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?
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
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..."
Saturday, July 23, 2005
I Need An Exorcist
Anybody know a good one?
I'm having trouble with my Blogger account...I hope this post will work as a note of explaination.
I'm still here, just temporarily paralized with technical difficulties.
My other blog, The Redneck Gourmet, is spazzing out and only partially comes up with the profile and links and hit counter missing. WTF?
I'll keep working on things and hopefully get something decent written and posted.
Wish me luck
I'm having trouble with my Blogger account...I hope this post will work as a note of explaination.
I'm still here, just temporarily paralized with technical difficulties.
My other blog, The Redneck Gourmet, is spazzing out and only partially comes up with the profile and links and hit counter missing. WTF?
I'll keep working on things and hopefully get something decent written and posted.
Wish me luck
Thursday, July 21, 2005
Chemistry Class
I was a smart little bastard when I was growing up.
By using the term “bastard” I don’t mean that I was illegitimate--I had a father that was happily married to and lived at home with my mother for 38 years--I mean I acted like a little bastard some of the time.
Our family had a strict code of conduct and a rigorous policy of corporal punishment—after surviving a summer break there were generally no useable switches within 50 yards of my house by the time I began the new school term each fall, and I EARNED it.
So as I said, I was a little bastard…and I knew things.
Things that would get kids kicked out of school today—possibly without “Zero Tolerance” rules.
Things that could possibly get adults put into jail today.
Take explosives, for example.
When I was about ten or eleven I got my first chemistry set. Some of you out there might not remember chemistry sets because our popular culture today has decided that kids are too stupid (or are little bastards like me) to have chemistry sets.
Not me…
My chemistry set came in a metal box. It had a set of scales that the drug dealers would envy. It had a real alcohol burning Bunsen burner. It had test tubes and beakers and ….finally…it had…get ready…REAL CHEMICALS.
Not only that, but some of the local stores had displays similar to grocery store spice racks selling a virtual cornucopia of chemicals, just in case you ran out of the chemicals that came in your chemistry set, or just in case a little bastard like me found out some new mischief to be had by combining some different assortment of chemicals that weren’t included in the original inventory of your chemistry set.
Using my chemistry set, I learned how to make things…things like gunpowder.
Actually black powder, not smokeless powder like that used in today’s modern ammunition. It was fun, and I don’t think that it was against the law back then.
A little Sulfur, a little Potassium Nitrate, and a little charcoal (carbon), and you had yourself a whole afternoon of fun with the fire ant hills in the back yard and in the woods.
The other thing I learned how to do was take innocent little fireworks, you know—things like lady fingers and “Black Cats”, and twist them open and dump the gunpowder out of them and get myself a real big batch of powder. You could also take “sparklers” and break the magnesium powder coating off of them with a HAMMER (I was so stupid) and make yourself another pile of fun powder.
Then you packaged it all up in a tennis ball cut in half or a spay paint can lid taped closed with masking tape, took that sucker out in the woods to a convenient ant hill, and fired that sucker off.
Fire ants flew dozens of yards.
I didn’t think that fire ants could fly, but those son-of-a-guns sure did. The important thing is that I didn’t use my knowledge against other peoples’ property, other people, and I wasn’t stupid enough to do (most of) it at school.
I think that you will find that our modern society’s homes and businesses are full of substances that, when misused, can produce disastrous results. Mix a little household ammonia and some Clorox bleach together and see how long you keep breathing in your bathroom while cleaning the old toilet bowl. (Please don’t try that.)
Georgia just passed a law forcing pharmacies to place common antihistamines like Pseudofed and Actifed behind the counter because the “speed freaks” and drug dealers are using the substances to make Crystal Meth, a powerful and addictive stimulant.
Regarding explosives, the Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVey, taught the general public that diesel fuel and common fertilizer, combined in the right proportions and quantities, could knock down an entire building.
Didn’t they kill his miserable ass recently?
I think so, but I won’t waste my time Googling his name tonight.
After the 9/11 attack in NY City, my fellow amateur model rocketers have been prohibited by the Homeland Security Act from purchasing and possessing substantial quantities of Ammonium Perchlorate and launching rockets with solid rocket motors containing over 62.5 grams of propellant.
Why?
Because they (Washington) are afraid that someone, operating under the guise of a “model rocketeer” will build their own “anti-aircraft” rocket and shoot down a 747. I say that’s a bunch of horse hockey…that it would be one of the luckiest shots in the world, and with all of the RPG’s and other shoulder mounted weapons available on the black market, it is ridiculous to have a bunch of nerds with their toy rockets limited by Washington’s ATF black suits.
Yet that is reality today.
Now the latest wild eyed, towel headed, Islamo Fascist bombers actions in London are going to end up making the purchase of drain cleaner (sulfuric acid), paint thinner (acetone), and hydrogen peroxide (sore toe cleanser) illegal, or at least cause you to risk receiving a visit from the ATF agents. (I’ll save you the Google search and give you the link to the recipe here) I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, passing new laws outlawing minute details (like gun control and hate crimes) when the core behavior is already against the law is futile. You don’t want smart guys like my friend Tripp and I losing our minds, deciding to break the law, and coming after you with the intent to kill or otherwise harm you, regardless of what the weapon is.
Shoe laces, light bulbs, pork chops, the list is endless of the ways I could hurt you--the shelves at Wal mart would be empty if we don't all get a grip. If we keep going with the legislation, the game of baseball will ultimately be illegal--because it could be illegal to own a baseball bat without a federal license one day…
Know what I mean?
By using the term “bastard” I don’t mean that I was illegitimate--I had a father that was happily married to and lived at home with my mother for 38 years--I mean I acted like a little bastard some of the time.
Our family had a strict code of conduct and a rigorous policy of corporal punishment—after surviving a summer break there were generally no useable switches within 50 yards of my house by the time I began the new school term each fall, and I EARNED it.
So as I said, I was a little bastard…and I knew things.
Things that would get kids kicked out of school today—possibly without “Zero Tolerance” rules.
Things that could possibly get adults put into jail today.
Take explosives, for example.
When I was about ten or eleven I got my first chemistry set. Some of you out there might not remember chemistry sets because our popular culture today has decided that kids are too stupid (or are little bastards like me) to have chemistry sets.
Not me…
My chemistry set came in a metal box. It had a set of scales that the drug dealers would envy. It had a real alcohol burning Bunsen burner. It had test tubes and beakers and ….finally…it had…get ready…REAL CHEMICALS.
Not only that, but some of the local stores had displays similar to grocery store spice racks selling a virtual cornucopia of chemicals, just in case you ran out of the chemicals that came in your chemistry set, or just in case a little bastard like me found out some new mischief to be had by combining some different assortment of chemicals that weren’t included in the original inventory of your chemistry set.
Using my chemistry set, I learned how to make things…things like gunpowder.
Actually black powder, not smokeless powder like that used in today’s modern ammunition. It was fun, and I don’t think that it was against the law back then.
A little Sulfur, a little Potassium Nitrate, and a little charcoal (carbon), and you had yourself a whole afternoon of fun with the fire ant hills in the back yard and in the woods.
The other thing I learned how to do was take innocent little fireworks, you know—things like lady fingers and “Black Cats”, and twist them open and dump the gunpowder out of them and get myself a real big batch of powder. You could also take “sparklers” and break the magnesium powder coating off of them with a HAMMER (I was so stupid) and make yourself another pile of fun powder.
Then you packaged it all up in a tennis ball cut in half or a spay paint can lid taped closed with masking tape, took that sucker out in the woods to a convenient ant hill, and fired that sucker off.
Fire ants flew dozens of yards.
I didn’t think that fire ants could fly, but those son-of-a-guns sure did. The important thing is that I didn’t use my knowledge against other peoples’ property, other people, and I wasn’t stupid enough to do (most of) it at school.
I think that you will find that our modern society’s homes and businesses are full of substances that, when misused, can produce disastrous results. Mix a little household ammonia and some Clorox bleach together and see how long you keep breathing in your bathroom while cleaning the old toilet bowl. (Please don’t try that.)
Georgia just passed a law forcing pharmacies to place common antihistamines like Pseudofed and Actifed behind the counter because the “speed freaks” and drug dealers are using the substances to make Crystal Meth, a powerful and addictive stimulant.
Regarding explosives, the Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVey, taught the general public that diesel fuel and common fertilizer, combined in the right proportions and quantities, could knock down an entire building.
Didn’t they kill his miserable ass recently?
I think so, but I won’t waste my time Googling his name tonight.
After the 9/11 attack in NY City, my fellow amateur model rocketers have been prohibited by the Homeland Security Act from purchasing and possessing substantial quantities of Ammonium Perchlorate and launching rockets with solid rocket motors containing over 62.5 grams of propellant.
Why?
Because they (Washington) are afraid that someone, operating under the guise of a “model rocketeer” will build their own “anti-aircraft” rocket and shoot down a 747. I say that’s a bunch of horse hockey…that it would be one of the luckiest shots in the world, and with all of the RPG’s and other shoulder mounted weapons available on the black market, it is ridiculous to have a bunch of nerds with their toy rockets limited by Washington’s ATF black suits.
Yet that is reality today.
Now the latest wild eyed, towel headed, Islamo Fascist bombers actions in London are going to end up making the purchase of drain cleaner (sulfuric acid), paint thinner (acetone), and hydrogen peroxide (sore toe cleanser) illegal, or at least cause you to risk receiving a visit from the ATF agents. (I’ll save you the Google search and give you the link to the recipe here) I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, passing new laws outlawing minute details (like gun control and hate crimes) when the core behavior is already against the law is futile. You don’t want smart guys like my friend Tripp and I losing our minds, deciding to break the law, and coming after you with the intent to kill or otherwise harm you, regardless of what the weapon is.
Shoe laces, light bulbs, pork chops, the list is endless of the ways I could hurt you--the shelves at Wal mart would be empty if we don't all get a grip. If we keep going with the legislation, the game of baseball will ultimately be illegal--because it could be illegal to own a baseball bat without a federal license one day…
Know what I mean?
The Lovely Peaceful Religion Is At It Again
Something happened in London’s Subway system again this morning.
I wonder who’s responsible this time?
Shall we guess?
I wonder who’s responsible this time?
Shall we guess?
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
The Star Trek Family Loses Another Member (Updated)
"He could fix anything..."
James Doohan, the loveable, thick accented Chief Engineer Mr. Scott in the 1960’s version of the TV show Star Trek died today at the age of 85.
I watched the show every week when it was on in the mid 1960’s and pause to watch the shows in reruns even today.
Lines like “I can’t get more power captain…” are instantly recognized, even by people born 20 years after the shows first aired
It saddens me to know that no longer can we all say “Beam me up Scotty…”
She'll Break...Captain...
Aye..Captain
James Doohan, the loveable, thick accented Chief Engineer Mr. Scott in the 1960’s version of the TV show Star Trek died today at the age of 85.
I watched the show every week when it was on in the mid 1960’s and pause to watch the shows in reruns even today.
Lines like “I can’t get more power captain…” are instantly recognized, even by people born 20 years after the shows first aired
It saddens me to know that no longer can we all say “Beam me up Scotty…”
She'll Break...Captain...
Aye..Captain
36 Years Ago
July 20, 1969
It almost seems like yesterday.
On this day in 1969 the world was glued to the television watching fuzzy black and white pictures as Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin E. Aldrin landed the LEM on the moon while Michael Collins flew orbits around it in the Apollo command/service module.
It’s sad that today we barely have the ability to launch men into orbit and NASA has no way to replace the ageing shuttles in the near future and no plans to produce a rocket with the ability to leave earth orbit with men on board—possibly ever.
Even sadder is that the official NASA Website doesn’t even mention the event's anniversary.
So much for the heady predictions of Arthur C. Clark’s 2001 A Space Odyssey.
I’m almost embarrassed…
It almost seems like yesterday.
On this day in 1969 the world was glued to the television watching fuzzy black and white pictures as Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin E. Aldrin landed the LEM on the moon while Michael Collins flew orbits around it in the Apollo command/service module.
It’s sad that today we barely have the ability to launch men into orbit and NASA has no way to replace the ageing shuttles in the near future and no plans to produce a rocket with the ability to leave earth orbit with men on board—possibly ever.
Even sadder is that the official NASA Website doesn’t even mention the event's anniversary.
So much for the heady predictions of Arthur C. Clark’s 2001 A Space Odyssey.
I’m almost embarrassed…
Give Me And My Eyes A Break
Pluuueseee…
If I haven’t said it often enough before or you are a new reader to my blog, I have to tell you that in the course of a day I read and hear A LOT of news.
I guess I’m what some people call a NEWS JUNKY.
My girl Pat comes into the room in mid-morning most weekdays and finds me looking at FOX news on TV, reading the Internet on my computer, writing my cooking and political blogs, working on my book(s), and listening to talk radio—all at the same time.
She just shakes her head and leaves the room to go watch “ER” and “Judging Amy” on TV in between bouts of answering her business E-mails and handling HIPAA issues.
Sometimes I have a hard time keeping my blog writing from becoming too serious and technical although I do like working up a nice batch of in-depth research and writing a nice dissertation every now and then just to prove that my mind is still functioning.
I can’t say that is true tonight, however.
I was looking around and found this little ditty titled ”Community Proposes Banning Sex Offenders from Beaches.” DAYTONA BEACH SHORES, Fla. -- A community in Central Florida is proposing a law that would ban sex offenders from the beach, according to Local 6 News.
Daytona Beach Shores Mayor Greg Northrup's proposed ordinance would ban sex offenders from buying or renting property within 2,500 feet of the coastline. It would essentially ban sex offenders from living any where on the beach side of the community.
Northrup said the move is necessary following a series of sexual assaults and murders in Central Florida.
Northrup said pedophiles are coming to the beach for sex, Local 6 News reporter Tarik Minor said.
On a serious note, I don’t believe that Jessica Lundsford or any other kid attacked in central Florida in the past months, if not years, was taken in a bathing suit from a beach location, by someone that lived on or near the beach.
Is it just me, or does this seem to be just another case of political hyperbole?
On a humorous note, I would hope that Florida would focus their well intended efforts on banning the sales of bikini and thong bathing suits to women weighing over 300 pounds and eliminating the sales of Speedo’s and tank tops to grossly overweight guys that refuse to wax their backs (if I keep cooking, I might be considered to be in this category soon.)
Talk about offending on a SEXUAL basis…after seeing some of the sights I’ve seen wandering around down here on the beach and at our pool, I might be permanently injured and never be able to have sex again.
My eyeballs are seared with horrible images…..AAAAHHHHHHHH
If I haven’t said it often enough before or you are a new reader to my blog, I have to tell you that in the course of a day I read and hear A LOT of news.
I guess I’m what some people call a NEWS JUNKY.
My girl Pat comes into the room in mid-morning most weekdays and finds me looking at FOX news on TV, reading the Internet on my computer, writing my cooking and political blogs, working on my book(s), and listening to talk radio—all at the same time.
She just shakes her head and leaves the room to go watch “ER” and “Judging Amy” on TV in between bouts of answering her business E-mails and handling HIPAA issues.
Sometimes I have a hard time keeping my blog writing from becoming too serious and technical although I do like working up a nice batch of in-depth research and writing a nice dissertation every now and then just to prove that my mind is still functioning.
I can’t say that is true tonight, however.
I was looking around and found this little ditty titled ”Community Proposes Banning Sex Offenders from Beaches.” DAYTONA BEACH SHORES, Fla. -- A community in Central Florida is proposing a law that would ban sex offenders from the beach, according to Local 6 News.
Daytona Beach Shores Mayor Greg Northrup's proposed ordinance would ban sex offenders from buying or renting property within 2,500 feet of the coastline. It would essentially ban sex offenders from living any where on the beach side of the community.
Northrup said the move is necessary following a series of sexual assaults and murders in Central Florida.
Northrup said pedophiles are coming to the beach for sex, Local 6 News reporter Tarik Minor said.
On a serious note, I don’t believe that Jessica Lundsford or any other kid attacked in central Florida in the past months, if not years, was taken in a bathing suit from a beach location, by someone that lived on or near the beach.
Is it just me, or does this seem to be just another case of political hyperbole?
On a humorous note, I would hope that Florida would focus their well intended efforts on banning the sales of bikini and thong bathing suits to women weighing over 300 pounds and eliminating the sales of Speedo’s and tank tops to grossly overweight guys that refuse to wax their backs (if I keep cooking, I might be considered to be in this category soon.)
Talk about offending on a SEXUAL basis…after seeing some of the sights I’ve seen wandering around down here on the beach and at our pool, I might be permanently injured and never be able to have sex again.
My eyeballs are seared with horrible images…..AAAAHHHHHHHH
" Poof " The Magic Dragon...
...just watch the Karl Rove story disappear...
Let the Supreme Court Stupidity Debating Championships begin....
And the Rove/Plame/Wilson non-story????
It will quickly pass into the anus...er...I mean annals of Democratic Hysteria and biased Mainstream Media Stupidity.
"pay no attention to the man behind the curtain..."
Let the Supreme Court Stupidity Debating Championships begin....
And the Rove/Plame/Wilson non-story????
It will quickly pass into the anus...er...I mean annals of Democratic Hysteria and biased Mainstream Media Stupidity.
"pay no attention to the man behind the curtain..."
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
It's John G. Roberts, Jr..
President Bush kept his cool and walked out to the news conference tonight with John G. Roberts, Jr.
They each spoke briefly in making the announcement, then turned and walked away without taking any questions from the audience and reporters.
That is about as close as the President could come to flinging a finger at the press and Senator Chuck Shumer who immediately started criticizing the appointment.
I'm still extremely pissed off that the nomination was leaked, and if Congress wants to do an investigation on leaks, forget Karl Rove, I want to know who the hell leaked this item this evening.
They each spoke briefly in making the announcement, then turned and walked away without taking any questions from the audience and reporters.
That is about as close as the President could come to flinging a finger at the press and Senator Chuck Shumer who immediately started criticizing the appointment.
I'm still extremely pissed off that the nomination was leaked, and if Congress wants to do an investigation on leaks, forget Karl Rove, I want to know who the hell leaked this item this evening.
They Interrupted Jeopardy
I'm sitting here minding my own business, and NBC news had to interrupt the "Double Jeopardy" round at about 7:45 PM to breathlessly announce that someone had "leaked" President Bush's appointment for the US Supreme Court. I don't even remember the guy's name and I'm not going to google it to tell you.
The sad thing is, President Bush was going to tell us himself tonight at 9:00 PM.
After spending all day telling us that it was going to be a woman, now the media has to break the story and doesn't have the patience and virtue to wait ONE HOUR AND FIFTEEN MINUTES.
I hope that they were wrong, and I would love it if Bush would lift his middle finger and tell all of the White House media to get the hell out. Also, if I were the President, I would find the idiot that leaked the news and shove his head up Ted Kennedys ass.
That will teach them...
The sad thing is, President Bush was going to tell us himself tonight at 9:00 PM.
After spending all day telling us that it was going to be a woman, now the media has to break the story and doesn't have the patience and virtue to wait ONE HOUR AND FIFTEEN MINUTES.
I hope that they were wrong, and I would love it if Bush would lift his middle finger and tell all of the White House media to get the hell out. Also, if I were the President, I would find the idiot that leaked the news and shove his head up Ted Kennedys ass.
That will teach them...
"Mr. Truthful" Speaks Out on Karl Rove
"Christmas in Cambodia...that memory is seared in my mind"
There is an old saying about being smart in "keeping your enemies close by your side." To this end, a month or so ago I signed up to get E-mails from Senator John Kerry's website.
I've been laughing my rear end off every since at the predictable nature of the stuff Kerry (or his staff) chooses to send out to millions of Americans, using his own discredited name.
I've thus far not included any of Kerry's rambling in my blog, but I thought that you just had to read today's missive:
"Dear Friend,
How many more times will Karl Rove make President Bush eat his words and shred his credibility before Karl Rove does the honorable thing and leaves the White House?
Yesterday the President furiously backpedaled from his promise to fire anyone involved in leaking the identity of a covert CIA agent to the press. Now that it's known that Rove and Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff Lewis Libby were involved, the President has lowered the bar and now says he'll only fire someone who is convicted of a crime.
President Bush is setting a terrible standard of leadership in the White House by protecting insubordinate aides who refused to come forward when the President demanded to know who in his administration leaked Valerie Plame's identity -- and he's sending a disturbing message about our national security.
The President should not wait to find out whether Rove is convicted in the end for his leak. Either Rove lied to the President about this matter of national security, which means he should be fired immediately, or the President is not being straight with the American people about his own involvement in this case.
With all the dissembling coming out of the White House, it's clear that the only way the American people can get to the bottom of this is through full Congressional hearings. I will call for hearings this week -- and you can strengthen this call by adding your name to our petition today:
http://www.johnkerry.com/firerove
With both the House and Senate in Republican hands it will be difficult to force Congressional hearings on the Bush White House. Having as many statements as possible from people in every state will help my colleagues and me show that this is what America wants. According to a poll released yesterday by ABC News, 75% of Americans believe that Karl Rove should be fired if he leaked classified information.
More than 300,000 people have signed on so far -- help us double our numbers by forwarding this email to your friends asking them to sign:
http://www.johnkerry.com/firerove
Thank you,
John Kerry"
John Kerry continues to prove to me, each and every day, with every single utterance from his twisted, pompous, eliteist mouth, that he is a complete and total partisan idiot and worse, that he can't even get his own party to back him in his insanities.
Thank God we didn't elect this man.
There is an old saying about being smart in "keeping your enemies close by your side." To this end, a month or so ago I signed up to get E-mails from Senator John Kerry's website.
I've been laughing my rear end off every since at the predictable nature of the stuff Kerry (or his staff) chooses to send out to millions of Americans, using his own discredited name.
I've thus far not included any of Kerry's rambling in my blog, but I thought that you just had to read today's missive:
"Dear Friend,
How many more times will Karl Rove make President Bush eat his words and shred his credibility before Karl Rove does the honorable thing and leaves the White House?
Yesterday the President furiously backpedaled from his promise to fire anyone involved in leaking the identity of a covert CIA agent to the press. Now that it's known that Rove and Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff Lewis Libby were involved, the President has lowered the bar and now says he'll only fire someone who is convicted of a crime.
President Bush is setting a terrible standard of leadership in the White House by protecting insubordinate aides who refused to come forward when the President demanded to know who in his administration leaked Valerie Plame's identity -- and he's sending a disturbing message about our national security.
The President should not wait to find out whether Rove is convicted in the end for his leak. Either Rove lied to the President about this matter of national security, which means he should be fired immediately, or the President is not being straight with the American people about his own involvement in this case.
With all the dissembling coming out of the White House, it's clear that the only way the American people can get to the bottom of this is through full Congressional hearings. I will call for hearings this week -- and you can strengthen this call by adding your name to our petition today:
http://www.johnkerry.com/firerove
With both the House and Senate in Republican hands it will be difficult to force Congressional hearings on the Bush White House. Having as many statements as possible from people in every state will help my colleagues and me show that this is what America wants. According to a poll released yesterday by ABC News, 75% of Americans believe that Karl Rove should be fired if he leaked classified information.
More than 300,000 people have signed on so far -- help us double our numbers by forwarding this email to your friends asking them to sign:
http://www.johnkerry.com/firerove
Thank you,
John Kerry"
John Kerry continues to prove to me, each and every day, with every single utterance from his twisted, pompous, eliteist mouth, that he is a complete and total partisan idiot and worse, that he can't even get his own party to back him in his insanities.
Thank God we didn't elect this man.
Emily Lyons
Infamous "Olympics Bomber" Eric Robert Rudolph was sentenced to life in prison yesterday.
I lived in Atlanta back in 1996 when he blew up the Olympics and a Gay Bar, before going to Birmingham, Alabama and changing Emily Lyons life forever.
I'm not pro-abortion, but I'm also not pro-bombing. We're a nation of laws, and changing Roe versus Wade should be done through state elections and the federal judiciary, not with bombs full of nails and by shooting abortion doctors.
I think that Mr. Rudolph got off light.
I lived in Atlanta back in 1996 when he blew up the Olympics and a Gay Bar, before going to Birmingham, Alabama and changing Emily Lyons life forever.
I'm not pro-abortion, but I'm also not pro-bombing. We're a nation of laws, and changing Roe versus Wade should be done through state elections and the federal judiciary, not with bombs full of nails and by shooting abortion doctors.
I think that Mr. Rudolph got off light.
Here’s What We’re Up Against
I just got my morning E-mail from The Washington Times and my jaw hit the floor when I read this story:
BOMBAY -- Hard-line Islamic clerics in a northern Indian village have declared that a woman's 10-year-old marriage was nullified when her father-in-law raped her -- and ordered the mother of five to marry the rapist.
The fatwa, or religious edict, was issued by Darool Uloom Deoband, South Asia's most powerful Islamic theological school known for promoting a radical brand of Islam that is said to have inspired the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The decision has outraged both Muslim and Hindu leaders and prompted a fierce debate that has dominated the front pages of national newspapers across India.
The fatwa ordered Imrana Ilahi, 28, to separate from her husband and treat him as her son because she had sex with his father.
"She had a physical relationship with her father-in-law, and it nullifies her marriage," said Mohammad Masood Madani, a cleric at the theological school. He said it made no difference whether the sex was consensual or forced. The village council then decreed that Mrs. Ilahi would have to marry her father-in-law.
I seriously wonder if the US can ever reach a peaceful military relationship with such a prehistoric bunch of drooling mouth breathers like “Darool Uloom Deoband” and his merry band of fellow towel head "leaders".
BOMBAY -- Hard-line Islamic clerics in a northern Indian village have declared that a woman's 10-year-old marriage was nullified when her father-in-law raped her -- and ordered the mother of five to marry the rapist.
The fatwa, or religious edict, was issued by Darool Uloom Deoband, South Asia's most powerful Islamic theological school known for promoting a radical brand of Islam that is said to have inspired the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The decision has outraged both Muslim and Hindu leaders and prompted a fierce debate that has dominated the front pages of national newspapers across India.
The fatwa ordered Imrana Ilahi, 28, to separate from her husband and treat him as her son because she had sex with his father.
"She had a physical relationship with her father-in-law, and it nullifies her marriage," said Mohammad Masood Madani, a cleric at the theological school. He said it made no difference whether the sex was consensual or forced. The village council then decreed that Mrs. Ilahi would have to marry her father-in-law.
I seriously wonder if the US can ever reach a peaceful military relationship with such a prehistoric bunch of drooling mouth breathers like “Darool Uloom Deoband” and his merry band of fellow towel head "leaders".
Deja Vu All Over Again
If you have the time, go read the LA Times story about General Westmoreland.
If you don’t have the time, here is a critical excerpt:
"Meanwhile, as more Americans were leaving for Vietnam in uniforms and returning in body bags, the antiwar movement in the United States gathered steam. The first demonstrators were students, but they soon were joined by clergymen, teachers, journalists and politicians.
"The antiwar movement was alien to Westmoreland, and so were the people in it," a former staff officer told Westmoreland biographer Samuel Zaffiri. "He wanted to be a hero. Instead, he found himself being vilified."
During a trip to the United States in the spring of 1967, Westmoreland told journalists that he and his men were "dismayed by recent unpatriotic acts here at home." He said these acts "inevitably will cost lives" of U.S. troops and were handing the enemy successes that "he cannot match on the battlefield."
Although some politicians and editorial writers defended Westmoreland's comments, far more condemned him as an opponent of free speech."
Sound familiar?
If you don’t have the time, here is a critical excerpt:
"Meanwhile, as more Americans were leaving for Vietnam in uniforms and returning in body bags, the antiwar movement in the United States gathered steam. The first demonstrators were students, but they soon were joined by clergymen, teachers, journalists and politicians.
"The antiwar movement was alien to Westmoreland, and so were the people in it," a former staff officer told Westmoreland biographer Samuel Zaffiri. "He wanted to be a hero. Instead, he found himself being vilified."
During a trip to the United States in the spring of 1967, Westmoreland told journalists that he and his men were "dismayed by recent unpatriotic acts here at home." He said these acts "inevitably will cost lives" of U.S. troops and were handing the enemy successes that "he cannot match on the battlefield."
Although some politicians and editorial writers defended Westmoreland's comments, far more condemned him as an opponent of free speech."
Sound familiar?
A Great Man Passes Away
During my participation in Navy ROTC at Georgia Tech back in the late 1970’s, I had the opportunity to personally meet a number of important military figures when they came to deliver speeches to our group of midshipmen. Georgia Tech alumni and former President Jimmy Carter, former Chief of naval Operations Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, and General William Westmoreland are the three that I remember most.
Admiral Zumwalt died in 2000 and communist-dictator-loving ex-president Jimmy Carter is still alive and kicking, but I was saddened to learn this morning that General Westmoreland passed away yesterday in a Charleston, South Carolina nursing home.
In death as in life, General Westmoreland is hounded by the media for his management of US Army forces during the Vietnam war.
The NY Times says:
“Gen. William C. Westmoreland, who commanded the United States forces in Vietnam from 1964 to 1968, overseeing the vast troop buildup and the height of the fighting, died last night in a retirement home in Charleston, S.C., his son, James Ripley Westmoreland, announced. The general was 91.”
The Chicago Sun Times opens with this:
"Retired Gen. William Westmoreland, who commanded American troops in Vietnam -- the nation's longest, most divisive conflict and the only war America lost -- died Monday night. He was 91."
The Baltimore Sun agrees:
"Gen. William Westmoreland, the World War II hero who was later vilified for his leadership of the United States' failed war in Vietnam, died last night in Charleston, S.C. He was 91."
Notice anything uniquely consistent in all of the obituary articles?
Here's a hint...
The media continues to overshadow General Westmoreland’s decorated service in WWII and the Korean conflict in favor of blaming him for the "massive troop buildup" and the US's “loss in Vietnam.”
In my mind General Westmoreland couldn’t possibly be held responsible for “losing the Vietnam War” because the command of US Army ground forces was taken away from him in 1968—long before the war ended in 1972.
Today Bush is accused of not having enough troops in Iraq, but in 1968 Westmoreland had too many troops in Vietnam and it cost him his job.
Talk about a double standard...
And for your information, just in case you were born since 1972 and rely on school textbooks and newspapers to teach you history, the US didn’t lose the war in Vietnam, we were forced TO QUIT by the same leftist idiots and main stream media that today wants us to pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan and end our current war on terrorism.
If the US were forced to pull out of Iraq tomorrow, I suppose that in 20 or 30 years, upon his death, the news headlines would say General Norman H Schwarzkopf, Jr. was the leader of the US Army ground forces in the second war that the US lost (Iraq)—even though Schwarzkopf left the army in 1991.
All I have to say is: “Been there, done that, got the T-shirt…”
Admiral Zumwalt died in 2000 and communist-dictator-loving ex-president Jimmy Carter is still alive and kicking, but I was saddened to learn this morning that General Westmoreland passed away yesterday in a Charleston, South Carolina nursing home.
In death as in life, General Westmoreland is hounded by the media for his management of US Army forces during the Vietnam war.
The NY Times says:
“Gen. William C. Westmoreland, who commanded the United States forces in Vietnam from 1964 to 1968, overseeing the vast troop buildup and the height of the fighting, died last night in a retirement home in Charleston, S.C., his son, James Ripley Westmoreland, announced. The general was 91.”
The Chicago Sun Times opens with this:
"Retired Gen. William Westmoreland, who commanded American troops in Vietnam -- the nation's longest, most divisive conflict and the only war America lost -- died Monday night. He was 91."
The Baltimore Sun agrees:
"Gen. William Westmoreland, the World War II hero who was later vilified for his leadership of the United States' failed war in Vietnam, died last night in Charleston, S.C. He was 91."
Notice anything uniquely consistent in all of the obituary articles?
Here's a hint...
The media continues to overshadow General Westmoreland’s decorated service in WWII and the Korean conflict in favor of blaming him for the "massive troop buildup" and the US's “loss in Vietnam.”
In my mind General Westmoreland couldn’t possibly be held responsible for “losing the Vietnam War” because the command of US Army ground forces was taken away from him in 1968—long before the war ended in 1972.
Today Bush is accused of not having enough troops in Iraq, but in 1968 Westmoreland had too many troops in Vietnam and it cost him his job.
Talk about a double standard...
And for your information, just in case you were born since 1972 and rely on school textbooks and newspapers to teach you history, the US didn’t lose the war in Vietnam, we were forced TO QUIT by the same leftist idiots and main stream media that today wants us to pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan and end our current war on terrorism.
If the US were forced to pull out of Iraq tomorrow, I suppose that in 20 or 30 years, upon his death, the news headlines would say General Norman H Schwarzkopf, Jr. was the leader of the US Army ground forces in the second war that the US lost (Iraq)—even though Schwarzkopf left the army in 1991.
All I have to say is: “Been there, done that, got the T-shirt…”
Monday, July 18, 2005
What Do We Need To Do?
To get some people a clue…
I was just sitting here vegetating, looking at the internet with one eyeball and peeking over the laptop screen at FOX News with the other eye, happy that Hurricane Emily is going to spare much if not all of the US this week.
FOX’s “sacrificial lamb” hurricane reporter on the scene in Cancun Mexico was being interviewed by Geraldo Rivera. I can’t stand Geraldo, but FOX continues to expand his role in their on-air programming so I just cringe my way through it, all the time wishing that someone would wax his eyebrows and trim his moustache and nose hair.
Then they ran some videotaped interviews with tourists that were stranded there in Cancun at the hotel and were being forced to face the storm.
There was actually some man on their tape that said something to the effect that “duuuuhhh, I just flew in here yesterday and...I guess that I should have watched the news because I didn’t know that there was a Hurricane coming…”
I have a question…
HOW THE HECK CAN ANYONE FLY TO THE CARRIBEAN IN JULY AND NOT WATCH THE NEWS OR THE WEATHER CHANNEL OR SOMETHING IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND THE WEATHER CONDITIONS PRIOR TO LEAVING HOME?
Having asked that, another question comes to mind…
WE LET IDIOTS LIKE THIS VOTE IN OUR ELECTIONS?
I was just sitting here vegetating, looking at the internet with one eyeball and peeking over the laptop screen at FOX News with the other eye, happy that Hurricane Emily is going to spare much if not all of the US this week.
FOX’s “sacrificial lamb” hurricane reporter on the scene in Cancun Mexico was being interviewed by Geraldo Rivera. I can’t stand Geraldo, but FOX continues to expand his role in their on-air programming so I just cringe my way through it, all the time wishing that someone would wax his eyebrows and trim his moustache and nose hair.
Then they ran some videotaped interviews with tourists that were stranded there in Cancun at the hotel and were being forced to face the storm.
There was actually some man on their tape that said something to the effect that “duuuuhhh, I just flew in here yesterday and...I guess that I should have watched the news because I didn’t know that there was a Hurricane coming…”
I have a question…
HOW THE HECK CAN ANYONE FLY TO THE CARRIBEAN IN JULY AND NOT WATCH THE NEWS OR THE WEATHER CHANNEL OR SOMETHING IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND THE WEATHER CONDITIONS PRIOR TO LEAVING HOME?
Having asked that, another question comes to mind…
WE LET IDIOTS LIKE THIS VOTE IN OUR ELECTIONS?
Sunday, July 17, 2005
We Have A New Pet
Patricia has been after me for a couple of years for us to get some kind of pet.
Don't get me wrong here..I LOVE animals, but since my last two cats died--Patches and Hoover--I just can't bring myself to take on the commitment that properly caring for a pet dictates.
I like to travel too much and I don't want to have to leave someone (the pet) alone at home or at a kennel and I worry about the psychological effects of separation (me and my pet.) Further, it is just hard to travel with a pet if you choose to take him or her with you and it limits your options during the trip in so many ways.
Well, I've suffered a bit of spontaneous weakness, I hereby announce that Pat is getting her wish--I 've found this cute little bugger that I just couldn't pass up.
Here is his (its) picture:
BooBoo
Actually, here is the true story:
BRISTOL, Great Britain -- 'Kintana' is the first captive bred aye-aye, an arboreal nocturnal lemur, Daubentonia madagascariensis, a native to Madagascar, to be born in the United Kingdom. Bristol Zoo Gardens announced that it is the first UK zoo to successfully breed and hand-rear an aye-aye, the largest nocturnal primate in the world and one of the strangest mammals on the planet. (04/15/05 AP photo)
Pat will be so happy, and we don't have to worry about the neighbors stealing him...
Don't get me wrong here..I LOVE animals, but since my last two cats died--Patches and Hoover--I just can't bring myself to take on the commitment that properly caring for a pet dictates.
I like to travel too much and I don't want to have to leave someone (the pet) alone at home or at a kennel and I worry about the psychological effects of separation (me and my pet.) Further, it is just hard to travel with a pet if you choose to take him or her with you and it limits your options during the trip in so many ways.
Well, I've suffered a bit of spontaneous weakness, I hereby announce that Pat is getting her wish--I 've found this cute little bugger that I just couldn't pass up.
Here is his (its) picture:
BooBoo
Actually, here is the true story:
BRISTOL, Great Britain -- 'Kintana' is the first captive bred aye-aye, an arboreal nocturnal lemur, Daubentonia madagascariensis, a native to Madagascar, to be born in the United Kingdom. Bristol Zoo Gardens announced that it is the first UK zoo to successfully breed and hand-rear an aye-aye, the largest nocturnal primate in the world and one of the strangest mammals on the planet. (04/15/05 AP photo)
Pat will be so happy, and we don't have to worry about the neighbors stealing him...
Saturday, July 16, 2005
The “Wildbleu” Yonder
This Gives Me An Idea
So now somebody has come up with pajamas that help women with hot flashes keep cool at night.
“A new product for women going through menopause claims it can keep women cool and comfortable at night, even during hot flashes, according to a Local 6 News report.
Wildbleu pajamas use a heat-release technology to take sweat away from a person's skin, forcing moisture to the fabric, where it evaporates quickly.
Wildbleu pajamas are made of a patented fabric, according to the report.”
Sounds good to me—if they work—it will be $50 well spent
On behalf of men everywhere I have to ask, “can these people come out with a fabric that will do something about a women’s freezing feet and cold rear end?”
Maybe they can invent some “bunny suit” pajamas like little kids wear with feet in them and a mechanism that will distribute the heat from the menopausal hot flash to a woman’s backside and her toes…so she won’t be as likely to want put those cold things on ME to warm them up.
Hey guys...You know what I mean?
So now somebody has come up with pajamas that help women with hot flashes keep cool at night.
“A new product for women going through menopause claims it can keep women cool and comfortable at night, even during hot flashes, according to a Local 6 News report.
Wildbleu pajamas use a heat-release technology to take sweat away from a person's skin, forcing moisture to the fabric, where it evaporates quickly.
Wildbleu pajamas are made of a patented fabric, according to the report.”
Sounds good to me—if they work—it will be $50 well spent
On behalf of men everywhere I have to ask, “can these people come out with a fabric that will do something about a women’s freezing feet and cold rear end?”
Maybe they can invent some “bunny suit” pajamas like little kids wear with feet in them and a mechanism that will distribute the heat from the menopausal hot flash to a woman’s backside and her toes…so she won’t be as likely to want put those cold things on ME to warm them up.
Hey guys...You know what I mean?
Friday, July 15, 2005
The Plame Blame Game
(Yet more boring political stuff)
I’m sick of the current hysterical media and liberal attack on President Bush’s adviser Karl Rove.
Those of us that read and closely follow the news every day have known about this developing story for a couple of years now, but some of my blog idols like Powerline and Captains Quarters predicted that this story would hit a fevered pitch this week.
It did.
Rather than telling you that Rove did or didn’t do anything wrong, I’m going to give you a brief synopsis of the story and then show you where you can read the details for yourself.
The players in this story are President Bush, his Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove; Vice President Dick Cheney; former US Ambassador Joe Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame; columnist Robert Novak, and The NY Times and their reporters Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper.
The outline of the story amounts to this:
In his January 2003 State of the Union Address, President Bush uttered the now infamous 16 words:
“The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”
In the year after the president made this statement, updated intelligence indicated that, while the Iraqis in fact tried to buy slightly refined ”yellowcake” uranium, they probably weren’t successful.
Reporters and Democrats, many of which apparently lack the ability to read, and many of those same groups that can read lacking the ability to understand the meaning of what it is that they have read, took the words “sought significant quantities” to mean “bought significant quantities.”
I’d like to point out that the significant underlying issue here wasn’t the possession of yellow cake, it was Sadam’s ATTEMPT to acquire yellow cake that was the problem. You don’t buy yellow cake uranium to season your steak on the grill or to patch holes in your driveway, you buy yellow cake uranium as feed stock to further refine into fissionable material for use in ATOMIC BOMBS.
That Iraq “bought significant quantities” is in fact NOT TRUE, but that is not what the President said.
No matter, a firestorm erupted as a result. “Bush LIED!” screamed the media headlines and the Democrats.
“Bush lied, Bush lied, BUSH MUST HAVE LIED (his staff couldn’t have simply been mistaken), we need to do something. What to do?????
WE, KNOW, WE NEED AN……I N V E S T I G A T I O N!!!”
And so they did…
A US Senate investigation, a special independent council, a grand jury, and every single left wing barking-moonbat reporter in the world has jumped on the case—and when they couldn’t prove that Bush lied about the yellow cake, they tried to do the next best thing...
Get Karl Rove, the architect of Bush’s election in 2000. Liberals hate Karl Rove more than George Bush--some claim that he actually runs the country.
They claimed that Karl Rove retaliated against Joe Wilson’s outspoken criticism of the war in Iraq by “outing” his wife’s identity as a CIA agent.
You see, some low level people at the CIA had previously sent former US ambassador Joe Wilson to Niger to check into things. I just so happened that Joe had married former undercover agent Valerie Plame, who subsequently moved to a desk job with the CIA in Langley, Virginia in 1997.
Then Mr. Wilson wrote an Op Ed piece on July 6, 2003 in the NY Times titled “What I didn’t find In Niger. In this writing, Wilson claims to have been sent to Niger by Vice President Dick Cheney. He also claimed to find no evidence that Iraq and Niger had any contact about yellow cake.
Cheney has since that time stated that he never heard of Joseph C. Wilson, IV until this current story hit the airwaves and newsprint. Further, it turns out that his wife, the now infamous Miss Plame, had in fact recommended that he be sent on the trip. Wilson has publically and in writing denied this FACT. It seems that it is Mr. Wilson, not the President or Mr. Rove that has a problem discerning the TRUTH.
In doing my own independent research (instead of taking the news reports words as fact,) I’ve just got through reading parts of the results of the Senate investigations’ efforts: the Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq produced by the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
By the way, this committee included some very vocal Democrats like Carl Levin, Dianne Feinstein, Richard Durbin, and John Edwards. What bothers me today is that, in spite of their intimate knowledge that the current uproar is based on complete crap, these Senators have chosen to remain silent or even speak out in support of the controversy in total disregard of their personal knowledge to the contrary.
Imagine that?
Here are some excerpts from Pages 71-75 of the report:
“(U) On June 17,2003, nearly five months after the President delivered the State of the Union address, the CIA produced a memorandum for the DCI which said, “since learning that the Iraq-Niger uranium deal was based on false documents earlier this spring, we no longer believe that there is sufficient other reporting to conclude that Iraq pursued Uranium from abroad.” This memorandum was not distributed outside the CIA and the Committee has not been provided with any intelligence products in which the CIA published its corrected assessment on Iraq’s pursuit of uranium from Niger outside of the agency.”
“Paragraph K. Niger Conclusions:
(U) Conclusion 12. Until October 2002 when the Intelligence Community obtained the forged foreign language documents on the Iraq-Niger uranium deal, it was reasonable for analysts to assess that Iraq may have been seeking uranium from Africa based on Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reporting and other available intelligence.
(U) Conclusion 13. The report on the former ambassador’s (Joe Wilson’s) trip to Niger, disseminated in March 2002, did not change any analysts’ assessments of the Iraq-Niger uranium deal. For most analysts, the information in the report lent more credibility to the original Central Intelligence (CIA) reports on the uranium deal, but the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) analysts believed that the report support their assessment that Niger was unlikely to be willing or able to sell uranium to Iraq.
(U) Conclusion 14. The Central Intelligence Agency should have told the Vice President and other senior policymakers that it had sent someone to Niger to look into the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal and should have briefed the Vice President on the former ambassador’s findings.”
With the yellow cake controversy put to rest, the emphasis shifted to Rove, the special prosecutor, and the grand jury investigation.
All of the noise is currently about whether Rove “outed” Plame while she was an active covert CIA agent, which is against the law. Yesterday the idiot Democrats in the Senate even tried to relieve Karl Rove of his security clearance, even before the results of the investigation are available.
The Washington Times reported that Plame’s supervisor states that Valerie had not been deployed undercover since 1997. And now the media reports that columnist Robert Novak actually placed a phone call to Karl Rove and told him (Rove) that Plame was a CIA Agent, not the other way around.
I SAY THE CASE IS CLOSED.
Yet there continues to be tons of air and millions of square feet of newsprint wasted (you can read more commentary and details here, here , and here,) but in my considered opinion, that’s all the Joe Wilson/Valerie Plame/Karl Rove story is…
A TOTAL NON-STORY
I’m sick of the current hysterical media and liberal attack on President Bush’s adviser Karl Rove.
Those of us that read and closely follow the news every day have known about this developing story for a couple of years now, but some of my blog idols like Powerline and Captains Quarters predicted that this story would hit a fevered pitch this week.
It did.
Rather than telling you that Rove did or didn’t do anything wrong, I’m going to give you a brief synopsis of the story and then show you where you can read the details for yourself.
The players in this story are President Bush, his Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove; Vice President Dick Cheney; former US Ambassador Joe Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame; columnist Robert Novak, and The NY Times and their reporters Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper.
The outline of the story amounts to this:
In his January 2003 State of the Union Address, President Bush uttered the now infamous 16 words:
“The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”
In the year after the president made this statement, updated intelligence indicated that, while the Iraqis in fact tried to buy slightly refined ”yellowcake” uranium, they probably weren’t successful.
Reporters and Democrats, many of which apparently lack the ability to read, and many of those same groups that can read lacking the ability to understand the meaning of what it is that they have read, took the words “sought significant quantities” to mean “bought significant quantities.”
I’d like to point out that the significant underlying issue here wasn’t the possession of yellow cake, it was Sadam’s ATTEMPT to acquire yellow cake that was the problem. You don’t buy yellow cake uranium to season your steak on the grill or to patch holes in your driveway, you buy yellow cake uranium as feed stock to further refine into fissionable material for use in ATOMIC BOMBS.
That Iraq “bought significant quantities” is in fact NOT TRUE, but that is not what the President said.
No matter, a firestorm erupted as a result. “Bush LIED!” screamed the media headlines and the Democrats.
“Bush lied, Bush lied, BUSH MUST HAVE LIED (his staff couldn’t have simply been mistaken), we need to do something. What to do?????
WE, KNOW, WE NEED AN……I N V E S T I G A T I O N!!!”
And so they did…
A US Senate investigation, a special independent council, a grand jury, and every single left wing barking-moonbat reporter in the world has jumped on the case—and when they couldn’t prove that Bush lied about the yellow cake, they tried to do the next best thing...
Get Karl Rove, the architect of Bush’s election in 2000. Liberals hate Karl Rove more than George Bush--some claim that he actually runs the country.
They claimed that Karl Rove retaliated against Joe Wilson’s outspoken criticism of the war in Iraq by “outing” his wife’s identity as a CIA agent.
You see, some low level people at the CIA had previously sent former US ambassador Joe Wilson to Niger to check into things. I just so happened that Joe had married former undercover agent Valerie Plame, who subsequently moved to a desk job with the CIA in Langley, Virginia in 1997.
Then Mr. Wilson wrote an Op Ed piece on July 6, 2003 in the NY Times titled “What I didn’t find In Niger. In this writing, Wilson claims to have been sent to Niger by Vice President Dick Cheney. He also claimed to find no evidence that Iraq and Niger had any contact about yellow cake.
Cheney has since that time stated that he never heard of Joseph C. Wilson, IV until this current story hit the airwaves and newsprint. Further, it turns out that his wife, the now infamous Miss Plame, had in fact recommended that he be sent on the trip. Wilson has publically and in writing denied this FACT. It seems that it is Mr. Wilson, not the President or Mr. Rove that has a problem discerning the TRUTH.
In doing my own independent research (instead of taking the news reports words as fact,) I’ve just got through reading parts of the results of the Senate investigations’ efforts: the Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq produced by the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
By the way, this committee included some very vocal Democrats like Carl Levin, Dianne Feinstein, Richard Durbin, and John Edwards. What bothers me today is that, in spite of their intimate knowledge that the current uproar is based on complete crap, these Senators have chosen to remain silent or even speak out in support of the controversy in total disregard of their personal knowledge to the contrary.
Imagine that?
Here are some excerpts from Pages 71-75 of the report:
“(U) On June 17,2003, nearly five months after the President delivered the State of the Union address, the CIA produced a memorandum for the DCI which said, “since learning that the Iraq-Niger uranium deal was based on false documents earlier this spring, we no longer believe that there is sufficient other reporting to conclude that Iraq pursued Uranium from abroad.” This memorandum was not distributed outside the CIA and the Committee has not been provided with any intelligence products in which the CIA published its corrected assessment on Iraq’s pursuit of uranium from Niger outside of the agency.”
“Paragraph K. Niger Conclusions:
(U) Conclusion 12. Until October 2002 when the Intelligence Community obtained the forged foreign language documents on the Iraq-Niger uranium deal, it was reasonable for analysts to assess that Iraq may have been seeking uranium from Africa based on Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reporting and other available intelligence.
(U) Conclusion 13. The report on the former ambassador’s (Joe Wilson’s) trip to Niger, disseminated in March 2002, did not change any analysts’ assessments of the Iraq-Niger uranium deal. For most analysts, the information in the report lent more credibility to the original Central Intelligence (CIA) reports on the uranium deal, but the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) analysts believed that the report support their assessment that Niger was unlikely to be willing or able to sell uranium to Iraq.
(U) Conclusion 14. The Central Intelligence Agency should have told the Vice President and other senior policymakers that it had sent someone to Niger to look into the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal and should have briefed the Vice President on the former ambassador’s findings.”
With the yellow cake controversy put to rest, the emphasis shifted to Rove, the special prosecutor, and the grand jury investigation.
All of the noise is currently about whether Rove “outed” Plame while she was an active covert CIA agent, which is against the law. Yesterday the idiot Democrats in the Senate even tried to relieve Karl Rove of his security clearance, even before the results of the investigation are available.
The Washington Times reported that Plame’s supervisor states that Valerie had not been deployed undercover since 1997. And now the media reports that columnist Robert Novak actually placed a phone call to Karl Rove and told him (Rove) that Plame was a CIA Agent, not the other way around.
I SAY THE CASE IS CLOSED.
Yet there continues to be tons of air and millions of square feet of newsprint wasted (you can read more commentary and details here, here , and here,) but in my considered opinion, that’s all the Joe Wilson/Valerie Plame/Karl Rove story is…
A TOTAL NON-STORY
National EDUCATION Association?
I was dragging around the internet on a mission. There must be something going on in the world that will light a fire in my head and be the source of a good rant.
Heh Heh Heh, I FOUND something.
My blog friend Beth over at She Who Will Be Obeyed provided me with just the inspiration I needed. She mentioned that blog Diva Michelle Malkin was talking about the National Education Association’s annual meeting. (This is what you call a link to a link to a link in blogger lingo)
I’m sorry to tell you folks, but if you read the NEA’s meeting agenda, the NEA seems more concerned with national politics than teaching.
For instance, there is this little ditty:
“Business Item 78
NEA will urge its members that they "do not shop" at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club due to Wal-Mart's anti-union, low-wage, low-benefit policies that have left its employees in need of hundreds of million of dollars in public aid for various health care and social safety net programs.”
So all this bunch of socialist idiots wants to do is talk about boycotting Wal-Mart because Wal-Mart is fighting the unionization of their workforce.
And of course the NEA is fighting the Republican’s potential privatization of social security…
New Business Item 6
The NEA will form a coalition with other like-minded organizations and individuals to protect Social Security and the Defined Benefit Systems of this country. NEA will publish in NEA Today information about these efforts and encourage and educate our members of the continuing efforts to attack our members' retirement security
Then there is some stupid obscure issue about fragrances and fragrance chemicals???
“New Business Item 8
The NEA President, Reg Weaver, will direct the HIN to write an article on health problems from exposure to fragrance chemicals in NEA Today. This will include a questionnaire for membership using a variety of methods such as an online NEA web site posting, form in the article and questionnaires available at the 06 RA Hall of Health. The results will be published in NEA as well as posted on the NEA Web site, including a list of products identified by members as triggering health reactions. The questionnaire results will be posted to the NEA Web site
New Business Item 9
Recognizing the great support provided by NEA and the NEA-HIN, which are working to obtain outside funding to again send 25 additional members to the EPA Tools for Schools Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) Symposium, should these funds not be forthcoming by November 1, 2005, NEA shall provide funds which will include a pre-symposium day for NEA members focusing on how to organize members around IAQ and Environmental Health issues. Attendees sign a commitment with their state president to establish an IAQ plan or activity.
New Business Item 75
The NEA will declare a designated area of the NEA/RA and related meetings and activities a fragrance free zone.”
I didn’t know that “fragrances” was such a big deal in school.
When I was in school, you just tried to stay away from the guys that had PE during first period because of the probability of them developing some serious natural fragrances (read that Body ODOR) was a potential problem.
Does this mean that if some little frilly 15 year old teen girl shows up at school dressed like a French whore…er…I mean…attired like Brittany Spears…that her attire is OK as long as she doesn’t also actually SMELL like a French whore with perfume?
I was shocked at how little talking about teaching they are apparently doing at the NEA convention. Go read the entire NEA meeting agenda for yourself if you have the time, but I can save you the trouble and tell you that, based on what I read, the NEA is more concerned with POLITICS than they are worried with the EDUCATION of our nation's children.
In my humble opinion, that’s just a crying shame.
Heh Heh Heh, I FOUND something.
My blog friend Beth over at She Who Will Be Obeyed provided me with just the inspiration I needed. She mentioned that blog Diva Michelle Malkin was talking about the National Education Association’s annual meeting. (This is what you call a link to a link to a link in blogger lingo)
I’m sorry to tell you folks, but if you read the NEA’s meeting agenda, the NEA seems more concerned with national politics than teaching.
For instance, there is this little ditty:
“Business Item 78
NEA will urge its members that they "do not shop" at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club due to Wal-Mart's anti-union, low-wage, low-benefit policies that have left its employees in need of hundreds of million of dollars in public aid for various health care and social safety net programs.”
So all this bunch of socialist idiots wants to do is talk about boycotting Wal-Mart because Wal-Mart is fighting the unionization of their workforce.
And of course the NEA is fighting the Republican’s potential privatization of social security…
New Business Item 6
The NEA will form a coalition with other like-minded organizations and individuals to protect Social Security and the Defined Benefit Systems of this country. NEA will publish in NEA Today information about these efforts and encourage and educate our members of the continuing efforts to attack our members' retirement security
Then there is some stupid obscure issue about fragrances and fragrance chemicals???
“New Business Item 8
The NEA President, Reg Weaver, will direct the HIN to write an article on health problems from exposure to fragrance chemicals in NEA Today. This will include a questionnaire for membership using a variety of methods such as an online NEA web site posting, form in the article and questionnaires available at the 06 RA Hall of Health. The results will be published in NEA as well as posted on the NEA Web site, including a list of products identified by members as triggering health reactions. The questionnaire results will be posted to the NEA Web site
New Business Item 9
Recognizing the great support provided by NEA and the NEA-HIN, which are working to obtain outside funding to again send 25 additional members to the EPA Tools for Schools Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) Symposium, should these funds not be forthcoming by November 1, 2005, NEA shall provide funds which will include a pre-symposium day for NEA members focusing on how to organize members around IAQ and Environmental Health issues. Attendees sign a commitment with their state president to establish an IAQ plan or activity.
New Business Item 75
The NEA will declare a designated area of the NEA/RA and related meetings and activities a fragrance free zone.”
I didn’t know that “fragrances” was such a big deal in school.
When I was in school, you just tried to stay away from the guys that had PE during first period because of the probability of them developing some serious natural fragrances (read that Body ODOR) was a potential problem.
Does this mean that if some little frilly 15 year old teen girl shows up at school dressed like a French whore…er…I mean…attired like Brittany Spears…that her attire is OK as long as she doesn’t also actually SMELL like a French whore with perfume?
I was shocked at how little talking about teaching they are apparently doing at the NEA convention. Go read the entire NEA meeting agenda for yourself if you have the time, but I can save you the trouble and tell you that, based on what I read, the NEA is more concerned with POLITICS than they are worried with the EDUCATION of our nation's children.
In my humble opinion, that’s just a crying shame.
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Getting Serious
It's really weird how my interests and inspiration swings from extreme to extreme when it comes to my blogging.
For instance, I spent most of the mid-day yesterday watching NASA TV anticipating the shuttle launch. At the same time I was also doing some major Web research to support the development of a serious, in depth posting on the Rove/CIA/Plame/Wilson non-scandal scandal story.
Stay tuned for that posting later.
As a matter of explaination for those of you out there that don't write a couple thousand words a day like I usually try to do, please realize that if the words aren't there in your head, they probably won't be there on paper or the computer keyboard--at least not in a meaningful, readable fashion.
Yesterday was one of those days...I just didn't find a bunch of stuff worth talking or blogging about.
I did get a chance last night to go out to Ziggy's and explore the other half of my creative mind--I did Karaoke with my friend Smitty. There was a good crowd and my rendition of Billy Joel's "Piano Man" went over rather well, if I do say so myself. I played my "C" Suzuki Tremolo Harmonica and I can play circles around Billy Joel's harp work, but I wish I had taken piano lessons rather than Guitar lessons when I was 10 years old.
Playing piano when you are a male child is considered sissy, but that was before we found out that Billy Joel could grow up to marry Kristy Brinkley and Harry Connick, Jr. would play Carnege Hall.
Who Knew?
UPDATE: 3:20 AM 7/15/05 I forgot to mention Bruce Hornsby and Elton John in my listing of piano players I admire...
For instance, I spent most of the mid-day yesterday watching NASA TV anticipating the shuttle launch. At the same time I was also doing some major Web research to support the development of a serious, in depth posting on the Rove/CIA/Plame/Wilson non-scandal scandal story.
Stay tuned for that posting later.
As a matter of explaination for those of you out there that don't write a couple thousand words a day like I usually try to do, please realize that if the words aren't there in your head, they probably won't be there on paper or the computer keyboard--at least not in a meaningful, readable fashion.
Yesterday was one of those days...I just didn't find a bunch of stuff worth talking or blogging about.
I did get a chance last night to go out to Ziggy's and explore the other half of my creative mind--I did Karaoke with my friend Smitty. There was a good crowd and my rendition of Billy Joel's "Piano Man" went over rather well, if I do say so myself. I played my "C" Suzuki Tremolo Harmonica and I can play circles around Billy Joel's harp work, but I wish I had taken piano lessons rather than Guitar lessons when I was 10 years old.
Playing piano when you are a male child is considered sissy, but that was before we found out that Billy Joel could grow up to marry Kristy Brinkley and Harry Connick, Jr. would play Carnege Hall.
Who Knew?
UPDATE: 3:20 AM 7/15/05 I forgot to mention Bruce Hornsby and Elton John in my listing of piano players I admire...
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Gosh Darn It...
Well, we've set here non stop since about 10:00 AM watching NASA TV broadcast the Astronauts getting suited up and loaded into the shuttle, and just as they got the last guy strapped into his elaborate seat a $50 "low hydrogen sensor" on the external fuel tank decided to go on the fritz.
They've unloaded everybody and the guys with sliderules and taped glasses are clammoring around trying to decide what to do next. Hopefully they can recycle and launch tomorrow.
They've unloaded everybody and the guys with sliderules and taped glasses are clammoring around trying to decide what to do next. Hopefully they can recycle and launch tomorrow.
NASACAR???
Not a half hour after I bragged about wanting to watch the space shuttle Discovery launch tomorrow I found this story about a “cockpit window” cover falling off and damaging some of the heat resistant tiles. OK, I can’t resist poking a little fun here, although I guarantee you that I wish only the best for the mission tomorrow.
My comedian idol and fellow Georgia Tech Alumni, Jeff Foxworthy, has a series of jokes he does about NASA—one of them involving my home state of ALABAMA.
Talking about Huntsville, Alabama, Jeff says “they might be building them (the rockets) there, but they ain’t letting people from there (Alabama) fly them."
I think that I’d be offended if I didn’t know that Jeff honestly thought that he knew what he was talking about. I can just see my old friend Gerrald Wynn saying "Hey Houston...it's dark as crap up here..."
The news article says:
“NASA was dealt a setback when a window cover fell off shuttle Discovery and damaged thermal tiles near the tail. But the space agency quickly fixed the problem and said it was still on track for launch Wednesday.
A lightweight plastic cover on one of Discovery's cockpit windows came loose while the spaceship was on the launch pad, falling more than 60 feet and striking a bulge in the fuselage, said Stephanie Stilson, the NASA manager in charge of Discovery's launch preparations.
No one knows why the cover -- held in place with tape and weighing less than 2 pounds -- fell off, she said. The covers are used prior to launch to protect the shuttle's windows, then removed before liftoff.
Two tiles on an aluminum panel were damaged, and the entire panel was replaced with a spare in what Stilson said was a minor repair job.”
See, the story proves that at least part the shuttle was designed in Alabama, probably by some NASCAR fans, because there is duct tape involved--and there's probably some Bondo in the repair job when all things were said and done.
Come to think of it, I believe that NASA and NASCAR should be merged. Think about it with me for a minute.
First, it would save a whole bunch of tax dollars. Imagine shuttles and other future rockets sponsored by Chevy and Dodge, painted with the logos for Nextel, Viagra, Home Depot, Lowes, and M&M's.
Instead of the mission control announcer saying "5,4,3,2,1, liftoff"...it could be Toby Keith saying "Gentlemen...start your engines."
Or instead of letting some nerd push a button to launch the rocket, some chick with fake boobs wearing a tight skirt could wave a green flag and some old astronauts could yell "boogity, boogity, boogity" as the plume of fire and smoke rises off the launch pad.
It would also give a whole new meaning to the term...
SPACE RACE.
My comedian idol and fellow Georgia Tech Alumni, Jeff Foxworthy, has a series of jokes he does about NASA—one of them involving my home state of ALABAMA.
Talking about Huntsville, Alabama, Jeff says “they might be building them (the rockets) there, but they ain’t letting people from there (Alabama) fly them."
I think that I’d be offended if I didn’t know that Jeff honestly thought that he knew what he was talking about. I can just see my old friend Gerrald Wynn saying "Hey Houston...it's dark as crap up here..."
The news article says:
“NASA was dealt a setback when a window cover fell off shuttle Discovery and damaged thermal tiles near the tail. But the space agency quickly fixed the problem and said it was still on track for launch Wednesday.
A lightweight plastic cover on one of Discovery's cockpit windows came loose while the spaceship was on the launch pad, falling more than 60 feet and striking a bulge in the fuselage, said Stephanie Stilson, the NASA manager in charge of Discovery's launch preparations.
No one knows why the cover -- held in place with tape and weighing less than 2 pounds -- fell off, she said. The covers are used prior to launch to protect the shuttle's windows, then removed before liftoff.
Two tiles on an aluminum panel were damaged, and the entire panel was replaced with a spare in what Stilson said was a minor repair job.”
See, the story proves that at least part the shuttle was designed in Alabama, probably by some NASCAR fans, because there is duct tape involved--and there's probably some Bondo in the repair job when all things were said and done.
Come to think of it, I believe that NASA and NASCAR should be merged. Think about it with me for a minute.
First, it would save a whole bunch of tax dollars. Imagine shuttles and other future rockets sponsored by Chevy and Dodge, painted with the logos for Nextel, Viagra, Home Depot, Lowes, and M&M's.
Instead of the mission control announcer saying "5,4,3,2,1, liftoff"...it could be Toby Keith saying "Gentlemen...start your engines."
Or instead of letting some nerd push a button to launch the rocket, some chick with fake boobs wearing a tight skirt could wave a green flag and some old astronauts could yell "boogity, boogity, boogity" as the plume of fire and smoke rises off the launch pad.
It would also give a whole new meaning to the term...
SPACE RACE.
America Returns to Space
Just in case you were wondering what I’ll be doing at about 3:51 PM Eastern Standard Time this afternoon, I’ll be watching the NASA TV Webcast of the Space Shuttle Discovery launch.
Rumor has it that the TV Networks are going to cover the launch live so those of you that don’t have cable or DSL internet service can watch it too, but if you have fast internet you should check out the NASA site for some cool images.
Unlike much of the American people and the balance of the world, I still get excited about things that fly, especially things that can obtain orbital velocity of 18,000 MPH.
Let's hope that NASA has got it's act back together and everyone is safely delivered to orbit, docks with the space station, and comes home in one piece.
Rumor has it that the TV Networks are going to cover the launch live so those of you that don’t have cable or DSL internet service can watch it too, but if you have fast internet you should check out the NASA site for some cool images.
Unlike much of the American people and the balance of the world, I still get excited about things that fly, especially things that can obtain orbital velocity of 18,000 MPH.
Let's hope that NASA has got it's act back together and everyone is safely delivered to orbit, docks with the space station, and comes home in one piece.
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Southern Comfort Food
Stress like that associated with hurricanes makes people do strange things.
Stress like that makes ME do even STRANGER things, at all hours of the day and night.
For instance, take a look at this picture:
Goober Peas...
Defense Exhibit A, the substance in the big boiler, is 4 pounds of nice, fresh, green Georgia peanuts.
Surrounding Exhibit A is a couple of gallons of water, seasoned with about 1-1/2 cups of kosher salt, some tabasco, red pepper, and a great deal of patience and love expended over four hours of soaking and cooking at a low temperature simmer.
The items in the middle on the paper towel are peanuts that gave their lives in the name of quality control.
I'm cooking right now as I write, and I sure hope that there are some peanuts left to eat when they are done cooking...
Stress like that makes ME do even STRANGER things, at all hours of the day and night.
For instance, take a look at this picture:
Goober Peas...
Defense Exhibit A, the substance in the big boiler, is 4 pounds of nice, fresh, green Georgia peanuts.
Surrounding Exhibit A is a couple of gallons of water, seasoned with about 1-1/2 cups of kosher salt, some tabasco, red pepper, and a great deal of patience and love expended over four hours of soaking and cooking at a low temperature simmer.
The items in the middle on the paper towel are peanuts that gave their lives in the name of quality control.
I'm cooking right now as I write, and I sure hope that there are some peanuts left to eat when they are done cooking...
Let’s Go Through This…ONCE AGAIN
I like to think of myself as a nice guy—you know?
I’m also a businessman.
Further, I’m also really concerned about the recent victims of Hurricane Dennis down there in Florida and Alabama.
I want to help their situation. Not just praying or donating five dollars or some canned goods, I want to really do something to assist in the shortage of supplies in the area affected by the storm, and I also want to make a little profit for my efforts—nothing extreme, just some extra cash in return for my time and energy.
I know—GENERATORS…they need generators…and I’ll go get some (generators) and haul them down there (to the hurricane victims in Florida) and sell them for a reasonable price—my out of pocket cost plus 25%. That’s not too much profit, is it? Furniture companies often make between 50% and 75% mark up on sofas and chairs—so 25% shouldn’t be too much to ask.
Yes, that’s the ticket!
I spring into action, first I get out my credit card and call around the local area looking for generators for sale. Bad news…since we live near the coast and it’s hurricane season, there are only a half dozen generators to be found in the area.
I know…go to a big city, away from the ocean, like ATLANTA—they certainly have to have lots of generators for sale in Atlanta. I crank up the Internet and book an airline ticket on Delta to Atlanta from Brunswick and a return flight next week from Panama City, Florida back to St. Simons through Atlanta.
Cost: $678.00
Next I go on line and rent a U-Haul truck that I will pick up in Atlanta and use for seven days driving around Atlanta to pick up my goods and to drive my generators from Atlanta to the Florida Gulf coast area.
Cost $766.00
I pack my suitcase, catch a few hours of sleep, and at 6:10 AM this morning I’m on an airplane on my way to Hartsfield Jackson International Airport. I snag a Starbucks Latte and a bagel on my way through the airport.
Cost $16.00
After picking up my luggage, a half hour taxi ride later I’m standing at the truck rental counter in Marietta, Georgia.
Cost $43.00
By the way, I also have also already spent one half of a day of my time in the venture so far, but I’m giving that away since I said before…”I’m a nice guy...”
So now as to the hard part—I need some generators to sell down there in Florida. Off to Home Depot and Lowes.
Vroommm Vrooommm in my rental truck
I buy all the generators I can get my hands on—new, still in the boxes—in several sizes. The little portable units that will run a few lights like the little Honda EN2500 that only costs me $665, and the larger 6500 watt electric start Honda units that set me back a little over $3200 retail.
Cost: (20) 6500’s and (40) 2500’s = $90,600 plus tax…not exactly chump change…
It’s still daylight, so after having my truck loaded full of generators, I hit the road for the six hour drive down to ground zero, arriving outside Ft. Walton at the Motel 6 having reserved a room for five nights.
Cost $500.00
On Wednesday morning I call the local day labor company and arrange to hire two assistants to support my sales effort.
Cost $200.00 per day x 5 days = $1000
Escambia and Walton Counties aren't stupid, they're in this for the moneyalso, so I have to buy a short term business license in each county and guess what...
Two licenses each x $125.00 = $250.00
I also need to pay for myself and my employees to eat for five days and I have to pay for gasoline to drive my truck from Atlanta, so I add in an additional $750.00 and my total expenses are…
(drum roll please……….$94603)
Now reality sets in. With expenses and a 25% profit, the EN2500 generators will cost you $900.00, and the 6500 watt models will cost $4075.00.
Being the greedy capitalist that I am, I stand to earn a tidy $22,897.00 for seven days worth of work.
NOW THE BAD NEWS…
Most governors (including Jeb Bush,) legislators, and many of my readers call my business idea...
“PRICE GOUGING”
I say I’ll just stay home here on St. Simons and let the poor Floridians and Alabamians sit at home in the dark.
After all, they could have bought a generator BEFORE the storm hit, when they were sitting around on the shelves like leaves on a tree (like my father did), rather than waiting for me to deliver them to them now, using the government to force me to sell them to them at a discount price, AFTER the hurricane has come plowing on shore in their back yard.
Where is Sam Kinnison when you need him?
Tell 'em Sam...
I’m also a businessman.
Further, I’m also really concerned about the recent victims of Hurricane Dennis down there in Florida and Alabama.
I want to help their situation. Not just praying or donating five dollars or some canned goods, I want to really do something to assist in the shortage of supplies in the area affected by the storm, and I also want to make a little profit for my efforts—nothing extreme, just some extra cash in return for my time and energy.
I know—GENERATORS…they need generators…and I’ll go get some (generators) and haul them down there (to the hurricane victims in Florida) and sell them for a reasonable price—my out of pocket cost plus 25%. That’s not too much profit, is it? Furniture companies often make between 50% and 75% mark up on sofas and chairs—so 25% shouldn’t be too much to ask.
Yes, that’s the ticket!
I spring into action, first I get out my credit card and call around the local area looking for generators for sale. Bad news…since we live near the coast and it’s hurricane season, there are only a half dozen generators to be found in the area.
I know…go to a big city, away from the ocean, like ATLANTA—they certainly have to have lots of generators for sale in Atlanta. I crank up the Internet and book an airline ticket on Delta to Atlanta from Brunswick and a return flight next week from Panama City, Florida back to St. Simons through Atlanta.
Cost: $678.00
Next I go on line and rent a U-Haul truck that I will pick up in Atlanta and use for seven days driving around Atlanta to pick up my goods and to drive my generators from Atlanta to the Florida Gulf coast area.
Cost $766.00
I pack my suitcase, catch a few hours of sleep, and at 6:10 AM this morning I’m on an airplane on my way to Hartsfield Jackson International Airport. I snag a Starbucks Latte and a bagel on my way through the airport.
Cost $16.00
After picking up my luggage, a half hour taxi ride later I’m standing at the truck rental counter in Marietta, Georgia.
Cost $43.00
By the way, I also have also already spent one half of a day of my time in the venture so far, but I’m giving that away since I said before…”I’m a nice guy...”
So now as to the hard part—I need some generators to sell down there in Florida. Off to Home Depot and Lowes.
Vroommm Vrooommm in my rental truck
I buy all the generators I can get my hands on—new, still in the boxes—in several sizes. The little portable units that will run a few lights like the little Honda EN2500 that only costs me $665, and the larger 6500 watt electric start Honda units that set me back a little over $3200 retail.
Cost: (20) 6500’s and (40) 2500’s = $90,600 plus tax…not exactly chump change…
It’s still daylight, so after having my truck loaded full of generators, I hit the road for the six hour drive down to ground zero, arriving outside Ft. Walton at the Motel 6 having reserved a room for five nights.
Cost $500.00
On Wednesday morning I call the local day labor company and arrange to hire two assistants to support my sales effort.
Cost $200.00 per day x 5 days = $1000
Escambia and Walton Counties aren't stupid, they're in this for the moneyalso, so I have to buy a short term business license in each county and guess what...
Two licenses each x $125.00 = $250.00
I also need to pay for myself and my employees to eat for five days and I have to pay for gasoline to drive my truck from Atlanta, so I add in an additional $750.00 and my total expenses are…
(drum roll please……….$94603)
Now reality sets in. With expenses and a 25% profit, the EN2500 generators will cost you $900.00, and the 6500 watt models will cost $4075.00.
Being the greedy capitalist that I am, I stand to earn a tidy $22,897.00 for seven days worth of work.
NOW THE BAD NEWS…
Most governors (including Jeb Bush,) legislators, and many of my readers call my business idea...
“PRICE GOUGING”
I say I’ll just stay home here on St. Simons and let the poor Floridians and Alabamians sit at home in the dark.
After all, they could have bought a generator BEFORE the storm hit, when they were sitting around on the shelves like leaves on a tree (like my father did), rather than waiting for me to deliver them to them now, using the government to force me to sell them to them at a discount price, AFTER the hurricane has come plowing on shore in their back yard.
Where is Sam Kinnison when you need him?
Tell 'em Sam...
Monday, July 11, 2005
Hurricane Reruns
I was snooping around on the Web this morning looking for gruesome photos of damage from Hurricane Dennis and I found out something I didn’t already know.
The NOAA Hurricane name list isn’t original each year, and some years it comes back up in the same order. I knew that they retired names if a kick ass storm kills a bunch of people and levels a couple of dozen miles of ocean front property like Andrew, Camile, and Hugo did, but I didn’t think that storm names came back up in short periods of time like—six years?
Here’s the link to the news story, and here’s the picture of Hurricanes Cindy and Dennis, and Tropical Storm Emily floating around the Atlantic in 1999:
Hurricane Reruns?
Leave it to the Imperial Federal Government of the United States to cut corners…how about some original names for our storms, Guys?
I suppose that they'll have to raise my taxes to do that...
The NOAA Hurricane name list isn’t original each year, and some years it comes back up in the same order. I knew that they retired names if a kick ass storm kills a bunch of people and levels a couple of dozen miles of ocean front property like Andrew, Camile, and Hugo did, but I didn’t think that storm names came back up in short periods of time like—six years?
Here’s the link to the news story, and here’s the picture of Hurricanes Cindy and Dennis, and Tropical Storm Emily floating around the Atlantic in 1999:
Hurricane Reruns?
Leave it to the Imperial Federal Government of the United States to cut corners…how about some original names for our storms, Guys?
I suppose that they'll have to raise my taxes to do that...
If I’m Gonna Be A “Tool”
I want to be a “POWER TOOL,” and I want a reputable brand name stamped on my handle…
“WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Political groups preparing to battle over the first U.S. Supreme Court nomination in 11 years have a powerful new tool -- Internet blogs -- to spread information quickly and influence decision makers without relying on traditional media.
Web logs likely numbering in the dozens provide a way for the thoughtful and the passionate to publish their views. Politicians are taking notice as they prepare for the first high court nomination fight since the Internet became common in American households.”
Would the idea of “(blogs) likely numbering in the dozens” be a fair assessment of the current blogging situation?
This same Reuters article, in typical inaccurate MSM fashion, goes on to say:
“A recent study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project said that 7 percent of the 120 million U.S. adults who use the Internet have created a blog or web-based diary.”
Gee whiz, let’s see here…cracking out my fifth grade math book…
7% of 120,000,000 equals...
.07 x 120,000,000 equals…………..uhhhhhhh……. 8.4 million?
Eight million, four hundred thousand blogs?
I thought that they said “likely numbering in the dozens”—talk about the gift of understatement.
As a Blogger, I do like being referred to as “A TOOL” rather than “a fool.”
Here’s a picture of the tool I’d like to be so I could help the recent hurricane victims:
My altered ego
I'd be a STIHL MS 880 Magnum Chain Saw...trees everywhere are shaking in their roots...
“WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Political groups preparing to battle over the first U.S. Supreme Court nomination in 11 years have a powerful new tool -- Internet blogs -- to spread information quickly and influence decision makers without relying on traditional media.
Web logs likely numbering in the dozens provide a way for the thoughtful and the passionate to publish their views. Politicians are taking notice as they prepare for the first high court nomination fight since the Internet became common in American households.”
Would the idea of “(blogs) likely numbering in the dozens” be a fair assessment of the current blogging situation?
This same Reuters article, in typical inaccurate MSM fashion, goes on to say:
“A recent study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project said that 7 percent of the 120 million U.S. adults who use the Internet have created a blog or web-based diary.”
Gee whiz, let’s see here…cracking out my fifth grade math book…
7% of 120,000,000 equals...
.07 x 120,000,000 equals…………..uhhhhhhh……. 8.4 million?
Eight million, four hundred thousand blogs?
I thought that they said “likely numbering in the dozens”—talk about the gift of understatement.
As a Blogger, I do like being referred to as “A TOOL” rather than “a fool.”
Here’s a picture of the tool I’d like to be so I could help the recent hurricane victims:
My altered ego
I'd be a STIHL MS 880 Magnum Chain Saw...trees everywhere are shaking in their roots...
July 11th Public Service Announcement
Today’s date represents the anniversary of several important milestones in my life and for that reason I can’t let it pass by without commenting.
On this day in 1981 I was standing at the altar as a groomsman for a great friend, Andy, who was marring a wonderful woman, Laura, to which he is still married to today. How she has put up with him for all these years, I’ll never know…(just kidding.)
Happy Anniversary guys, I hope to make it up your way to see you again soon.
Also, on this day in 1985 I found myself sitting at a Lawyer’s conference table in Smyrna, Georgia signing the loan papers to purchase my first house. I was only 25 years old then, and little did I know at that time how much responsibility home ownership would be. Twenty years and two houses later and I’m back to renting my own abode from a landlord, and acting as a slumlord by renting my properties to other people.
And finally, my friends Andy and Laura had three children together in their ensuing 24 years of marriage and if my memory doesn’t fail me, I believe that their middle child, Hunter, was born on July 11th —so I’d like to say happy birthday to Hunter.
…We now return you to the regularly scheduled broadcast already in progress…
On this day in 1981 I was standing at the altar as a groomsman for a great friend, Andy, who was marring a wonderful woman, Laura, to which he is still married to today. How she has put up with him for all these years, I’ll never know…(just kidding.)
Happy Anniversary guys, I hope to make it up your way to see you again soon.
Also, on this day in 1985 I found myself sitting at a Lawyer’s conference table in Smyrna, Georgia signing the loan papers to purchase my first house. I was only 25 years old then, and little did I know at that time how much responsibility home ownership would be. Twenty years and two houses later and I’m back to renting my own abode from a landlord, and acting as a slumlord by renting my properties to other people.
And finally, my friends Andy and Laura had three children together in their ensuing 24 years of marriage and if my memory doesn’t fail me, I believe that their middle child, Hunter, was born on July 11th —so I’d like to say happy birthday to Hunter.
…We now return you to the regularly scheduled broadcast already in progress…
Sunday, July 10, 2005
It Might Be Our Turn
As Hurricane Dennis fades from the news headlines and into memory and the clean-up begins, I’m sitting here wondering what ever happened to all the news stories about shark attacks and Natalee Holloway down in Aruba.
Remember them?
Then I realized that there is another woman that currently resides west of Aruba that might just ultimately be coming to visit us here on St. Simons Island.
Here’s her picture:
My New Girlfriend
She's just a toddler right now, a so called Tropical Depression 5, but by next Monday or Tuesday she could be standing outside our door as a full grown PMSing Bitch named Hurricane Emily.
I hope she chooses somewhere else to go to on vacation.
Remember them?
Then I realized that there is another woman that currently resides west of Aruba that might just ultimately be coming to visit us here on St. Simons Island.
Here’s her picture:
My New Girlfriend
She's just a toddler right now, a so called Tropical Depression 5, but by next Monday or Tuesday she could be standing outside our door as a full grown PMSing Bitch named Hurricane Emily.
I hope she chooses somewhere else to go to on vacation.
Does Somebody Actually Care?
I can’t help but be "extremely" disinterested in stories like this one:
Skateboarder Clears Great Wall of China
“Los Angeles--Daredevil skateboarder Danny Way rolled down a massive ramp at nearly 50 mph and jumped across the Great Wall of China on Saturday, becoming the first person to clear the wall without motorized aid, an event sponsor said…
"I was aware of the dangers and my heart was pumping in my chest the whole time, but I managed to pull it off with the help of my team, and I'm honored to have my visions embraced by the people of China," Way said in a statement.
A crowd of several thousand people, including China's ministers of extreme sports and culture, gathered at the Ju Yong Guan Gate about a 40-minute drive from Beijing, Quiksilver's greater China marketing director Ryan Hollis said.”
So let me get me get this straight, the “People’s Republic of China” has become so hip as to actually designate someone to be the “Minister of Extreme Sports and Culture?”
Are the sidewalks and parks in China infested with gangly crowds of pimply faced teens wearing baggy shorts, each sporting a skateboard in one hand and a cell phone in the other?
Are teams of young Chinese men doing “extreme”tricks with rickshaws or bicycles with sidecars?
Is the "Minister of Extreme Sports and Culture" sanctioning events in China featuring same?
I think that most skateboarders (and many snowboarders for that matter) are like fleas on a dog, infesting our planet and wrecking havoc on public places, damaging handrails, stair treads, and monuments with their idiotic “extreme sports” antics.
Most of these kids need to put down their skateboards, turn off their PlayStations, and start studying their school books and doing their homework because the odds of actually making any money as a professional skateboarder are even less than that of playing in the NBA, NFL, or in major league baseball.
I guess I’m just getting to be an old Fogie...
Skateboarder Clears Great Wall of China
“Los Angeles--Daredevil skateboarder Danny Way rolled down a massive ramp at nearly 50 mph and jumped across the Great Wall of China on Saturday, becoming the first person to clear the wall without motorized aid, an event sponsor said…
"I was aware of the dangers and my heart was pumping in my chest the whole time, but I managed to pull it off with the help of my team, and I'm honored to have my visions embraced by the people of China," Way said in a statement.
A crowd of several thousand people, including China's ministers of extreme sports and culture, gathered at the Ju Yong Guan Gate about a 40-minute drive from Beijing, Quiksilver's greater China marketing director Ryan Hollis said.”
So let me get me get this straight, the “People’s Republic of China” has become so hip as to actually designate someone to be the “Minister of Extreme Sports and Culture?”
Are the sidewalks and parks in China infested with gangly crowds of pimply faced teens wearing baggy shorts, each sporting a skateboard in one hand and a cell phone in the other?
Are teams of young Chinese men doing “extreme”tricks with rickshaws or bicycles with sidecars?
Is the "Minister of Extreme Sports and Culture" sanctioning events in China featuring same?
I think that most skateboarders (and many snowboarders for that matter) are like fleas on a dog, infesting our planet and wrecking havoc on public places, damaging handrails, stair treads, and monuments with their idiotic “extreme sports” antics.
Most of these kids need to put down their skateboards, turn off their PlayStations, and start studying their school books and doing their homework because the odds of actually making any money as a professional skateboarder are even less than that of playing in the NBA, NFL, or in major league baseball.
I guess I’m just getting to be an old Fogie...
They Say Close Only Counts In Horseshoes and Hand Grenades
I’d like to add Hurricanes to that listing—and Dennis was too close for comfort—but my Mom survived relatively unscathed.
A little rain, a little wind, and a little while spent without electrical power.
After a little yard cleanup, Dennis will be relegated to being a not so fond memory.
A little rain, a little wind, and a little while spent without electrical power.
After a little yard cleanup, Dennis will be relegated to being a not so fond memory.
From One Extreme, To The Other…
Continuing my “Devil May Care” attitude, I spent an hour at the pool this afternoon under the clouds, ignoring the weather on TV, instead choosing to sit outside and watch the 25 to 35 MPH wind gusts pushing the plastic pool furniture around the pool deck and making the big American Flag flap furiously on the adjacent flagpole.
About 3:30 PM I was driven inside by a burst of rainfall—they’ve been predicting buckets of rain here for two days and none was had, but finally a little water arrived, courtesy of Hurricane Dennis.
When I got back home I found that the storm was just coming on shore slightly east of Pensacola, Florida. I feel sorry for the poor bastards that own houses out there near Navarre Beach and anywhere else on Santa Rosa “Island,” because “Santa Rosa Island” should be called “Santa Rosa Sandbar.”
If you’ve ever been there, you know what I mean.
There will be whole houses tipped over on their sides in the bay and the local Holiday Inn will probably be out of business for two years again like it was after Hurricane Opal in 1995. God help all of the fools that have bought in on the new ten story condos they were building up and down the formerly pristine beaches in that area.
I believe that I’ll take time out to watch today’s NASCAR race on TV from Chicago and try to take my mind off of this natural disaster for a while.
At the risk of exhibiting extreme vanity, go check out this posting, the second one I wrote last fall when I started the blog…its called NASCAR Hype.
And keep your fingers and toes crossed for my Mom’s good fortune…
About 3:30 PM I was driven inside by a burst of rainfall—they’ve been predicting buckets of rain here for two days and none was had, but finally a little water arrived, courtesy of Hurricane Dennis.
When I got back home I found that the storm was just coming on shore slightly east of Pensacola, Florida. I feel sorry for the poor bastards that own houses out there near Navarre Beach and anywhere else on Santa Rosa “Island,” because “Santa Rosa Island” should be called “Santa Rosa Sandbar.”
If you’ve ever been there, you know what I mean.
There will be whole houses tipped over on their sides in the bay and the local Holiday Inn will probably be out of business for two years again like it was after Hurricane Opal in 1995. God help all of the fools that have bought in on the new ten story condos they were building up and down the formerly pristine beaches in that area.
I believe that I’ll take time out to watch today’s NASCAR race on TV from Chicago and try to take my mind off of this natural disaster for a while.
At the risk of exhibiting extreme vanity, go check out this posting, the second one I wrote last fall when I started the blog…its called NASCAR Hype.
And keep your fingers and toes crossed for my Mom’s good fortune…
Hurricane Eye For The Straight Guy
Well, here I sit—Hundreds of miles away, but I don’t know who is hyperventilating more—me or The Weather Channel’s Heather Tesch and Jim “The Weather God” Cantori.
Who bought Heather that funky paisley top anyway—her great Aunt? I think that the show's producers need to stop smoking whatever they are smoking and do some wardrobe screening prior to letting these girls on the number one show on world wide TV right now…can you imagine the number of people watching The Weather Channel today?
It looks like my old buddy Dennis has decided to tilt back westward just enough to spare my mother’s farm in Alabama from bearing the brunt of its onslaught.
Please help me by keeping your fingers, toes, and anything else you want to cross, crossed over the next few hours.
Who bought Heather that funky paisley top anyway—her great Aunt? I think that the show's producers need to stop smoking whatever they are smoking and do some wardrobe screening prior to letting these girls on the number one show on world wide TV right now…can you imagine the number of people watching The Weather Channel today?
It looks like my old buddy Dennis has decided to tilt back westward just enough to spare my mother’s farm in Alabama from bearing the brunt of its onslaught.
Please help me by keeping your fingers, toes, and anything else you want to cross, crossed over the next few hours.
Well, I’m afraid that it’s happening again.
I took a couple hour nap early last evening, and then stayed up much of the rest of the night to follow Hurricane Dennis’ progress. I even took a half hour swim in the pool about 1 AM.
When I went to bed after the 4 AM National Weather Service forecast of the storm track it looked like Mobile was going to be ground zero for the assault. Things looked pretty good for my Mom’s chances of avoiding significant wind damage.
Now I’m awake again and I’ve gotten back on the Internet and learned that the storm has stopped its westward progression, taking a turn directly north toward the Destin/Santa Rosa Island area. That’s bad news—and the Weather Channel TV broadcast just finally admitted same.
Here is what bothers me. If you happen to be unfortunate enought to reside on the eastern side of the eye of a landfalling Hurricane, within the inner 50 to 75 miles of the roar and confusion, you get to enjoy the brunt of the party--whether you want to or not.
Mom may just end up in that situation.
Being the amateur meteorologist that I am, I’ve checked my own resources and here is what I know so far. NOAA Buoy 42039 located about 115 nautical miles SSE of Pensacola reports wave heights of 32.8 feet and wind gusts of 58.3 KTS. Further, they are reporting the top wind speeds running about 145 MPH.
The only good news is that Mom hasn’t had much rain so far, so at least when the winds get there the trees won’t just tip over and pull out of the ground like they did during Hurricane Opal.
Technology is a wonderful thing, but sometimes ignorance is bliss…
When I went to bed after the 4 AM National Weather Service forecast of the storm track it looked like Mobile was going to be ground zero for the assault. Things looked pretty good for my Mom’s chances of avoiding significant wind damage.
Now I’m awake again and I’ve gotten back on the Internet and learned that the storm has stopped its westward progression, taking a turn directly north toward the Destin/Santa Rosa Island area. That’s bad news—and the Weather Channel TV broadcast just finally admitted same.
Here is what bothers me. If you happen to be unfortunate enought to reside on the eastern side of the eye of a landfalling Hurricane, within the inner 50 to 75 miles of the roar and confusion, you get to enjoy the brunt of the party--whether you want to or not.
Mom may just end up in that situation.
Being the amateur meteorologist that I am, I’ve checked my own resources and here is what I know so far. NOAA Buoy 42039 located about 115 nautical miles SSE of Pensacola reports wave heights of 32.8 feet and wind gusts of 58.3 KTS. Further, they are reporting the top wind speeds running about 145 MPH.
The only good news is that Mom hasn’t had much rain so far, so at least when the winds get there the trees won’t just tip over and pull out of the ground like they did during Hurricane Opal.
Technology is a wonderful thing, but sometimes ignorance is bliss…
Living Dangerously
I was just a teenager in high school when I experienced my first Hurricane. The odd thing was, until that day in September, 1975, when Hurricane Eloise hit Ozark, Alabama I didn’t realize how often I would soon be involved in worrying about this fairly common natural phenomena.
They say that hurricane activity runs in cycles, and the first 16 years of my life had been lived in what is currently described as a lull in hurricane formation—1968’s monster Hurricane Cammile that struck Mississippi being the rather spectacular singular exception.
The Southern Atlantic and Gulf Coasts of the United States are known to bear the brunt of the effects of the worldwide hurricane activity almost every year. I think that you will agree, however, that most Americans will trade a nice fat juicy Hurricane Hugo or Hurricane Andrew for the Christmas Tsunami that hit southeastern Asia last year, almost any day.
Hurricane Eloise came knocking on our front door fairly early on that September morning. My father was out of town traveling in New England on business, and my mother and sister and I awoke expecting to begin a normal school day, but instead learned through radio and TV news reports that the storm had unexpectedly shifted its course overnight from a predicted Mobile, Alabama landfall to coming ashore with 110 MPH winds near Panama City, Florida. I hope Dennis doesn’t decide to do the same tonight.
Of course back then there was no Weather Channel and tropical storm forecasting was basically still in its infancy by today’s standards, so we couldn’t blame the local weather guys for missing the details until the last minute.
My memory is that the intensity of the storm built up incrementally, and just when you thought that the wind couldn’t blow any harder and the trees couldn’t bend any farther, the wind blew still harder and the trees simply broke off half way up. In then end, we had over twenty big pine trees down in our yard. Probably half of them started out not standing in our yard, but on the adjacent vacant lot.
My new little Honda Civic had been pounded to death with pine cones and looked like someone had beat it all over with a ball peen hammer. Large pines had just missed our motor home and the Honda—instead laying parallel to each vehicle in some miraculous God-given stroke of fate.
We had half of a big pine tree laying on and sticking through the roof of the house, the power lines to the house were down, and there were two or three dump truck loads of leaves and other organic litter in the yard. When you walked outside, you literally were walking on TOP of piles of pieces of trees.
When the eye of the storm passed over our town, I went outside, over my mother’s objections, and cranked up the chainsaw and started cutting up critical pieces of trees to get a head start on the cleanup. Over the next few days the Alabama National Guard came by and removed the tree from our roof with a boom-truck and some local pulpwood contractors came by to pick up the larger tree trunks. It was a couple of years before things returned to normal at our house, and we lived 120 miles inland from where the storm made landfall.
Since that time, Hurricanes Opal in 1995, Ivan last year, and several other tropical storms and Hurricanes have wrecked havoc on our lives in southern Alabama. Opal beat Eloise by ten or twenty percent in actual impact—particularly since I wasn’t there to help my parents do the clean-up. Last year we dodged a total of five tropical storms and Hurricanes here on St. Simons.
Until I moved to Mexico Beach in 2001, I made a point, every time I visited the beach, to spend a few moments looking out at the shoreline and meditating—realizing that when and if I had the opportunity to return to that location months or years later that it might not be there—or might have been substantially changed by a hurricane. I still think about how easily the landscape around me could change here on St. Simons any day this Hurricane season.
I hope, when it is all said and done this morning, that somehow the minimum damage and effects will be realized by Hurricane Dennis, where ever it decides to come ashore.
Based on what I’m seeing right now, things don’t look too good…
They say that hurricane activity runs in cycles, and the first 16 years of my life had been lived in what is currently described as a lull in hurricane formation—1968’s monster Hurricane Cammile that struck Mississippi being the rather spectacular singular exception.
The Southern Atlantic and Gulf Coasts of the United States are known to bear the brunt of the effects of the worldwide hurricane activity almost every year. I think that you will agree, however, that most Americans will trade a nice fat juicy Hurricane Hugo or Hurricane Andrew for the Christmas Tsunami that hit southeastern Asia last year, almost any day.
Hurricane Eloise came knocking on our front door fairly early on that September morning. My father was out of town traveling in New England on business, and my mother and sister and I awoke expecting to begin a normal school day, but instead learned through radio and TV news reports that the storm had unexpectedly shifted its course overnight from a predicted Mobile, Alabama landfall to coming ashore with 110 MPH winds near Panama City, Florida. I hope Dennis doesn’t decide to do the same tonight.
Of course back then there was no Weather Channel and tropical storm forecasting was basically still in its infancy by today’s standards, so we couldn’t blame the local weather guys for missing the details until the last minute.
My memory is that the intensity of the storm built up incrementally, and just when you thought that the wind couldn’t blow any harder and the trees couldn’t bend any farther, the wind blew still harder and the trees simply broke off half way up. In then end, we had over twenty big pine trees down in our yard. Probably half of them started out not standing in our yard, but on the adjacent vacant lot.
My new little Honda Civic had been pounded to death with pine cones and looked like someone had beat it all over with a ball peen hammer. Large pines had just missed our motor home and the Honda—instead laying parallel to each vehicle in some miraculous God-given stroke of fate.
We had half of a big pine tree laying on and sticking through the roof of the house, the power lines to the house were down, and there were two or three dump truck loads of leaves and other organic litter in the yard. When you walked outside, you literally were walking on TOP of piles of pieces of trees.
When the eye of the storm passed over our town, I went outside, over my mother’s objections, and cranked up the chainsaw and started cutting up critical pieces of trees to get a head start on the cleanup. Over the next few days the Alabama National Guard came by and removed the tree from our roof with a boom-truck and some local pulpwood contractors came by to pick up the larger tree trunks. It was a couple of years before things returned to normal at our house, and we lived 120 miles inland from where the storm made landfall.
Since that time, Hurricanes Opal in 1995, Ivan last year, and several other tropical storms and Hurricanes have wrecked havoc on our lives in southern Alabama. Opal beat Eloise by ten or twenty percent in actual impact—particularly since I wasn’t there to help my parents do the clean-up. Last year we dodged a total of five tropical storms and Hurricanes here on St. Simons.
Until I moved to Mexico Beach in 2001, I made a point, every time I visited the beach, to spend a few moments looking out at the shoreline and meditating—realizing that when and if I had the opportunity to return to that location months or years later that it might not be there—or might have been substantially changed by a hurricane. I still think about how easily the landscape around me could change here on St. Simons any day this Hurricane season.
I hope, when it is all said and done this morning, that somehow the minimum damage and effects will be realized by Hurricane Dennis, where ever it decides to come ashore.
Based on what I’m seeing right now, things don’t look too good…
National Weather Service--All Lathered UP
Being the weather nerd that I am, I subscribe to the National Weather Service Hurricane Center E-mail list. You can get twenty e-mails in just a couple of hours, but it gives you some interesting insights into the goings-on behind the scenes in the professional weather forcasting business.
I just got this text in an E-mail from the National Weather Service:
"AFTER DEEPENING AT A RATE THAT BORDERED ON INSANE DURING THE AFTERNOON...DENNIS HAS CONTINUED TO STRENGTHEN AT A MORE NORMAL RATE THIS EVENING. REPORTS FROM AN AIR FORCE RESERVE HURRICANE HUNTER AIRCRAFT SHOW THAT THE CENTRAL PRESSURE HAS FALLEN TO 941MB...WITH MAXIMUM FLIGHT-LEVEL WINDS OF 122 KT IN THE NORTHEAST QUADRANT.
BASED ON THIS...THE INITIAL INTENSITY IS 110 KT. IT IS EXPECTED THAT WHEN THE AIRCRAFT AGAIN SAMPLES THE NORTHEAST EYE WALL THAT IT WILL FIND STRONGER WINDS THAT WILL JUSTIFY UPGRADING DENNIS TO A CATEGORY FOUR HURRICANE. IT SHOULD BE NOTED THAT ALTHOUGH DENNIS HAS A VERY LARGE OUTER WIND FIELD... THE HURRICANE FORCE WINDS ARE CONFINED TO A VERY SMALL AREA NEAR THE CENTER."
I think that somebody needs some decaf coffee down there in Miami...
I just got this text in an E-mail from the National Weather Service:
"AFTER DEEPENING AT A RATE THAT BORDERED ON INSANE DURING THE AFTERNOON...DENNIS HAS CONTINUED TO STRENGTHEN AT A MORE NORMAL RATE THIS EVENING. REPORTS FROM AN AIR FORCE RESERVE HURRICANE HUNTER AIRCRAFT SHOW THAT THE CENTRAL PRESSURE HAS FALLEN TO 941MB...WITH MAXIMUM FLIGHT-LEVEL WINDS OF 122 KT IN THE NORTHEAST QUADRANT.
BASED ON THIS...THE INITIAL INTENSITY IS 110 KT. IT IS EXPECTED THAT WHEN THE AIRCRAFT AGAIN SAMPLES THE NORTHEAST EYE WALL THAT IT WILL FIND STRONGER WINDS THAT WILL JUSTIFY UPGRADING DENNIS TO A CATEGORY FOUR HURRICANE. IT SHOULD BE NOTED THAT ALTHOUGH DENNIS HAS A VERY LARGE OUTER WIND FIELD... THE HURRICANE FORCE WINDS ARE CONFINED TO A VERY SMALL AREA NEAR THE CENTER."
I think that somebody needs some decaf coffee down there in Miami...
