Saturday, October 04, 2008

OJ's Through Running

It's Really Sort Of Sad...


From This:






To This:



And now after getting away with murder, he's too stupid to shut up and disappear and stay out of trouble for the next forty or fifty years.

$%#@& IDIOT...

Friday, October 03, 2008

Wrap Your Face In Saran Warp And Click Play

Did You See This Last Night?



Bwaney...Bwaney ...Bwaney...you so silly...

"Can I Call You Joe?"

And She Smiled When She Said It...


I fell asleep after about the first twenty minutes of last evening's debate, but by then I had seen all I needed to see...because, after all...It was just a VICE-presidential candidate debate.

Now I'm watching the re-run of the event on FOX News as I write.

I sorta want to say up front here that I think that Governor Palin won the contest outright, but I also have to admit that Senator Biden's commentary was deeper in context and talking points while Sara tended to dance around a bit more with generalities and either didn't have the time or the wherewith all to directly embrace several Reganistic "there you go again" moments where I found myself yelling at the TV screen (she did manage to get one "there you go..." in late in the debate.)

Regarding the current "financial crises" portion of the debate I think that it's unfortunate that Palin and the Republicans have apparently fallen back to supporting the big government position of using regulation to prevent grown men and women from going out and borrowing more money than they can legitimately afford to pay back from "predatory lenders" after allowing the government to get into the business of forcing lenders to make loans to the very people that are in trouble today.

I say that it's not about more government "intervention" in lending practices being a solution, because after everything is said in done in reality its "intervention" in lending practices which got us to were we are today.

(This whole situation reminds me of an old Groucho Marx bit where the patient in a doctor's office says "Doctor, doctor...it hurts when I do this..." and in response the doctor says: "Well...don't do that...")

I have a unique idea.

How about getting the government out of the mortgage business entirely?

Let the market decide loan rates and property values, and most of all how about letting me and my banker decide the pro's and con's of me getting a loan for any given use or on any given property and actually being able to pay it back?

Anyone in business or banking knows that handing out money on a car or house and then having to take it back doesn't result in a profit or financial windfall for the people loaning the money (although unfortunately the people paid for originating the loan and filing the initial paperwork do sometimes manage to get rich in the process.)

My point is that any house sold out of foreclosure or repossessed car sold at auction almost never brings anything even close to the balance owed on the original loan, so the idea of "predatory lenders" running around out in the world trying to "price gouge" on loan rates and fees by forcing innocent white and minority "working families" to move out of their safe secure public housing, apartments or even the trailer park westward into their own mansions in Beverly Hills or south to hurricane prone West Palm Beach--then taking the houses back when the "owner" defaults and selling them again at an obscene profit is mindless partisan economic drivel.

Back to the debate...

Having by now both slept through once and blogged through once the second half of the debate, I think that most viewers like me probably found their eyes glazing over with Sara chattering away about being a soccer mom and Biden blithering liberal Democratic platitudes about "Change" and issuing "evil Cheney" jabs and moderator Ifill doing a fairly good job in spite of the fact that she never should have taken the night's position in the first place.

When it's all said and done, I'll be making the exact same decision in November after the debate that I would have made at Noon Thursday.

I really wish that there was a legitimate third option to McCain or Obamarama, a choice that would turn time back toward what our country and government was before WWI and/or the great depression--a time when I could fly an airplane or drive a boat in free air and on free waters that the government didn't claim to own and control, and be able cut down trees and build fences on property I owned without the government coming in and making me buy a "building permit" and telling me I have to have a fan over my stove and I have to put my chicken house out of sight behind my house (or I can't have chickens at all on MY property.)

A government which understanded that its job was to prevent thieves from taking my money and property and which diligently pursued anyone that assaulted me and my property, rather than bringing laws and guns to my doorstep to demand a portion of my money and property and time as "their fair share" of my life to be "invested" at their inane pandering discretion into programs I despise and people conducting their lives in a manner with which I greatly disagree.

"Fundamental Change," say Senator Biden in closing the debate?

My answer?

Get the %$#@ out of my life and my wallet and let me have a little of your party's sacred "personal choice" for a change.

(BTW...I promise none of my "personal choices" will involve spending my time and money killing unborn fetuses or taking jobs away from "working families.")

Thursday, October 02, 2008

Ahead Of The Curve

Gwen Ifill Responds


On an ad-lib basis I ran my mouth and pounded my keyboard yesterday morning based on a Drudge Report article about the financial interests and political affiliations of Gwen Ifill, moderator of tonight's Vice-Presidential candidate debate. It appears I ended up with some serious company with Michelle Malkin and others wading in on the subject.

(Scroll down here to yesterday's postings if you missed my missive.)

Any way, this morning Drudge has a link to this article saying Miss Ifill takes some offense to her portrayal here on the bloggosphere. She has apparently even tried to allude to a "race" card...Imagine that?

I'm busy working on some other stuff for work right now, so I have to limit my response at this time:

Waaaaaaaaaaaa haaaaaaaaaa haaaaaaaaa

(here's a dollar Gwen...buy some Klenex on me)

UPDATE 5:55 AM

Oh No...It seems that now not only am I a racist, but I'm also lambasting a handicapped woman as Ifill breaks her ankle on stairs at her house.

First On TVNewser: PBS' Gwen Ifill has broken her ankle after tripping and falling down stairs at her home last night, a NewsHour insider tells TVNewser. We're told Ifill had been walking up a staircase, carrying research related to her moderating duties at Thursday's Vice Presidential debate in St. Louis, when she took a wrong step.

We are also told the show will go on: Ifill is planning to travel to Missouri for the big event.

(I might be an insensitive bastard...but at least I'm an HONEST one and seek to excel at it most of the time.)

UPDATE 6:05 am (I CAN'T LEAVE THIS ALONE IT'S SO MUCH FUN)

Watch this clip of Ifill commenting on Sarah Palin's speach at the Republican convention and tell me she's objective...

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

"Laissez Le Bon Temps Roulet"

My Nominee For Head Clown In The Mardi Gras Financial Parade...






Heh...


MORE...


How Bawney sees himself:




(Lordy but I love Photoshop)

Double Heh...

Wondering About The Truth??

Proof McCain Was On The Issue In 2005...


Been listening to the lamestream media play Bwarny Franke lisping his way through his baseless denials (not the river in Egypt) about his and his fellow Democrats involvement in the current financial/mortgage"non-crisis?"

Been watching the TV showing Obamarama looking all presidential as he tries to mitigate the circumstances?

Then Google Senate bill S-109, or just click on this link and save yourself the trouble:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s109-190

Once there, you'll see a page that looks like this (click on the image to enlarge):





Now look at the bill's co-sponsors and you'll see this:

And if you click on the "Summary Button" on the website you'll see these words...


1/26/2005--Introduced.

Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005 - Amends the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992 (another Republican effort to fix this "problem"--VRR) to establish: (1) in lieu of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), an independent Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Agency which shall have authority over the Federal Home Loan Bank Finance Corporation, the Federal Home Loan Banks, the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac); and (2) the Federal Housing Enterprise Board.
Sets forth operating, administrative, and regulatory provisions of the Agency, including provisions respecting: (1) assessment authority; (2) authority to limit nonmission-related assets; (3) minimum and critical capital levels; (4) risk-based capital test; (5) capital classifications and undercapitalized enterprises; (6) enforcement actions and penalties; (7) golden parachutes; and (8) reporting.


Amends the Federal Home Loan Bank Act to establish the Federal Home Loan Bank Finance Corporation. Transfers the functions of the Office of Finance of the Federal Home Loan Banks to such Corporation.

Excludes the Federal Home Loan Banks from certain securities reporting requirements.
Abolishes the Federal Housing Finance Board.



Can't you see that most all of the lamestream media, and virtually every one of the serving Dem's are lying partisan idiots...one and all...???

UPDATE 7:05 AM

Then there's this You Tube Video just in case you haven't seen it:



Are You starting to see the light yet?

"Debating" Media Bias

Sinking Further Into My Middle Aged Sarcastic Funk...


I have to admit that I don't put much stock in making my election decisions based on watching the media circuses called "Debates" on TV any more than I "hang my chads" based on the limited content and truth contained in most campaign ads.

Funny thing, but since first voting for Reagan in the 1980 presidential contest I've grown up and stopped deciding who to vote for based on what I am told.

Rather (but not DAN Rather), since 1992 I've voted based on what I read and see and hear in an active process of finding out what is really going on with a candidate and where they're coming from in their past history--and by reading and seeing and hearing I'm most definitely not talking about the Newspaper Headlines and the lamestream national TV news.

What's on my mind this morning is a Drudge Report linked article about the moderator of this Thursday's Vice Presidential debate having a book coming out for publication next January that is called "Pro-Obama."

This after having to listen to PBS's Jim Lehrer bumble through trying to get Obamarama and McCain to talk to each other in last week's debate like they were having a beer in the local tavern together, I just realized that now we're going to be subjected to the obvious liberal political leanings of yet another PBS employee moderating the Biden Palin match up on Thursday.

And not only is Miss Gwen Ifill publishing a book glorifying "modern successful minorities" including Obama, but she also works as a correspondent on Jim Lehrer's Online Newshour on PBS.

What I want to know is, who the heck appointed PBS TV the "official moderator" of these debates? After all, they're not being held in their studios and they're not paying for them.

(You know how I feel about "public television", and how with the commercial success of privately owned media the government should have gotten out of the "public radio" and "public TV" business in about 1975 when 99% of American households had cable TV available and there were privately owned TV transmitters on 100 mile centers.)

Next I went to this website and my head nearly obtained orbital rotational velocity when I learned that Tom Brokaw of NBC's "Meet the Press" fame has the moderator honors for the next Presidential debate in Nashville on October 7 and the creepy old Dan Rather pal over at CBS...Washington Correspondent Bob Schieffer has the last debate October 15th Hofstra University debate.

Anyone but me notice anything funny about the selection of these so called "moderators?"

Could it be that their all "flaming far left leaning liberals?

And might it not be slightly more than an itsy bitsy teensy weensy problem that all four of these assheads media professionals have expressed their politics views and made them a matter of public record?

PBS couldn't last 90 days if they had to give up government tax dollars and live on advertising or subscriber revenue, and if you add up the total viewers of NBC, CBS, and PBS they wouldn't total HALF of the numbers that FOX News generates each evening.

Bill O'Reilly beats all three combined, but even with FOUR election debates, not a single person associated with FOX news was included in a moderator position.

(cue the sound of the crickets chirping...)

I'm telling you people, you're crazy if you don't see the manipulation you're being subjected to, and you're a complete and total idiot if it doesn't make you extremely angry.

Further, if you are under the age of about 35 you just better get yourself prepared to retire and die in a strange new world dominated by socialism induced shortages of things like water and food and electricity if you vote the way these partisan shills want you to vote, because the productive people are either all going to have already died else have given up producing because it just doesn't pay.

(ever read a book called Atlas Shrugged?)

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Making A Sow's Ear Out Of A Silk Purse

They're Not Finished With Your Wallet Yet...


So here I am, found pretty much sitting on my hands in order to keep them away from my keyboard for the past few days as I watch the fur fly and the mud slung by "honorable" men/women in suits in Congress and by their foils in the lamestream media.

The wild eyed partisan TV talking heads tell us that financial Apocalypse is upon us in about thirty two minutes from now if we don't each immediately throw $3,500 per actual taxpaying taxpayer (this excludes those enjoying "earned income credits"--you're not a real taxpayer in the Websters Dictionary sense) into a giant hat, close our eyes, AND TRUST THE GOVERNMENT to spend it in one of the most expensive Zip Codes in NY City; on Privately owned Companies employing men and women many of which which make more in a year than most average Americans make in a lifetime.

Oh My GOD..."The market's down 777 points today" screams most of the Newspaper and website headlines after 95 Democrats voted against 140 of their fellow Congressmen in the process of not passing Nancy Pelosi's version of George Bush's "Financial Bailout Measure."

Funny thing, but the Democrats hold a 235 to 199 majority in the House at present, but the thing which surprised me the most was who actually voted against the measure--including Georgia's notorious Race Warlord John Lewis of Al Sharpton/ML King/Congressional Black Caucus fame.

"Foreign Markets At Risk"...to paraphrase...scream other headlines.

I say SCREW the #&$@! "Foreign Markets"...under my breath more than once in the past few weeks.

Since when have the "Foreign Markets" done anything for me and most Americans except make money while their peoples and their governments suck off the giant US government tits and boat loads of money shipped overseas by this same Congress that is so two-faced in their concern for the domestic financial markets.

I continue to have news for you this morning, and if you read the Internet sites outside ABC/CBS/NBC/CNN/MSNBC or AOL and Google and the NY Times/LA Times/Washington Post (name another lamestream dead tree legacy media or broadcast TV outlet) you'd know that profit taking has already begun in spite of the widely publicised "failures" in the financial markets and on Wall Street.

My Blog Idols over at Powerline have a good posting with references I'm going to expand on this morning.

First there's Joseph Calhoun's article over at "Real Clear Politics" that points out the new money being raised to buy and pay for the bargans out there if you're shopping for banks and other credit institutions:

In Times of Crisis, Trust Capitalism
By Joseph Calhoun

The US government is executing a coup d’etat of capitalism and I fear that we will pay the price for many years to come. Hank Paulson, Ben Bernanke and a host of others tell us the credit market is not working and the only way to get it working again is for the government to intervene. They claim this intervention is urgently needed and if we don’t act, the consequences are dire. Dire, as in New Depression dire. Have these supposed experts on capitalism forgotten how it really works?

Last week Goldman Sachs raised $10 billion in new capital in one day. They sold $5 billion in preferred stock and warrants to Berkshire Hathaway and also completed a secondary offering of common stock that raised another $5 billion. Friday, JP Morgan raised $10 billion in a secondary offering to help pay for the Washington Mutual takeunder. Both of these offerings were oversubscribed, meaning that the companies could have raised more capital if they wanted.

There is not a shortage of capital for well run financial companies.

HOLD IT...Hold It...hold it...

My POINT...exactly. Do YOU get what he's saying here?

What Mr. Calhoun doesn't say, however, is that the exact same condition which exists on Wall Street also exists on main street America for...

WELL RUN HOUSEHOLDS.

Get the Picture?

Calhoun goes on:

There is, however, a shortage of capital for companies that have acted irresponsibly with investor capital in the recent past. For some reason, our political leaders believe this is a failure of the market, but isn’t this what should be expected from rational investors? Given a choice, why would a rational investor allocate limited capital to the losers rather than the winners? If capital is really as scarce as it seems, isn’t it better for our economy if we make sure that it is allocated wisely?

The biggest bank failure in the history of the United States happened last Thursday night and by Friday morning, it was business as usual. The only difference was the name on the door and the losses suffered by those unfortunate enough to invest in Washington Mutual bonds or stock. The taxpayers didn’t lose anything and depositors didn’t lose anything, only investors. That is how capitalism works in case everyone has forgotten.

Likewise Joe, I say that there is also currently a shortage of capital for "individuals" and the Democrats beloved "Working Families" that have acted irresponsibly with "investor capitol" (read "investment capitol" to mean the shareholders of institutions willing to loan vast sums of money used buy large houses and cars and bass boats and $150 tennis shoes and expensive un-deserved vacations to Disney World for the kids.)

Calhoun's reference to the private fund raising going on piqued my interest, so I did a little Googling and found this to support his assertions:

Goldman Sachs Prices $5 Billion Public Offering Of Common Equity
September 24, 2008

Berkshire Hathaway Invests $5 Billion, Receives Warrants for Further $5 Billion

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE: GS) announced today that it has priced a public offering of 40.65 million common shares at $123 per share for total gross proceeds of approximately $5 billion. In addition, Goldman, Sachs & Co. has an over-allotment option of 6.10 million common shares.

This offering, combined with the recently announced $5 billion strategic investment by Berkshire Hathaway Inc. in the form of perpetual preferred stock, brings total capital raised to $10 billion. In addition, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. will receive warrants to purchase $5 billion of common stock with a strike price of $115 per share, which are exercisable at any time for a five year term.

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is a bank holding company and a leading global investment banking, securities and investment management firm. Goldman Sachs provides a wide range of services worldwide to a substantial and diversified client base that includes corporations, financial institutions, governments and high net worth individuals. Founded in 1869, the firm is headquartered in New York and maintains offices in London, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Hong Kong and other major financial centers around the world.

And of course everyone knows who owns Berkshire Hathaway hiding out there in the ethanol plants corn fields of Nebraska (not NY City)?

You'd be wrong if you thought of this Big Rich Guy with the bad comb over...



But you'd be right if you said THIS little rich guy, instead:


(For those of you busy rearing children or that went to college at UGA or Florida State, that would be Warren Buffett...)

Then over at JP MorganChase they're also bringing in money hand over fist in defiance of this horrible government induced "financial meltdown":

JPMorgan Chase & Co. Announces $8 Billion Capital Raise

New York, September 25, 2008 - JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) today announced that it intends to offer $8 billion of its common stock for sale to the public. J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. will serve as sole bookrunning manager and underwriter for the transaction. The underwriter will have a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 15% of the offered amount of common stock from the company to cover over-allotments, if any.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) is a leading global financial services firm with assets of $2.0 trillion [emphasis mine-VRR] and operations in more than 60 countries....

Then after raising $8 BILLION new dollars from "investors" (not the government) in the face of the current catastrophe, the very next day last week JPMorgan did this:

JPMorgan Chase Acquires the Deposits, Assets and Certain Liabilities of Washington Mutual's Banking Operations

Highly attractive, strategic transaction significantly strengthens consumer franchise.

Deal expected to be accretive to earnings immediately. Adds large, stable deposit base and recurring earnings stream to company.

Company intends to raise additional capital in conjunction with this transaction to maintain strong capital position.

Acquisition creates largest U.S. depository institution, with over $900 billion of customer deposits

Expansion into attractive California, Florida and Washington State markets creates nation's second-largest branch network; also strengthens existing presence in New York, Texas, Illinois, Arizona, New Jersey, Colorado, Connecticut and Utah

Larger branch footprint will allow company to further extend and grow commercial banking, business banking, credit card, consumer lending and wealth management efforts

New York, Sept. 25, 2008 - JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) tonight announced it has acquired all deposits, assets and certain liabilities of Washington Mutual's banking operations from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), effective immediately. Excluded from the transaction are the senior unsecured debt, subordinated debt, and preferred stock of Washington Mutual's banks. JPMorgan Chase will not be acquiring any assets or liabilities of the banks' parent holding company (WM) or the holding company's non-bank subsidiaries. As part of this transaction, JPMorgan Chase will make a payment of approximately $1.9 billion to the FDIC.


If that's not enough to convince you that SOMEBODY believes that everything isn't going down the crapper on Wall Street without Federal intervention, on this past Friday they offered part ownership in their company for only another $10 Billion, apparently to be received from Lemmings willing to jump off the cliff with their fellow investors wallowing in the pit of insolvency:

JPMorgan Chase & Co. Prices $10 Billion Capital Raise
New York, September 26, 2008 -

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) today announced that it priced a $10 billion offering of approximately 246.9 million shares of its common stock at $40.50 per share. J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. served as sole bookrunning manager and underwriter for the transaction. The underwriter will have a 30-day option to purchase approximately up to an additional 37.0 million shares of common stock from the company to cover over-allotments. The closing is expected to occur on or about September 30, 2008.

I don't know about you, but I say that if BZILLIONAIRE Warren Buffet is buying into the investment houses this week, and "investors" are tossing billions at firms like JPMorgan, then as I said a few weeks ago...they're not burning American Dollars yet, people are still graduating from college and need a place to live other than an apartment, the housing market will recover given time, and finally...

the $#@%& Government should keep MY TAX DOLLARS out of this natural "correction process" in the markets and get their race baiting bigoted, group hysteria mongering fingers out of the investment and loan making process before they really do permanently screw things up.


Monday, September 29, 2008

Owl Gore's Crocodile Tears

Global Warming Weenies Lament Patchouli And Incense Producer Stock Plummet...


OK folks, take a look with me at a new NOAA image of the current Atlantic "Hurricane Basin":



Notice anything worth peeing your pants about this morning...unless you're a Moose up in Maine or Nova Scotia?

And gee wizz...but don't I remember that this year's "hurricane season" already "peaked" in mid/late September?

Yeah...I also remember that Hurricane Opal formed in the Gulf of Mexico off the Yucatan and roared ashore in early October of 2005 in less than a week, but right now from where I'm sitting all safe and comfortable on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River I'd say that our "above average" so-called "active" hurricane season is about petered out for everyone that wasn't flooded out on the Texas coast...(and to them I send my personal understanding and sympathy.)

Global Warming...BAH HUMBUG!!!

Busy Blogging Month

A New Personal Record...


As I've said and written here many times before, I don't write too much toward my audience's views.

Rather, I write what I think and let my audience come to me--with the singular exception of toning down the profanity and limiting my subject matter to that semi-acceptable to polite middle of the road christian political culture.

At the same time, I do manage to fairly frequently stumble into some taboo areas of our society and touch on concepts which "make people feel uncomfortable" and "hurt people's sensitive feelings."

Let's face it...I STOMP on toes when TOES are offered to be stomped on--things like the cultural failings of the black negro African American society as a whole (read that total irresponsibility of the so-called men that exist therein) and the 70 plus percent out of wedlock birth rate they're experiencing today.

Likewise, I frequently lament things like the 60% drop out rate in many state's public government schools and worry about the "victim mentality" which has developed over the past forty or fifty years here in the United By-God States of 'Merica, with over half of the people out there believing now that it's the government's job, not theirs, to insure their safety and health and welfare in retirement--while at the same time expecting ME and my college educated hard working good decision making peers to pay for their largess.

Do any of these musings and writings make me a successful writer and Internet Blogger?

That would be a resounding YES if you consider averaging somewhere between 40 and 50 hits a day to be victory. But many of my blogger friends and peers get hundreds of hits a day--some averaging in the thousands.

The funny thing I've realized while writing here on this blog is this:

GOOGLE likes to use words in headlines when it comes to ranking their searches.

Further, write about the death of a celebrity or use the correct words describing a hot political news subject and your reader traffic will jump right through the roof over night.

Take a look at this months statistics from my Sitemeter Page:




See that set of bar graphs bouncing around down between 40 and 50 hits per day, then jumping up to over 200 last Sunday and over EIGHT HUNDRED on Monday, all because I wrote a fifty word posting mentioning that Senator and Democratic VP candidate Joe Biden's health was being examined and there was a rumor bouncing around the Internet for some time that sHrillary was coming in for his replacement in October.

I followed up with a detailed posting on Biden's health history on Monday and the hits kept coming, and here I set this morning on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River having just finished my first week three "hits" shy of THREE THOUSAND READERS in my blogging career.

(The thing I have to keep in perspective is that even with THREE THOUSAND READERS in a single seven day period, my total for the 29 days thus far elapsed in September is just 53 hits over FOUR THOUSAND...)

Now that things have settled down a little I guess it time to pick up the trash and empty drink cups, gather my little group of regular readers back around me, and get back to working on some steel design and writing about the details of the recently minted 700 billion welfare package for Wall Street and the "community Redevelopment Act" beneficiaries and administrators over at ACORN.

Y'all have a good week...if you will...

Sunday, September 28, 2008

My Hat Size Is Bigger Than My Wallet

Who Knew?


Departing from my normal subject of politics and the other strange and inconsequential things which people I see around me in traffic and in the grocery store take as fact when they see it on TV or read it in the newspaper, I'm guilty of turning my attention to of all things...

MEN's FASHION this Sunday evening.

Specifically...

Men's Headwear.

I'll start out by saying that I've only owned a couple of real hats which were actually designed to fit my personal hat size in my life...

...that is, if you don't count the hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds of free baseball caps I've been given and the other's I've purchased over the years of the "one size fits all" category.

Most of those don't count as true Headwear, because if you've ever seen me out wandering around in public with a hat on my head, chances are that even with the current massive levels of hair loss and resulting bulk circumferential reduction (2 * PI * head radius) the "adjustable band" with the little plastic thingies on the back or the little brass belt buckle or the annoying plastic or metal sliding cleat is positioned all the way out on the end of the adjustment range, millimeters sixteenths of an inch from letting go and allowing my hat to flop on the sidewalk or fall overboard out of the boat into the lake else out the window of the car...never to be seen or heard from again by anyone but an innocent bystander.

(While I'm thinking and writing here about articles of clothing, I have to admit that the same goes for XL socks with the range of 9 to 13 stamped on the package since everything in that category barely fits over my heal most of the time.)

Any way, I've been secretly coveting owning a nice Men's Fedora type hat like both my Grandfathers wore when they walked outside their home back in the year's prior to the 1960's and 1970's.

You know--back when women started opening their own doors and gave up relying on their long haired hippy draft dodging boyfriends and brothers to remove their Cubs and Yankees baseball caps when they entered a room, sat down at the table, or greeted a woman indoors or out.

(this behavior mostly from men that couldn't explain the infield fly rule and had never gotten closer than the beer vendor behind the third base dugout at the local AAAA level semi-pro franchise games...thus the insane insanity of the current popularity of "ball caps" residing on the heads of the "non-ball playing public.)

But I digress...

Any way, I'm lusting after looking around the Internet at some vintage Beaver skin hats made back in the 1940's and 50's and, SHEESH...are they expensive, and most of the time they are only out there on a one by one basis in what is today's boys' sizes 6X thru 12 6-1/8 through 7-1/2.

I your lovely and talented Blogmeister, wear a 7-7/8 OK, a 7-3/4 size in the better brands tightly, but prefer a size EIGHT in order to allow my massive, overtaxed and as yet under accomplished Cranium to Breath.

So what's up with that?? Ya Know....

Missy The Turbo Pup's Saturday Night

How Could You Not Want To Just Squeeze Her?



(Click on the image to see a larger format image and see all the long hair she's developing in the cooler weather here on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River.)

US Department Of Peace?

Morris Udall's Offspring Keeping Up the Cause..





** This Ad paid for by "Americans for yet another Cheech & Chong Moment", in support of those folks you could send to Washington DC every few years.