Time flies when you're having rum.

Enter at your own risk

As part of an apparent conspiracy by corporate America to ensure that we all come to hate Christmas and the holiday season with a fiery, unrelenting passion, T.J. Maxx is already playing Christmas carols.

You have been warned.

Good Goly, Miss Moly!


YOU ARE MOLY


What herb are you?
brought to you by Quizilla


never heard of it.

It was an ugly enough herb, a prickly plant which sprawled low in the shadow of the trees.

but: Though it grows in soil perverse,
Heaven hath been its jealous nurse,


Moly the God's most sovereign herb divine.

Moly, the uncharm

A magic herb with black roots and white flowers that was given to Odysseus by Hermes to ward off the spells of Circe.

Or am I soft, magnetic, and only slightly coercive?

; )

Old Eyes

Da Goddess has a post and pictures up on a Protest Warrior excursion. I tried to snag one of her photos, but either she has them protected or else I just don't know how to do it.

But go here, and - excuse me for speaking this way but I am moved -

look upon this ancient warrior, who has fought on foreign soil and in his golden years steps forth again, to stand straight and tall for the same ideals for which he fought as a young man. This time, he fights a quieter fight, but one on his own soil, against those he fought to protect so many years ago.

Where is the poet that can honor such a man? Where is the artist who can capture such dedication, such irony?

May the Good Lord bless him and keep him.

Where is the moralist, the philosopher, who can reach the Code-pinkers and their ilk, transport them from where they are now - screeching on the streets of San Diego in 2004, screeching against the very idealism that makes this ancient warrior what he is - transport them away, to an alternate 2004 where no such warriors had existed 40, 50 years ago?

Surely, God or perhaps Satan looks at the human race and laughs at us.

Fiercely Independent! gggrrrrooowwwlllll

You Are a "Don't Tread On Me" Libertarian

You distrust the government, are fiercely independent, and don't belong in either party. Religion and politics should never mix, in your opinion... and you feel opressed by both. You don't want the government to cramp your self made style. Or anyone else's for that matter. You're proud to say that you're pro-choice on absolutely everything!

What political persuasion are you?

Silly post

Microwave pouches are easier to deal with if you carve a big X from one corner to another before heating. when it's done, just flip it over.

Easier than poking holes or cutting a corner.

Thank you, Veterans!

See the guy trying to fix the hole in the wing with a screwdriver? That's my Dad.

The SOC planes rode on Naval aircraft carriers. Basically, the takeoff was accomplished by flinging the plane off the ship with a giant rubber band. They knew they'd been hit by Japanese fire, but had no idea how bad or how close until they got back on ship.

God bless you all.

WWII; USS Louisville SOC

He never called, he never wrote

not so much as a card on my birthday!

Leaders of Women's Groups Say Democrat John Kerry Should Have Sought Them Out

Leaders of several women's groups said Tuesday that Democrat John Kerry fell short in his bid for the White House because he didn't make a more direct appeal for support from women voters.

Can you believe these broads? Me, me, it's all about meeeeeeee!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARINES!!!

Artists in Afghanistan




I don't know the details, but this picture (and 2 more) are making the email rounds. Isn't it great?

"Check out what some of our boys overseas did to their helicopter. Some Afghan is probably freaking out right about now.
This very special Mi-24 helicopter is presently flying in Afghanistan, where it is no doubt causing quite a stir. "

Second Helicopter Pic

The eagle has landed!

Chin up

State of emergency in Iraq; car bomb near the Iraqi finance minister's home; First marine casualities in Fallujah.

Hang tough. This utter mayhem is to be expected. There will be increased resistance because of the US election and because of the impending Iraqi election. The terrorists will be just about hysterical by now, and are fighting like the cornered rats they are.

There's only a month or two until the Iraq elections, and if the terrorists can disrupt that they'll feel like they had a big win.

After the Iraq elections, the terrorists (whatever's left of them) will be wanting to disrupt the legitimate processes as much as possible. It's not going to be pretty for at least 4 more months.

Truly worthwhile accomplishments are rarely easy. If Kerry (or anybody else) actually has a feasible plan that will accomplish getting rid of the terrorists and getting democracy to Iraq, now would be a real good time to share it with the rest of us. Otherwise - courage, patience and faith. Our astonishing military and the brave Iraqi people are plowing through hell. They will come out the other side, but it's a tough journey.

Stay the course.


Update: Hey! Nobody else is blogging about this! I figured there'd be lots of hysterics . . nobody's even paying attention. If Kerry'd won, I expected Iraq to fade out of view but Kerry didn't win. So I figured it would stay in the news (a) in its own right and (b) to continue harping on Bush. What gives? It still matters.

?

Why Bush?

The BBC asked why we voted for Bush. Here's a few reasons why I did:

He says what he means, and means what he says.

He has the guts to look terrorism in the eye and deal with it for the long term - and that takes a tremendous amount of courage. If democracy can indeed take hold in Afghanistan and Iraq, the people of the middle east will have been given an alternative to fighting. 'If' always carries a risk, but we need to dare great risks if we are going to accomplish great things. What are the choices? We take the risk, and win or lose spectacularly, or we take no chances and face a certain, but slower, death. To the 'give peace a chance' crowd, please review your history. We gave peace a chance and we got 9/11.

He's less inclined to socialism than John Kerry, although his 1st term spending does not please me one whit. The Democrat Party may as well be honest and call themselves socialists. It would be kind of neat if they'd read up on how many people died under socialism during the 20th century, too. Capitalism has it drawbacks, but it rarely shoots people in the back of the head.

He's not so daft as to surrender US sovereignty to the United Nations, a corrupt and useless organization if ever there was one.

The US is sometimes accused of propping up dictators in exchange for US support. To our shame, this accusation has sometimes been well-founded. George Bush, in a little-heralded but major and gutsy move, formally reversed this policy. We will no longer sacrifice what's right for short-term gain. Major, gutsy, that's what moral vision looks like, thank you President Bush. This policy reversal alone is enough to merit a 2nd term vote.

His love for his country is blatant and unashamed. So is mine.

Finally, he's a gentleman. If the tone of US political discourse has been foul of late, you cannot lay the blame at President Bush's feet. I've been voting for nearly 30 years; this is the first time I've voted a straight ticket. I could not, in good conscience, vote for a Democrat, a member of a political party that:

(a) actively embraces propaganda so vile it is used by US enemies as a recruiting tool. (Terry McAuliffe's embrace of Micheal Moore)

(b) has essentially called me a slut (James Carville)

(c) called me a brownshirt (Al Gore)

(d) slandered my country while overseas (a host of assorted drug-addled musicians and Hollywood vermin)

(e) denigrated my country and my President overseas (Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton)

(f) licked the boots of Saddam Hussein, an enemy of my country and a creator of mass graves (Jim McDermot)

(g) elevated Osama Bin Laden above the rights and lives of my countrymen (Cynthia McKinney, Patti Murphy)

(h) attempted to tromp all over balance of power and the legislative process (Mayor Newsome and *some* San Francisco gays)

and that's just the official Democrats. The rank and file have behaved much more atrociously.


There's more but that will do to get on with.

VIVA LA BUSH!

Sober today, and only slightly hungover, so I can address this without wanting to bite anyone.

Gay Marriage and the Cheneys:

this is a short post at the Volokh Conspiracy, so I'm reprinting it full

If, as Eugene and others have suggested, it was voters who turned out to vote against gay marriage who gave Bush his margin of victory in Ohio, it lends credence to the theory that the reason Kerry and Edwards both noted that Dick Cheney has a lesbian daughter was to discourage turnout among precisely these voters.

True story, as unlikely as it sounds: I spoke Wednesday with a 75-year, unmarried, supe-duper Christian virgin who voted for the first time in her life on Nov 2, 2004. She'd just never been interested in politics before, but between the fuss made about it last election and since, and also maybe because she's moved from a house to an apartment (more time on her hands), she decided this year to pay attention and perhaps vote. Well, she did vote and she voted for Bush. The tipping points for her were (1) a Frontline show "supposedly comparing Bush and Kerry, but they made Kerry look like he walked on water and Bush look like a total wash-out. Nobody could be as bad as Bush was painted and still make it to the presidency. I thought 'Who do they think they're kidding?'" and (2) 'that remark about Mary Cheney. Is that what "they call compassion? Anybody can carry a bible or wear a cross - doesn't mean anything and you're a fool if you think it does. I felt like my religion was being used."

Granted, she's an unusual woman.

o lord.

Yes, you can secede. The sooner, the better.

The problem is that, despite your having the wherewithal to do just that, you won't.

This group should be ignored where they are until they drown in their vomit.

I'll have to read this blog when I'm sober

Raw Dog

20:21

Vedder's research demonstrates that America’s universities have become less productive, less efficient, and more likely to use tuition money and state and federal grants to subsidize non-instructional activities such as huge pay raises for the administration, reduction in teaching loads for professors, opulent social functions and funding sometimes trivial research.

I've been wondering why liberal academia, so eager to foist socialism on the rest of us, is also so unwilling to put it into practice. PhDs in Universities make a goodly sum . .tuition has risen far faster than inflation . . University professors talk the socialist talk, but they don't exactly slip a portion of their salaries to beleagured parent.

Sweetheart

James is a complete sweetheart for linking to me, from two blogs, no less, and I assure you (& him) that I rarely blog while snockered.

But sometimes, things really irritate me, ya know? If the right gets as goofy as the left, well . .AAARRRRRGGGGHHHH!

Mandate, Schmandate

in which I blog half-crocked and piss off the entire civilized world as we know it.

In the vocabulary of the blogosphere, the word 'moonbat' has come to mean someone leaning so far to the left that all their brains slid out their left ear onto the floor, where the dog ate it. What's the opposite? What do you call someone who leans so far to the right that they, too, lose their brains? A Sun-emu? Moon:sun, flying mammal:flightless bird. It will have to do.

The sun-emus are crawling out of the woodwork since the re-election of George Bush, some screeching such tripe that they make the paranoia of the moonbats seem reasonable. Listen up, sun-emus: FUCK YOU!

President George Bush does NOT have a mandate to make abortion illegal, nor to drive gays into deep, dark caves, nor to - goodness only knows what else the sun-emus can come up, but that will do for a start.

First off, to listen to some of the talk, one would think that the sun-emus, and only the sun-emus, are responsible for Bush's reelection. ain't so. There are some other groups:

Vietnam veterans, aka Anybody But Kerry
Vietnam immigrants, also aka ABK
Iraqi immigrants
Iranian immigrants
Quite possibly Afghani immigrants
Security moms
Floridians tired of the insults generated by Al Gore's y2k shenanigans
Pro-war libertarians


I don't know what the numbers of most of the above groups are, but the libertarians voting for Harry Browne in 2000 numbered about 1,000,000. Figuring a 50/50 pro/con war split, and assuming some stuck with Badnarik 'anyway,' that's roughly 250,000 voting for Bush, not Badnarik, this year. What's the difference between how many Floridians voted for Bush in 2000 vs 2004? Beats me, I'm too sloshed to remember, but whatever that number is, factor it in. Now go look up all those other groups. Oh yeah - 2.5 million Vietnam vets. Beats me how many Vietnam immigrants, but don't forget to add the kids. Remember the kids? The half-American, half-Viet kids that got automatic citizenship? You don't? Well, bleep you. Anyway, a bunch of them.

That brings the exact number to somewhere between 2,275,000 and a whole lot more. Subtract that from 4,000,000, and you get a max of where's my calculator 1,725,000, or approximately 2.923728813559% sun-emus out of the 59,000,000.000000000000 + that voted for Bush, which is not a fucking mandate, so don't think you own the President or the country all by your little ol' selves because you don't.

Bush has a mandate to prosecute the war on terror. That is his sole mandate. Thank God, I don't think he's a stupid as you sun-emus.

Do ya love this country? Well, do ya, punk? Because if you do, pay some attention to the founding principals and the American Ideals.

"That government is best which governs least."

"Government, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a really nasty master."

Ok, so I screwed up the word in the last quote. You get the concept.

Remember also that power shifts. Any laws enacted now set precedents. If you are successful in creating a law, any law, that dictates who may contract with whom, when, what, where, what they may do in their bedrooms, how they may leave their worldly goods, and so on, you open the door for such laws to be imposed on yourself. Are you effin' daft? Do you want to open that door?

& for pete's squeaks, lay off the hare-brained amendments! (post for another day, but damn!)

Listen up, sun-emus, if ya don't give a hoot about the constitution, and if you're truly so blind that you don't think oppressive laws will never come back to bite you, maybe you care about God.

Have ya read Genesis? Do you know what God's first gift to mankind was?

Free will

Use extreme caution is trying to steal God's first and greatest gift away from his children. If you believe in God, you know what I'm saying. If you don't, why should you care about gays and abortion and whatnot anyway?

& why did God give man free will? because "He was lonely." That bit of the Bible twists my heart, but it's there. God was lonely. So he gave us free will, so we could choose to come to him all by our lonesome. God wants each one of us to choose, in our hearts and of ourselves, to come to Him. God Himself apparently doesn't want us dragged there, kicking and screaming. So have a care, sun-emus. Don't make our gifts to God more feeble than our natural human weakness dictates. Leave us free to give freely and cheerfully what we have to give.

Well!

I have a whole lot of extremely nasty things to say to GLAAD, too, but I'm sloshed and hungry. Some other time perhaps . .

naw, hell, better say it right now.

Yo! GLAAD! Yer farkin' NUTS! Not only are you nuts, but you're lazy and whiney. You don't even know what you want!! FAUGH!! You make me sick.

You say you want gay marriage made legal, and you don't even know what gay marriage is. You won't sit down and figure it out, you just whine and look for judges willing to piss on the constitution and the concept of balance of power. Are you really so stupid that you don't see the potential consequences? Because if you are truly that DUMB STUPID BLIND, you deserve to be locked in a room with sun-emus forever and ever and ever, with nothing to eat but 3-day old fish and nothing to drink but Coors light. It would serve you right.

Quit fucking up the English language. Marriage means the union of a man and a woman, always has, always will. Deal with it.

If you want marriage, grab yourself someone of the opposite sex and go to it.

If you want something other - work towards it in a logical manner, within the framework of the laws in place. What you actually want, although you are apparently too daft or too whiney to realize it, is a shortcut way to contract for a union between two members of the same sex. You've no business calling this contract 'marriage.' Have a contest, come up with a different name. I like 'homonogomy' myself - to me, it has a cozy, homey sound, as opposed to civil union (too cold) or carnal union (too decadent). But it's your union, up to you. Have a contest, take a poll. Whatever. But don't steal a word that doesn't belong to you.

And decide, among yourselves, exactly what you want that word to mean. Does a homonogomous union mean that each partner is the other's next of kin? Fine. Automatic step-parent in the case of kids? Fine. Domestic partner, for those companies that provide for such things? Fine. Whatever. But dammit, decide. Come to consensus amongst yourselves, work out the legal paperwork, then present a bill to your state legislature. Ask for homonogamy to be considered a contract, similar to but not the same as, marriage or whatever. Don't forget to deal with divorce while you're at it, suckers.

BTW, the vodka is Krolewska. It comes in the loveliest bottle, looks like a stained glass window. I'm mixing it with Shasta kiwi-strawberry soda. Since it's Polish vodka, and Poland has been sooooo cool and tough (GO GROM!), I figure drinking it is my patriotic duty.

Anything else? No, that's enough for now.

Please, everybody, try not to go off your rocker.

Local band plug: Runa Pacha, Andean-Peruvian. Soothes the soul.

Perspective on incumbents versus challengers

It's obviously a little late in the day, as far as the 2004 elections go, but Alaa at The Mesopotamian posted something to consider that wouldn't have occurred to me:

If you think the President did a bad job and made mistakes and got us all in a mess, then he must not be let off and must stay to clear the mess. Letting him off now will release him from his responsibility to finish the job and tidy up.

If you replace him now with the Senator, then both men will have ready excuses for any future failure. The one will be able to say that he was not allowed to finish his work and the other can say that it was not his fault anyway, because the other made such mistakes as to make any remedy impossible.

Great-Aunt Ruby's Peanut Butter Cookies

This cookie recipe was brought to you in part by the 59 million + US citizens who voted for George Bush, and by Senator John Kerry, whom I thank for being gracious in defeat.

1 cup shortening (1/2 c. butter, 1/2 c. lard)
1 2/3 c. sugar
1 c. peanut butter

Blend the above ingredients together.

2 eggs, slightly beaten - gradually add to peanut butter mixture

Sift together:
2 1/2 c. flour
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt

and gradually add to above.

Mix well. Form balls, maybe a little smaller than a golf ball.

Place on lightly-greased cookie sheet. Squash flat with fork.

Bake at 375 - 400 for about 10 minutes.

These continue cooking for a bit after you take them out of the oven, so don't wait until they look too brown.

Buck up, Buckeyes!

Welcome to the wonderful world of villification. Unless John Kerry behaves like a gentleman and a statesman, you will shortly began to hear things about your state that are slanted and/or untrue - things that will make you look like a collection of addled doofuses. Things that are done all over the country, and have been for years, will be highlighted as if Ohio is the only place where it happens. When lawsuits are filed, and thrown out, only the filing will be reported. The frivolity of some of these suits won't be discussed. There will be foul rumors and false canards flung at you, and the stories will never be corrected.

Hang in there, kiddos. If you have a blog, blog that side of the stories that the media won't report. When this is finally over, your state will have a healthly, well-deserved contempt for the media as well as the democrat party. And at the next election, the margin won't be so small, as a certain portion of your electorate will resent the slander.

Best of luck to you.

Cookies or deadmen voting?

OK, all those who have not yet voted, and are legally entitled to, here's the deal:

If President Bush clearly wins this election, I will publish Great Aunt Ruby's Peanut Butter cookie recipe. These are real peanut butter cookies, the kind with a fork mark in them, such as you probably have not tasted for 15 years.

I know a lot of you out there have been bribed by the Democrat party. Connie Milstein was not imprisoned, so for all I know she's handing cartons of cigarettes to the homeless again. Listen up, you people-bribed-by-democrats: In the voting booth you can (and should) vote the opposite of whatever the briber wanted you to vote.

So what do you want? Do you want this country run by a bunch of sleazy corrupt bribers, or by the good and honest George Bush, PLUS a really, really good peanut butter cookie recipe?

Choose wisely, choose well.