President Bush and the Republicans spend a good deal of time talking about exporting Democracy to the rest of the world.
I’m afraid that Democracy isn’t the only thing we’re exporting—ambulance chasing lawyers and frivolous lawsuits are also a product of the good old USA.
The headline reads:
Criminal Probe of Mini Sub Accident Begins
VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (AP) -- Russian prosecutors on Tuesday said they've opened a criminal investigation into the accident that left seven crew members trapped in a mini-submarine in the Pacific Ocean.
An initial investigation has established negligence by officials responsible for preparing and overseeing the AS-28 mini-submarine's mission, said Roman Kolbanov, the Pacific Fleet's deputy military prosecutor.
One of the submariners, Capt. Valery Lepetyukha, revealed Tuesday that the submarine had been sent to investigate an underwater surveillance antenna that had got entangled in fishing nets on Friday. He said the submarine then got trapped by thick undersea cables.
I have a question.
Why doesn’t everybody just quit work, put on their PJ's and slippers, and spend the rest of our lives sitting in front of the TV watching Green Acres reruns and Desperate Housewives?
According to the idiot lawyers, there should be no risk in any profession, no matter what the compensation level, and if there is an accident or unforeseen circumstance somebody has to pay or go to jail—usually both.
I thought about going to law school as an adult in the past ten years, but I just can’t stomach introducing myself as an attorney because the ranks of the profession are populated with some truly morally bankrupt, miserable souls.
Actually, I just didn't want to look at my face on the back of the phone book in order to make a living...
Know what I mean?
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
More Media Stonewalling and Bias
One of my favorite reoccurring themes in my blogging is media inaccuracy and media bias in their reporting. In my opinion, it’s easier than shooting fish in a barrel to come up with ridiculous examples of each.
I’ve been following two stories with interest the past couple of weeks and have chosen to hold my comments in an effort to wait and see what happens and follow how the exempt mainstream media covers each situation.
Exhibit A--Air America
The first story is a developing scandal involving liberal radio network Air America receiving an inappropriate loan from the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club. The source of the funds, used as initial startup capital by Air America, was the federal government and the State of New York, funds earmarked for use to aid children and Alzheimers patents.
The NY Sun Newspaper had this to say in their August 5th edition:
"Gloria Wise is under investigation by the city's Department of Investigation for matters that include transferring $875,000 to Progress Media, former parent company of the Air America radio network, and to the club's director of development, Evan Montvel Cohen, who headed Progress Media…
Piquant LLC, which acquired Air America from Mr. Cohen's Progress Media in May 2004, has agreed to pay $875,000 to Gloria Wise, without interest, in installments over the next two years."
The NY Post adds:
August 3, 2005 -- Officials at the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club — under investigation for lending Air America radio nearly $900,000 — yesterday demanded that the left-wing network start repaying the money.
"Air America reached a legal agreement to have that loan repaid in full," beginning this summer, said Martta Rose, a spokeswoman for the Bronx-based Boys & Girls Club, which is the subject of a probe by the city Department of Investigation.
Air America had earlier said it put on hold plans to pay back the money because Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club was shut down by the city.
"We're waiting for direction from the investigators on how to proceed," a network official said.
While the city did pull millions of dollars in contracts from Gloria Wise, the club has continued to operate preschool and after-school programs and plans to restart its other programs.
"We are cooperating fully with the investigation and we hope to be up and running soon," said Rose. "We have a record of more than 20 years in this community."
I’m not going to beat a dead horse here other than to say this whole situation makes Air America look really bad. First they denied that the loans ever happened, then they denied that they were responsible for the money, then they said that they were paying it back, then they weren’t paying it back, and now they say that they will pay it back in installments—WITHOUT INTEREST.
Funny thing is that the loans were made as investments by the Boys & Girls Club.
Some investment—three years at 0% return. Where can I apply for that deal?
Liberals—you got to love how they are always looking out for the oppressed “little guy”…
What is important is that if you don’t watch FOX News or read internet blogs, you’ve probably not heard of the story outside of the smaller NY City newspapers. The so called “paper of record”, the NY Times, has avoided the story like the plague because the people at the Times LOVE Air America and refuse to acknowledge any wrongdoing.
A Google search for “Air America Funding Scandal” yielded only 9 news results, almost all of them referencing Bloggers like Brian Maloney over at Radio Equalizer who is continuing to beat the drum. The good news is that even if the NY Times refuses to waste ink and paper on the story, and least Air America has been shamed into paying the money back rather than walking away in default.
I say that's a good thing...hurray for the power of bloggers.
Exhibit B--Cindy Sheehan
The second story involves the whacky anti-war protester mother Cindy Sheehan who is leading a small group camped outside President Bush’s Crawford, Texas ranch.
Oh is Ms. Sheehan ever the darling of the left and the media. A quick Google Search using the name Cindy Sheehan yielded 227,000 links and 738 news stories about her “valiant efforts” to get President Bush to talk to her, the grieving mother of another one of the casualties of Bush’s “unjust war.”
Here is what she said in a CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer on Sunday:
BLITZER: All right. So tell us a little bit about what you're doing now. You had a chance to meet with the president, we're told, last summer. Is that right?
SHEEHAN: I met with him, I think, about June 17th last year. It was about two and a half months after Casey had died. And it was me...
BLITZER: Was that a private meeting, just you and the president?
SHEEHAN: It was me and my family, my other three children and my husband.
BLITZER: What did you say...
SHEEHAN: And we met with about 15 other -- about 15 other families were there also. But we got to -- he came in individually and met with each one of us individually.
BLITZER: And so, what did you say to him then?
SHEEHAN: It was -- you know, there was a lot of things said. We wanted to use the time for him to know that he killed an indispensable part of our family and humanity. And we wanted him to look at the pictures of Casey. He wouldn't look at the pictures of Casey. He didn't even know Casey's name. He came in the room and the very first thing he said is, "So who are we honoring here?" He didn't even know Casey's name. He didn't want to hear it. He didn't want to hear anything about Casey. He wouldn't even call him "him" or "he." He called him "your loved one." Every time we tried to talk about Casey and how much we missed him, he would change the subject. And he acted like it was a party.
BLITZER: Like a party? I mean...
SHEEHAN: Yes, he came in very jovial, and like we should be happy that he, our son, died for his misguided policies. He didn't even pretend like somebody...
BLITZER: So now you're trying to meet with him again. What's the point? What are you trying to achieve?
Funny how her story has changed, and CNN’s Blitzer didn’t even do what I, your dedicated Blogger amateur journalist did to find out what Cindy Sheehan said in an interview with her hometown newspaper on June 24, 2004:
"We have a lot of respect for the office of the president, and I have a new respect for him because he was sincere and he didn't have to take the time to meet with us," Pat said.
Sincerity was something Cindy had hoped to find in the meeting.
Shortly after Casey died, Bush sent the family a form letter expressing his condolences, and Cindy said she felt it was an impersonal gesture.
"I now know he's sincere about wanting freedom for the Iraqis," Cindy said after their meeting.
"I know he's sorry and feels some pain for our loss. And I know he's a man of faith."
The meeting didn't last long, but in their time with Bush, Cindy spoke about Casey and asked the president to make her son's sacrifice count for something. They also spoke of their faith.
While meeting with Bush, as well as Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, was an honor, it was almost a tangent benefit of the trip. The Sheehans said they enjoyed meeting the other families of fallen soldiers, sharing stories, contact information, grief and support.
For some, grief was still visceral and raw, while for others it had melted into the background of their lives, the pain as common as breathing. Cindy said she saw her reflection in the troubled eyes of each.
"It's hard to lose a son," she said. "But we (all) lost a son in the Iraqi war."
The trip had one benefit that none of the Sheehans expected.
For a moment, life returned to the way it was before Casey died. They laughed, joked and bickered playfully as they briefly toured Seattle.
For the first time in 11 weeks, they felt whole again.
"That was the gift the president gave us, the gift of happiness, of being together," Cindy said.
So which way would you have it Cindy?
First of all, President Bush didn't sit at his desk and say "gee, I believe that I'll be really insensitive and mail this woman a form letter rather than a personal letter like every other president has done in the past." I'm sure the "form letter" was sent by the White House as a matter of standard procedure.
Next, she was free to jump the president's ASS during the first meeting if she wanted to, and most people would have understood her emotions and sentiments. But NO, she held her tongue--possibly because there were no TV cameras present, or possibly because she hadn't been drafted into the MoveON.org anti-war movement and hadn't started Gold Star Moms and published her son's memorial Casey's WebPage.
Hey Cindy, just because you decided to put on your patriotic face and go along with the pomp and circumstance of the presidential photo op LAST SUMMER doesn’t mean that you deserve equal time with the president wearing your “Jane Fonda” mask as an anti war activist THIS SUMMER.
What a pitiful, miserable little partisan fool you are Ms. Sheehan. In spite of your ignorance, America does appreciate your son's service and sacrifice.
Now shut up, pack up, and go back home...try to get on with your life...
I’ve been following two stories with interest the past couple of weeks and have chosen to hold my comments in an effort to wait and see what happens and follow how the exempt mainstream media covers each situation.
Exhibit A--Air America
The first story is a developing scandal involving liberal radio network Air America receiving an inappropriate loan from the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club. The source of the funds, used as initial startup capital by Air America, was the federal government and the State of New York, funds earmarked for use to aid children and Alzheimers patents.
The NY Sun Newspaper had this to say in their August 5th edition:
"Gloria Wise is under investigation by the city's Department of Investigation for matters that include transferring $875,000 to Progress Media, former parent company of the Air America radio network, and to the club's director of development, Evan Montvel Cohen, who headed Progress Media…
Piquant LLC, which acquired Air America from Mr. Cohen's Progress Media in May 2004, has agreed to pay $875,000 to Gloria Wise, without interest, in installments over the next two years."
The NY Post adds:
August 3, 2005 -- Officials at the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club — under investigation for lending Air America radio nearly $900,000 — yesterday demanded that the left-wing network start repaying the money.
"Air America reached a legal agreement to have that loan repaid in full," beginning this summer, said Martta Rose, a spokeswoman for the Bronx-based Boys & Girls Club, which is the subject of a probe by the city Department of Investigation.
Air America had earlier said it put on hold plans to pay back the money because Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club was shut down by the city.
"We're waiting for direction from the investigators on how to proceed," a network official said.
While the city did pull millions of dollars in contracts from Gloria Wise, the club has continued to operate preschool and after-school programs and plans to restart its other programs.
"We are cooperating fully with the investigation and we hope to be up and running soon," said Rose. "We have a record of more than 20 years in this community."
I’m not going to beat a dead horse here other than to say this whole situation makes Air America look really bad. First they denied that the loans ever happened, then they denied that they were responsible for the money, then they said that they were paying it back, then they weren’t paying it back, and now they say that they will pay it back in installments—WITHOUT INTEREST.
Funny thing is that the loans were made as investments by the Boys & Girls Club.
Some investment—three years at 0% return. Where can I apply for that deal?
Liberals—you got to love how they are always looking out for the oppressed “little guy”…
What is important is that if you don’t watch FOX News or read internet blogs, you’ve probably not heard of the story outside of the smaller NY City newspapers. The so called “paper of record”, the NY Times, has avoided the story like the plague because the people at the Times LOVE Air America and refuse to acknowledge any wrongdoing.
A Google search for “Air America Funding Scandal” yielded only 9 news results, almost all of them referencing Bloggers like Brian Maloney over at Radio Equalizer who is continuing to beat the drum. The good news is that even if the NY Times refuses to waste ink and paper on the story, and least Air America has been shamed into paying the money back rather than walking away in default.
I say that's a good thing...hurray for the power of bloggers.
Exhibit B--Cindy Sheehan
The second story involves the whacky anti-war protester mother Cindy Sheehan who is leading a small group camped outside President Bush’s Crawford, Texas ranch.
Oh is Ms. Sheehan ever the darling of the left and the media. A quick Google Search using the name Cindy Sheehan yielded 227,000 links and 738 news stories about her “valiant efforts” to get President Bush to talk to her, the grieving mother of another one of the casualties of Bush’s “unjust war.”
Here is what she said in a CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer on Sunday:
BLITZER: All right. So tell us a little bit about what you're doing now. You had a chance to meet with the president, we're told, last summer. Is that right?
SHEEHAN: I met with him, I think, about June 17th last year. It was about two and a half months after Casey had died. And it was me...
BLITZER: Was that a private meeting, just you and the president?
SHEEHAN: It was me and my family, my other three children and my husband.
BLITZER: What did you say...
SHEEHAN: And we met with about 15 other -- about 15 other families were there also. But we got to -- he came in individually and met with each one of us individually.
BLITZER: And so, what did you say to him then?
SHEEHAN: It was -- you know, there was a lot of things said. We wanted to use the time for him to know that he killed an indispensable part of our family and humanity. And we wanted him to look at the pictures of Casey. He wouldn't look at the pictures of Casey. He didn't even know Casey's name. He came in the room and the very first thing he said is, "So who are we honoring here?" He didn't even know Casey's name. He didn't want to hear it. He didn't want to hear anything about Casey. He wouldn't even call him "him" or "he." He called him "your loved one." Every time we tried to talk about Casey and how much we missed him, he would change the subject. And he acted like it was a party.
BLITZER: Like a party? I mean...
SHEEHAN: Yes, he came in very jovial, and like we should be happy that he, our son, died for his misguided policies. He didn't even pretend like somebody...
BLITZER: So now you're trying to meet with him again. What's the point? What are you trying to achieve?
Funny how her story has changed, and CNN’s Blitzer didn’t even do what I, your dedicated Blogger amateur journalist did to find out what Cindy Sheehan said in an interview with her hometown newspaper on June 24, 2004:
"We have a lot of respect for the office of the president, and I have a new respect for him because he was sincere and he didn't have to take the time to meet with us," Pat said.
Sincerity was something Cindy had hoped to find in the meeting.
Shortly after Casey died, Bush sent the family a form letter expressing his condolences, and Cindy said she felt it was an impersonal gesture.
"I now know he's sincere about wanting freedom for the Iraqis," Cindy said after their meeting.
"I know he's sorry and feels some pain for our loss. And I know he's a man of faith."
The meeting didn't last long, but in their time with Bush, Cindy spoke about Casey and asked the president to make her son's sacrifice count for something. They also spoke of their faith.
While meeting with Bush, as well as Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, was an honor, it was almost a tangent benefit of the trip. The Sheehans said they enjoyed meeting the other families of fallen soldiers, sharing stories, contact information, grief and support.
For some, grief was still visceral and raw, while for others it had melted into the background of their lives, the pain as common as breathing. Cindy said she saw her reflection in the troubled eyes of each.
"It's hard to lose a son," she said. "But we (all) lost a son in the Iraqi war."
The trip had one benefit that none of the Sheehans expected.
For a moment, life returned to the way it was before Casey died. They laughed, joked and bickered playfully as they briefly toured Seattle.
For the first time in 11 weeks, they felt whole again.
"That was the gift the president gave us, the gift of happiness, of being together," Cindy said.
So which way would you have it Cindy?
First of all, President Bush didn't sit at his desk and say "gee, I believe that I'll be really insensitive and mail this woman a form letter rather than a personal letter like every other president has done in the past." I'm sure the "form letter" was sent by the White House as a matter of standard procedure.
Next, she was free to jump the president's ASS during the first meeting if she wanted to, and most people would have understood her emotions and sentiments. But NO, she held her tongue--possibly because there were no TV cameras present, or possibly because she hadn't been drafted into the MoveON.org anti-war movement and hadn't started Gold Star Moms and published her son's memorial Casey's WebPage.
Hey Cindy, just because you decided to put on your patriotic face and go along with the pomp and circumstance of the presidential photo op LAST SUMMER doesn’t mean that you deserve equal time with the president wearing your “Jane Fonda” mask as an anti war activist THIS SUMMER.
What a pitiful, miserable little partisan fool you are Ms. Sheehan. In spite of your ignorance, America does appreciate your son's service and sacrifice.
Now shut up, pack up, and go back home...try to get on with your life...
Monday, August 08, 2005
Good Call
I was sitting here sweating the idea of NASA trying to land the Space Shuttle in Florida--AT NIGHT--at least in the dark. Talk about trying to pass a camel through the eye of a needle...
They called off the first orbit try about 4:30 AM this morning because of weather, so I ran out to the pool for a little dip and returned just in time to find out that they were cancelling this try, again because of weather.
I have to admit that I don't blame them. We're less than 150 miles north of the Kennedy Space Center and we had little bands of clouds floating past obscuring my view of Mars and a few of the Persied Meteors that were blasting past this morning.
Speaking from experience, and I'm no test pilot or shuttle pilot, but it's hard enough to land a little Cessna going 80 knots in broad daylight--adding night, clouds, hundreds of thousands of pounds of weight, and a couple of hundred knots per hour of speed makes things way too exciting for most peoples blood.
Arrogance in the form of bad decision making has killed many, many more pilots than has bad weather and mechanical malfunctions combined.
I think that it was a good call.
They called off the first orbit try about 4:30 AM this morning because of weather, so I ran out to the pool for a little dip and returned just in time to find out that they were cancelling this try, again because of weather.
I have to admit that I don't blame them. We're less than 150 miles north of the Kennedy Space Center and we had little bands of clouds floating past obscuring my view of Mars and a few of the Persied Meteors that were blasting past this morning.
Speaking from experience, and I'm no test pilot or shuttle pilot, but it's hard enough to land a little Cessna going 80 knots in broad daylight--adding night, clouds, hundreds of thousands of pounds of weight, and a couple of hundred knots per hour of speed makes things way too exciting for most peoples blood.
Arrogance in the form of bad decision making has killed many, many more pilots than has bad weather and mechanical malfunctions combined.
I think that it was a good call.
Sir Winston Had It Right...
106 Years Ago...
“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy.
The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.
A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities - but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it.
No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.”
—Sir Winston Churchill, from The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages 248-50 (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899).
Hat tip to my blogidol over at Little Green Footballs.
“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy.
The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.
A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities - but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it.
No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.”
—Sir Winston Churchill, from The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages 248-50 (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899).
Hat tip to my blogidol over at Little Green Footballs.
Sunday, August 07, 2005
One Year Of Blogging
"A slow evolution..."
This week I'll be celebrating one year as a blogger.
It hardly seems that long to me…does it to you?
Although blogging was around alot longer than me, in this past year we've seen Blogs become an international phenomena--taking down major media figures Dan Rather and Eason Jordan and possibly influencing (or preventing major media from influencing) the outcome of the national election.
The members of the traditional "exempt" media (TV and newspapers) are quaking in their boots, and there is a national debate as to where blogs are going and what influence they will have on our nation and the world in the future.
I say A GREAT DEAL.
Blogging removes the barriers previously present that prevented average citizens from publishing. Heck, I had nearly 6,000 "hits" this past year, 4,000 of them since January--that would have been impossible twenty years ago.
In my efforts to look at my own statistics, the Blogger software is a bit overwhelmed with my prolific production, but it tells me that I've written over 370 posts since January 1st, and I suspect that I have somewhere near 600 total postings since last August 10th, the day I first posted to "What I'd Liked To Have Said." I also figure that I've written over 1000 pages total, not including all of the words, postings, and pages delivered over at my cooking Blog, The Redneck Gourmet.
When I was in high school or college and a teacher told me that I would be required to produce an average of three written pages each day in a class, I would have bitched and complained and ran far, far away from their supervision. I was gonna be an Engineer, and Engineers didn’t have to write. Of course my mother knew better when she insisted that I take a typing class in high school.
Thanks Mom.
The funny thing is that today I do it (my writing) voluntarily, without classroom credit or monetary compensation—because I like it, even if nobody else reads it. It does help the old ego to have readers, however.
I appreciate my regular readers, many of whom I know, and most of whom I don’t know, and I hope that you will keep coming back to read what is rattling around in my head and trying to come out of my mouth.
This next year will probably see a few changes, but the core ideas behind my blogging will be the same. There is pressure to add BlogAds and other commercial elements, but I really hate ads and as long as Blogger is free and I don’t mind my wallet being so empty I guess I’m going to avoid ads. If I do go commercial, it will only be after my traffic increases markedly and even then, it will have to have some class or I won’t do it.
Any way, I’ll be looking at my site design and possibly making a few changes to the appearance, but you can definitely look forward to choice commentary on whatever “crappola” comes my way and I promise to not pull any punches.
Hopefully you'll learn something you didn't already know, and I hope that my readers will teach me a thing or two also.
Thanks Y’all,
VRRIII
This week I'll be celebrating one year as a blogger.
It hardly seems that long to me…does it to you?
Although blogging was around alot longer than me, in this past year we've seen Blogs become an international phenomena--taking down major media figures Dan Rather and Eason Jordan and possibly influencing (or preventing major media from influencing) the outcome of the national election.
The members of the traditional "exempt" media (TV and newspapers) are quaking in their boots, and there is a national debate as to where blogs are going and what influence they will have on our nation and the world in the future.
I say A GREAT DEAL.
Blogging removes the barriers previously present that prevented average citizens from publishing. Heck, I had nearly 6,000 "hits" this past year, 4,000 of them since January--that would have been impossible twenty years ago.
In my efforts to look at my own statistics, the Blogger software is a bit overwhelmed with my prolific production, but it tells me that I've written over 370 posts since January 1st, and I suspect that I have somewhere near 600 total postings since last August 10th, the day I first posted to "What I'd Liked To Have Said." I also figure that I've written over 1000 pages total, not including all of the words, postings, and pages delivered over at my cooking Blog, The Redneck Gourmet.
When I was in high school or college and a teacher told me that I would be required to produce an average of three written pages each day in a class, I would have bitched and complained and ran far, far away from their supervision. I was gonna be an Engineer, and Engineers didn’t have to write. Of course my mother knew better when she insisted that I take a typing class in high school.
Thanks Mom.
The funny thing is that today I do it (my writing) voluntarily, without classroom credit or monetary compensation—because I like it, even if nobody else reads it. It does help the old ego to have readers, however.
I appreciate my regular readers, many of whom I know, and most of whom I don’t know, and I hope that you will keep coming back to read what is rattling around in my head and trying to come out of my mouth.
This next year will probably see a few changes, but the core ideas behind my blogging will be the same. There is pressure to add BlogAds and other commercial elements, but I really hate ads and as long as Blogger is free and I don’t mind my wallet being so empty I guess I’m going to avoid ads. If I do go commercial, it will only be after my traffic increases markedly and even then, it will have to have some class or I won’t do it.
Any way, I’ll be looking at my site design and possibly making a few changes to the appearance, but you can definitely look forward to choice commentary on whatever “crappola” comes my way and I promise to not pull any punches.
Hopefully you'll learn something you didn't already know, and I hope that my readers will teach me a thing or two also.
Thanks Y’all,
VRRIII
Saturday, August 06, 2005
More NCAA Political Correctness
I have written previously about the issue of potential NCAA involvement in limiting or ending the use of Native American (Indian) names for sports teams.
At that time I pointed out that the nearby Florida State University “Seminoles” had received support from the Florida Council of the Seminole Tribe to continue to use their name and an Indian warrior image in the sporting arena:
"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."
Apparently that wasn’t enough.
In fact, the NCAA didn’t even consult FSU in making their recent ruling banning the use of “Native American” images and names after February 2006.
Schools that refuse to eliminate the names, symbols, and mascots will not be allowed to participate in post season play or host postseason events where the offending symbols are displayed.
So FSU can keep the “Seminoles” nickname, but they have to wear generic uniforms and keep their Seminole Warrior mascot at home if they manage to earn the opportunity to play in a post season bowl game.
I guess FSU could start calling themselves the “VOSPC’s” during the post season.
VOSPC would stand for…
Victim’s Of Stupid Political Correctness
Next I suppose that a bunch of Italians will show up in California and start complaining about the USC Trojan mascot. I can just see the speech given at the next NCAA meeting:
"Friends, Romans, countrymen...lend me your (r)ears..."
At that time I pointed out that the nearby Florida State University “Seminoles” had received support from the Florida Council of the Seminole Tribe to continue to use their name and an Indian warrior image in the sporting arena:
"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."
Apparently that wasn’t enough.
In fact, the NCAA didn’t even consult FSU in making their recent ruling banning the use of “Native American” images and names after February 2006.
Schools that refuse to eliminate the names, symbols, and mascots will not be allowed to participate in post season play or host postseason events where the offending symbols are displayed.
So FSU can keep the “Seminoles” nickname, but they have to wear generic uniforms and keep their Seminole Warrior mascot at home if they manage to earn the opportunity to play in a post season bowl game.
I guess FSU could start calling themselves the “VOSPC’s” during the post season.
VOSPC would stand for…
Victim’s Of Stupid Political Correctness
Next I suppose that a bunch of Italians will show up in California and start complaining about the USC Trojan mascot. I can just see the speech given at the next NCAA meeting:
"Friends, Romans, countrymen...lend me your (r)ears..."
UN Arm-Twisting?
I was sitting here mindlessly surfing the internet news and glancing at FOX News when a picture of Kofi Annan with his right arm in a sling caught my attention.
I thought "O My GOD, John Bolton...you brute...", then I remembered that Kofi had surgery last month to repair an injury he received while cross country skiing.
Oh well, there's still hope that Bolton is the MONSTER he was protrayed as being by the Democrats during his confirmation hearings.
"Annan does have two arms, John, break the good one if you need to..."
I thought "O My GOD, John Bolton...you brute...", then I remembered that Kofi had surgery last month to repair an injury he received while cross country skiing.
Oh well, there's still hope that Bolton is the MONSTER he was protrayed as being by the Democrats during his confirmation hearings.
"Annan does have two arms, John, break the good one if you need to..."
Weekend Crap
I'm all cranky this morning.
My stove is broken, thus I can't spend the day cooking, and the weather looks "iffy" for a pool day.
Rumor has it that the local "Condo Nazis" are unhappy with my decision to use my Weber charcoal grill on our front deck (the back deck is smaller and forces me to walk across white berber carpet carrying grease and ashes...) I think that I'll don a Speedo bathing suit, white socks, and sandals (no shirt) and do a little beer drinking and grilling out front just to piss them off further. Where's my Hank Williams, Jr. CD's.....
So sue me.
Tonight our local theater company is having the "Hanley Awards" (think cheezy Oscars) and I'm boycotting the event due to the crappy sophmoric political BS that blew up in my face last March. After spending over eight hundred hours over a 12 month period volunteering doing set construction and almost single handedly building the set for the Agatha Christy play "The Mousetrap," the message was delivered loud and clear that "the powers what be" resented my presence because I made the existing incompetents feel...well...incompetent.
They appreciated my efforts to date (well...actually many didn't) but unless I was willing to do the design work and continue to let the "choosen few" call the shots and take all the public credit, life would be made miserable for me. The last straw came when I spent eight hours driving back from Alabama to tear down a set after a show closed and they changed the schedule at the last minute, tore it down without me, and somehow "forgot" to let me know about the schedule change. I walked out without saying a word and I haven't been back near the theater in over four months.
It seemed to me that the writing was large on the wall...
I guess I'll spend the day putting the finishing touches on my magazine story on the new airport terminal and inserting the photos I made yesterday when I got a behind the scenes tour and met with the airport director.
OK, you can stop yawning now...what are YOU gonna do that's so exciting?
My stove is broken, thus I can't spend the day cooking, and the weather looks "iffy" for a pool day.
Rumor has it that the local "Condo Nazis" are unhappy with my decision to use my Weber charcoal grill on our front deck (the back deck is smaller and forces me to walk across white berber carpet carrying grease and ashes...) I think that I'll don a Speedo bathing suit, white socks, and sandals (no shirt) and do a little beer drinking and grilling out front just to piss them off further. Where's my Hank Williams, Jr. CD's.....
So sue me.
Tonight our local theater company is having the "Hanley Awards" (think cheezy Oscars) and I'm boycotting the event due to the crappy sophmoric political BS that blew up in my face last March. After spending over eight hundred hours over a 12 month period volunteering doing set construction and almost single handedly building the set for the Agatha Christy play "The Mousetrap," the message was delivered loud and clear that "the powers what be" resented my presence because I made the existing incompetents feel...well...incompetent.
They appreciated my efforts to date (well...actually many didn't) but unless I was willing to do the design work and continue to let the "choosen few" call the shots and take all the public credit, life would be made miserable for me. The last straw came when I spent eight hours driving back from Alabama to tear down a set after a show closed and they changed the schedule at the last minute, tore it down without me, and somehow "forgot" to let me know about the schedule change. I walked out without saying a word and I haven't been back near the theater in over four months.
It seemed to me that the writing was large on the wall...
I guess I'll spend the day putting the finishing touches on my magazine story on the new airport terminal and inserting the photos I made yesterday when I got a behind the scenes tour and met with the airport director.
OK, you can stop yawning now...what are YOU gonna do that's so exciting?
Friday, August 05, 2005
Leave It To Connecticut
Hey Mohammed…come to NY via CT
Following up on my previous posting on the ACLU lawsuit against the NYPD, I just found this Greenwich Time article.
"Connecticut authorities did not search any passengers' bags on New Haven Line trains after the London subway attacks, contradicting a policy put in place by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority on all subways and commuter railroads traveling in and out of New York City.
A spokesman from Gov. M. Jodi Rell said she did not order the bag searches and instead favored deploying more state troopers on trains and bomb-sniffing dogs at stations."
We thought it was the right thing to do," Rell spokesman Rich Harris said. "We've had a robust security presence between the state troopers on platforms and the bomb-sniffing dogs." "
See, this is just like the situation that would develop if our little airport here in Brunswick decided that the TSA screening was a waste of time and just started opening the back door and letting anyone with $200 jump on the Delta ASA mico-mini-jet and fly off to Hartsfield International Airport in Atlanta.
Once in the system, they (the wild eyed islamo jhadist morons) could then wait until they changed planes (without going through additional securty checks) and boarded a big Airbus 300 or a Boeing 747 headed to LA or Tacoma and proceed to go ape shit "terrorist style" and the whole securty system would have been defeated.
So I can see it now, the terrorists are all swarming into Connecticut. Meanwhile all of the bomb-sniffing dogs can stop humping the state troopers’ legs long enough to allow the trooper to go on camera and describe the sound of the explosion and how black the smoke was coming out of the tunnel…
I'm sure glad I live on our little island...far, far, away from this kind of insanity...
Following up on my previous posting on the ACLU lawsuit against the NYPD, I just found this Greenwich Time article.
"Connecticut authorities did not search any passengers' bags on New Haven Line trains after the London subway attacks, contradicting a policy put in place by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority on all subways and commuter railroads traveling in and out of New York City.
A spokesman from Gov. M. Jodi Rell said she did not order the bag searches and instead favored deploying more state troopers on trains and bomb-sniffing dogs at stations."
We thought it was the right thing to do," Rell spokesman Rich Harris said. "We've had a robust security presence between the state troopers on platforms and the bomb-sniffing dogs." "
See, this is just like the situation that would develop if our little airport here in Brunswick decided that the TSA screening was a waste of time and just started opening the back door and letting anyone with $200 jump on the Delta ASA mico-mini-jet and fly off to Hartsfield International Airport in Atlanta.
Once in the system, they (the wild eyed islamo jhadist morons) could then wait until they changed planes (without going through additional securty checks) and boarded a big Airbus 300 or a Boeing 747 headed to LA or Tacoma and proceed to go ape shit "terrorist style" and the whole securty system would have been defeated.
So I can see it now, the terrorists are all swarming into Connecticut. Meanwhile all of the bomb-sniffing dogs can stop humping the state troopers’ legs long enough to allow the trooper to go on camera and describe the sound of the explosion and how black the smoke was coming out of the tunnel…
I'm sure glad I live on our little island...far, far, away from this kind of insanity...
ACLU Insanity
I hate the American Civil Liberties Union.
It’s just that simple.
It seems to me that the ever vigilant idiots over at the ACLU spend all of their time sitting around watching the TV news and trying to think of the most ignorant, moronic, ridiculous position to take on a given public (non)issue, find some innocent bystanders that want their name in the newspaper (or are just plain stupid enough to think like them), and file an expensive lawsuit on their behalf.
Take this lawsuit filed yesterday in federal court by the ACLU against the NYPD (I got this text from the ACLU website):
“The NYCLU filed the lawsuit on behalf of five New Yorkers who are deeply concerned about the civil liberties and safety implications of the bag search policy:
· Brendan MacWade survived the World Trade Center attacks of 9/11. He was recently searched by the NYPD at the Chambers Street station.
· Partha Banerjee is concerned that if he is searched some of the political materials he carries in his bag might prompt retaliation, and he also worries that his skin color might cause police to single him out for searches.
· Joseph Gehring, an attorney, a lifelong Republican, and son of a police officer, is concerned that a search of the papers he keeps in his bag might violate the confidential privilege he shares with his clients.
· Norman Murphy goes out of his way to avoid being searched by police because he considers it a violation of his civil liberties
· Andrew Schonebaum's bag was searched recently, prompting him to join the lawsuit to express his concerns. “
Other than pointing out that all five of these people must be really, really STUPID, I admit that I do believe that they have the right to not be searched by the NY City police department, and they don’t have to file a lawsuit to do it.
These pitiful beleaguered, put upon New “Yawkers” can hire a taxi or drive their own car to their destination, thereby avoiding contact with the alleged oppressive, hideous, “Nazi-like” practices employed by the men in blue at the entrances of the NY City subway stations.
How absurd can they possibly be?
I can bitch and complain all day, but if I want to avoid walking through the airport security checkpoints in my stocking feet and subjecting my underwear and toothbrush to handling by some surgical gloved stranger, I have the option of driving my truck to Alabama when I go there in two weeks or driving all the way to Pittsburgh next month instead of flying on a commercial airliner. I choose, however, to fly and put up with the necessary TSA fondling rather than sitting seven or fourteen hours in a car.
I don’t hear the ACLU rushing to my defense from the atrocities of TSA employees, do you?
And there is more insanity in the ACLU’s press release:
“In addition to violating the constitutional rights of millions of subway riders, the NYPD policy appears to be ineffective as a security measure, the NYCLU said. At any given time, the NYPD is not conducting searches at the majority of subway entrances. They are giving advance notice about searches at subway entrances where searches are being conducted, and allowing people selected for a search to refuse to comply and walk away. In addition, the NYPD is not basing the searches on any suspicious activity of individuals.
As common sense would suggest, the NYPD's program is virtually certain to fail at catching any person trying to carry explosives into the subway system or deterring such an effort, the NYCLU said. Indeed, given the way the department has implemented its search program, the only people being searched are users of the subway system who have exhibited no suspicious activity.”
I beg to differ with the ACLU’s assertion that “the NYPD policy appears to be ineffective as a security measure…” If they are giving those accosted and threatened with search the right to refuse and walk away, they are probably making the subway ride more pleasant for everyone else because all of the wierdo’s, perverts, and liberal activists (am I being redundant?) will be diverted to other forms of transportation.
It's because of stupid political correctness thinking and groups like the ACLU that the NYPD is forced to announce their checkpoints in advance and not force people to submit to the searches.
Likewise, the ACLU and the "thought police" oppose "profiling" at airport security checkpoints so my sweet little 92 year old white haired grandma and my spirited 84 year old neighbor "Bucky" have their walking sticks taken away from them while they hobble through the security check-point metal detector, while at the same time "Abdul" and "Yosef" stroll through with their turbin clad head unchecked other than an occasional cursory glance.
I have a solution for the ACLU's problem in New York.
Let the ACLU fund a special bus line for idiots like this that refuse to be searched. Let’s see how all of these “civil liberties loving activists” act when some swarthy, wild eyed, islamofascist jumps on board smelling like TNT and napalm.
It’d serve them right…
It’s just that simple.
It seems to me that the ever vigilant idiots over at the ACLU spend all of their time sitting around watching the TV news and trying to think of the most ignorant, moronic, ridiculous position to take on a given public (non)issue, find some innocent bystanders that want their name in the newspaper (or are just plain stupid enough to think like them), and file an expensive lawsuit on their behalf.
Take this lawsuit filed yesterday in federal court by the ACLU against the NYPD (I got this text from the ACLU website):
“The NYCLU filed the lawsuit on behalf of five New Yorkers who are deeply concerned about the civil liberties and safety implications of the bag search policy:
· Brendan MacWade survived the World Trade Center attacks of 9/11. He was recently searched by the NYPD at the Chambers Street station.
· Partha Banerjee is concerned that if he is searched some of the political materials he carries in his bag might prompt retaliation, and he also worries that his skin color might cause police to single him out for searches.
· Joseph Gehring, an attorney, a lifelong Republican, and son of a police officer, is concerned that a search of the papers he keeps in his bag might violate the confidential privilege he shares with his clients.
· Norman Murphy goes out of his way to avoid being searched by police because he considers it a violation of his civil liberties
· Andrew Schonebaum's bag was searched recently, prompting him to join the lawsuit to express his concerns. “
Other than pointing out that all five of these people must be really, really STUPID, I admit that I do believe that they have the right to not be searched by the NY City police department, and they don’t have to file a lawsuit to do it.
These pitiful beleaguered, put upon New “Yawkers” can hire a taxi or drive their own car to their destination, thereby avoiding contact with the alleged oppressive, hideous, “Nazi-like” practices employed by the men in blue at the entrances of the NY City subway stations.
How absurd can they possibly be?
I can bitch and complain all day, but if I want to avoid walking through the airport security checkpoints in my stocking feet and subjecting my underwear and toothbrush to handling by some surgical gloved stranger, I have the option of driving my truck to Alabama when I go there in two weeks or driving all the way to Pittsburgh next month instead of flying on a commercial airliner. I choose, however, to fly and put up with the necessary TSA fondling rather than sitting seven or fourteen hours in a car.
I don’t hear the ACLU rushing to my defense from the atrocities of TSA employees, do you?
And there is more insanity in the ACLU’s press release:
“In addition to violating the constitutional rights of millions of subway riders, the NYPD policy appears to be ineffective as a security measure, the NYCLU said. At any given time, the NYPD is not conducting searches at the majority of subway entrances. They are giving advance notice about searches at subway entrances where searches are being conducted, and allowing people selected for a search to refuse to comply and walk away. In addition, the NYPD is not basing the searches on any suspicious activity of individuals.
As common sense would suggest, the NYPD's program is virtually certain to fail at catching any person trying to carry explosives into the subway system or deterring such an effort, the NYCLU said. Indeed, given the way the department has implemented its search program, the only people being searched are users of the subway system who have exhibited no suspicious activity.”
I beg to differ with the ACLU’s assertion that “the NYPD policy appears to be ineffective as a security measure…” If they are giving those accosted and threatened with search the right to refuse and walk away, they are probably making the subway ride more pleasant for everyone else because all of the wierdo’s, perverts, and liberal activists (am I being redundant?) will be diverted to other forms of transportation.
It's because of stupid political correctness thinking and groups like the ACLU that the NYPD is forced to announce their checkpoints in advance and not force people to submit to the searches.
Likewise, the ACLU and the "thought police" oppose "profiling" at airport security checkpoints so my sweet little 92 year old white haired grandma and my spirited 84 year old neighbor "Bucky" have their walking sticks taken away from them while they hobble through the security check-point metal detector, while at the same time "Abdul" and "Yosef" stroll through with their turbin clad head unchecked other than an occasional cursory glance.
I have a solution for the ACLU's problem in New York.
Let the ACLU fund a special bus line for idiots like this that refuse to be searched. Let’s see how all of these “civil liberties loving activists” act when some swarthy, wild eyed, islamofascist jumps on board smelling like TNT and napalm.
It’d serve them right…
Let’s Get A Few Things Straight
I’ve written previously about how difficult I believe it would be today for terrorists to pull off another attack like that of 9/11 because of a change in mentality in passengers and flight crews.
In the old “take me to Cuba” hijacking days before 9/11, we were told to comply with hijackers’ demands, let them make their political statement, and 99 times out of 100 the worst that could happen was a delay in arriving at your destination due to an unplanned detour to Havana or Panama or where ever.
No one ever dreamed of hijacking a plane and deliberately crashing it as a political statement.
Today, if someone jumps up on a flight I’m on and starts acting weird, yelling about Allah or “the voices in their head” or whatever, I am going to unbuckle my seatbelt, excuse my self past the other passengers in my seating row, walk calmly over and…
PROCEED TO KICK THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF THEIR STUPID ASS.
What is left of them will be calmly duct taped or wire tied into a tight little bloody bundle and placed in a convenient restroom or trash storage hamper until the airplane lands.
SUE ME IF YOU WILL, I DON’T CARE, the safety of my fellow passengers and myself is WAY more important than your right to freak out in public at any altitude above 2 feet above the ground.
I thought that most other people agreed with my position, but apparently not, as indicated in this story about passengers sitting in their seats watching a woman attempt to open a airliner door while the plane was still in flight.
“Flight 1195, en route from Denver, was reportedly at an altitude of about 4,000 feet Wednesday when Jeanne Dempsey, 52, sitting at the rear of the Boeing 737, left her seat and tried to open an exit door.
Dempsey, who is from Dania Beach, failed but "she did manage to turn the handle far enough that a warning light went on in the cockpit," Seattle-Tacoma International Airport spokesman Bob Parker told KING-TV.
"Ultimately, at the urging of the flight attendant, she went and sat back down," he said.
Those on board said no one tried to physically restrain the woman. Parker said those who saw her at the door made a "conscious choice" to stay securely belted in their seats just in case she did manage to open the door.
The woman was arrested for investigation of malicious mischief when the plane landed at 1:30.”
OK, in this case, since the culprit was a woman, I would have gotten out of my seat and started out by asking her if I could help her. If she refused to stop, I would have been forced to put my hands on her in an effort to restrain her, and unless she was some kind of karate expert I’m afraid that my massive tonnage would have won the confrontation due to the advantage afforded me by the basic laws of physics. I have never struck a woman, but in this case I believe that I could make an exception.
I still can’t believe that the passengers just sat there and watched…
Is that what you would have done?
In the old “take me to Cuba” hijacking days before 9/11, we were told to comply with hijackers’ demands, let them make their political statement, and 99 times out of 100 the worst that could happen was a delay in arriving at your destination due to an unplanned detour to Havana or Panama or where ever.
No one ever dreamed of hijacking a plane and deliberately crashing it as a political statement.
Today, if someone jumps up on a flight I’m on and starts acting weird, yelling about Allah or “the voices in their head” or whatever, I am going to unbuckle my seatbelt, excuse my self past the other passengers in my seating row, walk calmly over and…
PROCEED TO KICK THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF THEIR STUPID ASS.
What is left of them will be calmly duct taped or wire tied into a tight little bloody bundle and placed in a convenient restroom or trash storage hamper until the airplane lands.
SUE ME IF YOU WILL, I DON’T CARE, the safety of my fellow passengers and myself is WAY more important than your right to freak out in public at any altitude above 2 feet above the ground.
I thought that most other people agreed with my position, but apparently not, as indicated in this story about passengers sitting in their seats watching a woman attempt to open a airliner door while the plane was still in flight.
“Flight 1195, en route from Denver, was reportedly at an altitude of about 4,000 feet Wednesday when Jeanne Dempsey, 52, sitting at the rear of the Boeing 737, left her seat and tried to open an exit door.
Dempsey, who is from Dania Beach, failed but "she did manage to turn the handle far enough that a warning light went on in the cockpit," Seattle-Tacoma International Airport spokesman Bob Parker told KING-TV.
"Ultimately, at the urging of the flight attendant, she went and sat back down," he said.
Those on board said no one tried to physically restrain the woman. Parker said those who saw her at the door made a "conscious choice" to stay securely belted in their seats just in case she did manage to open the door.
The woman was arrested for investigation of malicious mischief when the plane landed at 1:30.”
OK, in this case, since the culprit was a woman, I would have gotten out of my seat and started out by asking her if I could help her. If she refused to stop, I would have been forced to put my hands on her in an effort to restrain her, and unless she was some kind of karate expert I’m afraid that my massive tonnage would have won the confrontation due to the advantage afforded me by the basic laws of physics. I have never struck a woman, but in this case I believe that I could make an exception.
I still can’t believe that the passengers just sat there and watched…
Is that what you would have done?
Thursday, August 04, 2005
Headlines
(Or is it “head lines”?)
Something that I’ve become very conscious of in my writing is the importance of having a good title—what the newspapers call a “headline.”
It really is very important—in both a newspaper and a Blog. A good headline is actually like advertising for your writing—it is supposed to grab a potential readers attention and make them want to read your piece and find out what you are talking about or have to say on a given topic.
I think that I do a pretty good job in producing my own headlines for my posts.
Sometimes I am serious and the title tells you exactly what I’m writing about. Stories like Intemperate Thoughts On Illegal Immigration where I was writing about—guess what—the “Mexican Illegal Immigration” problem. The title seems fairly straightforward to me, and I threw the word “Intemperate” in the mix because I, the self proclaimed “King of political incorrectness”, was going to say some things that the PC crowd and the Democratic left was going to hate and disagree with.
Other times I like to fool around with the titles, using a play on words like when I wrote "Poof" the Magic Dragon about the Karl Rove story disappearing once President Bush nominated John Roberts to the Supreme Court. By the way—I was right wasn’t I—the story did disappear.
Many times I also like to throw in a secondary line in my headline (in smaller text) that is an answer to my own headline question, a follow up statement to the assertion made in the main headline, or a rebuttal to the statement that I made in my headline.
Having said all of that, I would also like to point out that the mainstream media newspapers like the NY Times and news services like the Associated Press seem to have some trouble writing headlines that accurately represent the content of the news story that they introduce.
One of my blog idols, Captain Ed over at Captain’s Quarters pointed out today that the Associated Press takes great pleasure in editorializing in their headlines. By editorializing, I mean that the AP will often write a headline that supports their own agenda and tack it on top of a story that has absolutely no supporting factual meaning in its body of text.
For instance, there is this AP story originally printed under the headline "Ohio Families Fed Up With Loss of Marines." (Note that this is a cached copy of the story because they changed the headline, apparently after Captain Ed and some other bloggers mentioned it’s bias.)
If you read the story, however, nowhere in the interviews with family and friends of the Marines killed over the past few weeks from the same Marine Battalion do you read of anybody saying anything remotely resembling being “FED UP” with the loss of their brothers, sons, and friends. Yes they are sad, but they are also proud.
The AP must have gotten cold feet about their obvious “headline bias” because if you click on this link you will see the new headline: Ohio Families Mourn Troops Killed In Iraq
Quite a bit different from the original, huh?
My point here is this. We can’t simply call up the Associated Press and the major newspapers and tell them to straighten up their act, but you can read PAST THE HEADLINES. In fact, you need to read past the first paragraph to the LAST paragraph, because at least half of the time information buried at the end will qualify or even completely refute everything else written in the story.
If all you do is scan the headlines and swallow the first paragraph of the news, I’m afraid that you are SEVERELY MISINFORMED.
Get my point?
Something that I’ve become very conscious of in my writing is the importance of having a good title—what the newspapers call a “headline.”
It really is very important—in both a newspaper and a Blog. A good headline is actually like advertising for your writing—it is supposed to grab a potential readers attention and make them want to read your piece and find out what you are talking about or have to say on a given topic.
I think that I do a pretty good job in producing my own headlines for my posts.
Sometimes I am serious and the title tells you exactly what I’m writing about. Stories like Intemperate Thoughts On Illegal Immigration where I was writing about—guess what—the “Mexican Illegal Immigration” problem. The title seems fairly straightforward to me, and I threw the word “Intemperate” in the mix because I, the self proclaimed “King of political incorrectness”, was going to say some things that the PC crowd and the Democratic left was going to hate and disagree with.
Other times I like to fool around with the titles, using a play on words like when I wrote "Poof" the Magic Dragon about the Karl Rove story disappearing once President Bush nominated John Roberts to the Supreme Court. By the way—I was right wasn’t I—the story did disappear.
Many times I also like to throw in a secondary line in my headline (in smaller text) that is an answer to my own headline question, a follow up statement to the assertion made in the main headline, or a rebuttal to the statement that I made in my headline.
Having said all of that, I would also like to point out that the mainstream media newspapers like the NY Times and news services like the Associated Press seem to have some trouble writing headlines that accurately represent the content of the news story that they introduce.
One of my blog idols, Captain Ed over at Captain’s Quarters pointed out today that the Associated Press takes great pleasure in editorializing in their headlines. By editorializing, I mean that the AP will often write a headline that supports their own agenda and tack it on top of a story that has absolutely no supporting factual meaning in its body of text.
For instance, there is this AP story originally printed under the headline "Ohio Families Fed Up With Loss of Marines." (Note that this is a cached copy of the story because they changed the headline, apparently after Captain Ed and some other bloggers mentioned it’s bias.)
If you read the story, however, nowhere in the interviews with family and friends of the Marines killed over the past few weeks from the same Marine Battalion do you read of anybody saying anything remotely resembling being “FED UP” with the loss of their brothers, sons, and friends. Yes they are sad, but they are also proud.
The AP must have gotten cold feet about their obvious “headline bias” because if you click on this link you will see the new headline: Ohio Families Mourn Troops Killed In Iraq
Quite a bit different from the original, huh?
My point here is this. We can’t simply call up the Associated Press and the major newspapers and tell them to straighten up their act, but you can read PAST THE HEADLINES. In fact, you need to read past the first paragraph to the LAST paragraph, because at least half of the time information buried at the end will qualify or even completely refute everything else written in the story.
If all you do is scan the headlines and swallow the first paragraph of the news, I’m afraid that you are SEVERELY MISINFORMED.
Get my point?
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Tracking The Space Station
More Nerdy Stuff...
I keep forgeting to mention this, but the NASA Web Site has a cool Java Applet that allows you to actually track the International Space Station and predict when you can see it flying over your house.
We have a good opportunity this Saturday about 10:30 PM here on St. Simons.
I'll point out that it will appear even larger and brighter because the Space Shuttle will still be attached, giving it a larger reflective area to look at.
I'll meet you in the back yard about 10:15...you bring the beverages...
I keep forgeting to mention this, but the NASA Web Site has a cool Java Applet that allows you to actually track the International Space Station and predict when you can see it flying over your house.
We have a good opportunity this Saturday about 10:30 PM here on St. Simons.
I'll point out that it will appear even larger and brighter because the Space Shuttle will still be attached, giving it a larger reflective area to look at.
I'll meet you in the back yard about 10:15...you bring the beverages...
HAL Says “Hello Dave”
I’m sitting here watching the two Astronauts beginning their space walk on the NasaTV web site.
I don’t mean to be morbid, but I can’t help but keep thinking of the scene in the 1968 classic film “2001 A Space Odyssey” where the ship’s human-like intelligent computer, the “HAL 9000,” launched one of the astronauts (Dr. Frank Poole) into space by using one of the remote “pods” to cut his air hoses and push him into space during a repair spacewalk.
The last thing you see of Frank is his fellow astronaut, Dave Bowman, chasing and retrieving his lifeless body prior to returning to the spaceship to deactivate HAL.
HAL, of course, doesn’t make things easy, ending his screen debut by singing a rousing rendition of the old Broadway standard “Daisy.”
This real life spacewalk involves one astronaut driving the external crane boom from inside the space station while another astronaut is strapped to the end of the boom and maneuvered UNDERNEATH the belly of the Space Shuttle in an effort to repair or remove some high temperature ceramic fiber material which was dislocated during launch.
The two astronauts doing the spacewalk will each wear 85’ long tethers in order to prevent them from floating off into space if someone slips or otherwise loses their grip on the shuttle or space station.
You do realize that it is virtually impossible to remain stationary while working in space without something to hold onto or stand on? The astronauts can’t just float around under the belly of the shuttle and start jacking around with a load of tools.
One false move and they would crash into the shuttle, possibly further damaging the tiles, or fly off into space—thus the need to be “mounted” on the end of the crane boom in order to get some leverage to perform the required tasks.
Better them than me—I wish them good luck.
I don’t mean to be morbid, but I can’t help but keep thinking of the scene in the 1968 classic film “2001 A Space Odyssey” where the ship’s human-like intelligent computer, the “HAL 9000,” launched one of the astronauts (Dr. Frank Poole) into space by using one of the remote “pods” to cut his air hoses and push him into space during a repair spacewalk.
The last thing you see of Frank is his fellow astronaut, Dave Bowman, chasing and retrieving his lifeless body prior to returning to the spaceship to deactivate HAL.
HAL, of course, doesn’t make things easy, ending his screen debut by singing a rousing rendition of the old Broadway standard “Daisy.”
This real life spacewalk involves one astronaut driving the external crane boom from inside the space station while another astronaut is strapped to the end of the boom and maneuvered UNDERNEATH the belly of the Space Shuttle in an effort to repair or remove some high temperature ceramic fiber material which was dislocated during launch.
The two astronauts doing the spacewalk will each wear 85’ long tethers in order to prevent them from floating off into space if someone slips or otherwise loses their grip on the shuttle or space station.
You do realize that it is virtually impossible to remain stationary while working in space without something to hold onto or stand on? The astronauts can’t just float around under the belly of the shuttle and start jacking around with a load of tools.
One false move and they would crash into the shuttle, possibly further damaging the tiles, or fly off into space—thus the need to be “mounted” on the end of the crane boom in order to get some leverage to perform the required tasks.
Better them than me—I wish them good luck.
Everybody Wants It…
But Not Everybody Will Use It (or benefit from it)
There seems to be some large scale popular belief out there that people automatically become brilliant and wealthy if you give them access to technology.
More accurately, the government and the liberals want to GIVE away FREE access to technology under the guise of worrying about education and employment.
I take exception to this concept.
Giving children a cell phone and wireless broadband access to the Internet at home, at school, and in public places no more makes them a candidate to be a ROCKET SCIENTIST or a RHODES SCHOLAR than did handing every child their own set of World Book Encyclopedias or their own private home library would guarantee similar success when I was in school in the 1960’s and 1970’s.
I hold this truth to be self evident—IF YOU INSIST ON BEING AN IGNORANT, UNEDUCATED DUMBASS, YOU WILL BE SAME, REGARDLESS OF THE COST AND EXTENT OF EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES AFFORDED YOU.
If kids won’t read the books available in the existing free public libraries and in their own school libraries, why should you expect them to suddenly sprout an interest in doing anything productive toward their education with a high speed internet terminal—except play games, possibly?
And the kids can’t turn the cell phones off so they won’t ring during class long enough to learn anything. Our local schools here in Glynn County Georgia had allowed cell phones in schools up until this year, provided that the students didn’t talk on them inside the school buildings.
Of course that didn’t work, so now they have had to ban cell phones from school campuses beginning this fall—AND THE PARENTS AND KIDS ARE RAISING HELL ABOUT THE MEASURE.
Heck, forget cell phones, our high school had a couple of pay phones in the lobby and you had better not have got caught talking on one during school hours unless you were calling your mother, your doctor or your lawyer.
How times have changed…
The NY Times’ Thomas L. Friedman says that wiring the entire US with cell phone and wireless internet coverage should be a government priority.
“A new generation of politicians is waking up to this issue. For instance, Andrew Rasiej is running in New York City's Democratic primary for public advocate on a platform calling for wireless (Wi-Fi) and cell phone Internet access from every home, business and school in the city.
If, God forbid, a London-like attack happens in a New York subway, don't trying calling 911. Your phone won't work down there. No wireless infrastructure. This ain't Tokyo, pal.”
Friedman forgets to mention that he is one of the people that believe that the “war on terrorism” is a figment of Carl Rove’s and George Bush’s imagination, so I wonder why he’s worrying about 911 calls from subways anyway—but he is in this article.
Just like I wrote about the UN yesterday, Friedman and his ilk figure that since there are tens of millions of cell phone users and high speed internet subscribers, that it is time to make cell phone service and high speed Internet access a WELFARE BENEFIT.
What complete and total crappola.
Yes I would like better cell phone coverage—I have to stand on the balcony of my condo with a tin foil hat and a wire coat hanger in each hand to make a call on Cingular, and yes I like it when I enter an airport terminal and they have free wireless Internet, but I say to Comrad Friedman that we let the FREE MARKET take care of deciding where and how fast these NON-ESSENTIAL services expand to.
After all, no where in the US Constitution do I find the words: LIFE, LIBERTY, A PICTURE PHONE WITH TEXT MESSAGING, AND FREE BROADBAND.
Ben Franklin must be rolling over in his grave…
UPDATE at 5:00 AM:
I thought about this a little more after I posted, and this came to mind. Once the entire city of NY is wired with cell phone coverage and wireless internet--who's going to use the service?
Can you say "primarily mean old rich white guys?"
The next thing you know they will be passing laws giving away cell phones and notebook computers with wireless cards because...
I can just hear the "advocates" screaming...
"it isn't FAIR that the disadvantaged can't use the infarstructure that they spent all that tax money on.
I suspect that soon you'll be able to stand in line at the grocery store while some welfare mom with five kids checks her voice mail and E-mail on her Bluetooth enabled Blackberry PDA--paying for her groceries with an Electronic Benefit Card.
I've got to go now and take most of a bottle of asparin...maybe a couple dozen Advil too...
There seems to be some large scale popular belief out there that people automatically become brilliant and wealthy if you give them access to technology.
More accurately, the government and the liberals want to GIVE away FREE access to technology under the guise of worrying about education and employment.
I take exception to this concept.
Giving children a cell phone and wireless broadband access to the Internet at home, at school, and in public places no more makes them a candidate to be a ROCKET SCIENTIST or a RHODES SCHOLAR than did handing every child their own set of World Book Encyclopedias or their own private home library would guarantee similar success when I was in school in the 1960’s and 1970’s.
I hold this truth to be self evident—IF YOU INSIST ON BEING AN IGNORANT, UNEDUCATED DUMBASS, YOU WILL BE SAME, REGARDLESS OF THE COST AND EXTENT OF EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES AFFORDED YOU.
If kids won’t read the books available in the existing free public libraries and in their own school libraries, why should you expect them to suddenly sprout an interest in doing anything productive toward their education with a high speed internet terminal—except play games, possibly?
And the kids can’t turn the cell phones off so they won’t ring during class long enough to learn anything. Our local schools here in Glynn County Georgia had allowed cell phones in schools up until this year, provided that the students didn’t talk on them inside the school buildings.
Of course that didn’t work, so now they have had to ban cell phones from school campuses beginning this fall—AND THE PARENTS AND KIDS ARE RAISING HELL ABOUT THE MEASURE.
Heck, forget cell phones, our high school had a couple of pay phones in the lobby and you had better not have got caught talking on one during school hours unless you were calling your mother, your doctor or your lawyer.
How times have changed…
The NY Times’ Thomas L. Friedman says that wiring the entire US with cell phone and wireless internet coverage should be a government priority.
“A new generation of politicians is waking up to this issue. For instance, Andrew Rasiej is running in New York City's Democratic primary for public advocate on a platform calling for wireless (Wi-Fi) and cell phone Internet access from every home, business and school in the city.
If, God forbid, a London-like attack happens in a New York subway, don't trying calling 911. Your phone won't work down there. No wireless infrastructure. This ain't Tokyo, pal.”
Friedman forgets to mention that he is one of the people that believe that the “war on terrorism” is a figment of Carl Rove’s and George Bush’s imagination, so I wonder why he’s worrying about 911 calls from subways anyway—but he is in this article.
Just like I wrote about the UN yesterday, Friedman and his ilk figure that since there are tens of millions of cell phone users and high speed internet subscribers, that it is time to make cell phone service and high speed Internet access a WELFARE BENEFIT.
What complete and total crappola.
Yes I would like better cell phone coverage—I have to stand on the balcony of my condo with a tin foil hat and a wire coat hanger in each hand to make a call on Cingular, and yes I like it when I enter an airport terminal and they have free wireless Internet, but I say to Comrad Friedman that we let the FREE MARKET take care of deciding where and how fast these NON-ESSENTIAL services expand to.
After all, no where in the US Constitution do I find the words: LIFE, LIBERTY, A PICTURE PHONE WITH TEXT MESSAGING, AND FREE BROADBAND.
Ben Franklin must be rolling over in his grave…
UPDATE at 5:00 AM:
I thought about this a little more after I posted, and this came to mind. Once the entire city of NY is wired with cell phone coverage and wireless internet--who's going to use the service?
Can you say "primarily mean old rich white guys?"
The next thing you know they will be passing laws giving away cell phones and notebook computers with wireless cards because...
I can just hear the "advocates" screaming...
"it isn't FAIR that the disadvantaged can't use the infarstructure that they spent all that tax money on.
I suspect that soon you'll be able to stand in line at the grocery store while some welfare mom with five kids checks her voice mail and E-mail on her Bluetooth enabled Blackberry PDA--paying for her groceries with an Electronic Benefit Card.
I've got to go now and take most of a bottle of asparin...maybe a couple dozen Advil too...
When Will It End?
Everybody knows that children can be complete pains in the rear. I don’t have any kids of my own, but it seems that people think that other peoples’ children are always more difficult than their own.
I totally agree…
Besides being a pain for adults to deal with, kids can be absolute monsters to each other.
Peer pressure and bullying in school is an age old problem that we each had to learn to deal with on our own terms—it was an important life lesson.
Not any more… look at this story:
School Opens For Victims of Bullying
POSTED: 8:35 am EDT August 2, 2005
UPDATED: 1:06 pm EDT August 2, 2005
A new school in Milwaukee, Wis., has opened for students who are the victims of bullying and harassment from other children.
The Alliance School, which is attracting national attention, is an unique school targeting children who were harassed or bullied in their old schools.
Students at the school have been struggling academically or socially because of bullying…
Teachers at the school said bullying happens to countless kids around the country.
"Right now our big focus today is making it beautiful," teacher Tina Owen said. "I was kind of one of those Goth kids growing up in high school and everything."
The school is one of about a dozen new smaller high schools in Milwaukee.
Critics said the school only serves to separate the victims from the bullies instead of dealing with the problem.
The critics are right--what complete and total crap. What are these kids going to do when they graduate from high school and move on to college or into the REAL world?
Former “Goth freak” teacher Tina Owen can slap herself on the back all day long for “making it beautiful”, but she is letting her students down.
I’ve got some news for Tina Owen and all of her “education professionals” stupid enough to buy into this folly--there is a great big old, mean, ugly world out there where people die under bridges of drug overdoses and little blond teenaged girls from Alabama get kidnapped, raped, and killed in Aruba.
Hiding these kids in a special school designed to protect their warped, fragile self esteem and “tender feelings” is destined to be a COMPLETE AND TOTAL WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY.
I say that they put these tender little souls back in the regular schools, apply some discipline to kick some bully asses, and force these kids to face REALITY.
Know what I mean?
I totally agree…
Besides being a pain for adults to deal with, kids can be absolute monsters to each other.
Peer pressure and bullying in school is an age old problem that we each had to learn to deal with on our own terms—it was an important life lesson.
Not any more… look at this story:
School Opens For Victims of Bullying
POSTED: 8:35 am EDT August 2, 2005
UPDATED: 1:06 pm EDT August 2, 2005
A new school in Milwaukee, Wis., has opened for students who are the victims of bullying and harassment from other children.
The Alliance School, which is attracting national attention, is an unique school targeting children who were harassed or bullied in their old schools.
Students at the school have been struggling academically or socially because of bullying…
Teachers at the school said bullying happens to countless kids around the country.
"Right now our big focus today is making it beautiful," teacher Tina Owen said. "I was kind of one of those Goth kids growing up in high school and everything."
The school is one of about a dozen new smaller high schools in Milwaukee.
Critics said the school only serves to separate the victims from the bullies instead of dealing with the problem.
The critics are right--what complete and total crap. What are these kids going to do when they graduate from high school and move on to college or into the REAL world?
Former “Goth freak” teacher Tina Owen can slap herself on the back all day long for “making it beautiful”, but she is letting her students down.
I’ve got some news for Tina Owen and all of her “education professionals” stupid enough to buy into this folly--there is a great big old, mean, ugly world out there where people die under bridges of drug overdoses and little blond teenaged girls from Alabama get kidnapped, raped, and killed in Aruba.
Hiding these kids in a special school designed to protect their warped, fragile self esteem and “tender feelings” is destined to be a COMPLETE AND TOTAL WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY.
I say that they put these tender little souls back in the regular schools, apply some discipline to kick some bully asses, and force these kids to face REALITY.
Know what I mean?
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Uninsured Children Caused By STUPID ADULTS
Not By Government Inaction
This is a reoccurring theme with me and this story just punctuates my previous position on the subject.
“WASHINGTON -- A new study shows one-third of the roughly 8.4 million American children without insurance go without medical care for an entire year.
In comparison, nearly 88 percent of insured kids received care during the same period. The five states with the highest levels of uninsured children not receiving any care included Arizona, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which released the report, noted that more than 70 percent of those uninsured children would be eligible for free or low-cost health coverage under Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
Those two government programs have helped reduce the number of uninsured children by about 2 million since 1998. Although eligibility varies, programs exist in every state and the District of Columbia.
The programs cover doctor visits, hospitalizations, prescriptions and more.”
While sHrillary Clinton and John sKerry continue to beat the drum on the Democratic mantra that we need new government programs in order to provide healthcare for CHILDREN, what they and most of the exempt media refuse to recognize and admit in their public statements is that the taxpayers are already paying for healthcare for kids.
As I’ve said all along, we’ve raised and educated an entire generation of ADULTS that are just too damn stupid, or are too busy buying beer, cigarettes, and drugs, to find out about and enroll their children in these existing, expensive, taxpayer-funded programs. Many times they are just too lazy to take to their kids to the doctor.
This is the absolute worst form of child abuse, and if the government started cracking down on and prosecuting these negligent parents, the kids would be better off and my wallet would be safe from the likes of Clinton and sKerry.
This is a reoccurring theme with me and this story just punctuates my previous position on the subject.
“WASHINGTON -- A new study shows one-third of the roughly 8.4 million American children without insurance go without medical care for an entire year.
In comparison, nearly 88 percent of insured kids received care during the same period. The five states with the highest levels of uninsured children not receiving any care included Arizona, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which released the report, noted that more than 70 percent of those uninsured children would be eligible for free or low-cost health coverage under Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
Those two government programs have helped reduce the number of uninsured children by about 2 million since 1998. Although eligibility varies, programs exist in every state and the District of Columbia.
The programs cover doctor visits, hospitalizations, prescriptions and more.”
While sHrillary Clinton and John sKerry continue to beat the drum on the Democratic mantra that we need new government programs in order to provide healthcare for CHILDREN, what they and most of the exempt media refuse to recognize and admit in their public statements is that the taxpayers are already paying for healthcare for kids.
As I’ve said all along, we’ve raised and educated an entire generation of ADULTS that are just too damn stupid, or are too busy buying beer, cigarettes, and drugs, to find out about and enroll their children in these existing, expensive, taxpayer-funded programs. Many times they are just too lazy to take to their kids to the doctor.
This is the absolute worst form of child abuse, and if the government started cracking down on and prosecuting these negligent parents, the kids would be better off and my wallet would be safe from the likes of Clinton and sKerry.
United Nations' Control Of The Internet?
While I’m sitting around happily blogging my thoughts for all to see, and all of you are sitting around clicking your mouse buttons and surfing this thing we call the Internet or the World Wide Web, it’s come to my attention that Kofi Annan and his corrupt pals over at the UN headquarters are quietly working on a proposal to allow the United Nations to take over control of the internet.
My first reaction was…pause….sigh…big breath…WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER!!!
Your first reaction was probably to utter the words…DO WHAT???
You heard me right, the UN has started their Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) and they have just issued a 24 page report outlining how the UN can do things better than the folks already running things—all of us Yankees and Rednecks here in the US. They’re even having a big meeting in Tunisia this fall on the subject. I suspect that Al Gore (self-proclaimed inventor of the internet) is already packing his bags
Of course the WGIG report is full of all of the expected “feel good” buzz-words like diversity, inclusiveness, empowerment, multicultural, and multi-lingual—things I know that I definitely have a great deal of concern about when I power up my computer and log on to the Internet each day.
Honestly, I was thinking just yesterday how unfair it was that the starving Somali’s rebels busy killing each other in a viscous civil war don’t have a T1 line or a wireless router and a cable modem and how unfair it is that all domain names are assigned using letters from the standard Roman alphabet instead of in some obscure regional gibberish dialect only understood by Tibetan monks and feared by a few pet goats and sheep living in the Himalayan mountains.
Actually I couldn’t care less…I’m such a pig and bigot.
Excerpting from the WGIG Report, I’d like to give you some highlights of this moronic, typically socialistic effort.
Here is their “working definition” of internet governance:
“Internet governance is the development and application by Governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet.”
Can you understand what the heck that means? Please tell me if you do.
Then there are these two little ditties:
15. Administration of the root zone files and system
Unilateral control by the United States Government.
• For historical reasons, the existing system involves only one Government in the authorization of changes to the root zone file.
Lack of formal relationship with root server operators.
• The root zone operators perform their functions today without a formal relationship with any authority.
16. Interconnection costs
Uneven distribution of cost.
• Internet service providers (ISPs) based in countries remote from Internet backbones, particularly in the developing countries, must pay the full cost of the international circuits.
• Absence of an appropriate and effective global Internet governance mechanism to resolve the issue.
See—paragraph 15 tells us that this is all about jealously. The UN can’t stand it that a company in the country (the US) that started the internet still has responsibility for handing out the domain names.
In my opinion that’s a good thing.
The internet in its current form is a result of private enterprise and a good deal of accidental good luck. If the US government meddled in the process more than it did, we would probably have nothing but a slow, broken down crappy computer system with old IBM PC XT's like those that they are suffering with at the IRS, the FAA, and the Social Security Administration.
People like you and me are each partially responsible for the success and continuing evolution of the internet, past present and future. If nobody bothered to buy cable modems and wireless routers, imagine how different things would be today when it comes to web site content (audio, streaming video, etc.) with everyone still using slow dial-up connections. I guarantee you that any involvement by the UN will only serve to screw things up.
Paragraph 16 indicates that Kofi and his gang of merry men once again want to rob from the rich (us here in the US) and give to the poor (probably everybody else but the US, Britain and Japan) in order to make things more “fair” when it comes to internet service.
I have a real problem with this. Am I to understand that now they are proposing to start handing out INTERNATIONAL INTERNET WELFARE?
What Bullcrap…we have to pay the full cost of our internet service in our home—roughly $600 per year, not including the modem, wireless router, and wireless notebook cards.
My mother can’t even get decent high speed DSL or cable service—her only option other than crappy slow dial-up is satellite internet service at a cost of nearly $1000 per year plus equipment costs.
Is Kofi proposing that the UN run cable service or provide cheep satellite service to old white women in rural Alabama that want to watch streaming video of the latest Tom Jones concert from Las Vegas?
I suspect not.
Kofi wants to hand internet to people that can’t successfully feed themselves and their children, let alone stop shooting at each other long enough to develop a stable infrastructure and economic system.
There’s more:
42. One of the main aims of the WGIG is to foster full participation in Internet governance arrangements by developing countries. The WGIG placed this aim in the context of one of the priorities it had identified in the course of its work, namely, capacity-building in developing countries.
43. Such a space or forum for dialogue (hereafter referred to as “the forum”) should allow for the participation of all stakeholders from developing and developed countries on an equal footing. Gender balance should be considered a fundamental principle with the aim of achieving an equal representation of women and men at all levels. Special care should be taken to ensure diversity of participation as regards, inter alia, language, culture, professional background, involvement of indigenous peoples, people with disabilities and other vulnerable groups.
44. The forum should preferably be linked to the United Nations, in a form to be defined. It would be better placed than existing Internet institutions to engage developing countries in a policy dialogue. This would be an important factor in itself, as the future growth of the Internet is expected to be mainly in developing countries.
I have a few final words for “His Excellency” Kofi Annan besides the words HELL NO.
“Hey Kofi, why don’t you pack your black ass up, move from your cushy digs in NY City back to fly infested Africa where you came from, and then if you and your beloved ‘developing countries’ want internet service, you and all of the native tribal warlords have my blessing and permission to ‘develop’ it on your own, at your own expense, just like we did here in the United by Gosh Darned States of America…
You stupid corrupt moron…”
My first reaction was…pause….sigh…big breath…WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER!!!
Your first reaction was probably to utter the words…DO WHAT???
You heard me right, the UN has started their Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) and they have just issued a 24 page report outlining how the UN can do things better than the folks already running things—all of us Yankees and Rednecks here in the US. They’re even having a big meeting in Tunisia this fall on the subject. I suspect that Al Gore (self-proclaimed inventor of the internet) is already packing his bags
Of course the WGIG report is full of all of the expected “feel good” buzz-words like diversity, inclusiveness, empowerment, multicultural, and multi-lingual—things I know that I definitely have a great deal of concern about when I power up my computer and log on to the Internet each day.
Honestly, I was thinking just yesterday how unfair it was that the starving Somali’s rebels busy killing each other in a viscous civil war don’t have a T1 line or a wireless router and a cable modem and how unfair it is that all domain names are assigned using letters from the standard Roman alphabet instead of in some obscure regional gibberish dialect only understood by Tibetan monks and feared by a few pet goats and sheep living in the Himalayan mountains.
Actually I couldn’t care less…I’m such a pig and bigot.
Excerpting from the WGIG Report, I’d like to give you some highlights of this moronic, typically socialistic effort.
Here is their “working definition” of internet governance:
“Internet governance is the development and application by Governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet.”
Can you understand what the heck that means? Please tell me if you do.
Then there are these two little ditties:
15. Administration of the root zone files and system
Unilateral control by the United States Government.
• For historical reasons, the existing system involves only one Government in the authorization of changes to the root zone file.
Lack of formal relationship with root server operators.
• The root zone operators perform their functions today without a formal relationship with any authority.
16. Interconnection costs
Uneven distribution of cost.
• Internet service providers (ISPs) based in countries remote from Internet backbones, particularly in the developing countries, must pay the full cost of the international circuits.
• Absence of an appropriate and effective global Internet governance mechanism to resolve the issue.
See—paragraph 15 tells us that this is all about jealously. The UN can’t stand it that a company in the country (the US) that started the internet still has responsibility for handing out the domain names.
In my opinion that’s a good thing.
The internet in its current form is a result of private enterprise and a good deal of accidental good luck. If the US government meddled in the process more than it did, we would probably have nothing but a slow, broken down crappy computer system with old IBM PC XT's like those that they are suffering with at the IRS, the FAA, and the Social Security Administration.
People like you and me are each partially responsible for the success and continuing evolution of the internet, past present and future. If nobody bothered to buy cable modems and wireless routers, imagine how different things would be today when it comes to web site content (audio, streaming video, etc.) with everyone still using slow dial-up connections. I guarantee you that any involvement by the UN will only serve to screw things up.
Paragraph 16 indicates that Kofi and his gang of merry men once again want to rob from the rich (us here in the US) and give to the poor (probably everybody else but the US, Britain and Japan) in order to make things more “fair” when it comes to internet service.
I have a real problem with this. Am I to understand that now they are proposing to start handing out INTERNATIONAL INTERNET WELFARE?
What Bullcrap…we have to pay the full cost of our internet service in our home—roughly $600 per year, not including the modem, wireless router, and wireless notebook cards.
My mother can’t even get decent high speed DSL or cable service—her only option other than crappy slow dial-up is satellite internet service at a cost of nearly $1000 per year plus equipment costs.
Is Kofi proposing that the UN run cable service or provide cheep satellite service to old white women in rural Alabama that want to watch streaming video of the latest Tom Jones concert from Las Vegas?
I suspect not.
Kofi wants to hand internet to people that can’t successfully feed themselves and their children, let alone stop shooting at each other long enough to develop a stable infrastructure and economic system.
There’s more:
42. One of the main aims of the WGIG is to foster full participation in Internet governance arrangements by developing countries. The WGIG placed this aim in the context of one of the priorities it had identified in the course of its work, namely, capacity-building in developing countries.
43. Such a space or forum for dialogue (hereafter referred to as “the forum”) should allow for the participation of all stakeholders from developing and developed countries on an equal footing. Gender balance should be considered a fundamental principle with the aim of achieving an equal representation of women and men at all levels. Special care should be taken to ensure diversity of participation as regards, inter alia, language, culture, professional background, involvement of indigenous peoples, people with disabilities and other vulnerable groups.
44. The forum should preferably be linked to the United Nations, in a form to be defined. It would be better placed than existing Internet institutions to engage developing countries in a policy dialogue. This would be an important factor in itself, as the future growth of the Internet is expected to be mainly in developing countries.
I have a few final words for “His Excellency” Kofi Annan besides the words HELL NO.
“Hey Kofi, why don’t you pack your black ass up, move from your cushy digs in NY City back to fly infested Africa where you came from, and then if you and your beloved ‘developing countries’ want internet service, you and all of the native tribal warlords have my blessing and permission to ‘develop’ it on your own, at your own expense, just like we did here in the United by Gosh Darned States of America…
You stupid corrupt moron…”
Monday, August 01, 2005
Refresher Course on Recess Appointments
I guess that it wasn’t much of a surprise that President Bush didn’t waste any time giving John Bolton a recess appointment as US Ambassador to the United Nations today—the first day of the Senate’s “summer recess.”
Likewise, it also wasn’t much of a surprise that the Democrats wasted no time criticizing the appointment:
"At a time when we need to reassert our diplomatic power in the world, President Bush has decided to send a seriously flawed and weakened candidate to the United Nations. It's an unnecessary result, and the latest abuse of power by the Bush White House. ... Bolton arrives at the United Nations with a cloud hanging over his head." — Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev."
"The abuse of power and the cloak of secrecy from the White House continues. ... It's a devious maneuver that evades the constitutional requirement of Senate consent and only further darkens the cloud over Mr. Bolton's credibility at the U.N." — Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass."
"It's sad that even while the president preaches democracy around the world, he bends the rules and circumvents the will of Congress in appointing our representative to the United Nations." — Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg, D-N.J."
For your reference, Article II, Section 2, Clauses 2 and 3 of the US Constitution expressedly gives the president the power to appoint Ambassadors with the advice and consent of THE MAJORITY (not 66% or even 60%) of the senate:
“Clause 2: He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
Clause 3: The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session."
If the Senate Democrats had done their job and allowed Bolton an up or down vote, he would have been approved in February by a 54-46 margin, at worst 51-49. Instead they chose to filibuster the process, demanding 60 votes to end debate, although the constitution expressedly says a simple majority of 51 votes should end debate.
Kennedy and Reid, along with Pelosi, Kerry, and most of the Democratic leadership still refuse to accept that the American voters have chosen President Bush twice as president and elected a Republican House and Senate…
The Democrats lost, and they just can’t get it through their stupid thick heads.
Likewise, it also wasn’t much of a surprise that the Democrats wasted no time criticizing the appointment:
"At a time when we need to reassert our diplomatic power in the world, President Bush has decided to send a seriously flawed and weakened candidate to the United Nations. It's an unnecessary result, and the latest abuse of power by the Bush White House. ... Bolton arrives at the United Nations with a cloud hanging over his head." — Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev."
"The abuse of power and the cloak of secrecy from the White House continues. ... It's a devious maneuver that evades the constitutional requirement of Senate consent and only further darkens the cloud over Mr. Bolton's credibility at the U.N." — Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass."
"It's sad that even while the president preaches democracy around the world, he bends the rules and circumvents the will of Congress in appointing our representative to the United Nations." — Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg, D-N.J."
For your reference, Article II, Section 2, Clauses 2 and 3 of the US Constitution expressedly gives the president the power to appoint Ambassadors with the advice and consent of THE MAJORITY (not 66% or even 60%) of the senate:
“Clause 2: He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
Clause 3: The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session."
If the Senate Democrats had done their job and allowed Bolton an up or down vote, he would have been approved in February by a 54-46 margin, at worst 51-49. Instead they chose to filibuster the process, demanding 60 votes to end debate, although the constitution expressedly says a simple majority of 51 votes should end debate.
Kennedy and Reid, along with Pelosi, Kerry, and most of the Democratic leadership still refuse to accept that the American voters have chosen President Bush twice as president and elected a Republican House and Senate…
The Democrats lost, and they just can’t get it through their stupid thick heads.
Sunday, July 31, 2005
A Real Writer
Well, I have some good news...and some bad news.
The good news is that I have my first opportunity to write for a real publication, "Elegant Island Living." It's one of those shiny, glossy, local interest magazines full of real estate ads and art reviews like you find in your hotel room and in the lobby of fancy restaurants in resort areas.
I was fortunate enough to meet Dave, the owner/editor, while working in the theater for "The Island Players" and I've been after him for quite some time to let me write something for his Mag.
I just got the word this afternoon to take off on a story about the opening of our new airport terminal at the Brunswick Glynn County Airport.
I know, I know, stop yawning...
There's probably not a Pulitzer Prize in it for me, but the exposure and increase in my name recognition in this area is priceless.
I have already have had nine or ten letters published in the "Letters to the Editor" section of our local paper, The Brunswick News, and on a half dozen occasions I have had complete strangers say "You're Virgil Rogers-I love your writing" or "I laughed my butt off at what you wrote" upon hearing my name at the local restaurants and businesses (OK, Bars...)
The bad news is that my mind has been spinning while I develop an outline and questions for when I interview the airport board and visit the airport this week--so my blogging has suffered today.
I'm heading out to the pool for my late night swim, then I may have the energy to write something interesting here.
Your little boy is growing up...
The good news is that I have my first opportunity to write for a real publication, "Elegant Island Living." It's one of those shiny, glossy, local interest magazines full of real estate ads and art reviews like you find in your hotel room and in the lobby of fancy restaurants in resort areas.
I was fortunate enough to meet Dave, the owner/editor, while working in the theater for "The Island Players" and I've been after him for quite some time to let me write something for his Mag.
I just got the word this afternoon to take off on a story about the opening of our new airport terminal at the Brunswick Glynn County Airport.
I know, I know, stop yawning...
There's probably not a Pulitzer Prize in it for me, but the exposure and increase in my name recognition in this area is priceless.
I have already have had nine or ten letters published in the "Letters to the Editor" section of our local paper, The Brunswick News, and on a half dozen occasions I have had complete strangers say "You're Virgil Rogers-I love your writing" or "I laughed my butt off at what you wrote" upon hearing my name at the local restaurants and businesses (OK, Bars...)
The bad news is that my mind has been spinning while I develop an outline and questions for when I interview the airport board and visit the airport this week--so my blogging has suffered today.
I'm heading out to the pool for my late night swim, then I may have the energy to write something interesting here.
Your little boy is growing up...
Saturday, July 30, 2005
Color Coded Shopping Attire
Identifying Parking Lot Terrorists...
Since I do most of the cooking, I visit the grocery store at least three or four days each week. These frequent visits are necessitated because I like to buy fresh vegetables and meat as our daily menus evolve.
Being a semi professional cook and a self proclaimed professional grocery shopper, I also find it amusing to watch people stuff their carts with yellow, orange, or other brightly colored packages of pre-processed "cheese food" products and crappy junk food full of partially hydrogenated oils.
While I’ve decided that I love the INSIDE of our local grocery stores for their contents and entertainment value, I also have to admit that I absolutely hate the OUTSIDE of each of these same establishments.
Why?
Because many if not most people act like complete, total, ingrates and assholes when they are in the grocery store parking lot.
These people are selectively arrogant, depending on if they are DRIVING an automobile or PUSHING a shopping cart.
When they drive their giant SUV into the parking lot to park and you find yourself already in the middle of the road walking into or out of the store, most of these NASCAR wannabe's will scare the heck out of you sailing inches past your heels at 30 MPH. You have to be a Hollywood stunt-man (excuse me...stuntPERSON) to escape the wrath of some idiot drivers.
Yet these same people (the idiot drivers) will exit the store, look the opposite way or into the wild blue yonder, and step off of the curb 2 inches in front of your front bumper when you are driving by, confidently expecting you to yield or even come to a complete stop while they mindlessly fumble with items in their carts or pause to chat with some long lost friend or relative passing by. I guess that they think that what they don't see can't hurt them.
No matter what their beliefs or motives, it makes my blood boil and my head spin around uncontrollably.
I've been thinking about the situation, and I have a suggestion that I think just might solve this problem…
COLOR CODED SHOPPING ATTIRE.
That’s right, if it were up to me, I’d put a store employee outside the front of each store watching people drive into the parking lot. Based on their behavior and driving demeanor, they would be handed a color coded vest, jersey, or even secretely issued a color coded shopping cart or have their groceries bagged in color coded bags.
Here is how the system would work:
GREEN –The color green would be issued by the attendant to courteous drivers that obey the parking lot speed limits, actually stop at the crosswalks for pedestrians, drive in the correct direction up and down the parking isles, and park in legal parking spaces—not on the curb, beside grass islands, or in handicapped spaces. Any other driver/shopper that injured or otherwise harassed a customer wearing the color Green would face the normal severe legal ramifications as well as face having their shopping privileges revoked as a result of infractions.
YELLOW—The color yellow would be issued to drivers that disobey any one of the above rules. By tracking the customers behavior on their Harris Teeter “VIC” card or other customer card, good behavior could result in the customer being upgraded back to green, but repeated violations would result in the shopper being downgraded to…
RED—The color red would be, unfortunately, issued to at least half of our local grocery shoppers. Red would represent the worst in arrogant, self-important human behavior. Driving 30 in a 10 MPH zone, parking in the fire lane, doing “u-turn” parking in front of cars already waiting on parking spaces, speeding past cars that have already backed three quarters of the way out of a space, driving down the middle of the parking isles blabbing on their cellphones, stepping mindlessly off of the curb pushing a cart in front of courteous drivers forcing them to slam on their brakes, leaving carts in the middle of adjacent spaces rather than returning them to the racks, waddling up the middle of the parking isle in front of a driver—forcing them to follow your slow progress rather than getting your fat ass out of the way of a 4,000 pound vehicle--all of these infractions would get you the hated red vest, or red cart, or red shopping bags...
And then the fun would begin, FOR ME (and all of the other shoppers with green status), because if I (we) catch you walking through the parking lot wearing, bearing, or pushing red…
MAY GOD HAVE MERCY ON YOUR SOUL...
and whatever else is left of you when I and my Suburban gets through with your ass…
You'll know how a rodeo clown feels when I get through with you.
YOU GOT THAT???
Since I do most of the cooking, I visit the grocery store at least three or four days each week. These frequent visits are necessitated because I like to buy fresh vegetables and meat as our daily menus evolve.
Being a semi professional cook and a self proclaimed professional grocery shopper, I also find it amusing to watch people stuff their carts with yellow, orange, or other brightly colored packages of pre-processed "cheese food" products and crappy junk food full of partially hydrogenated oils.
While I’ve decided that I love the INSIDE of our local grocery stores for their contents and entertainment value, I also have to admit that I absolutely hate the OUTSIDE of each of these same establishments.
Why?
Because many if not most people act like complete, total, ingrates and assholes when they are in the grocery store parking lot.
These people are selectively arrogant, depending on if they are DRIVING an automobile or PUSHING a shopping cart.
When they drive their giant SUV into the parking lot to park and you find yourself already in the middle of the road walking into or out of the store, most of these NASCAR wannabe's will scare the heck out of you sailing inches past your heels at 30 MPH. You have to be a Hollywood stunt-man (excuse me...stuntPERSON) to escape the wrath of some idiot drivers.
Yet these same people (the idiot drivers) will exit the store, look the opposite way or into the wild blue yonder, and step off of the curb 2 inches in front of your front bumper when you are driving by, confidently expecting you to yield or even come to a complete stop while they mindlessly fumble with items in their carts or pause to chat with some long lost friend or relative passing by. I guess that they think that what they don't see can't hurt them.
No matter what their beliefs or motives, it makes my blood boil and my head spin around uncontrollably.
I've been thinking about the situation, and I have a suggestion that I think just might solve this problem…
COLOR CODED SHOPPING ATTIRE.
That’s right, if it were up to me, I’d put a store employee outside the front of each store watching people drive into the parking lot. Based on their behavior and driving demeanor, they would be handed a color coded vest, jersey, or even secretely issued a color coded shopping cart or have their groceries bagged in color coded bags.
Here is how the system would work:
GREEN –The color green would be issued by the attendant to courteous drivers that obey the parking lot speed limits, actually stop at the crosswalks for pedestrians, drive in the correct direction up and down the parking isles, and park in legal parking spaces—not on the curb, beside grass islands, or in handicapped spaces. Any other driver/shopper that injured or otherwise harassed a customer wearing the color Green would face the normal severe legal ramifications as well as face having their shopping privileges revoked as a result of infractions.
YELLOW—The color yellow would be issued to drivers that disobey any one of the above rules. By tracking the customers behavior on their Harris Teeter “VIC” card or other customer card, good behavior could result in the customer being upgraded back to green, but repeated violations would result in the shopper being downgraded to…
RED—The color red would be, unfortunately, issued to at least half of our local grocery shoppers. Red would represent the worst in arrogant, self-important human behavior. Driving 30 in a 10 MPH zone, parking in the fire lane, doing “u-turn” parking in front of cars already waiting on parking spaces, speeding past cars that have already backed three quarters of the way out of a space, driving down the middle of the parking isles blabbing on their cellphones, stepping mindlessly off of the curb pushing a cart in front of courteous drivers forcing them to slam on their brakes, leaving carts in the middle of adjacent spaces rather than returning them to the racks, waddling up the middle of the parking isle in front of a driver—forcing them to follow your slow progress rather than getting your fat ass out of the way of a 4,000 pound vehicle--all of these infractions would get you the hated red vest, or red cart, or red shopping bags...
And then the fun would begin, FOR ME (and all of the other shoppers with green status), because if I (we) catch you walking through the parking lot wearing, bearing, or pushing red…
MAY GOD HAVE MERCY ON YOUR SOUL...
and whatever else is left of you when I and my Suburban gets through with your ass…
You'll know how a rodeo clown feels when I get through with you.
YOU GOT THAT???
Friday, July 29, 2005
Quote Of The Day
I enjoy reading Thomas Sowell's columns each week in our local newspaper, The Brunswick News. Mr. Sowell is a economist and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
In my opinion Thomas is a smart man, but who am I to make such an assessment--the recoginition that he receives from his peers bears this point out quite well.
His web site has a listing of his favorite quotations which I enjoyed reading. Here is my favorite:
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
Who does it sound like he is talking about?
The liberal "do gooders" in our government, perhaps?
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Rocket Scientists versus Environmentalists
I’m a mean old anti-environmentalist. I have no problem admitting this fact--in fact, I'm proud of it.
I think that most environmentalists are stupid dipsticks that couldn’t find their own butt with a flashlight and a road map.
Most environmentalists are so misinformed (or just plain stupid) that 99% of the stuff that they run around preaching about and worrying about either can’t be proven, can’t be controlled, or doesn’t really matter in the total scope of the happenings on our lovely planet Earth.
Of course, I also believe that they (the environmentalists) are entitled to their ideas and ideals, I just object when they try to force their beliefs on me through intimidation or worst of all...
LEGISLATION.
Take the 1987 Montreal Treaty, for instance.
Need I mention that the Montreal Treaty was sponsored by the United Nations?
Well...it was.
The Montreal Treaty essentially was concerned with limiting or ending the production and use of substances (chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), halons, carbon tetrachloride, and methyl chloroform) that was believed to cause harm to the ozone layer.
You remember ozone layer, don’t you?
Did you know that we didn’t know about Ozone until the mid 1800’s?
Did you know that we didn’t know that the ozone molecules liked to hang around together in a “layer” high up in the stratosphere until the early 1900’s?
Did you know that we didn’t know that things like solar radiation and lightning makes ozone until the mid 1900’s?
We also didn’t know that there was a “hole” in the ozone layer up over the artic circle until the mid 1980’s.
See all the things we DIDN’T KNOW until relatively recently in human history?
Well, thank GOD for all of those genius ENVIRONMENTALISTS and their supporting scientific community and liberal media, because, in spite of only knowing about the ozone layer for 75 years and, in spite of not knowing about a hole in said ozone layer for two years, in 1987 they all got together, sang a couple of rousing verses of Kum-Ba-Ya, and produced the Montreal Treaty to solve the perceived problem with the hole in the ozone layer.
If you are interested in how Montreal Treaty’s changes effect you, take a walk outside and look under the hood at your car’s air conditioner. If there is a sticker there that says “R-134A” instead of “R-12”—you can thank the Montreal Treaty for this little price increase and performance DECREASE that you live with every day.
All of the tree hugging morons clapped their hands and ran around celebrating these measures as yet another essential step in saving our planet. What they didn’t tell you is that if one large volcano like the Philippines’ Mt. Pinatubo decides to erupt again like it did in 1991 that it will dump more CFC’s into the air in one day than humans could if we all ran outside and released the entire contents of the hated R-12 (Freon) contained in every car air conditioner in the entire US.
So much for good planning—right?
That’s OK, say the environmentalists—it’s the thought that counts...
Now we learn that the Space Shuttle has once again had a close call with a piece of foam separating from the disposable hydrogen tank during liftoff.
You remember how pesky that darned old foam can be when it comes off during liftoff, don’t you?
In February of 2003 a little old piece of foam came off during liftoff of the Columbia, cut a hole in the leading edge of the heat shield tiles on the wing, and caused the loss of the shuttle and its entire crew during re-entry.
After being grounded for nearly two and one half years, I thought that NASA had fixed the “foam problem.”
Do you know what the origin of “the foam problem” is?
Back in 1997 NASA changed the foam that they used to insulate the external tank in compliance with EPA regulations resulting from the Montreal Treaty.
They immediately had a problem with the foam coming off during liftoff. Then NASA sought and received a variance to allow them to go back to the Freon based foam product, but the environmentalists, both external to NASA and internal to NASA’s management, choose to continue using the new “eco-friendly” foam.
What amazes me is that, after losing a zillion dollar spaceship, an entire crew of highly trained human beings, and spending 1.5 billion additional dollars over 2-1/2 years, NASA is still opting to use the crappy “eco-friendly” foam rather than reverting to the proven product that they had previouosly flown for almost 20 years.
Now the shuttle fleet is grounded AGAIN and we have another shuttle and crew of sons and daughters in orbit, and the f**king moronic ENVIRONMENTALISTS are obviously still running the show at NASA.
Let me ask you this…
When are we going to put the SCIENCE back in the ROCKET SCIENTIST and take the MENTAL out of the ENVIRONMENTALIST?
Well...I'm waiting for an answer here...
(Somebody said that you should call environmentalists “watermelons” because they are “green” on the outside and red “communists” on the inside. I Totally Agree...)
I think that most environmentalists are stupid dipsticks that couldn’t find their own butt with a flashlight and a road map.
Most environmentalists are so misinformed (or just plain stupid) that 99% of the stuff that they run around preaching about and worrying about either can’t be proven, can’t be controlled, or doesn’t really matter in the total scope of the happenings on our lovely planet Earth.
Of course, I also believe that they (the environmentalists) are entitled to their ideas and ideals, I just object when they try to force their beliefs on me through intimidation or worst of all...
LEGISLATION.
Take the 1987 Montreal Treaty, for instance.
Need I mention that the Montreal Treaty was sponsored by the United Nations?
Well...it was.
The Montreal Treaty essentially was concerned with limiting or ending the production and use of substances (chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), halons, carbon tetrachloride, and methyl chloroform) that was believed to cause harm to the ozone layer.
You remember ozone layer, don’t you?
Did you know that we didn’t know about Ozone until the mid 1800’s?
Did you know that we didn’t know that the ozone molecules liked to hang around together in a “layer” high up in the stratosphere until the early 1900’s?
Did you know that we didn’t know that things like solar radiation and lightning makes ozone until the mid 1900’s?
We also didn’t know that there was a “hole” in the ozone layer up over the artic circle until the mid 1980’s.
See all the things we DIDN’T KNOW until relatively recently in human history?
Well, thank GOD for all of those genius ENVIRONMENTALISTS and their supporting scientific community and liberal media, because, in spite of only knowing about the ozone layer for 75 years and, in spite of not knowing about a hole in said ozone layer for two years, in 1987 they all got together, sang a couple of rousing verses of Kum-Ba-Ya, and produced the Montreal Treaty to solve the perceived problem with the hole in the ozone layer.
If you are interested in how Montreal Treaty’s changes effect you, take a walk outside and look under the hood at your car’s air conditioner. If there is a sticker there that says “R-134A” instead of “R-12”—you can thank the Montreal Treaty for this little price increase and performance DECREASE that you live with every day.
All of the tree hugging morons clapped their hands and ran around celebrating these measures as yet another essential step in saving our planet. What they didn’t tell you is that if one large volcano like the Philippines’ Mt. Pinatubo decides to erupt again like it did in 1991 that it will dump more CFC’s into the air in one day than humans could if we all ran outside and released the entire contents of the hated R-12 (Freon) contained in every car air conditioner in the entire US.
So much for good planning—right?
That’s OK, say the environmentalists—it’s the thought that counts...
Now we learn that the Space Shuttle has once again had a close call with a piece of foam separating from the disposable hydrogen tank during liftoff.
You remember how pesky that darned old foam can be when it comes off during liftoff, don’t you?
In February of 2003 a little old piece of foam came off during liftoff of the Columbia, cut a hole in the leading edge of the heat shield tiles on the wing, and caused the loss of the shuttle and its entire crew during re-entry.
After being grounded for nearly two and one half years, I thought that NASA had fixed the “foam problem.”
Do you know what the origin of “the foam problem” is?
Back in 1997 NASA changed the foam that they used to insulate the external tank in compliance with EPA regulations resulting from the Montreal Treaty.
They immediately had a problem with the foam coming off during liftoff. Then NASA sought and received a variance to allow them to go back to the Freon based foam product, but the environmentalists, both external to NASA and internal to NASA’s management, choose to continue using the new “eco-friendly” foam.
What amazes me is that, after losing a zillion dollar spaceship, an entire crew of highly trained human beings, and spending 1.5 billion additional dollars over 2-1/2 years, NASA is still opting to use the crappy “eco-friendly” foam rather than reverting to the proven product that they had previouosly flown for almost 20 years.
Now the shuttle fleet is grounded AGAIN and we have another shuttle and crew of sons and daughters in orbit, and the f**king moronic ENVIRONMENTALISTS are obviously still running the show at NASA.
Let me ask you this…
When are we going to put the SCIENCE back in the ROCKET SCIENTIST and take the MENTAL out of the ENVIRONMENTALIST?
Well...I'm waiting for an answer here...
(Somebody said that you should call environmentalists “watermelons” because they are “green” on the outside and red “communists” on the inside. I Totally Agree...)
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Airline Ticket Bait & Switch
I’ve spent a good deal of time on airliners over the past 27 years since I started traveling via air.
My first airline trip was a real whopper—half way around the world to the Philippines from the Dothan, Alabama airport. The trip involved flying from Dothan to San Francisco International Airport, then traveling by bus to Travis Air Force Base where I jumped on a Lockheed C-141 MAC transport plane that flew us to Alaska, then on to Japan, then finally to Subic Bay Philippines. I was in the air nearly 30 hours by the time I arrived at my destination.
Counting time on the ground, in airport lobbies, and a brief stay in a BOQ in Japan, the trip took 2-1/2 days to accomplish. To add insult to injury, they lost my luggage after I had worn the same kaki uniform for all of that time.
Needless to say I survived the Philippines and the return trip.
Today I’m planning my first trip back to the Dothan, Alabama airport since 1978--flying over to visit my mother in mid August. I logged on to the Delta Sky Miles Website to attempt to redeem some frequent flier miles for the trip and learned two things that pissed me off.
The first was that they wanted 50,000 points to make the round trip from Brunswick to the little podunk Dothan airport. Last time I checked, you could fly round trip virtually anywhere in the continental US except possibly New Orleans at Mardi Gras or Key West for 25,000 points round trip. Since I only had about 26000 miles available, I thought that I would just transfer my miles to Pat’s frequent flyer account and at least pay for half of the trip while she used her points to purchase my return ticket.
But nooooooo, I couldn’t do that, because Delta now charges you $10 per 1000 miles transferred and a $25 transfer fee. Moving a measly 26000 miles would cost me $285—more than half the price of the round trip ticket if I paid cash.
I know that Delta is suffering financially and the large backlog of frequent flyer miles represent a large financial liability, but a DEAL is a DEAL. They promised these miles for the past 25 or so years to their passengers in order to build allegiance, but the miles are useless when they start doubling the mileage costs to get a ticket and charge you an arm and a leg to donate them to a friend or family member.
We fly Delta because they are the only airline serving Brunswick and we both have frequent flyer accounts with them, but Southwest and Air Tran operate out of Jacksonville, Florida just an hour away and we will be reviewing our options if Delta keeps up their heavy handed tactics.
With policies like this, is it any wonder that Delta’s looking at bankruptcy?
My first airline trip was a real whopper—half way around the world to the Philippines from the Dothan, Alabama airport. The trip involved flying from Dothan to San Francisco International Airport, then traveling by bus to Travis Air Force Base where I jumped on a Lockheed C-141 MAC transport plane that flew us to Alaska, then on to Japan, then finally to Subic Bay Philippines. I was in the air nearly 30 hours by the time I arrived at my destination.
Counting time on the ground, in airport lobbies, and a brief stay in a BOQ in Japan, the trip took 2-1/2 days to accomplish. To add insult to injury, they lost my luggage after I had worn the same kaki uniform for all of that time.
Needless to say I survived the Philippines and the return trip.
Today I’m planning my first trip back to the Dothan, Alabama airport since 1978--flying over to visit my mother in mid August. I logged on to the Delta Sky Miles Website to attempt to redeem some frequent flier miles for the trip and learned two things that pissed me off.
The first was that they wanted 50,000 points to make the round trip from Brunswick to the little podunk Dothan airport. Last time I checked, you could fly round trip virtually anywhere in the continental US except possibly New Orleans at Mardi Gras or Key West for 25,000 points round trip. Since I only had about 26000 miles available, I thought that I would just transfer my miles to Pat’s frequent flyer account and at least pay for half of the trip while she used her points to purchase my return ticket.
But nooooooo, I couldn’t do that, because Delta now charges you $10 per 1000 miles transferred and a $25 transfer fee. Moving a measly 26000 miles would cost me $285—more than half the price of the round trip ticket if I paid cash.
I know that Delta is suffering financially and the large backlog of frequent flyer miles represent a large financial liability, but a DEAL is a DEAL. They promised these miles for the past 25 or so years to their passengers in order to build allegiance, but the miles are useless when they start doubling the mileage costs to get a ticket and charge you an arm and a leg to donate them to a friend or family member.
We fly Delta because they are the only airline serving Brunswick and we both have frequent flyer accounts with them, but Southwest and Air Tran operate out of Jacksonville, Florida just an hour away and we will be reviewing our options if Delta keeps up their heavy handed tactics.
With policies like this, is it any wonder that Delta’s looking at bankruptcy?
Cheep Humor
A fleeing Taliban, desperate for water, was plodding through the Afghanistan desert when he saw something far off in the distance.
Hoping to find water, he walked toward the object, only to find a little old Jewish man sitting at a card table with neckties laid out on it.
The Arab asked, "My thirst is killing me. Do you have water?"
The Jewish man replied, "I have no water, but would you like to buy a tie? They are only $150. This one goes very nicely with your robes."
The Arab shouted, "Idiot! I do not need an overpriced tie. I need water!
"OK," said the old Jew, "It does not matter that you do not want to buy a tie. I will show you that you have not offended me. If you walk over that hill to the east for about two miles, you will find a lovely restaurant. Go! Walk that way! The restaurant has all the water you need!"
The Arab staggered away toward the hill and eventually disappeared.
Four hours later the Arab came crawling back to where the Jewish man was sitting at his table.
The Jew said, "I told you, about two miles over that hill. Could you not find it?"
"I found it all right," rasped the Arab...
"But YOUR BROTHER won't let me in without a tie."
(Hat Tip to my friend John Mixon)
Hoping to find water, he walked toward the object, only to find a little old Jewish man sitting at a card table with neckties laid out on it.
The Arab asked, "My thirst is killing me. Do you have water?"
The Jewish man replied, "I have no water, but would you like to buy a tie? They are only $150. This one goes very nicely with your robes."
The Arab shouted, "Idiot! I do not need an overpriced tie. I need water!
"OK," said the old Jew, "It does not matter that you do not want to buy a tie. I will show you that you have not offended me. If you walk over that hill to the east for about two miles, you will find a lovely restaurant. Go! Walk that way! The restaurant has all the water you need!"
The Arab staggered away toward the hill and eventually disappeared.
Four hours later the Arab came crawling back to where the Jewish man was sitting at his table.
The Jew said, "I told you, about two miles over that hill. Could you not find it?"
"I found it all right," rasped the Arab...
"But YOUR BROTHER won't let me in without a tie."
(Hat Tip to my friend John Mixon)
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
We're Back In Orbit
Our little group sat around for a while this morning watching NASA TV with one eye and the live FOX News broadcast with the other. I was disappointed to realize that the NASA TV web feed is delayed a couple of minutes--for what reason I don't understand.
After watching the first 30 seconds of flight, we all ran out the door and down to the pool deck where we were joined by a half dozen of our neighbors all looking south, hoping to see the Discovery climbing out toward orbit.
No such luck...we had a clear sky, but a light haze that prevented us from seeing five miles let alone one hundred and five miles.
Oh well...at least everyone is safe...so far...
After watching the first 30 seconds of flight, we all ran out the door and down to the pool deck where we were joined by a half dozen of our neighbors all looking south, hoping to see the Discovery climbing out toward orbit.
No such luck...we had a clear sky, but a light haze that prevented us from seeing five miles let alone one hundred and five miles.
Oh well...at least everyone is safe...so far...
NASA Trys Again
I'm sitting here watching the preparations for the launch of the space shuttle Discovery with seven astronauts on NASA TV at 10:39 AM this morning.
If you have DSL or a cable modem, go over and check out the site. It's pretty interesting to see the crew getting suited up and watch how hard it is to climb inside the shuttle to get into their seats lying on their backs.
On the last launch attempt, they had just barely got the seventh crew member inside and were strapping him in his seat when the sensor failed on the liquid hydrogen tank and they had to scrub the launch.
I wish them luck, and we'll be watching the launch on NASA TV, then we're running outside to our swimming pool deck area and looking south--hopefully seeing the shuttle climb out from Cape Kennedy located 100 or so miles south of St. Simons.
I hope the weather stays clear...
If you have DSL or a cable modem, go over and check out the site. It's pretty interesting to see the crew getting suited up and watch how hard it is to climb inside the shuttle to get into their seats lying on their backs.
On the last launch attempt, they had just barely got the seventh crew member inside and were strapping him in his seat when the sensor failed on the liquid hydrogen tank and they had to scrub the launch.
I wish them luck, and we'll be watching the launch on NASA TV, then we're running outside to our swimming pool deck area and looking south--hopefully seeing the shuttle climb out from Cape Kennedy located 100 or so miles south of St. Simons.
I hope the weather stays clear...
Monday, July 25, 2005
This Just In...
I stand corrected, I just heard on the ABC Radio news that the London Police fired EIGHT SHOTS, not five, into the idiot Brazilian's head the other day.
Hey, they still showed restraint--the clip probably holds ten rounds...
Hey, they still showed restraint--the clip probably holds ten rounds...
They Should Give Them The Maximum Sentence
(And sometimes it's the "Death Sentence")
There was a time not too long ago when being a moron or idiot in public could be excused and overlooked legally.
Not any more.
It’s always been against the law to yell “fire” in a crowded theater—that would get you put in jail and prosecuted if there was enough of you left to lock up when members of the general public got through stomping your body flat and tearing you a new asshole.
Remember that idiot University of Georgia fan that, while on his way to a football game in Athens, realized that he had left his camera on the plane, so he ran back into the secure area, the wrong way, going “down” an “up escalator” at Hartsfield International Airport…AFTER 9/11.
This infamous "Bulldog" fan managed to shut the ENTIRE airport down for the rest of the day until they found is stupid carcass. The judge sentenced him to pay a fine, serve community service, and he was forbidden from being allowed to attend a UGA game for the rest of the football season.
I think that he got off light, but he gave me an idea about how lame most of homeland security efforts really are—particularly as long as we are strip searching my grandmother and refusing to concentrate our efforts on Arab men in their 20’s and 30’s.
If I were a terrorist of the “chicken shit” scared variety and didn’t want to die and collect my virgins and whatever other eternal reward the Jhadists think they will receive, imagine the effectiveness of a couple dozen like minded idiots doing something as simple as bolting past the snoozing police officers commonly found guarding the arriving flight passenger corridors at airports like O’Hare, Logan, Miami, Hartsfield, Denver, and LA—ALL AT THE SAME TIME, later disappearing into the arriving crowds of people.
Can you imagine the chaos that would ensue?
The entire air transportation system of the US would come to a roaring stop for at least 24 hours.
Next, the police would erect barricades in the parking lots and you wouldn’t be allowed anywhere in the entire airport terminal building without a ticket in your hand. Perhaps they would start requiring a ticket with a barcode on it to get you off of the interstate exit ramp and into the ground transportation parking lots feeding the airport.
At least I couldn’t get in and my little old silver haired 92 year old grandmother couldn’t get in, but the NY Times and the ACLU would be standing around screaming that young ARAB men should be allowed to come out to the passenger terminal bars, bring their dates, and drink on Friday night because we can’t be guilty of PROFILING.
I have this to say about that: If you go out in public and fling a backpack at a ticket agent and yell “it’s a bomb” like this guy did, I think that the police should be authorized to pin your miserable head to the pavement and pump five 9 mm rounds into your medulla oblongata.
"Police arrested a man following a bomb scare that emptied Pennsylvania Station and disrupted service on Amtrak, commuter trains and city subways for about an hour, and officers also halted a tour bus and searched its passengers.
The busy commuter hub was evacuated after the man allegedly threw a backpack at an Amtrak agent and said it was a bomb, said Marissa Baldeo, a spokeswoman for New York City Transit. The threat was a false alarm, and service on all lines was soon restored.
Police arrested the man, Raul Claudio, 43, on Sunday, according to Manhattan District Attorney's office spokeswoman, Barbara Thompson. Claudio was awaiting arraignment on felony charges of making terrorists threats and falsely reporting an incident, Thompson said. Each count carries a sentence of up to seven years in prison."
If this happens a couple more times and the idiot is killed instantly by the police, I seriously suspect that it won’t happen ever again.
Know what I mean?
There was a time not too long ago when being a moron or idiot in public could be excused and overlooked legally.
Not any more.
It’s always been against the law to yell “fire” in a crowded theater—that would get you put in jail and prosecuted if there was enough of you left to lock up when members of the general public got through stomping your body flat and tearing you a new asshole.
Remember that idiot University of Georgia fan that, while on his way to a football game in Athens, realized that he had left his camera on the plane, so he ran back into the secure area, the wrong way, going “down” an “up escalator” at Hartsfield International Airport…AFTER 9/11.
This infamous "Bulldog" fan managed to shut the ENTIRE airport down for the rest of the day until they found is stupid carcass. The judge sentenced him to pay a fine, serve community service, and he was forbidden from being allowed to attend a UGA game for the rest of the football season.
I think that he got off light, but he gave me an idea about how lame most of homeland security efforts really are—particularly as long as we are strip searching my grandmother and refusing to concentrate our efforts on Arab men in their 20’s and 30’s.
If I were a terrorist of the “chicken shit” scared variety and didn’t want to die and collect my virgins and whatever other eternal reward the Jhadists think they will receive, imagine the effectiveness of a couple dozen like minded idiots doing something as simple as bolting past the snoozing police officers commonly found guarding the arriving flight passenger corridors at airports like O’Hare, Logan, Miami, Hartsfield, Denver, and LA—ALL AT THE SAME TIME, later disappearing into the arriving crowds of people.
Can you imagine the chaos that would ensue?
The entire air transportation system of the US would come to a roaring stop for at least 24 hours.
Next, the police would erect barricades in the parking lots and you wouldn’t be allowed anywhere in the entire airport terminal building without a ticket in your hand. Perhaps they would start requiring a ticket with a barcode on it to get you off of the interstate exit ramp and into the ground transportation parking lots feeding the airport.
At least I couldn’t get in and my little old silver haired 92 year old grandmother couldn’t get in, but the NY Times and the ACLU would be standing around screaming that young ARAB men should be allowed to come out to the passenger terminal bars, bring their dates, and drink on Friday night because we can’t be guilty of PROFILING.
I have this to say about that: If you go out in public and fling a backpack at a ticket agent and yell “it’s a bomb” like this guy did, I think that the police should be authorized to pin your miserable head to the pavement and pump five 9 mm rounds into your medulla oblongata.
"Police arrested a man following a bomb scare that emptied Pennsylvania Station and disrupted service on Amtrak, commuter trains and city subways for about an hour, and officers also halted a tour bus and searched its passengers.
The busy commuter hub was evacuated after the man allegedly threw a backpack at an Amtrak agent and said it was a bomb, said Marissa Baldeo, a spokeswoman for New York City Transit. The threat was a false alarm, and service on all lines was soon restored.
Police arrested the man, Raul Claudio, 43, on Sunday, according to Manhattan District Attorney's office spokeswoman, Barbara Thompson. Claudio was awaiting arraignment on felony charges of making terrorists threats and falsely reporting an incident, Thompson said. Each count carries a sentence of up to seven years in prison."
If this happens a couple more times and the idiot is killed instantly by the police, I seriously suspect that it won’t happen ever again.
Know what I mean?
What Is There To Not Understand—Part II
Back in March I wrote Are They Just Plain Stupid?; I Was Right, They Were Just Stupid; and What Is There To Not Understand about the bribery rescue of the little Italian socialist journalist Giuliana Sgrena and the resulting shooting death of Italian military intelligence officer Nicola Calipari by coalition troops at a roadside checkpoint in Iraq.
At that time the story had two tracks.
The first, promoted by the world’s leftist mainstream media and the Italians, was that the Troops were murderous heathens intent on killing Comrade Sgrena because of her previous anti-war and anti-US newspaper writings. They claimed that they KNEW that Sgrena was in that automobile.
The second, ultimately proven track, was that Sgrena’s rescuers entered a war zone, under cover, without notifying US authorities, successfully conducted their bribe induced rescue, and then proceeded to attempt to run through a military check point on the Baghdad Airport Highway, an area where the primary mode of operation preferred by Islamic terrorists was that of DRIVING CAR BOMBS INTO CHECKPOINTS in an effort to kill Americans.
Sgrena was wounded, and Calipari was killed.
What was not to understand about that scenario?
Some suggest that the troops should have waited to see her press credentials, risking death by jhadist explosion?
Screw that option…
Now we have this idiot Brazilian national running around London, while the city is in a state of panic, within hours of the most recent transit bombing attack, ignoring uniformed police officers' orders, jumping transit station turnstiles and rushing onto a subway car. And here is the kicker—the idiot was wearing a heavy coat in the SUMMER, when the world is suffering a so-called “Global Warming” induced heat wave.
The police tackled him and pumped five shots into his stupid head.
What was not to understand about that scenario?
Some suggest that the British police should have waited to see if he actually had a bomb under his winter coat that he was wearing in July, or that they should have shot him in the knee or arm—thereby leaving him alive and quite capable of pressing the button or pulling the trigger on his explosives. Even a body shot could have hit any explosives the idiot was wearing and set off an explosion as a result.
I have a suggestion—If the bombers don’t want themselves or other innocent (although utterly stupid) bystanders shot in the head in the future…
THE TERRORISTS SHOULD START MAKING “HAT BOMBS” RATHER THAN EXPLOSIVE VESTS AND BACKPACKS—then our troops, police and other security forces can shoot them in the ASS rather than blowing their brains out.
Then again, the terrorist could also go home, stop exploding things, shut the hell up, and let the rest of us get on with what could be wonderful lives.
And here is another little piece of advice. I'm just an ignorant, self-proclaimed Redneck from south Alabama, but I think that the next time I have the urge to run around Atlanta wearing a trenchcoat in the summer and acting suspiciously at Hartsfield airport or in the MARTA subway stations, I'm either going blow myself up with gas from eating spicy bean burritos, else expect the police to fire about 1000 shots at me. (Knowing the Atlanta police--they'll miss me and kill and wound a half dozen bystanders...)
Know what I mean?
At that time the story had two tracks.
The first, promoted by the world’s leftist mainstream media and the Italians, was that the Troops were murderous heathens intent on killing Comrade Sgrena because of her previous anti-war and anti-US newspaper writings. They claimed that they KNEW that Sgrena was in that automobile.
The second, ultimately proven track, was that Sgrena’s rescuers entered a war zone, under cover, without notifying US authorities, successfully conducted their bribe induced rescue, and then proceeded to attempt to run through a military check point on the Baghdad Airport Highway, an area where the primary mode of operation preferred by Islamic terrorists was that of DRIVING CAR BOMBS INTO CHECKPOINTS in an effort to kill Americans.
Sgrena was wounded, and Calipari was killed.
What was not to understand about that scenario?
Some suggest that the troops should have waited to see her press credentials, risking death by jhadist explosion?
Screw that option…
Now we have this idiot Brazilian national running around London, while the city is in a state of panic, within hours of the most recent transit bombing attack, ignoring uniformed police officers' orders, jumping transit station turnstiles and rushing onto a subway car. And here is the kicker—the idiot was wearing a heavy coat in the SUMMER, when the world is suffering a so-called “Global Warming” induced heat wave.
The police tackled him and pumped five shots into his stupid head.
What was not to understand about that scenario?
Some suggest that the British police should have waited to see if he actually had a bomb under his winter coat that he was wearing in July, or that they should have shot him in the knee or arm—thereby leaving him alive and quite capable of pressing the button or pulling the trigger on his explosives. Even a body shot could have hit any explosives the idiot was wearing and set off an explosion as a result.
I have a suggestion—If the bombers don’t want themselves or other innocent (although utterly stupid) bystanders shot in the head in the future…
THE TERRORISTS SHOULD START MAKING “HAT BOMBS” RATHER THAN EXPLOSIVE VESTS AND BACKPACKS—then our troops, police and other security forces can shoot them in the ASS rather than blowing their brains out.
Then again, the terrorist could also go home, stop exploding things, shut the hell up, and let the rest of us get on with what could be wonderful lives.
And here is another little piece of advice. I'm just an ignorant, self-proclaimed Redneck from south Alabama, but I think that the next time I have the urge to run around Atlanta wearing a trenchcoat in the summer and acting suspiciously at Hartsfield airport or in the MARTA subway stations, I'm either going blow myself up with gas from eating spicy bean burritos, else expect the police to fire about 1000 shots at me. (Knowing the Atlanta police--they'll miss me and kill and wound a half dozen bystanders...)
Know what I mean?
Station Wagons Versus “Country Cadillac’s”
Few need them, and these days, most can just barely afford them…
When I was a little kid back in the 1960’s, most families had to make do with only one car. My family was fortunate enough to afford to own two cars starting in about 1964. I guess that we might have been considered “privileged” by some as a result of my father affording to accomplish this feat.
I didn’t know it at the time, but prior to my birth in 1959 my mother had sold her four-door 1956 Chevy Belair and my dad sold his '56 Chevy 210 2 door hardtop (that later on raced at the Darlington NASCAR track, among others) and used the proceeds to purchase a brand-spanking new 1958 Chevy Nomad Station Wagon because I was on the way via the “stork express” and my parents thought that they needed a family car.
All I could say years later when I found out they dumped a sweet ’56 two door Chevy for a 4 door station wagon was “you did what?”
I’ve guess that I’ve since gotten over it…
My dad always said that he had to own at least one car that could haul people and could get a 4’x8’ sheet of plywood inside—the ’58 Chevy wagon could do both. It was later replaced with a 1968 Chevy Nomad wagon with a 307 cubic inch V-8 that served the family equally well. My dad was happy because it would also haul plywood.
We also operated a 1963 VW Beetle convertible for a few years and later a 1965 VW Beetle served as our second auto. (There was also a brief stint with a 1965 Corvair as a replacement for the 1958 station wagon, but that only lasted a few years before my dad was back into hauling plywood and the Corvair had to go.)
Back in those days, pickup trucks—also known as “Country Cadillacs”—were fairly common in south Alabama, but it was considered a faux pas to drive your pickup truck to church on Sunday or out to dinner on Saturday night—if you lived in town and/or didn’t farm for a living. Of course people did drive trucks to church and to dinner, but the parking lots in town were generally full of two door and four door cars; back then your choice of sport utility vehicles was generally limited to the Chevy Suburban and the Jeep Wagoner.
This brings me to the point of my story this morning…
I just saw an ad on TV for a Volvo XC90 Suv.
A VOLVO SUV?????
Bah Humbug…What the heck is Volvo doing building SUV’s—particularly at this late date in the SUV fad?
I thought Volvo was in the business of building boxy, ugly, under-powered station wagons with heated seats—you know?
Got to protect those delicate European and Yuppy butts...you know?
Shouldn’t Volvo be following Subaru in repackaging their station wagons for the new young families that are rediscovering that type of vehicle? On further inspection, I figgured out that that is exactly what Volvo is doing.
The XC90 is actually a glorified station wagon with big tires and increased ground clearance.
OK, I still think that station wagons ROCK if you want quality transportation and the ability to comfortably haul a little extra crap around town or to the lake or beach when the need arises.
And church and grocery store parking lots—these days they are literally FILLED with SUV’s. If you drive a car you have a hard time finding it hidden behind all of the SUV’s with nameplates like Buick, Cadillac, Mercedes, Acura, Lexus, and so on.
Meanwhile, with gas prices hovering around two and a quarter a gallon, all I hear is bitching and complaining about the cost of driving.
Let me ask you: “You can’t stand the heat?”
“Well get the heck out of the kitchen!”
Stop following the foolish crowd of sheep that have all jumped on the bandwagon since I bought my first SUV back in 1984. I bought my last SUV—a 1995, appliance white, ¾ ton Chevy Suburban with 4 wheel drive (AND posi-traction) and a 454 cubic inch engine, and even back then I had to fight all of the Yuppy mothers that wanted to put in three kids in car seats along with a dog and a couple of bags of grocerys.
I WANTED a Suburban, but I also NEEDED a Suburban for my construction business.
When I bought one, it was what I call a REAL SUV, none of this whimpy stuff thats out there.
Today my Suburban has 185,000 miles on it and it has happily hauled a bunch of plywood (my dad would be happy,) some steel, and a lot of other random freight along with my white Redneck ass all over the east coast of the US.
I must admit that it hurts a little today to pay $95 for 42 gallons of gasoline to fill that sucker’s gas tank up, but it's long since been paid for.
Let me tell you something else you need to know…most of these things they try to sell to you as “Sport Utility Vehicles” couldn’t drive themselves out of our front yard after an inch of rain has fallen—without getting stuck up to the axles and costing you a call to AAA or spending $100 on a wrecker to tow your silly ass out of your mess.
In my opinion, a truck full of leather seats, fancy carpet, with running boards and all kinds of chrome plating and “Eddie Bauer” emblems all round the outside is just a modern, perverted, demented, version of a “FAKE COUNTRY CADILLAC.”
I wouldn’t be caught dead driving one to church.
When I was a little kid back in the 1960’s, most families had to make do with only one car. My family was fortunate enough to afford to own two cars starting in about 1964. I guess that we might have been considered “privileged” by some as a result of my father affording to accomplish this feat.
I didn’t know it at the time, but prior to my birth in 1959 my mother had sold her four-door 1956 Chevy Belair and my dad sold his '56 Chevy 210 2 door hardtop (that later on raced at the Darlington NASCAR track, among others) and used the proceeds to purchase a brand-spanking new 1958 Chevy Nomad Station Wagon because I was on the way via the “stork express” and my parents thought that they needed a family car.
All I could say years later when I found out they dumped a sweet ’56 two door Chevy for a 4 door station wagon was “you did what?”
I’ve guess that I’ve since gotten over it…
My dad always said that he had to own at least one car that could haul people and could get a 4’x8’ sheet of plywood inside—the ’58 Chevy wagon could do both. It was later replaced with a 1968 Chevy Nomad wagon with a 307 cubic inch V-8 that served the family equally well. My dad was happy because it would also haul plywood.
We also operated a 1963 VW Beetle convertible for a few years and later a 1965 VW Beetle served as our second auto. (There was also a brief stint with a 1965 Corvair as a replacement for the 1958 station wagon, but that only lasted a few years before my dad was back into hauling plywood and the Corvair had to go.)
Back in those days, pickup trucks—also known as “Country Cadillacs”—were fairly common in south Alabama, but it was considered a faux pas to drive your pickup truck to church on Sunday or out to dinner on Saturday night—if you lived in town and/or didn’t farm for a living. Of course people did drive trucks to church and to dinner, but the parking lots in town were generally full of two door and four door cars; back then your choice of sport utility vehicles was generally limited to the Chevy Suburban and the Jeep Wagoner.
This brings me to the point of my story this morning…
I just saw an ad on TV for a Volvo XC90 Suv.
A VOLVO SUV?????
Bah Humbug…What the heck is Volvo doing building SUV’s—particularly at this late date in the SUV fad?
I thought Volvo was in the business of building boxy, ugly, under-powered station wagons with heated seats—you know?
Got to protect those delicate European and Yuppy butts...you know?
Shouldn’t Volvo be following Subaru in repackaging their station wagons for the new young families that are rediscovering that type of vehicle? On further inspection, I figgured out that that is exactly what Volvo is doing.
The XC90 is actually a glorified station wagon with big tires and increased ground clearance.
OK, I still think that station wagons ROCK if you want quality transportation and the ability to comfortably haul a little extra crap around town or to the lake or beach when the need arises.
And church and grocery store parking lots—these days they are literally FILLED with SUV’s. If you drive a car you have a hard time finding it hidden behind all of the SUV’s with nameplates like Buick, Cadillac, Mercedes, Acura, Lexus, and so on.
Meanwhile, with gas prices hovering around two and a quarter a gallon, all I hear is bitching and complaining about the cost of driving.
Let me ask you: “You can’t stand the heat?”
“Well get the heck out of the kitchen!”
Stop following the foolish crowd of sheep that have all jumped on the bandwagon since I bought my first SUV back in 1984. I bought my last SUV—a 1995, appliance white, ¾ ton Chevy Suburban with 4 wheel drive (AND posi-traction) and a 454 cubic inch engine, and even back then I had to fight all of the Yuppy mothers that wanted to put in three kids in car seats along with a dog and a couple of bags of grocerys.
I WANTED a Suburban, but I also NEEDED a Suburban for my construction business.
When I bought one, it was what I call a REAL SUV, none of this whimpy stuff thats out there.
Today my Suburban has 185,000 miles on it and it has happily hauled a bunch of plywood (my dad would be happy,) some steel, and a lot of other random freight along with my white Redneck ass all over the east coast of the US.
I must admit that it hurts a little today to pay $95 for 42 gallons of gasoline to fill that sucker’s gas tank up, but it's long since been paid for.
Let me tell you something else you need to know…most of these things they try to sell to you as “Sport Utility Vehicles” couldn’t drive themselves out of our front yard after an inch of rain has fallen—without getting stuck up to the axles and costing you a call to AAA or spending $100 on a wrecker to tow your silly ass out of your mess.
In my opinion, a truck full of leather seats, fancy carpet, with running boards and all kinds of chrome plating and “Eddie Bauer” emblems all round the outside is just a modern, perverted, demented, version of a “FAKE COUNTRY CADILLAC.”
I wouldn’t be caught dead driving one to church.
Sunday, July 24, 2005
UH OH!
It seems that the Albany, NY fire department got a little overly enthusiastic while doing an exercise designed to let them practice rescue techniques.
Albany firefighters were tearing apart a minivan as part of a training exercise when someone noticed the personal items inside. That's when they realized they had trashed the wrong vehicle.
This week, Albany officials approved the city's share of the $12,000 bill for the 2002 Dodge Caravan that was mistakenly ripped open during a drill at a junk yard a year ago.
Officials say the firefighters routinely practice accident scene rescue techniques by tearing open donated junked cars. In June 2004, they were supposed to practice on an older vehicle located on another part of junk yard.
Instead, they used the Jaws of Life to tear open a three-year-old minivan that was at the business to undergo repairs.
The owner of the junk yard admitted its role in the mistake and is splitting the cost of the van with the fire department.
Can you imagine the tone of the phone call the shop manager had to make to the van's owner?
"Mr. Johnson...yea...uuhhh...this is Bob over at Bob's Body and Collision...how are you sir?"
"Good...glad to hear it sir."
"Ahhh...listen...I was just wondering how you'd feel about owning a convertable???"
"No?"
"Well sir, I'm afraid that we have a little problem here..."
