Bird Flue Hits The Georgia Coast

Film At Eleven...




(Hat tip to my friend and mentor John Mixon for the unattributed image.)

Hu's On First?

I don't know...is on Third

I’ve watched with some amusement as Hu Hintao, the leader of the biggest threat to the free world China, was trundled around on his visit to the US this week. Being a communist, of course the media and all of the usual suspects domestic leftists all wet their panties and fell over their own feet fawning over his presence.

I’m surprised that they didn’t haul him to out to Hollywood and down to Disney World in an effort to complete his total experience of American culture, but then I realized that they also didn’t drag his scrawny little Chinese ass down here to Georgia to eat some ham hocks, collard greens, and grits…so a total western infidel experience obviously wasn’t the goal here.

Instead of Disney, they took him over to New Haven, Connecticut to Yale University—home of the Taliban Ivy Leaguer.

As a grand finale, some silly assed bitch Chinese expatriate managed to provide an embarrassing moment during a joint public appearance with President Bush and of course all of the lamestream media including the NY Times wasted no time blaming the Whitehouse for the gaffe.

Funny thing—the woman got into the event using PRESS CREDENTIALS, so why doesn’t the media take a look at their own ranks and put a little blame on themselves rather than chastising the current administration for the situation?

Well, George W. didn't throw up on President Hu in a manner reminiscent of what his father, Bush 41, did to the Japanese Prime Minister back in 1992. And at least he wasn't caught handing out any cigars of dubious orgin like our old friend Slick Willy Clinton was doing for eight years.

Strangely, according to the press it seems that the success of the entire trip hinged on dinner plans:

The White House decided early on not to call Mr. Hu's trip a state visit, and denied him perquisites like a state dinner. Some China specialists in the United States argued all along that squabbling over such details made no sense because it made the Chinese much less inclined to offer concessions on bigger issues.

"If we had given him a state dinner, could we have avoided some of this and gotten more from the Chinese?" said Stephen A. Orlins, president of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. "I disagree with the government's decision not to offer the Chinese the protocol they were seeking."

Even so, White House officials, members of Congress and independent analysts said the issue could easily be exaggerated. The visit allowed government officials, legislators and business executives to interact with the Chinese leader face to face for the first time, and the discussions were generally positive, if inconclusive.

International, diplomacy, all hanging on the availability of a Steak dinner.

Imagine that...

Who knew?

I hate that this has happened, and being a good, patriotic American, I wish that they’d just called me down here on the Georgia coast and asked me to help out in this area. I would have been happy to have helped solve their dilemma.

I would have been happy to have President Hu and his entourage meet me at our local Crakerbarrel Restaurant or Ryan’s Steak house.

My treat.

President Hu and his body guards could have had the all you can eat salad bar or the four vegetable plate or something to whet their little slant eyed appetites.

Or perhaps the Chinese president would have preferred to have done a little fishing and crabbing with me and a couple of the local boys out in the Glynn county marshes, then brought our catch back here to the condo where I could show him how to make home made tarter and cocktail sauces.

Hey Hu, please pass the catsup...

Or in the words of Mick jagger...Hey Hu, get off of my cloud...

(I'm such an insensitive pig, aren't I?)

Back On My Lithium

Rational Insanity


I started to take my earlier posting "Ok stop the presses" off this blog, then I had second thoughts about my second thoughts.

I write some things here based on research and serious contemplation, while other things just explode out of my mind onto the computer screen.

I often have to censor myself because I'm prone to use colorful four letter words that cause my mother to wrinkle her brow and that might offend some of my other family readers, but sometimes I just can't help spewing out things like "$%#@&" and I hope that you'll excuse me when I don't use the best of judgment.

Intellectual debate challenges one to use facts and figures instead of invective and name calling to get your point across, but then again--a fence post isn't any more likely to be offended by profanity than the average libtarded news reporter is likely to be reasoned with intelligently.

Sometimes calling a spade a spade requires the use of nouns and adjectives that are better uttered in hushed tones; else hidden outright from polite company.

I'll try to do better in the future.

Like Minds

Think Alike

Have I ever mentioned that I enjoy the commentary work of Ann Coulter immensely?

Well, if I haven’t, then let me tell you so now.

Some people can’t stand her, but if I were a few years younger and a few dollars richer (and she wasn’t already happily married), I might consider moving to DC to toss my hat into the matrimonial ring.

Ann tends to piss people off because she’s quite outspoken, but most of the time you have to admit that ANN’S RIGHT.

Not “right” in the sense of “right wing” as many expect, but in my opinion—Ann’s just RIGHT.

I find it interesting that the same day I published ”If You Lay Down With Dogs…You Get Up With Fleas” addressing my views on the Duke University “rape scandal,” Mrs. Coulter published a similar commentary entitled ”Lay Down With Strippers, Wake Up with Pleas”.

I beat Ann to the punch line title by several hours since I hit the “publish” button here at 4:35 AM in the morning.

I swear that I didn’t copy her title, but I’m pleased to find that we both echo similar themes relating to boorish, vulgar behavior and the resulting unintended consequences.

Like Ann, I had also already mentioned in another posting last fall that Natalee Holloway’s death in Aruba was a direct result of her parents allowing an eighteen year old girl to travel out of the country, alone, to drink and party with strange men.

We now know the devastating outcome resulting from the combination of youthful stupidity, alcohol, hormones, and malice.

Natalee would be finishing her second quarter at the University of Alabama next month if she hadn’t elected to present her little blond ass to a bunch of teen aged sexual predators, but instead she’s probably long ago been digested by a school of fish and shrimp swimming on the reefs off Aruba.

Likewise, there is a cloud hovering over the heads of every single person associated with the Duke Lacrosse team this week because of their ongoing poor choices, including most recently the lapse of judgment in bringing a strange women into their midst and paying her to disrobe.

The poor beleaguered single mother stripper is actually quite lucky that she didn’t choose to take her clothes off in Aruba, else she might be looking at the world from the bottom of the ocean rather from the witness stand in a courtroom or through the lens of a TV camera.

And by the way, I wish that Jessie (Hi)Jackson would just shut the hell up on this subject.

OK, Stop The Presses

I've Had It...cover the children's eyes...


"Pentagon Guantanamo List Angers Nations" proclaims the headline on this Yahoo News story.

Can you believe this crap?

How can the media possibly be allowed to :

A…constantly write stories like this, and…
B…put headlines on said stories like they put on this one.

So what the heck would the media and these so called "angered Nations" have us do?

If I were president, I'd slam the door shut on our borders, aim two or three of our best nuclear warheads at the capital city or most populous city of every nation on the planet, and invite their stupid assed, lily livered, bleeding hearted liberal shit heads to control their own borders, politicians, and maverick citizens.

I'd also aim my sights on Hollywood and Washington DC, not to mention the all knowing, sympathetic, gay coffee sipping Meccas here in the good old USA—you know, places like Seattle and San Francisco. I’d demand that they had better pull their penises out of their collective asses, their heads out of any collective butts that didn't already have penises inserted inside ahead of their craniums, and as of May 1st, 2006 I’d simply stop all law enforcement and military protection in these portions of the planet.

Have at it ladies and gentlemen. Show me how the world is supposed to work without the E-V-I-L Republicans and the E-V-I-L conservatives putting their collective butts on the line in order to guarantee the safety of all of you giant world class PUSSIES firmly entrenched in the offices of the Associated Press and the NY Times

Being the responsible public servant that I am, I’d even cut their taxes in the process.

Here, "keep the change, you stupid pacifistic assholes..."

By the way, why don't you put your money where your ass mouth is and send your savings to the UN or UNICEF so they can fund the rape and pillaging they currently sponsor in Africa and the third world.

Just DAMN, people…am I the only one that sees through this stupid assed crap?

Tamales For Breakfast

Mexican...Anyone?

Cooking For The Public

Getting In Touch With My Inner Child Chef


I have a confession to make (gasp…)

Please don’t hate me when I’m finished cleansing my soul, BUT...

I have to admit that just ten short years ago my cooking skills consisted mainly of opening cans and boxes of pre-prepared food “stuff,” along with handling a charcoal grill with slightly more than an average level of dexterity.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, I hate to admit it, but I now realize that I allowed myself to wallow in the gutters of divorced bachelorhood, swimming in a sea of trans-fat laden fast food and microwave pop corn.

Vienna sausages, peanut butter, and delivery pizza were my standard fare.

Fast forward to the new millennium, and I’m pleased to announce that today things are quite different.

I’ve become, in my own estimation, a pretty good cook.

Just like being a musician or pursuing any other art form, I know that I have arrived at some level of accomplishment in cooking because I’ve developed the ability to improvise—I can ad lib when the situation arises.

I don’t need a recipe in front of me to make cooking decisions any more.

For instance, last weekend, while visiting some of Pat’s family down in Florida, I was presented with a few pounds of Catfish and Flounder fillets and challenged to do something “different.”

After I made the obligatory “quick” trip to the grocer, I delivered a combination of beer battered fillets and a baked dish called “Jilly style” fish (I got the recipe off of the Tilapia website last year,) and I even managed to use red wine rather than white wine in the sauce and it must have been acceptable because every single crumb of my dinner was scarffed up by my appreciative audience.

Now I know how a good mother must feel at the end of the day when the dishes are all put away.

Maybe I should leave well enough alone, and I hope I’m not overly audacious, but next month I’m taking on a largely unbiased public audience in providing the catering of the food for a party for about two dozen people in the home of our Island friends Bruce and Ski.

Bruce is a real estate broker and his wife Ski is an excellent interior decorator. Their home looks like a photo spread in an architectural magazine, and her kitchen is likewise a beautiful place to be in.

Being the politically incorrect bastard that I strive to be, we’re doing a “Sies de Mayo” party, featuring my rendition of Mexican food. It’s also actually “Derby Day” with the Kentucky Derby horse race happening that Saturday afternoon, but the preceding Friday is “Cinco de Mayo”—Mexican Independence day—and as an overt insult to our southern invaders I’m declaring our party Seis de Mayo (sixth of May--actually being a day late and a dollar short helps greatly…)

I’m doing all of the major preparation work here at home and then finishing the presentation at the scene of the crime Bruce and Ski’s house.

The menu includes the following:

Beef, Pork, and Chicken Tamales

Armadillo Eggs (spicy deviled eggs and cream cheese stuffed peppers)

Fancy Baja style battered fish and chicken soft tacos

Two kinds of Guacamole

Three kinds of salsa (peach, tomato, and tomatilla)

Assorted accoutrements like shredded cabbage, mandarin orange slices, jalapeño peppers and sour cream.

I'm even looking at buying a real chef's smock to wear while I run around in my pajamas chef's pants in public.

OK, you can stop salivating, and you have to let me go now because I have to finish a batch of chicken tamales that I’m making as a test run this morning.

If You Lay Down With Dogs

You’ll Get Up with Fleas…


My title and subtitle, added together, amount to pretty good advice for living, in my experience.

Nine out of ten mothers everywhere will enthusiastically tell you that “If you don’t lie down with dogs, you are MUCH less likely to get up with fleas.”

But then again, I have to admit that I’ve found that the occasional flea can be found wandering around out there in the world, and a lonesome flea will gladly jump on you when you least expect it and set about to wreck havoc in your life if they can.

A couple of ex-wives and my son-of-a-bitch ex-business partner come to mind here, but I digress…

I’ve kept my mouth and keyboard quite regarding the Duke University “lacrosse team rape scandal” for the past month because I didn’t feel that my opinions and rhetoric would add anything to the process, but tonight I’m breaking my silence.

I’ll open with this statement:

“THIS ENTIRE ‘NEWS STORY’ HAS BEEN MISHANDLED FROM THE OUTSET”

Understand?

First of all, it’s not a “news story”; it’s the investigation of an ALLEGED crime.

A Rape.

A horrible crime that involves the violation of a person on the most intimate, personal level.

So why have the police and district attorney’s office elected to play out the investigation in such a public manner?

After all, they have an admitted victim, RIGHT?

They have the field of suspects narrowed down to the 42 members of the Duke University Lacrosse team, RIGHT?

No dragnet, no manhunt, no “All Points Bulletins.”

Further, all 42 members of the Lacrosse team have known names and addresses, RIGHT?

AND, all 41 of the white members of the team submitted to DNA testing, not to mention endless interviews and searches of their property and residences.

(I’ll mention here that the three alleged rapists were reported to be white, thereby eliminating the one black guy that apparently snuck onto the Duke Lacrosse team because he didn’t play a good game of basketball else he didn’t get the memo; or perhaps he’s related to Tiger Woods and intentionally chooses to step outside the racial stereotype)

Is your head spinning yet?

No?

Then I’ll keep going on…

I’ve known a couple of Lacrosse players in my day. Kurt, our freshman dorm “mentor” at Georgia Tech was a Lacrosse player. Lacrosse players are sort of like rugby players, except taller and skinnier. Macho and bravado are standard modus operandi with Lacrosse players.

That said, I also aver that it’s not a black or white issue.

I also say that it’s not a male or female issue.

But…that’s exactly what the media and District Attorney Mike Nifong have turned this situation into.

Here is what has burned my ass the most during this so called "development" of this so called "news story."

IF the victim hadn’t been black, and IF the alleged attackers hadn’t been white, and IF they hadn’t been attending college at Duke University, then YOU and I wouldn’t have heard a single word about this ALLEGED rape.

Now do you get my point?

All you liberals and feminists out there can just hold your water for another few seconds because you are probably running off on the wrong track on me mentally…wait before you start bitching and calling me names…hang on…steady now…

Consider these questions.

1. What if a rape didn’t actually occur?

2. IF a rape didn’t occur, how can the lives of the two (or soon to be three) men accused of the alleged rape be made whole again when the media hysteria subsides?

These young men attend one of the most prestigious institutions in the country. Not only is Duke hard to get into, but Duke costs tons of money to stay in for four years.

People that go to Duke run companies and run for office—most of the time successfully.

People that go to Duke expect to reap the benefits of spending their parents’ money and their own time reading and writing and doing arithmetic.

Yet I say that full restitution is impossible to deliver to these young men, but I also remind us of my title used on this posting, and in effect I’m placing some of the blame for their current situation with them in the process …

Hey guys, IF you hadn’t LAID DOWN WITH THE PROVERBIAL “DOGS”…then you wouldn’t have gotten up with FLEAS this morning.

OK all you feminists and race baiting activists, keep your pants on (and please excuse the pun...)

I’m not really calling the alleged “victim” a “dog” here, but putting her stated reasons for working as a stripper aside (single mom working her way through college), my mother and your mother and most mothers in the world would wag their finger at any man that hired strippers to come to their party, regardless of any purported altruistic rationalizations of supporting education or children’s welfare.

No strippers, no rape allegations…no strippers, no macho bravado…just a bunch of drunken, horny, gangly, pimple faced geeks sitting around eating potato chips and Crystal cheeseburgers.

Finally, I say that what we have here is yet another example of media abetted class and race warfare, in the form of a putrid, puritanistic story line, served up on a silver platter to an American public that consistently demonstrates an appetite for such bullshit tripe.

After all, what are YOU going to do about this story, even if it is true?

Nod your nappy head in approval?

Get in your car and drive to Durham, North Carolina to attend the trial?

Load your gun?

Call OJ Simpson to help look for the third suspect?


Yeah...I thought so...

Back To The Grind

Reality Sets In


We made it home from St. Cloud in record time yesterday afternoon—about 4 hours—arriving back on our little island by about 4 PM in time to enjoy a couple of happy hour drinks down at Marsh Point and make the obligatory trip to the grocery store. Tenderloin Steaks, crumbled blue cheese, fresh asparagus, and fresh baked basil bread were on the evening’s dinner menu.

Negotiating traffic on Interstates 4 and 95 can sometimes be daunting, but yesterday the traffic volume was moderate and the average speed was about 80 MPH, peaking on one stretch in Georgia at 90 MPH—thus the low elapsed time in transit. I don’t usually do much speeding in my recent driving history, but jumping into the middle of a dozen vehicles driving fast but otherwise rationally seemed to not be a problem at that moment.

We were relieved to find our neighbor in good health and the good hands of his nurses, no worse for our extended weekend absence. After checking in with him and having a brief visit, the grill was lit, the steamer basket fired up, and dinner was had at the coffee table in time to settle in and watch Jeopardy.

I was asleep by 8:30 PM.

I don’t believe that I mentioned before that I took the online test last month to qualify for the interview and trial Jeopardy games to be held in Orlando this summer. I haven’t heard anything from them yet, but I still intend to pursue the opportunity to appear on the show in the next few years.

I realized that the online testing is ripe for fraud because they simply flash the questions on a web site and you have 15 seconds each to answer 50 questions. I’m fairly certain that some simple minded morons would be tempted to get a group of friends together and treat the online test like a bar room trivia contest, using their collective minds as a group to come up with the answers.

The problem arises when someone that got selected using this method has to do the live audition and has to tackle the questions alone--all by their lonesome.

I didn’t cheat, but I did get nervous and prematurely hit the “no answer” button a couple of times when I ended up knowing the answer.

I've just realized that I haven’t drawn a single line or touched a watercolor paintbrush in almost a week. After returning from West Virginia last week, I did manage to do some ink sketches of a couple of palm trees while sitting poolside here at the condo. I’m trying to develop some “on site” freehand drawing and painting skills, the results being an entirely different kind of art from that produced sitting at a drawing board using rulers and straight edges as a guide.

I’ve also developed a style by accident that comes across as almost cartoonish in appearance.

Here...take a look at this sketch…see what I mean?

My simple watercolor wash style needs a little work, but I think the coloring is what gives it the cartoon appearance.

Any way, I’ve got to buckle down and start cranking out some useable renderings of another half dozen structures, but I only have photo studies of two or three subject buildings available.

I want to finish the “Sanctuaries of the Golden Isles” series of churches first, but I’m distracted with things like lighthouses and courthouses and other neat historic structures

The good news is that I think that there is another excellent photo adventure in our future this weekend. Maybe another trip to Darien, or possibly a trip south to St. Mary’s or Kingsland?

We’ll just have to wait and see…

Sixty Six Thousand Pages

Of IRS Bullshit


If you’re like most Americans, today you’re rushing toward the finish line—tossing your tax return into the mail…unless you’re like us and mailed the form in in late January.

We’ve already deposited the so called “refund” check.

Heck, I think that we’ve already spent the darn thing.

I just heard some guy on FOX News spout two interesting statistics:

There were two times as many “income tax professionals” as there are policemen in this country.

Further, there are four times as many “income tax professional” as there are firefighters in the good old USA.

I say that there is something terribly wrong when we find ourselves in a situation that results in those kind of realities.

Don’t you???

My Special Easter Bunny

And You Wonder Why The Kiddies Can't Sleep...

Oops...I forgot to mention that the above image was modified greatly by yours truely with PhotoShop from one found at Kevin_Duffy_Cartoons. Silly me...