is that I didn't get into doing this to pick fights (what good is a fight you cannot lose?), but to express a point of view. My point of view, to be specific. That's not good enough for them, apparently. This loser-ette has sent me several e-mails where she claims to be giving me a red ass (?), and calling me a coward for not responding. If I have to actually express the utter lack of interest to be considered a response, then she has gotten her fondest wish. Or perhaps she is hoping for a return link. If that is the case, then she can keep hoping, because I'm not going to waste a single byte to offer her a platform on my "dime", so to speak.

I hope she enjoys her new hobby, but she needed to be told that I'm not losing any sleep over any of it. I'm actually kind of amused by the whole thing. But I also remember something my mother taught me...

"When you wrestle with a pig, you both get dirty - except that the pig likes it." So enough of even acknowledging her existence. Maybe she'll be able to make much stew from this one oyster, but I couldn't conceivably care less. Actually, I probably could, but modern science hasn't yet counted that far down into the negative numbers...

So, back in the real world, I hear that there are rumors that Baghdad Bob tried to turn himself in to U.S. Marines, but couldn't get them to arrest him because he isn't on the "deck of cards" of the 55 Most Wanted Iraqi Officials. Man, it must really suck when you can't even get arrested. "Sorry, you can't turn yourself over to us, because we're really not here in Baghdad, remember? Our bodies are lying by the side of the roads, remember?" {Muffled laughter} Maybe, he can get a guest spot on "The Daily Show" as a "Special Correspondent for International Affairs" or something. He'd certainly be a big hit on the talk-show circuit. Leno, Letterman, Conan O'Brien, Regis, Oprah (& Dr. Phil), the ladies of "The View", and an hour long special with BabaWawa.

In other news, there was a terrorist attack that killed two people (plus the "not-so-smart-bomb", but he was a goner from the moment he strapped the vest on, so let's deal with the tragedy of the real victims) in Tel Aviv, at a favorite hang-out for Americans in the city. The new Palestinean PM had only been in "power" for less than 24 hours, so it will be a good opportunity to show that he really wants peace by finding the people responsible and making sure that they are really punished, rather than the revolving-door prisons currently in use by the Palestinean Authority under that terrorist thug, Arafat.

We shall see. I think that it is a case of "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss" as The Who put it. (It's also being used as the theme song to CBS's show "CSI: Miami". While the missus and I like the regular CSI, the spin-off just isn't as entertaining for some reason. Maybe because David Caruso just doesn't have the charisma of William Peterson. Or maybe because Jorja Fox is just cuter than Emily Proctor. I don't know, but we watch one and not the other.)

Anyhow, it also seems that the head of the UN's IAEA (International Atomic Energu Agency), Mohamed ElBaradei, says that only the UN is qualified to search and conduct inspections for Iraq's nuclear program. This is the same guy who oversaw North Korea's nuclear program during the time that North Korea was under investigation by the IAEA, with monitors, cameras, seals, and inspections - the works. The DPRK was (simultaneously) under the terms of a treaty (signed during Clinton's term) that said that the DPRK would not develop nuclear weapons. You know what? North Korea went and made them anyway.

This is the same IAEA who has been watching Iran's nuclear program (the nation with one of the largest oil reserves on the planet, but they need a nuclear reactor?) during which time satellite observations have discovered an underground reactor in Iran. It is possible that this reactor can be used for the same nuclear enrichment as North Korea's Pyongyang reactor.

The funny thing is that that reactor in North Korea can only put out 5MW of power. That sounds like a lot, but in real terms, it isn't enough to run a large shopping mall. The only other thing it does in enrich plutonium to a weapons-grade status. But it's just a coincidence, right? They only activated it because they need the power.

Here's the link, but I really have to wonder why, with a track record like his (not to mention Hans Blix), he thinks that he should even be allowed back into the UN buildings, much less into any position of authority.

But the UN is the same group that has Libya as the Chair of its Human Rights Commission and who just re-elected Cuba (who just summarily executed dozens of people without even a trial, for the "crime" of trying to get the hell out of the country) to another term on that council. This is the same organization that elected Saddam's Iraq onto its Disarmament Commission, almost ten years into the crisis we recently resolved.

Why are we still in the UN again?

I hope you all have a good day. I'm going to go run some errands, and deal with a few customers.

2003-04-29T10:52:00.000-07:00
It seems as though the Losers-on-the-Left have chosen to use a different tactic, which means that they are posting in the comments section, using my name. That's a shame, because although it gives me a way to have immediate feedback from the rest of you, the comments service I use is just too basic to allow for the banning of users for being so pathetically childish.

I invite them (actually a better word would be "dare") to send their comments via e-mail, and I invite the rest of you to do the same. It's a shame that they have ruined the party for everyone, but since they can't defeat the argument, they've decided to start throwing their mud and random insults, hoping to have some of it stick, and trying to pretend to be me, or worse. I accept the surrender of your argument (or lack thereof), but I'm not going to allow you to foul up my website anymore.

Hey, why don't more on the left try having comments? That way, we could have some fun, too! But then, that would require you to permit criticism of your positions, and you certainly can't allow that, can you?

2003-04-29T08:35:00.000-07:00
Good morning, one and all! It's Tuesday, so that means that it is time for the weekly "This-or-That Tuesday".

Which is more comforting for you...

1. Lying down on the couch, or stretching out on a recliner? On a recliner. Couches are over-rated.
2. Going barefoot or wearing soft slippers? Soft slippers. I used to have this kind of slipper that just made my feet feel like they're being massaged. I love 'em, but I haven't been able to find them recently.
3. Eating ice cream, or pizza? Why not both?
4. Watching on TV...a classic movie or a reality show? A classic movie
5. Wearing: blue jeans or sweat pants? Sweat pants
6. A long, soothing bubble bath or a quick, invigorating shower? A bath, but I'm too tall to stretch out in the standard size tub, so ... not so much.
7. Furniture: leather, or something more on the fuzzy side? cloth, so I guess that is considered "fuzzy". (Leather gets too sticky on hot days.)
8. Soft, classical music, or upbeat rock & roll? Depends on my mood.
9. Darkness or light? Somewhat dim light, just enough to read by, but nothing glaring.
10. Thought-provoking question of the week: You get married, or otherwise begin cohabitating with a significant other. S/he moves into your place, but brings with them the UGLIEST chair you have ever seen! You really don't want this thing in your home, but SO says it is the most comfy chair s/he has ever sat in, and no way will they part with it. Do you: grin and bear it, or scheme to get rid of the montrosity somehow? I'd live with it. I've seen much worse, and domestic tranquility isn't worth the hassle.

That's it for this week, and thanks for stopping by. Even you liberals who want to try and prove me wrong. I enjoy the traffic.

Oh, one other thing. You left-wing twits need to pay attention. Here's today's lesson.

Boo.
Hoo.

Get used to using those words, they will be replacing the anti-war chants currently in vogue. The United States won, exposed your lies and seditious behavior, and managed to re-arrange the world to the point where you get to keep whining (just like the chimpanzees in the zoo, only not quite as coherent). So remember these times. We certainly will.

2003-04-28T07:43:00.000-07:00
Good morning, everyone. I didn't sleep well last night, because I was just hurting so much. And the tossing and turning (and, according to my wife, the moaning and groaning) meant that neither of us got much sleep. But let's go on to more pleasant things, shall we?

The world is becoming an unusual place, as various Iraqi religious, political and academic leaders are getting together with representatives from the United States in an attempt to form the notions that lead to the ideas that force the concepts that would build a new government in Iraq. Similar to the Afghanistan Loya Jurgah, but just a "get acquainted" meeting more than anything. It looks like we are on our way to Iraqi self-rule. It has been less than two weeks since the fall of Baghdad, and we have gotten a majority of the city supplied with electricity and water and food.

I'd say it was pretty much an unqualified success, but I don't see Janeane Garofalo with any bandages on her knees. I can only assume that she is continuing to chicken out and deny that she was wrong. I don't see Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins and Barbra Streisand and Martin Sheen and Tom Daschle and Nancy Pelosi and Woody Harrelson and Jessica Lange out there admitting that they may have been wrong in their opposition to this war.

I'm too tired to point out all the ways that they were (and continue to be) wrong, so just accept that they are liars, poultroons and fools.

Hope you all have a nice day. Except for you. Oh, and you too, there in the back, you're only allowed to have an average day.

2003-04-27T09:34:00.000-07:00
Michele, over at A Small Victory (the link is in the left column), has a really good idea about protests. Make it a National Holiday.

Go read it. It's worth it.

2003-04-27T09:04:00.000-07:00
Good morning to you all. I am soooooo sick of garage sales. Hauling all the boxes from the garage (actually to the rear of the house) out onto the front lawn (where passing people can see the stuff), and then hauing the stuff we didn't sell back into the garage. Plus the in-laws (who live in a mobile home park and can't have yard sales, so they hop onto ours whenever we have them) came down, so we not only have strangers wandering all over our front yard, turning up their noses at our offerings like we're asking them to choose a random pile of dogshit to pick up and take with them.

I mean, if I weren't so freakin' tired and hurting so bad (that oak table was not light), I would have been offended. Ah, never mind.

Anyhow, we have a solid link (the first documents) between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda. Documents showing a meeting between officials in Baghdad and a senior representative of Osama bin Laden back in 1998 (just before the African embassies bombings), during meetings that went on for about a week. Bin Laden's name had been whited out, but some careful work with a razor blade to remove the white-out showed OBL's name, still legible.

Many more documents were found, and "the hits just keep on comin'." To coin a phrase. They have also found evidence that a representative of Chiraq (or maybe even Chiraq himself, it wouldn't surprise me) had been briefing Saddam's government on private meetings between Chiraq and President Bush in the months leading up to the war (as recently as last November, in one reported case).

We have Russia giving intelligence information on conversations between British PM Tony Blair and other world leaders (not to mention a list of assassins for hire in the Western World) to the Iraqi government. We have documentation on bribes by Iraqi officials to officials in the German government in an attempt to get their aid in blocking our efforts to force a military confrontation. We have documents that Chiraq was briefing Saddam on his meetings with Bush.

Will someone remind me which nations were fighting so hard to prevent enforcement of a resolution they all voted for? (Resolution 1441 was passed 15-0, with no abstentions.) I remember that it was france, Germany, Russia, Syria, and (to a lesser extent) China, right?

france - they were giving Iraq intel information, plus the $20 billion oil contract with TotalFinaElf.

Germany - Bribes for intelligence info, and any possible influence against the US.

Russia - an $8 billion oil contract, plus intel information and a list of assassins.

Syria - official headquarters of Hamas and Hezbollah, two of the worst terrorist groups in the Middle East, and sponsor of almost every single homicide bomber attack over the last two decades. Also receiving 200,000 barrels of oil from Iraq, every day, for free.

China - wants the influence of the US reduced by any means necessary, since we are probably the only army on the planet that could defeat them.

But they were just "trying to keep the peace" when they fought so hard against the "serious consequences" they had all approved just a few months before. Right?

In yet other news, the self-proclaimed "Mayor of Baghdad" was arrested by American soldiers. He had set up his own mini-government and had offered civil officials a 1000% raise, but we didn't take down one tinpot despot, just to alow another to rise up. This is a serious issue, and it needs to be done the right way. Let the citizens decide for themselves, but they have to get back to the point where their next meal is covered, and they can think about next week, and next year. It'll take time, but it'll be well worth it.

Anyhow, we might go catch a minor-league ball game today, so I'm going to go take a pill, and by the time we need to leave, I might actually feel like I'm able to leave. Have a good day, all of you, and thanks for stopping in!

2003-04-26T09:22:00.000-07:00
Deep into the Garage Sale Mode this morning, the wife wants me to sell my special computer desk chair. This is a green leather swivel chair with tilt capability and lumbar support, and cost almost $200 when she first bought it for me. It is quite possibly the most comfortable chair I have ever owned, and she is just in that zone where I have to be careful or she'll sell my breakfast dishes right out from under my fork, then sell the fork.

I gotta go, folks. She's running to the bank to get change, so I gotta watch the merchandise. I hate how people show up to a garage sale first thing in the freaking morning, but one item - for about a dollar, if you're lucky - and then present a twenty dollar bill, and expect you to make change. That early in the morning, I'm lucky if I can remember how to count, but they want to take every single dollar bill I have, leaving me with no way to make change for the next person in line, who is going to do exactly the same thing.

Good Morning!

2003-04-25T18:19:00.000-07:00
Wow. Color me gobsmacked. (What color would that be, anyway?)

Yesterday, at 2:42 pm (PDT), I had my 4,000th visitor. This evening, a few minutes ago, at 6:07 pm (PDT), I had my 4,100th.

That's 100 visitors in an elapsed period of 25 hours, and 25 minutes. I can't see any particular major site that gave me the Blogolanche (it may be about 5 minutes worth of traffic for Glenn Reynolds over at Insta-Pundit, but it's a lot for me!). Even though Tim Blair was kind enough to leave an approving comment after the blatant cut-n-paste from his site, he didn't mention me on his (I'm not asking, Tim, I was just trying to figure it out while "typing out loud") so that isn't it.

I want you all to know that you guys just rock. Thanks for coming by.

(UPDATE: It turns out that Glenn actually only needs about 2 1/2 minutes to get that many visitors (at almost 2,400/hr.), not the five minutes I thought. I feel really small now. Thanks, Glenn.)

2003-04-25T12:50:00.000-07:00
Well, a brief thing on NAFTA. I'm all for free trade, and I've never known trade to lead to a war. Most trading tends to swap some cultural traits, too.

Briefly, thus: NAFTA is short for North American Free Trade Agreement, and it took effect almost a decade ago. It was one of the first things Bill Clinton did when he took office. I'm not so sure that we should be allowing these trucks across uninspected. The second immediate concern I remember was the utterly differing health standards regarding Mexican fruit. I remember whole seasons of strawberries that were causing people to get sick.

But once those had ironed themselves out, then jobs should move to where they are most efficiently handled.

I know that this might conflict with some people's view, but let me spell out the major provisions (as explained by the World Almanac):

Agriculture - Tariffs on all farm products are to be eliminated over 15 years. Domestic price-support systems may continue provided they do not distort trade.
Automobiles - After eight years, at least 5/8 (62.5%) of an automobile's value must have been produced in North America for it to qualify for duty-free status. Tariffs are to be phased out over ten years.
Banking - U.S. and Canadian banks may acquire Mexican commercial banks accounting for as much as 8% of the industry's capital. All limits on ownership end in 2004.
Disputes - Special judges have jurisdiction to resolve disagreements within strict timetables.
Energy - Mexico continues to bar foreign ownership of its oil fields but, starting in 2004, U.S. and Canadian companies can bid on contracts offered by Mexican oil and electricity monopolies.
Environment - NAFTA cannot override national and state environmental, health, or safety laws.
Immigration - All three countries must ease restrictions on the movement of business executives and professionals.
Jobs - Barriers to limit Mexican migration to the U.S. remain.
Patent and Copyright protection - Mexico strengthened its laws providing protection to intellectual property.
Tariffs - Tariffs on 10,000 customs goods are to be eliminated over 15 years. One-half of U.S. exports to Mexico are to be considered duty-free within five years.
Textiles - A "rule of origin" provision requires most garments to be made from yarn and fabric that has been produced in North America. Most tariffs are to be phased out over five years.
Trucking - Trucks were to have free access on cross-border routes and throughout the three countries by 1999, but the U.S. continued to impose restrictions on Mexican trucks. On February 6, 2001, an arbitration panel ruled that the U.S. restrictions were in violation of NAFTA. President Bush pledged to work with Congress to bring the U.S. into compliance with NAFTA.

So we have increased trade across the borders, and my main problem is the smuggling of people ("undocumented immigrants" if we're speaking politely, "illegal aliens" if we're speaking truthfully) and drugs. These illegals are here to use up health care resources and then disappear back into the society that shields them. Other illegals (who aren't so interested in finding work) also make it across the border with even more nefarious goals in mind.

As for the drugs, the smugglers are getting more and more clever. They have even issued contracts on the lives of the really efficient drug-sniffing dogs. But that's another issue that existed long before NAFTA. I'm also struck by the fact that Clinton didn't do anything about that last point. They had been violating the treay for going on seven years, and about two weeks after Bush takes the Oath, he gets yet another Clinton failure laid in his lap. But we shall see. Maybe since Mexico took the anti-war position (One recent quote by Jay Leno says it best: "Mexican President Vicente Fox said the United States had no business invading Iraq and called for the U.S. to withdraw and go home. This hurts. If there's one thing for which Mexicans are well respected, it's their belief in the sanctity of borders." - tip o' the hat to American Realpolitik), maybe we can show them a little of the french twist via a mini-boycott. Cinco de Mayo is coming up, so don't celebrate it. Have a hamburger, instead.

I can't be sure whether it is good or bad, but allowing for unrestricted access across the border is just inviting disaster, of one sort or another. Either in an overwhelming drug boom or in a terrorist-inspired real boom. Either way, it couldn't be helpful to any of the three countries.

If Mexico and Canada were to tighten up their borders and actually enforce their laws, and pay attention to who is coming into their country (as closely as we do here in the US nowadays), then I wouldn't have a problem with NAFTA.

I know that it's probably not what LL wanted me to say, but companies are in this market to make a profit. If the jobs go elsewhere, then people will go where the jobs are. If that means that more Mexicans stay in Mexico for all those blue collar jobs, then I'm cool with it. If a company folds up because it can't pay its American workers, when it could have moved to Mexico and kept going, but providing jobs in North America, rather than just say, Kentucky, then realize that NAFTA is designed to benefit the entire continent, not just one nation.

Send any hate mail to your Congressional Representatives, but remember that it is now the Law of the Land, with its tenth anniversary coming up next January 1st. I'm a big picture kinda guy, rather than the local picture. That may make me seem heartless, but it's who I am. Hope this helps.

2003-04-25T09:28:00.000-07:00
Copied from Tim Blair's site, in response to this self-serving nonsense from Ted Turner. I hope Tim doesn't mind too terribly, but BlogSpot's permalinks are screwed up. Again. (The original tip came from a mention on Lee's site).

So with all credit going to Tim Blair, here goes:

TED TURNER, the vice chairman of AOL Time Warner CNN Sports Illustrated People Entertainment Weekly Fortune Money In Style Real Simple Time For Kids Sports Illustrated For Kids Teen People People en Español Fortune Small Business Business 2.0 Southern Living Progressive Farmer Southern Accents Sunset Cooking Light Coastal Living For the Love of Cross Stitch For the Love of Quilting Parenting Baby Talk Health In Style U.K. In Style Australia In Style Germany Time Asia Time Canada Time Atlantic Time Latin America Time South Pacific Wallpaper* Who Weekly Popular Science Outdoor Life Field & Stream Golf Magazine Yachting Motor Boating Salt Water Sportsman Ski Skiing Freeze This Old House TransWorld Stance TransWorld Surf TransWorld Skateboarding TransWorld Snowboarding TransWorld Motocross TransWorld Surf BMX Ride BMX Skiing Trade News TransWorld Skateboarding Business TransWorld Snowboarding Business TransWorld Surf Business BMX Business News Amateur Gardening Amateur Photographer Angler's Mail Cage & Aviary Birds Chat Country Life Cycling Weekly Horse & Hound NME Now Shooting Times & Country Magazine Woman Woman's Own Woman's Weekly Woman's Feelgood Series Woman's Own Lifestyle Series Woman's Weekly Home Series TV & Satellite Week TVTimes What's On TV Mizz Mizz Specials Webuser Caravan Magazine The Guitar Magazine VolksWorld World Soccer Beautiful Homes Bird Keeper Cars & Car Conversions Chat Passion Series Classic Boat Country Homes & Interiors Creating Beautiful Homes Cycle Sport Decanter Essentials Eventing Family Circle Golf Monthly Hi-Fi News Homes & Gardens Horse Ideal Home Land Rover World Livingetc Loaded Marie Claire MBR-Mountain Bike Rider MiniWorld Model Collector Motor Caravan Motor Boat & Yachting Motor Boats Monthly Muzik 19 Now Style Series 4x4 Park Home & Holiday Caravan Practical Boat Owner Practical Parenting Prediction Racecar Engineering The Railway Magazine Rugby World Ships Monthly Soaplife Sporting Gun Stamp Magazine The Field The Golf Uncut What Digital Camera Woman & Home Yachting Monthly Yachting World Aeroplane Monthly Superbike Women & Golf Shoot Monthly Hair Wedding & Home Women's Weekly Fiction Special International Boat Industry Farm Holiday Guides Jets Time Life Inc. Oxmoor House Lesiure Arts Sunset Books Media Networks, Inc. First Moments Targeted Media Inc. Time Inc, Custom Publishing Synapse Time Distribution Services Time Inc. Home Entertainment Time Customer Service Warner Publishing Services This Old House Ventures, Inc. TimePix Essence Communications Partners European Magazines Limited Avantages S.A. CompuServe ICQ MapQuest Moviefone Netscape AOL Music Little, Brown and Company Adult Trade Books Warner Books Little, Brown and Company Children's Publishing Bulfinch Press Warner Faith Time Warner AudioBooks Time Warner Books UK HBO Cinemax Comedy Central HBO Asia HBO Brasil HBO Czech HBO Hungary HBO India HBO Korea HBO Ole HBO Poland HBO Romania A&E Mundo E! Latin America SET Latin America WBTV Latin America Latin America History Channel New Line Cinema Fine Line Features Bay News 9, Tampa, FL Central Florida News 13, Orlando, FL News 8 Austin, TX NY1 News, New York, NY R/News, New York, NY News 14, Carolina Time Warner Telecom, Inc. inDemand Kansas City Cable Partners Texas Cable Partners TBS Superstation Turner Network Television Cartoon Network Turner Classic Movies Turner South Boomerang TCM Europe Cartoon Network Europe TNT Latin America Cartoon Network Latin America TCM & Cartoon Newtwork Asia Pacific CNN International CNNfn CNN en Español CNNRadio CNN Newsource CNNMoney.com CNN Student News CNNSI.com Cartoon Network Japan Court TV CETV Castle Rock Entertainment Telepictures Productions Warner Home Video Warner Bros. Consumer Products Warner Bros. International Theatre Looney Tunes Hanna-Barbera DC Comics MAD Magazine The Atlantic Recording Corporation Elektra Entertainment Group Inc. Warner Bros. Records Inc. Warner/Chappell Music, Inc. Alternative Distribution Alliance Giant Merchandising Rhino Entertainment WMG Soundtracks Ivy Hill Corporation, claims that too few people own too many media organisations.

"It's not healthy," Turner added.

{I quite agree, Ted...}

2003-04-25T09:22:00.000-07:00
God morning, I'm not going to be doing much today, because I have to go clean out the garage in preparation for a garage sale we're planning on having tomorrow (if the pleasant weather holds). We have a couch to move to the side, and I have to sweep up and make a few posterboard signs. Just simple stuff, and It ought to be a long and tiring day. For me anyway.

I have a new Loyal Reader LL, who is suggesting that I blog and rant about NAFTA. While I'm sure that it may not be the best thing for our nation, I'm not so sure that free trade s a bad thing either, so while I hear a lot of anecdotes about lost jobs here and production moved to Canada (especially sugar consuming companies like candy makers) or Mexico (auto makers and other blue-collar production jobs), I'm not familiar enough with the nuts and bolts to find out why it is a good thing or a bad thing.

I also don't let H. Ross Perot decide my opinion on policy, and I remember his sound bite from the '96 election ("Vast Sucking Sound"), so let me think about it, and try and figure out how it should be changed, if at all.

We also caught the Iraqi equivalent of the Secretary of State, Tariq Aziz, and the head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, Farouk Hijazi. Pretty soon, we will have enough for a game of bridge...

Oh, just under a month until my birthday, and I passed 4,000 visitors yesterday (with a visitor from Illinois, I think). I'm expecting to pass the 5K mark before the middle of May. Not bad for some schlub who just decided to start typing one afternoon because he saw how much fun others were having.

You are the ones who decide how successful I become, and all thanks goes to you. So thank you all. Come back again, and often.

Good morning!

2003-04-24T10:19:00.000-07:00
The Dixie Twits are back on the cover of a magazine to proclaim their patriotism. They decided to become the Country Music world's version of Courtney Love, or Madonna, or Christina Aguilera.

They still don't get it. Their fan base is not upset because of their lack of public nakedness. They are upset because they have chosen to badmouth the President about the war while performing for a foreign audience. If they really believed it, they should have the guts (I can't say "balls" about a group that calls themselves "Chicks") to say so right here at home. If they really don't believe it, then they are nothing more than political whores who were playing the political punchline in a crowd who already felt that way, for doing something on the moral equivalent of shouting, "You guys here in [Insert Name of Town Here] really rock!!"

But the quickest way to avoid the hassle of one scandal is to start another one, and the easiest way to do that is to push the buttons of your core fan base in another way. These are the same fans who believe in God, Country, Guns, and President, and would much rather be strung up to a whipping post than appear in public naked.

What they don't realize is that their fan base isn't likely to forget so quickly. The nation has become quite a bit more cynical over the past year regarding being bitch-slapped by who we had been considering friends, only to realize how treacherous they have actually been. Same with The Dixie Chicks. And Hollywood.

The re-election of '04 will be one of classic proportions.

The list of advertisers for last night's West Wing: Toyota, AIG Insurance, Johnson & Johnson, MasterCard, Telecom*USA (10-10-987), Zyrtec, Quaker Oats, Nissan, SBC Communications, Lincoln-Mercury, Subaru, Pantene Hair Care, JCPenney, the FannieMae Foundation (Home Loans), Swanson TV Dinners, Colgate, Microsoft (tough one), and NBC (of course).

Long list, but follow along if you wish. Tell your friends and neighbors, stop by often, and Good morning!

2003-04-23T12:11:00.000-07:00
I have a pet peeve I want to air. I just went through a service call to one of our local utilities, and went through the whole "For customer service to your home, press '1'. If you're calling about customer service to your business, press '2'. If you are sick and tired of listening to our Musak, press '9'.", and no matter which choices you make, and no matter how specific the choices are, you still have to explain it to the person who finally answers the phone, start to finish.

My question, what was the purpose of this rigamarole? I have been in these phone systems that have had me enter my 16-digit account number, home telephone number (another ten digits, "area code first"), and specify, through menu choices, that it was 1) a residence; 2) that I was using a Windows 98 Operating System; 3) that I had DSL; and 4) (since I had already done this before) acknowledge that none of the pre-recorded messages were helpful. That was just to get me to a living tech support person who asked for a problem resolution number (another eight digits), and then ask, "How can we help you?"

I'd love to hear from people who have run into these same kind of illogical wastes of time that don't do anything but see how long we will sit and push buttons before we start wanting to rip the phone out of the wall and throw it out the window. Give me your worst horror stories (to the e-mail address on the left), and I'll publish the very best... or worst, as the case may be. If you would prefer to use a screen name or other pseudonym, just include it along with your entry, m'kay? No third hand stuff, though... I'm not looking for Urban Legends.

2003-04-23T08:25:00.000-07:00
Yesterday's post on the First Amendment, combined with what someone had said on another blog (I think it was over at Lee's), made me realize that our Founding Fathers had done their damnedest to make sure that our Government would remain forever scared of the citizenry.

In our form of Government, that Government derives its power to rule from the People. And the People should have the ability to take it back, if they were to make the collective choice to do so, even to the point of armed rebellion. But the Founding Fathers made sure that if the Federal Government got so aggressively overbearing with its regulations and taxation, that the people would have the right to get together and figure out ways to change it. All with the blessings of the Founding Fathers and the protection of the Bill of Rights.

The First Amendment gives us the right to worship where we want (or not), to say (and write) what we want, to meet up with those who are like-minded, and to ask the Government to try and fix itself first. The Second guarantees that if it comes down to fighting in the streets, the average citizen will be able to pick sides and join in. The Third means that loyalties won't be divided (by having a guest in your home be there at the behest of the Government). The Fourth boils down to making sure that your stuff isn't bothered so long as you obey the laws. The Fifth means that you don't have to incriminate yourself and you only get tried once for any accusation.

You see what I mean? You can protest against the Government and demand that they fix the problem. You can meet up with people who share your beliefs. You can announce your point of view in any venue you want. You can own enough weaponry to protect yourself or fight against the Government. You won't have to be worried about having your doors kicked in just because you are protesting against the Government (so long as you obey the laws).

And if you do get arrested, the burden of proof lies entirely on the side of the Government prosecutors to prove your guilt to twelve citizens "beyond a reasonable doubt". Those twelve have to agree on your guilt, so if one person among them believes in your innocence and refuses to budge, you have a 'hung jury', and the chances are better than even that many prosecutors will just give up at that point. Some will keep trying, but with the same set of facts, and the chance of the same result, it's just a longer and more drawn out version of the same song...

Robert Heinlein once wrote, "In any mature society, 'civil servant' is semantically equal to 'civil master'." The Bill of Rights is the ultimate guarantee of our power, and the means to take it back, if need be.

Good morning!

2003-04-22T11:20:00.000-07:00
I never got my reminder e-mail last night, but I went looking for this week's "This-or-That Tuesday" questions all on my own.

So... For your amusement, I present the "What is" version of our game.

What Is...

1. Yummier: Chocolate ice cream or strawberry cheesecake? Chocolate ice cream, without question.
2. Better to watch on TV: Movies or sports? Usually movies, but if the wife isn't home, and it looks like a good baseball game, who knows?
3. A better web browser: MSIE or Netscape (or tell us your own favorite!) I use Internet Explorer. I flirted briefly with Mozilla, but I couldn't get it to work properly, so I went back to IE.
4. A better way to travel: Automobile or bus/train? I'd rather drive myself, but it'd be fun to catch a train across the country.
5. Your preferred camera: Digital or film? I'd love a digital camera, but money has limited our wish list.
6. A Cooler Vehicle: Motorcycle or sports car? Sports car.
7. More fun: Video games or board games? Video games, but board games can be fun, too.
8. Sexier: A perfect body or an intelligent mind? Intelligent mind, but I have an obvious bias, since my body is busy breaking down around me.
9. A stinkier smell: Skunk or gasoline (petrol)? There are MUCH worse smells that either of those, but of the two, skunk.
10. Thought-provoking question of the week: What is more important to you: making a ton of money and being at the top of your field, or finding your soulmate and living a comfortable but not wealthy life? Being independently wealthy means being happy with what you have, not having more money than you know what to do with. And what's the point of having a comfortable life if there's no one to share it with?

That's it for this week, and thanks again for coming by!

2003-04-22T09:00:00.000-07:00
You know, it has struck me that many people haven't yet figured out what the First Amendment really says, and what it really does. Some Hollyweird celebrities are upset that their fans have stopped spending money on them. The Dixie Chicks have lost several performances and have also suffered a 40% drop in sales, as a direct result of Natalie Maines saying (while performing overseas) that they were "ashamed" that President Bush was also from Texas. Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon were disinvited from a ceremony at the Baseball Hall of Fame and Susan was also disinvited from a Tampa Bay fundraiser, because people started saying that if Susan showed up, they would stay at home. With their checkbooks. I have been getting several contacts from corporate sponsors who have been concerned about my "boycott" (which is still going on, by the way, there just haven't been any new episodes) of any and all advertisers on "The West Wing".

These celebs have just realized that We, The People, actually have the power to choose. We can choose where to spend our money, and if people choose Clint Black over The Dixie Chicks, that is their right. If people want to avoid watching movies that star any of these celebs (such as Susan Sarandon's recent made-for-TV movie about a woman suffering from breast cancer, which had the lowest rating of all the shows on TV that evening), they have that right, and it is NOT a violation of the celeb's First Amendment Rights.

I know I went over this once before, but let's try it again. First, the exact phrasing: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." That's it. 45 words. No fancy language (although a few words might be slightly archaic). I wonder how many of the celebs would be able to remember all the things mentioned and covered by the First Amendment (religion, speech, press, assembly, right of petition)...

But let's step back and listen to some of the things being said by the most outspoken of these "oppressed" people, Tim Robbins. He has said that a "chill wind is blowing" which apparently reminds him of his stint in the Government Gulags (alongside Barbra Streisand) for protesting against the guy who won the election (but they're not conceding anything, even 30 months later). But since that only happened in his fevered imagination, let's look at why no one is suppressing anyone's rights.

The issue about the disinvites: They (Tim and Susan) haven't yet been able to step in front of a microphone about any subject without somehow bringing up their position against the "unilateral war of aggression" against Iraq "who had done nothing to us" (according to a TV commercial starring Susan). Susan was on a tour promoting her movie (which, as I said, was about a very brave lady who was working at the South Pole when she learned she had breast cancer, and lacking all other alternatives, ended up doing the surgical procedures on herself.) That would be a woman who has shown the courage and stamina to deserve to have a quality movie made about her experiences, but Susan still turned one interview into a polemic on the war.

The Tampa Bay charity fundraiser had been told by at least thirty people who wanted to give money but would refuse if Susan showed up and started ranting about her decidedly anti-war views. Charities need those funds, and would rather people with checkbooks show up than a controversial figure, so they said, "Thanks for everything, Susan, now go away."

That's not a violation of anyone's First Amendment Rights. Period. Because it was not Congress who did it, it was a private agency. Much like the Hall of fame disinviting Tim and Susan from the ceremony celebrating "15 Years of Bull Durham". The HoF director was a former Reagan staffer, so he must therefore be trying to suppress the speech of the left-wing. After all, he invited Ari Fleischer to come speak about something else a few weeks later, but not Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon.

"Violations of First Amendment" and it must therefore all be the fault of President Bush and his administration.

Here's a clue... Even if everything they say were true (and I'm not stipulating any of it), it's still not a First Amendment violation. Private individuals and non-governmental organizations (like the HoF and charities) can control who gets to attend official functions of that group, and who gets to speak, and Congress hasn't done anything.

Tim and Susan are griping about their speech being suppressed on four different networks, and at the National Press Club, which was aired on C-SPAN. I wish I were that suppressed, I could use the publicity.

I'm just going to have to accept that this is the same group that did absolutely nothing while Klinton was bombing Kosovo and Baghdad (killing more civilians than all of our regime-changing military actions in Iraq to date). Maybe because they were too busy checking out all the cool little secrets in the White House, and bouncing on the bed in the Lincoln Bedroom.

In other news, I mentioned that my birthday is coming up in about four weeks, and I've told my wife I want to get my own domain and website, and she has agreed. It may be clunky as hell at first, but the look will remain the same, except for some pictures I get to use (I've run across a shitload of stuff I wanted to show you, but couldn't, because I don't have any FTP ability with BlogSpot.

Hang in there, friends, the new website will be coming, I promise! Hopefully before Memorial Day, if I can get my act together (or get some helpful advice) by then. Good morning!

2003-04-21T09:15:00.000-07:00
You know, I've been doing a little research into those beliefs of the Fat F*ck From Flint (as I've started referring to Michael Moore), but I had to come up with a way to do the research and documentation without actually giving him any of my money. The most obvious choice came to mind: the Public Library. So i went down late last week, and have been reading his nauseating spewings ("Stupid White Men...") a few paragraphs at a time (which is about all I can handle before needing to go off and wash my hands.

I've learned that he blames Dubya for the California Power Crisis, the price of gasoline, an international trading pact between Russia and China, the collapse of the DOTCom stock market bubble, layoffs across the country, the impossibility of catching a connecting flight out of Detroit, all those touch-tone phone directories ("If you want Customer Service, touch '4'."), the over whelming complexity of the taxation system (so that many families are required to work two jobs - like the need for that started out of the blue in November, 2000), NAFTA, and (using a word which was to become popular to those on the left) "unilaterally" withdrawing from an ABM Treaty (the fact that the only other signatory nation doesn't exist anymore couldn't have anything to do with it, though, could it?).

But a little later on in the book, he is ranting about how Nature is killing off men (a statistical claim of questionable veracity, but I'll stipulate it, just for the sake of argument). The point he makes is that since men have been in charge, and now that we're suddenly "killing off Nature", she is responding by killing off the species that is doing all the harm. And how women have had the vote for more than 80 years, but they keep electing men as President.

But on page 151, he gives a list of "Mike's Fantasy List of Women Presidents":

President Cynthia McKinney (He calls her "the best person in Congress today") - this is the "woman" that blamed her re-election defeat on the JEWS, after she blamed 9/11 on the JEWS, and her constituents thought it was a bit much.
President Hillary Clinton (but only if he gets to be invited for "sleepovers") - Vince Foster? Rose Law Firm? Vote buying among the Hasidic community in NY? Marc Rich pardon? Do any of these ring a bell, Hillary?
President Oprah (Winfrey) (with "Dr. Phil" as her fireside chat adviser) - "Saddam, how did it feel when you had those sanctions imposed?"
President Leigh Taylor-Young (the first naked woman he ever saw - Mike says that's enough reason to make her President.)
President Sherry Lansing (former head of Paramount, because she gave him a role once. As Mike says, 'Nuff said.)

'Nuff said, indeed, Mike. I'm trying to track down a free copy of Bowling for Columbine. Some dingbats out there have claimed that because I haven't watched the whole think in one fell swoop, start-to-finish, that I am not allowed to point out all the inherent flaws, falsehoods, and flat-out lies. I guess that means that atheists aren't allowed to be atheists until they have read all possible religious texts cover to cover (because while one may be wrong, another might be right and utterly true). That would include the Bible, the Torah, the Qu'ran, the writings of Buddha, Confucius, and the Hindu Vitas (along with many others sacred texts, they can be found in the Sacred Text Archives, using the link in the left column.).

But until you read everything in support of your opponents position, apparently you're not allowed to disagree with him. I know, I know, a bigger load of crap I have yet to read myself, but someone had to say it sometime. I don't have to read "Mein Kampf" to know that Naziism probably isn't the best form of government, or "Das Kapital", or the "Illuminatus" trilogy (All Hail Discordia! Fnord) to understand the basics of their forms of government, and why it wouldn't work.

Neither do I have to see every frame of a film to be able to tell the difference between truth and "fictitions".

*Sigh* Well, I hope you are having a good day.

2003-04-20T18:27:00.000-07:00
I'm back, and I'm tired... The get-together was fun, since they combined it with a double birthday party for two of the grandkids. It was also fun watching the Lakers clobber the Timberwolves. However, the traffic wasn't much fun, and the 70+miles each way also sucked, because I get so stiff after longer trips nowadays...

Oh, well, what the hell, I'm here. Hope you all had a good day.

2003-04-20T08:49:00.000-07:00
Just a brief entry this morning to wish you all a Happy Easter. Whether you are Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Catholic, Wiccan, what have you, this remains one of the Holy Days for two of the world's major religions, and I hope that if you are celebrating this day, that it be a pleasant and rewarding one for you and all those you care about.

I may have mentioned this, but we're going to go to an afternoon get-together with all of the generations, so it'll be a lot of driving through SoCal traffic. If we're lucky, we might make it back here in time to catch the evening TV shows.

I missed "Enterprise" on Wednesday, so I'll have to catch it this evening. If you've never seen it, it is a series that serves as a kind of Pre-quel for Star Trek, and isn't have bad, even if I keep expecting Al to pop up and talk about what Ziggy says is the best plan... (Extra points towards the No-Prize if you have any clue as to what I'm talking about.)

Anyhow, we have some preps to take care of and the wife is assigning me my morning tasks, so Happy Easter, or Happy Belated Solstice, or Happy Passover (this upcoming Thursday, IIRC), as the case may be.

2003-04-19T09:55:00.000-07:00
I wanted to say good morning to you all, but the news going around is either about the Laci Peterson story or the arrest of the former Iraqi Finance Minister/Deputy Prime Minister (by Iraqis!).

Scott Peterson is going to either cop a plea or feel the needle, because he sure as hell did it - he wouldn't want me as a juror. His "alibi" puts him very close to where the bodies were found (date and time-stamped, too, within an hour or so of the time she disappeared), and I know of no woman who would just get into a stranger's car without either their purse or their house keys. To leave your pregnant wife to go "fishing" on Christmas Eve (which is cold and blustery, even in California, but especially in the Bay Area). California law says that if the fetus would have survived outside the womb (and at seven and a half months, almost any hospital in the country could handle that situation without any hassle) then causing its death is murder. We have a double homicide, plus special circumstances. It's gonna be a death-penalty case. And now it seems as though he might have had something to do with a murder case from his college days, where a young co-ed just disappeared. It would be nice to close that one out, but we may never know, unless Scott decides to confess, or enough evidence pops up (which may happen, now that the police have got him in custody) to add that crime to the growing list of indictments... It doesn't matter, he's going down.

The Iraqi Finance Minister may be able to help recover up to $24 billion of assets salted away by the Ba'ath Party leadership, which will certainly make things a lot easier on the Iraqi people, and that may actually gain him life in an Iraqi jail, rather than just a few days of torture, followed by a public stoning in the square.

We'll see. Good Morning!

2003-04-18T18:31:00.000-07:00
Well, I'm sitting here listening to the press conference announcing that the bodies found in northern California earlier this week were the bodies of Laci Peterson and her unborn son. It's been all over that they arrested Scott earlier today, and they have said that while a value of 100 in the testing scale they use was enough in California courts to prove paternity, the tests scored in the billions.

I'm trying to figure out whether Scott is going to cop a plea to avoid the death penalty, or if he is going to continue proclaiming his innocence and force them to seek the needle in the arm for ol' Scotty. Any ideas?

2003-04-18T11:19:00.000-07:00
I'm back from the VA Hospital. Again. (I'm getting so used to that trip I can close my eyes and see the whole freaking route.) It turns out that my cholesterol level is a bit elevated, but since there are no other indications to explain it (other than the fact that I like the occasional steak - medium rare), the doc thinks that there might be "a genetic predisposition for it". I don't remember ever earing what my parents' cholesterol levels where since they both died from other causes.

The long and the short of it is that I have to start taking this little pill. *Sigh* I LOATHE taking pills. Like an ailurophobe loathes cats. I'll take thm if I have to, but if there is any way to achieve the same result without taking the pills, I'll try that instead. Anyhow.

I hear that there is a tape of a Saddam lookalike (or possibly even Saddam himself, although this guy was described as "smaller and slighter, with a noticeable paunch") riding around Baghdad two days after the bombing attack on the restaurant. Of course there is no way to prove on what date the tape was made (much like all the other tapes), but the Administration has already said that they don't know whether Saddam is alive or dead, but he's not running anything more complex that a toy railroad. Al-Jazeerah (that bastion of impartiality) has said that the guy who gave them the tape "promised" that the tape was filmed on April 9th. So we have an unidentified source of unknown credibility handing a news network (that has done nothing but portray Iraqi propaganda as utter truth) an undated tape of a man who has been known to use multiple body doubles, and the world immediately accepts that Saddam is not only alive, but stil running things. Funny, though, we had continuous air surveillance of the city by that time (the same day that the huge statue of Saddam was toppled), and no one noticed a crowd of a few thousand Iraqis standing around and cheering someone who looks like Saddam.

Yeah, I believe them...

North Korea is claiming that they are reprocessing spent 8,000 fuel rods - enough fuel for at least half a dozen nuclear weapons over the next several months. Were they not paying attention? Earlier this week, they had said that they would be willing to accept multilateral talks, involving China, Japan, and South Korea.

I'm going to go poke around for a while.

Happy Good Friday!

2003-04-17T10:42:00.000-07:00
Good morning, all! I just got back from the VA Hospital, where I had some tests to undergo, and I've gotta go back tomorrow to see my regular doctor to discuss them all. I hope it's nothing serious, but there's nothing to inspire concern like hearing, "You're going to have to wait until I get the doctor in to look at these..." and when he does show up (after 15 minutes of sitting in a cold room without a shirt), he never even looks at you, but rather some display I can't see, and probably wouldn't have understood if I had.

Oh, well, I'll find out if it's anything important tomorrow. I hear on the news this morning that Disney is looking to sell both the Angels (coming off a World Series win last fall) and the Mighty Ducks (who just shut out last year's Stanley Cup winner, the Detroit Wings). So they have two major league sports teams, both of them at the top of their respective sports, and they're selling. I guess now is as good a time as any. So if any of you has a few hundred million dollars just lying around, i can think of no finer gift for a loved one that a major sports team, both of whom have had movies made about them...

I'm still catching up on this morning's news, since I just walked in the door a little while ago, so check the links in the left column to see some of my favorite places.

Oh, I'm letting you all know now that Easter Sunday (this weekend) will be a slow blogging day, because I have to drive up to Victorville to the middle daughter's house, after picking up the wife's parents, and that makes it about a 90 minute drive, each way, plus time spent making breakfast for her three daughters, their husbands, and all the grandkids. That makes it four generations and seventeen people, plus if the middle daughter's in-laws show up (which they usually do) that's a few extra. They're really nice people, don't get me wrong, it just makes for a crowd. One of the sons-in-law worked his way through school as a cook at Denny's, so he usually handles the eggs and sausage, I handle the pancakes (I make Mickey Mouse pancakes for the grandkids, and they seem to like that - except for the one in college) and beverages. The three daughters usually like having mimosas (champagne and orange juice), so it gets merry after a few hours, with lots of laughter and the kids playing basketball or soccer, or playing with the Dalmatian.

Anyhow, I'm just saying that I won't be spending much time scouting the web on Sunday, so you can plan your visits accordingly.

I'm also giving you all warning that my birthday is coming up next month, so start thinking about what you want to give me as a gift.

2003-04-16T18:05:00.000-07:00
I've seen this on various blogs around the Blogosphere, but it deserves to be repeated. Frequently.

How to explain violence to a Liberal

1. Listen politely while this person explains their views. Strike up a conversation if necessary and look very interested in their ideas. They will tell you how revenge is immoral, and that by attacking the people who did this to us, we will only bring on more violence. They will probably use many arguments, ranging from political to religious to humanitarian.

2. In the middle of their remarks, without any warning, punch them in the nose.

3. When the person gets up off of the ground, they will be very angry and they may try to hit you, so be careful.

4. Very quickly and calmly remind the person that violence only brings about more violence and remind them of their stand on this matter. Tell them if they are really committed to a nonviolent approach to undeserved attacks, they will turn the other cheek and negotiate a solution. Tell them they must lead by example if they really believe what they are saying.

5. Most of them will think for a moment and then agree that you are correct.

6. As soon as they do that, hit them again. Only this time hit them much harder. Square in the nose.

7. Repeat steps 2-5 until the desired results are obtained and the idiot realizes how stupid of an argument he/she is making.

2003-04-16T17:53:00.000-07:00
I've seen this on various blogs around the Blogosphere, but it deserves to be repeated. Frequently.

2003-04-16T10:55:00.000-07:00
Moving slow today. Again. I've got a lot to be happy about, though...

We nailed Mohammed (Abu) Abbas just outside Baghdad with travel papers and a bunch of cash. He's the guy who masterminded the hijacking of the Achille Lauro (the Italian cruise ship), and the one who shot Leon Klinghoffer. Leon, while sitting in his wheelchair, had apparently been talking to his fellow hostages, so Abbas shot him and rolled his body overboard. Italy had held a trial and convicted him in absentia, so they want him extradited. However, Italy had one of the other hijackers escape from their maximum security prison when he - get this - didn't return from a twelve-day furlough, so that's not very encouraging..

Possession is nine-tenths of the law, and we have an indictment for murder outstanding. So long as the plane carrying him doesn't touch down on Italian soil, there isn't a whole lot they could do if we decided to keep him, and we have an outstanding indictment for murder with his name on it. He wouldn't stand much of a chance of escaping from one of our maximum security prisons.

There is also a site that I want to mention and recommend, called Revoke The Oscar, dedicated to the revocation of Michael Moore's Oscar. I am not claiming that Moore-on doesn't have a right to believe and say what he wants. I'm not saying that "Bowling for Columbine" isn't a good movie. (I've never seen the whole thing, just snippets here and there, so I offer no opinion as to its merits.) I'm not saying that it wasn't a comercial success. What thousands of people are saying is that BfC isn't a documentary.

I'm not going to go into the multiple falsehoods and glaring errors, because that has been well documented here and here and even here, as well as many other places around the 'Net.

But the point is that his movie may have been good, it may have been successful, it may have even had a good point to make. BUT IT WASN'T A DOCUMENTARY!!!. See for yourself. Then go pay them a visit.

In other news, Janeane Garofalo is insisting that she has nothing to apologize for, despite the fact that she went on national TV and said that she would when she was proven wrong. I'm pushing for the inclusion of a new verb into the English language.

"Garofalo v. - guh-RAH-fuh-low - to deny the truth, esp. when one's reputation is at stake."

Pass it on...

2003-04-15T10:45:00.000-07:00

Happy Tax Day! I know that many of you are too depressed to enjoy today, but think of all the good things that are going on in the world...

Reports that the bodies of a woman and a male infant (with umbilical cord still attached) have been found, and the woman was found in maternity clothing. They may be the bodies of Laci Peterson and her unborn son, but the bodies were in too bad a shape to allow for easy identification. DNA tests and X-ray comparisons are being done, but they were found only about a mile from where Scott Peterson said he had gone "fishing" for that half-hour period. If it is her, you can bet that Scott will be spending the rest of his abbreviated life in a single cell in the Death Row wing of whatever prison he gets sentenced to.

Rodney "Can't we all just get along?" King, whose beating at the hands of the LAPD got him a 'Get Out Of Jail FREE' card (for driving while under the influence of PCP and resisting arrest), not to mention $3.8 million dollars, continues to prove that he is nothing more than a wife-beating, drug-abusing lowlife with no more common sense than a potted plant. A rich lowlife, but a lowlife, nonetheless. He was spotted driving his (brand-new) Ford SUV at 100mph, weaving in and out of traffic, until he lost control and hit (in this order) the brakes, a utility pole, a chain-link fence, and a house. He is currently in hospital with a broken pelvis, and blood tests were done (although not released to the public) to determine his BAC (blood-alcohol content) level.

The Pentagon has announced that the end of "major" military action has ended, although there will continue to be mop-up activities in all the small towns that we by-passed on our way to the larger cities of Baghdad and Tikrit. The Iraqi people are starting to have power and water turned back on slowly but surely. The interim Iraqi government is being assembled to handle the necessary day-to-day needs of the people (power, water, sanitation, police and fire protection, etc.).

I'm still grinning. Good morning!

2003-04-14T23:06:00.000-07:00

I know it's not yet Tuesday, but it time for this week's "This-or-That Tuesday", and in honor of those blood-sucking leeches at the Infernal Revenue Service, here is this week's set of questions...

1. File taxes as early as possible, or wait until the last possible minute? Just as soon as I get my paperwork together. The end of January at the latest...
2. File electronically, or mail paper forms? Mail it in.
3. Prepare your own taxes, or have someone do it for you? Depends on whether I have multiple major expenses. When I was in the military, I filed the 1040-EZ.
4. Are you a saver or a spender? I'm a spender.
5. Do you prefer to carry cash, or pay with plastic (credit/debit cards), or by check? I prefer cash. That way I won't overspend.
6. You're broke and desperately need a job, but the only places that are hiring are retail or fast food places. Which would you pick? Retail work
7. Keeping track of your money: are you more meticulous or careless about it? I'm pretty careful about the dollars, but careless about the cents. If that makes any sense.
8. What do you do if you find yourself with a lot of change weighing down your purse/pocket/wallet? Do you try to spend it to *get rid of it*, or do you put it in a jar or a piggy bank? I have a coin jar, and an specific one for the pennies. Every now and then I wrap them up, and cash them in.
9. Which form of fake money do you like better...Monopoly money or those chocolate coins covered with gold foil? Canadian money
10. Thought-provoking question of the week: You find a wallet containing $5,000 in cash, as well as several credit cards and the owner's drivers' license. Your rent is due tomorrow and you're short $200. Do you take the money (some or all of it) and mail back the wallet anonymously...or do you return the wallet with all contents intact? I would contact them and offer to return it intact, and negotiate a $200 "finder's fee". (Hey, they could lose the whole thing, or just $200. Their call.)

That's it for this week, so thanks for stopping by!

2003-04-14T09:45:00.000-07:00

My smile just keeps getting bigger and bigger. We have pretty much taken Tikrit (Saddam's home town), and we're fighting to take over a plant just on the Iraqi side of the border with Syria that has been associated with Saddam's nuclear weapons program.

We've captured Saddam's half brother on his way to Damascus. We've captured a busload of soldiers (fairly senior ones, too!) with $670,000 in cash - all $100 bills. We're releasing prisoners and finding evidence of thousands of people that have been tortured to death under saddam's regime. Special teams are on the ground in Iraq digging into those caches of nuclear and chemical material. Our troops are met with cheering people wherever they go, and the Iraqis even fought to protect the small enclave of Jews in the heart of Baghdad against other Iraqis! We even have managed to put together joint U.S./Iraqi patrols to revent and deter further looting in major Iraqi cities.

North Korea is softening its dictatorial stance on unilateral talks with the United States, and has admitted that they would be willing to alow other regional powers to be involved. Iran (the other member of the "Axis of Evil") has started preliminary talks with the U.S. about re-opening diplomatic relationships. And now "Axis of Weasels" co-founder france has started warning Syria against making comparisons between Nazi Germany and the U.S.

I'm not sure whether it's that they want the exclusive right to insult us, or if it is some Gallic subtlety (they don't want to insult Nazi Germany), or if it is out of some scrap of national self-preservation, the fact remains that all three of the most aggressively anti-American nations on the planet are starting to realize that antagonizing the only super-power left on the planet (especially when we have more than 300,000 battle-hardened troops between two of them and an entire carrier battlegroup sitting off the coast of the third) might not be the smartest play in the book.

Syria has a lot more to hide than they would care to get caught with (they're denying possession of any chemical weapons, but Sadam said the same thing for years), and posse comitatus (hot pursuit of a criminal) is sufficient reason to cross a border anywhere on the planet. We can ask nicely, we can ask firmly, we can ask harshly, and then we can kick in the door with the "boot" of the Fourth Armored Division.

Iran has half its population under the age of thirty (because of the Iran-Iraq wars of a decade ago). They have been ripe for an overthrow of the increasingly harch theocracy, and seeing the suddenly freed Iraqis next door is just further incentive to toss the Ayatollah out on his turbaned ear.

What's not to smile about?

2003-04-13T11:30:00.000-07:00

We found seven of our POWs! Apparently some Iraqis walked up to our troops and said, "You might want to pick up your guys. There are seven of them just a few kilometers up the road." They have been picked up, choppered to a base just south of Baghdad, and flown to Kuwait City, which means that none of them are seriously hurt (or they would have been treated at one of the many M*A*S*H units scattered around).

Two of them were limping, though, but all seven of them were alive and in fair health. And PFC Jessica Lynch is at Walter Reed Army Hospital, near Washington, D.C. (the Army hospital used by the military VIPs).

The anti-war protest in San Fran went off without a hitch, even though they lost 95% of their numbers to inclement weather. Police and other sources said that they only had a few thousand when they had gotten a permit for 20 thousand people (and at that it was less than 1/5 of their previous totals). Yeah, sounds about right... "We're for a free Iraq, but only if the sun is shining."

The weather has turned bad here, too, so now I know why I've been hurting all week... I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I get weather predictions about a day before the NWS does...

2003-04-12T10:56:00.000-07:00

They're still protesting the War in Iraq, and demanding that we "bring our boys home". Wasn't that the reason Saddam thought he won the first time?

We pulled out of the region and gave Saddam time to drag his people through another decade of torture and misery.

We've learned the lesson of History, better than these protestors have. They're still stuck in that Vietnam loop. I wish someone would tell them what year it is...

2003-04-11T20:05:00.000-07:00

I've got to get this word out! (found over on Winds of Change) It turns out that there is a direct link between the (late) Saddam Hussein's regime and the son-in-law of Prime Minister Jean "Cretin" Chretien.

Never mind the alleged links to Halliburton (which seems to be kinda falling by the wayside since Halliburton decided to bow out of any oil development contracts in Iraq), this is big stuff!

Long story short: The oil company with the biggest ties to Saddam's regime has been france's TotalFinaElf, who was waiting for a potential $20 billion development contract with Saddam once the UN sanctions were lifted. (That's not the amazing part.)

The biggest share-holder in TFE has a son. That son is married to a very nice lady, who "just happens" to be the daughter of PM Chretien. That same PM Chretien who has said that he doesn't want to send forces to support the Coalition of the Willing. Not that he has much in the way of military strength to spare, but still...

To quote WoC:

Let's see if I've got this straight: TotalFinaElf's largest shareholder is a subsidiary of Montreal's Power Corp, whose co-chief executive is Jean Chretien's son-in-law, Andre Desmarais. Mr. Desmarais' brother, Paul Desmarais Jr., sits on the Total board.

For months, the anti-war crowd has insisted that "it's all about oil," that the only reason the Iraqi people were being "liberated" was so that the second biggest oil reserves in the world could be annexed in perpetuity by Dick Cheney and Halliburton and the rest of Bush's Texas oilpatch gang. Instead, it turns out that, if it is all about oil, then the principal North American beneficiary of the continued enslavement of the Iraqi people is the family of the Canadian Prime Minister -- that's to say, his daughter, France Chretien, and his grandchildren.

I'm not alleging "Undue Influence" or anything, but when you consider that france has been throwing its bantam-weight influence around to stop the U.S. and her allies at any cost, it just seems that Canada could be just a little more circumspect in the corruption sauna in which it is immersing itself.

We won't forget any of it.

2003-04-11T09:57:00.000-07:00

You know, I've gotten into a discussion of basic economics with some guy who apparently believes that it is wrong for one group of Iraqis to be selling water to others Iraqis in the city of Umm Qasr.

While looting is not a good way to carry on (even though it is almost inevitable), it is also an inevitable reaction to a breakdown in law and order, and happens whenver the police are incapable of preventing it, either through a breakdown in communications (such as during the New York blackouts) or through a power vacuum (as is happening in Baghdad). People see the opportunity to "re-distribute the wealth" and maybe they'll get lucky and they'll improve their lives at the same time.

But that is not my point. It may get dry in places, so if you have no interest in learning the nuts and bolts of economics, feel free to check back later.

First a few simple observations.

All Economics is barter. All of it, without exception.
Profit acts as an encouragement to work harder or faster or better than your competitors.
Money is just a simple way to conduct multiple trades.

People tend to think of economics (when they bother) as some absolutely complicated phenomenon that can only be understood by the heart attack candidates on the trading floor of NASDAQ and the NYSE, and those ivory-towered theoreticians who teach it, one dry phrase after another. Their awareness of economic factors begins and ends with the Dow Jones numbers regurgitated on the nightly news.

They never bother thinking about it as a living thing that reacts to events not because it would normally do so, but because all those Type "A" personalities thinks that it should. Look, the fact that a bomb goes off in Jerusalem should have no bearing on whether a particular stock's value should change, but it does. Why? Because every other time a bomb has gone off in Jerusalem that same stock's price has dropped (completely missing the fact that it was their own shift in perception that made them think it would be worth less than it was before that bomb went off the first few times). "If 'A' happens, sell shares of stock 'B'..." These guys should talk to Pavlov.

Look, let's take the simplest example: A man needs a box of widgets from the store. He goes to the store and buys them. But how does he do that? (Don't you roll your eyes at me, youngster, I'm making a point here...) He gives them money, right?

But what is money? Pretty pieces of colored paper and shiny bits of metal, nothing more. How do you get this money? You perform a task for your employer, with varying degrees of efficiency. In return for your labor, he gives you all of these pieces of paper. If those pieces of paper were nothing more than your employer's IOU, you wouldn't be able to trade that IOU for the widgets, right?

You perform a task, spending your time and effort to do that task, and you don't get those pieces of paper, what would you do? You'd go to the next guy and perform those tasks for him to get those pieces of paper. But why those pieces of paper? Why not (say) a shiny rock you found in your front yard? Here's the kicker. If all parties to the transaction accept the terms of that transaction, you could buy a car with a five-pound bucket of sand. (Unfortunately for those of us who want a new car, not many car dealers would be willing to make such a trade, because they want to make a profit on those cars.)

But suppose you wanted to avoid the middleman, and you went to the store owner and said, "I need that box of widgets, but I don't have any of those shiny bits of metal. I can, however, dig holes for you." If the store owner needed a hole dug badly enough to "trade" you for the time and effort of digging holes, then you dig a few holes, the store owner gets what he wants, and you get to walk out of the store with your box of widgets, which is what you want.

The catch there is that not many people will accept direct labor for their goods and services (how many people need a hole dug for them, after all?), so you have to find another way to do it. However, the system created a way to do it. You have found a man who needs lots of holes dug, all over the place. He's willing to trade you a piece of paper in exchange for a full day's labor. You can take that piece of paper down to the store and they will give you anything you want off their shelves (up to a certain limit - the value of all those holes you dug) in exchange for that piece of paper. (They will later take that piece of paper to someone else and trade it for more supplies to re-stock their shelves.)

But you want to be able to go to more than one shop, and maybe get a little choice in what flavor of soup you eat for supper. Sounds reasonable, so instead of a single piece of paper, he gives you several pieces of paper with funny colored printing on them and a bunch of little pieces of metal. Each place you go, you can trade a specific number of these little pieces of paper for whatever you want them to do, whether it is to provide you shelter from the elements, or food to feed you and your pet parakeet, or to get someone to cut your hair. It's all a trade, every bit of it, but little pieces of paper are easier to carry around than your shovel. Or whatever the tools of your trade happen to be.

This is where the second point steps in... You are working hard, and trading as efficiently as you can (finding the lowest "prices" for what you need), and even managing to have a few of those pieces of printed paper left over at the end of the week. After a few weeks you can take the excess down to the local store and trade them for a really nice meal (a steak, rather than soup and a bologna sandwich) or a box you can plug into the wall to watch pretty pictures and listen to the sounds. Of course, you have to work a little harder to dig more holes to get the electricity to make the box work. But there are only so many hours in the day, and you're working as hard as you can.

You can try finding a second job digging holes, your employer can start giving you more pieces of paper for your efforts (as a gesture of appreciation for your working so hard to dig his holes for so long - a "raise"), or you can think of a way to dig holes faster with the same effort (become more efficient). The extra pieces of paper you get for the increased efficiency is your "profit", and can be used to get all kinds of shiny new stuff. Your employer has more holes for the same amount of time, so he can do whatever he does with all those holes (and isn't it weird that they're all gone by the time you show up again in the morning?), so having more holes means he is being more efficient, from the point of view of the people who are willing to trade their own pieces of paper for their very own hole, and so he has a profit incentive, too.

Money is just a simple way to carry around all that labor in your pocket (and credit/debit cards are just a modern affectation).

But all transactions are barter. Every single one.

If confidence in a nation falters (as we're seeing in Iraq right now) and there is no one to say hoe much the printed papers will buy, then people are going to realize tjhat wealth lies not in those pieces of paper, it lies only in what those pieces of paper can be traded for. If the perception is that the pieces of paper aren't worth as much as they used to be, then it takes more pieces of papers to get that same box of widgets, and the 'price' goes up. To such drastic levels in some cases, that the Deutschmark had plummeted to such worthless levels that it was rumored to take a wheelbarrow full of them to trade for a loaf of bread.

If an item is in high demand (everybody needs that better mousetrap), then it becomes more valuable than the pieces of paper, and it (again) takes more of those little pieces of paper, and the price goes up. (Supply and Demand)

Try this as a mental exercise: The next time you cash your paycheck, realize that you are actually trading your skills and abilities for those pieces of paper, which you can then trade for other goods and services that you may need later on. The next time you buy groceries, realize that you're not "buying" and he's not "selling", you are indirectly trading your efforts and expertise for that food by using the middleman of "money".

If you remember nothing else, remember these things: Money is the universal indicator of value received. The more value, the more money received. And all trade is a barter. The rest will fall into place.

Enough for ECON101. Good morning.