It’s Not What You Do…

(It’s What You Are Thinking When You Do It)

I hate “Hate Crime Laws.”

If thing's keep going like they are, soon my feelings about "Hate Crime Laws" might actually be against the law.

"Hate Crime laws" are like double negatives or oxymorons—they’re like deja vu all over again.

Hate crime laws aren’t concerned with what crime you commit, they worry about what you are thinking or believe at the time you commit the crime.

In my opinion, hate crime laws are stupid and unjust, not to mention never to be applied to a group of black guys beating the shit out of my head with a pistol in the winter of 1979 in a Pizza Hut Restaurant in Atlanta.

Beating me in the head was already a crime in 1979. Pointing a gun at me and my friends was already a crime in 1979. Picking out the only white boys in a restaurant full of black customers and staff didn’t change the number of stitches it took to close up the cuts on the back of my thick skull that evening.

Today in my considered opinion, the US Supreme Court passed a new Hate Crime Law—

IN REVERSE.

Put a religious symbol in a public place when you LOVE & BELIEVE in what the religion represents—THAT’S AGAINST THE LAW.

Place the exact same symbol in a different public place, for a different reason, and THAT’S JUST A-OK.

I think that today’s 5-4 decision is founded in the same ignorant, biased, stupid principals that hate crime laws are founded on. Today the US Supreme Court ruled that our citizens can’t display the Ten Commandments in or near a Public Courthouse if the person that put them there actually believed in (and possibly lived by) the Ten Commandments.

Hey…Your Honor Ms. Sandra Day O’Connor, let my slightly uneducated, Libertarian, Redneck Ass ask you something: “Kentucky can’t look at them (religious symbols), but Texas can have them (religious symbols)

I’m confused?

How about if I bring you and your fellow judges (and I use the term “Judge” fairly loosely) a big old fish aquarium full of my urine with a nice miniature copy of the Ten Commandments mounted prominently inside.

In your considered, highly educated, honorable opinion, would it be legal to display THAT in the lobby of the Supreme Court Building up there in Washington DC?

After all, a whole bunch of your high browed, high powered, intellectual, know it all, bleeding heart, liberal elitist friends and associates thought that Jesus on a Cross in a jar full of Piss could be considered serious ART in 1989.

Idiots

Sharks-R-US—Part II

(The warnings continue)

I hate to keep beating this subject to death, but it is rare that I have so much personal knowledge—as opposed to pure opinion (biased or otherwise)—to offer about a current news story in my blogging.

Further, not to sound like a complete liar or know-it-all, but from September 12, 2001 until April 2002 I lived in a little rental house less than fifty yards from the beach in Mexico Beach, Florida, looking the few miles south across St. Joseph Bay toward Cape San Blas where today’s shark attack occurred.

I was originally supposed to relocate myself and a truck load of my “stuff” on 9/11 from Vinings, Georgia, down to the Florida Panhandle to do some work developing some property that I owned in that area. After the terrorist attack that occurred in NY and DC, I decided to wait a day to see if the authorities were going to close the interstate highways and in an effort to understand what the effects of post 9/11 security would have on nearby Tyndall Air Force Base through which I had to drive to get to my new home in paradise.

I absolutely loved living in what is known as ”The Forgotten Coast” area of Florida. Unfortunately, things have changed, the world has discovered the area, and it is rapidly becoming a clone of Panama City Beach, Santa Rosa Island, and Destin.

Today’s Shark attack off of Cape San Blas—that little hooked shaped piece of land that looks like the “trigger” on a gun when you look at the map of Florida on the The Weather Channel on TV—is an unfortunate event, but in my opinion it is not entirely unexpected.

Cape San Blas and the Mexico Beach/St. Joe area are located in the part of the Florida panhandle where several big rivers including the “Amazon of the South”, the Chattahoochee/Flint/Apalachicola River system, dumps most of the rainwater falling on parts of Alabama, half of Georgia, and some of Florida into the Gulf of Mexico.

All of this fresh water is the nourishing source of the famous Apalachicola Bay Oysters. If you haven’t ever eaten any or never have heard of them (the oysters,) I don’t have the words to explain…

This large supply of fresh water flowing into the nearby shallow bays and inlets also produces great fishing for both HUMAN fisherman and MARINE Predators. Thus is the source of today’s tragedy. Rivers, canals, and other inlets represent similar hazards.

Fortunately, in my middle aged lethargy and sloth ness, I did not spend much time wading in the waters in that area in depths over knee deep. I did, however, love to jump in a boat with a load of bait (cigar minnows, shrimp, and squid), coolers full of ice, tanks full of gasoline, and a few beers, and run up and down the shoreline attempting to catch Red Snapper, Redfish, Kingfish, and anything else that would take my hook.

I made my first trip as the captain of a boat traveling out of sight of land--18 miles off shore—in October 2001 from the Mexico Beach Canal. My girlfriend Patricia, the lone other occupant on board for my adventure, was quite relieved when the water tower drew into sight on our return trip that afternoon. Thank God for my Garman GPS system.

Again, if you have never had the pleasure to fish in that area, my words fail me…

The water is rarely clear beyond the depth of three feet, and the risk of stepping on something painful of otherwise injuring oneself caused most of my antics in those days to be restricted to areas above water, floating on the water, or on shore eating, drinking, and singing in the local restaurants and bars.

The same water conditions are presented adjacent to my new home here on St. Simons Island Georgia. For this reason, I have to admit that Pat and I do not spend much time hanging out at the beach or in the ocean—we have a pool at our condo.

The 36 foot deep shipping channel running through St. Simons Sound and the Altamah and Frederica Rivers provide tons of nourishment to support good fishing, but the water clarity sucks and I love the crystal clear waters of places like Panama City, Destin, the Bahamas, and Jamaica over the soup we have here.

I don’t wish another attack on anyone, but lets face it ladies and gentlemen, it will happen again as long as humans survive the auto or plane trips to and from the beaches of the world.

AAAAAHHHHHHHH...Look out everybody....It's a Sunami.....

(does that put a bad beach vacation into perspective???)

Sharks-R-US

Do NOT Make Me Keep Writing About This…

I was taking my life into my own hands driving over to Brunswick to do some shoping this afternoon when I heard on the radio that…

OH…NO…not ANOTHER shark attack.

Yes, it has happened…

AGAIN…

In MY old favorite part of Florida…AGAIN.

This is at best a sad coincidence, but at worst it is going to continue to fuel the media “feeding frenzy” because on this very day that the medical goons were doing the autopsy on little 14 year old Jamie Diagle that died last Saturday as a result of wounds she received in a attack by some dubiously identified size of Bull shark, we have another shark attack to analyze and explain--ENDLESSLY.

Let me explain the story’s “media induced” problems to date…

Was the shark that killed Jamie 6’ long or 8’ long, and in the end, does the type of shark or size of shark really matter?

This news story says:

"Experts Monday were trying to determine why an 8-foot bull shark attacked and killed a 14-year-old girl off the coast of northern Florida during the weekend.

An autopsy was scheduled for Jamie Daigle of Gonzales, La., who, along with a friend, was about 250 yards offshore Saturday when the shark clamped onto her leg. A 54-year-old man nearby rushed to her and told the Miami Herald he punched the shark and tried to distract it away from her.

It made several more rushes at the badly bleeding girl before swimmers were able to tow her to shore on a surfboard. She died of blood loss before reaching the hospital.

George Burgess, a University of Florida shark researcher who was at the beach near Destin said the attack was not normal for Florida waters.

"Usually a shark will make a mistake, thinking it's a fish," Burgess said. "In this instance, the shark apparently very knowingly went after a large prey item and persistently tried to follow through on its normal feeding behavior, which would be to come back and attack again and again." "

So Jamie was killed by an 8 foot Bull Shark, 250 yards off shore, right? She died “of blood loss before reaching the hospital” as I predicted earlier.

For some reason this story in Bloomberg says that the shark was a 6 footer and the attack occurred 100 yards off shore.

“A six-foot bull shark probably was responsible for killing a 14-year-old girl in Florida while she was swimming with a friend last weekend, said Erich Ritter of the Shark Research Institute.

The girl, Jamie Marie Daigle of Gonzales, Louisiana, was vacationing with friends on Florida's Gulf Coast. She was attacked by the shark in an area not protected by sandbars or lifeguards, Tim Dicus, a surfer who brought the girl to shore, told the Associated Press said yesterday. Daigle was swimming more than 100 yards (91 meters) from shore June 25, AP said.”

Let me summarize what we’ve learned so far, and I'll write it as if I were a professional NEWS REPORTER:

Destin (Virgil Rogers)--“Jamie Marie Daigle of Gonzales, LA died on Saturday as a result of massive blood loss resulting from injuries received during at least one attack by what is believed to be a 6’ to 8’ Bull Shark.

Miss Daigle and a friend were reportedly swimming between 100 and 250 yards offshore of Destin, Florida at the time of the attack."

Case Closed…what is so hard about that?

Today’s shark bite story is about a 16 year old boy “reportedly” being bitten by a shark near Cape San Blass, Florida.

"Authorities in the area say Monday's attack could have occurred because the boys fishing were using live bait, and were fairly far out from shore, standing on a sandbar.

A 16-year-old boy is in stable condition after being bitten by a shark in the Gulf Coast waters of northern Florida on Monday. It was the second shark attack in the area in three days. Experts say last year's Florida hurricanes could be the reason why sharks are now closer to popular beaches in some parts of Florida.

Beaches along Florida's northern Gulf Coast were closed on Monday after the second shark attack in three days. One of three boys fishing on a sand bar at Cape San Blas was severely bitten by a shark on Monday.

At a Florida news conference on Monday, Eric Ritter, a shark expert from the New Jersey-based Shark Research Institute, said last year's Florida hurricanes could have altered sand bars in the shallow Gulf waters, allowing sharks to move closer to shore than they might previously have done.

"A changed weather system always does affect the super top predators, but it also affects the entire food chain," he said. "So, yes if you change a sand bar it directly affects the current that will bring in other sharks. We have some indication that the hurricanes from last year created some of the accidents." "

So am I good, or what? I ALREADY TOLD YOU ALL OF THIS, AND I’M JUST AN IGNORANT AMATEUR WRITER AND MECHANICAL ENGINEER…

As I already wrote yesterday in More About Gulf Vacations--the sandbars are affected by the prevailing weather and, by the way--the sharks will swim where they want to AND BITE WHO AND WHAT THEY WANT TO BITE, WHEN THEY WANT TO BITE IT.

Finally, TODAY"S LESSON, learned by some of my friends that have many years of expericence Spear Fishing while scuba diving in oceans all over the world is this:

Don't stand around in water full of sharks with a bucket or mesh bag full of dead (or live) fish attached to your bathing suit.

If you want to drag a bucket of dead (or live) fish into the ocean with you, put it on a long rope or anchor it far away from any of your body parts that you consider to be essential in conducting the balance of your life on this planet.

It's just that simple.

More About Gulf Vacations

(How to not get caught feeding the sharks…)

Finally we’re getting some accurate first hand details about Saturday’s shark attack near my old stomping ground on the Florida panhandle

It looks to me like the teenaged girl was just damn unlucky. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time and the more complete news stories confirm what I said yesterday—that she probably came to the attention of a big bull shark.

“Surfer Tim Dicus, 54, said he heard a scream and saw Venable swimming for shore as fast as she could. Jamie was face down in a bloody circle of water, and the flesh had been torn on one leg from her hip to her knee.

Dicus swam out to help the teen.

"He was very aggressive," "I've been here a long time and I've never seen a shark get that aggressive."

Dicus pulled Daigle on to his surf board while the shark continued its attack, Local 6 News reported.

"I got her on to the board and he continued to attack from the outer bar to the beach," Dicus
said”

Although his comments are well intended, I disagree with surfer dude Dicus. The behavior he describes as being exhibited by the suspect shark is actually very typical of documented shark behavior.

Sharks aren’t stupid. They generally won’t take on something bigger than they are unless it is already dead or dying. They prefer scavenging wounded or dead fish rather than killing healthy live prey like that consumed by Dolphins, Barracudas, and the other larger game fish species.

The problem here is that the legs of little 90 pound girls thrashing around on floats and “boogie boards” looks to sharks exactly like a couple of three foot long fish floundering around in the surf.

Unless they are VERY hungry, Sharks also won’t take on something their own size or slightly smaller if the prey reacts aggressively. As a Scuba diver I’ve been instructed to leave sharks alone and enjoy watching them, but to face them down and even punch them in the nose or eyes if they happen to get too friendly. Harassing a shark by grabbing it by the tail or fins is definitely a good way to get bitten, although I’m not suggesting that the two girls were harassing this big fella'.

When a shark comes in to investigate potential prey, it will initially give it a bump or possibly a nibble. If the prey reacts aggressively the shark will probably move on to something less troubling to deal with. The bad news is that once a shark comes in and actually takes a bite, if they like the taste, they will then circle around and come back in to take another bite. They will also wait and watch nearby for things to settle down and then come in and eat at their leisure (once the prey is dead.)

Sharks rarely swallow their prey whole. The shark’s mouth and teeth is designed as a tearing machine. They bite down on their prey and shake their head from side to side—actually “sawing” their way through flesh and bone. Believe me, a four or five foot long shark can break human bones very easily.

Remember the young semi-professional female surfer that had her arm bitten off by a shark in Hawaii a couple of years ago? She was lucky to survive with a shark taking her whole arm in that manner. The little girl injured this past Saturday was said to have had a chunk of flesh torn off of her thigh. She probably bled to death out of the big femoral artery located in that part of her leg—a tourniquet and a great deal of luck were her only chance of survival.

I saw a videotape while visiting Walkers Cay Bahamas a few years ago that showed a scuba diver performing a “shark feeding” exercise by hand. Feeding sharks by hand, just like feeding gators and bears, is a VERY bad idea. Even though the diver was wearing a protective “chain-mail” sleeve, one of the eager sharks swam up, grabbed her forearm rather than the fish she was holding, and with two or three shakes of its head and body the video showed the bone in her upper arm snap like a toothpick. The diver got to keep her arm, but she had to endure the recovery from a COMPOUND FRACTURE—all caused by an itty bitty 4 foot reef shark.

Finally, I have a recommendation for swimmers visiting the Gulf coast of Florida:

Confine your swimming to the areas inside the second sandbar unless you are an experienced surfer or snorkel/scuba diver or otherwise really know what the heck you are doing.

Will you do this for ME, Please?

I promise that you’ll still have a good time, you’ll be a hell of a lot safer for a number of reasons besides sharks, and I won’t have to spend two weeks watching FOX News’ Greta Van Susteren roll her eyes back in her head and twist her crooked mouth telling me about your demise.

Here is the deal on the topography of the beaches down there in Panama City and Destin. You should be able to tell from my discussion that I am an EXPERT on this area of Florida.

First, understand that there are multiple rows of sandbars running parallel to the beach, and the water is relatively shallow for a good distance offshore. You sometimes have to go out 20 miles to fish in 100 feet of water. The Gulf of Mexico in this area also has a very low tide fluctuation, usually only about 1-1/2 or 2 feet from high to low. This allows very well defined sandbars to build up and they are a unique feature that sometimes draws swimmers too far offshore with a false sense of security.

Depending on the tide conditions and the recent weather actions on the water, the first sandbar can be anywhere from twenty feet to twenty yards offshore. You can wade out into water somewhere between knee deep and waist deep, then if you keep walking or swimming out you can be standing in shin deep water on the sandbar. It’s fun and usually safe for the younger kids and adult swimmers of all capabilities, as long as the surf is not too rough. This sandbar is what causes the waves to break on shore. Fun, fun, fun.

After you get to the first sandbar, if you keep moving offshore you’ll pass through another section of water from armpit deep to slightly over your head in depth, at which time you’ll encounter another sandbar which is usually about twenty to fifty yards beyond the first one. Many times you can comfortably stand on this sandbar. Sometimes it’s only waist deep, and for this reason it is attractive for kids and weaker swimmers. Usually even this location is safe, again as long as the surf conditions will permit.

Unless you are an expert surfer or wearing a mask and swim fins, this is as far as you should venture off shore.

There are usually at least four noticeable rows of sandbars that extend several hundred yards offshore into water depths between fifteen and thirty feet deep, but these bars are useless to swimmers without a snorkel or scuba tanks. This area of the gulf is routinely inhabited by the exact same marine inhabitants that you can find three miles offshore—I know, because I’ve probably spent a hundred hours of my life out there in years past.

It's a neat area to visit because that is where the good shells and sanddollars are located, and the friendly creatures inhabiting these deeper areas will generally ignore you...but,

as we all were again reminded this past weekend, their sharp teeth are quite capable of taking a chunk out of you that you will probably need while driving home from your vacation, and they could care less how unhappy your mother, husband, father, wife, or kids feel about you not making it back home alive as a result of their having a little snack.

My Least Favorite Dutch Translations

After a great deal of effort, I have started learning to translate the Dutch language into our own familiar English terms.

For instance…

The first thing that came to me is that Van Der Sloot just might be Dutch for “Kennedy”

Deepak Kalpoe is Dutch for "stupid regretful accomplace number one"

Satish Kalpoe is Dutch for "stupid regretful accomplice number two"

Steve Gregory Croes is Dutch for "party boat disc jockey"
(An alternate difinition here would be "idiot who stuck his nose in where it didn't belong." )

Greta Van Susteren is Dutch for “needs to get a life”--as in reference to her coverage of Lacy Peterson, Martha Stewart, Michael Jackson, and the missing chick du jour.

Heraldo Rivera is Dutch for “interminable boring pain in the ass—regardless of which TV network employs you” as in his stories about Al Capone’s vault, old 60 minutes shows, etc.

As I said before, I feel terrible for Natalee Holloway’s friends and family, but honestly…people…enough is enough.

I'm Bitten With An Additional Perspective on Sharks

Further continuing my messy statistical review of things that the media won't tell you:

"In 1987, New York City reported the following number of people bitten by dogs, 8,064; (gummed by) other people, 1,587; (mneyowed by) cats, 802; (chewed by) rats, 291; (chomped by) squirrels, 95; (ravaged by) raccoons, 11; (gnawed on by) ferrets, 7; (stinked, stank, or stunk by a) skunk, 3.

(verbage mine--VRR)

There were 13 shark injuries reported nationwide the same year."

Seems to me like your back yard, the nearby woods, or your local municipal park is a much more dangerous place than the beach

Shark!

As you have probably already heard, tragedy struck today when two young girls swimming one hundred yards offshore on “boogie boards” were attacked by a shark off of Florida’s gulf coast.

One of the girls later died at the hospital—the cause of death as yet to be announced. My guess was that it was probably drowning or massive loss of blood.

This was the first time someone has been killed by a shark in this part of the Florida Panhandle in over 20 years, but a few people get bitten swimming in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf waters off of Florida every year.

According to the Florida Museam of Natural History Ichthyology Department Web site, there were over 50,000,000 visitors to Florida in 2001, but less than 40 shark attacks world wide and less than 5 attacks in the entire state of Florida that same year.

Based on these numbers, it seems to me that the odds are more in your favor for having a safe beach trip rather than favoring the sharks getting a large, suntain oil covered and bikini clad hor'dourve...

I guess the statistic that does the most for me is this one: According to the International Shark Attack File, between 1580 and 2003 there were only 1,909 confirmed shark attacks and 456 confirmed deaths due to sharks around the world.

Not a bad statistic for a period extending over 423 years.

Remember that we kill over 40,000 people in this country each year in automobile accidents?

More good news is that no one (OK practically no one) ever actually gets EATEN by a shark unless you like to spend your time hanging out on the chilly southernmost South American or South Africa beaches during seal calving season or you earn a whole bunch of frequent flyer miles making trips necessiary to surf and/or dive on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

The bad news is that, if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, a shark can cause a serious injury to you and possibly take your life.

The infamous Great White Shark is usually the culprit of the true man eating shark stories. An occasional Tiger and Bull Shark also makes an occasional deadly snack of a human every now and then on international and domestic beaches—usually near deep waters.

What sharks normally do here in the coastal waters of the southeastern US is get confused looking at a swimmer thrashing around in murky or otherwise less than clear water, take a sample bite, and you (the victim) run to the hospital and the media hyperventilates endlessly, until some other newsworthy event occurs.

This recent shark bite story strikes very close to home for me personally because I spent many of the spring and fall weekends and some summer weeks of my youth camping in my parent’s motor home at the Holiday Travel Park in Destin, Florida adjacent to where this death occurred.

Back in that period, 1972 to 1977, I spent hours and hours swimming in the surf and wandering the adjacent dunes of this formerly rural campground. I’m a beach bum today as direct result of my beach bum training received in those glorious days before all of the dang Yankees and the rest of the world discovered Destin, Florida.

I heard a local Walton County official today say in a TV interview that sharks are a rarity in the Florida Panhandle area, using as his reference the shark attack and death statistics.

BULLSHIT—the sharks are out there—they just don’t intentionally want to EAT you!

As proof of the sharks' presence in these waters I offer the fact that almost every single charter boat captain on the Florida Panhandle makes nightly shark fishing trips. On these trips they attract their prey by putting out "chum" consisting of bloody fish pieces and parts into the water, within a few miles offshore—sometimes within hundreds of yards—of the very beaches that their beloved tourists are sunning and swimming on during the day.

Let me tell you this: they don't come home empty handed--they catch a boat load of sharks each and every night within a few miles of where this 14 year old girl died.

As I said before, THE SHARKS ARE OUT THERE, PEOPLE, just like the stray dogs, feral cats, raccoons, and ‘possums are out there wandering around your neighborhood and wrecking your back yard trashcans each night.

In support of my beliefs about sharks generally benign behavior, let me tell you a quick story.

Labor Day weekend of 1997 I took a diving trip to Walkers Cay Bahamas. The trip consisted of a low altitude air trip across the Gulf Stream from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida to Walkers Cay aboard an old 1948 vintage Grumman Albatross Seaplane. We did a really cool landing on the water, taxied up the ramp to the "palm tree roofed customs office," and spent three days diving, eating, and drinking.

I will never forget the experience. Although the operation has changed somewhat, I hope to do it again soon.

Two of our dives were in 30’ of water in what they call the Shark Dive Rodeo.

Imagine jumping off the back of a big boat in order to witness a two foot cube of frozen fish parts, suspended by a buoy in the water, surrounded by 150 sharks of all species and sizes(Bulls, Carribbean Reef, Black Tips, & Nurse Sharks), and hundreds of other fish (Groupers, sea bass, etc.) all happily eating while sixty or seventy divers swam around—no nets or protective clothing—watching and photographing the proceedings.

Not one single diver got bit.

Not one single diver got killed.

Instead of fearing sharks, I say that you should be worrying about the idiot driving the car in the lane next to you tomorrow morning on your way to the store to buy a newspaper and a cup of coffee.

It’s just that simple...

See What I Mean?

While I’m bitching about our government, fellow blogger Acidman wrote a posting that reminded me of another one of my pet peeves...

Asset Forfeiture.

”A Quincy woman who apparently stuffed $46,950 in cash in her bra before trying to board a plane to Texas for plastic surgery has sued a federal agency, demanding the return of her money.

The money was seized from Ileana Valdez, 26, after a security check at a metal detector at Logan International Airport on Feb. 3. Valdez told authorities she was heading to Texas for plastic surgery on her buttocks and breasts.

"I don't know why she was carrying it (the cash) in her bra," said Boston lawyer Tony V. Blaize, who filed the suit Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Boston on behalf of Valdez.

In her suit, Valdez said a male Drug Enforcement Administration agent told her she had a nice body and didn't need surgery — and then seized the cash, claiming it was drug money.”

This (asset forfeiture) is a little ditty that the government has invented as part of their “War on Drugs.”

Here is the idea: take away the criminals “ill gotten gains” and “assets and machinery”—cash, houses, cars, airplanes, boats, etc.—and they won’t be able to transport and sell drugs.

You know what the only problem with this idea is?

What if the government is wrong, and the asset that they seize is legitimately that of the person it is taken from? Once they have your money, you have to go to court to get it back. The laws even give the local police jurisdictions an incentive to seize assets—if they can successfully prevent you from recovering your property—they get to keep it.

Thus the dilemma.

Take Ileana Valdez’s situation. The woman sells some stuff, but maybe she doesn’t have a bank account.

What does she do? Even if she does have a bank account, with the proliferation of counterfeit checks these days, you can’t even trust a cashiers check or money order to be valid when you need to go from point A to point B with large sums of cash. Buying cars, boats, and airplanes comes to mind.

Now the government has authorized it's police force to look at you and on the spot decide how much money they think you should be allowed to have in your pocket. Having long hair and needing a shave (which I do most of the time) could eliminate me from being allowed to carry around $2000 in my coin purse in some up-tight-assed cops' minds.

Talk about legal profiling...

I once bought a 32’ boat in south Florida and had to travel from Atlanta to inspect and take ownership of the vessel.

The owner had published a price and I was pretty sure that we were going to be able to strike a deal, but instead of getting a certified check for the exact amount, I low balled the number and then brought cash (more than $5,000 worth) and believe me I worried about having that much money on me, not so much from the standpoint of losing it or being robbed, but fear of being stopped by police and having them take my money.

After all, interstates 75 and 95 in south Florida are notorious as drug trafficking pathways, but they are also the sources of horror stories of law abiding citizens having their hard earned cash taken by over zealous members of our law enforcement community.

Where is it going to end?

Amendment Schmendment

Regarding the proposed constitutional amendment to outlaw burning or otherwise desecrating the American Flag, I'd like you to consider the following points.

First, it is important that you understand that my family and I are probably more patriotic than nine out of ten people you’ll find wandering around a football stadium before kickoff.

I know the words to the Pledge of Allegiance, the lyrics to the National Anthem, I was a member of the Boy Scouts, served time in the Navy, and I know how to fold and handle a flag. I own one of the flags that flew here on St. Simons during the 2004 G-8 Summit when President Bush and Tony Blair attended the meetings across the marsh from our home.

My mother flies an American flag at her home almost every day of the year and when her flags become faded, tattered, and worn, she saves them and respectfully burns them in a manner reminiscent of that described by our founding fathers.

Having said all of that, regarding the illegality of “flag desecration” I still have to ask:

Where would you have government power stop?

I mean, if it's my flag, why can’t I burn it? If it’s my Koran, why shouldn’t the government allow me to flush it down the toilet? If it’s my bible, can the government force me to honor my father and mother or not covet my neighbors’ ass?

Evil Kinevil rode motorcycles in a Elvis-like jumpsuit adorned by the American flag. I’ll admit that I found his attire to be in poor taste, but I do not believe that he was committing a felony.

Get my point here?

No? Well let me elaborate further.

Say I go out to Wall Mart and buy some paper, some white cloth, and an authentic pre-manufactured American Flag.

I finish my shopping trip and bring my purchases home, spending the afternoon drawing several dozen accurate copies of the American Flag on my paper and dying my cloth to resemble a large copy of the American Flag. I then lose my mind and I privately burn all twenty-six copies—including the “real” flag I purchased—in a fit of rage and hate protesting our country’s involvement in the United Nations.

Should my actions cause me to face spending time in jail or otherwise risk punitive legal consequences?

What about if I brought my flag and my home-made flag copies over to a neighbor’s cookout and burned them up on the grill in front of ten guests? Should doing my flag burning in public result in San Quinton time for me?

Should the police be able to come to my house and, upon finding a flag laying on the ground in my back yard, arrest me and haul me off to the slammer? What about finding the charred remains of a flag in my fireplace that I burned while chanting “George Bush has large, funny shaped ears?”

Do you understand now?

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that "this land isn’t my land," and now the US Congress wants to tell me that “this flag isn’t my flag.”

I’m sorry, but if I want to be a boorish pig and burn my flags and flush my Korans, or wish to risk the lightening bolt that will surely follow any abuse of the Bible, it’s between me, my God, and my conscience—and my government needs to just BUTT THE HELL OUT OF MY BUSINESS.

It’s Sad But True

I was shocked to learn this morning that both president Bush AND John Kerry were crappy students in college, earning grades in the mid “C” range while attending college at Yale.

During the presidential campaign the press loved to portray Bush as a dumbass and Kerry as some nuanced master of vast intellectual complexities.

Finally, after Kerry signed the form 180 allowing the release of his military records to three reporters, we learn that his college transcript was included in his military file.

Bush’s military and college records were released during the campaign and are old news.

I’m not saying that either guy is stupid based on their grades, but I’m sorry to say that, speaking from my own personal experience with college, I believe that there must have been some serious beer drinking and womanizing going on in the lives of both Kerry and Bush—maybe even some dope smoking.

And based on the pictures I’ve posted below, who would you trust YOUR teenaged daughter with on prom night?

I want to kick a dweeb's ass... 

I want to go to Cambodia 

Do you know the difference?

What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector?

The taxidermist takes only your skin.

--Mark Twain

A Very Sad Day In American History

You mark my words, in fifty years people will be looking back to today, June 23, 2005, as a day that changed life in America.

You don’t’ know what I’m talking about?

Well, if you currently own real estate or ever intend to buy a house or land in the future, you damn well better start paying attention to the issue that I am talking about.

Today the US Supreme Court has issued a 5 to 4 ruling substantially changing the legal definition of Eminent Domain Laws, and the new ruling doesn’t help you and me.

In the past, the government, under the constitutionally granted power of Eminent Domain, was allowed to take away your land and pay you whatever they think is the fair market value if they decided that they needed YOUR land to use for construction of a road, power line, lake, a sports stadium, or any other facility designated for public use.

Now, according to the five liberal judges on the US Supreme Court, a Connecticut city will be allowed to take land away from the RIGHTFULL OWNERS and sell said land to an office park developer, simply because the property taxes paid on a office park will exceed the property taxes paid on the existing modest homes currently located on the OWNERS’ LAND.

With this interpretation of the law, no one is safe. You can forget about buying land when you are young and selling it when you are old to pay for your retirement. You can forget about inheriting land that has been in your family for 150 years and enjoying it in your old age or selling it to fund your medical needs in your old age.

Why?

Because the f**king imperial federal government of the United By God Damn States Of America says that, even if YOU own YOUR LAND, that you paid for with YOUR MONEY that YOU earned and that you already paid FEDERAL TAXES on, is going to allow a developer to come in and take YOUR LAND, tear YOUR HOUSE down, and build fancier houses or office building—all because someone else is willing to pay more taxes on the new buildings than you pay on YOUR HOUSE.

What complete and total crappola.

Do you see where this country is headed?

Telephones

Ah, the telephone.

Consider it with me for a moment.

What a truly amazing invention. My family had two of them—mounted of all places, on the walls of our house—when I was growing up.

I worked at the Omni Hotel in downtown Atlanta in their maintenance department when I was in college. What amazed me, a simple country boy, back then was that the Omni Hotel had telephones beside the toilet in the bathrooms of the guest rooms, in 1980. I wondered to myself “who are these people that are so important that they can’t go to the BATHROOM without having a telephone?

Are YOU that important?

Having a telephone is both a pleasure and a royal pain in the arse because if you have a telephone, people expect to actually be able to talk to you. Back in the old days, if they couldn’t speak to you on your telephone, they had to call you back again later.

Not any more.

Somebody—I forget who—invented the answering machine…

and Voice Mail, two other pains in the arse.

These inventions created a new game people love to play:

Phone Tag.

And then, not long after all of the above happened, along came the Cellular Telephone.

It’s supposed to be better, because you can take it (the cell phone) with you.

I think that it’s not (better), but I’ve had one (a cell phone) since 1990.

It seems that everybody’s got one (a cell phone) these days, and there must have been a memo put out that if you have one (a cell phone) that you must use it…

CONSTANTLY.

Are these things (the cell phones) glued to people’s ears or something?

No?

Oh, you’re right, those that don’t have the wireless “Bluetooth” headsets on them (their cell phones) like my friend Wayne has are stuck actually having to hold them (the cell phones) against their heads with their hands, so they (the cell phones) are not actually glued to people’s ears.

I woke up this morning hearing a FOX News story about president Bush being interrupted by the loud ring of a reporter’s cell phone during a White House news conference with the Vietnamese Prime Minister.

It seems that President Bush hates cell phones and that the reporters had been admonished to turn off their pagers and cell phones before the event started.

Did I mention that I like him (President Bush?) We have something in common—President Bush and I both hate them (cell phones, and public cell phone users.)

Back in 1997 I saw comedian James Gregory solve a lady’s cell phone addiction at the Punch Line comedy club in Atlanta.

Here is what happened.

Before the show the MC came out and made an announcement saying blaa blaa blaa, and please turn off all pagers and cell phones.

Then the opening comedian, I forget his name, came out and did his thing. He was actually pretty funny.

Two overpriced drinks later, it was finally James Gregory’s turn.

James came out and was his usual funny self. About half way through the performance, an audience member’s cell phone rings. She answers it, then hangs up. Mr. Gregory paused and gave her a dirty look.

A few moments later, the lady’s cell phone rings, AGAIN, and she answers it, AGAIN.

Mr. Gregory stops his performance, and asks her “Is everything OK?” “I know that it must be an emergency because the club told you to turn those damn cell phones off.”

The lady answers him.

She says “I’m sorry, but my kids are at home with a sitter.”

James says “Can I talk to her?”

THE LADY ACTUALLY WALKS UP TO THE STAGE AND HANDS HER CELLPHONE TO JAMES GREGORY.

James takes the phone, puts it to his ear, and says “can you hear me?”

He then says “well, see if you can hear this…” and smashes the phone to pieces as he bangs it against the sidewall of the stage.

The crowd roars its approval.

The lady that owned it (the cell phone) rises from her seat with indignity, utters some profanity laced statement of complaint, turns to balance of the guests in her party, and demands that they leave the club.

She (the cell phone owner) and her date (husband, boyfriend, escort, someone else’s husband, or otherwise) then stomp out of the club, accompanied by a few of their party.

The crowd roared their approval.

She (the cell phone owner) came back inside the club to admonish the balance of her party to leave with her.

They look at each other, have a brief discussion, but they wouldn’t leave.

The former cell phone owner leaves again.

The crowd roars their approval, AGAIN.

I loved every minute, and I sincerely hope that the FAA and the airlines do not allow them (cell phones) to be used in flight, because commercial airliners are the only place on this planet that are safe from them (cell phones.)

gumbo mumbo 

It's A Roux!

It's 8:15 AM and I've got three eyes lit up on my stove right now. I've been cooking since about 7:00 AM but this is not breakfast food.

One eye has a big cast iron skillet on it in which I've already browned two pieces of Andouie sausage. It's now full of butter, vegetable oil, and flour on it's way to making a nice dark brown roux.

Another eye has a big heavy stainless steel skillet full of the holy trinity--diced onions, celery, and bell peppers (red and yellow.)

The third eye has a big boiler full of water with two chicken breasts cooking away.

Can you guess what's for dinner tonight?

Did I mention the Okra that will be added later?

You're right...ITS GUMBO!

Excuse me while I loosen my belt...and wipe your chin--you're drooling.

Turban Durbin Apology—Take Two

Chicago Mayor Richard Daily said that he should apologize—but I’m sorry to report that Senator Durbin just can’t seem to be able to find the words to do it properly.

At least he tried again yesterday:

“WASHINGTON (AP) - Under fire from Republicans and some fellow Democrats, Sen. Dick Durbin apologized Tuesday for comparing American interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp to Nazis and other historically infamous figures.

"Some may believe that my remarks crossed the line," the Illinois Democrat said. "To them I extend my heartfelt apologies."

His voice quaking and tears welling in his eyes, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate also apologized to any soldiers who felt insulted by his remarks.

"They're the best. I never, ever intended any disrespect for them," he said.”

As a member of the group of the “some” that feel that Durbin’s “remarks crossed the line,” I have this to say about that.

Sorry Mr. Turban…er, I mean Durbin…An apology isn’t offered with qualifications.

Either you ARE SORRY, or you ARE NOT SORRY.

So which is it, Senator Durbin?

I suspect that Senator Durbin is sorry that he has been called out on this issue, but that he is not truly sorry for the stupid partisan ideology that he vocalized and that caused the uproar in the first place.

Now people are calling for him to step down as the Minority Whip position as the number two Democrat in the Senate. After all, a few years ago comments made by Trent Lott when he was the Senate Majority Leader in a private venue—the birthday party for South Carolina Senator Strom Thurman—ultimately forced him to step down from his Senate leadership position.

I have to ask this question:

Are we responsible adults, are we all kids in Kindergarten here?

The simple fact is that the mainstream media is not going to hype Turban Durbin’s comments made publicly and officially (in a prepared speech delivered on the Senate floor) in the same manner that they hyped Trent Lott’s comments made in a non-official capacity at a private party.

What I would like to see happen is for our elected officials and our paid professional media to reach down, grab their pants or socks or some otherwise favorite body part, and get a large, industrial strength sized grip on a large portion of reality—enough to temper their own words and actions and/or their reaction to the actions of others.

Why can’t we run this country like a business instead of a junior high school class election?

Some People Just Need To Get A Grip

Or Possibly a clue…

So now they’re making Marijuana flavored candy?

"Marijuana-flavored lollipops with names such as Purple Haze, Acapulco Gold and Rasta are showing up on the shelves of convenience stores around the country, angering anti-drug advocates."

And now some people are objecting to there being candy flavored like marijuana?

“New York City Councilwoman Margarita Lopez introduced a resolution condemning the candies when she saw them at convenience stores near schools in her district. She plans to hold hearings this summer.”

Without going into too much detail or revealing too much personal information, just let me say that this stuff can’t taste good and the MARKET FORCES should be allowed to determine if it is a success or failure, not some stupid hyperventilating idiot like Councilwoman Lopez.

Making offensive named and flavored food seems perfectly legal to me. Tootsie Rolls and Baby Ruths could be renamed and repackaged as “Kitty Poos” and “Caddy Shacks”.

And regarding marijuana flavored food, “Hey Rusty…how about a nice ice cold glass of Bong Water? Mmmmmm Mmmmmm Good”

Lieutenant Colonel Repya Writes Home

Lt. Col. Joe Repya is from Minnesota. He got out of the Army some years ago, but he re-enlisted at the young age of 58 and is a regular correspondent with my blog friends/idols over at Powerline.

Today the Minneapolis Star Tribune wrote an editorial supporting "Turban" Durban's speech on the Senate floor last week.

Here is what Lt. Col. Repya had to say in a letter to the editor of the Star Tribune:

"Your editorial "Durbin's Message/US Must End Prisoner Abuse" proves beyond any doubt that the Star Tribune Editorial Staff has no idea of who we are fighting and why! As a soldier in Iraq, I was highly insulted by the comments of Senator Durbin and his pathetic excuse of being "misunderstood." So I offer a suggestion. Let's divide up these victims of "the hellhole America's military has created" at Guantanamo and allow them to spend a weekend at the homes of the Star Tribune Editorial Staff and Senator Durbin. America's military will anxiously await the report on the impression they will make on you and your families.

Joseph Repya
LTC, Aviation
MNC-I LNO101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)
Camp Victory South
Baghdad, Iraq"

Just as I wrote in X-Ray Vision last week before I had read about Durban's chest pounding fit:

"Senators Martinez, Hagel, and Leahy are pompous, arrogant, useless, vote whores that don’t have enough spine to finish anything that they start. They couldn’t care less about the ramifications of their criticisms, they are just trying to get “ahead of the curve” by predicting the failure of US intelligence efforts.

If they are so concerned about the well being of these "detainees" why don't they each move couple of "insurgents" into their home and buy them a case of box cutters..see how innocent they really are."

Since Repya is actually fighting the insurgents, I believe that he is better qualified than I to make similar suggestions.

Great minds think alike...

and all I have to say is Amen, Brother…

It’s here—free—for the taking, how about using it?

I absolutely love the Internet.

I sometimes sit paralyzed in front of the computer—paralyzed with indecision over what topic to look into. The news is a common area of interest, but there are long lost hobbies like model airplanes, and long lost family members to be researched—thus my dilemma.

Some of the stuff you find on the internet is total crap. If your thing is naked body parts or cheep drugs causing 4 hour erections, there is a web site for you out there somewhere that can satisfy your needs—for only $19.95. I would rather spend my time in more productive (and less reproductive) areas of investigation.

When I read a news story, I almost always do multiple Google searches on key words in order to fact check the article and determine the viewpoint of the author. For this same reason I also include links in my writing that I hope you will follow in order to verify the accuracy of my position.

The sad thing is that most news reporters are either stupid or so intellectually dishonest that all they ever accomplish is the spouting of partisan crap rather than actually covering world events and presenting the story in a fair, neutral basis.

We currently live in the greatest country in the world that ever existed, but if you listen to the domestic and international media we are simply a country half-full of total idiots and ego maniacs that prefer to live our selfish lives in luxury while ignoring the suffering and mayhem afflicting all of our less fortunate international neighbors.

The beauty of the internet is that it allows you to cut through the media static and instantly obtain additional information that is intentionally omitted from the news. Hear that the United Nations needs more money? Find out that the US already pays 22% of the total operating budget each year for the UN. Hear that John Bolton is stuck in limbo in a vote on the Senate floor? Find out that he is well qualified and the Democrats continue to be the party of NO—NO Social Security reform, No Judges, No John Bolton, and generally NO to anything that president Bush wants to accomplish.

I’ve previously commented on “Turban” Durban’s Senate floor bashing of US treatment of prisoners at Gitmo. Take a look at the play that his comments have gotten on the al Jazeera network’s website. The story has been #1 for a week now.

“Turban” Durban is sticking by his words, and as a result he is proving that he is a complete %$#*& idiot.

All you voters in Illinois should be totally embarrassed

Don’t Worry, It Won’t Affect YOU…

I am so sick and tired of hearing the refrain “don’t worry, it won’t affect YOU” when it comes to discussing tax laws.

These were the words used by politicians and supporters of the income tax when it was originally sold to the American public in 1913 with the passage of the 16th Amendment to the US Constitution.

Thus my disdain for the warped logic exhibited in this NY Times story on the elimination of the estate tax.:

“Two months after the House of Representatives voted to repeal the estate tax starting in 2011, the pro-repeal camp in the Senate still doesn't have the votes to finish off the tax. Some senators, thankfully, are refusing to approve another wildly unaffordable tax cut for the wealthiest of the wealthy. But there is still cause for concern: with repeal doomed, senators from both parties are talking about changing the tax in ways that would be as bad as repeal itself…

Moreover, a low tax rate would starve the Treasury. A 15 percent rate, combined with a $3.5 million exemption, would cost 87 percent as much as repeal…

A reasonable compromise would be to keep the tax at the levels that will be in effect in 2008 - an exemption of $2 million a person, and after that, a tax rate of 45 percent. Under that formula, the estate tax would affect a fraction of the top 1 percent of Americans and would average less than 20 percent. Senator Schumer and his colleagues must realize that the need for tax fairness and fiscal sanity is greater than whatever political pressure they feel.”

The Times is passionate about the issue: “wildly unaffordable…starve the Treasury…tax fairness and fiscal sanity…political pressure”

Say what?

Think about this situation with me for a minute. Throw out your little hat saying Democrat or Republican, forget about all the crap that’s been force fed to you by government schools and the mainstream media your entire life. Try looking at things this way…

You start out as just some average slob that spends four years of your life and a bunch of your parent’s money going to college.

After college, you get that first job and spend the next twenty of so years working your way up the food chain. You eat bagels, drive ten year old cars, pay taxes, raise kids, and live your life like a good American.

Finally, you get tired of the 9 AM to 5 PM routine and you manage to start your own business. Life is good.

You spend the next twenty years working 7 AM to 9 PM building your business and, to quote Missouri Democratic Congressman Richard Gephardt, you appear to have “won life’s lottery” because you’ve made more money than the rest of the “average working slobs” that you started out competing with.

You’ve also spent a hell of a lot of money on accountants and you’ve spent a hell of a lot of your money paying taxes—income taxes.

Then the day comes when your time on this earth is over with and you die, leaving slightly more than a moderate sum to your family. Isn’t that fair? After all, you’ve worked your ass off, you’ve paid income taxes on all of your money you’ve earned over the past FORTY YEARS, and now the government wants to step in and take nearly half—45%--of everything you have left in excess of $2 million?

Not no, but HELL NO.

The Times says that the senators need to “realize that the need for tax fairness and fiscal sanity is greater than whatever political pressure they feel.”

How much longer are we expected to believe that “tax fairness and fiscal sanity” is embodied in stealing money from people that EARN IT and giving it to people that DIDN’T EARN IT?

How much longer are we going to allow “bureaucrats” and “activists” to look at our society, decide what the living standards should be, and then steal the money they believe they need from the “wealthy” in order to impose these standards on the “working families.”

You want know what I believe?

LIFE IS A BITCH!

You Know?

You come into this world naked, in sub-Saharan Africa or the USA, you are smart or you are stupid, black or white, male or female, and there is no guarantee that you won’t be molested as a child, or raped as an adult, or have the opportunity to be college educated and work your entire career for NASA. You can either play the cards in the hand that life deals you, or you can walk away from the table, curl up in a hole somewhere, and die a miserable death.

It really gripes me when the politicians and “activists” come in and try to insulate people from this reality. Pass another law. Raise another tax. It’s just that simple in their minds.

If you saw a bum (excuse me, a “homeless person”) sitting on the street and you wanted to help him improve his situation, would you believe that it was ethical for you pick up a gun, come to my house, stick the gun into my face and demand that I give you $10,000 to help the bum find shelter and food?

No?

Then how can you support allowing the government to come to my home, stick a gun in my face, and demand that I give them $10,000 on your behalf in order to provide an entire sub-culture of bum’s food, clothing and shelter?

What about air conditioning and a cell phone? What about a PlayStation and high speed internet? What about an I-pod? What about health insurance and a retirement plan? What about a trip to Disneyworld?

Where does it all end?

There are too many people out there today that believe that THEIR happiness depends on MY money, and standing in a grocery store checkout line while you talk on a cell phone paying for your purchase with food stamps (or with increased dignity with your new Electronic Benefits Card) makes my head explode.

There is a potential solution out there.

One of my idols, Atlanta radio talk-show host Neal Boortz and US Congressman John Linder have written The Fair Tax Book touting the benefits of a National Retail Sales Tax.

What a great idea it is. The National Retail Sales Tax would allow you to bring home every dollar that you earn, and only pay taxes when you spend your money. Every citizen would get a monthly tax rebate equal to the tax paid on the basic necessities of life—food, clothing, shelter. Poor people would pay no income tax and no sales tax, other than at the level existing in the individual states.

The National Retail Sales Tax would also capture income earned in the cash only “underground economy” (illegal workers, drug trade, etc.) because it would capture the money when it is spent, rather than when it is earned.

Unfortunately, there are too many politicians out there that will refuse to give up the power of spending other people’s money on their voters and constituents to allow any substantial change in the tax laws...

And that's a crying shame.

Excuse Me While I Have A Good Time

We had the most incredible evening yesterday. It was one of those events that is impossible to plan and could have been a weather disaster—but it wasn’t.

Our neighbor, 83 year old Mr. Harlan “Bucky” Strader, has a new “lady friend.” He and his “lady friend” wanted us to accompany them to Neptune Park adjacent to the St. Simons Lighthouse to attend a Celtic music concert Sunday evening. So far so good.

We watched The Weather Channel and looked at the National Weather Service Web Site all afternoon, basically assuming that the numerous thunderstorms to our north over Sapalo Island and Savannah would continue moving south and producing a washout—but they didn’t.

Being the optimist that I am, I slow grilled some boneless pork ribs and bacon wrapped shrimp on skewers and made up an Asian BBQ glaze that ended up producing an amazing flavor, a good contrast to my Kansas City Style BBQ Sauce that I use on half of the ribs and shrimp.

We wandered down to Bucky’s condo about 5:30 and headed over to the park for the 7:00 pm concert. The clouds were still holding off. We set up our little picnic with a couple of portable camp chairs and beach towels on the grass within thirty feet of the stone sea wall overlooking St. Simons Sound and the Atlantic Ocean. The clouds were still holding off.

The music started on time—a solo musician from Ireland—and the wine flowed and the food was consumed and the clouds retreated out of sight to the north. We watched the sun set over the Sidney Lanier Bridge and listened to the high tide retreating off of the rocks behind us and I could not have asked for better company or ambiance.

Pat and I came home about 10:00 PM, I collapsed into bed, and slept through the night without awaking a single time—thus my lack of posting last evening.

As I said before, “excuse me while I have a good time…”

If "Turban" Durban Wants To Bitch About Something...

let him bitch about this NY Times story about Iraqi torture houses.

“KARABILA, Iraq, Sunday, June 19 - Marines on an operation to eliminate insurgents that began Friday broke through the outside wall of a building in this small rural village to find a torture center equipped with electric wires, a noose, handcuffs, a 574-page jihad manual - and four beaten and shackled Iraqis.

The American military has found torture houses after invading towns heavily populated by insurgents - like Falluja, where the anti-insurgent assault last fall uncovered almost 20 such sites. But rarely have they come across victims who have lived to tell the tale.

The men said they told the marines, from Company K, Third Marines, Second Division, that they had been tortured with shocks and flogged with a strip of rubber for more than two weeks, unseen behind the windows of black glass. One of them, Ahmed Isa Fathil, 19, a former member of the new Iraqi Army, said he had been held and tortured there for 22 days. All the while, he said, his face was almost entirely taped over and his hands were cuffed.”

It’s obvious to me that the Times felt obligated to print this on the front page of their online edition, but just watch how much follow up they do and how many other media outlets cover the story.

The NY Times, LA Times, et. al. have almost daily stories about imagined abuses at Gitmo and Abu Grab-ass, but they won’t manage to waste much ink on stories of actual torture and abuse when they don’t fit their liberal propaganda template—stories making the US and George W. Bush look bad.

Idiotic Senator Dick "Turban" Durban will probably not utter a word in this direction.

Watch this story fade away as the hyperventilating continues about Korans and Geneva Conventions and toilets.

The PC Crowd Can Just Kiss My Lily-White Derrière

Finally we hear about some sanity creeping back into an insane world being dominated by hypersensitive, politically correct (PC) "activists."

What am I talking about?

Let me explain…

Back in 1992, when the Atlanta Braves baseball team finally decided to begin what has turned out to be a thirteen-year domination of the National League Western division of Major League Baseball, my ex-wife and I wandered down to the old Atlanta Stadium with $120 in our pockets, hoping to buy two playoff tickets from a ticket “scalper.”

I didn’t manage to buy any tickets because the prices were higher than my $60 per seat budget, but what I did manage to witness (instead of a baseball game) was a protest being staged by a pitiful little band of Indians…er, excuse me, make that “Native Americans.”

What issue were these “Native Americans” Protesting?

They waited until Atlanta finally made the playoffs to start publicly protesting the use by the Atlanta MLB team of the name “Braves.”

MY HEART WAS BREAKING, AS MY HEAD EXPLODED AT THEIR STUPIDITY!

The sad thing was, these ‘Native Americans” were all decked out in their “Native American” attire—feathers and moccasins and face paint—they looked like extras in a 1950’s “Cowboy and Indian” movie.

These morons had waited for 25 years while the Braves languished in the cellar of Major League Baseball (something well worth protesting,) they watched silently while the Braves had a fake Indian Teepee erected out in the left field bleachers, and they were silent while the Braves had a caricature of an Indian as a mascot, “Chief Knockahoma,” who greeted kids in the Teepee and did a little dance every time the home team hit a home run.

Only when the national media arrived at Atlanta Fulton County Stadium did they decide to get up the energy to protest the Braves’ use of a term relating to “Native Americans.”

What about the term “ticket scalpers.” Where is their outrage over that obvious negative “Native American” reference, Kemosabe?

In the end, no one really paid any serious attention to the protesters, and the Braves still call themselves the Braves as of today.

I thought that the sensitivity to “Native American” sports team refrain had died down a little, and then it came to my attention that the NCAA is having a meeting next week about the “appropriateness” of naming college sports teams using “Native American” references.

I did a little checking and guess what?

The Seminole Indian Tribe in Florida has come out with a statement supporting Florida State’s use of their tribe’s name for their sports teams.

"Miami--The Seminole Tribe of Florida said it still backs Florida State University's use of the Seminoles nickname, just a week before the NCAA meets on the appropriateness of American Indian nicknames.

At it's regular Friday meeting, the Tribal Council voted unanimously on a resolution in support of Florida State's nickname, the first time the Tribe has taken an official public step to show support for the Tallahassee school's mascot.

"The resolution is a formal document that puts into black and white the sentiment of the Tribe, because we feel that it is an honor and a reflection of the university to represent the spirit of the Seminole Tribe of Florida," said Max Osceola, a Tribal councilman."

It’s about time some minority group saw the light and didn’t let the PC crowd of “lily-white assholes with nothing better to do” tell them what they should think and do.

The use of Native American names does not automatically fall into the category of exploitation or denigration. It is all in the way the terms are used. A stumbling, drunken, cigar-store Indian caricature could be considered insulting, but the way Florida State and other modern college teams use their “Native American” references is polite and reverent.

I hope the NCAA keeps their noses out of this issue and lets the individual schools decide their own fate. If they don’t, the next thing you know a bunch of ancient Romans will be running around USC protesting their use of the name “Trojans” (or maybe the condom manufacturer will have something to say on that one.)

Maybe I’ll form a PC group and start running around holding news conferences and demanding that no one name their basketball team “The stumbling, lead footed, stupid-assed, lazy white boys that can’t jump Crackers.”

Then again, maybe not…

Baby Back Pork Ribs

It looks like our Saturday pool day is a bit of a bust this afternoon. Things might improve later, but the weather isn't keeping me from making my weekly contribution to Global Warming by burning massive quantities of charcoal and hickory chips on my Webber Kettle Grill.

Ironically, we have a rule about practically everything you can think of here in our Condo Association, but for some reason they allow gas and charcoal grills on the second floor balconys.

That's a good thing...

Several of my old fart neighbors have commented on my grill sitting by the side door--there might be a new rule in the works as a result of my efforts. Some people just can't stand watching others have a good time with a cocktail in one hand and a pair of tongs (that's TONGS, not thongs--come on, get your minds out of the gutter) in the other.

Just to make you jealous, let me tell you what is on the menu today. We had left over Grilled Stuffed Bell Peppers that I cooked Friday night and I have a rack of Baby Back Pork Ribs that just landed on the grill, with indirect heat, over a pan of water.

The ribs spent 24 hours in a brine, then I gave them good rub down with my home made BBQ rub. They'll cook about three hours at 220 degreees F, then I give them a good basting with my home made Kansas City Style BBQ sauce, then every body look out 'cause there is going to be some serious chowing down going on about 5 pM.

The next sound you hear will be the sound of lips and teeth on pork rib bones...

X-Ray Vision—Part II

Turban Durbin opens mouth, inserts foot…

I’ve briefly commented on the current attacks on the War on Terror by Congressional Democrats, offered in disguise as hand wringing and apologies for imagined “atrocities” committed by US soldiers and purported to be approved at the highest levels of the Bush administration.

Minority whip Dick “Turban” Durbin issued this little treasonistic bashing on the Senate floor on Tuesday this week:

“The Senate's No. 2 Democrat has compared the U.S. military's treatment of a suspected al Qaeda terrorist at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay with the regimes of Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Pol Pot, three of history's most heinous dictators, whose regimes killed millions.

In a speech on the Senate floor late Tuesday, Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, castigated the American military's actions by reading an e-mail from an FBI agent.

The agent complained to higher-ups that one al Qaeda suspect was chained to the floor, kept in an extremely cold air-conditioned cell and forced to hear loud rap music. The Justice Department is investigating.”

The proverbial shit hit the fan on a low level, mainly on FOX News and within republican circles, but it reached a crescendo on Friday, forcing Turban Durbin to offer the following non-apology apology:

“Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Friday that he regretted any misunderstandings caused by his comments earlier this week comparing American interrogators at Guantanamo Bay to Nazis. The White House, Senate Republicans and others had called for an apology after Durbin's comments Tuesday...

On Friday, Durbin tried to clarify the issue. "My statement in the Senate was critical of the policies of this Administration, which add to the risk our soldiers face," he said in a statement released Friday afternoon.

"I have learned from my statement that historical parallels can be misused and misunderstood. I sincerely regret if what I said caused anyone to misunderstand my true feelings: Our soldiers around the world and their families at home deserve our respect, admiration and total support."

To quote one of my Blog Idols, Captain Ed, over at Captains Quarters, Turban Durbin’s statement mounts essentially to saying “I'm sorry you were too stupid to understand me.”

The mainstream media and the Democrats clearly have tilted off of their respective rockers by supporting Turban Durbin’s comparison of US actions to past atrocities:

“About 9 million persons, including 6 million Jews, died in Hitler's death camps, 2.7 million persons died in Stalin's gulags and 1.7 million Cambodians died in Pol Pot's scourge of his country.

No prisoners have died at Guantanamo, and the Pentagon has acknowledged five instances of abuse or irreverent handling of the Koran, the holy book of Muslims...

Mr. Durbin also likened the treatment of terror suspects at the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's decision to authorize the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

It took us almost 40 years for us to acknowledge that we were wrong, to admit that these people should never have been imprisoned. It was a shameful period in American history," Mr. Durbin said. "I believe the torture techniques that have been used at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and other places fall into that same category."

So Turban Durban thinks that capturing and interrogating enemy combatants on the battlefield is equivalent to interring Japanese civilians?

I say that Turban Durban is a $%#& Moron, and here is the thing that bothers me the most.

All of this public discourse and dissent isn't happening in a vacuum, it's hapening on world wide cable networks. Further, as a result of Turban Durbin's partisan stupidity, our enemies see all Americans as stupid and soft and easy to defeat philisophically, because there is a stupid, soft, defeatist minority that gets all of the press and is allowed to apparently speak for all Americans.

Is this what you want your elected officials saying to the world on your behalf?

If not, and if you live in a state like Turban Durbin’s Illinois or any state supporting a US Representative or Senator making these treasonous public statements, I challenge you to contact their office, in writing or by telephone, and tell them what you think about this situation.

My Senator Saxby Chambliss will be hearing from me, and he is just an innocent bystander in the process.

How can you sit idly by while things like this are going on?

Post Vacation Blues

The Blues can be a good thing--I love listening to the Blues.

Blues can also be a bad thing--like the blues I've got when it comes to writing right now. I guess spending nine days traveling has got me out of my routine for some reason--that, and the computer problems we've had since returning home Monday night are serving to reduce the number of words that seem worth writing.

Back to the topic of Blues music, I don't think that I've made much mention of the fact that I'm an aspiring harmonica player. I played the harmonica with a band in Atlanta in 1999-2000 that played fairly frequently in public before girlfriend problems caused our ultimate breakup. It's funny how girls love you and will do practically anything to go out with you when you're in a band, and then end up being jealous of and hating the band when all things are said and done. The fact is that performing in a band professionally takes time, and some women just don't understand that concept.

I also formed a duo with Guitar Dave while living in Mexico Beach Florida that played on Sunday nights in this wonderful little dive called "The Lookout Lounge" that had been in business since the 1920's. We had a little PA system, a couple of old Yamaha tube amps and we developed 50 or so songs we could play and sing through using crib sheets instead of memory to support the vocals. We never had more than twenty-five or thirty people in the room, but then—if you saw the size of the room—twenty-five people was a full house.

The other thing I do to put myself at risk in public is sing Karaoke. Karaoke is a strange social phenomena. Ordinary people will get up in front of a room full of strangers and risk making complete and total fools of themselves. Some even manage to surprise themselves and do a good job with a song. I can tell you from personal experience that it helps to really know the words to the song and practice it at home before you jump up in front of everyone and start belting out the chorus.

There are a couple of songs that I think should forever be banished from Karaoke disks everywhere. Songs that last longer than three minutes like Don McClain’s “American Pie” come to mind, because the people that choose these songs inevitably cannot carry a tune in a bucket using both hands and no matter how polite the crowd tries to be, no one should be subjected to that level of pain and musically induced suffering for that long.

We live within a mile of a place called Ziggie’s that has live music three nights a week, as well as Karaoke on Wednesday nights. It’s a pleasure to sing at Ziggie’s, but it is also a bit intimidating because the regulars include some really good singers. “Hot Tub” Bob and George and Mike are tough acts to follow, but the crowd appreciates the overall quality and as a result we get a good number of spectators that aren’t there to sing—just listen. Pat and I got out there this past Wednesday night and I ran out of songs that I knew because it was the “Virgil and George show” for the first hour. Things don’t get going good until 10:30 PM.

I guess it’s time to work up a few new songs, anyone up for some James Taylor or Jimmy Buffett?

High Tech Hyperventilating

Why is it that trouble always comes in twos or threes?

We’ve been suffering from computer problems, network problems, and our condo AC has been half way screwed up since we returned from vacation. The good news is that I think we have two out of three problems solved—we’ll see later this morning.

We’re waiting with pregnant anticipation for the return of Pat’s notebook from its field trip to the Corporate IT Spa in the Atlanta suburbs. I wrapped it up in about ten layers of bubble wrap and slapped it in a Fed EX overnight box on Wednesday afternoon, they gave it a good working over on Thursday, and it’s on its way back here to St. Simons via Fed EX, scheduled to arrive before noon today. The maddening thing is that they couldn’t find anything wrong with the computer. No unusual adware/spybotts and no viruses.

I spent most of yesterday as a computer-less pedestrian since the wireless network is still spazzing out and Pat was using my notebook in the absence of her machine. She had to use our back up dial up connection because our wireless connection through the cable modem is still crawling. To complicate matters, we had to minimize our phone use because we were waiting for a stupid HVAC technician to call for directions.

Is it a genetic defect caused by owing a van or pickup truck full of tools, or is there some kind of special school that you go to that eliminates the part of the brain that causes you to keep appointments? I picked a name at random out of the phone book on Wednesday afternoon after determining that the condo AC was indeed ailing. I avoided the AAAAA listings and went straight to the middle of the category, hoping to find someone interested in actually fixing my AC in a competent and timely manner.

Not wanting to appear impatient, I ended up waiting poolside until 3 PM Thursday afternoon, and then I finally broke down, came dripping back to the condo, and called the guy again. He gave me the obligatory life story of an excuse, and then admitted that he had forgot about our appointment, and promised that he would be by within the hour.

I wandered back over to the swimming pool. Pat called me on my cell phone a half hour later to tell me that the guy had in fact showed up. The bastard didn’t even come inside. By the time I could dry off, toss on my shoes, and saunter the hundred-yard distance from the pool to my home, he was unhooking a bottle of Freon from the condensing unit, grabbing a check from Pat’s hand, and running to his van. Talk about expedient service…$70 worth.

What bothers me is that he did no diagnostic work. I told him on the telephone that the filters were clean, the evaporator fan and condenser fan were working, and that I suspected that we were a little low on Freon. I guess that he took my word for it. I just hope that whatever leak we have is a really slow one so we’re not coughing up another $70 next week.

So anyway, one computer, one AC, now I have to figure out what is going on with the wireless network. What is weird is that when I open the wireless connection window, it shows us running at 58G, but I swear that web pages load slower than the dial up connection at 52K. I can’t get my yahoo mail server to load at all. I’ve heard of an obscure virus that you can get in your wireless router memory and I’m wondering if we don’t have something like that going on here.

Needless to say my Blogging is going to suffer until I have the hardware problems worked out. See you guys later.

X-Ray Vision

In case you haven’t heard, the media and a bunch of Senate weasels are publicly clamoring for the closure of prison camp X-Ray at US Naval Station Guantanamo Bay Cuba.

“Over the weekend, Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) said Bush should consider closing the Guantanamo Bay base, and Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) cited controversy at the prison as one reason the United States is "losing the image war around the world." Democrats and some human rights groups have offered harsher assessments. The Guantanamo Bay prison, along with last year's Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq, "is a national disgrace, an international embarrassment to us and our ideals, and a festering threat to our security," Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said in a floor speech yesterday.”

I just have one question for Messeurs Martinez, Hagel, and Leahy:

WHAT THE HELL ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THE TERRORISTS, INSURGENTS, AND ARMED COMBATANTS (you pick your own term) CURRENTLY HELD AT GITMO?

Hey Mel, how about us closing Abu Grab-ass in Iraq and Gitmo in Cuba and building a new prison in the location of the critics’ choosing. It will have free camel parking, satellite TV, a health club, hot and cold running Korans, Arab Virgins on five foot centers, and no one will have to do anything they don’t want to do—ever—for the rest of their miserable Arab Jihadist lives.

We’ll conduct interrogations using words like “pretty please” and “mother may I” and we’ll patiently wait until our swarthy middle-eastern guests feel compelled to talk and potentially give us information critical to our national defense. Most of all, we will sweat and fret and wring our hands, having conniption fits of worry over our image with the socialists and communists in France, Germany, and Italy.

Then, will the media, the pacifists, and Senators Martinez, Hagel, and Leahy be happy?

No?

Of course not, because they will just start criticizing the next facility because they really aren’t against prison abuse, they are against the WAR ON TERROR.

Senators Martinez, Hagel, and Leahy are pompous, arrogant, useless, vote whores that don’t have enough spine to finish anything that they start. They couldn’t care less about the ramifications of their criticisms, they are just trying to get “ahead of the curve” by predicting the failure of US intelligence efforts.

If they are so concerned about the well being of these "detainees" why don't they each move couple of "insurgents" into their home and buy them a case of box cutters..see how innocent they really are.

Morons...

Computer Induced Insanity

Picture me with my head spinning around like a character in a cheep horror film. That is the way I have felt most of the past 24 hours.

It all started Monday night in the Atlanta airport when I tried to connect Pat’s laptop to their wireless network. I connected to SOMETHING wireless, but I’m still not convinced that it was the airport’s wireless system because I got a peer-to-peer connection and never was able to check e-mail or connect to any websites. I might have been connected to a teenaged hacker sitting nearby—who knows?

I got nervous about the situation and quickly disconnected. Everything seemed ok after we returned home about midnight and as of 2:00 AM Tuesday morning as I was able to surf websites and check my E-mail. Pat’s company E-mail server was down.

I collapsed on the sofa to sleep and awoke early and attempted to again connect to Pat’s companies’ E-mail server through Microsoft Outlook to begin downloading 10 days worth of E-mail for her.

The server was apparently down—AGAIN. Arghhhh!

By that time I was for some reason also having trouble connecting to Yahoo and Google. The pages were loading slower than a dial-up connection, and I was using the wireless connection to the cable modem.

As I absent mindedly closed a couple of browser windows I noticed a “Public Dialer” program being downloaded in the background. What the heck is a Public Dialer?

AHHHH, I was being Spybotted.

I quickly disconnected from the Internet and shut the computer down. This was about 6:30 AM. I spent the next two hours doing a virus check and a spybot sweep and when Pat awoke I sheepishly told her about the problem. I though that it was my fault that we had caught something in the Atlanta Airport.

By 9:30 AM we decided to contact Pat’s company’s IT support hotline. A nice young man named Nathan spent THREE HOURS on the telephone with me trying to dissect the problem to no avail. We couldn’t figure out why the computer was so slow.

Finally I got the bright idea to try using my computer on the wireless network and guess what? It was slow as Christmas also.

Pat then called Adelphia and learned that THE NETWORK SERVERS HAD A VIRUS AND THEY WERE WORKING ON IT.

As of 3:00 AM we are still forced to use our dial up back up service. Why is it that trouble always comes in twos or threes? We still have a spyware problem on Pat’s computer, but the Adelphia network problem served to disguise and exasperate the problem and delay our solution. We can’t get to the approved spyware removal program using a slow dial up connection, so Pat is paralyzed until Adelphia gets their act together.

I finally got the time to post “You have to Stand for Something” in the last hour. I wrote it about 7:30 AM Tuesday morning. I’ll see what else I can come up with to write, but I’m afraid that today is going to be spent dealing with network issues and getting Pat back online so she can work from the Condo.

Wish me luck…

You Have To Stand For Something...

Or You’ll Fall For Anything

This morning I watched country music star Aaron Tippin sing his patriotic song “You have to stand for something” on Fox News “Fox and Friends” morning show. Aaron is a big advocate of supporting our military troops, even if you disagree politically with the Iraq war effort.

Having grown up in military family, living outside a military base, I guess that I might be considered biased—but I have to admit that I feel as Aaron does.

Coincidentally, there were two solders on our flight from Pittsburgh to Atlanta on Monday that were on their way to serve in Iraq. One of the flight attendants made an announcement over the intercom while we were taxiing to the gate in Atlanta telling the passengers of their (the solders) presence on our flight. Spontaneous applause broke out in the cabin.

What burned my ass was…SOME PEOPLE DID NOT CLAP AND JUST SAT THERE WITH THEIR HANDS IN THEIR LAP.

I was personally offended by this gesture (or lack thereof) but I held my tongue and controlled my attitude because, ironically, the solders are fighting for these idiots’ freedom to disagree with our country’s foreign policy. It’s just unfortunate that 20 year old men have to get caught up in the middle of such misdirected political speech.

This situation occurred just hours after we learned that Michael Jackson was acquitted on all ten felony charges against him. I don’t agree with the hype surrounding the trial, but I’m not really in a position to comment on the verdict because I wasn’t on the jury.

It might surprise you to hear this, but I believe in the idea that we are a country OF LAWS, not men and women acting on the basis of mob rule. We are a Representative Republic, not a Democracy, and we elect our leaders and legislature, they write the laws with our approval and then, like it or not, we have to live with the outcome—good or bad.

So, as a result, I had to sit on an airplane with a few ungrateful ingrates that insist on prosecuting their political agenda even if it insults young men that could be dead within weeks if not days defending their rights to be MORONS, and I have to watch a grown man that likes to sleep with prepubescent boys walk out of a courthouse a free man.

It’s too late to change those situations, but I shall continue to absorb as much information as I can about local and national issues and I will intelligently cast my vote in each and every election in the future.

Then, if I don’t like the outcome of a celebrity trial or I find events that occur around me to be objectionable, at least I know that I have done all that I can do.

How about you?

Our broadband Server Has A Virus

Need I say more?

Give Adelphia a shot of something...please...

Michael Jackson's Innocent

And I'm coming home...

We were relieved to watch the end of the Michael Jackson fiasco this afternoon from a restaurant in the Pittsburgh airport. I hope that this story goes away as soon as is possible, but I'm sure that it will be good for hashing and rehashing for at least another week or so.

The weather has been kind to us and I'm getting to use the wireless card here at gate D80 as we look at them tossing baggage onto the airplane. I think that I just saw my bag go bouncing down the conveyor.

Assuming that the weather holds in St. Simons, with any luck I'll be blogging from my own sofa by 11:30 tonight.

Wish us luck..

I Need To Start A New Blog

I was up early this morning, getting mentally prepared to spend all day in an automobile, airports, and airplanes. At least there are no stage coaches and steam ships on our itinerary.

Our plan is to drive from Charleston, WV heading north on I-79 toward the Pittsburgh International Airport at noon today, catching a 6:30 PM flight to Atlanta, then on to Brunswick, Georgia arriving back at home about 11:30 tonight.

I qualify this schedule as a "plan" because the evening weather may delay our departure from PIT or ATL--we're carrying on some back-up personal items just in case we are forced to spend another night in a hotel.

I was reading the AM news on the Internet and couldn't resist checking out the NY Times, having just completed my dissection of Paul Krugman's last editorial and guess what?

Paul Krugman is at it...AGAIN.

This time his topic is...drum roll please...UNIVERSAL HEALTH INSURANCE.

Paul, Paul, Paul...what am I going to do with your miserable, bearded, scowling face?

I know, rather than kill "What I'd Liked To Have Said" with endless technical ranting and raving about the shortcomings and partisan inaccuracies of Mr. Krugman's writing, I'm starting a new blog, JUST FOR YOU, PAUL.

Check back here when I get settled in at home and I'll provide the link. That way, if you don't give a darn about Paul Krugman you can still read the rest of my insanities.