If You Can’t Say Nuthin’ Nice--Don’t Say Nuthin’ At All…

The Silence Of The Lambs Pachyderms


I’m sorry, but to my regular readers I feel the need to offer my sincerest apology for the low quantity of ranting and writing recently--but I have to admit that I’ve been distracted with other matters, things like making a bit of money here and there.

Call me a capitalist…I’ll confess…

Meanwhile, there’s some really crazy stuff happening out there in the world, and I don’t believe that you need me to provide “closed captioning” or “English subtitles” to explain the insanity of the situations.

For instance, my favorite recent story is that of the young man from Pennsylvania who hired a Mariachi band and rode an elephant around the Rio Grande on the border outside of Brownsville, Texas for HOURS, and never managed to get the attention of the US border patrol in the process.

Elephants, a six-piece mariachi band and a former reality TV contestant stood at the mouth of the Rio Grande.

Don't wait for the punch line.

It's not a joke but a political stunt by Raj Bhakta, a Republican looking to unseat Democratic incumbent Allyson Schwartz in the 13th Congressional District, to prove the sad state of border security in the nation.

Bhakta, best known for being fired on “The Apprentice” in 2004, hired elephants and a mariachi band to draw attention to the lack of security along the border between the United States and Mexico on Tuesday.

“It was a shock to see that we have almost no border security. It's a joke,” Bhakta said.

“The elephant never made landfall into Mexico, but I tell you something, he could have made 15 laps back and forth, but no one showed up,” Bhakta said in Wednesday's editions of The Brownsville (Texas) Herald.

He said he and his crew were there for “at least an hour.”

Bhakta, who was in the area of the U.S.-Mexican border raising money for his campaign, said he got the idea after seeing men swim under an international bridge without getting caught.

Circus producer James Plunkett told the newspaper he was hired for the photo shoot and provided three elephants.

Think about that situation for a while while I take a little morning snooze, then I’ll stop back by to provide some additional commentary.

Is George Steinbrenner A Supporter of Terrorism?

You Heard It Here First


Apparently a NY Yankee's pitcher went out and flew his half million dollar Cirrus airplane (in the style of JFK JR) into a mid-rise apartment building on the East River in NYC.

More hysteria to ensue...stay tuned...

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Look HERE for the story of Cory Lidle's demise.

I'm just glad I live way out down here in eastern bumblef**k on the rural Georgia coast rather than in a major metropolitan area so when something like this happens we are instantly sure that the Muslims aren't responsible.

Now where's my parachute and bungee cord....

Credibility…Or The Lack Thereof

Taking Oneself Way, Way, WAY Too Seriously…


Have I mentioned here on the blog that my IQ has been tested to be somewhere near 140? (I don’t remember the exact number, nor does it matter in the course of this dissertation at this moment.)

Something else I need to mention is that I also happen to know more about the design and construction of industrial smokestacks than perhaps all but a few hundred people in the entire world.

Whoop teee Dooooo.. .with that and a buck...I can get a cup of coffee at the local diner...

That said, does anyone honestly believe that YOU should be arbitrarily forced to listen to anything that I have to say about politics and world events, except on a totally voluntary basis?

Don't you come here to this blog VOLUNTARILY, for FREE, and if you don't like what you hear and see you are free to leave and never come back--your only cost being the time spent with my commentary searing your retinas?

Enter, Stage Right Madam Barbara Streisand--actor, singer, and now ...

POLITICAL PONTIFICATOR (or possibly POLITICAL FORNICATOR)

Here’s my point…just because I’m really intelligent and I can design and build smokestacks, why should you be ambushed and forced to listen to me and my political rants simply because you happen to stop by my office to place an order for a 250 foot tall stack?

I say not, but…

Miss Streisand, for some reason, seems to think that if you and I decide to show up at one of her concerts that she, just like the Dixie Twits Dixie Chicks, should be allowed to make uncontested political commentary to all of the unsuspecting patrons when the tickets were actually sold for the purpose of presenting a musical concert.

There was Streisand, enduring a smattering of loud jeers as she and "George Bush" — a celebrity impersonator — muddled through a skit that portrayed the president as a bumbling idiot.

Though most of the crowd offered polite applause during the slightly humorous routine, it had gone on a bit too long, especially for those who just wanted to hear Streisand sing like she had been doing for the past hour.

"Come on, be polite!" the well-known liberal implored during the sketch as she and "Bush" exchanged zingers. But one heckler wouldn't let up. And finally, Streisand let him have it.

"Shut the (expletive) up!" Streisand bellowed, drawing wild applause. "Shut up if you can't take a joke!"

With that one F-word, the jeers ended. And the message was delivered — no one gets away with trying to upstage Barbra Streisand, especially not in her hometown.

Once the outburst (which Streisand later apologized for) was over, Streisand noted that "the artist's role is to disturb," and delivered a message of tolerance before launching into a serenely beautiful rendition of "Somewhere." That put the focus back on what the audience came for — her voice, one of the greatest female instruments of her generation.

Obviously, I won’t be buying any tickets to her shows (although I like her acting and singing), but how the liberals like Miss Barbara can get all upset and start issuing profanity laced statements at their audiences while expecting Ann Coulter and other conservatives to put up with pies in the face and Columbia University students to be allowed to rush the stage at “Minute man” speeches is beyond me.

I guess that I'm just a miserable old ever greying, ever balding, old fart libertarian.

And while I’m at it, I’d like to say that Ted Turner should just take his billions home to his Wyoming ranch with a big fat bottle of Glen Livit Scotch and proceed to shut the heck up--because it seems to me that thus far he’s wasteing the good Scotch and ruining everyone else’s buzz in the process.

OK, that will be all, for now (I’m busy calculating…)

I Think That My Head Is Going To Explode...

AGAIN...(my favorite title, with a slightly different topic...)


Here, I can hardly write or speak right now after hearing about it, but I want you to click on the link and go read this story about a FEMA funded program, Project Hope, which has thus far paid about $22.6 Million of the taxpayers' money to fund "Puppet Shows and Bingo games" benefiting what are describe as Florida victims of last year’s Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma.

Last year, the Federal Emergency Management Agency awarded Florida $22.6 million for "crisis counseling" for victims of hurricanes Wilma and Katrina.

Florida's program, called Project H.O.P.E. -- Helping Our People in Emergencies -- is still in operation with about 450 workers across the state who spend much of their time leading games and performing shows for residents -- regardless of whether they're in crisis or even experienced the storms, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel has found.

I might have to remind some of you that Katrina did blow across south Florida just before crashing into Louisiana and washing all of the stains and vermin off of the New Orleans streets and doing a little "Urban Renewal" demolition, but it was hardly more than a big mass of thunderstorms when it blew across Miami. I know someone that lives there and I got a first-hand account of the proceedings at the time.

Floyd, as I recall, managed to toss around some tree limbs and wreck a little havoc on some retiree's trailers, but again I hardly could vote for extra bingo and yoga on the beach when there is already a bingo parlor and Jai-alai arena every fifty yards up and down the Florida Turnpike and US 1.

So why the hoopla and government cash infusions?

Oh, I remember now, there's a shortage of PORK in south Florida during Hurricane season...the pigs all fly north (in the style of a popular Pink Floyd album and in respectful deferrence in order to avoid any lingering persons of the Jewish persuasion that might not have the will nor the means to escape back to Kew Gardens, NY during the balmy south Florida Summer months.)

What really makes my head spin at an even higher RPM is this little detail...

In an effort to protect the “privacy” of the so-called “victims” which are supposed to be served by the program, FEMA has caused Project Hope to find their beneficiaries not by receiving addresses and phone number information from the government, but by forcing the program's employees into driving around the city asking people if they’ve been traumatized by the aforementioned storms and doing things like looking for blue tarps on the roofs of houses and apartment buildings.

Dammit all people, but I have to ask…when will the government insanity end?

And more importantly, why do they insist on using MY money to prosecute their follies?

New Computer Takes Nose Dive

Patience Wearing Thin...


My heart sank into my shoes about 1 PM today when the new HP laptop froze up and wouldn't re-boot.

I fumbled around with the F10 key and system diagnostics, and the report was not good:

Hard Drive Test Failed.

Just DAMN.

After spending five and one half days deleting all of the crappy demo software (Quicken, AOL, MSN, etc.) and installing some really big programs and getting everything configured, I was really afraid that I was looking at sending my computer back to HP for service.

In looking at the Circuit City paperwork, they confidently demand a 15% restocking charge, IF you bring the computer back within the first 14 days after purchase and IF you've opened the box.

Since I, like most people, have trouble typing on a keyboard and viewing a display through heavy cardboard, my computer's box had been opened on day one, so returning the machine to the retailer and getting a new one somewhere else was not much of an option.

As usual, I couldn't find anyone in the state of Georgia that could make a decision about replacing the machine without making me ship it back to HP, so in desperation I did something unusual...

I READ THE LITTLE THIN PAPER MANUAL THAT CAME WITH THE MACHINE.

Low and behold, I found a possible remedy. As luck would have it, on Sunday I tried a new windows feature that allows you to make a System recovery partition on the hard disk to use in the event that your Windows Boot files and sectors get corrupted.

I closed my eyes, hit the F11 key on startup, and TWO HOURS later I had a functioning computer again.

The only loss in the end of the ordeal was a few word processor files and a little Photoshop work I had done, along with all of the software that I had installed from CD's--things like Photoshop and my Cannon camera software.

I also lost all of my favorites list in Internet Explorer that I was rebuilding from scratch. Regardless of how many dozens of hours it will take to get me back to where I was this morning, anything is better than shipping the computer back to HP and waiting a couple of weeks for it to return, because...

I'm actually busy WORKING right now…

A Nuclear North Korea?

Peacenicks And America Bashers Celebrate...


I was watching FOX News last night when the news broke about North Korea possibly doing the test of a nuclear weapon.

As usual with the "professional media", nobody really knew anything for certain as the story broke, but FOX news and CNN proceeded to spazz out and incrementally introduce details like seismograph data and comments from world leaders and the usual suspects—the so called “media experts.”.

Assuming that there really was some kind of nuclear event in Korea, or that there will be one in the near future without substantial intervention, I’d like to take this opportunity to remind everyone of these little historical details.

In WWII, most of the US military walked away from Europe with a divided German State, leaving the Russians free to later conquer most of south western Asia and Eastern Europe. It took until the late 1980’s to allow the resulting confederation of communist states called the USSR to self implode for economic reasons.

Then, in the early 1950’s “Korean War,” we walked away for the Goryeo Peninsula leaving a “demilitarized zone” and a major quantity of US military troops dividing communist North Korea from democratic South Korea.

Ten Presidents and over fifty years later, we’re now looking a failed North Korean economy funding an unelected government and military which chooses to starve their own people as they threaten their neighbors in the region (South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan) if not the balance of world power and stability.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il seems to be quite happy doing his "saber rattling” while being fecklessly watched by the United Nations and our domestic Democrats/Peacenicks.

Hopefully some of our elected leaders and all of you mindless anti-war idiots out there will finally get the idea that a policy of “leaving them alone” will do nothing but incubate regional aggression, terrorism, and insane rhetoric from people like the little troll North Korean leader.

His most recent stated reason for wanting a big Bomb?

The threat of a US nuclear attack.

Yeah, RIGHTTTTTTTT…Mr. Jong-il…

If the US wanted to, we could improve South Korea to island status by eliminating their connection through North Korea to mainland Asia-but I know that that won’t happen.

Just sit back and watch the stupidity as it develops, with Pelosi and Kerry saying we should do it “smarter”, the UN paralyzed with indecision, China and Russia twiddling their thumbs on the Security Council, and the Iranian leader issuing mindless bullshit statements and cheering Jong-il on.

I’ve got to go now, thinking about this is making my head hurt…

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After thinking about this issue for a while, I find Kim Jong-il's rational for a nuclear weapons program--the threat of an attack by the US--to be even more absurd than I found it at first glance.

Does anyone believe that they could actually develop enough bombs and missiles to counter the inventory of munitions currently in the NATO and US inventories?

All Korea could possibly end up doing, besides continuing to extort concessions and economic "incentives" out of the rest of the nations of the world in return for false promices of discontinuing their atomic efforts, would be to possibly lob a few explosions in the direction of US allies like Japan (like Sadam did to Israel in the first gulf war) or to supply tools for worldwide terrorism.

And by the way, if I were in the Chinese government, I'd be EXTREMELY PISSED OFF because China has repeatedly gone to bat for the Koreans on the world stage and in the UN, supporting Korea's right to have a nuclear program for peaceful energy purposes, and now they simply look like 3 billion duplicitous idiots.

Money Can't Buy Happiness

But It Sure Comes Close...


Take a look at this little toy I ran into last week at the bicycle shop:



It's a 1951 Schwinn "Whizzer"--a gas powered bicycle.

Notice that it has pedals, and that's how you start the little gas motor.

Thousands of these were made, often from kits, between the late 1930's and early 1950's.

One thing that I noticed is that it's very heavy, weight wise. I found out when I helped the shop owner pick it up off a rack on the back of his SUV.

I would have loved to try to ride it, but since it's worth about $5,000 and the owner wasn't there to give me permission, the best I could do was give it a good going over visually and with the camera.

Speaking of bikes, it's time to go ride mine. I'm doing about five miles a day right now as I get my lungs and legs back into shape.

See y'all later...