February 17, 2005
Local Blogging Coverage
In yesterday�s Seattle Times, James J. Na talks about some of the local Seattle area blogs, as well as the big national ones.
Sadly, RNS didn�t get a mention, but that mostly stems from us being a nationwide blog (Seattle - Me, Baton Rouge � The Nukevet, Middle Ohio � the still around but mysterious Puggs) and that I�m one of those subversive anonybloggers.
You should read the article and see who you recognize and maybe check out some of the other blogs mentioned within. There are no links, apparently the dead tree media haven�t quite figured that part out yet.
Mr. Na has one very funny line that I thoroughly enjoyed,
Q: �What is the difference between conservative and liberal nerds?"
A: "Conservative nerds have guns�
It�s funny because its true!
Posted by Nukevet at 09:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 16, 2005
What a Maroon!
Headmistress Sondra K finds this item from Reuters,
Legal experts say prosecutors will look for jurors who are older, conservative, less taken with celebrity, willing to accept authority and appalled by child molestation.
Jackson's attorneys may look for more liberal jurors who have advanced degrees and are critical thinkers who question authority.
Ah, I see! Only liberals with advanced degrees can be critical thinkers.
And this reporter must be a critical thinker because he was critical of conservatives.
Posted by Nukevet at 08:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 14, 2005
The Curse
Of Madeline �Not-So-Bright�.
OK, let us be fair. The fact that the North Koreans have nukes is also the curse of Jimmy Carter as well as Bill Clinton because he sent little Maddie and Jimmeh over there to give them to the Norks.
Now that the Norks have publicly admitted to possession (they admitted to possession privately over two years ago, according to former ambassador to China, James Lilley) and have pulled out of the six party talks, I am waiting for the left wing to demand that Bush meet directly with them (otherwise known as: Blackmail) which would be a disaster.
And the Dems wonder why we don�t trust them on foreign policy.
Watch for a relatively quick shut down of supplies of food and fuel to the Norks around the first week of March. The Norks will feel the pinch about two weeks later and they will hopefully return to the six party talks shortly thereafter.
Hopefully.
Either way, watch for the networks to blame this all on the Bush Administration.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 10, 2005
Note to Freddy Mitchell
Maybe you should just shut up now.
It's quite a feat when your behavior is enough to make Terrell Owens look like the mature one on the team.
Posted by Nukevet at 07:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 09, 2005
Washington Political Developments
I decided I couldn�t really file this under the banner of �Count ANY Vote� so it gets separate billing.
If you remember the last �CAV� entry, you�ll recall that a man had been arrested for threatening the life of Christine Gregoire.
You�ll also remember her taking a page out of the Bill Clinton handbook and blaming �Right Wing Talk Radio� for inciting him.
This is the guy,
Story
Martelli was arrested for threatening to kill Governor Christine Gregoire and her children. But he says he made the comment only to his therapist, and just to make a point about abortion.
"There was not a threat there," Martelli insists. "This doctor has interjected all this and blown it way out of proportion. What was mentioned was Christine Gregoire's name and abortion."
The therapist reported it to the State Patrol, which saw it as more than a political statement.
Martelli insists it was not a real threat. "All this extra security for Christine Gregoire and then my name in there," he says. "I don't appreciate that. And, I just want to set the record straight."
Martelli will get that chance in court. He's scheduled to go to trial for threatening the Governor on March 14. Meantime, he's free on $10,000 bail.
We�ll see.
*************************
Next up, this is driving the left nuts here in Washington,
State Supreme Court Throws Out Estate TaxThe state Supreme Court threw out Washington's estate tax Thursday, causing a potential loss of $430 million over the next two years at a time when lawmakers already are facing a $1.8 billion spending gap.
The unanimous decision by the nine-member court concluded that "when an estate has no federal estate tax, there is no obligation to pay any state estate tax." It ordered a refund of estate taxes collected by the Department of Revenue since Jan. 1, 2002.
The refund could be as high as $150 million, said Mike Gowrylow, a spokesman for the state agency. He said the $430 million includes that refund, and the state's reliance on $277 million that was expected to be collected from 2005 to 2007.
�Was expected to collect� I think that says just about everything about my Democrat controlled state.
Why do I say that? Well, the Dems came in and promised to make audits more frequent. As I mentioned just before the election on November 2nd, our State Auditor was made a eunuch in terms of the scope of his power many years ago by the Dems in this state and waste has been running rampant around these parts.
Well, the Dems are fulfilling their campaign promises...sort of.
House bill probes whether business tax breaks are workingThe state House on Monday passed a bill requiring audits of the state's roughly 500 tax breaks for businesses to determine how much they cost, who they're benefiting and whether they're achieving the intended goals.
"We have fallen, I think, in the eyes of the public in terms of their view and their confidence in the state tax system," said Rep. Jim McIntire, D-Seattle, who sponsored the bill. "This is just a modest step toward restoring their confidence."
The bill, which goes now to the Senate, wouldn't kill any tax breaks. It would create a citizen's committee to decide which tax breaks should be studied, then directs an audit committee to report back to the Legislature.
Oh sure, the bill itself wouldn�t get rid of any of the tax-breaks for businesses, but if this Blue-Ribbon-Committee of sorts decides that they�re not worth it, how much do you want to bet that this cash strapped legislature would dump it in a heartbeat.
And the Dems wonder why the Gubernatorial race was so close.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:52 AM | Comments (1)
February 08, 2005
Crime must have been pretty bad
In Bristol, Connecticut.
The police there went from wearing 9mm Glocks as their standard issue sidearm to wearing 40MM�s.
Now that�s my kind of constable. Must be some pretty hefty fellas there to be able to handle the recoil��
Oh wait! It was just another ignorant reporter.
Nevermind.
Found at Ravenwood�s Universe
Posted by Nukevet at 08:43 AM | Comments (0)
February 05, 2005
Whupped
I have, sitting in my email, a collection of links that contains enough stuff to keep me writing for 4+ hours.
The trouble is, after another 14 hours at work (to cap off a 58 hour work week), I don't feel much like writing.
So today, taking a tip from Rivrdog and the Grouchy Old Cripple (in Atlanta), I present you not with boobage, for that is a little over-done these days.
I give you, Professor Booty's Fabulous Spankables
Not Safe For Work (but that is OK, I'm not going to work this weekend).
*************************
PS: for those not interested in all that, I'll be back Sunday morning with another kick-ass gun deal. Among other things.
Oh and if you're a guy, you might want to check your pulse.
Who says denim went out of style?
(Feedback could lead to this being regular.)
Posted by Nukevet at 08:30 AM | Comments (2)
February 04, 2005
Eh, why worry about
National ID cards? Right?
Posted by Nukevet at 03:22 PM | Comments (1)
America continues to go crazy
Beware the cookies of death!
Posted by Nukevet at 10:25 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Smackdown Friday: Bout #1
We got three bouts on the card for today.
First up in the Lightweight Class is the Analog Kid
His Tag Team Partner! The Champion: Marine Corps Lt. Gen. James Mattis and his statement,
You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil," Mattis said during a panel discussion. "You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."
The Challenger: The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and their statement,
CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad. "These disturbing remarks are indicative of an apparent indifference to the value of human life." Awad urged that "appropriate disciplinary action" be taken against Gen. Mattis.
And General Mattis is having an easy time of it, but he strolls on over to the corner and tags in the Kid.
What's the Kid going to do?
It looks like he's reaching back, back, back for a quote...Oh Good Golly, this is gonna be a doozy! And No! CAIR is unable to make it back to their corner to tag in their partner, Al Qiada!
"Good people sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." - George Orwell
Ouch, that had to hurt! CAIR is standing there in sort of a drunken stupor teetering with a real sad look on their face.
And CAIR doesn't realize it yet, but they've been shown for the rat bastards they are. With that last blast, the Kid shows them that General Mattis and men just like him have fought and died for them to be able to say the ignorant crap they do.
Uh-oh! It looks like CAIR is sending out a yell for help to the Main Stream Media to back them up and give them relevance. Will they get it?
The ref is giving CAIR a standing eight count. 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3,
To be continued.......
Posted by Nukevet at 08:45 AM | Comments (2)
Smackdown Friday: Bout #2
The Next bout on the card today...
The Champion in the Cruiserweight Class: Kim du Toit!
The Challenger: The Washington Post!
The WaPo comes out strong with a jab and a high kick with this quote,
If a worker sets aside $1,000 a year for 40 years, and earns 4 percent annually on investments, the account would grow to $99,800 in today's dollars. All of that money would be the worker's upon retirement. But guaranteed benefits over the worker's lifetime would be reduced by approximately $78,700 -- the amount the worker would have contributed to Social Security but instead contributed to his private account, plus 3 percent interest above inflation. The remainder, $21,100, would be the increase in benefit the worker would receive over his lifetime above the level he would have received if he stayed in the traditional system.
But wait, du Toit is untouched! Its like the WaPo didn't even touch him. What the hell is going on?
Oh wait, I see it now.
It looks like Matt Drudge is in his corner yelling a White House Press Release!
Under President Bush�s plan, participants would get EVERY SINGLE PENNY OF THEIR RETIREMENT ACCOUNTS�BOTH the PRINCIPAL AND INTEREST.
The President�s plan for personal retirement accounts does not have a �claw back.� Under the President�s plan, you, not the government, get all the gains in your personal retirement account. The amount you receive from the government is NOT reduced if your personal account does well. The better your account does, the better off you are.
I don't know what kind of magic-mumbo-jumbo that is, but it works like an 8yr old in a Kathy Lee Gifford sweatshop!
And now comes du Toit's first offensive move. Again, I can't quite see what he's doing, but it looks like....Have Mercy, Miss Percy! He's reaching to his hip and pulling out a Colt Python revolver!
I had to put the whole thing in, because the more the mainstream media lie, the bigger the responsibility I have to refute them.
At least 60 million people have figured out that the mainstream media, the philosophy they represent, and the political party they so slavishly support, are all full of shit.
And we�ve figured out that GWB, despite being the �clumsy oaf from Texas� is smarter and more principled than the Left are; that his policies and principles are more in line with most Americans� than theirs are; and that he�s a better leader of this nation than Fuckface, Blowjob Boy and the Peanut Farmer could ever have hoped to be, by an exponential factor.
Don't bother calling an ambulance, Martha! Have 'em send the meat wagon. The WaPo is dead.
Posted by Nukevet at 08:30 AM | Comments (1)
Smackdown Friday: Bout #3
In our Feature Bout, we have a two heavyweights competing in a grudge match battle royale!
In this corner: Kevin Baker of The Smallest Minority Blog!
In the other corner: Saul Cornell, "Associate Professor of History and Director of the Second Amendment Research Center at the John Glenn Institute at Ohio State University"
Baker has the truth of the Second Amendment behind him. Now let's take a look at who is backing up Cornell.
Holy Smokes! Its the Joyce Foundation! They're the largest anti-gun group in the Great Lakes Region!
And the bell rings and the match begins!
Cornell comes out of the chute with a roundhouse designed to connect to as many people as possible,
Although gun rights advocates have tried to claim that bearing arms did not have a military connotation at the time the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791, they have never been able to provide a body of evidence to support their claims. The only evidence they have produced is a single text written by the losing side in the original debate over the Constitution.
But it is too wide sweeping to touch a hair on Baker!
I beg your pardon? I refer you, once again, to the Report of the Subcommittee linked above, and how about this page from UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh? Or the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals decision in U.S. v. Emerson? There are REAMS of scholarship showing that the "bearing arms" language in the Second Amendment did not restrict "the right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms" to milita service only, else Laurence Tribe would not have reached the conclusion he did.
Blammmo! Cornell's head was knocked clean off! I doubt he'll be able to recover from that one!
But wait! Something that looks like a vine is extending from his neck and, and, and it seems to be searching out the head!
It has found it! And the vine is drawing the head back to the body! That is some strange mojo the Joyce Foudnation has go going on!
Cornell winds up...Uh-Oh! This one looks personal!
I have never denied the existence of an individual rights tradition, but I think the evidence strongly suggests that it was weak at the Founding, got stronger over the 19th century, but never supplanted the two alternative models-- the collective rights view, and what I call the civic rights view. Of course, since I am not an originalist none of this really matters. Moreover, with 240 million guns in America and without an individual right written into the 2nd Amendment why all the fuss. I believe the issue is very interesting, but at the end of the day it really hardly matters in terms of the politics and public policy debate. Guns are part of the fabric of American culture and are not going away so the question is can we take a few common sense steps to reduce gun violence or not. The slippery slope arguments have it backwards. What we have is an upward struggle to achieve modest regulations.
Cornell is smiling and trying to get the crowd behind him by pumping his arms and I can't figure out why? Baker took a step back, but Cornell still missed him again. If this goes to the point cards, Baker has this bout well in hand.
Cornell had better look out. Baker seems to be glowing from some type of light? What the hell? OK, this announcer has never seen anything like this, I'm pretty sure I'll be diving under the table soon.
I think that Cornell has finally noticed the light gathering around Baker and it looks as if he has just wet himself!
That's it! Under the table.
OK folks, I'm under the table and I'm......
I'm glad that you admit up front that you are not an originalist. It is obvious from your writing, but stating it explicitly is certainly helpful. For those unfamiliar with the term, an "originalist" is one who believes that the Constitution is not a "living document," and that interpretation of it should be based on the original understanding of the text as it was proposed and ratified. Justice Antonin Scalia is an originalist, for instance. Therefore if the Constitution is found to be outdated in any of its parts, it should be altered by amendment, rather than by mere legislation or judicial interpretation. In other words, even if the legislature should pass a law that appears to be a good idea, but is in violation of the Constitution as originally understood by those who ratified it, it should be the duty of the Judiciary to strike such law down as unconstitutional until such time as the Constitution has been amended to correct the error. Further, the power of the Judiciary is restricted to striking down unconstitutional law, and not creating law. That power is left to the legislative and executive branches.
What the hell was that!?!
I'm crawling out from under the table now. The light seems to be gone. I'm going to look up into the ring.
Well butter me up and call me Lucy! The only man in the ring is Baker! Where Cornell was standing is a smoking little glob of...something?
It was the Light of Truth! Folks, this is a day that the announcer will always remeber!
Kevin Baker has successfully used a WHD! A Weapon of Hoplophobe Destruction, it only hurts those that are afraid of firearms! While this isn't the first use of a WHD in history. It was, in the mind of this announcer, still magnificent.
That's it from Smackdown Friday! We'll see you soon, folks
Posted by Nukevet at 08:21 AM | Comments (3)
February 03, 2005
Hah!
Er, probably NSFW (unless your co-workers/boss expect to hear songs calling people f#cking wankers blaring from your computer speakers, that is).
Posted by Nukevet at 08:45 PM | Comments (0)
AK's SOTU Review
So I listened to the SOTU last night. Over all, not bad at all. Certainly not great, but not bad.
One thing I would like to ask is this, why was Social Security Reform a necessity when Clinton was President, but all of a sudden the Federal Ponzi Scheme is A-OK for ever and ever, according to the very same Democrats?
Including these people, who started ThereIsNoCrisis.Com
Just wondering.
After the SOTU I refrained from listening to the right-wing talk stations because I knew that they'd laud it (except for the amnesty that isn't called amnsety part).
Instead, I listened to the hardest core left wing hate radio I could find. I wanted Full-On scorched earth looney radio. Not even Air Amerikkka radio would do, I wanted F*ckin A, BusHitler, Democratic Underground radio.
And I found it.
Aside from singing of high praises for the Dem rebuttal speech, there were plenty of "I Hate Bush More Than You Do" types proclaiming that the Thompson Twins song 'Lies' should have been played in the background throughout the speech.
You want to know how looney left these folks were?
They had Baghdad Jim McDermott on for followup commentary.
Ol Jimmy let out a good one when he proclaimed that any change to Social Security was 'Drastic' and 'Dangerous', and then in the next breath said that the nation's healthcare system needed to be immediately legislated and transformed into a system like the one in Canada.
Is it me, or would any change that Bush does to SSI be less 'dangerous' and less 'drastic' than switching to a Socialized Medicine?
You have to wonder what Jimmy smokes in the evenings.....
I also heard a one-worlder proclaim that even though, when Social Security first began there were 12 workers paying in for every one person drawing, and now we have only three people paying in for every person who is drawing out, those three people are paying six times as much into the system, so there are actually 18 people paying into the system for each person drawing.
GO AHEAD, READ THAT AGAIN. It still doesn't make any sense.
And they want me to trust them with my money?
I still agree with Frank J's idea,
If instead of the government taking the money you were allowed to take it and shove it up your ass, you'd get a better return on the money and not be quite as pissed off.
Clinton SSI links found @ Right Thinking
Posted by Nukevet at 09:16 AM | Comments (1)
February 01, 2005
Blog Ads
Hey all,
I�m kind of in the midst of a corporate created conspiratorial emergency on the work front. I�ve been moved to a new location with no access to those internets we all like so much and therefore I can�t read on my breaks.
Also, the place stinks. I�m not saying this attitudinally, remember, I work for the local trash hauler, so it literally does stink to high heaven. Think �Stale Decomposing Flesh� so strong that a case of Lysol won�t make it go away for at least eight hours a night.
I�m not going to complain too badly though. There are American men and women dealing with a hell of a lot more than just that right now. Also, I kind of need the money for something (cough, Boomershoot Rifle, cough).
So just a few quick few things��..
First up, you may have seen the ads for this appearing on blogs,
This is kind of a neat little deal. I already listen to Michael Medved and Larry Elder via the web, so this just kind of fits right into my plan. I now have a folder titled �Radio�
The coolest part about RightTalk is that Larry Pratt, Executive Director of Gun Owners of America has an hour long radio show that broadcasts once a week. Mega-Kewl!
********************
Next up, I saw this blog ad on the Kos IMC
Now, some of you will remember the line the left was using a while back about �The sanctions on Iraq killed 500,000 Iraqi children� yada, yada, yada. All the while ignoring the hundred or so palaces that Saddam and his family were building.
In the �Myths and Facts� section there is this �Myth�
Myth:The OFFP did not achieve its humanitarian goals.
And here is their supplied �Fact�
Fact:In fact, the OFFP enabled the importation of enough food to feed all 27 million Iraqis. During its existence, the average daily caloric intake of the people of Iraq increased 83 percent, from 1,200 kilocalories to 2,200 kilocalories per person per day. In addition, malnutrition rates in 2002 in the central and southern part of the country were half those in 1996 among children under the age of five; in the three northern governorates, chronic malnutrition decreased 56 percent. According to an article in the November 21, 2004 edition of The Washington Post:
�International aid efforts and the U.N. oil-for-food program helped reduce the ruinous impact of sanctions, and the rate of acute malnutrition among the youngest Iraqis gradually dropped from a peak of 11 percent in 1996 to 4 percent in 2002.�
So now, I have to wonder�. Was the left telling a lie then or is it telling a lie now, or are they both lies?
According to the add this site is paid for by the United Nations Foundation. I wonder is this where the money for the tsunami voctims went?
Of course, they have to get their digs in on the invasion,
"This same article documented that malnutrition rates in Iraq have increased substantially since the end of the Oil-for-Food Program, from 4% to 7.7%."
Sad, sad people they are.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:21 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 31, 2005
Dems, blinded by their own brightness
Ravenwood discovers a Vast Left Wing Conspiracy
* Maryland Democrats raise taxes on HMOs
* Maryland HMOs raise rates on their customers
* Maryland Democrats blame Republican Insurance Commissioner for the rising cost of insurance
Check this one out.
Posted by Nukevet at 04:05 AM | Comments (0)
January 30, 2005
It has begun
Starting last night, in US time zones, Iraqis began voting.
I would just like to take this opportunity to welcome Iraq to the group of democratic nations and wish them well.
Unlike some of the people who responded to LGF�s featuring of a picture of a female expat-Iraqi voter.
Posted by Nukevet at 12:58 AM | Comments (0)
January 26, 2005
Nobody lives forever
And when you number is up, even moving halfway around the planet won�t save your ass.
Snowboarder's change of plans had saved him from tsunamiBay Area native Daniel Berk had planned to spend the Christmas holiday in Sri Lanka, getting his scuba certificate, but canceled his plans at the last minute. He missed the deadly tsunami, but on Saturday, he was killed in an avalanche while snowboarding off-trail in the Austrian Alps.
When your name is on the Reaper�s clip board, making him switch from bermuda shorts to a parka only pisses him off.
Posted by Nukevet at 05:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 25, 2005
Nope, not a single Iraqi to be found
Who is grateful for the US-l liberation of Iraq.
And look, the Iraqis really were better off under Saddam:
Mostly, Iraqis miss the freedom to read by electric light, or to bathe with running water�which were in extremely short supply in Baghdad the past week. Compared with Liberty with a capital L, those may seem like minor inconveniences�until you don't have them.
Apparently no need to comment on freedom from rape, torture, murder - I guess the Iraqi people would really rather have all of those things back - as long as the can take a hot bath and be tortured under the glare of electric lights.
Posted by Nukevet at 12:37 PM | Comments (0)
January 22, 2005
So, What about
Posted by Nukevet at 03:19 PM | Comments (0)
January 21, 2005
Count ANY Vote: Part Dvadtsat n Odin
Part 20.1 : The Day After The Big Court Battle
Yesterday Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges gave the Repubs a big victory and a small loss and the Dems a small victory and a big loss.
The judge denied the Dems motion to dismiss the case. This was the big victory for the (R)s.
He also denied the Repubs motion for expedited discovery. This was the small loss for the (R)s.
The case will be continued until the discovery hearing in two weeks. The Dems are drafting another motion for dismissal for that date. and I'm crossing my fingers in the hopes that it gets denied as well.
Since the case is being continued, I am taking it that the final verdict issed from this judge will count then as if it was handed down yesterday (aka, within the 10-day period that allows a nullification of an election as prescribed by law).
See you then.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:53 PM | Comments (1)
January 20, 2005
Google Cache
Posted by Nukevet at 04:56 PM | Comments (0)
Those kind and caring europeans
Remember when America's contribution to the tsunami victims was bieng compared to that of the euros? Remember when the press had to switch to a per capita rating to make the US look bad?
Tsunami-hit Thais told: Buy six planes or face EU tariffs
Tsunami struck Thailand has been told by the European Commission that it must buy six A380 Airbus aircraft if it wants to escape the tariffs against its fishing industry.
While millions of Europeans are sending aid to Thailand to help its recovery, trade authorities in Brussels are demanding that Thai Airlines, its national carrier, pays �1.3 billion to buy its double-decker aircraft.
I guess the euros only need themselves to look bad.
Found @ the FreeWillBlog
Posted by Nukevet at 11:40 AM | Comments (0)
January 19, 2005
More exit poll madness
First, the left cried foul and stated that the exit poll results showed massive voter fraud in favor of GWB. We we instructed that we must get to the bootom of it, and that the exit polls were actually more important than the popular vote or electoral college. Now, no doubt, the exit poll results will need to be rejected as seriously flawed and meaningless.
Ain't it funny how life works?
Posted by Nukevet at 04:55 PM | Comments (0)
January 17, 2005
Reminder
Backup early, backup often.
First LGF and instapundit hit with a DoS. Now Tim Blair apparently hacked and having his database wiped out.
Gotta run - I feel the sudden, urgent need to back up all of RNS.
Posted by Nukevet at 03:49 PM | Comments (1)
ELF, the Video Game
Found at Right Thinking on Friday,
Steer Madness: Steer Madness is a fully-featured 3D action-adventure game for home computer. You play as Bryce the Steer who narrowly escaped the slaughterhouse. Now liberated, you are on a mission to save your animal friends!
While not a 'gamer' myself, this sounds as boring as sand blow across the desert.
But wait until you hear about the next eco-friendly game coming out:
Eco-Savior: You are a part of a animal rights organization. Your mission: To break into testing labs and free the sad wittle animals and then trashing the place. Extra points are awarded for putting your graffiti tag in a prominent location. You also have to evade the local fuzz and FBI. As you gain experience points, you get the opportunity to commit arson in housing developments and resorts.
OK, so that last one isn't real. But it might be in the future.
One twist I would like added into is the possibility of either FBI or civilian infiltrators. The civilian infiltrators are vigilantes who execute the eco-team members.
Game Over.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:13 AM | Comments (2)
January 16, 2005
Available
Placekicker. Cheap.
Posted by Nukevet at 06:11 PM | Comments (0)
This looks like something
made especially for Puggs.
Posted by Nukevet at 01:47 PM | Comments (0)
Howdy Do
The Blastorama was kind of a bust, mostly because it snowed the whole time. That and I woke up late and forgot the camera. Eh, as I like to say, a bad day at the range is better than a good day at work.
What with all of the automotive excitement on Thursday and then a 13 hour shift on Friday and then rangetime, I have a buttload of links sitting in a folder.
Unfortunately for you all, today is my birthday and I'm whimping out again. But stop by Monday for what is looking to be a blogtastic day!
For now, I'll leave you all with a WMV. file sent to me by my sister in law.
It is titled, Police Pursuit, Montana Style. Its a definite "Must See WMV".
Enjoy
Posted by Nukevet at 09:55 AM | Comments (2)
January 15, 2005
Damn, Imperialistic America
Always trying to grab land somewhere.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:47 PM | Comments (4)
January 13, 2005
Time Out
Owing to mechanical difficulties (my truck's charging system went T.U.) I can only provide these few quick snippets while I get the problem solved so I can go to work tonight.
Rocket Jones has laugh out loud tales involving the space program. The Japanese correspondent one kills!
DANEgerous has proof of the ACLU's fear of religion that he found on their own website. We now know what the 1st Amendment would look like if they had their way of things.
Michelle Malkin gets the worst hatemail I have seen in a very long time. If someone tries to tell you that a person cannot be a liberal AND a racist, kick them squarely in the nuts for me. If you want to give them a swing of the leg for yourself, I surely won't stop you.
Laurence brainstorms on what to do with the the Iraqi prisoner who claimed that being forced into a naked dogpile with other prisoners was worse than being tortured by Saddam's people. It involves bionic hands. Kewl!
In there a doctor in the province? - The Premier of Alberta, Canada admits that adding the ability for patients to go see private doctors to the National Health Care System and letting them pay for their own care might be a good idea. Socialists gasp.
Justice for a Jackass - Soldier lies to a group of school children about shooting a child in Iraq, tries to play it off as 'normal' so as to make the effort there look bad and gets busted for it. Demotion and sentencing at 11.
Tomorrow, I will hopefully be able to post what I wanted to post today. Namely, some election news, including a fisk of Christine Gregoire's Inaugural Speech and my thoughts on what good voter refom would look like. Yes, I said 'voter' reform, not 'voting' reform.
And anyone who is local to Seattle, don't forget about the January Edition of the Blogger Blastorama this Saturday!
Now it is time to whip out der toolen. Have a good day all!
Posted by Nukevet at 02:18 PM | Comments (0)
January 11, 2005
Cosmic Beauty
The comet, named Macholz, is visible with the naked eye as a faint blur near the constelation Taurus. A pair of binoculars will help show some faint detail. The comet will continue to increase in brightness for the next few weeks, but probably won't reach the "spectacular" level.
Posted by Nukevet at 01:51 PM | Comments (1)
January 07, 2005
Every Dog Has His Day
I would say that this news is strange, but its from San Francisco.
S.F. planning to unleash dog-care rules
Ordinance would define adequate pooch amenities
In San Francisco, where orphaned animals live in "pet condos" at the SPCA, pet parents are called guardians instead of owners, and well-heeled canines are enrolled in doggie day care, now comes a law mandating more creature comforts for the creatures.
The food: palatable and nutritious. The water: changed at least once a day and provided in a non-tipping bowl. The shelter: big enough for the canine to stand up and turn around in and with a raised floor and dry, clean bedding for when the "ambient temperature falls below that ... to which the dog is acclimated."
But the vote putting it on the table to be approved wasn't unanimous.
The law passed its first reading this week with an 8-2 vote, with Supervisor Chris Daly absent. Supervisors Michela Alioto-Pier and Aaron Peskin dissented.
"I was reading this, and I thought: Now we're treating dogs better than we treat the homeless," Alioto-Pier said.
What, are they giving the dogs $400 a week?
Oh, and dogs don't choose to become leeches on society. Unlike most of the 'permanently homeless' that end up in SF.
And another question, what if a 'homeless person' has a dog? Will they be fined for not having the proper accomodations? Because we all know that they won't be fined for taking a dump in the street.
The 'homeless person' I mean.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:40 AM | Comments (1)
January 02, 2005
Who the hell is Milo?
The correct term is myelodysplastic.
WASHINGTON � Thirteen-term Rep. Robert T. Matsui (search), died Saturday night after complications from a rare stem cell disorder. A Democrat from California, Matsui was 63.
Matsui entered Bethesda Naval Hospital on Christmas Eve suffering from pneumonia, one of several illnesses that can occur as a result of Milo Dysplastic Disorder (search), a stem cell disorder that causes an inability of the bone marrow to produce red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets.
Posted by Nukevet at 07:30 PM | Comments (0)
January 01, 2005
Canada responds to the tsunami crisis
In her own special way.
I think the person estimating only 5,000 immigrants is delusional, but we shall see.
Posted by Nukevet at 08:23 PM | Comments (0)
December 31, 2004
And here come the thought police
Confiscating computers in beautiful Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Posted by Nukevet at 04:47 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Happy New Year
Posted by Nukevet at 03:29 PM | Comments (0)
Lists
I am no good at lists. I, quite literally, suck at making them. But, just for you all, I will show you my lists of New Year's Resolutions.
I tend to not try to put things that will be difficult on my list of resolutions. I like to put them into categories of difficulty from easy to difficult. Except for the difficult ones, I usually succeed in being true to my list every year.
My 'Easy' list of resoltions for 2005:
1. Take longer showers
2. Get more sleep
3. Become a better shooter
My 'Moderate' list of resolutions for 2005:
1. Buy more firearms
2. Get more people to go to the range
3. Make more money
My 'Damn Near Impossible' list of resolutions for 2005:
1. Figure out how to become invisible
2. Learn to fly (w/o an aircraft)
3. Stop laughing at hippies and Democrats and hurting their feelings
Now, Iron Bear, he is good at making lists.
In fact, you should head on over to Who Tends the Fires and read his Best and Worst of Blogistan 2004 list right now.
I would have to say that it is the best and most accurate list I've seen this week.
And now, I will leave you all with that ever annoying farewell for this day "See You Next Year!"
PS: Stop by over the weekend to find out what stupid new laws are going into effect in Washington State as of midnight tonight.
PPS: Also make sure to stop by on Monday, I've got a surprise for you and we'll take on the media, Diane Feinstein, the Oregon Judicial System and, of course, looney lefties.
Have a good New Year's celebration and be safe out there!
Posted by Nukevet at 03:01 PM | Comments (1)
December 26, 2004
Stuff
I hope you all had Merry Christmas, were able to meet up with people you hadn't seen in a while, stuffed your gullets full of tasty foodstuffs and are in the mood to celebrate the coming of the new year.
So wha'd ya git?
The holiday celebrates the birth of Christ and peace on Earth to men (and women) of goodwill, but this is America and we're capitalists. This time of year, we buy stuff and give it away to relatives and friends, in the hopes that their eyes light up with happiness from the sight of their new stuff. We enjoy the giving and the receiving and hopefully, no one hurts themselves with the carving knife.
So, while we can celbrate all of the above, we usually walk away with a trunkload of booty to brag about. So let's talk about it.....
Wha'd ya git?
Mine's below the fold.
Aside from all the candy and other sugary food items that make my dentist cackle with delight as dollar signs scroll across his eyes, here is a partial list,
The Analog Wife went nuts and got me a number of kewl DVD's.
She also got me a gift certificate for 25% down on one of these (the 8-32x50) at the local gun shop and another one that covered the purchase of this and this.
One surprise I got from the Analog Mom, besides the cash that will be going straight to the gunsmith (OK, not all of it), was this new pocket clip folding knife from S&W;. I have been needing one of these for a while now since my last one 'went missing' and I had been getting by using the blade in my Gerber pocket tool.
Needless to say, the knife has yet to see the inside of the presentation case again, being clipped directly into my pocket after inspection, where it currently rests.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A Christmas Tale: Gunny Style
From Woodlief at Sand in the Gears
It all started out so innocent......
My Christmas quest was simple enough: buy toy cowboy guns for my boys. Caleb and Eli have boots and hats, bandanas and sheriff's badges. But they don't have holsters and guns. Without those critical components, however, you've really just got yourself a Village People costume. We've made do until now with two wooden pistols that were originally designed to shoot rubber bands. But I wanted to get them shiny cowboy guns, the kind that make a little boy's heart race, that turn a bad guy's legs to jelly, and that give a damsel that funny climbing-the-rope-in-gym-class feeling when she sees them strapped around your waist.
So I got up early one recent Saturday, and set out to catch Toys R Us right when they opened. This is advisable if like me you find yourself drawing hysterical conclusions about the future of civilization based on your experiences shopping in malls and driving behind school buses. If you can't find anything nice to say about your fellow man, I like to think, then best just to avoid him.
The rest is a must read. Go do so.....
Found @ FreeWillBlog
Posted by Nukevet at 09:37 AM | Comments (0)
December 25, 2004
Merry Christmas
To everyone out there.
Since you seem to have taken the time to stop by, I will leave you all with this item that should go under the "I Found It" designation.
The 12 Days of Christmas, as seen in the eyes of a police dispatcher. (For clarity purposes, a "33" is a 10-33, meaning officer in need of backup, a "Warrant Meet" is the pre-planned aprehension of a someone with a felony warrant for arrest, a "20 call" is a 10-20 aka an insane person, and a "DV" is, of course Domestic Violence call)
(And this is pretty darn close to the night my wife had on the 23rd)
On the First Day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me; a Male versus Female DV!
On the Second Day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me; 2 20 calls and a MALE VERSUS FEMALE DV!
On the Third Day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me; 3 Car Prowls, 2 20 calls and a MALE VERSUS FEMALE DV!
On the Fourth Day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me; 4 Accidents, 3 Car Prowls, 2 20 calls and a MALE VERSUS FEMALE DV!
On the Fifth Day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me; FIVE WARRANT MEETS, 4 Accidents, 3 Car Prowls, 2 20 calls and a MALE VERSUS FEMALE DV!
On the Sixth Day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me; 6 Suicides, FIVE WARRANT MEETS, 4 Accidents, 3 Car Prowls, 2 20 calls and a MALE VERSUS FEMALE DV!
On the Seventh Day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me; 7 Gangsters Banging, 6 Suicides, FIVE WARRANT MEETS, 4 Accidents, 3 Car Prowls, 2 20 calls and a MALE VERSUS FEMALE DV!
On the Eighth Day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me; 8 Suspects Fleeing, 7 Gangsters Banging, 6 Suicides, FIVE WARRANT MEETS, 4 Accidents, 3 Car Prowls, 2 20 calls and a MALE VERSUS FEMALE DV!
On the Ninth Day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me; 9 Fights in Progress, 8 Suspects Fleeing, 7 Gangsters Banging, 6 Suicides, FIVE WARRANT MEETS, 4 Accidents, 3 Car Prowls, 2 20 calls and a MALE VERSUS FEMALE DV!
On the Tenth Day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me; 10 33�s, 9 Fights in Progress, 8 Suspects Fleeing, 7 Gangsters Banging, 6 Suicides, FIVE WARRANT MEETS, 4 Accidents, 3 Car Prowls, 2 20 calls and a MALE VERSUS FEMALE DV!
On the Eleventh Day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me; 11 False Alarms, 10 33�s, 9 Fights in Progress, 8 Suspects Fleeing, 7 Gangsters Banging, 6 Suicides, FIVE WARRANT MEETS, 4 Accidents, 3 Car Prowls, 2 20 calls and a MALE VERSUS FEMALE DV!
On the Twelfth Day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me; 12 Phone Reports, 11 False Alarms, 10 33�s, 9 Fights in Progress, 8 Suspects Fleeing, 7 Gangsters Banging, 6 Suicides, FIVE WARRANT MEETS, 4 Accidents, 3 Car Prowls, 2 20 calls and a MALE VERSUS FEMALE DV!
Thanks for stopping by and a Merry Christmas to everyone out there in the ether.
Now go start in on those left-overs.
Posted by Nukevet at 11:46 AM | Comments (2)
December 24, 2004
Awww shucks
Happy Christmas Eve, folks.
I don't know whether its the Christmas Spirit or the overtime, but I just can't get the fire up to get PO'd over anything and have nothing much to write about today.
I will leave you all with this, sent to me yesterday by Brent @ The Ville.
If you're looking for ways to help our troops this Christmas and show your appreciation for their service to our country:
Purchase a $25.00 phone card at Operation Uplink.
Purchase a $25.00 phone card from the USO's Operation Phone Home.
If you don't want to use your credit card on the net, you can donate to the USO 24 hours a day by calling 800-876-7469.
The email Brent received from Operation Uplink after purchasing a $25.00 phone card is below the fold. Read it and you'll see how much we can help our brave troops.
If you have some money left over from your Christmas shopping and other donations this year, I can't think of a better gift than that of the ability of our fighting men and women to be able to call home tomorrow.
Thank you all.
December 23, 2004
On behalf of the thousands of men and women serving our nation in uniform, thank you for your recent gift to Operation Uplink. Your generosity is a testament to your patriotism, as well as your concern for all the individuals who protect our American freedom every day!
Your gift of $25.00 donated in Pat Tillman's Name to Operation Uplink will be used to purchase much-needed phone time for troops on the front line, at a time when they need it most.
And I can't tell you enough how much that means to these brave men and women. On several occasions, I've had the opportunity to personally hand out Operation Uplink cards. There's simply no way I can convey the excitement on a young face realizing that they'll be able to talk to a spouse or child, or reach their parents at such an important time.
Here's just a sampling of the responses we receive from grateful recipients:
"I'm deployed to Bosnia, and my father is a diabetic. He had surgery eight days ago to remove part of his foot due to infection. Thank you for the card." -- CW2, United States Armed Forces
Posted by Nukevet at 01:27 PM | Comments (0)
December 18, 2004
Hypothetically Speaking.....
I'm busy writing Monday's "By Ourselves" entry, so I leave you all with a hypothetical question/s.........
Let's say that, because of their rules resticting explicit language, the FCC is ruled unconstitutional and because of this ruling, all licenses issued by the FCC are null and void and those stations must stop broadcasting, leaving the airwaves open for anyone who wanted to, to be able to set up their own radio station.
Let's also say that it cost only $10 to set up a 10K watt AM radio station and that you decided that this was a good thing to do with the $10 you won on a scatch ticket you got for Christmas.
What format would you decide on?
If you chose a music format, what genre of music would play?
PS We will also hypothetically get rid of frequency jammers. We'll say that part of your broadcast includes a warning that tells jammers you have mobile broadcast triangulation equipment and cruise missles.
PPS No, you can't back out of the format question and just get the hypothetical cruise missles. Sorry.
Thanks for your answers.
Posted by Nukevet at 07:51 AM | Comments (8)
December 17, 2004
Christine Rossi for Governor
Posted by Nukevet at 11:25 PM | Comments (1)
This just in,
Bosox win world series, Pedro Martinez still a punk.
Man, I'm glad he didn't end up with the Yankees. This guy is a cancer.
Posted by Nukevet at 07:31 PM | Comments (0)
December 10, 2004
Notice
To: The Poor Schmuck
I cannot comment on your site and have forgotten you e-mail. Write me, please. Thanks.
To: RNS readers
You should go read his post on the topic of calls coming into his local 911 center.
The come back and read this one,
At 0222 a hang up call was received at a local 911 center. The call taker then called back to see if they could discern what was going on while officers were enroute.
Call taker was told by the person on the other line that there was a man on her porch with a gun. He hasn't threatened her, but she did not want him there. Her grandson was going outside to try and get the gun from the man on the porch.
Officers go Code 3 (lights and sirens) enroute to scene.
Caller then states that the gun is nowhere to be seen now, but that the man is getting undressed and she then hangs up.
Caller then calls back. She apologizes for calling and says that she does not have a porch. Officers arrive and ask for address clarification as the address they have been given does not have a porch.
The call taker instructs the caller to go outside and meet the officers. She puts the phone down and does so.
Ends up, it was all just a dream and she called 911 in her sleep.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:05 AM | Comments (0)
December 09, 2004
Stick It
I found these figures at Ravenwood's Universe
In the past few years, the percentage of new vehicles sold in the United States with manual transmissions has slipped from 19.9 percent to 11.1 percent.
And then I laughed.
I currently own an F150 with an auto trans. And I can't stand it. It has crapped out on me to the tune of over $1500. If I had the time and place to switch it to a manual, I would in a heartbeat.
I have never liked automatics. They are convenient, and that is about it. They never shift in time, they are maintenance heavy and they are expensive. They ruin your gas milage and kill any performance that your vehicle may have. Depending on the manufacturer, an auto trans will cost you $300 to $1000 extra when you buy a new car.
Even if I won lottery style money, the vast majority of the vehicles on my wish list would be sticks. In fact, with the exception of the Excursion and the 1964 Lincoln Continental, I cannot think of any vehicle I would want that has an auto trans.
My opinion is that part of the reason for this trend of disappearing manual transmissions is the spreading of what is called the 'auto stick'.
For those who don't know, an 'auto stick' is an autmatic with a bottom or side get that lets you manually up/down shift with taps in either a side to side or forward/backward motion.
If you are looking for a 'sporty car' (not a sportscar) and this option is available, look into it, it is kind of fun to drive with.
But before you select this option, make sure you take a test drive. And make sure to drive the car like you hate it. Be sure to tell the salesperson before you get rough with it or you may get a scowl from them.
This is how the majority of the 'auto-sticks' work. There are sensors at the shift points in the manual shift selector. When they sensors gets hit, the car's transmission computer takes into account what gear you are currently in, your speed, the position of the accelerator and your grade (uphill/downhill/level).
The transmission then takes all of this information and comes up with a figure and sends it as a signal to your engines computer telling it what RPM it needs to be in so that you don't leave broken transmission parts all over the road surface.
Not everyone has gotten this down yet. If you test out the different manufacturers versions of this system, you'll see what I mean. Most get close, but few actually get it right. The Germans are generally better at this than the Japanese are and the Japanese are slightly better at this than Americans are. But I'm sure that the US companies (ahem, I mean you GM) will get it right soon.
Real quick like: one of the best 'sleeper cars' of the modern day was the Toyota Camry of the late 90's. You could get the V6 with a 5spd option. You could also then option the Toyota Racing Development supercharger, intake and exhaust.
If you could talk to the technician and get him to turn the boost up to 12lbs or so, you could have yourself a good looking family car that would run mid 13's on pump gas and street tires all day long for under $18K and had a factory warranty.
And the look on the face of that owner of the hopped up Civic/Integra/Eclipse you just smoked was priceless.
Neener.
Posted by Nukevet at 08:38 AM | Comments (2)
December 07, 2004
Oooopsie!
Guess who forgot to get their CPR card renewed this last fall?
Guess who's employer demands that he have one?
Guess who's employer won't take a WFA cert as a substitute?
If you guessed me, you are correct.
So, I just ended a 15 hour workday (10 hours at work + 4 hours in CPR class + 1 hour drive time from class to work) and not much blogging is feeling like it wants to exude.
But, on the plus side, I am getting paid for the training time and travel expenses and I got to re-learn "If it's wet and not yours, don't touch it" and how to have a good time with 'Resuscitation Annie'.
And YAY! I get to do it all over again on Thursday, and I expect to feel about the same.
But on Thursday, I get to re-learn the AED (Automated External Defribullator) and shock the little tramp!
Good Times.
- - - - - - - - -
But I do have a quiz available for those interested....
Can you name this part?
It came in the mail on Friday. (yay!)
Answer below the fold
Go here and then look around.
Caution: Keyboard drool alert is in effect.
Posted by Nukevet at 12:46 PM | Comments (4)
December 06, 2004
Shadow Puppets
I thought I was the only one who did these things!
I didn't grow up during the worst of the Cold War, despite the tens of thousands of ungrateful Germans marching through the streets with cardboard mockups of Pershing missiles as SS18's and SS20's were aimed right back at them by a doddering, feedble dyring Russian bear.
However, it was always my sincere hope that if there were ever a nuclear war, I'd have the opportunity to get enough warning to strike a pose that would leave a shadow on the wall that could befuddle the sociologists for centuries.
At first, I figured the simple middle angry pose with a middle finger extended. That way, alongside the Hiroshima stopped-watch and crumbling ruins in every history book, I'd be flipping the bird to students for generations to come.
Then I thought, why not a Disco pose? Full-on cheerypicking manuever with the slight leg twist as immortalized by John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. Some artist would frame my carbonized shadowy remains and say that not even nuclear war can stop Disco.
And I thought that it was abnormal to think like that.
Posted by Nukevet at 08:11 AM | Comments (0)
December 05, 2004
Nice little title to this story:
Time to let people kill burglars in their homes, says Met chief.
What the Met chief actually says is that people should be allowed to defend themselves with the presumption of innocence - and that lethal force may be necessary in some instances.
Sir John Stevens, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, said those who defended their families and property should only face prosecution over injuries to intruders in "extreme circumstances", where they could be shown to have used gratuitous violence.
Sounds like a good start, eh? This bit starts to lose me, though:
"The test at the moment is that you use reasonable force in the circumstances. You do not use excessiveness. I think the test of reasonableness needs to be looked at and clarified within statute.
My test of reasonableness is pretty clear - if you are in my house uninvited, do not immediatly leave when I tell you to, or if I perceive that you are a danger to me or mine, you just flunked. It's ludicrous to think that a homeowner should stop and think "will I be prosecuted for this?" while at the same time trying to make life and death decisions when encountering an intruder.
I know you have to start with baby steps - but how many more people in the UK have to die or be assaulted because any attempt to fight back leads to the victim being prosecuted?
Posted by Nukevet at 12:24 AM | Comments (1)
November 28, 2004
worried about your civil rights during W2?
Then perhaps you should move to the UK, where there are no guns and a nice helpful police force.
Wow - who knew that "A Clockwork Orange" would turn out to be prophetic?
Posted by Nukevet at 06:43 PM | Comments (1)
November 26, 2004
Road Rant: Automotive Award Edition
In this time for giving thanks, I am going to hand out an award for which no one will be thankful for.
The �Sorry About Your Penis� Automotive Award
First, a little history.
The �Sorry About Your Penis� Automotive Award is one of the first, if not the first, automotive award created by women. As I have heard the tale told, it was created in the early 1980�s for the middle aged guy who was still driving the 1970�s Corvette, shirt wide open, gold chain (or chains) showing for all the world to see, and who is trying to roll up to �chicks� and �pick them up�. This automotive award is also been called the �mid life crisis car� award.
The Corvette has, at times, shared the title with the Camaro, the Mustang and the Firebird. They have always filed in behind the Corvette, never completely overtaking it, but coming very close at times.
To present this award, all that is really needed is to signify your nominee who is acting in a proper jackassed manner and state out loud, �Sorry about your penis�.
With the creation of the latest model Corvette, the car started pulling itself out of contention for the award. The current version of the vehicle is actually a world class road car. Something it hadn�t been since around 1972. The Corvette body styles in the 1972 thru 1996 model years may still qualify for this award, but as they go the way of the bone yard, their number of votes is going down, and there is a new winner of the award.
Since 1996, award judges have had to make do with the guy who buys a Mustang, Camaro or Firebird, has it dressed up with a ground effects kit and lots of chrome, including wheels, but only has the base model V-6 or V-8 and an automatic transmission.
We have also seen the inclusion of import compact cars to this category for the first time in history with Civics, Integras, and Accords leading in the polls.
These cars are usually driven by guys in their early 20�s who want to fit in and have no originality in the accessorization of their vehicles. Accessories almost always include coffee can mufflers, tinted windows and improperly tuned suspensions.
One of the easily recognizable points is they leave the stock rims (with no wheel covers) on the front two rollers and aftermarket rims in the back. This is supposed to signify that they are saving their racing tires for the track, but it usually just means they were only able to afford to buy two stolen rims.
Sometimes, if you look closely, you can see that the lug cover in the center of the rim is missing. That comes from the prying off of said cover during the theft and destroying it. Though, oddly enough, it doesn�t usually lower the purchase price.
OK, enough history.
The 2004 �Sorry About Your Penis� Award goes, for the first time, to both a vehicle that is an import and not actually a car.
And the winner is....
(waits for applause to die down)
I have been nominating drivers of the X5 for at least the last two years now. Owners of X5�s are usually in a hurry, like to jackrabbit stoplights, will steal a 4 Way stop from you, if possible, and just generally think that they�re more important than everyone else.
X5 driver seem to believe that the black and blue duocolor shield and the word �Bavarian� in the title of their vehicles manufacturer makes them far more in need to get where they nhave to go than everyone else, except for the owners of the Mercedes M Class.
The X5 is advertised as a SUV with �refinement� or �with the soul of a sportscar�. And BMW isn�t helping themselves by including the truck (and it is a truck) under the title of �The Ultimate Driving Machine�.
Since their appearance on the roads of America, X5 drivers have made proper jackasses of themselves. Say, like me, you drive something along the lines of the utilitarian F-150.
No respect will come to you from the driver of an X5.
Always expect the driver of an X5 to cut you off on the freeway if your lane is moving faster than theirs. This goes for the Diamond or carpool lanes as well (even if they are the single occupant).
I discovered this tendency shortly after their arrival at the Beemer dealerships and have started using X5�s for my own evil purposes.
If I ever need a rabbit*, all I need do is look for an X5. They nearly always fall for the bait. All that is really necessary is to try to pass them. A glance in their direction in the process of the pass that they can see is not always necessary, but can mean a 97% success rate for gaining the rabbit.
And that concludes our award ceremony for now. Updates to come when I discover them.
� - A Rabbit � when you need go fast but don�t trust or want to use your radar detector, you need a Rabbit.
The Rabbit needs to be challenged, generally with an attempted pass. The Rabbit will then accelerate to a speed suitably over the speed limit to try and keep you from passing them.
This then allows you to follow them at a safe distance, so that, if there are any members of the constabulary watching for people who are speeding, the Rabbit will get tagged for the ticket while you use his sudden deceleration to save you from being ticketed.
Posted by Nukevet at 01:33 PM | Comments (3)
Road Rant: Post Holiday Driving Edition
I have been meaning to post on this topic for a while, but it took driving among the masses last night to get it out of me.
The concept is �Braking for a Turn�.
Here is how it works.
When approaching a turn, especially one that is unknown, you need to begin judging it as soon as you see its approach. What you need to judge is the angle of the turn, its bank (if any) and the condition of the actual surface (is it wet? Is there gravel? Potholes?). All of these conditions will compute in your head, and hopefully, give you the approximate speed that can be done through it.
Your mental computations should also include the visual location of the apex of the turn, which you will want to aim for. At the apex, if you chose, you may start accelerating out of the turn at that point.
If I ever get better at drawing in photoshop, I�ll explain the concept of �the apex� further. For now, you may think of the apex as the midway point (not the halfway point) of the turn, when your vehicle�s G-Force is just past its greatest point. Practice will help you recognize this point. Not recommended for public consumption.
This is the technical part:
To safely negotiate the turn, you need to do the braking to your decided safe speed BEFORE the turn, NOT in the middle of it.
Especially, especially, especially, those of you with front wheel drive vehicles. The last thing you want is to have to brake a car that propels, stops and steers on its front two wheels in the middle of a corner.
That is why there are no front wheel drive sports cars.
When I am following someone into a turn, whether it is a freeway interchange or on a country road, I always do my braking before the turn, firmly regulated by the person in front of me. But if they do their preliminary braking and it is within my chosen speed range, and they then decide, in the middle of the corner, to tap the brakes and decelerate some more, they ruin my �safe following distance� and cause me to have to brake again.
Grrrrr.
This is how accidents happen. The most common are either rear ending the person in front of you (possibly causing a chain reaction, if traffic is tight) or swerving, possibly losing control, usually followed by leaving the roadway.
I realize that some of the folks who drive on holidays don�t drive frequently or are unfamiliar with their route, but damn. Driving isn�t rocket-science, it is manipulation of a mechanical device.
The act of driving is not intended for the perfection of your singing voice or air guitar/air drums technique. Nor is it meant for the experimentation to see how many things you can do while in piloting a vehicle.
Driving is practice for perfection of the art. You vehicle is like no other. Learn it. Study it. Love it. If you find driving annoying, find someone to o it for you.
Someday, you will be old and someone will try to take away your ability to drive. If you have not made yourself a pilot (and have not gone blind or senile), there is no room to bitch about it when that happens.
Posted by Nukevet at 01:31 PM | Comments (0)
November 19, 2004
Laurence Simon's Thursday
Dear Customer,
Your server has declared jihad against another server. And it's not one of those "personal stuggle" jihads the apologists talk about. Nope, this sucker just maxed out the power supply and caught the whole damn rack on fire.
Looked like the Number Two bus at Noon, I tell you.
Unless you made backups, your data is in Data Paradise with seventy-two previously-unused, virgin DVD-ROMS.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:25 PM | Comments (0)
November 17, 2004
ACTors
American Coming Together (aka ACT), one of the many Democrat 527's has been caught red handed.
National Right to Work Foundation (NRWF) attorneys today hand-delivered an emergency request to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) asking the agency to obtain a federal court injunction to halt rampant document destruction by America Coming Together (ACT) staff.
This occurred just as the foundation's vice president, Stefan Gleason, filed a formal complaint about ACT's funding.
Filed last week on behalf of employees, the complaint alleges that Service Employees International Union (SEIU) officials handed over tens of millions of dollars of workers' forced union dues to ACT.
The NRWF claims that some of those funds were, in turn, spent illegally to finance political campaigns through the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
What? Unions illegally using the dues that they force their members to pay to fund Democrat candidates?
Sarcasm set to stun/ Why, they would never do that? /sarcasm off
Yeah, I know it's NewsMax, but I'm hoping that this stays out there where we can read about it.
Posted by Nukevet at 01:32 PM | Comments (0)
November 13, 2004
a quick note about stem cell research
I have a huge crisis situation that I am dealing with at work, so not a lot of time for much else these days. But there is one thing that is really driving me crazy - hearing the media assert on a daily basis that "stem cell research is banned" under President Bush. This is an asinine statement, and completely wrong. I have a small molecular lab at a southern University. I have no national prominence as a researcher (I'm talking at the NIH/NCI level). However, somehow I am able to do stem cell research every freakin day. Not only that, we even work with embryonic stem cells (fetal, if you prefer) - just in species other than humans. Is there great potential in embryonic stem cells? Sure. But let's at least get some proof of concept before we start using human fetal tissue. We are rapidly learning that it is possible to drive stem cells towards a pluripotent state, even if they are harvested from an adult animal. Actually, stem cells extracted from adipose (fat) tissues have shown a lot of promise in this arena. So, while I don't necessarily agree with the Bush administration position on human embryonic stem cells, I have no problems pursuing some of these other avenues while see if embryonic stem cells can live up to the hype. This is just another example of how the media tries to portray the Bush administration as being run by a bunch of evangelical radicals - while having absolutely no clue what they are talking about.
Posted by Nukevet at 01:40 PM | Comments (1)
November 11, 2004
A sign of the times
Just got this "broadcast e-mail" from campus:
On Thursday, Nov. 11, between 3-4:30 p.m., the LSU Army ROTC will be firing ceremonial cannons on the Parade Ground as part of a rehearsal for the annual LSU Salutes program this weekend. A 21-gun salute will be held on Saturday, Nov. 13, at approximately 10 a.m. during the LSU Salutes ceremony on the Parade Ground. Members of the campus community should not be alarmed by these blasts.
I can see it now - some freaked out student/faculty calls 911, and the next thing you know, you get a "Fox News Alert" about explosions heard on the LSU campus.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:45 PM | Comments (0)
November 10, 2004
Your list of five
The Gleeful Extremist has a hypothetical question for us....
You've just been elected President, which five countries do you visit first?
Mine, in order of important:
1. The UK
2. Australia
3. Taiwan
4. Poland
5. Italy
My reasons are in the extended entry.
Found @ MTPolitics
1. The UK - Tony Blair is getting the crap beat out of him right now. Members of his own party have signed onto a petition for hearings of impeachment. Let the good half of Britons know that you still stand alongside you friend and ally, the UK, by standing alongside it's Prime Minister.
And, if nothing else, it'll serve to remind them that there is always somewhere they can go when the shit gets too deep at home.
2. Australia - A no brainer. OZ is our next greatest ally in the war on terror, if not equal to the UK. Howard just won his reelection after a pretty ugly campaign.
Get his back.
3. Taiwan - If for no other reason than to remind the ChiComs that we haven't forgotten that the island nation exists.
Plus, it's not too far from Australia. It would almost be an insult to go to OZ and not stop by.
4. Poland - Another great ally that was a former opponent.
I would even make it a two-week long tour of Eastern Europe. Just the admiring looks from the locals will piss off the 'superior' nations in the EU.
5. Italy - Berlusconi needs his back covered too. That and the women are beautiful and the food is excellent.
If you really want to make a statement, make a two day stop in Greece and then a two-day in Turkey. Remind the Turks that we are their best ally even if they aren't ours.
Posted by Nukevet at 01:22 PM | Comments (3)
The Greatest Canadian
The Analog Wife watch the CBC because they show old episodes of The Simpsons. As of late, they are showing commercials for a show called "The Greatest Canadian" about important and historically significant Canadians.
Everytime I hear that phrase I giggle a snarky little giggle.
Well, I'm serious now and I would like to nominate this guy.
Vancouver lawyer visiting U.S. cities to tell Americans how to emigrate
A Vancouver immigration lawyer is travelling to three U.S. Pacific Coast cities to tell Americans who can't face another four years of George Bush how to find the life they hoped for in Canada.
Rudi Kischer said his firm has gotten about two dozen calls from frustrated Americans, so he's set up seminars in Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles to brief people on the ins and outs of Canada's immigration system.
He is a great Canadian because he is helping the whiniest and looniest of Americans migrate into their natural environs.
Canada.
Posted by Nukevet at 12:40 PM | Comments (2)
November 09, 2004
Exactly why do they consider us the hateful ones?
This is so true. I know because I live here.
Seattle has a cheery reputation for being wondrously liberal.
On a dare, I decided to test this widely held belief.
During the presidential campaign, when I would bump into folks on the street, I would say: "Hi. I'm with a group called Blacks for Bush. We are trying to help our president win four more ..."
On Queen Anne, a pair of campaign workers for John Kerry looked at me as if they had seen a ghost. One of them cut me off midsentence. "Dude, you've got to be kidding," he said. "And you're a bro."
In Rainier Valley, a group of middle-aged men looked up from their newspapers. "Boy," a man with glasses said, "have you lost your damn mind?"
At a swank Belltown bar, a promising conversation with a young woman quickly headed south when, on a whim, I dropped the R-bomb on her. She said she couldn't stand Republicans and wasn't about to waste her time talking to one.
So much for tolerance.
For the record, I do prefer donkeys to elephants. I'm pro-Kerry.
But my unscientific experiment, involving encounters with dozens of people, made me realize a truth in what conservatives often kvetch about: The Emerald City ain't so pretty if you are down with the GOP.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 08, 2004
Interesting Numbers
From Tim Blair
Number of people who voted for Bush: 59,651,262
Number of people who live in Britain: 59,600,000
As Col. Klink used to say; "Veddy Interestink"
Found @ The Poor Schmuck
Posted by Nukevet at 10:32 AM | Comments (2)
Thankfully, it didn't come to this
Card draw to break election tie
Forget Ohio. The real election drama will take place in Ely (Nevada) today, when two men meet for a game of cards that will decide which one of them wins a seat on the White Pine County Commission.
Robert Swetich and Raymond Urrizaga each got 1,847 votes in the race for Seat 3 on the commission. According to state law, they must draw lots to break the tie.
For the candidates, that meant a choice: They could toss a coin, draw straws or grab a deck and decide the race with a game of high-card.
With the Dems having two lawyers as candidates, it would have taken weeks just to negotiate the deck itself.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:40 AM | Comments (0)
November 07, 2004
Bush or Bust
Posted by Nukevet at 02:04 AM | Comments (0)
So, who took this photo, and is it a red or blue state?
Answer here
Posted by Nukevet at 01:32 AM | Comments (1)
Those of you leaving the US for the UK
To escape the climate of fear created by Bush's second term should probably read this.
Posted by Nukevet at 12:49 AM | Comments (0)
November 06, 2004
Y'know,
I hope all of the lefty whiners really do leave the country. That way, we can have room to relocate the Dutch who are trying to escape islamic extremism in their own country.
Scroll up from this entry to see that 3 in 10 Dutch say they would leave if possible. But of course, it's really Americans that live in a climate of fictional, Bush created fear. Or so says Michael Moore.
Via the Belgravia Dispatch
Posted by Nukevet at 10:52 PM | Comments (2)
This is way cool
Posted by Nukevet at 08:53 PM | Comments (3)
Just when you want to give up on your "friends"
Something like this happens.
Yes, we sometimes paint the French and Germans with too broad a brush of anti-Americanism.
Posted by Nukevet at 06:03 PM | Comments (0)
November 05, 2004
If this were reality TV
Posted by Nukevet at 09:06 PM | Comments (1)
Now That's a Wedgie!
Several months ago, I got into a discussion with one of my colleagues here at the university. She was very excited about the gay marriages being performed in San Francisco and Massachusetts, and felt that it was the beginning of legalizing gay marriage in the USA. She knows that I support Bush, but also that I have very liberal social values as well. She was a little taken aback when I told her that I thought this was an absolutely horrible development for her cause, and that it would end up doing more harm than good. I think she was a little hurt by my reaction, and maybe even suspected that I wasn't as socially liberal as I claimed. I tried to explain to her that running around the will of the people via judicial fiat was just going to energize those strongly opposed to any kind of gay union, as well as bring in a lot of people who, while they support civil unions for gay couples, are a little queasy about calling that marriage. She thought I was wrong, and that once the courts in a couple of states validate gay marriage, the rest would follow suit as a matter of practicality.
Judging by how things went on Tuesday, I think my worldview has been pretty much validated. There�s a lot of evidence that �moral values� were the deciding factor in Ohio. And the Democrats handed the perfect wedge issue to Karl Rove on a silver platter. Kevin Drum (of the now defunct CalPundit) has a similar take. Be sure to read the comments � and ask yourself what the Democrats learned from Tuesday. There�s no introspection evident. No questions of �what do we need to do to attract American voters?�. Instead you�ll be treated to a hatefest of what racist, bigoted, homophobic, uneducated, Bible thumping rednecks al of us Bush voters are. Yeah, that�s a horribly constructed sentence, but I spent 8 hours listening to scientific presentations, so my brain�s just not quite up to speed. That, and I�m a moron for voting for Bush, of course.
Posted by Nukevet at 12:05 AM | Comments (1)
November 04, 2004
Whattaya mean
you never heard of an ASBO?
Posted by Nukevet at 11:31 PM | Comments (0)
Let the healing begin
Check out the caption of this Bush photo.
Posted by Nukevet at 05:05 PM | Comments (0)
November 03, 2004
My prediction
John Kerry won't concede, and in his speech announcing this decision, he will refer to Viet Nam at least 42 times. Bank on it.
Posted by Nukevet at 03:48 PM | Comments (0)
Hahahahaha!
Posted by Nukevet at 03:44 PM | Comments (0)
Random Election Thoughts
In no particular order
1) We're not Spain.
2) Hey, Osama, screw your "peace offer".
3) Thanks, Guardian - Clark county went for Bush.
4) Did Edwards look like he was gonna cry when declaring that they would "count every vote", or is it just me?
5) Did anyone really expect Kerry to do what was right for the country and concede gracefully?
6) Funny how the DU went off-line once it became clear that Bush was going to carry Ohio, isn't it?
7) CNN ia doing everything it can to keep from giving Bush Ohio - they show the EC to be 254 Bush, 252 Kerry. Why is Ohio still in play - 100% of the votes are in, and Kerry is down by over 100,000 votes.
8) I wonder if Dan Rather is on a suicide watch right about now?
9) Think I should take the AR-15 to work with me today? After all, I was told that there would only be rioting if Bush/Cheney won the election and, well, you know - that's what happened.
10) Let the true "disinfranchising begin", as the Kerry/Edwards group begins to be sure every Democratic vote counts.
Did I mention that we're not Spain?
Posted by Nukevet at 03:27 PM | Comments (1)
November 02, 2004
Game On, People!
Today is The Day, folks. You know what to do.
You have heard me refer to this election as Hope Versus Hate
The hope of the spread of freedom and democracy around the world to people who have no other wish than to live their lives without the boot of a dictatorial regime on their necks.
The hope of a day in America when the threat of a mass slaughter of people, for no other reason than they're Americans, is lifted off the shoulders of the citizens of this country forever.
These two simple hopes versus the hate of Americans by a group of religious fanatics whose only wish is to make the rest of the world subject to their law, their rule and their repression.
The hate of one portion of America by their countrymen. These people think that everything wrong in the world is the fault of America. They believe that America CAN BE a good place, but only if they're allowed to make some changes. They think of their fellow citizens as ignorant, delusional, stupid and hateful. They call them bigots, homophobes, Nazis, fascists and 'sheeple'. They would sell the country's soveriegnity and it's citizens down the road to a useless debating society that masquerades as a world body in a heartbeat, for the promise of whirled peas.
So, as you go to the polls today just think of who you dislike more,
Who are the heros that have secured the liberty for you to be able to select who leads your country, and all of your other freedoms,
And the inalienable right to self defense.
UPDATE: Cold Fury has an election pictoral as well.
Posted by Nukevet at 05:44 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 01, 2004
This should happen every year in the last week of October
From Craig @ MTPolitics
They decided to get our annual property tax bills out to us in October, instead of November, so that we�d have more time to get them paid. (They are due at the end of November.)
It�s kind of nice to be able to look at your tax bill right before election day!
Posted by Nukevet at 06:49 AM | Comments (0)
Yep
Rodger gets it exactly right with this one.
Posted by Nukevet at 06:47 AM | Comments (0)
October 31, 2004
And the assaults
This election just needs to be over. As for the after election "action" many donks are promising if they lose - remember, we're the guys who believe in exercising our 2nd amendment rights.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:29 PM | Comments (0)
October 30, 2004
Rumors of my death have been greatly
exaggerated.
It started out with some neck pain, and a numbness of the first 3 fingers of my left hand. I treated it conservatively for several weeks, but it didn't get any better. Fairly certain I had cervical radiculopathy, I scheduled a visit to the neurologist. I figured that years of football and hockey finally caught up with me, and I had nerve entrapment in my left cervical spine.
After waiting a few weeks to get in to see the neurologist (and this gets made better with socialized medicine how, John Kerry?), the big day finally arrives. Once in the examination room, I get to strip down to an attractive hospital robe, and then put through my paces in the form of a complete neuro exam. Much poking and prodding occurs, and the neurologist (let's call him Dr. K)is a very cordial fellow as he chats with me during the exam. He is telling me some story as he begins my retinal examination, when suddenly he get very quiet. After a couple of seconds, he says "hmmmmmmmmmm". You don't have to have any medical training at all to know that this particular series of events spells trouble. "You have optic neuritis in your left eye", he finally says. Then, I get to hear a couple of sentences that I wasn't all that fond of. The first contained the words optic neuritis, spinal tap, and multiple sclerosis, all in one cohesive little package. The second sentence, which I was even less fond of, "it could also be papilledema secondary to a space occupying mass". Being an oncologist - space occupying mass is immediatly translated into brain tumor. Thus begins my 2 week odyssey into the world of specialized medicine, wherein I meet all kinds of interesting people.
The first stop is for the MRI. I get several studies - brain, orbit, cervical spine, multiple different types of studies, with and without contrast, fat sat, etc, etc, etc. I was on the table for 2.5 hours - and I now understand why claustrophobic people have so many problems with this procedure. A very good friend of mine was that radiologist on duty - so I had the somewhat surreal experience of reading my own MRI after the procedure was complete. I was prepared to have MS, since that is the most common cause of optic neuritis in people my age in the US. However, thankfully, all of the MRI studies were completely normal (and yes, a brain was found to be present, thank you very much). This rules out brain tumor, and makes MS very unlikely. Good news to be sure, but no diagnosis.
A few days later, I visit a retinal specialist. He believes I have bilateral involvement (both eyes), and signs me up for retinal angiography. This test requires an IV injection of a fluorescent dye, and then they take many pictures of the back of your retina with very intense light of different colors - this was by far the most painful test I have had to undergo. The results - no degeneration of the visual part of my retina, significant swelling of my left optic disk, mild swelling of the right. The retinal specialist's primary differential at this point - cat scratch disease. I am pretty skeptical of this, since I don't have any of the other commonly seen signs of this infection. Still, a much better alternative than a brain tumor - so I trundle off to the lab to have titers for CSD and a ton of other tests drawn and submitted.
Next stop is to study how my brain deals with different kinds of impulses - the brainstem auditory evoked response, and the visual evoked response. Notice that for the BAER and the VER - multiple sclerosis is a primary differential that you are trying to rule out. Fortunately, both of these tests were normal - which meant that we were now out of the "you have optic neuritis" camp, and squarely into the "you have papilledema" side of the equation - which means I need to have my intracranial pressure measured.
But wait! What about my original complaint of left neck/hand pain and numbness? Well, that was checked out by doing nerve conduction studies and electromyography. The conclusion? My neck and hand signs were caused by an irritation of the ulnar nerve at the level of the elbow - probably a result of all of the computer work I do. A simple test, a simple diagnosis, and a simple fix. Good thing my neurologist did a complete exam on me rather than just stopping at my original complaint - or I would still be walking around with a much more serious problem that I knew nothing about.
So, yesterday, I had the final stop on my little diagnostic adventure. Back to the radiologist for a lumbar puncture and CSF pressure measurement. As it turns out, my pressure is significantly elevated (normal is less than 20, mine is 31). Much CSF was submitted for analysis of all kinds of things (including another type of MS screening called oligobanding. Again with the multiple sclerosis!).
So, finally, after much ruling out of many bad things, it looks like I have something called pseudotumor cerebri. While it can result in vision loss if uncontrolled, most patients respond to medical management. I just started the medical phase of therapy, and hope that will be enough to control the symptoms and stop the progression. If not, there's something called optic nerve sheath fenestration. I really hope to prevent a surgeon coming at my optic nerves with a scalpel, so you can bet that I will be most diligent in taking my medication - even though it makes carbonated beverages taste horrible, along with a few other potential side effects.
Oh, yeah - speaking of death - le petite mort.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:47 PM | Comments (1)
October 28, 2004
Something about Baseball
As I've said before, I don't follow sports (other than the automotive sports, both 2 and 4 wheel categories). I can fumble my way through a conversation on the subject, but other than that, I know nada.
So you'll probably understand my liking for this post from Mean Mr. Mustard.
But I'll give the BoSox credit where it's due and use Mr. Mustard's words to do so.
Congrats, mysterious strangers. Butt pats all around.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:15 AM | Comments (0)
October 24, 2004
In my opinion: Yes
Some Poor Schmuck asks a question:
Will A Kerry Loss Result In Riots?
He then points to an article about the Portland, OR constabulary preparing for violence on election night by sore losers on the left.
From the actions by the Dems so far, even if we just count the acts committed on BC04 headquarters around the country; the AFL/CIO riots, the multiple burglaries, arsons, even a drive by shooting, I would have to say that, yes, if Bush wins, the lefties will go apeshit and start breaking things.
Luckily, I am armed and waiting.
I have been waiting for their "Revolution" since I reached the age of majority.
And even more evidence that the left is willing to do anything to prevent a Bush/Cheney win, LGF links to an article titled 'Early voting brings cries of bullying' in Florida.
Exactly who are the Brownshirts again?
Posted by Nukevet at 05:47 AM | Comments (5)
An Empty Slot on America's Fecal Roster
The State Department has finally gotten around to removing Iraq from their list of State Sponsors of Terror.
Now that the busboys have cleared the table, who should be seated there next?
Syria, table for one!
Found @ The Blogs of War
Posted by Nukevet at 05:35 AM | Comments (0)
October 22, 2004
Flu Scare Creating American Jobs
Being in a state that borders Canada, fraidy cats who have been taken the media scare hook, line and sinker are hauling ass to Canuckistan for their shot.
And it's having a positive effect on the local economy.
Yesterday, the Victoria Clipper, a high-speed catamaran service between Seattle and Victoria, B.C., on Vancouver Island, announced it would offer a round-trip-and-flu-shot package at a discount price of $105.
Stupid lemmings. They should stay there.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:15 AM | Comments (0)
October 21, 2004
RIP
Voting was a patriotic responsibility that Las Vegan Alton Lee Overton did not take lightly.
Fifty years ago, he voted for the first time when he turned 21. While serving in the Air Force in Vietnam, he voted by absentee ballot. As a Las Vegas resident of 17 years, he walked across the street from his home near Nellis Boulevard and Desert Inn Road each Election Day to vote at a school.
Diagnosed with terminal lung cancer this past summer, Overton, a Republican, was determined to vote for President George W. Bush if it was the last thing he did.
It pretty much was.
Overton awoke Sunday and asked his wife for his mail-in ballot, filled it out, signed it, sealed it and asked a family member to immediately take it to a nearby mail box and drop it in. Six hours later, he died, three months to the day after he was diagnosed with cancer. He was 71.
At least Mr. Lee was alive when he filled out his ballot.
That's the difference between Democrats and Republicans.
Posted by Nukevet at 08:22 AM | Comments (0)
October 20, 2004
Teen Driving
Yesterday, the Interested Participant blogged about teaching his 16 year old how to drive.
In the interest of being helpful, and seeing as how I had a rocky start in my driving career, I would like to address this issue here and now for all the parents and parents-to-be on how to get your child behind the wheel in the proper manner.
First off, forget the high school driving class (unless your state requires it). That crap is Sesame Street and will be utterly useless for anything other than passing the written part of their driving test.
I've got two words for you: Parking lot.
You want to see a 15 year old excited to get up early on a Saturday or Sunday morning? Tell them that they have to be up at 0600 so you can be at the Park and Ride by 0700. A mall or major shopping center lot will do, but they generally put their light sponsons too close together.
Most lots of that size have stop signs and left and right hand turns for practice. They also have enough space for you to set up some cones to practice parking maneuvers.
Another reminder: They have to pay for the gas for this exercise. You want them to stay away from a gas guzzling muscle car? Remind them how much gas costs. They'll be happy to get a Corolla.
Also, extra chores might not be a bad idea to help motivate them to appreciate your time spent grabbing the 'O Shit Handle' on the passenger seat of YOUR OWN CAR. Teaching them how to drive is nowhere in the parental contract. "Food. Clothing. Shelter. Love. I see nothing about driving or a free car in there, now go mow the yard."
Next up, find a good defensive driving course and have them go through it. Hell, if you got the cash, go through it with them. You might learn something. That and it'll save them (and you) on car insurance costs.
You start this at 15, since it is generally legal for 15 yr olds to drive around parking lots, and then at 15 1/2, if that is when your state gives out learners permits, you go out and get them one.
Spend a couple months letting them drive around the lot until you feel comfortable that they might be able to handle a stop light. Then you let them drive home one day and see how they do. If they do well, you won't be able to pry the smile off their face with a freaking crowbar for a week.
By now, your kid should be starting to get comforatble on the road with you in the car. In another six months, they'll be comfortable without you in the car.
But, before you let them go out on their own, they have to write out a contract (or verbal promise with a handshake, whatever is your speed) to have enough money saved up by their 18th birthday to enroll in a race driving course.
You want to know who respects what speed can do? The folks who know what they themselves can do. Scare the piss out of the kid while giving them some skills in a safe environment.
The courses usually run anywhere between $300 to $1000 (depending on the cars used) or so for a weekend course, easy enough for a teenager with a part time job to save up for in two years, and they're all over the place. I cannot think of too many places in America that aren't within 100 miles of a racetrack and any decent racetrack has a driving instructor.
You don't have to go through a full-on Richard Petty NASCAR course. Anything connected with the SCCA will do just fine. Their cars, their gas, their classroom, their rules.
You should go too. You just might learn something. You taught them how to tuck the coners on their bed, now help them learn how to tuck into a corner.
My first two years on the road sucked. I even made an encore appearance in the same ditch. Time behind the wheel took care of some of that, but the professional help was priceless.
You got to get them behind the wheel early enough to impress them and then spend enough time with them afterwards to make sure they have more than just the fundamentals down.
Oh, and another little secret, make friends with a member of your state's Hiway Patrol. These guys have driver training facilities that make me drool.
And if you got the cash, GPS the car. The new ones out will tell you speed, braking, direction, etc.
That is all.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:10 AM | Comments (3)
October 17, 2004
As the old saying goes,
Garbage in, garbage out.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:48 PM | Comments (0)
October 15, 2004
She's Had It
And Ms. Rachel just can't take it anymore.
And she says so in her new rant.
The fact that at least half this country actually thinks we would be safer, richer, and generally more pleased with life if John F*ing Kerry, billionaire liberal, were president, well it makes me want to f*ing break things. I thought about explaining why I think that, but come on! What's the point? If anyone reading this actually is considering voting for John Kerry, well, I will admit that I think you're stupid. If not stupid then a bad person. Take your pick.
Rachel let's it all go with this one. Liberals, take cover.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:39 AM | Comments (0)
October 14, 2004
Does it matter?
John Kerry has an Honorable Discharge, now. But there is some evidence that it's not the one given to him originally.
If he did get a Dishonorable Discharge, how does that affect things? I think that even caught with either a live boy or dead hooker, Kerry's base will still turn out to vote for him. We already hate his guts, so it doesn't change anything for us, we just mark it down as another Kerry coverup or distortion. What about the undecideds?
Do they care? To a veteran I think it mostly does matter, to a nonvet, who can say? That if he did appeal to have it changed under the Carter administration is telling too. If there were grounds to reconsider, what where they? Why would they matter to a liberal, more than to a republican if they weren't entirely political?
It reeks pretty badly when you see how much Kerry's camp has challenged, accused Bush with not fulfilling his obligation, and then find out that Kerry got a dishonorable. Which brings to mind an old saying.
Who's shitting who here?
Posted by Nukevet at 07:22 PM | Comments (3)
October 11, 2004
Grammar help from Microsoft Word
No wonder those TANG forgeries were so easy to spot.
Posted by Nukevet at 03:26 PM | Comments (0)
October 09, 2004
The numbers
Saturday October 09, 2004--The latest Rasmussen Reports Presidential Tracking Poll shows President George W. Bush with 50% of the vote and Senator John Kerry with 46%. Today is the first time all year that either candidate has hit the 50% mark in our survey.
Almost all polls give the democrats the edge on trust with the economy, republicans are trusted on strength, and defense.
By a 49% to 45% margin, voters say they trust President Bush more than Senator Kerry when it comes to managing the economy. The President has a slightly larger advantage when it comes to national defense and the War on Terror.
For Kerry, this is damning. When the public disregards the democrats traditional strengths, something is very wrong with the message, or messenger. The public is trending to the view we share, that Kerry has no strong views beyond the moment.
Posted by Nukevet at 07:22 PM | Comments (0)
As Mr. Burns would say,
Of course, this is just 1 foreign leader that Kerry has denigrated. Wonder if we can still count on the Aussies if Kerry is elected?
Posted by Nukevet at 02:11 PM | Comments (0)
October 08, 2004
Everybody has a tale to tell
And the Neanderpundit tells a good one about his experience with caffinated alcohol after reading a story about Anheuser-Busch's new beer.
What it started out as, was a pound of freshly roasted coffee beans. This was put into a bottle with a large sprig of mint, and the empty spaces in the bottle were filled with vodka and a mixture of liquers.
One of my first experiences with strong spirits, that was.
Oh, some of you might be thinking Kahlua, and you couldn't be further from the truth.
This shit was NECTAR. You wanted, nay, needed, more, and more, and more.When the bottle was empty, you shook out the beans, and chewed on them.
You have NO IDEA of the unbridled horror to come.
Drink warning is now in effect.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:02 PM | Comments (0)
October 07, 2004
Why so bitter?
Professor Reynolds weighs in on the reasons for the extreme bitterness of this election. I'm not so sure he has it exactly right. His facts are correct, but he understands the religious right about as much as the Guardian understands what a libertarian is. He hits all around the target, but never quite hits the bullseye. One email that he recieved nailed it, pointedly so.
Reader Stan Brown emails:
Liked your Guardian article, but any comment on religious or quasi-religious fervor making politics more bitter since Reagan was elected in 1980 should at least mention Krauthammer's point - Republicans think Democrats are wrong and Democrats think Republicans are evil. I don't think anyone can begin to understand politics over this time period without it.
That's it exactly, it's not a puritan vs. Chatholic type of religious fight as he suggests. It's a fight between those who believe they have the right to be left alone and their thinking the left is deluded. With the the modern left "do-gooderism" which sees any attempt to hold them back as an act of pure evil. If you don't support them, you aren't wrong headed, it's that you hate children and wanna strangle babies. It would explain why almost all the vile bullyboy acts commited so far in this election, have come from the left. When you say your opponent is the devil, then any tactic can be justified to the true believers. Which is why Hugh Hewitt is right, this election can't be allowed to be close, else the left will try and steal it, as they tried the last time.
The left loves to equate America under Bush to Germany in the thirties. They love the analogy. The truth of it is, is that the brownshirts and fanatics we need to worry about, are the ones who wear kerry/edwards buttons.
Posted by Nukevet at 04:57 PM | Comments (0)
I guess Jimmy Carter was right
We really do need UN elections observers here in the US.
GOP offices invaded. Home personal property defaced. Shots fired at a GOP office in Knoxville. "Great to see how "progressives" deal with points of view that differ from theirs, eh?":https://www.nationalreview.com/kerry/kerry200410061538.asp
Posted by Nukevet at 01:49 PM | Comments (2)
October 06, 2004
A Tale of Tuesday
The following is my take on the VP debate that took place last night and the six hours following the event discussed by my local Seattle left wing talk radio shows.
And lo, in the grassy valley, a sheep and a ram were discussing issues of the flock. Without provocation, off topic and out of nowhere, the sheep uttered the dread word.
�Halliburton�.
And yea verily, it was heard by another sheep who was grazing nearby. And that sheep repeated the dread word. And the sheep next to it repeated it. And so on, until the dread word echoed throughout the grassy valley.
The rams heard this echo and shook their heads and snorted their little ram laughs, but they were not truly amused, for they knew that power of the dread word.
Over the rise and across the lake, the jackals heard the echo of the dread word. And the jackals smiled. And they were very amused.
As the dread word continued to echo throughout the evening and into the night, the jackals howled to their moon god �Allah-ooooooo Akbar!� and began their journey to the grassy valley.
As they crested the rise that looked over the grassy valley the next morning, the jackal leader repeated the call to his god, �Allah-oooo Akbar! Thank you for the falafel meat!�
And they began their attack.
But the rams of the flock had known that this was coming, as it always did when things like the dread word were used to distract the sheep. The rams had spent the night quietly herding as many of the sheep as they could to a safe part of the grassy valley and prepared to defend the flock, as was their duty.
But the jackal attack was fierce. The jackals would bite and cripple each other in order to get to the stray sheep. The rams defended in coordinated and devastating attacks, but the numbers of the jackals were vast.
----------------------------------------------------
I am going to finish here. For while we know how we would like this to end, none of us can see the future. Let�s just make sure the sheep don�t get put in charge.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:57 AM | Comments (0)
October 01, 2004
Foggy Bottom
Rest are here in the Dogwood House folder.
Posted by Nukevet at 03:44 PM | Comments (4)
September 30, 2004
So, which look is better?
I say the former - I've never been a big hair/glam kinda guy.
Posted by Nukevet at 08:29 PM | Comments (5)
September 29, 2004
New Vision
As I sit here typing, I am holding off feelings of vertigo as I adjust to my new glasses.
I wasn't thinking clearly when I chose my new frames and got them even smaller in diameter than my old ones. My smaller field of vision is very noticable and I haven't found the spot on my nose where I prefer them to sit as of yet.
But enough about my difficulties, I would like to share something I was shown by the optometrist.
Four styles of frames, 20-plus different tints (depending on your activity), interchangable lenses, and they'll cut them to your prescription (they'll even cut a bi-focal in the upper inside corner).
Now, I have come out against prescription shooting glasses in the past, but I'm gonna have to pull a Kerry and flip-flop here.
My objections were that you shouldn't get used to having to use a special pair of glasses to be able to shoot well. But I was thinking of emergency or defensive pistol/shotgun/carbine rifle. I had not really passed through the idea that my eyes are sucking at distances past 100 yards. It'll be very rare that I'll be awakened up in the middle of the night and need to grab my high powered bolt action rifle to defend my house at 400 yards.
Hence, I think I can say I'm not a hypocrite when I'm at the range in my prescription shhoting glasses.
My previous frames, and my current ones, are not exactly made to look through a scope for long periods of time, or even short ones. And I wouldn't be caught dead during day to day operations in most of the frames that would.
But since I am doing more and more shooting at distance, I think that a set of these will work perfectly. And they're covered under my insurance.
If you are doing the same, you might look into them.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:21 AM | Comments (1)
Time to pull out of California
With US casualties being used by the left as proof that Iraq is a 'quagmire', Judicious Asininity takes a report from the the Los Angeles Daily News and shows why we must give California back to Azatlan.
Over the last ten years the Californian homicide rate has averaged 2,496 per year. Many of those were killed in gang-related violence.
So, is that description very much different from what we are reading about Fallujah or Sadr city?
He also includes a link to this map of Iraq, broken down to Casualties by Province researched and created by The Chicago Boyz.
Actually, I wouldn't really mind giving up Cali to the 'La Raza' freaks. Just don't tell the Norks. California is a big target.
Posted by Nukevet at 05:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 28, 2004
Ever feel like you're being watched?
Posted by Nukevet at 11:07 PM | Comments (1)
September 27, 2004
A Double Shot of Samizdata
I found a couple links @ Samizdata over the weekend that I'd like to share.
First off, by now I'm sure you've heard of the anti-fox hunting legislation that is being pushed through and down the peoples throats. But I was a little shocked at this opening line in an article on the subject in the Independant UK.
Militant pro-hunt groups are targeting Labour MPs and government ministers in a growing campaign of abuse, threats and intimidation over the decision to ban hunting.
Militant?
Militant!?!
Palestinian suicide bombers are called activists, but folks who make a bomb threat are called militants?
WTF!!!!
Next, there have been a series of posts at Crooked Timber criticising Pro-Iraq War Libertarians.
"... can we think of a new name for libertarians who think it's a good idea to invade other countries and overthrow their governments, like maybe �shmibertarians�?"
Natalie Solent returns the volley,
When I see my house burning down I do not wait for the evolution of private fire brigades.
I would love to be able to vote Libertarian here in Washignton State and even natioanlly. I agree with their ideas on most everything economic and size of government and intrusion of government.
But the trouble is, most of the people they put up for election are wackoloon isolationists.
Isolationism was fine when it took a week to cross the Atlanic or the Pacific, but when I can get to from the Japan to Seattle in just a couple hours, isolationism is as helpful as a fart in a tornado.
I don't like over half of Bush's domestic policies, and even have difficulty liking him on some of the foreign decisions.
But he takes the fight to the terrorists. He doesn't try and sweep incidents under the rug or pretend it isn't hapenning.
If you look out across the political spectrum, the Republicans are the only ones willing to fight terrorism abroad.
If the Libertarians figure this out, Bush will actually have to campaign to get my vote.
Posted by Nukevet at 07:15 AM | Comments (0)
September 26, 2004
Head on a swivel
It's like watching tennis.
Posted by Nukevet at 04:13 PM | Comments (0)
September 25, 2004
Things to spend money on, part XXVIIXX
Posted by Nukevet at 12:41 AM | Comments (1)
September 24, 2004
Ah...HA! got cha ya little rasafrascin.......
The root of all our connection problems. It's been replaced 5 times now. The third time the cable guy said we had a small current from an unknown source going through the line, and that periodically, it would fry this little guy when we had a surge in the line.
Source unknown, except he was sure it was something we had that was doing it. Well we did have a twentyfive year old consol TV hooked up for the kids to watch toons,..... We replaced that with a spare bedroom TV. Now, if it fries again, I'm going to track down Bill Gates, then beat him till he fixes it. These things cost enough that I don't want to have to go buy one every other week. I'll answer my mail tonight, as I have to go to work soon. I may go silent for a few days here and there, not usually for technical resons, but because I just am not up to it. The seven meds I'm on now tend to make me sick to my stomach, dizzy, light headed and so sleepy.
Better than without them though.
Posted by Nukevet at 07:20 PM | Comments (0)
September 22, 2004
This dude's got issues
Via the lovely SondraK.
Posted by Nukevet at 06:32 PM | Comments (0)
Horrible
We have these mean bastards
all over Louisiana. I once got into a nest while using the weedeater, and got stung about 20 times before I got away. Each bite hurts like crazy - I can't imagine getting stung over 1,000 times.
Posted by Nukevet at 05:56 PM | Comments (2)
September 20, 2004
Rules of the Road
This last Saturday I put over 200 highway miles on my truck without leaving urban and suburban regions of Seattle/Tacoma/Everett/Olympia. All the while, marveling at how many stupid people have driver�s licenses.
I spend a great deal of time on the road. I have probably clocked more time behind the wheel than someone 10 years older. And I�ve just about had it with almost everyone else on the road. It has been said that I drive like a bat out of hell. It has also been said that those bats from hell would not be able to keep up with me.
I like to think that the latter is true. We�ve all heard the line that driving at such and such a speed for such and such a distance will only get you to your destination such and such sooner than if you just went the speed limit.
Forget it. When I�m driving, it�s crap. That�s right, I can bend time. So, save your mathematic theories and give them to someone else. I don�t need them. I�ve gone 60 miles in 50 minutes without ever reaching the speed of 100mph. You wanna know how? Tough, I�ve spent the time to learn how to do it and I�m not sharing.
The speed limit on the interstates that run through the urban and suburban areas here is 60mph, but I prefer to drive at a speed that is comfortable. Comfortable depends on my need to get somewhere. My usual cruising speed, and best gas mileage speed is between 70 and 75mph. I get 19.8 mpg in that range. I get 18.2 when I travel at 60. Yeah, it�s my fault for choosing that final gear ratio in my overdrive. I am premeditated in that way. I know exactly how my engine uses fuel, so sue me.
As a rule, I hate to run late, so I�m usually not in a hurry to get anywhere. But, as you all know, shit happens, and I occasionally run late or have an emergency. I know all the roadways in my area and I know the traffic patterns and I know, depending on where I am and where I need to be, my route and the length of time it will take to get me where I�m going.
And that is one thing I ask of the people who I have to share the roads with. You lost? Get the hell off the road and ask for directions. Better yet, buy a damn map and figure it out before you hit the pavement. Your ignorance isn�t something I�m willing to deal with calmly. I have special punishments for dumbasses.
You may have seen signs along the side of the road that state �Keep Right Except To Pass�. For those folks who failed that portion of your driving test, that means if you want to drive 60mph, stay in the right lane. You may pay taxes on all of the roads, but you do not own them. Nor does that mean you can hold other people up. Every other person who has a car registered in Washington has also paid taxes on the roads. I can use the roads more efficiently, so move your ass.
It is not your job to play �Hall Monitor� and keep everyone driving at the legal speed limit. I run by the pool with scissors, and I will not put up with someone wagging their finger in my direction and scolding me for speeding. The last guy who did that actually got me pissed off enough to back of the pedal, roll my window down and have me motion that I wanted to talk to him as I paced him on the right. You don�t want to know what I told him he could do with that finger.
But onto a couple of points that I feel the need share;
The left lane is not a �Thru Lane�, no matter what anyone, including your driving instructor, has told you. That is a myth. It is the fast lane. It is also known as �The Deep End�, because folks in that lane get �Deep� into their speedometers.
The far right lane of a highway that is three or more lanes wide is considered an upload/offload lane and is not for general travel. Stay out of that lane unless you are getting on or off the highway. If your highway is only two lanes wide, then stay in it, but keep you eyes open for cars getting on or off. You don�t have to slow down or yield so that the folks getting on can merge. It is their job to be up to speed by the end of the onramp. If they can�t �Get it up�, that�s their problem. Hit the right pedal and move on.
If you are in a lane and you get passed on the right, you should immediately be required to move into the lane on your right. As of now, that is not the law, but it is a good idea. If you study the causes of accidents, the twit who holds traffic up is just as likely to cause a pile up as the guy weaving in and out of traffic, mostly because he is causing people to have to change lanes and go around him because he is playing hall monitor.
In the 17 years I�ve been legal to drive, I have seen freeways work the way they are supposed to fewer times than I have fingers and toes. For the freeway to work perfectly, the right lane is clear except for people getting on or off the road. The middle two or three lanes are cruising at 60, 65 and 70mph, respectively right to left and the far left lane is going 5mph or more than the next lane to the left.
Also, you CAN pass a police officer who is driving on a multilane highway. It is not illegal. As a rule, police officers hate driving on the highway and they only do it when they have to get somewhere. There are exceptions to this rule, but it is rare. They hate doing this because no matter who they end up behind, that person always slows down to 5mph under and then the officer gets caught up in a group of surrounding cars, all of which are driving at 5 to 10 mph under the speed limit.
Unless you are dealing with a state highway patrol officer, most jurisdictions do not like municipal officers (county/city/township) writing tickets on the interstates. Some of them even have rules against it. The officer can pull you over, of course, but they generally have to do so and wait for whomever it was that should have done so in the first place. But to get them to actually do so, you have to be doing something pretty damn stupid.
You have to remember, police officers know that every vehicle stop could be a life threatening situation. Other than responding to domestic violence calls, it is probably their least favorite thing to do.
If they�re cruising at 60 mph and you roll past at around 5pmh over, they�ll most likely leave you alone. If they�re rolling at 55mph because some nimrod in front of them is paranoid, you�re good to go.
I had to do this twice yesterday. After driving for a few miles each time waiting to get to a point where I could get through.
And that is another thing, don�t be a jackass and try to block me. If you�re not going fast enough for my liking and I�m passing you, don�t speed up. It isn�t going to make me any more impressed with your driving prowess and you aren�t going to like my reaction.
I have much more skill than you do and I will make it a point to make you look like a bitch on the interstate. I�ve driven town cars professionally for folks whose employees have large knuckles and short tempers. I�ve driven sports cars for money. Timed round trip excursions mostly, but I am equally skilled at head to head and team driving. I drove semi pro SCCA for almost a decade. But track time is expensive, so when there was no speed limit on the highways in Montana, I spent a number of weekends doing nothing but burning gas, sleeping and eating, in that order of importance.
My current main ride is a 5000-plus pound truck with a small block V8. I�m not as quick as some and not as maneuverable as others, so if you piss me off, you should just run. If you stick around and want to play games, you�ll have body damage when I�m done with you. And that�s if you�re lucky. I know how to use guard rails, jersey barriers and gore points to my advantage and your unhappiness.
I know how to get where I need to go safely at speed. Just because someone has enough hand/eye coordination to operate a steering wheel and gas pedal doesn�t mean they should be given a license. 95% of the people who currently have driver�s licenses would hate to take my proposed driving proficiency test.
Posted by Nukevet at 07:23 AM | Comments (4)
While looking through the referrer logs
I found this.
Guess our name has them a little worried.
Posted by Nukevet at 03:14 AM | Comments (2)
Cami says
Arrrrrrrrrrrgh
Posted by Nukevet at 02:09 AM | Comments (0)
September 18, 2004
Confidence
Murray Mack, an architect from St. Cloud who said he grew up in a Democratic household, said his support for Bush has more to do with Bush�s manner than his policies. The president projects confidence, he said, and that�s important at a time of difficult world events and a troublesome domestic economy. ��He has a belief in this country,�� said Mack, who attended the rally Thursday in St. Cloud with his wife, Sue. ��I want a guy on TV that I respect, and that represents our country well.��
They said Bush was a stronger leader (63 to 50 per cent) and liked him more personally (60 to 50 per cent).
Both leftwing papers, not likely to sugarcoat Bush's numbers. The pessimism on the left is growing. Expect rats to start jumping ship sone, as this is starting to be an approaching debacle. So, how do you say slam dunk in French Mr. kerry?
Posted by Nukevet at 07:11 PM | Comments (1)
What the pundits say, and what is happening really
Last week while I was at work, my wife tells me that I missed a moment of high comedy. It seems the local kerry campaign was sending people door to door asking people to vote for kerry. He knocked and asked for me by name, strange, as I have never been in any contact with the local democratic party. Must have come from the DMV or voter registry. Ohio has nonpartisan registering, so no party is listed on your registration.
He asked for me, asked if I planned on voting for kerry. My inlaws were sitting there, my wife, her sisters, and of course the kids. A moment of complete silence,..... then the whole room burst out laughing. His smile kind of shriveled up at that point, and he asked if there was ANY way I could be talked into it, which only increased the laughter. Needless to say, he left a bit more humble than when he came here.
I must be getting predictable in my old age.
Posted by Nukevet at 06:36 PM | Comments (3)
September 17, 2004
When a parent loses a child, the paths taken.
Drudge pointed to this, and I feel compelled to reply.
A woman wearing a T-shirt with the words "President Bush You Killed My Son" and a picture of a soldier killed in Iraq was detained Thursday after she interrupted a campaign speech by First lady Laura Bush.
It's almost impossible for someone who hasn't gone through the loss of a child to respond to this kind of outburst. While the differences between our cases is vast, I can say without refute that there is no pain to equal it. That, I'm not going to say she hasn't the right to grieve, she does, what she doesn't have is the right to take a grown man's choices and put them aside for the comfort of wrapping herself in a blinding hate. A hate that excuses her, comforts her, and absolves her of the outcome she didn't want. I have no doubt, she was proud when her son graduated as an Army officer. Proud down to her shoes at his accomplishment. When her son died, he died having made a choice to do the most dangerous of all military jobs, EOD. He died, and as hurtful as it was, it was as the loss of a fireman, a police officer, doing the dirty, terrible jobs that keep other people alive. His was indeed, a noble choice. I'm sorry he's dead, and we all are no doubt.
The moment you know your son is dead, there is shock, grief so overwhelming as to render you in two. You cannot percieve how you can hurt so much and still not die. I grant her that, her pain is very real, very monsterous.
The thing of it is, is acceptence, you can't change it, can't make it right again no matter how much you try. She I feel, has fallen into bitterness, she was wronged, her son was taken from her, and somebody must pay. It's easy to hate, very easy, it's much tougher to accept that death is not a fair broker. Did George Bush kill her her son? Another question, did Roosevelt kill those three thousand men at Pearl Harbour? Did he? he was president, the clues were there, they just weren't put together in the right order in time, and most all of us universally accept that. George didn't create the war, he didn't put Huessein into the position to be the lynch pin of the terror web in the middle east. Al Quada may not have sat at dinner and planned September 11th with Saddam, but there was enabling of resources, contacts, and money, always the money. So asking if George Bush "killed" her son is as rhetorical a question as asking if Franklin "killed" those men on Omaha Beach, the answer is far from being that simple. Those you who read history, know that Franklin did recieve hate mail, blaming him, or the Jews, or Wall Street for the deaths of treasured sons. They were taken, lured away to their death by a false leader who wasted their lives. Threw them away in a wasted gesture for whatever pet prejudice or bigotry they harboured. This isn't new, "Hey Hey LBJ, How Many Kids Did You Kill Today?"
The only difference is that, her hate came prepackaged, hand delivered by a political opposition that would rather see the White House burned down, than occupied by a person who isn't extreme left wing. She didn't have to reach into her own black thoughts and hates, they gave her one for free. It's not your fault your son died, it's not that you raised him to do the right thing and that is what killed him. It's that he was duped, suckered into blind patriotism by a cabal of neocons, or Halburton, anything but your fault. "They" stole your son, and his choices don't count because your pain is too great to allow anyone else to not hurt as much as you. She dosen't really blame Bush, she in esscense blames all of us, it's our fault, our culture, or sense of right and wrong that she has a fight with. Bush is just an easy metaphor for her pain, an easy target.
It would have been so easy to blame the doctor, the drug companies, the Hospital or even my wife, someone had to pay would be a very human reaction. It would also have been a greedy self absorbed only I hurt kind of indulgence that serves no good and just ruins lives that don't deserve vengence, for a thing that just happened. Why do two men cross the street, yet only one is struck down by a speeding car? There is no answer. That is the horror of sudden, unexpected death. No answer, why him, and not me, or you? Hating is a lazy, selfish response. Her hate will destroy her as surely as a bullet, and what of the cost she will leave in her wake?
What of the father? Did he lose his wife, as well as his son? What kind of indifference to others who would have loved her son will this exhibit? Her pain, hers.... there would be others. What of their pain? A compassionate soul, wouldn't wallow in hate, but find strength, find purpose in easing the pain of others torn and riven. I would bet she never noticed,
That would concede she isn't alone in her pain. That's a kind of hubris that's reserved to God, no human has a monopoly on pain. You presume the right of judgment on eternity, maybe she can do it, but I can't. If her son had died at birth, what doctor would suffer her eternal wrath, forever heckled and hounded by a woman too consumed to see the destruction of the journey she's started off on. Neal you know there are no absolutes in life, or in the manner of death. Sometimes, there just isn't a sunset ending, much as you fight to make it so. Your cancer work, is a testement to life. I think that in my own tiny way, I aspire to words that heal what can't be healed, even if I accept, it never goes away.
I don't condemn this woman so much as pity her. She not only shuts out the pain of others, but the healing they can give. She may give up the hate one day, and then, she may think to give her son a better memorial than a freakshow exhibit. She could make his memory one of loving sacrifice to save the lives of others, she has instead, made it a tale of embittered selfishness. He deserves better, as we do, and if the woman is truely worthy of her son,
she deserves better too.
Posted by Nukevet at 04:28 AM | Comments (4)
Been busy
Workman's comp, my very first encounter in 29 years of employment. It has, from only this small limited contact, blown rather seriously. Makes me doubly wary of a single payer government controled health care plan, actually, downright hostile to the idea. The good news, they are letting me go in to work, the bad, I have a herniated disc, the lowest one in the lumbar, a bulging disc in the thoracic, but that's minor. Surgery is being put on a fast track. Bone scans, doctors evaluation, surgeon referral, new evaluation, then, if all goes according to the current plan, surgey to fix me.
The restrictions they have put on me are annoying as Hell. No bending,twisting or handling anything over 15lbs. This sucks, but my boss is being supportive about it. They will provide the chair the doctor demanded for me, and will change my hours to put me where I don't have to do anything but handle the computers on U-Scan. No lifting, bending, period.
Yes it hurts, more than most could imagine. But I have to make a living, have to feed and clothe my wife and kids. Being off feels better, but the pay is too much lower to consider. It's a bear right now, but measuring personal pain against that? They're worth it, and what's a few more grey hairs. I'll make it, and the Comp doc says he'll move as much red tape as he can for me, the surgery needs done soon. Otherwise I risk permanent damage, there is evidence from the MRI that a nerve is being pressed.
Never a good cheap body part laying around when you need one is there?
Posted by Nukevet at 01:09 AM | Comments (2)
September 16, 2004
Nature is weird
Wow - 3am and nothing from Ivan. A little wind, no rain, and a spectacular sunset earlier tonight.
People along the Mississippi and Alabama coast are the ones who need your thoughts now.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:44 AM | Comments (0)
California Politics
I would like to point out two things currently going on in the California political spectrum.
First off, George Soros is throwing his money around to try and take away part of their "Three Strikes and You're Out" law.
Mega-billionaire George Soros is donating $150,000 to a proposition that will change California's Three Strikes law. Soros and two other wealthy liberal donors have donated $450,000 to weaken California's tough sentencing law.
So let's see here, Soros wants a frenchman in the oval office, wants to release career criminals onto the streets to reoffend, make all drugs legal and take away your guns.
Is it time to ask this jackass to leave the country yet?
Next item;
That means, if you own a car that never was intended to get emissions tested, like say, a 1963 Lincoln Continental, you will not only have to submit to the hose up the tailpipe exam. And if you do not pass the standards set by the government, you do not get to register your car for raod use (aka - no license tabs).
Needless to say, car collector extraordinaire, Jay Leno, is pissed.
I am too and I don't even live in the state. This is just bunk envirowhacko/governmental control crap.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:10 AM | Comments (2)
September 15, 2004
The Washington State Primaries
You may see stories on the national MSM about voter complaints on the topic of the Washington primaries. I'm already hearing them locally and the election day has only been over for 2 hours.
As you know, I voted in my state's primary yesterday.
There are a few things I probably should have explained about recent happenings here on this subject.
For over 70 years, Washington had an open primary system. You could vote for anyone in any party. After Caleeforneea's open primary was knocked down as unconstitutional in federal court, ours was taken away as well.
We now have a party line closed primary just like everyone else in the rest of the country. Some states, like the Doc's has something called the Bayou Primary (AKA Lousiana Primary) and I'm not an expert, but I think that the top two vote getters go into a run-off election, no matter what party they're in. If I'm wrong here, feel free to correct me.
But here is the problem with whipping out a new primary system.
Just like in Florida, there are a lot of stupid voters in Washington State.
On the ballot I voted with yesterday, I had to start on the left hand side and pick the party I wished to vote in. There were three parties to choose from. Democrat, Republican and Libertarian. There were also some non-partisan races that were open to members of all parties.
Easy enough. I made my party selection and then followed the columns on the ballot to that party's section of the ballot and started voting.
After I was done voting in my selected party, I went to the non-partisan races and continued making my selections in those races.
If someone voting on the same ballot as I did forgot to select their party of choice or made selctions in more than one party, their ballot was rejected by the counting machines and not counted.
And now that people are done voting, there are a large number of them, especially on the left, who are complaining that they now realize that they screwed up their ballots.
I listened to 6 hours of left wing local talk radio and I heard something along the lines of 15 to 20 callers say that they were confused by the ballot.
On a quick side note, the talk radio folks have a formula that goes something like this; only 1 in 1000 people listening to you will actually dial the phone and try to get through on any given topic.
So, if you take 18 people calling in saying they were confused ny their ballot, that pans out to 18,000 possible people who think that they screwed their ballot up. If you add to that the hysteria I'm expecting to hit the local TV airwaves tomorrow morning, you're looking at probably another 18,000 people who will be convinced that they screwed up their ballot after hearing the news shows report that 'some people' were confused by the ballot.
Anyway, here is the funny part. The ballot seemed idiot proof to me. Here's why.
First off, before you could select your party, you had 8 inches of a 2 inch wide column of instructions on how to use the ballot.
So, if you can read, you had your explanation under your fingers.
Second, the parties were COLOR CODED on the ballot. I think the Dems were blue, the Repubs were green and the Libs were yellow. You only had to first select your party, then look at the coloring of the lettering next you the oval you filled in and look for the section in that color.
Sounds easy, right?
We'll see tomorrow.
I won't be up until mid to late morning, and I'll let you know the moment I do.
On a side note, one candidtate that polled really competitively for the Democratic nomination for Governor lost by a 3 to 1 margin.
The reason I believe this happened was because he spent zero, nada, nothing, zilch, less than one dollar on voter education, while his competitor spent around 5% of her budget on it.
I'm expecting his loss to spark most of the controversy.
UPDATE: I am going to have to apologize to New Orleans and the Doc, but their storm seems to be sucking the steam out of the story here.
Locally, you get stories like this one in the print media,
Confusion wins in state primary
And quotes like this on the video media.
"Not quite as easy as I thought it would be" and "Voting isn't easy".
I haven't turned on a radio yet, but I'm sure that the stories out there. And thankfully, it sounds like it's dying.
Posted by Nukevet at 07:25 AM | Comments (4)
Well,
Wish us luck.........
Posted by Nukevet at 12:58 AM | Comments (4)
September 14, 2004
You bet your ass
Right now, blue and green plaid double knit flannel. The matching robe is on the back of the bathroom door.
Found @ The Bird
Posted by Nukevet at 07:06 PM | Comments (3)
September 12, 2004
Of note, people are starting to pay attention.
AP: Bush leads Kerry as Dem loses ground on issues, character
Seven weeks before Election Day, Bush is considered significantly more decisive, strong and likable than Kerry, and he has strengthened his position on virtually every issue important to voters, from the war in Iraq and creating jobs � two sources of criticism � to matters of national security and values.
Issues aside, when it comes down to what's in your guts, Bush is the hands down winner. The thing Democrats need to ask themselves, is why? People do not like John Kerry, and most even if they disagree with his policies, say George Bush is a decent, likable guy.
The democrats nominated the guy voted most likely to be employed by a funeral home.
Posted by Nukevet at 04:29 AM | Comments (0)
September 11, 2004
This is a good day.
I'm not going to go on at length here, just a couple of quick thoughts. I'm going to work this afternoon, then having a couple of days off. I'm going to wear a small black ribbon today around my name badge. A tiny gesture to be sure, but it's mine. Little things can mean alot, a single rose when your wife is down, a little teddy bear when your daughter has been bad, and has to suffer through being grounded a while. Small things can tell you more about how much someone cares about a subject.
It isn't the grand parades and huge events that give meaning to something like today. It's the unspoken, sometimes quietly whispered prayers meant for no one else but you and the heavens. The small gestures are the most truthful. Not to impress, or posture, but to give venue to an ache in your heart that can never be forgotten. Look around you today, and I bet you'll see a lot of small tokens of remembrence. Tiny, probably unnoticed by most, but they will be there if you watch.
Maybe it's overly romantic to believe that, it's easy to be cynical of your fellow man. Not today, for all those that fail in their heart to just remember, there is a host of those that will. Today, that is enough, and today that makes it a good day.
Posted by Nukevet at 06:28 PM | Comments (1)
September 10, 2004
May need more than a band-aid for this
registered voters by a 27-point margin now say Bush has taken a clearer stand than Kerry on the issues, by 27 points call Bush the stronger leader and by 19 points say he would make the country safer. Bush also has a 22-point advantage in trust to handle terrorism, a 16-point lead on Iraq and perhaps a slight edge even on the lukewarm economy...
Sixty-three percent of Bush's supporters now say they're "very enthusiastic" about him, a new high for Bush in this important measure of motivation. Kerry's support, after dropping in advance of the Republican convention, is flat, at 39 percent very enthusiastic. And while 84 percent of Bush's supporters are affirmatively "for" him, that's true of just 41 percent of Kerry's; more of Kerry's supporters, 55 percent, are chiefly "against" Bush...
Posted by Nukevet at 12:05 AM | Comments (0)
September 09, 2004
Two and two,.... speculation, but it make you wonder.
AK posted about Carville's demented ravings. Well I found this at Powerline, and it ties two and two tegether. Maybe, but it would explain the lunacy of Carville's antics.
Morris also wonders about the loyalty of new Kerry advisers Paul Begala and James Carville:
Both men are primarily loyal to the Clintons � Bill and Hillary. Clearly, the former president would like the former first lady to be president in 2008. And a Kerry victory would stand in the way.
An axiom of politics is that generally you want your campaign advisers to hope that you win � and Carville and Begala may not pass that standard.
Do I think Carville wants Kerry to lose? I doubt it, but I believe Carville expects Kerry to lose, and making it a bitter loss would suit his purposes just fine. The dems do bitter exceptionally well, petty, small minded too, but that's not the direct issue. Clinton faithful working to undermine Kerry?
I believe they are that venal, I just wonder if they can plan ahead that far without their heads caving in from the effort.
Posted by Nukevet at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)
September 08, 2004
MRI's
I got two done yesterday, (thoracic then lumbar, for two separate fractures) and won't speak to the surgeon till the 13th. I don't know, but this is the second time and I HATE having this done. It doesn't hurt per say, but lying flat on my back for an hour on a hard surface does, alot. They strip you of any metal, except for my wedding band. I can tell why they do that now. I felt the ring vibrate intensely during the hammering part. So I can see where that would be a problem with implants.
If I said this doesn't worry me, I'd be lying. I've never had major surgery before, and while what they are talking about is an outpatient procedure, it's still introducing objects into my spine. I confess to a huge amount of discomfort with that. I'll do what they ask of me without comment or complaint, but what's going on behind my eyes,... They'll never know, not outright fear, but maybe a good healthy dose of anxiety. I won't quit, but I'm still human.
We each have our own personal demons.
Posted by Nukevet at 07:22 PM | Comments (2)
Diplomacy and just plain old fashioned compassion.
Diplomacy is the bread and butter of the the EU, or so they keep telling us. That the drawing room manuevers of the Brussels elite is vastly superior to the "simple" American style. So maybe we're guilty of being old fashioned.
I don't know.
I do know that in twenty years when all is said and done, the people of Beslan will still have the X-ray machines we gave them. We never ask for the return of anything given in an hour of need. On that line, I have a "simple" question to ponder for those who consider such things. When the unborn grandchildren of the survivors ask one day about the events of Sept. 3rd, who will they be told was a friend when they needed one? And what will they say of the ones who heckled them when they were still weeping as they buried their dead? In the time of great mourning, it's the kindness's of strangers, the compassion of people who you've never met that will be forever remembered. The EU sent recriminations, the United States sent medicine, bandages, and equipment, with much more to come. In this time of sadness, we ask for nothing in return.
I think just by being natural to who we are, is the only diplomacy that matters in the end.
Posted by Nukevet at 12:25 AM | Comments (1)
September 05, 2004
Yo, Vladimir
Send your apologies to:
President George W. Bush
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC, USA
BESLAN, RUSSIA -- A shaken President Putin made a rare and candid admission of Russian weakness yesterday in the face of an "all-out war" by terrorists after more than 340 people -- nearly one-half of them children -- were killed in a hostage-taking at a school in southern Russia. Putin went on national television to tell Russians they must mobilize against terrorism. He promised wide-ranging changes to toughen security forces and purge corruption.
"We showed weakness and weak people are beaten," he said in a speech aimed at addressing the grief, shock and anger felt by many after a string of attacks that have killed some 450 people in the last two weeks, apparently in connection with the war in Chechnya.
Good to know that Russia finally gets it. I didn't notice Vladimir spending a lot of time on the need for sensitivity.
Posted by Nukevet at 08:02 PM | Comments (0)
September 03, 2004
How Arnold Got So Strong
When he was a young boy, his father chained him to the wall and nailed his feet to the floor.
Or at least that is what the left thinks.
Austrian historians are challenging California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for telling the Republican National Convention that he saw Soviet tanks in his homeland as a child and that he left a "Socialist" country when he moved away in 1968.
Recalling that the Soviets once occupied part of Austria in the aftermath of World War II, Schwarzenegger told the convention on Tuesday: "I saw tanks in the streets. I saw communism with my own eyes."
Historians, however, are questioning Schwarzenegger's version of postwar history -- if not his enduring popularity among Austrians who admire him for rising from a penniless immigrant to the highest official in America's most populous state.
"It's a fact -- as a child he could not have seen a Soviet tank in Styria," the southeastern province where Schwarzenegger was born and raised, historian Stefan Karner told the Vienna newspaper Kurier.
So apparently, while we all travelled the US as children with our families, Arnie never left his house as a child.
Kerry gets a pass in the press for his 'I voted for it before I voted against it' line by calling it nuance (along with every other stupid thing he's said), but if Arnie says he saw tanks, they must have been in his front yard or he is a liar by Atrios' standards.
I could freakin' drive across Austria in less time than I could my home state. What a bunch of whiny sh*ts.
Posted by Nukevet at 08:19 PM | Comments (0)
September 02, 2004
He's right, you know
The Poor Schmuck titled his entry on this story "If this happened in Florida, Democrats would claim fraud".
A voters' guide published by the D.C. elections board and mailed last week to more than 100,000 District households appears to instruct recipients to report to the wrong polling places for the Sept. 14 primary elections, an error that could lead to mass confusion on Election Day.
And he's right.
The difference between Florida and DC? The DC elections board is almost 100% Dems.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:50 AM | Comments (0)
Trial Lawyers
Helping increase the cost of health care.
Twelve people who received portions of a $400 million settlement with the manufacturer of the diet drug fen-phen in 1999 have been arrested and charged with fraud for allegedly lying about taking the drug.
"These people were seeking money for a drug they never took. They conspired with others who were more knowledgeable about the system. They were never entitled to any type of compensation," FBI agent Bob Garrity said Tuesday.
The defendants are accused of submitting fake pharmacy documents showing they used the diet drug. They face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted of conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States.
The article doesn't say, but I'll bet that Wyeth doesn't get the settlement money back from the frauds.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:34 AM | Comments (0)
September 01, 2004
A New Battle Begins
I have spoke in the past about one of the shop stewards at my workplace.
Here are some of our meetings:
1
2
3
4
As of 1500 yesterday, he no longer works for my employer as he has retired after 35 years of hauling the trash.
And a new battle begins.
He is now going to be working in the office at the local Teamster hall. On his way out, he insinuated that one of his first goals is to get the currently non-union office staff where I work to join a union. He tried this while he was still working there, but guess who stood in his way? (As I huff on my fingernails and shine them on my chest)
I'm pretty sure I'll be up to keeping the union doppleganger out of my office.
This should be fun.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:54 AM | Comments (0)
August 30, 2004
I blame President Bush
and his willingness to hold governments responsible for terrorism accountable.
The chilling sights and sounds of war fill newspapers and television screens worldwide, but war itself is in decline, peace researchers report.
In fact, the number killed in battle has fallen to its lowest point in the post-World War II period, dipping below 20,000 a year by one measure. Peacemaking missions, meantime, are growing in number.
"International engagement is blossoming," said American scholar Monty G. Marshall. "There's been an enormous amount of activity to try to end these conflicts."
For months the battle reports and casualty tolls from Iraq (news - web sites) and Afghanistan (news - web sites) have put war in the headlines, but Swedish and Canadian non-governmental groups tracking armed conflict globally find a general decline in numbers from peaks in the 1990s.
Hmmmm, the 1990's - wasn't that Clinton's decade? Oh, yeah - anti-war protestors, I think you owe someone an apology.
Posted by Nukevet at 03:19 AM | Comments (0)
August 28, 2004
Mea Culpa
It sucks getting old.
I�m loathe to admit it, but the time for changes has finally caught up with me. The little mishap I had with the shoplifter last week, well the ending isn�t so happy after all. The ER let me go, but sent on the X-rays to a radiologist, to be forwarded to my doctor. I haven�t blogged the last few days, partly because my server still hasn�t resolved the signal strength issue, partly because frankly, I haven�t been much up to it. The X-rays showed I have a new set of compression fractures in the lower thoracic and upper lumbar. That would explain the new pain, lots sharper and much more acute to what I�ve always had before. I�m scheduled for a set of back MRI�s and a consult with a surgeon for something called a Kyphoplasty. Something envolving packing a stablizing material around the vertebres, to push them back into shape.
I�ve a new set of drugs, Neurontin to dull the pain and control the muscle spasms and cramps. Flexeril for what the doctor called Fibermi� something something. Muscles in my torso are so tight you could break rocks on them. Then the big gun, Percocet for pain. Truthfully, when I was sitting in the doc�s office waiting to be seen, the one thought in my head was I should just walk out. Stop being a big pussy, suck it up and go back to work. That�s what I expected to hear.
The other news came as a bit of a shock.
I'm glad to know I wasn't just wimping out, but it would have been alot easier if that was the case. I tried to get them to let me go back to work, but they said no, at least for a few days more. They were surprised that I managed to go back for a few days and not pass out while standing for nine hours. It's not that I didn't get the urge to fluff up a chunk of floor and just lie down, it hurt that much. Dignity however is a powerful motivater, and I couldn't do that and hang on to a shred of pride.
My whole life, has been a work of confounding other peoples expectations. I enjoy it, but the cost is pretty high. I feel pain like anyone else, but have the gift of almost an insane level of stubbornness that gets me through when any rational person would have given up. It�s served me well, but finally, everyone is bound by the laws of physics. Even a broken down old cartoon bear like me.I need to consider changes, in activity, in working, even in relaxing and leisure time. All kinds of changes. That scares me. I�m not ready for this, and I can�t get inside my wife�s head to see what this does to her. I�m confident of her love, but if this frightens me, what must she feel right now? The gallent knight has been knocked from the saddle, I struggle back to my feet, force myself back into a fighting stance. But I will never be the lead knight again, never be the leader in the fight. Maybe she will accept that easier than I, I hope so. I can�t sustain any more damage and hope to walk with her in my later years. That�s a thing I couldn�t bear, so I�ll regroup and adapt. The mind is always the best weapon, sharpest tool. So maybe, this is a chance to do something better.
I'm still gonna blog and it's something I enjoy, but there may be gaps of a few days here and there. This summer has so sucked for us, and I'll be glad as Hell when 2004 is over. The doctor has put me off work until the 1st. How could I have broken my back again? Jesus, I really don't remember hitting the parked van that hard. But my friend saw the security camera video, and he tells me I hit the ground awfully hard. I just can't remember that part, body looking out for me I guess, cause I really have just the vaguest memory of it. I just know when I tried to get up, I needed help, I couldn't do it alone.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:14 AM | Comments (2)
August 26, 2004
So,
Where were you last night?
Posted by Nukevet at 06:39 PM | Comments (2)
August 24, 2004
Read 'em and weep, Bush Bashers
The Hard Numbers:
Pro-Democrat 527 groups: 17
Pro-Republican 527 groups: 7
Pro-Democrat 527 groups, total receipts: $88,236,434
Pro-Republican 527 groups, total receipts: $5,912,638
Number of the top 25 527 donors who gave to pro-Democratic groups: 24
Number of the top 25 527 donors who gave to pro-Republican groups: 1
Ranking of top pro-Republican donor: tied for 10th
Courtesy of the Ipse Dixit
So when Bush spoke out against the SBVT ad and all 527 advertising, what did the left do?
Said that Bush is against free speech.
Whiny bitches.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:25 AM | Comments (1)
August 23, 2004
A letter to Senator Kerry
I spent most of the week-end clearing out of control brush along a fenceline. While I was doing that, I kept thinking about what I would say to Kerry about his campaign to date, and considered framing it in the form of an open letter.I was too tired to do it after the fence clearing thing, so I figured I would get to it this week some time. Well, in the blogosphere, if you snooze, you lose. Dean Esmay already did it, and did a damn fine job of summing things up.
Posted by Nukevet at 04:38 PM | Comments (0)
August 21, 2004
Unexpected 4 day weekend.
I was bad today, and now I'm holed up with pain killers and best wishs from my coworkers and family. I have a police report to fill out over the weekend, to turn in on Monday. A minor thing, but dammit, it sucks getting old.
The security officer from the company tried to stop a guy who was a good ten inches taller than her in the exit, he bolted for it. I couldn't let it go, I wasn't about to see her get assaulted in the parking lot. So without even thinking, I ran out after them. It's raining alot here now, and the parking lot was soaked. Short version, I was almost in reach when his shirt tore off, and the security gal fall back off balance. I was running full tilt, and glanced off of her as I tried to get around. My balance isn't very good any more and I crashed full speed into the back corner of a parked van, half spun and fell full on my left side on the pavement.
She got his plate number and the local police have him now. But I ended up taking a squad run to the hospital. I couldn't barely walk at first, and just to be safe, they insisted on new xrays. I'm contused and bruised, but not really hurt too much more than I already was. I'll be off a couple of days, and I already had Sunday and Monday off. So I'll be taking some healing time.
Next time, I'll crack his skull with my cane instead.
I'm not supposed to do this kind of thing anymore, but God help me, I can't stop being a man because it hurts. I'm an old bear, and when the hunt is on, the blood takes over, and I just react without thinking about it. I couldn't let a woman face that fool alone. I can't, won't let a woman be hurt because I was afraid. I still have to live with myself. But even now, if I could just have laid hands on him for a second,.. I would have owned him.
In close, I'm not that crippled yet.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:25 AM | Comments (7)
August 20, 2004
Kill a cop, get the death penalty
Unless you smoke crack.
The jury found Ronald Matthews guilty of murdering King County Sheriff Deputy Richard Herzog yesterday.
Please go here and read the tale of this horrible killing.
Matthew's layers tried to get him put in an institution due to 'a history of mental illness, but luckily, the jury didn't buy that. His legal team then put forth that he was temporaily insane when he shot Deputy Herzog because Matthew's smoked crack earlier that day in 2002.
The King County Prosecutors Office got worried that the jury might buy that and took the death penalty off the table.
So now Matthews gets three squares and a cot (and cable tv and a full law library and a health club and conjugal visits and free medical care) on my dime for the rest of his life.
F*CK!
Posted by Nukevet at 07:33 AM | Comments (1)
Let's take this public.
I've been arguing with a fella from Germany over Kerry vs Bush in an old post. He doesn't seem to understand something very basic. We dispute his premiss, reject it entirely, yet he can't get past that, can't fathom why?
Who said that I believe you be the bad guys? Once again I only want to know what Bush did for the poeple or to say it some more clearer: What did Bush do for YOU the workingclass guys? I only know that he isn�t really good in foreign affairs and things like Kyoto etc.
That is your opinion, I think he's done just fine on Kyoto, the treaty was flawed badly and most nations are failing badly at emplementation. It doesn't work, so why enforce a useless treaty? Unless your goal is purely to feel good and not actually do good. The tax cuts he put in place? I needed my 800 dollars thank you very much. That rebate came in plenty handy, and I resent the Hell out of any suggestion that giving that to me was a horrible mistake.
In short he is doing fine, climbing out of a recession made worse by 911, jobs are increasing and the economy is growing. Your problem is you listen to the wrong people about his effectiveness, he's popular with us because he has had an impact for the positive. If you don't think so don't presume to tell me that he hasn't, you don't pay my bills.
I was in Bergen-Belsen a few years ago and had have a look on the monument of cruelty there. I will never understand how poeple can do, what germans have done 60 years ago. But I cant acceppt that I dont have the right to discuss with poeple like you, only because I was born in germany. By the way, american history is bloody too, think about the Indians or more presently about the bay of pigs invasion, cuba crises, Iran contra affair�. .
You compare ANY event in US history to Bergen Belson? And you claim to know history? That is absurd, it's a bald faced lie, and it's an insult so grievious as to severe any attempt at debate. How many of our citizens have we gassed for racial imperfection rosc?
How many?
Sins of the fathers, I don't blame you for WWII rosc, I blame you for being self righteous about our actions when you acknowledge your own history was savage. We have never delved into the depths that your nation has, and that is a basic fact, so don't attempt to blurr the distinction.
And in fact wars are not what I want to talk about. I want to know somemore of your political situation. Why is Bush so popluar and Kerry isnt?
Why do you like one man better than another at all? He comes across as a good man to us, a man we can trust, and Kerry does not. Bush has a proven track record, Kerry's thirty years in the Senate has produced what? Name something he's done?
One thing with his personal stamp on it.
Kerry earned (as far as I know he EARNED) the purble Heard, Bush instead was never gone to any war (he was in the national guard to escape from war, or am I wrong?).
I don't know if he earned his ribbons or not, I wasn't there, but the men who were disagree, so take it for what it's worth. And yes, you are wrong, National Guard units did serve in Vietnam, were called up, he was just luckier than some were. In his squadron, six men died in a year from accidents, the F-102 was a dangerous aircraft to fly. So don't pretend that the man had no courage, it makes you look silly. Ten million people served during Vietnam, one million actually went there. Are the rest cowards because the government didn't send them?
You are making a child's arguement, The military doesn't work the way you seem to believe.
I'm getting bored with this, and if you really want to learn why we believe the things we do, try reading the rest of RNS, follow the links, read our source material. Your comments make me believe you aren't doing that. If you disagree, then so be it, but don't tell me you can't find the reasons we think as we do.
It's all around you, you just won't see it.
Posted by Nukevet at 07:19 AM | Comments (1)
August 19, 2004
No need for embarassment
Al-Jazeera sign at GOP convention no problem
Al-Jazeera will have a sign hanging outside its skybox and above the delegates at the Republican National Convention, the Arab news network and an RNC spokesman said Wednesday.
That's not what happened at the Democratic National Convention last month, when party officials took down Al-Jazeera's sign and replaced it with one promoting "JohnKerry.com."
That's because the Repubs don't have to worry about people confusing Al-Jazeera with their party.
Found @ Right Thinking
Speaking of getting the partylines confused, Blogs of War has a "Kerry Campaign or North Korea Press Release" game.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:14 AM | Comments (0)
August 18, 2004
Because Stuff Happens
Tuesday morning was pretty neat.
The wife started jonesing for a new tattoo last week before we left Montana. It came to a head last Friday night when she decided to just go and talk to our favored artist. That's when it happened.
We got invited to the artist's private studio at her home.
Way kewl. Shorter drive to get inked and it costs less because she isn't having to pay for her rented public studio. And yesterday was the day we got to cross the threshold.
The lady knows that I'm a "Gun Guy" and has asked me to appraise a couple of items she has gotten in return for artwork in the past. When I arrived today, she asked me to look at a couple of handguns that had belonged to her dad.
One of them was a S&W; Model 14-4. It had been on the receiving end of a spilled soda and was in kind of rough shape. Luckily for her, I was too lazy to pull the toolbox that contains all my cleaning supplies from the storage box of my truck after returning from Montana, and while she inked the wife, I set about cleaning the revolver in her kitchen.
Amazingly, it cleaned up pretty well. After removing the sticky stuff, I noticed that other than some heavy holster wear along the barrel, the gun was damn near new.
The trigger had definitely had some work as it was smooth DA mode and birds breath light in SA.
When she and the wife came back into the kitchen from the studio, she let me know that she was wanting to sell this and two of the other guns, total up the funds and buy a shotgun for home defense and a handgun for personal defense outside the home.
It was at that time that I made her and offer for the Model 14, $200, to which she said that I could have it for $150 on the grounds that I:
1. Help her find the two guns she wanted, and
2. Teach her to shoot them
Kewl.
Here's a pic of the new wheelgun
It's a 6in bbl, K-frame, 38Spl target pistol and is also known as the K38 Masterpiece.
I need to quit buying guns early on in the week, when I'll have to wait until the weekend to go shoot them.
Anyone want to join me? (Remember Dave, I've got your range fees covered)
Oh, and the wife's new tattoo is in the extended entry.
It's a little creepy, but one of the reasons I married her was because she was a little bit different from the other girls.
Click for bigger
Posted by Nukevet at 09:08 AM | Comments (3)
August 17, 2004
Signs of the Apocalypse
Dean's found a few.
Can the end of the world be far behind? Does it signal a beginning to an age of reason, or a descent into madness? Who can tell?
Posted by Nukevet at 01:36 PM | Comments (1)
I need to go on vacation more often
And not just for the fact that it's 'vacation'.
I made it through the first day back to work. The disease has pretty much left my head and only has me coughing up small chunks of my lungs instead of large ones.
Just before I left for holiday I got an actual "Boss", after for years pretty much unsupervised. The whole department is a pretty much self-reliant, non-drama enducing bunch, but as of late we are growing in number and needed someone to take care of our attendance/payroll/time off issues, so we got a "Boss". She was brought in from 'in-house' and we all worked just around the divider wall from her for as long as we have been in our current facility. She is perfectly suited for the admin job and is easy to get along with.
And now I know that she has the goods to get the job done.
She was having trouble getting someone in to cover my spot while I was away and was finally regulated to divying up the miscellaneous jobs I do to others in the department. Now, I manage to squeeze 7 or 8 different tasks that take about 10 1/2 hrs into my 8hr shift by multi-tasking like a mo-fo after everyone leaves and using their computers.
I left hoping for the best, but expecting the worst when I came back yesterday.
I enter the office to find my boss and make sure I'm still employed (yes), and see if anything has changed since I left (procedure, etc.). Indeed some things had.
She was able to farm out one of the nightly service verification processes I do, thereby eliminating 10% of my nightly workload. When I found this out, I was very happy since that task was a time-intensive pain in the ass to complete.
Then, I found out from a co-worker that she had also whipped one of the early morning sluggers into shape to complete his half of the hand-off paperwork before he left. This knocked out close to another 10% of my workload.
So, not only did I get 2 weeks (in a freaking row) off, but I get to come back to a lightened workload so that I won't need another 2 weeks off for a while.
Oh, and I should be able to go back to my true night owl shift in a few weeks or so.
Kewl.
Posted by Nukevet at 05:26 AM | Comments (0)
August 13, 2004
Get the word out
Once again, make sure that you inform anyone you know who thinks that Kerry will stand up for their rights to own their 'hunting rifles'.
Even the chuckleheads at the NRA know differently.
NRA Spokeswoman Kelly Hobbs said all it takes is a look at Kerry's record to understand his view of the Second Amendment. And as far as the Kerry vs. Gore comparison, Hobbs said this year's Democrat nominee differs greatly.
"He's far worse," Hobbs said of Kerry. "At least Al Gore was up front with gun owners about his support for strict gun control. John Kerry, despite voting against gun owners over 50 times in the Senate, is attempting to conceal his dismal Second Amendment record with a desperate election year ploy."
The NRA is quick to note that despite frequently missing Senate votes from last September to March of this year, Kerry made sure he returned to vote to ban semi-automatic rifles, outlaw gun shows and oppose immunity for the firearms industry from so-called junk lawsuits.
Throughout his career, Kerry has consistently voted 100 percent of the time with the anti-gun Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. When he ran for re-election in 2002, the NRA gave him an "F" grade.
But when photos of Kerry and his shotgun show up in newspapers and television commercials, some gun enthusiasts might not recognize the camouflaged Kerry.
Don't let Kerry fool anyone you know. Get the word out.
Found @ Judicious Asininity
Posted by Nukevet at 06:36 AM | Comments (0)
August 09, 2004
Times change
Just a trip into nostalga, this is about, oh, say 1960 to 1970. No scanners, no bar codes, mechanical scales, and everything was hand punched into a register that was in effect, a simple adding machine. No targeted marketing, no consumer tracking, no plastic bags. There was full service, but plenty of dyes in the food, meat was cheap, but salaries were much lower then. I've done this a long time, man and boy, almost thirty years now. Anybody you tells you it was better before scanners came along,... no it wasn't. It was what it was, I believe it's better now, but somethings I think of fondly, some from childhood, some from my teen years, but always the fun stuff.
Trips into places like this are fun sometimes. You can be reminded of being a kid again. Reminded of something making you happy without the worries of an adult. There was no Vietnam in this place, no riots, no cold war or threat of death, it was a kids world. Pretty colors, and imaginary friends, food that even if it wasn't that good was fun because it was a treat. Something Mom didn't approve of, but gave to you because you had earned a reward that day. I love going back to remember some of these things, just for that alone.
I got my picture taken with Spiderman the other day. A promotion for some product or another. I had to have it for the kids, so I got one shaking his hand. I'm da bomb now with my son, cause I met SPI-DERman. That's my secret pleasure of working in this business. I put up with the repressed rage of the public, the wear and tear of it, for a moment of magic here and there. When the children are small, the inside of a supermarket is a wonderous place, full of color and tastes, samples and stickers, big and wonderful things to small eyes in a very big world. I get to indulge in one of God's greatest pleasures, making children smile. Kind words and token gifts can make the grumpiest child stare in wide eyed fascination, and that's not such a bad thing. I'm playing at Santa, and I really enjoy that.
Posted by Nukevet at 08:38 PM | Comments (1)
Am I the only one who sees this?
Cold, robotic, a six foot six meatpuppet with a 12 year old's gawkyness. He can't be any less charismatic if he had a heart transplant from a scarecrow.
I see Kerry as a man who believes it's his "turn" to be president. That he's punched his ticket and it's owed to him for some reason. He's never going to be one of us, and that's the saddest thing of all.
Now, say what you like about George, but his emotions aren't faked. He wears his heart on his sleeve, as I do. The one with Laura is very reveiling to me. He's at ease with her, not afraid to be see behind her, not in doubt of her at all. That's a real love, a trusting one. I tried to find one of John standing near Teressa, but I couldn't find one with a similar gesture. A trusting one. The hugs are forced, and they stand well apart mostly. Maybe that doesn't matter to most people, but it does to me.
The last picture is the best one.
Cheryl McGuinness gets a hug from President Bush (news - web sites) during a campaign stop in Stratham, N.H. Friday Aug. 6, 2004. McGuinness' husband Tom was a co-pilot on the first plane to hit the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. (AP Photo/Jim Cole)
Don't anyone, anywhere dare to tell me that this man has no heart, that he is just using us to win oil for his friends. He sees this war as we do. Many factions, many fronts, but one war, one enemy. He sees himself as fighting for us, all of us. If you don't see a man here and not a cartoon cutout, then you really aren't one of us either.
Bush is going to win, I see it everytime I look at pictures like these. The cowboy soldier, and the primped and pampered elitist.....
I know one of them won't sell us out.
Posted by Nukevet at 04:55 AM | Comments (12)
August 07, 2004
leftwing porn.
Assassination Porn
Nicholson Baker's irate new novel.
The review is actually pretty damning, and points to the petty conceits of the left. I couldn't let this go by however.
As this last example demonstrates, Baker does lace Checkpoint with some humor, even if readers on the right missed it.
So if you are a talented writer, you can write about absolutely any outrageous crime as long as you toss in a few jokes? Like dead baby jokes maybe? Or mommy, mommy jokes?
It's the secret pleasure of the left, not sex, but daydreaming about killing the other side in a debate where they are just so, so, so angry! This isn't the very human impulse to punch someone in the nose, we all go there, it's far darker than that. At least in porn, a good time is had by all, but this kind of wicked sick fantasy is really beyond defense. It isn't a hedonistic impulse, but a nhilistic one. An "I need to hurt you" fantasy. That's unhealthy for anyone, and it's telling when liberals find it a secret pleasure. Something we've all known subliminally about them for a long time now. The closet sadist, buying the books and films, not having yet aquired the courage to act on the darkest of their fantasies. Just the fact that they can speak of them is chilling enough. Embracing this kind of book is akin to buying the Faces of Death videos, they love the taste of others pain. Revel in the screams and blood.
What happens when the books and videos aren't enough anymore?
I'm not saying that democrats in general or even all liberals buy into this fantasy, but there are enough. Reading KOS will tell you that. It's not that they want to win to bring about better lives for all concerned. It's that they want to "punish" the other side for daring to offend their sensiblities in the first place. Someone once said that republicans look for converts, and democrats look for heretics to punish,.... I believe that is what's referred to as a truism.
And they want to pick the president....
Posted by Nukevet at 07:03 PM | Comments (0)
August 03, 2004
And another medical trend bites the dust.
Anti-oxidants' heart help in doubt
Experts 'shocked' by analysis of 20 studies
Oh....where to begin, I work in the food industry, and I have seen it all. The oat bran craze, low fat, no fat, fake fat, vegetarian, vegan, and all meat diets, eat lots of carbs, and carbs are Satan's own minions. Vitamins were a big part of that, for years I've seen elderly people waste what little money they have on outrageously priced suppliments. All in the hope that they will live a bit better, suffer a bit less. And time after time, each craze falls to the side discredited, or is merely forgotten in favor of the next new health trend.
I get all kinds of unsolicited advice on suppliments, on homepathic cures, secret remedies and snake oil deals of varying credibility. I'm sure they mostly mean well, they see the cane and just have to share the latest juicy health trend with me. I'm polite, but not receptive. I'm a health agnostic. I don't believe in miracle cures, or in underground methods. I don't buy any of it.
I believe in science, but not in wishful thinking pop science. That's what a lot of this is. This study doesn't surprise me at all. It merely confirms what I've always believed. Moderation, in all things, as my maternal Grandmother would say. Just as you can't survive on a diet of just pizza and Doritos as every teenager tries, you can't get by on just suppliments either. Common sense people, some of everything, a bit of this, some of that, there is no such thing as a perfect diet.
Posted by Nukevet at 06:32 AM | Comments (2)
August 02, 2004
Us, them, freestyle rant.
Europeans favor Kerry against 'cowboy' Bush
They may be indulging in wishful thinking.
But there was a strong countercurrent among some commentators, who expressed the view that while Europeans might like Kerry more than Bush, the speech contained little concrete indication of how his policies would be different.
Noting the line in Kerry's speech about not needing a green light from abroad before taking actions to defend its interests, Vaisse said: "In France they don't have overblown expectations. Kerry would be like the second Clinton administration, not as arrogant and unilateral as Bush, but it would be no multilateral paradise, either."
----
"Europeans are surprised to hear that John Kerry is talking about America the same way as George W. Bush does," it said. "They are amazed that at the Democratic Convention in Boston, he saluted like a soldier, one hand up at his temple. They would prefer not to hear it when Kerry promises that he would never hesitate to use force in case America is under threat. They are disappointed."
What's at stake here is too important to us for the Euro's to wank themselves over some fantasy of an "ideal president." I'm not going to be terribly bipartisan, just honest here. I don't like or believe Kerry is a serious man, I believe that of Bush. But even if he WERE to win, the Euro's are kidding themselves. Because Kerry is after all an American, and they'll find a reason to bitch about him.
Secondly, Kerry will find himself immensely constrained in his conduct of the war, circumstances compel him to act, much as he'd like not to. He will strike, because if he stays his hand too often, he'll find his numbers drop in a Hell of a hurry.
Which brings to mind something else, why? Why do the Euro's and sundry others hope so badly that Bush will loose, and Kerry will somehow foster a grand reunification? Because they say, Bush is rude to them, and they have a long list of sins summed up by the word COWBOY. In essence, they hate us, me, you, and all of flyover country. They hate what Bush represents, not who he is per say. It's redneck, overly religious, gun loving, death sentence supporting, patriotic, willfully independent us. They hate the wildness we embrace, the desire to shrug off control, from any source. They hate the fact that most of America, plain and simple, isn't them.
No, we aren't. Any hope they may have that we can be educated in such a manner is a pipe dream. So why do they have to try and impose their xenophobia on us when they tolerate independence from everyone else? Because we are the 900lb gorilla in the Jungle, and we can do just about anything we like.
That is what drives them crazy.
A pity they didn't have such concerns about unrestrained power before they ran riot over the globe for four hundred years, but I digress. The British Empire, the Dutch, the Spanish, the Belgian Colonies, the Russians, the Germans, the French, the Italians, and a host of monarchies big and small. All selfishly persuing their own national interests, while burning, looting and pillaging their way around the globe. Many years before the first American slave ship was built, there were the British French and Spanish ones, not forgeting the arab merchants who kidnapped and sold whole villages to them either. The pillaged art, the stolen resources, the twisted cultures that came about, all laid at the feet of the forebearers of our critics today.
Fuck you very much for the effort.
In our history we have done things we would not do today, but never to the degree, nor with the enthusiasm that European's decadent Empires have. We fought for our independence, and when not even a cemtury old, fought the bloodiest war in our history to purge ourselves of the sins of our creation. After that, we became what we are now, THE United States of America. Stumbling on occasion, but always meaning to do the RIGHT thing, we have never fought our wars for some intangible empire. It was always for an ideal, a concept. Freedom, liberty, the right to be left alone.
Our people fight for that now, Iraq will be free, will be a democracy. All the arguements about woulda, shoulda, coulda won't matter a damn after that. Twentysix million people will be free, and the Euro's lecture us that the arabs can't handle democracy yet, they said that about Germany and Russia at the time too. They said that about Japan, and going back two hundred years, us as well. These wars haven't been fought for Wall Street, or for resources, we could always buy what we needed, always find another market. It would have been cheaper, and our history far less grand for that. But it was the merchant nation, the backwoods democractic republic that led the way to a world where faded and forgotten empires could sit back in their cradle to grave security blanket and condemn us. For dragging them to do the right thing when they have never often even understood the concept.
In our geography, even that gets us criticism, too big, too open, too wild. The Cowboy mentality must be a product of that, as if to say that we could change the way our nation has molded us, even as we molded it. Our education, they complain that we can't find Luxemburg on a map, some of us anyway. Well, we actually can find a globe, and we'll pay attention when that tiny nation get's it's ass in a bind and begs for help. I question how many European's could find Kansas on a map? Any takers? We get condemned for not being sufficiently adoring of their existence, and you know they don't pay QUITE that much attention to what happens between the east and west coasts of the US. They claim we're ignorant, yet ninety of the worlds top one hundred universities are,....drumroll please,..... American. They send their childen here to get degrees, but being simple cowboys we don't see just how that merely proves our inferiority. Guess not, more than half the Nobel's for the sciences have come to these shores.
They think that those of us who voted for Bush are either blood thirsty warmongers or uneducated backhills hicks who use very small words. Like every society, we have trash people, a small percentage. Unlike everyone else, we get painted as almost all being that way. We are mostly bad people to them, not to be trusted. This line helps to clarify that.
The French daily Le Monde went so far as to state that the future of the world was being decided last week at the FleetCenter in Boston, site of the convention.
That is just how low they think we are. It's also how dangerous they think we are. It's how much they fear cowboy America, and how inflated their own opinion of themselves is. It's not the "world" that's needs fear, but French moneyed interests, and they'll never admit that. French policy, which has long been whored out, is the thing that suffers from American power. No rice farmer in Burma will care who is president, no factory worker in China, it's French pride that's at stake, and they can't handle it.
We aren't a perfect nation, and have never claimed to be. What we are is free, that is something that the Euro's will just have to swallow. The Germans, the French, they knew what we knew. But unlike us, they were willing to turn a blind eye to it. The money was good, and they might have to explain selling WMD technology to tyrants. It turned out to be a false fear. The world didn't care, didn't want to hear, didn't like the outcome. The world likes it's hypocrisy's unnoticed, unpunished. It's only us simple Americans who think that they matter, besides, they each have their own little secrets. It's far easier to just blame those swaggering Americans. Wether we actually swagger seems not to matter.
It comes to this. The "world" thinks America would be just peachy if the "correct" people were in charge. The problem that Kerry's supporters will have to face eventually, is that the "correct" people never seem to be found. They long for a Kennedy moment in Berlin again. They're kidding themselves. Different age, different Europe. They were afraid then, and they needed our protection. So the fiction of friendship, when it was really just easier to say they liked Kennedy, than to face up to their own weakness. They feared the Red Guards Divisions, and suddenly we were loved. In their rush to embrace the post modern age, they can't remember that fear. Thus the guardian becomes the bully. Too arrogant to listen to their every single concern or petty greed.
If they keep with their current course, they will relearn fear. But we won't be the teachers. They've been feeding a snake, and it's growing. In their own populations to a degree, but vast and hungry in the middle east. They are only now beginning to notice. Again they jump to the easy answer they always look to. Blame the Jews, blame Israel, blame that big bully that shelters them. They will learn fear, because the snake they've fed will find us a little too dangerous to be easy prey. So? What western states are soft and squishy, fat, easy to grab bites off of? Who will curl up and not fight back, at least at first? Who still tries to cut private deals as long as they get eaten last? The islamic fanatics that they seek to appease don't expect to win all at once, it's the Jihad that defines them so as long as it goes on, they're happy. They hope to pick off the weaker nations, one by one, growing stronger, bigger. We have done alot to crush their efforts, but if it truely is a global problem, you would think the Euro's would have sense enough to help regardless of personal differnces. But Bush is a cowboy so gee, we just can't help you.
They can't even see how suicidally stupid that is.
They can't say we didn't warn them. Can't say that we didn't try to get them to stand upright. Can't say we didn't ask them to help. We did. They chose instead to stick their head in the sand and blame the bully again. Americans generally pull together, we're having a family arguement right now over policy, aside from the Europhiles in our midst whorshipping at the temple of nuance, the screaming lefties, we're pretty much agreed we want the bad guys dead. The fight isn't over that. And we'll settle it among ourselves. Europe isn't invited. Try and interfer, and watch what happens to Kerry.
They say it's about inclusion for them, well no, it isn't. It's about being the commissar, giving political directives to countermand, to control those reckless Americans. The more honest among them admit it, it's about constraining us.
That, even for a European, is a foolish thought.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 31, 2004
Michael Moore, a racist! The Lebanese Daily Star thinks so.
Michael Moore: anti-Bush, anti-Arab.
"Fahrenheit 9/11," for those who haven't seen it, is the ugly stepchild of mistimed comedy and sentimentalism. It has no discernible narrative; it botches the points it tries to score with smug self-righteousness; it contradicts itself ceaselessly; it fails to construct a homogenous argument; it is haphazard, narcissistic, self-promoting, slapdash, intellectually dishonest, and even racist. The only possible way to value the movie as a movie is to regard it as spoof propaganda - a parodic take on Frank Capra for the dumbed-down 21st century. But of course the film is no such thing; it is propaganda straight, with no chaser.
----
But the argument goes beyond just that. There is not a single 'good' Arab in the film, barring the charred bodies of Iraqi women and children who serve only as anti-Bush scarecrows. A long sequence in the central section of the film is intended symbolically to show how the Bushes and their men have metaphorically made a pact with the "Saudi devil," as Moore runs in succession two-dozen clips of George W. Bush, his father and their advisers shaking hands with brown men in keffiyehs.
I'm enjoying this way too much. He says he's the good guy, but he seems to have inadvertently shot the arabs in the back while aiming at Bush. Or so some of them believe. Well now, if you are a "good" democrat and abhor racism in all cases, how do you justify loving this blatently racist film? A fat white guy bashing arabs?
Just wondering.
Oh, and by the way, hide your children and small pets.
Mikey's spotted a desert cart.
You'd think with all his millions, Mikey could afford a 99 cent bottle of VO5. Hit the showers Mikey.
Posted by Nukevet at 06:49 AM | Comments (0)
July 29, 2004
Lileks has a question
If the only thing we have to fear is 4 more years of George W. Bush, then why does Boston look like this?
and this
and this
and this
Well, OK, I made that last one up. But you get my drift, right?
Posted by Nukevet at 03:42 PM | Comments (0)
July 28, 2004
The "Religion of Peace" at work and play
I know the Independent is a rag, but they have no reason to make this up. The atrocities commited by arab militias are well know, well documented. The US and Britain are reluctant to commit forces and it's easy to understand why. We're fully extended, without commiting what reserve forces we have left, it's just not practical for us at the moment. That said, where are the Europeans and Afrian nations?
The international community is increasing pressure on the Sudanese government to disarm the janjaweed, which has been accused of raping women and girls, and massacring villages that are non-Arab.
It isn't just Christians that islamicists hate apparently, and they are acting like the pillagers that they have always been. They are at war with America, the west, India, Asians and the SubSaharan Africans all at once, yet we're supposed to think they're really peaceful? They fight with whatever people are unfortunate enough to live close to them.
This next line is laughable.
The Sudanese government is jittery about threats of military intervention. The Foreign Minister, Mustafa Osman Ismail, has warned that Sudanese soldiers would fight if foreign troops are sent to Darfur.
Actually, they would attempt to fight. I would venture that one Marine Amphibious Brigade carries more fire power than the Sudanese Army has ever known. Not to mention the air support of a couple of Carrier Battle Groups. If Afican nations can halt this, with our diplomatic support, all the better. But if they fail, it may fall to us as it usually does. Just once couldn't the world act without our holding their hand to stop a genocide?
Just once?
What good is the UN if they won't deal with something as basic as this?
Posted by Nukevet at 11:57 PM | Comments (0)
July 27, 2004
A Pledge
I found this over at Drumwaster's Rants.
From Dean Esmay:
I will refuse to call him traitor, loser, liar, incompetent. He will be my President, my Commander In Chief, the Chief Executive of a great nation, elected by the will of a majority of the electors in these 50 great United States. So even if he does things I disagree with in conducting foreign policy, I will say, "I respectfully disagree with the President's directions, but I will do my best to express my dissent respectfully and hope that I am mistaken and that he has made the proper decisions after all."
That's my pledge. How many of you will take a similar one?
I will.
But my pledge might be slightly hollow. You see, if Kerry wins, I think that I might be blogging less and working more. He has already promised to raise my taxes and to make up for the difference, I'll need to work at least 10 hours more per week.
That, and I'll be buying so damn many firearms, ammunition and supplies that I'll need more money.
Why?
Because the world knows that Kerry is a big pussy. No matter how pissed off the left gets at everyone saying this, it will remain true.
The islamofascists will be quite happy that a wuss like Kerry is in office and I will bet that there will be a major terror attack within his first year.
Oh, and another prediction...
Kerry will reinstate the draft and blame it on Bush within his first year in office.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 23, 2004
Kids say the darndest things
Overheard from the neighbors backyard...
The Set-Up:
2 kids in a pool, oldest sister swimming and splashing too much for the younger brother to do whatever he was doing.
So he yells "Can you try swimming without moving your arms or legs!"
I wanted to yell back over the fence 'That's called drowning!'
But I abstained. Mostly because I couldn't stop laughing long engough to raise my voice to that level.
Posted by Nukevet at 08:39 PM | Comments (1)
Two Americas
And I'm not talking about the crap Edwards was spewing.
One America drives hybrids and complains about the price of gas. The Other America drives SUVs and can�t believe anyone would pay $3 for a cup of coffee.
One America discusses the environment while sipping cappuccinos. The other discusses the environment while eating deer sausage.
One America is shocked and outraged by naked prisoners at Abu Ghraib because it shows what Americans are capable of. The Other America is more shocked over the beheading of Nick Berg and Paul Johnson, because is shows what our enemies are capable of.
And there are 13 more where those came from.
Found @ Drumwaster's
Posted by Nukevet at 07:48 AM | Comments (2)
A series of articles worth a peek
From the Economist, the first article, and if you care to, follow the links to the rest. It's about our exceptionalism, and what it means to us and to the rest of the world. The article is upbeat, and remarkably friendly in tone.
On this view, America is not exceptional because it is powerful; America is powerful because it is exceptional. And because what makes America different also keeps it rich and powerful, an administration that encourages American wealth and power will tend to encourage intrinsic exceptionalism. Walter Russell Mead of the Council on Foreign Relations dubs this impulse �American revivalism�. It is not an explicit ideology but a pattern of beliefs, attitudes and instincts.
Another in the series says this.
In 1929, Jay Lovestone, the head of the American communist party, was summoned to Moscow. Stalin demanded to know why the worldwide communist revolution had advanced not one step in the largest capitalist country. Lovestone replied that America lacked the preconditions for communism, such as feudalism and aristocracy. No less an authority than Friedrich Engels had said the same thing, talking of �the special American conditions...which make bourgeois conditions look like a beau id�al to them.� So had an Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci, and a British socialist, H.G. Wells, who had both argued that America's unique origins had produced a distinctive value system and unusual politics.
Interesting, it would seem that we may be the antibody to some of the worst of Europe's excesses. It would explain why even in the depths of the Great Depression, we neither went communist or facist. Not even close.
This is too about as good a definition of American as any.
Yet European and American patriotism are different. Patriotic Europeans take pride in a nation, a tract of land or a language they are born into. You cannot become un-French. In contrast, patriotic Americans have a dual loyalty: both to their country and to the ideas it embodies. �He loved his country,� said Lincoln of Henry Clay, �partly because it was his own country, but mostly because it was a free country.� As the English writer G.K. Chesterton said in 1922, America is the only country based on a creed, enshrined in its constitution and declaration of independence. People become American by adopting the creed, regardless of their own place of birth, parentage or language. And you can become un-American�by rejecting the creed.
Emphasis mine, but you get the idea. America is a concept more than merely a country. Something alien to most people in the world I suspect. But then, so are we. I agree with the general thrust of the series. That foriegn concerns about our agenda or motives are based far more in their insecurities and inability to comprehend us than in any actual facts. Two hundred years to watch us, and mostly, they still don't understand.
So they are afraid. Not rational when there are real boogeymen in the world, but since we seem immune to their politics, maybe that's the main source of their fear. They can't change us. If the Economist got the demographic predictions correct, by 2050, we'll outnumber Europe and be half of China's population, and we'll still be exceptional.
Posted by Nukevet at 03:28 AM | Comments (0)
July 20, 2004
Messages
France may send strong messages
France says Sharon is unwelcome now
But Israel sends stronger ones
Israel has completed military rehearsals for a pre-emptive strike against Iran�s nuclear power facility at Bushehr, Israeli officials told the London-based Sunday Times.
Such a strike is likely if Russia supplies Iran with fuel rods for enriching uranium. The rods, currently stored at a Russian port, are expected to be delivered late next year after a dispute over financial terms is resolved.
An Israeli defense source in Tel Aviv, who confirmed that the military rehearsals had taken place, told the paper: �Israel will on no account permit Iranian reactors - especially the one being built in Bushehr with Russian help - to go critical.�
Found @ Blog of War
Posted by Nukevet at 09:21 AM | Comments (3)
July 19, 2004
Seems I'm not alone in smelling a rat here.
I posted on this, and found a similar post through Instapundit. From Silent Running.
New Zealand Jewish Council president David Zwartz, also Israel's honorary counsel in New Zealand, claimed the Government's handling of the issue had added weight to the community's belief it was "anti-Israel". He was not calling the Government anti-Semitic, but said the gravestone attacks attacks were linked to the Government's criticisms.
Foreign Affairs Minister Phil Goff angrily rejected all of Mr Zwartz' claims. Attempts to blame the Government for the "deplorable" grave attacks were ill- founded and would not justify silence in the face of criminal action, Mr Goff said.
This would be the same Phil Goff who personally visited Yasser Arafat and shook him by the hand, smiling broadly as he did so. The public are invited to draw their own conclusions about the veracity of any denials of racism from a man capable of such an act.
I have drawn my conclusion.
Posted by Nukevet at 03:12 AM | Comments (11)
July 16, 2004
Rage? Over this?
I fail to see the grounds for this kind of over reaction.
AN informal Israeli apology is not enough to fix the diplomatic row over two suspected Israeli spies, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark has raged.
Ms Clark refused to back down after imposing diplomatic sanctions on Israel, saying she had "no doubt whatsoever" that two Israelis jailed for passport fraud were acting for Israeli intelligence agencies.
Look, for the uninformed, intelligence agencies play these kinds of games with both friendly and unfriendly governments and have for decades. It's something that is done simply to provide blind cover for other activities. When discovered, the people are usually exchanged, or traded for concessions, it's how it's done. Among friendly countries, it rarely makes the papers. Even during the cold war, Soviet agents were treated better than these two Israeli's have been.
So why the high level of vitirol against Israeli's when New Zealand has been notably footdragging in the war on terror? From the same article, maybe this explains it.
As feelings ran high in New Zealand yesterday, vandals smashed 16 historic headstones on Jewish graves at a Wellington cemetery and painted swastikas on the ground.
I have no fondness for Kiwi socialists from their past history. They openly aggitated against US interests during the cold war, and I have a long memory. So they can stuff their outrage up their collective hiney, if they don't cut a deal and stop screeching about Israel (read; the Jews), then they risk a lot more than Israel's anger.
They have powerful friends, and we have tempers too.
Posted by Nukevet at 05:25 PM | Comments (2)
July 15, 2004
Longing for the good old days?
Let America be America Again.
This pretty much sums it up.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:59 PM | Comments (0)
July 13, 2004
in it for the long haul
I disagree sometimes with Professor Reynolds, I know he's a law professor, I know he has libertarian leanings, and I know my education falls off the radar when compared to his. I see a blind spot however in his thinking here.
THIS IS THE CONVENTIONAL WISDOM ON THE GAY MARRIAGE AMENDMENT:
The U.S. Senate is scheduled to hold a bellwether vote on a proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage this week, an exercise fueled more by cultural symbolism than political reality, since members on both sides generally expect the measure won't get the two-thirds majority needed for passage. . . .
While many lawmakers in both parties oppose gay nuptials, there is no clear consensus whether a constitutional amendment is needed or whether a crisis exists requiring such drastic action.
In other words, a pointless exercise driven by social conservatives to fire up their base. But I wonder if people are thinking this through. If the amendment fails, as expected, isn't that going to be read as a defeat for the anti-gay-marriage folks, and as implicit permission for states to go ahead? It seems to me that it will be (which is fine with me, since I'm okay on gay marriage), but that makes me wonder why anti-gay-marriage folks are doing this. Am I missing something, or are they being played for suckers?
------------------
I think he's failing to understand something about social conservatives. It's likely they will loose this battle, and I believe they know that. Their goals are broader than a single battle, and if in pursuing this, they loose, but still garner a signifigant majority, (but short of two thirds), that's hardly a serious setback. He uses the word "suckers" but that's lazy, because not having two thirds, but still a majority will win you elections. That may be the higher objective.
I'm hardly a pure social conservative, but I have some sympathies for them. In this case, no I don't like gay marriage, and no I won't change my mind on it. I've nothing against gays, they can do whatever, but this is a case where they wish to take something from me. Gay marriage cheapens real marriage and for that reason alone I'll never be fine with it. The same with poligamy or bigamy. Choices that people make are their own, that doesn't mean they must recieve cultural sanction and approval. Tolerance is the better goal, I would never hurt someone for being different than me, never cause them harm, never refuse them homes or a good life. Just don't ask me to hand them a gold star. I wouldn't do it for anyone else, I see nothing special about this group to justify deluting a four thousand year old tradition. Least of all for social trendiness.
Posted by Nukevet at 04:41 PM | Comments (0)
July 09, 2004
Sound Off
Back on the 15th, I noted that gas prices had started falling. And that this news hadn't yet been declared by the major media (it came out two days later).
As an update, I wanted to let you all know that, here in Seattle, they have fallen steadily since then, including a $.09 drop on the start of the 4th of July weekend (when they normally go UP), for a total of a $.29 drop.
And still nothing of this on the news.
So, what are they roundabout your area?
Posted by Nukevet at 07:44 AM | Comments (7)
July 08, 2004
Get better soon
Interested Participant busts his ass blogging.
Go wish him a speedy recovery.
Posted by Nukevet at 07:35 PM | Comments (2)
Opinions, Please
OK, here is the first "site redesign", using the first Navy Jack as our banner. I have always been more fond of this particular form of Gadsden flag than the Army version - but I'm not a big fan of yellow.
Give me a little feedback on this scheme, and then I'll look at the Army version. I think the yellow will be too much for me, but you never can tell.
Posted by Nukevet at 05:19 PM | Comments (5)
July 07, 2004
Veep Chirp
I don't have a lot to say about Kerry picking Edwards as his VP candidate.
Just a couple thoughts:
1. This choice is proof that Kerry doesn't give one wit about what is best for America.
He picked the best campaigner, not the best candidate. He chose who would help him raise money, not the best man for the job.
I posted about Kos' reporting of Gephart as the pick because it made me shiver a bit.
A Kerry/Gephart ticket would have been a boring ticket, but a strong one.
Kerry/Edwards is just going to be a circus.
2. Cheney os going to use Edwards to mop the floor during the debates.
Get out and vote this year and 'Flush the Johns'
UPDATE: My final conclusion is this - Kerry/Edwards is lipstick on a horse.
Posted by Nukevet at 07:56 AM | Comments (0)
WTF?
This is rapidly getting downright strange. Kidnapped, AWOL, deserter or hero? The Marines quite naturally are looking after their own, and we should give him the benefit of the doubt, but the back and forth stories surrounding this case make me wonder just exactly who or what is going on with this? I sincerely hope he comes out alive, but, unless this is a hoax cooked up by a fringe group seeking pubilcity, it's unlikely that a happy ending is going to happen.
Maybe it's exactly what it appears to be, but I have doubts.
Posted by Nukevet at 05:41 AM | Comments (0)
July 06, 2004
Titan
One of the latest images taken by the Cassini spacecraft, via the Discovery Channel. Bedrock, ice, and a methane atmosphere. What a shame, I didn't expect a friendly enviroment, but something a bit less hostile would have made eventual exploitation easier. Someday, mankind will go there in person, wanna bet which country they are from?
Thought not.
Update...
On 14 January, the Huygens probe that is attached to Cassini is expected to land on the surface of Titan and reveal still more.
Posted by Nukevet at 07:38 PM | Comments (1)
Bad connecter, bad bad connecter
O-Tay,.........Well, no time to post right now, I have to get ready for work. But the cable guy says we had a faulty connection at the pole. The marvels of modern technology defeated by a simple piece of copper and plastic.
The Flintstones had it easier. At least you could bribe their gadgets to work right.
Posted by Nukevet at 07:12 PM | Comments (0)
July 05, 2004
The Day After
I hope everyone had a safe and happy 4th of July.
My range time went well
Although not as well as I would have prefered. But oh well.
Now, I must go and survey the damage my neighbors wreaked and clean out my driveway.
Posted by Nukevet at 08:19 AM | Comments (6)
July 01, 2004
This is Wrong
It is rumored (and pretty well confirmed) that Focus on the Family has sent Michael Moore's home address to their e-mail subscribers.
This is wrong.
Just like it was wrong for the lefties to give out Karl Rove's home address.
Just like it is wrong for the left wing anarchy/cop hating groups to post the addresses of police officers on their websites.
And just like it is wrong for envirowhackos to send out the addresses of employees who work at animal testing labs like Huntington.
Damn it, Dobson! Who in your organization OK'd this?
Posted by Nukevet at 08:05 PM | Comments (4)
Got em
If you haven't seen this already, go now. Very funny.
This is a great example of the impact that even just a couple of people can make, so take this as encouragement to make your voice heard even if you are small in numbers.
The crew does check the signs as people are let in, but we easily snuck ours through, as mine was covered with a fa�ade that had "HAPPY BDAY LOLA!" scribbled across it. These two huge guys in front of me allow me to put my sign out over the rail in front of them, saying it was for my granny's 101st birthday. When they realized what the sign actually said, the Bubba to my right grabbed the sign out of my hands and threw it to the ground, and their Michael Moore-sized bodies closed in on me, pushing me back. But no matter - the damage was done.
Found @ Sonda K's
Posted by Nukevet at 10:28 AM | Comments (1)
June 29, 2004
Oh! Canada
A cranky electorate indeed.
Posted by Nukevet at 03:00 PM | Comments (0)
June 20, 2004
A Sorry State
How bad is anti-Semitism in France?
A French Nazi hunter says it's so bad, the best way to keep up the fight is to leave the country.
Six decades after the end of the Holocaust, the prominent French Nazi-hunter Serge Klarsfeld told the Jerusalem Post that French Jews should pack their bags and get out.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:53 AM | Comments (0)
June 18, 2004
Drudge has the pictures
Warning,....gruesome photo link.
For those who wish to see what kind of evil we are fighting, follow this link. I warn you, it's entensely graphic.
FOX is reporting that the Head of the Saudi wing of Al Quaida has been killed by Saudi security forces. I hope he squirmed and begged as he bled out. I also hope he hates the 72 sodomisings he gets in the basement of Hell. Roast in Hell you bastard. Alot of your friends went on ahead already.
Posted by Nukevet at 11:09 PM | Comments (0)
June 14, 2004
Poor Kid
First he was shot by an idiot, now he's being brainwashed.
Brandon Maxfield was 7 years old when he was shot by a 20 year old family friend who was playing with a pistol. Instead of suing the jackass who shot him, Brandon's parents went after Bryco Arms. The clueless jury awarded him a $51 million judgement and Bryco filed for bankruptcy.
The reasoning used by the jury for the award was that, in order to unload the gun (which is what the family friend claimed he was doing), you have to put the safety in the 'Fire' position.
I guess this makes anyone who has made a 1911 liable as well. You try racking the slide back with the thumb safety engaged.
Anyway, Bryco is liquidating it's assets and putting them up for bid in order to pay the judgement. Brandon is hoping to raise enough money to be the high bidder.
His plans, to melt down the supposed 60,000 unassembled guns still at the factory "to save lives".
Let me fill you all in on a little background here.
Bryco Arms used to be known as The Jennings Pistol Corp. They made compact, inexpensive 22LR and 25ACP pistols under the Jennings name and also as Raven Arms.
My mom, the Dean supporter, has one of each of these. With chrome finishes.
When they became Bryco Arms, the doubled the size of their design and made them in 32ACP, 380ACP and then an even larger 9mm compact handgun.
The guns were as reliable as you could expect from a gun that costs under $150. And some that I have seen exceeded even my expectations. The safety on the smaller guns is a front to back slider that blocks the trigger mechanism. On the larger guns, it both blocks the trigger mechanism and the slide with an up and down sweep, so you do have to push the safety down into the off position to be able to rack the slide back and remove the cartridge.
But there is no safety that blocks an idiot from putting his finger on the trigger while playing with it. And that, according to the family and 12 jackass jurists is Bryco's fault.
Not that I wish little Brandon any ill will, but his parents need to stop feeding his head with crap. And for his sake, I hope that Brandon keeps all of the money he has already received from Bryco and doesn't foolishly spend it on the unassembled guns.
And speaking of their unassembled guns, I seriously doubt that Bryco has 60,000 of them sitting around, unassembled. I'd bet money that the reporter got the figures mixed up (I know, SFGate, go figure) and there are 60,000 unassembled PARTS sitting at the factory.
Posted by Nukevet at 07:20 AM | Comments (1)
June 12, 2004
Piss Off, John
McCain may be on the wrong side of the gun control debate. And he may not know jack squat about campaign finance reform.
But he sure as hell knows when he gets called a child murdering rapist by a complete and utter jackass.
Good on ya McCain. For not selling out to try and step up the ladder.
Posted by Nukevet at 04:16 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
June 09, 2004
Funny Title, Serious Topic
From Samizdata
Book Review: Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures
While not completely an expose on what a huge waste of space the UN has turned out to be, it does contain gems like this:
On April 6, 1994, one week after US forces withdrew from Somalia, a plane carrying the president of Rwanda was shot down over Kigali and massacres of Tutsis and moderate Hutus began within half an hour. UN peacekeepers withdrew while a radical Hutu militia, the interahamwe, engaged in an orgy of killing over ninety days at a rate three times that of the Holocaust ... when it was over, 800,000 had been slaughtered. Having failed to intervene in genocide on the ground for the second time in two years, the UN again choose to prosecute it in court instead, creating the second war crimes tribunal since Nuremberg.
And this:
One day someone at UNHQ will commission an official report about this disaster, replete with mea culpas and lessons learned. But for me there's only one lesson and it's staring right at me every day as I eat lunch: If blue-helmeted UN peacekeepers show up in your town or village and offer to protect you, run. Or else get weapons. Your lives are worth so much less than theirs. I learned that the day we were evacuated from Haiti.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:14 AM | Comments (7)
Truly Disappointed
I am going to have to agree with Michele on this topic.
While what Morrissey said was abominable, I knew he would end up saying something like he did. I've heard snippets of his new album.
And, while I have forever sworn off the Beastie Bitches, I cannot give up The Moz.
First, Morrissey is a Brit who now lives in LA. The Beasite Boys are from NYC. If either group should understand, you'd think it would be the Beasties.
Second, Morrissey is too deeply ingrained upon the thing that occupies the inside of my skull. Both his solo work and the music from his time with The Smiths. Hell, I can even blame him for one extremely fun, though short lived, relationship in the early 90's. The Beastie Boys have never had anything to offer me other than their repeated expressing of how great they think they are.
Third, I've actually met Morrissey. Twice. Once in Seattle and once in Portland. Some people say he comes off as a pompous ass. I didn't see that. The Beasties shut down their after party. I guess they though that someone would try to drink up all their Evian.
And fourth, I know that in a couple months after Morrissey's album comes out, I'll be able to pick it up for half price in the used bin. I won't even spend that for Beastie CD.
Posted by Nukevet at 08:55 AM | Comments (0)
June 05, 2004
Fate may intervene
In that note on Nov. 5, 1994, Reagan said, "I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead."
I hate to point this out, truely, but having Ron to be back in the news again in a big whopping manner isn't going to be a good thing for Kerry. I'm one of Ron's biggest fans and always will be, and I'll mourn the man when he passes. But fate seems to be forever on Bush's side. A summer filled with the happy memories of a beloved president is the last thing Kerry could want. Reagan was decisive, Kerry isn't, Reagan was optimistic about America, Kerry says we're headed for disaster, Reagan was strong and sincere, Kerry?
They will of course try to have it both ways. Kerry will tell America of his deep respect for Reagan, to court the 60 plus percent who loved him. His camp will trot out the red guard to viciously attack his record to appeal to the socialists in their party. In a comparison to Raegan, Bush does well, very well, Kerry comes off as a skinny Ted Kennedy clone, full of falsehoods and bile.
I'm hating that Ron's time may soon be over, but maybe the angels have given him a chance to help his country one last time. Remembering the man isn't attacking anyone, and it's not anyones fault but Kerry's that he looks so small in comparison.
Posted by Nukevet at 06:21 PM | Comments (1)
June 03, 2004
A Kerry First
There is still one subject on which Kerry will not Flip-Flop.
The Nuclear Disarmament of America.
He further proposed stopping the production of new weapons-grade uranium and plutonium, reducing current stocks of nuclear weapons and cutting off Pentagon plans to develop new, low-yield nuclear weapons.
"We also don't need a world with more usable nuclear weapons," he said. "We need a world where terrorists can never find one, make one or use one."
All I have to say to Kerry is "Nuke 'em til they Glow and then Shoot 'em in the Dark".
Oh, and "Screw You, Pussy!"
Posted by Nukevet at 09:47 AM | Comments (4)
More whining from the left
Last year, when phone calls and mail from the military were coming regularly for Auburn High School student Tanner Vea, his mother wondered how recruiters got the family's phone number and address.
With calls often coming during the family dinner hour, Kitty Harrison said she felt overwhelmed by the recruiters, and she was annoyed.
``We're kind of an antiwar family, and I don't want my kids bombarded with that kind of information. We would like to have the option to not hear from them,'' Harrison said.
Sounds more like you don't want anyone possibly telling your children the truth. That the military is a good thing.
But you haven't seen the worst part yet.
At Kentwood High School, career counselor Colleen Holmes said recruiters from six branches of the military are each allowed to visit the school once a month. They set up tables and wait for students to approach them, according to a school rule.
When recruiters show up, Holmes makes sure to stay in the area, keeping an eye on which students speak with recruiters.
It's important, she said, because 16- and 17-year-olds are impressionable, and someone having a bad day at school can be easily swayed by a slick recruiter in a fancy suit.
Nowhere in the article is a statement made by a recruiter. Nowhere is there even a kind word said about a recruiter.
Oh, that liberal media.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:39 AM | Comments (5)
June 01, 2004
One of the things I love about summer
are the melons.
Warning: NSFW
Via puppy blender dude (While there, also check out the link to the women of the IDF under the heading "Osama's worst nightmare).
Posted by Nukevet at 04:43 PM | Comments (5)
The Army doesn't need a Salon
What a bunch of shits. If military personel wanted to be called ignorant baby killers and rapists, they can just watch CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, ABC, etc, etc.
Posted by Nukevet at 05:39 AM | Comments (2)
May 24, 2004
Sauce Reader 1.4.1
Spent the week-end building 20 solar screens for a 200 year old house that doesn't have anything CLOSE to a 90 degree angle in it. However, the screend turned out really nicely, and I hope they will help significantly with our cooling bills.
On another note, Sauce Reader 1.4.1 has been released. It is a great little newsfeed reader that also has a weblog publishing interface. This interface includes lots of built in GUI formatting tools, as well as something I have wanted for a loooong time - a spellchecker!
Setting up the interface is easy - let me know if you guys want to give it a tryout.......
Posted by Nukevet at 04:07 PM | Comments (0)
May 21, 2004
Manufacturing Reality
The EUro's, of course.
"But speaking here in my capacity as a polished, sophisticated European as well, it seems to me the laugh here is on the polished, sophisticated Europeans. They think Americans are fat, vulgar, greedy, stupid, ambitious and ignorant and so on. And they've taken as their own, as their representative American, someone who actually embodies all of those qualities."
Christopher Hitches on Michael Moore
Found @ As I Please via Spot On
Posted by Nukevet at 06:54 AM | Comments (0)
May 20, 2004
Don't be Coy.....
Posted by Nukevet at 03:51 PM | Comments (0)
Fog of war redux
I hope to Christ this isn't another mistake resulting from bad intel. Two versions. First the Guardian, then FOX. Both pieces are similar, but this is what stood out for me.
Guardian,
In a video filmed by AP another anonymous man said the victims had been guests at the wedding. "The US military planes came ... and started killing everyone in the house," he said.
Salah al-Ani, a doctor at the hospital in Ramadi, told AP the death toll was 45. He said the wedding guests had been firing in the air. American troops had come to investigate and then left. At about 3 am, they returned in helicopters and destroyed two houses.
FOX,
Coalition forces came under hostile fire and called for support from the air. After the strike, coalition forces recovered numerous weapons, foreign passports, a SATCOM radio and two million Iraqi and Syrian dinars, military officials said.
The attack killed about 40 people, officials said.
Clearly,.....somebodies lying, the Iraqi witnesses made zero mention of arms confiscated or money seized, you'd think that taking a truckload of cash from them with all their weapons would have been remembered. The bodies filmed by the AP, I don't know,....did they even come from the site in question? If they did, how many women and children really? Arab witnesses tend to wildly inflate numbers when in front of a camera. Think Jenin, think Bagdad and the Iraqi information minister.
The first reports make it look as if we just shot up another wedding. But the only film shot of that would be gun camera footage. The AP filming trucks pulling into a hospital hardly tells the whole tale. The Army's investigating so I'll wait to see what they say about it in a couple of days.
At first blush, what if both accounts are mostly true. It was a rebel safe house, and they happened to have women and children in the buildings not visible to the troops on the ground? Mistakes, horrible, ghastly mistakes do happen in war. But the benefit of the doubt, I'll give to our people, at least till everything comes out. The arab tendency to lie through their teeth on most any subject doesn't exactly make their stories easy to accept without confirmation.
First law of war. Do not hide or keep women and children where you cache your weapons. Unless you wish to have them sit on a bullseye. Like holding a wedding in a hardened aircraft hanger..........then claiming it was just a simple party, and why oh why did they do this?
These are the same people who hid their Migs in schoolyards.
We'll see in a couple of weeks when it all comes together.
Posted by Nukevet at 07:38 AM | Comments (5)
Even Blair isn't allowed to defend himself
Somebody really needs to start searching people who visit the House of Commons.
The PM was speaking during his weekly half-hour question and answer session when one of the projectiles hit his back, prompting an evacuation by MPs.
Campaign group Fathers 4 Justice claimed responsibility. Two men aged 50 and 36 have been arrested.
Those 'projectiles' were ballons filled with a white powder. The white powder turned out to be chalk dust. But what if it was Anthrax?
And of course Blair and the nearby MP's were covered in the dust. So what did they do? they ran out of the chamber. If that was Anthrax, you could have started racking up the dead.
Those folks need to start geting serious about their security.
Found @ Spot On
Posted by Nukevet at 07:15 AM | Comments (0)
May 18, 2004
Update on RSS readers
OK, somone made a suggestion of Sauce Reader in my comments section. Let me just say that it is good, and even contains a blog publishing interface within the reader itself. In other words, you can read the news aggregate, find something you like, click on "weblog this", and it automatically creates the link and publishes it for you. Plus, it has a nice GUI interface for text formatting, pictures, etc. I really like it, and it may be my new default news aggregator. It is also free for single person non-commercial use, which is right in my price range.
Posted by Nukevet at 07:18 PM | Comments (2)
May 17, 2004
A Question
Back at the end of February of this year, Hillary Clinton said that George W. Bush should thank her husband, William Jefferson Clinton for the American military of today.
The question:
What with the sexcapades that went on at Abu Ghraib, was she at least partly right?
A subquestion:
Should Bush actully come out and thank Clinton for the Abu Ghraib scandal?
Posted by Nukevet at 08:20 AM | Comments (1)
May 16, 2004
background
Love em or hate em, self checkouts are here to stay. AK and Nukevet have been pretty up front about what they do for a living, I've made a few casual references, but little specific. This is what I do, I monitor these checkout robots for my employer, which I won't name. They cater to a wide clientel and I don't wish to alienate any potential customers over our differences in politics. I won't drag them into this.
We use four of these, one desk to monitor four simultaneous transactions, handling problems, making change, monitoring security, teaching the newbies, helping the eternally clueless and all around fixer. I do this for eight hours a day, five days a week, and I'm very, very good at it. If you've ever tried to checkout on the day before Christmas on one of these, then you have some idea of how unpopular they can be with store employees. Young people don't handle it well, they have a lower stress threshold. My blood pressure actually runs in the low normal range so I do alright.
This is my employers gift to me. Since my condition has effectively stripped me of the chance to stock shelves, (restricted to a 40lb weight limit by my doctor) which is what I'd done for most of my 29 years in the business, they allow me to do this instead. I run a normal register sometimes, but the constant twisting isn't pleasant for me, so here I am. I could slow down, could take a leisurely pace, but I never have done anything the easy way, and I refuse to be second best. I stand, for my entire shift, even though it begins to really hurt after a couple of hours.
I've managed departments, trained employees, wrestled shoplifters and looneys, dealt with seizures and heart attacks, I deal with the abusive customers who frighten the kids who work here, I find the lost parent, I locate the one essential ingrediant for your big party. I hold your hand, pat your back and send you out with the smile you didn't have when you came in. I mean it too. I'm becoming a people watcher, and in general, like most people. I'm not in a vital position, not a doctor, not the president, not even making my living by brute lifting anymore....but my job, like every job serves a need. Having been there done that in my line of work, I'm the one who gets the qusetions, what why where and how.
For years I took a great deal of pride in living by the sweat of my brow, in lifting more, moving more, faster, harder, in just out grunting the rest of the pack. That's been taken from me, I was and am a little shamed by that. Embarassed, you see in my line of work, the front of the store is where you start, not where you finish. It's humiliating to me, I'm dealing with it, but I still have issues.
That's why I haven't really talked about what I do before. I'm just a working stiff, in fly over country. But you know what? I can make those robots bark just about anyway I want to now. I've logged over two thousand hours by a conservative count, more than anyone else in the county. Experience matters, really it does. I'm coming to a truce with myself over what I do, it's only of a minor importance in the bigger scheme, but it still has merit. It can be fun too, especially around the holidays.
Throw rocks if you will, but really, I've met too many college kids to believe they're smarter than anyone else, I've seen them in action.
Posted by Nukevet at 11:51 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
May 14, 2004
Personal Responsibility
Peggy Noonan @ WSJ is on something.
At the very end of her article that goes from the Sporano's to cloning and back to the Sporano's again, she lets go with this line,
Why doesn't our government provide us all with the means to survive an expected nuclear, biological or chemical attack? Why doesn't our government provide us with what I think of as a "get out of Dodge" kit--a protective suit, a regulation gas mask, information on which direction to walk in, or rather run in, and how soon, after Port Newark, or Times Square, or the Sears Tower, or the Shrine Auditorium, is hit? Why aren't they doing this?
Umm, what about getting off your ass and buying it yourself, Peg?
Afraid of being labelled a 'survivalist'? Or is it just you being cheap and lazy?
Any and all of the equipment she listed is available. You have to know where to look and who to talk to for a couple of the pieces, but it is out there. And if a million or so people started looking to buy things like these, I can guarantee that the market would create a place to buy it.
Remember the millenium scare? Remember the news reports during the day after Christmas? People wanted stuff and people were selling that stuff.
I will admit, that I do not have a full Chem/Bio suit and mask for every member of my family. Those things are spendy and I don't have that kind of scratch. But I do know that by the time you put the suit on, you're probably screwed.
But like I said before, if you get a couple million people willing to buy them, someone will make them. And if they can sell 500,000 at $100 per, they make enough of them to sell 2,000,000 at $50.
But I do have pretty much everything else. And it is always ready to go.
Along with my guns and ammo.
If need be.
Earthquakes, tidal waves, volcanos. We've got the potential for all three here in Seattle. And I plan on being on the top of the food chain through any of them.
Why should my tax dollars go for the people who won't get off their ass to prepare for these things?
I found the article @ Spacecraft
Posted by Nukevet at 07:18 AM | Comments (4)
May 12, 2004
gotta go to work now.
Busy blog day for us, I'm gonna get as many opinions at work as I can for how this is playing in small town Ohio and report back. I think we can guess the answer though.
Posted by Nukevet at 07:49 PM | Comments (0)
May 10, 2004
Heart of a "regular"
The draft issue is a false one, the factual reasons are well laid out here.Link provided by Instapundit. But I'm not going to address the factual reasons, my thinking falls more along these lines. Conscripts have played an invaluable role in our history, their sacrifices are as Honorable as any. Conscription though was never really fair, or even handed.
A young man as he comes of age, has many dreams, many inspirations. He thinks of himself as a man, sometimes rightly, sometimes not. He strikes out in the world, more or less to make a place for himself. Because at that age, thinking of someone other than yourself, is uncommon.
When I was a boy, my heroes were all men of service. Soldiers and policemen, presidents........people who had given their lives to an ideal. Some, had paid full measure, paid with their flesh the price that liberty demands. There was no debate in my childhood home about the war in Vietnam, none. My father was silent, quietly watching the casualty figures on the evening news. My mother, she cried for her brother who was in the thick of the fight. She wept too for the thought of her four sons, who would reach draft age in the next ten years. Because the war looked like it wasn't going to end. My older brother was 16 when the draft ended in 73. I don't know if they would have taken him, he was so,,,slow, like the brother just younger than I was, he was mentally retarded. The draft was so arbitrary in those days, so many able kids opting out that standards had fallen badly, and as I said, they might have gone.
I swore to myself that I wouldn't shirk my duty when my time came. No handicapped boy would go in my place, if someone had to serve, as someone always does. That would be me, no running away, no handing it of to a poorer kid, or one less able to think quickly. I thought, at least my chances would be fair, they wouldn't have made it. So no, nobody else would die for me. Not when I could make that choice. I couldn't look my brothers in the eye again if I had choosen diferently. Time and events changed, but I didn't. The draft and the war ended, I was fourteen when the draft ended, sixteen when Saigon fell. But I had made my choice, there was no turning back.
When I enlisted, it was late, I was twentyone. I had put off going because my only sister was dying from cancer. I held my family close then, so a year after she had passed, I fulfilled my obligation to myself, my brothers, and I signed up. Growing up in the way I had, seeing the protests, the marches, hearing about the spitting on soldiers, had only hardened my resolve. Hardened my contempt for the ones who either lacked the guts, or the conviction to do what had to be done. I held no ill feelings for those who couldn't serve, or simply choose not too when they weren't needed. No, my hate was for those that either believed going was immoral, or the fact they simply were rooting for our enemies.
I was in hurry then, I talked to the Army, but the recruiter had a quota to fill with programers and clerks, he had no interest in putting me down for armor as I wanted. Same with infantry, no no no, I had to pick something else. So I walked next door and talked to the Air Force. I told him I wanted to be in a fighting unit, not support, and thats when I first learned about what a combat SP was. It wasn't as well known or as respected as the Army or Marines, but it would put me where I wanted to go. In uniform carrying a rifle.
No regrets, and sure as Hell no apologies. My unit was tasked to the 90th Strategic Missile Wing. 200 Minutemen III's, all having three MIRV's, six hundred nuclear warheads, and all of them set to vaporize the Soviets. I was a part of that, a small, tiny piece of that global stare down. So at least in my own mind I kept faith with myself and my brothers. Perhaps too, in part with some young man I never knew.
I speak only for myself, but I wonder if the tale of most regulars isn't at least as,....well, we all have our own demons. We all joined up to serve, many when it wasn't so popular, when hostility to that choice was rampant, and because we made the choice, the draft was forgotten.
Let it stay that way.
This war is going to last a long time, not in Iraq so much, as it will move on to other fronts when events catch up. Better to leave it to those who have the need to serve, have the desire to carry on the fight. The draft is drawing straws and hoping for the best, volunteers are already champions, let them lead the way and stand aside.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:54 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Sigh....
Women may be from Venus, and I'm definitely from Mars, but will we ever agree on TV shows? My lady is watching this show tonight. Now she's a big girl and and likes what she wants, but damn, this show pisses me off just on principle. Maybe it's because I read true tales of survival as a child, maybe because I've had survival training, maybe because I've seen people die in ugly ways. But I have no sense of humor about this.
In real life, a group of people stranded in a harsh enviroment would have a very different agenda than on this show. The goal, literally, is for as many people to make it as possible. The goal isn't to vote which one gets fed to the sharks to make their own chances better. It isn't every man for himself, it's all for one, one for all. If you want to live it is. This show engenders betrayal, dishonesty and selfishness as virtues. My beliefs come maybe from the Rangers who conducted part of my training.
Never leave a man behind.
That means even your dead, you..don't..leave..anyone..behind! I believe in this, and this show insults me on that level. It's pure escapist fare, entertainment. I understand this. But I can't forgive it, or the part of our culture that loves it. My wife gets a pass, I find no malice in her or anyone for liking it,. She knows how I feel about it, and she finds my view amusing and a bit charming. I don't know, but what's the general view on it?
Do any of you guys like it?
Posted by Nukevet at 03:44 AM | Comments (5)
May 08, 2004
I know it's rhetorical....
What amazes me most about Moore is that he has no respect for his own credibility.
I don't think anyone serious is surprised by such antics from Moore, not really. He isn't a serious minded person, he's selling, feeding the faithful with exactly what they WANT to hear. Bush is EVIL so anything said is true to them, and if it isn't? Well.......it should be dammit, and they'll accept it anyway. Moore doesn't care about his credibility because his fans don't.
Which brings to question, how can you be so stupid and not step out into traffic all the time? I would bet the death by idiotic accident ratio among Moore fans is really, really high. Hairdryer in the tub, running with scissers, drinking draino cause the color is just "soooo cool". That kind of thing. That would be Darwin's law at work.
Did I mention my extreme contempt for Moore and his fans? Ooops,..I'll try to be more clear in the future. Oh,....Mikey?
Posted by Nukevet at 06:54 PM | Comments (2)
May 06, 2004
I really hate this, but stuff happens.
I ended up getting a down day from work today, because........A frikkin pipe burst under the house, and yours truely just spent the day ripping up a floor in the laundry room to get to it. Floor's back in place, pipe fixed, but this home is an old farmhouse, and I've had to fix three different problems in three weeks. I love this house, more because it's ours than any other reason. But old old homes have character, not all of it good. The studs in the walls are cherry, well over a century old, and as hard as steel. I have to predrill all nail holes, and 18 inchs apart? I wish, they average about five feet apart, though they are not 2×4's. Nothing is standard and the current studs are rough hewn 4×5's. This house has strong bones, but really, sometimes it would be nice to be able to buy stock off the shelf items and not have to custom fit everything.
The trials and trebulations of home ownership. Being your own landlord means having to get it done, often by yourself, because much as I'd like to, plumbing contracters are just too great an expense right now. I'm a good backyard carpenter, able to do most all electrical and plumbing so I'm luckier than a lot of people. I know how, it's just, well, it's hard for me to do with my arthritis and it gets tougher every year. I just need to hang on for a few more years, then I'll be able to teach my sons, and while I'm not into child labor,....I will pass on to them what I've learned. Family comes first, second, and always. They wouldn't be doing all the work, we will be doing it together, father and sons. That relief however is years away, so in the mean time, I'll just bite it down and get it done.
Still, I have to admit, the thought of unleashing the sons of Puggs on the world makes me smile.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:51 PM | Comments (2)
May 05, 2004
Folk Myths
Mollbot, of Morpholine fame, writes...
One of the girls I work with was talking with me on break and I started whistling the Ballad of John Henry. Now, I know that my folksy/country/oldies musical preferences aren't shared by more than a couple people where I work, so it didn't shock me when she asked, "What's that song?"
So I told her, and here, friends, is what shocked me: She cocked her head and said, "Who's John Henry?"
I just stared at her in shock for a few moments. Now, we employ a number of people who didn't grow up in the United States, or even speaking English. But this girl was born and raised in the USA, as were at least two previous generations on either side of her family. And she had never ONCE heard of one of America's greatest folk myths! I questioned her further. Heard of Paul Bunyan? Blank stare. Pecos Bill? Giggle, negative headshake (complete with rolling eyes). C'mon, you must have heard of Paul Bunyan... you know, with Babe- "Ruth... the Bambino?" she cuts in. I cover my eyes. No, not the Bambino. Babe the BLUE OX! She just wrinkles her nose and shakes her head again. I try one last name, though my hope is fading. Jim Bridger? Nope, never heard of Jim Bridger either. She had heard of Johnny Appleseed. I guess that's something. Are we getting so pussified and dumbed down in this nation that Johnny Appleseed is the only permitted folk tale?
I have come across more than a few individuals who are unaware of most/all of these legends (including the wife, who grew up in Montana).
Over 70% were females of the specie. So I have to ask myself if the reason they didn't know was because they didn't care when the tales were being told and forgot or because the parents/teachers thought the stories too much for their little girly ears.
The truly odd part is that in the last couple of weeks, I have found myself humming "Tom Dooley".
Now there's a non-PC tune.
Posted by Nukevet at 06:51 AM | Comments (1)
April 26, 2004
No good choices, no easy ones.
The debate over abortion is without end, and the one sparked by AK's post has moved me to comment on it for what may be the first time here at RNS. I promise to do equal damage to feelings on both extremes. First, you all know that I'm a father of two with one on the way. My feelings on this are pretty deep, for that I make no apology.
I won't get into the details of when life starts, or wether it's murder or not, you either believe it is, or it isn't. In truth I have alot of sympathy for the pro-life camp, for the arguements, not the methods or the means they use. Abortion is something that makes my skin crawl, how could anyone defend it as just another choice. Like choosing the color for the bathroom decor or the kind of car you buy. If it is indeed just another type of choice, the closer analogy would be choosing to sacrifice a kidney, or a limb, for that's the kind of impact it will have on many of the women who make that choice. For those who do it and walk away with nary a second thought, I feel sorry for the lack of humanity they have, the lack of doubt. I once would have hated someone for making that choice, but I've let go of that kind of certainty.
I recognize that in a perfect world, abortions wouldn't happen, because no one would need to feel they had to do it. I have also seen the faces of too many young mothers to hate them for being trapped, for being human. I don't have any hate for them in me to find. I wish they were smarter, made better choices, hadn't been so casual with the birth control. I wish many things. But we still are dealing mostly with people who are barely adult, if they've even made it that far. Abortion shouldn't be a first result method of birth control and for many it is. This doesn't even count the ones who were abused, and for them I feel nothing but compassion. A jumbled way to say, it's far more complex an issue than single line answers can solve.
So the best we can do I believe is to allow it to remain legal, as much as it pains me, because the alternative is worse. Restrictions on it being as easy as getting an aspirin, but not impossible either. I believe we can end abortion by winning hearts, by changing minds, by teaching children well and giving them the loving homes they need. By being better parents, and by encouraging others who have children to lead by example rather than edict. You can't force someone to feel pro-life, that's the way of our enemies.
For the majority of us, I think my view is an easy one to live with. The greatest mistake the hardcore pro-choice defenders make, is they say the stupidest things in it's defense. You would think that having an abortion is so grand and wonderful, that you should run out and get inseminated just to have one done from listening to them spout on about it. They are tone deaf to the fact that many if not most of the pro-choice camp is not leftwing, not gay, and not full of zeal for a procedure that at best, is a necessary evil. When they realize that most view abortion as regretable maybe they will stop making enemies, and start changing minds. Maybe when you can here one of them speak and not come away thinking they believe every girl seeking the procedure got raped by her father, got abused by her uncle,....maybe then they'll be worth listening too.
The debate has been largely framed by the two most extreme ends of the spectrum, the most die hard believers. Possibly it's time the rest of us took it back and dealt with it as adults, we can do better.
P.S.
Just to make sure no one believes I keep my lady barefoot and pregnant. She makes the reproductive choices in our marriage, and always has. She decided the times and she decided with my support. I'm realistic about this, she has the burden to bear, she chose to bear our daughter, our son, and our son to be. It's her decision to make. I've been graced with the love of a good woman, that's enough for any man. The children are just an added gift, for which I'm humbly greatful. She didn't do it to please me, to win my love, that surrender was signed long ago.
Posted by Nukevet at 04:55 AM | Comments (0)
April 22, 2004
April Rain
It's damp here now, rainy and slightly cold. I find more and more I don't need to look out the window or turn on the TV to see what the weather is to be like on a given day, I have other means. It's an achey day, one of those where you feel the cold deep in your bones, a curl up and read day. I find myself longing for this. For the advance of spring.
T.J. Evans Park, it's right on the edge of town. Quiet and beautiful, the fishing is fair, but I fish to relax, not to win trophies. My wife almost always catchs more than I do, and that's fine. I so love the green of the place, the crispness of the air, and the shining of the sun on the waters. I'm at home here, as if my soul were a part of the greater spirits guarding this old place. Left from the last Ice Age, the passing of a glacier carved these hills and ponds. They feel both new and fresh, yet timeless in the serenity it inspires in me. It's not just this one park, but the whole of the Ohio Valley that soothes me. Silly in this age of travel, I know, but my days of roaming are done. My roots are here, my wife's, family, friends, and the gentlness of old souls who sometimes speak to us in the dancing of the rain, the slight breezes of the night. They all whisper the same soft word....
Home.
I can survive and live anywhere, but to be happy, truely at peace, I need the small valleys and hills of this humble place. I need the peace of it. Our town is growing, expanding little by little, and in the not too distant future, we'll be another suburb of Columbus, having grown into each other. Our children may never see this place as I do, but things do change. I only hope they find a patch of earth that they can calll home. No shame, no false pride, just simply....home.
A lot more grey hair this year, the aches are wearing, never ending. So maybe I'm a little overly sentimental about trivial things. Too ready to latch onto small comforts, tiny pleasures. Maybe, surely that's nothing to feel bad about. The doctor's are doing their work, and therapy continues,... I just feel so very tired, so tired. I hope to have many more years, I just am starting to fear that they may be......difficult. I'll take it like a man, but can be forgiven certainly for a longing for the pain to fade, to just be left in peace for awhile. I'm not sorry at all for this life, not a bit. I have my wife, our children, our coming treasure. A man would be a fool to wish everything away for the price of comfort. Something to value, but not at the price of losing a place in my home with my loved ones. So I resolve to complain less, and just to think of the value of what I have, as opposed to a dwelling on what isn't. Pain, can be endured, it can't kill by itself, can't eat you, can't steal away your children if you fight back against the despair it travels with. Not if you hammer it back for the sake of what is dear to you. You will endure.
Solace and strength are where you find it, for me a small measure comes from the soft green of old Indian lands. I share some of their blood, as most of the locals do, some of them lives on in us. I'm glad for that too. I'm glad for the return of the green, and the warm.
I so yearn for the warm again.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:02 AM | Comments (0)
April 21, 2004
Two America's?
This National Review article by Jonah Goldberg touched a nerve with me. It dances around a common theme with a thought I've had for awhile now.
Professional liberals have invested a vast amount of time and energy popularizing the notion that the worst thing in the world is to question the patriotism of someone to your left. I agree that it's not very nice, especially if it's unfounded. But I don't think questioning someone's patriotism is any worse than questioning their decency.
For generations, Democratic candidates and liberal journalists have asserted with impunity that Republicans, by their very nature, hate blacks, gays, children, the poor, the environment, animals, and immigrants.
Can you be liberal and be a patriot at the same time, of course, but that's not the issue. The issue is piss poor judgement, lack of long term understanding of national interests and of using the funding of defense projects as barganing chips to spend on sucking up to your very left of center base. Kerry voted against every defense program that he could according to most reports, the Apache, the MX.......A traitior, no,......a dunce, well yes he is. Physical courage doesn't automatically define you as a always correct on every issue, Colon Powell, Kerry, Oliver North,.......there were many people who served with Honor, but who disagree on virtually everything else. By the same token, Esinhower never served in actual combat, yet he commanded the Allied armies to victory, so the issue of service itself is rendered mute. For example, my father was a draftee, he served in the occupation army in Austria in the early fifties during Korea. I was a volunteer, a regular during the last decade of the cold war. Who was more patriotic?... we both served, one during a hot war, one volunteered,....neither saw combat.
A false question as you can see.
The real contention I think lies deeper. Always running just below the surface, it comes up for air during the election cycle. We saw it starkly in 2000, and it's breaching the surface again. The real issue I suspect is two completely different ideas of America. It's more than mere politics, that would be easier to soothe, no this is much more bitter. Kerry to an extent, Dean certainly represents the hardcore left vision of America. One that says that if you oppose me, you aren't wrong,....you are evil. Evil in the classic.... burning of hospitals, raping, pillaging, drowning kittens for fun kind of evil. They can work up a hatred for us that they would never dream of for someone like Huessein, someone like Kim in Korea, or Castro. They are either minor players with whom they can deal, or not even thought of at all. Their boogey men aren't ever foreign, they are always domestic. Their constant references to Joe McCarthy are projection, because they are the ones seeking heretics. We didn't win the 2000 election, all even handed reports to the contrary, because we are all liars and thieves to them. It's impossible that we didn't steal the win, didn't do to them what they have historically done to us through their big city political machines. Impossible that we aren't as dark as the face they see in the mirror every morning.We are the counter roluntionaries, the heretic, the other.
Never mind the fact that members of their own families may vote republican. That just proves to them how insideous we are, corrupting good democrats like that. Before some of you scoff, my own uncle Joesph, my mothers brother, is an old new deal democrat. We never talk politics, because frankly he made up his mind that FDR was a God and hasn't had a new thought since 1938. That's what we're dealing with. Social Security? He's utterly convinced that it's all his own money that has been secretly saved for him by his benevolent Uncle Sugar Daddy to pay back to him over time. We all know that's not how it works, never how it's worked. The money he gets now comes from me and you. It's pay as you go, there is no savings fund. He'll tell you that he's fond of me, but I've let those bastards in the GOP brainwash me into voting against the working man. My own experiences don't count, my own service, my own thoughts or opinions,...I've been tainted by the evil republicans....The other side, the hardcore of leftists and true believer democrats, this is what we are to them. We are the lost souls to the one true faith.
We all know how absurd that is. Nukevet has his opinions, the Analogkid his as well. I respect them all, and we agree on the big things. But we are in the final sense, each unique in his approach. We are still friends and still talking to one another without the angry defensiveness you get from the left anymore. We all recognize there is no such thing as one true opinion, no others need apply. That's what's been lacking for a very long time from the left in this country. When you really look hard at it, it quickly becomes apparent which group is the more open, more inclusive. The left counts skin color, counts religion as some kind of totem to diversity, they never count differences of opinion. Not allowed in their world, that would be so, so, so,..........republican. I grew up in a republican family, and never, not once heard my parents denergrate a man or woman because of his or her skin color or religion. No,...I had to meet democrats for that. I never heard the n-word used at home, no Jewish slurs, none of that. As I grew and went into the work place, I quickly found out that the hardest, most bitter of dividers were usually the old union guys. For blacks and Jews they had a lot to say,...for anyone crazy enough to vote republican? Well they should all be just locked up the thieving crooks!!!!! And how about that Jimmy Carter? He's such an honest man, Nixon was so evil, and whats a nice white kid like you wanna vote for Reagan for anyway? Don't ya know he's gonna start WWIII for those "kikes" on Wall Street? Didn't yer mama teach ya right?
Better than theirs did I think. I didn't learn to hate someone for being different.
So you see, I've had an education on the enclusive, caring, feeling left. An education on the tolerance of hardcore democrats. An education on group think, as practiced by the last bastion of Orwell's nightmare left in America. The left makes a big show of skin color and ethnic differences, but it demands uniformity of opinion. So it weaves together separate groups like so many game pieces, without ever really recounciling them. Big city union types, inner city blacks, college age credit card Marxists, all held together by a common hate of new ideas and sometimes, eachother, rather than a common goal. It's not a pretty image the democrats have deep inside where they think we can't see. The GOP isn't perfect, I can see it's flaws as do many of you. I can however breathe here, free of the fear that I'll be condemned and driven out into the night because I don't share every single group opinion on every issue.
So two America's, one growing, breathing and looking to become greater, better than we have ever been. The other bitter, defensive, shrinking in size and looking to expell anyone foolish enough to challenge their dwindling zone of single mindedness. Anyone not part of the rigid structure they would impose.
Anyone who rejects their bitter vision of an America under siege not from without, but from the forces of some nebulus foe they define as the Vast Rightwing Conspiracy. Our enemies from without they consider a mere police problem, best kept out of sight lest they actually have to deal with it.
In short, it's about one America facing the future on it's feet, confident and strong in it's uniqueness. The other cringing with it's head bowed asking for forgiveness from a world left that doesn't care, and longing for a place were everyone thinks just like them.
This turned out longer than I thought it would. I hope I didn't ramble too much, but really I think this is pretty much true. How else to explain the hatred, the bitterness. It can't be just being a sore loser, it's way to deep for that. It's almost as if the second Civil War is being waged, not with guns, but with ideas and words. The left represents the aristocracy of the old south, money and manners, yet decadent and based on a wrong premiss. The center to right have come to symbolize the Union under Lincoln, the new, the value of the individual over all. The left fights by consuming itself, turning on it's own, by spending the seed corn, in the end they can't come up with anything new to gain strength from. The right, has become the party of ideas, of the future. We gain strength and numbers as the left continues to drive out those who think maybe they shouldn't continue down that road.
Still wether I'm dead wrong on this, or right, I'm optimistic about our future. America has never really looked back in our two hundred plus years. We've always found a way to keep moving forward. Always found a strength many never really thought we had, until it was needed. The opponents to our future have always been with us also, and they've still not learned how to restrain this giant. We may pause on occasion for 4 to 8 years, but the flow is always forward, never back. Kerry even if he were to win can't stop that progress, much as his most ardent lefty voters hope he will. A bump in the road, but not a halt. Academic, since I have faith that Bush has the shared faith that most of us have in own destiny, and will be rewarded in Novemember for it.
However it comes out, we'll forge ahead. We don't know how to do otherwise.
Posted by Nukevet at 07:41 PM | Comments (1)
April 20, 2004
Need a good read?
Then go now to Repatriate and read Jeff's take on the subject of Bullying.
Jeff writes:
"OR, if you're like me and favor the direct approach, One Call Does It All:
"Yeah, this is Jeff D. Listen, asshole. If your kid lays another finger on my son, he'll be sucking beans through a straw for the rest of the school year after I break his jaw. And after I'm done with him, I'm gonna come over to your house and smash your head in with a fuckin' brick! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?!!"
I think I can agree with his solution to the problem.
Although, I must add that my statement would include the phrase "If I have to come over there, you'll wish you'd have pulled off your own head".
Posted by Nukevet at 09:24 AM | Comments (2)
April 19, 2004
risks vs. benefit
AK's venture into KOSland and observation of the socialized medicine debate reminded me of this. Have you ever heard of Thalidomide? Anyone over 40 or who has any knowledge of postwar Europe has probably heard of it. Europe and Canada flush with the boom of reconstruction after WWII all widely embraced cradle to grave government provided health care. They got cavalier about drug approval, didn't see the need for long term drug testing as our FDA did at the time. This is the consequence of being overly confident in how much you know about such things.
According to the March of Dimes (MOD, November 1998), "More than 10,000 children around the world were born with major malformations, many missing arms and legs, because their mothers had taken the drug during early pregnancy. Mothers who had taken the drug when arms and legs were beginning to form had babies with a widely varying but recognizable pattern of limb deformities. The most well-known pattern, absence of most of the arm with the hands extending flipper-like from the shoulders, is called phocomelia.
--
The affected babies almost always had both sides affected and often had both the arms and the legs malformed. In addition to the limbs, the drug caused malformations of the eyes and ears, heart, genitals, kidneys, digestive tract (including the lips and mouth), and nervous system. Thalidomide was recognized as a powerful human teratogen (a drug or other agent that causes abnormal development in the embryo or fetus). Taking even a single dose of thalidomide during early pregnancy may cause major birth defects."
Those of us who remember this have good reason to suggest that the advocacy groups pushing for rapid approval of perscription drugs are being reckless. Yes people are suffering and certain drugs may help them if approved. But they can also result in a debacle like Thalidomide. The effects of which have devastated families all around the world, except for here.
AK's allusion to the perils of radical drugs in socialized medicine are apt. Think about it, you don't pick your Doctor, your hospital, even your type of treatment, the system perscribes what it wants. The system as we have seen is also being pressured from AIDS groups and congressmen to hurry up and push through new drugs as rapidly as possible. Once approved, loss in the system to wreck havoc if they prove to be flawed.
Europe and Canada paid for that mistake once already, but haven't really taken the lesson to heart. We should be very carefull to not embrace a system that gives the Doctor's loyalty to the government, rather than the patient.
A generation is too high a price to pay for a second chance.
Posted by Nukevet at 04:33 PM | Comments (0)
April 15, 2004
Today is the day: Part 2
From the Grouchy Old Cripple (in Atlanta)
John 'Friendly (with YOUR money)' Kerry's planned tax form
On a more serious note, I was doing my daily dredging of the Kos and found this,
....start by looking only at what the tax cuts will have cost through the end of 2004: $749.1 billion. And let's say the economy continues to create 300,000 jobs a month from here to the end of the year, something even the pollyannas in the Bush administration wouldn't predict. At the moment, Bush is still 1.84 million jobs in the hole, but 9 more months at 300,000 jobs per month would leave him at the end of the year with a net of 860,000 jobs created for his first term. That gives us the following:
$749.1 billion (cost of tax cuts, 2001-2004)
/860,000 jobs
= $871,046 per job
Anything in there stick out to you?
Yep, the COST of the tax cuts!
I cannot believe that these people can take themselves seriously and still believe that the tax cuts COST the government money!
And that is not the pure idiocy!
That takes place in the comment section.
"I've maintained for a long time that the best way for the government to create jobs is to start a jobs program; you know, spiffing up the National Parks (which could use some spiffing), putting up windmills for electricity,.... etc."
"But that approach smacks of socialism, and it's too simple."
Posted by some Marxist nitwit named "Draco"
Somebody needs to take an economics class before he opens his socialist pie-hole on governmental monetary matters.
I still cannot think of a good reason why it is illegal to publically flog dim bulbs like these.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:08 AM | Comments (0)
April 14, 2004
I don't like slasher flicks
OK, so I don't like most movies in general. But the slasher flick is a person bain to my entertainment needs. I always over-analyze them and, if I wrote their scripts, they'd be real short movies.
But the Analog Wife loves these movies.
For instance, she finally got her copy of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 25th Anniversary Special Addition" this last weekend. She had waited until she got it to see the new version of the movie and now went and rented it.
She couldn't understand why I didn't want to join here in watching the two back-to-back.
Here's my thing; when I'm watching the movie, I cannot stop thinking of how, if just one of the characters had possessed a firearm and was halfway decent in putting it to use, Leatherface would have been a hurting unit.
So, if you don't want to be a victim of a slasherflick villian, join us at the Blogger Blastorama this weekend or get your own group together and meet up your local range.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:24 AM | Comments (2)
April 12, 2004
Road Trip
The truck gets its first long distance trip starting tomorrow. I have to run a little "mission of mercy" for a little puppy with a congenital heart defect. We tried to fix it surgically here, but that failed. Now she is having significant problems, and her only real chance is a cardiac cath and having a coil placed in the defect. I am taking her to my alma mater, Texas A&M, to see if they can do it. If things go well, she should be fine and be able to live a normal life. If not, well........
Her name in Camion, which is French for "truck" (since all she does is ride around in it with me). If you're so inclined, wish her luck. I will post some photos of her later.
Posted by Nukevet at 04:50 AM | Comments (3)
April 09, 2004
Back seat drivers commission
As the title of this post suggests, I don't think very highly of the September 11th Commision. And I'm sure that most of you don't either. I consider it a group of former politicians getting their daily photo-op and acting like, well, politicians.
We already know who was resposible for September 11th. Al-Qiada. What else is there to learn?
We also already know that:
1: The FBI and CIA weren't talking to one another. This had been going on for decades because they were set up that way to keep American's civil liberties safe. And,
2. Political correctness inside the FBI, INS, FAA, etc had basically hamstrung any effort to get any info other agencies.
Sprinkle that with not having any intel people on the ground in the places where they should have been to be able to get good intel and the either absent or weak responses to acts of terrorism in the past, and you get September 11th.
None the less, I watched a good portion of the testimony of Dr. Condoliza Rice yesterday, and then read the transcript for the parts I missed.
Besides a couple of the commissioners treating Dr. Rice like a 8rd grader who stole the opposing team's mascot, I thought it went over pretty well.
Especially this bit. Rice rope-a-dopes Kerrey and leave him as her bitch.
Kennedy sycophant Bob Kerrey was asking about the phrase "Tired of swatting at flies" that was supposedly said by Bush about his wanting to change tactics in the hunting of al-qiada.
KERREY: You've used the phrase a number of times, and I'm hoping with my question to disabuse you of using it in the future.
You said the president was tired of swatting flies.
Can you tell me one example where the president swatted a fly when it came to al Qaeda prior to 9/11?
RICE: I think what the president was speaking to was...
KERREY: No, no. What fly had he swatted?
RICE: Well, the disruptions abroad was what he was really focusing on...
KERREY: No, no...
RICE: ... when the CIA would go after Abu Zubaydah...
KERREY: He hadn't swatted...
RICE: ... or go after this guy...
KERREY: Dr. Rice, we didn't...
RICE: That was what was meant.
KERREY: We only swatted a fly once on the 20th of August 1998. We didn't swat any flies afterwards. How the hell could he be tired?
RICE: We swatted at -- I think he felt that what the agency was doing was going after individual terrorists here and there, and that's what he meant by swatting flies. It was simply a figure of speech.
KERREY: Well, I think it's an unfortunate figure of speech because I think, especially after the attack on the Cole on the 12th of October, 2000, it would not have been swatting a fly. It would not have been -- we did not need to wait to get a strategic plan.
Dick Clarke had in his memo on the 20th of January overt military operations. He turned that memo around in 24 hours, Dr. Clarke. There were a lot of plans in place in the Clinton administration -- military plans in the Clinton administration.
In fact, since we're in the mood to declassify stuff, there was -- he included in his January 25 memo two appendices -- Appendix A: "Strategy for the elimination of the jihadist threat of al Qaeda," Appendix B: "Political military plan for al Qaeda."
So I just -- why didn't we respond to the Cole?
RICE: Well, we...
KERREY: Why didn't we swat that fly?
RICE: I believe that there's a question of whether or not you respond in a tactical sense or whether you respond in a strategic sense; whether or not you decide that you're going to respond to every attack with minimal use of military force and go after every -- on a kind of tit-for-tat basis.
By the way, in that memo, Dick Clarke talks about not doing this tit-for-tat, doing this on the time of our choosing.
I'm aware, Mr. Kerrey, of a speech that you gave at that time that said that perhaps the best thing that we could do to respond to the Cole and to the memories was to do something about the threat of Saddam Hussein.
Bob Kerrey, you are now Condi's bitch!
While there are a number of other defining moments in the transcript, I would like you take a look at the portion of Rice's testimony when being asked questions by former Washington Senator, Slade Gorton.
While he didn't throw any softballs, he also did not treat her like this,
Pic courtesy of Curmudgeonly & Skeptical
If you read the fisking of Maria Cantwell by Mollbot in the post below, Cantwell is the person who beat Gorton out for the Senate seat.
Posted by Nukevet at 07:53 AM | Comments (4)
April 07, 2004
The 'Outsourcing' Boogeyman
I'm sure you remember John "(Ab)Fab" Kerry saying that he would create 10 million jobs during his administration. But, and I'm trying to remember where I saw this, it seems as that there are only 8.6 million unemployed people in the US.
So, this leads us to one of three possible conclusions:
1. Some of us are going to have to take second jobs to keep Kerry happy
2. It gives us some inkling as to his immigration policy
3. He will make the US job market more 'european', ie mandating 30hour work weeks (while keeping the yearly income the same), thereby creating more need for workers. Nevermind that it makes the price of everything go up (while, again, yearly salries stay the same).
But I will now end all of the nightmares of a John Kerry presidential domestic economic policy and move onto to crux of this post.
Can you say "U.S. receiving more 'outsourced' jobs than it's losing"?
I knew you could!
And that link was found here.
In-sourced jobs are worked by people who have faces and personal stories. Given that a Presidential campaign is underway, it will be short work for the Republican ticket to arrange visits to the Honda, whose Ohio factories employ 14,000, or the vast Michelin tire factory in South Carolina. President Bush might even want to take the wheel of one the Kentucky-made Toyota Solaras as it is loaded for shipment back to the Japanese market.
Toyota has even joining the NASTruck circuit.
You did know that the trucks had to be manufactured in the US to join that league, didn't you?
Well, now you do.
Posted by Nukevet at 07:55 AM | Comments (0)
April 04, 2004
Keep your ears open
The Formula One Gran Prix of Bahrain is scheduled to start in just under three and a half hours from now.
You read that right. Bahrain. In the ME by Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
After Spain's most recent bombing, I am hoping that the Islamofascists take kindly to the automotive entertainment being offered and leave it alone.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:14 AM | Comments (2)
April 02, 2004
I hesitated to post this
A little quiz......if you like IQ tests.
Congratulations, Mark!
Your IQ score is 131
This number is based on a scientific formula that compares how many questions you answered correctly on the Classic IQ Test relative to others.
Your Intellectual Type is Facts Curator. This means you are highly intelligent and have picked up an impressive and unique collection of facts and figures over the years. You've got a remarkable vocabulary and exceptional math skills � which puts you in the same class as brainiacs like Bill Gates. And that's just some of what we know about you from your test results.
I know that kind of thing is usually kept private,...still, not bad for a poor white trash kid with just high school huh? Our daughter has been recommended to skip preschool and go straight to kindergarden next year. Her brother already speaks in complete (though abrupt) sentences and he's two and a half.
As god is my witness they'll go to college.
Does explain why no one will play Trivial Pursuit with me anymore.
Posted by Nukevet at 07:09 PM | Comments (4)
Having fun VS Gettin' the job done
"Dude"
"Man"
Who would you vote for?
Pics shamelessly borrowed from Judicious Asininity
Posted by Nukevet at 09:02 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
And speaking of Condi's upcoming testimony
I doubt that I am the only one who finds this funny?
I found this is at Protein Wisdon via Ipse Dixit.
And speaking of Ipse Dixit, he and some friends went to the range recently. I saw his post and e-mailed him about the upcoming Blastorama. I haven't yet gotten a response, but I'm pretty sure that Mr. Harris is just really busy blog-sitting over at Insignificant Thoughts.
Posted by Nukevet at 07:50 AM | Comments (1)
A question
With all of the talk about the September 11th commission, Clarke, Condi's appearance, etc, etc, I have a question for you all.
When all is said and done, will there really be anything 'discovered' other than there was little to nothing we could have done to stop it?
For your time to read and answer the question I give you this link to a terrorism timeline from FPM.
It starts at Jimmeh Cahtah, goes through Reagan and GHWB, continues onto Clinton and ends, of course at GWB and lists every terrorist act in the respective Presidents time in office.
Notice who has the most acts under his watch.
Posted by Nukevet at 07:38 AM | Comments (2)
March 31, 2004
Another must read
Richard Clarke, Meet Linda Tripp
Democrats, it would seem, have developed a sudden new sense of protectiveness for those who tell tales out of school. Anyone who remembers the name Linda Tripp cannot help but be amused at the Democrats rushing forward to decry the “trashing” of Richard Clarke. Where were these same Democrats when Linda Tripp was vilified on a daily basis?
Now, I'll admit to having called Clarke a 'Lying Prick'. Because he is. And that is pretty much what everyone else has said about him
But what exactly did Tripp lie about? Oh wait, she wasn't lying. She just wasn't a photogenic as Sir Hillary.
Found @ Some Poor Schmuck
Posted by Nukevet at 07:34 AM | Comments (0)
March 30, 2004
Contrite, humble,......and terribly greatfull, for good friends.
Greetings everyone. I deeply apologize for my long silence, trust me, it wasn't voluntary. It did serve a purpose though. It gave me a pause to reflect on my writing, how to do it better, how to come at things from a different angle. Maybe to come back a little wiser than when I fell to the side. It also gave me some more time to devote to other things. More playtime with our daughter and son, more quiet time with my wife, more time to plan for the birth of our son. Yes it's going to be another boy. Nathan will have some competition, which if his present nature gives any hints at, he'll welcome with a grin.
Glad to be back............
Posted by Nukevet at 10:26 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 29, 2004
The State is Not You Friend
From Samizdata comes a tip on how much the UK cares for it's subjects.
From Friday's Evening Standard (print edition)(link T/U):
"Mr Blair's two security advisers, Sir David Omand and Sir John Stevens, tell us each week that such bombs [in public places] are "unavoidable", to exonerate themselves in advance from blame. They tell us to be fearful and vigilant. But they do nothing physically to protect us."
"There are no walls going up to block Oxford Street from car bombs. There are no sniffer dogs at Holborn Tube or scanners at the entrance to Trafalgar Square. The citizens of London are being told, in effect, to look after themselves and don't blame the Government. Meanwhile Sir David and Sir John spend millions protecting those for whom they work."
- Simon Jenkins
And from the all seeing Samizdata Illuminatus:
In other words: You are cannon fodder. The state is not your friend.
Have a good weekend
Posted by Nukevet at 07:54 AM | Comments (0)
March 25, 2004
Busy, Busy, Busy
Work is kicking my butt tonight, so not much more from me.
But I have a question for discussion.
I'm gonna have to lay some track, but we'll get the station soon enough.
Since spring has sprung, my employer is hiring again.
For those who don't know, I work in the trash/recycle collection industry (I'm work for the garbage company).
Every winter we lay off a dozen or so people when the yardwaste collection stops. Since few people are mowing their yards in the winter, there just isn't much call for it and most municipalities shut off collection during the winter months.
And, every February we re-hire any and all of the people who were laid off the year before. It usually takes a year or two to get high enough up in the union seniority ladder for people to get out of picking up yardwaste and into recycle or trash collection (which is, of course, year around).
Also every year, about half of the people who worked for us the year before find other work during the winter and do not come back. So, we have to hire and train new folks.
Now, to get hired on, you have to pass a drug test, a security background check and either have or get a specialized commercial drivers license.
It also involves heavy manual labor. Lifting/pushing 75 - 100lbs a couple of hundred times a day and driving a 45,000lb truck.
But, the pay starts at just under $40,000 a year and can reach upwards towards $50,000 a year with overtime (and there is always overtime available).
This year, just like every other year, we hire on about half a dozen people to fill the open slots. And again, just like every other year, 3 or 4 of them quit before the training finishes or shortly thereafter.
So, my question is this:
If the job market is so bad, why would anyone quit a job that pays a guaranteed $40,000?
Or, is it like I think, that the job market isn't as bad as the media points out?
Discuss......
Posted by Nukevet at 07:40 AM | Comments (10)
March 24, 2004
What Media Bias?
Michael Arrieta-Walden speaks about 'Ethics in Journalism' in The Oregonian. Specifically, on the 'gay marriage' topic.
I recently spent a week at a seminar studying what I fear many readers might call an oxymoron: journalism ethics.
Yet while I was talking about the theoretical, difficult ethical decisions were playing out daily at The Oregonian in the coverage of same-sex marriages.
Is covering the views of opponents tantamount to endorsing prejudice? Some journalists at The Oregonian and elsewhere agree with readers who say that covering the views of opponents of homosexuality causes the harm of endorsing prejudice, and will especially appear biased and discriminatory when looked back on 10 years from now. They liken it to many newspapers' failed coverage of the civil rights movement. But Therese Bottomly, managing editor for news, sees the coverage as the first draft of history. In coverage of civil rights, newspapers were guilty of reflecting only the views of whites. "We need to reflect all points of view. To reflect, then, what is, not what we think it should be," she says.
And then in the same paper, you have this story of idiocy.
Benton County stops all marriage licensing
Pressured by the attorney general to wait for a court ruling on gay marriages, county officials decide to treat "everybody equally".
The 'gay marriage' supporters want people to agree with them.
Making people put their wedding plans on hold is not the way to do it.
My M-I-L might have gone 'Travis Bickel' on them.
Both links found @ Some Poor Schmuck
Posted by Nukevet at 07:24 AM | Comments (0)
March 19, 2004
Poor Raging Dave
Mr. Raging Dave and the Raging Girlfriend are heading out to their property in Idaho for the weekend.
Apparently overlooked in Wednesday's stories about Senator John Kerry's $5 million estate in Sun Valley, Idaho, was his most glaring indulgence. Never mind the 500-year-old English barn, each piece of which was numbered and reconstructed after shipment from a small town in southern England, or the quarter million dollars worth of landscaping on the property. Kerry saved his greatest indulgence to share with the taxpayers of Idaho.
After paying for all the landscaping on the Sun Valley property, the Kerrys determined that their water supply was not great enough to keep their vegetation thriving. And so the couple petitioned the state to have a small river redirected so that its waters could be used to keep their garden nice and green. The state complied, leaving taxpayers on the hook for the work done. The state covered the cost ostensibly to ensure that the river's redirection would be environmentally sound.
KETCHUM, Idaho - Presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry plans a muted presence in Idaho's star-studded Sun Valley for the next six days, attempting a break before what will surely be a grueling battle for the presidency.
Kerry was spotted on the sun-splashed slopes Thursday riding his snowboard. He arrived Wednesday.
Try and stay calm, Dave. We's like to see you back here.
Posted by Nukevet at 06:02 AM | Comments (7)
March 18, 2004
One less sex offender on the streets
Sadly, he took someone else out with him.
A man who shot a woman to death outside a Capitol Hill community center has died of wounds from police gunfire, police said Wednesday.
The gunman fled into the community center and officers chased him.
"He turned ... with the shotgun. One officer fired and has wounded the suspect," said Gil Kerlikowske, Seattle's police chief.
The shotgun was loaded and the man was carrying extra ammunition, Kerlikowske said.
The 43-year-old man was taken to Harborview Medical Center with a wound in the abdomen. He died Wednesday afternoon.
The man was staying at the community center, which was housing residents displaced by last week's fire at the Jensonia Apartments on First Hill, where the man had been living.
Police said the man was a convicted (level 3) sex offender. They said he had a relationship with the woman he shot and the woman was trying to end their relationship.
Why, oh why do they let these sick fucks out at all?
Posted by Nukevet at 07:50 AM | Comments (1)
March 16, 2004
Ms. Sondra is concerned
About a quote from The head of the EU executive arm, European Commission chief Romano Prodi.
"It is clear that using force is not the answer to resolving the conflict with terrorists"
Ms. Sondra: "My gawd, are we really the minority in all of this? How is this even possible? These people don't want resolution! As if terrorists give a shit about that."
Sadly Ms. Sondra, it is appearing that those who are willing to react are becoming a minority to those who would rather appease.
As I stated yesterday, most of Europe has devolved into the 'beaten housewife syndrome' (aka as the "If we do whatever we can to make them happy, they will leave us alone" mode of thought).
For some reason they think that bin Laden will fly to a neutral location and want to begin negotiations for peace. This train of thought has most likely come from dealing with Arafat for some 30 odd years.
Which is why I have begun calling Europe "The European Fantasyland".
I have come to the conclusion that they realize that they did not pay for the freedom they now enjoy and want to keep it that way.
Posted by Nukevet at 06:53 AM | Comments (0)
March 12, 2004
GMDP Part 1: Redux
Yesterday, I told a story and then posed a question.
At this time, I feel I must apologize to any and all who read read and/or answered the question, because it was a trick question.
You see, here in Washington State the citizenry passed an initiative that 1. Declared marriage as between a man and a woman only, and 2. Classified it as a priviledge granted by the state and regulated by licensing (just like driving).
So, no one's 'rights' were violated.
My humblest apologies for toying with you.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:02 AM | Comments (1)
March 11, 2004
Gay Marriage Debate Post Part 1
A short story followed by a question.
I'm sure most of you have heard of Dan Savage.
He is a sex advice columnist for 'alternative weeklies' nationwide and has written a couple of books. He is also a gay man who has been involved in a monogomus relationship for over a decade and him and his partner parent an adopted son.
Mr. Savage is the editor for the local Seattle weekly paper, The Stranger, and is also a really nice guy.
The Mayor of Seattle, the nearly incompetant Greg Nichols, got a resolution through the Seattle City Council and signed it into law making Seattle one of the first to cities recognize gay marriages, but not issue gay couples marriage licenses.
This was a boon to the couples from Seattle who recently went to either San Francisco or Portland, OR and got married.
The morning that the resolution was signed, Mr Savage went to try and get a marriage license for him and his partner.
He was, of course, denied.
A female staffer from The Stranger had gone with him to the registry office. After he was denied the license for him and his partner, he aked the lady behind the counter if he could get a marriage license to get married to this female staffer.
The lady behind the counter said "Yes".
And now, the question;
Were his 'rights' truly 'denied'?
Discuss.....
Posted by Nukevet at 09:32 AM | Comments (3)
From the land of the Green River Killer
While most of us aren't proud of it, Washington State is the home of the serial killer with the highest body count, the Green River Killer. It is also rumored that Ted Bundy started out here.
Kobe, Japan - A young man was released from detention Wednesday, little more than six years after he, as a 14-year-old, severed the head from one of his murder victims and placed it on his school gate.
His parents said that he needed to go to school to get 'a head'.
Buh-dum-tum-tsh
Posted by Nukevet at 07:18 AM | Comments (0)
March 10, 2004
Dial 911 and die
Salem police officers won't follow up on all burglar alarms
SALEM, OR. - The Salem City council has voted to change the Salem Police Department's policy for being dispatched to alarms.
Under the new policy, officers will be dispatched only to alarms where a crime has been verified as probably taking place.
Plain English: "Unless you are screaming into the phone about someone in your house trying to kill you, don't bother having an alarm".
Now, later in the article the writer mentions that 99% of alarm calls turned out to be false.
And if the Salem City Council didn't have their head up their ass, they would do what is done in the Seattle Metro area and in just about every other town/city I've ever visited.
You get two free false alarm responses from the local police. On the third false alarm, you get a $100 fine. On the fourth, a $500 fine. $1000 on the fifth and $5000 on the sixth, etc.
Here is a new term for the Salem City Council to learn,
Monetary Deterence Leads To Responsibility.
It is a new concept, I know. But at least that 1% of unverifiable good alarm calls don't go unanswered.
But since when has a city council cared about anything but their own asses?
Posted by Nukevet at 07:16 AM | Comments (1)
I've seen better
But this one will do.
Dave Letterman's "Top Ten Signs Hillary Clinton Wants to Be Vice President"
(I've highlighted my favorite)
10. The Washington, D.C. TJ Maxx has sold out of pantsuits.
9. She's practicing sitting around doing nothing.
8. Instead of pretending to be from New York, she's pretending to be from key battleground states Ohio, Florida and Michigan.
7. Bragged to reporters the next "Hillary-Gate" is going to be off the hizzook.
6. Says she wants to be the first female Vice President since Gore.
5. Just purchased a large amount of Halliburton stock.
4. Called Century 21 to ask about listings for undisclosed locations.
3. Well, there's the "Kerry/Clinton" tattoo.
2. Firing up the ol' paper shredder.
1. If it would help, she'd have sex with Bill.
Posted by Nukevet at 06:02 AM | Comments (0)
They're mad as hell
And they ain't gonna take that shit off no white boy.
Civil Rights Group Seeks Kerry Apology
The head of a civil rights and legal services advocacy group wants Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry to apologize for saying he wouldn't be upset if he could be known as the second black president.
"John Kerry is not a black man — he is a privileged white man who has no idea what it is in this country to be a poor white in this country, let alone a black man," said Paula Diane Harris, founder of the Andrew Young National Center for Social Change.
What should really offend them is that none of the libs questioned the statement when Kerry said it.
Found @ the Poor Schmuck's Place
Posted by Nukevet at 05:54 AM | Comments (0)
March 09, 2004
The Main Stream News "Shell Game"
With all of the 'gay marriage news' out there lately, folks have been forgetting the people we should be thinking about.
As an example, head on over to Rivrdog's place to view this post in particular.
If you listened to the mainstream news, you'd think that the only people we have to worry about are in pic#1.
When the people we really should be worrying about are in pic #2.
Posted by Nukevet at 06:56 AM | Comments (2)
March 01, 2004
A Word to the Wise
One of the newer persons on my blogroll came out with a very pointed scenario over the weekend.
Some of you may remember the Kim du Toit scenario that came out a couple weeks back (for those who don't remember or know, here is a link to it and the results)
And here is my post from last October on my SHTF pack.
But this scenario from Rivrdog is more detailed and a lot closer to home. Rivrdog is a good writer and just reading the second half put me in a mind to go dig out the SHTF packs and make sure everything was there.
It is really part two of a two part essay he titles "The Weapons Locker - S.H.T.F."
Here is Part 1 where he talks about firearms, tactics and training in both.
Here is Part 2 - The Scenario.
If you get down this paragraph:
In the past hour, you emptied your weapons locker, dividing the weapons amongst your two vehicles, making sure that the carbine and shotgun are in separate vehicles. Your other gear is crammed into all the nooks and crannies of your rides, you've briefed the other driver (your oldest son, a 17-year old who is now a man whether he wants to be or not), you checked your communications (cell phones, FRS radios) and you are driving out of town. It was tense leaving your neighborhood, as you actually saw a neighbor getting harassed by a carload of thugs and wanted to stop, but you chose, wisely to go on. You're not on the Interstate, but on county roads leading to your destination, a Kiwanis camp two generations of your family have enjoyed every summer. There's little traffic, and you get there in an hour.
And realize that you haven't thought about this topic, WAKE UP! This isn't Disneyland.
Posted by Nukevet at 07:32 AM | Comments (4)
More silence from the media
With only three days to go before Tuesday's Democratic primary, Vietnam veterans rallied Saturday outside Sen. John Kerry's campaign headquarters in Manhattan � but a Band of Brothers they were not.
Side by side with a coalition of Vietnamese-Americans from across the country, members of the Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry chanted "Commander-in-Chief Kerry? No Way!" under banners and signs decrying the Democratic front-runner as a traitor.
"He betrayed us. He stabbed us in the back," Jerry Kiley, 57, co-founder of the ad hoc group, screamed to the crowd of about 400 people packed on Park Avenue South. "We will never allow him to be our commander-in-chief. Ever!"
Found @ Judicious Asininity
Posted by Nukevet at 07:15 AM | Comments (1)
February 26, 2004
Just one more point here
On the gay-marriage debate.
After being called a homophobe by multiple 'Ends Justify the Means' gay marriage advocates for questioning the the route they're being led down, I've decided that I just don't care anymore, eitherway.
But then I saw this essay written by Orson Scott Card over at The Spoonman's Place. I was going through the comments and I kept seeing references to the Jim Crow 'anti-miscegenation laws'.
Commenter Tongue Boy, rather eloquently, puts forth an example as to the differences between the Jim Crow laws and what the pro gay marriage folks would have people believe is happening today.
But not being very eloquent myself, I'm going to put it very bluntly.
The reason that the laws against interracial marriage were struck down was for one reason. A black male and a white male are the same and equal.
However, I cannot think of any person who would admit that a white male and a white female are the same. Certainly they are the same in respect to their rights in society, but not in their responsibilities and then, of course, you have the physical differences.
Again, I am only sick and tired of this issue mistakenly being called a 'civil rights issue'. Here's the disclaimer again.
As an added bonus, you should read Raging Dave's words on this subject. I think I'm just about where he's at.
Posted by Nukevet at 06:12 AM | Comments (2)
February 25, 2004
Today is the day
Today is the debut of Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion of the Christ"
I would just like to point out something I haven't seen anywhere in the blogoverse yet (if you have seen this topic, my apologies for not getting around enough)
If you listen to the movie critics who have seen the movie, this is the worst, most horrible and needless movie ever made.
but do you remember when Bowling for Columbine hit the big screen. It was advertised as a "Must See Movie".
I know this comes as a no-brainer to those who frequent RNS, but I still find it a bit odd that Hollywood can pan a movie that sticks to the orginial story (whether you believe it or not/your milage may vary) and puts forth what a vast majority of the western world sees as historical truth in a very well put together format.
But they absolutely loved a movie that is 90+ minutes of utter bias in editing, staged sequences, half-truths and outright lies.
And they wonder why the majority of America could care less about what they think.
Around blogland, I've seen many different attitudes about this movie, Mr. Gibson, his crackpot father, the merchandising, etc, etc.
I'll tell you all now that I am going to go see it. Not anytime soon, mind you.
I can't stand movie theaters, but in a couple weeks after the hype settles down, I'll venture out with the Analog Wife (a recovering Irish Catholic) and take it all in.
Anyway, leave you thoughts in the comments.
Posted by Nukevet at 06:11 AM | Comments (5)
February 18, 2004
I'm getting just about tired of this
I doubt that this will win me any friends, so before you continue, please read the disclaimer in the extended entry.
It seems that the new Democrat Mayor of San Francisco and his minions have decided that they are above the law.
They are making changes to government documents,
In fact, they have decided that they are all California State Supreme Court Justices,
If that is not eliteism, I don't know what is.
What if, as an average citizen, I decide that my interpretation of the state constitution of California concludes that I do not need a concealed pistol license to carry a firearm.
I would be arrested as soon as I was discovered and, if arrested in San Francisco, I would be prosecuted by the same city city lawyers now encouraging the mayor to break the law.
Sounds to me like some "For me, but not for thee' crap.
On a side note, I was not able to find that last quote in any US publication through Google News.
On a "don't go there, AK" note (say it with me now "don't go there AK").
Too freaking late.
Since the current city lawyers think that they and other city officials are OK to interpret the laws of the city and state for their own agendas, why is Daniel White considered a criminal for what he did to Harvey Milk?
You all remember who Harvey Milk was, right?
While I will admit that violating the law in order to accomodate 'Gay Marriage' is nothing when compared to murder, the premise is the same.
Laws are laws. Not suggestions. You change them in the legislature and enforce them in the courts.
Not the other way around.
Disclaimer:
I really couldn't care less about gays getting married.
I have seen too many episodes of the Jerry Springer Show to believe in any 'Sanctity of Marriage' between heterosexuals.
However, I am a happily married hetero who will not stand for people saying that I am shoving my values down their throats.
I will also not stand for a lobbying group which 'Venue Shops' in order to find a court with which it can advance its agenda judicially instead of legislatively (ie Mass).
That is one of the many reasons I have deep disdain for the Anti-Gun Lobby.
I am also tiring of the lovefest currently taking place in San Francisco with the breaking of multiple state laws so that the tourism and entertainment trade there can get a boost from the mayor's office.
The current antics of the 'Gay Rights Lobby' is in the middle of a selfish and petty "But I'm in Loooooove" escapade.
Examples of said antics;
The whole "Right to Marry" bullshit that is being spouted off willy-nilly. I have yet to be presented with evidence that there has ever been a 'Right to Marry".
People comparing this topic to the civil rights struggle of the 50's and 60's.
Anyone who says that the 'Gay Marriage Struggle' is akin to the struggles of blacks during the middle of the 20th Century is spitting in the face of every black person born before 1964 and deserves to have a black person of that vintage spit right back in their face.
Only once before have I covered this topic here at RNS. The reason being, that it always causes a flame war wherever it breaks out.
No matter how civil you try to be, some monkey always finds his way into the discussion and, in true monkey fashion, starts flinging their fecal matter about "civil rights' and calling people bigots.
In a discussion on this topic at 4 Right Wing Wackos, I was told that I was practicing "Marriage Apartheid" by someone who (surprise!) could not respond with a single example of where 'The Right to Marry' was listed in either the US Constitution or Bill of Rights or in the constitution of any US state.
If you would like to have a discussion on this topic, feel free to use the comments section on THIS post. Any discussion on this topic on any other post will be deleted. I'll not put up with a flame war going on in the archives.
If you do not want to use the comments as a forum, feel free to e-mail me.
You are hereby forwarned that I love to play Devil's Advocate and may possibly hit you with analogies that could possible disturb your sensibilities.
Also, I will not trade insults via e-mail. You know where I can be found, say it to my face.
Posted by Nukevet at 07:51 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
February 17, 2004
Drive that old Chrysler to Mexico, Boy
They send their people up here and take our cars down there.
Thousands Of Stolen U.S. Vehicles Found In Central America
Former Houston Oilers football player Alonzo Highsmith has wondered for almost a decade what happened to his fully-loaded Ford F-250 truck after it was stolen from a Houston restaurant parking lot in 1995.
Turns out it ended up a lot farther away than he ever imagined: It's in Guatemala.
Houston police found the Ford, along with more than 3,200 stolen vehicles -- most from Texas, California and Florida -- by tracing vehicle identification numbers through a Guatemalan database.
"The NAFTA freeway makes it so easy and inexpensive for them to just steal the car and drive it down from Houston to Guatemala," said Lt. Victor Rodriguez of Houston's auto theft division. "They can do it for $100 in gas, and there are very few checks."
It is suspected that many of the vehicles end up in Mexico. Others make it farther south.
Here is a tip: The easiest way to keep your car from being stolen is to install a well hidden battery limiter switch. You hit the switch before you exit the vehicle and no one can steal it without either finding the switch or bringing a tow truck.
The switch lets only a small amount of juice through. Enough to keep the presets on your stereo and (if applicable) for your car's computer to stay running, but not enought to crank the starter.
Sears sells one of the coolest setups around, for those who don't want a full-on anti-theft system/alarm, when you buy one of their "Die Hard" brand batteries. It bolts directly up to the battery and is activated by a simple ON/OFF keychain device like that for a car alarm.
And to any car thieves out there, my alarm doesn't make a noise. Except for the pager-like device in my pocket that lets me know someone is messing with my vehicle. I have no reservations about engaging in a citizens arrest and taking you out to the nearest reservation and leaving you there.
And 1000 non-redeemable points to the first person who can name the source of the title of this post.
Posted by Nukevet at 08:38 AM | Comments (1)
February 16, 2004
"Hey guys, you wanna knock it off?"
That is what one Justin Raimondo is asking of his fellow gay activists in his American Enterprise article.
A Gay Man Decries "Gay Rights"
The gay activists of yesteryear asked government to leave them alone. Their political program centered on decriminalizing homosexual relations between consenting adults. But today, as tolerance of homosexuality grows, gay activists are increasingly turning to government to impose their agenda on society. Though state power has been used as a bludgeon against gay people since at least the Middle Ages, suddenly today�s gay leaders seem to be picking up the club themselves, saying, �Now it�s our turn.� This is a great irony�and a potential cause of trouble for homosexuals and turmoil for America.
But something happened to divert the gay movement from the original goal. Today, the so-called gay rights movement sees government as the agency, not the enemy, of liberty. From socialized medicine to anti-discrimination legislation to mandatory �tolerance� lessons in the schools, there is no scheme to increase the power of government these alleged freedom fighters do not endorse.
What with the Gay Rights Movement, the Anti-Gun/Smoking/Fossil Fueled Vehicle/Immigration Enforcement/Logging/etc movements, the government is no longer a vehicle, it is now a twenty car Amtrak locomotive.
Topical disclaimer below.
Disclaimer:
I really couldn't care less about gays getting married. I have seen too many episodes of the Jerry Springer Show to believe in any 'Sanctity of Marriage' between heterosexuals. However, I am a happily married hetero who will not stand for people saying that I am shoving my values down their throats because I will not cheer on their selfish and petty "But I'm in Loooooove" escapade.
Examples;
I am sick to death of the whole "Right to Marry" bullshit that is being spouted off willy-nilly.
I am also sick to death of people comparing this topic to the civil rights struggle of the 50's and 60's. Anyone who is doing that is spitting in the face of every black person born before 1964 and deserves to have a black person of that vintage spit right back at them.
I am also very pissed off that government officials are using civil disobedience tactics and blatantly breaking the state law (Frisco), and ram-rodding this through the judiciary (Mass) instead of getting it legislated.
I have not covered this topic here at RNS because it always causes a flame war wherever it breaks out. No matter how civil you try to be, some monkey always finds his way into the discussion and, in true monkey fashion, starts flinging their fecal matter about "civil rights' and calling people bigots.
In a discussion on this topic at 4 Right Wing Wackos, I was told that I was practicing "Marriage Apartheid" by someone who (surprise!) could not respond with a single example of where 'The Right to Marry' was listed in either the US Constitution or Bill of Rights or in the constitution of any US state.
If you would like to have a discussion on this topic, feel free to use the comments section on THIS post. Any discussion on this topic on any other post will be deleted. I'll not put up with a flame war going on in the archives.
If you do not want to use the comments as a forum, feel free to e-mail me.
You are hereby forwarned that I love to play Devil's Advocate on this subject and may possibly hit you with analogies that may disturb your sensibilities.
Also, I will not trade insults via e-mail. You know where I'm at, say it to my face.
Posted by Nukevet at 05:55 AM | Comments (0)
February 11, 2004
Oh.My.Gawd
Bush and the Senate Repubs have actually found a bill that is TOO EXPENSIVE for their tastes!
President Bush and some Senate conservatives are balking at the price tag of a major highway bill, dimming prospects for legislation that normally is embraced by Congress because it brings money and jobs to every corner of America.
The Senate's six-year, $318 billion highway and mass transit bill, in its second week on the Senate floor, faces a Republican filibuster and White House opposition over its cost.
Hallelujah!
Posted by Nukevet at 08:37 AM | Comments (0)
February 10, 2004
Hajib HubBub
Darn those headscarves.
The BBC asked 8 different individuals for their views on the great French headscarf ban. How they chose these people for comment, I have no idea.
My favorite was from this "prominent feminist":
Alice Schwarzer is a prominent German feminist.
This issue is about the constitution, and the division between state and religion - a hard fought for achievement of the enlightenment. The weakening of this division is utterly incomprehensible, particularly as it comes at a time when the worldwide offensive of the theocrats is not just making countries with Muslim majorities subservient to their inhumane "holy laws", but is also threatening democracies worldwide. Countries like France have long grasped the consequences of this.
The Green politician in charge of immigrant affairs, Marieluise Beck has the cheek to warn of a "demonisation" of the headscarf, that a ban on headscarves in schools will "push Muslim women into the hands of Islamic fundamentalists". In fact the opposite is the case: the passiveness of politicians leaves the majority of Muslim women in Germany powerless against the militant minority of fundamentalists.
Posted by Nukevet at 06:02 PM | Comments (2)
February 06, 2004
Mr Hat, Meet Mr Ring
My week just keeps going down hill. As I spoke of yesterday, Sheriff Reichert announced today that he will make a run for the US House of Representatives.
King County Sheriff Dave Reichert, a career law officer who spent years working to bring the Green River killer to justice, announced Thursday that he will run to succeed fellow Republican Jennifer Dunn in Congress.
Reichert, 53, is the first Republican to enter the race since Dunn surprised the party last week by announcing her retirement from her 8th District post after six two-year terms.
At least I have one good sign,
Reichert cited Dunn and former President Ronald Reagan as two strong influences.
"Those are two people I will pattern myself after," he said.
Posted by Nukevet at 05:33 AM | Comments (0)
February 04, 2004
Two time loser
I almost feel sorry for the guy.
A Super Bowl gambler who lost big allegedly took a dive off the Whitestone Bridge - but doctors wager he'll pull through after landing in a pile of snow.
Cops did not say how much Adrian Conde, 25, lost on the game, but it was enough to make him want to cash in his chips. So around 11 p.m., less than an hour after the New England Patriots beat the Carolina Panthers, 32-29, Conde stopped his girlfriend's station wagon in the bridge's far right Bronx-bound lane and leaped, cops said.
Last Friday, the most popular question around work was "So, which team you got money on?"
I got so tired of being asked, that I started answering "The home team."
Posted by Nukevet at 05:49 AM | Comments (0)
February 03, 2004
Speaking of 'Hardcore',
"Just after midnight Sunday morning, 40-year-old Sally White of Bozeman won a 2002 Limited Edition Harley-Davidson model 883 Sportster - the hard way.
She had been standing in the parking lot of Yellowstone Harley-Davidson with one hand on the cycle for 35 hours and eight minutes.
She outlasted six finalists in the promotional contest, which began at 1 p.m. Friday. The runner-up, Scott Norquist, a log hauler from Livingston, was disqualified when his body temperature dropped to 95.8 degrees, said Ardi DeVries, the dealership owner."
I can see Raging Dave outlasting this lady.
Posted by Nukevet at 06:49 AM | Comments (1)
January 30, 2004
I don't know if it could be considered 'cold'
But this needs to be done more often.
Man sues widow of neighbor he killed in self-defense
YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) � A man who shot a neighbor to death in self-defense last year is suing the neighbor's widow, asserting that she should have kept her mentally ill husband from regaining his guns.
If it takes litigation, and yes lawyers, to make people act responsibly in cases like this, then you can bet your ass that I'm behind it. If this woman and her family lose their house to pay for what her husband did, that is just too damn bad. She had the same opportunity to stop her husband as the man who ended up shooting him.
She didn't even bother to call 911.
Later in the story, it talks about how a judge issued a court order, returning the dead guys guns (taken away after a previous psychotic episode) to him. I think the plaintiff should also put that judge, and all the doctors who said the guy was ok, on the lawsuit as defendants and make them explain themselves.
I read somewhere that Saddam Hussien (or one of the modern murderous dictators) would send a bill for the bullet used to kill a person to the family of that person. As much as I cannot stand it, I must say that I would do the same to someone I had to shoot in self defense.
The ammo I use for defensive purposes costs $2 per round. If I have to use one or more to keep someone else's deliquent family member off me or mine, you can bet your ass that they're getting a bill. I'll probably charge them a 'firearms cleaning fee' as well.
Posted by Nukevet at 08:45 AM | Comments (1)
January 28, 2004
BBC reaction
As always, a lot of the juicy goodness of a story comes from the opinions of those reading it.
Now, obviously, the BBC will choose mainly comments that make it look as good as possible under the circumstances. The disclaimer makes that crystal clear:
Disclaimer: The BBC may edit your comments and cannot guarantee that all e-mails will be published.
That is why you see quotes like:
This has to be one of the bleakest days of my long life. This is the day that truth was officially abandoned in England for political expediency.
Jim Dodds, Vancouver, BC, Canada
I don't think anyone comes out of this affair smelling of roses. The points are expressed in such a way as to think of some sort of whitewash as far as government officials are concerned. It calls into question their integrity. Still, I suppose you get the government voted for and in the end Joe Public feels cheated and completely disenchanted. Where oh where are the politicians of stature and eminence.
Christopher Robins, London UK
Of course, the conspiracy/cover-up group are out in full force:
I am a 55 year school teacher. I have been listening to the coverage of the Hutton report and I am incensed by the findings and the responses of people who are clearly trying to deflect from the government's mismanagement of the whole war issue and everything surrounding it. I felt it incumbent to say that I fully support the BBC, am completely satisfied with their integrity (note the objective way they are p>reporting the issue on their news channel) and would strongly urge no mass of resignations and that they continue to represent the country in the fair and respected way they always have! I wish I could sy more effectively.
Valerie Huggett, Lydbrook, Gloucestershire
The judge stated that Blair did not lie, well obviously he is going to say that Hutton was appointed by the prime minister! All this report will achieve is to reign in the BBC and make them and any other media outlet thinks twice about dissenting against the will of ruling power.
Mark Colegrove, Leicester
What a complete waste of tax payer's money! With an outcome which was obvious from the start... The government would not have launched the enquiry if they really thought it could do much damage. Of course the real questions aren't about Kelly. They are about Intelligence, sexed up or just plain useless?
Neil, St Albans, England
But, there's a fair bit of critical stuff in the comments as well. In this situation, there's really no way for the BBC to spin this, although it is amusing to see some of the commentors try.
I left a comment from beautiful Baton Rouge - I wonder if it will be "edited", ignored, or posted? I was completely civil, so it can't be ignored on those grounds, at least.
Posted by Nukevet at 07:19 PM | Comments (0)
Ah crap, I forgot!
You must absolutely go to Repatriate right now and read this post.
Jeff posted it during the iPowerWeb fiasco and I told him I would post this when we got back up.
The Myth of Unemployment in America
I am thirty-one years old and have never been unemployed. Let me qualify that statement: I have never been involuntarily unemployed. Every time I needed a job, it never took me longer than a week to find one. I looked in the "Help Wanted" section of my local newspaper, called to arrange interviews, and usually within a few days found myself hired. Some jobs paid better than others, some required physical labor, and most required long hours. But they all fulfilled the most important criteria of employment: they allowed me to pay my bills and keep Uncle Sam's well-chewed titty out of my mouth.
Yes, welfare bums, that was a slur aimed at you. For all of you out there on the dole (which is to say, on MY nickel), complaining about how you lost your job and you can't find work, my advice is this - GET OFF YOUR ASS. If you're on your sixth month of unemployment benefits, it's not that you can't find work, it's that you're in hiding, hoping that work doesn't find YOU. The excuse "There are no jobs out there" is bullshit. I defy anyone to show me a newspaper from any sizable American town with an empty "Help Wanted" section. The excuse at this point usually morphs to "Well, there are no good jobs out there."
Now we're getting somewhere. You're too good to drive a truck, cut grass, clean toilets, cook food, wash dishes, or paint houses, but you're not too good to accept handouts indefinitely. So, if that Wal-Mart greeter job paid $40,000 per year, you could conceivably be bothered to apply for it, but until that day, you'd rather Uncle Sugar just took some of my money and handed it over to you. So what you're really saying is that you don't want a JOB, you want a CHECK.
He absogotdamlutely hits the nail on the head right there!
Posted by Nukevet at 08:39 AM | Comments (3)
January 27, 2004
New Virus Alert
Damn, this new virus is spreading like a, er, virus. I had over 50 infected e-mails in my inbox today, most of them to bogus "nukevet" accounts. I even got one "from" AK, with the infected zip attachment.
Remember, NEVER open a file with an attachment that you aren't expecting, even if it from someone you trust.
Run anti-virus software.
Back up your important shit.
This has been a public service announcement from softgreenglow.com. That is all.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:01 PM | Comments (3)
January 21, 2004
We're Baaaaaaack
OK, after a little server induced hiatus, RNS is back. Sort of. I'm still waiting to see when (if) our new domain propagates. So far, I have gotten exactly zero help from my old hosting service. Finally, after telling them I want to transfer my domain, I got an e-mail from technical support, giving me a list of approximately 15,000 things to try, and urging me to "read the faq" before contacting technical support. I requested the DNS transfer 4 days ago. So far, I haven't heard word one from my old hosting service. If you are looking for an ISP, send me an e-mail. I can tell you which one I wished I had avoided, and which one I have landed with now.
Speaking of my "new" host - I can't say enough good about them. "Them" is the crew over at Hosting Matters, and they absolutely saved me. They gave me more help before I was even a paying customer than I got from my previous host. If you are looking for a hosting company, use these guys. Period. I'm not kidding. You'll be sorry if you don't. Really. Seriously.
Having said all of that, I have a temporary fix in place. If the domain migrates, no problem. If it doesn't, then I'll have to deal with it.
Oh, yeah - BACK YOUR SHIT UP.
That is all. Regular programming will begin (almost) immediately.
Posted by Nukevet at 01:10 AM | Comments (0)
January 14, 2004
An Odd Occurance
Yesterday, I wrote about Governor "Photo-Op" Locke's State of the State address and how his plans for the state in the last year of his administration show that he hasn't learned the errors of his ways.
And now, from the same paper that brought you the now infamous "S-Factor Test" column writer Neal Starkman, comes an Op-Ed piece that actually makes sense.
Did you know that, if you have absolutely no skills, no work ethic and no grasp of the english language, your employer still has to pay you the highest state mandated minimum wage in the country?
Yep, Whopper Wranglers get paid $7.16 starting wage. And then the lefties wonder why they have to pay so much for coffee around here.
Even though I am not an employer, I thoroughly agree with this guy.
Posted by Nukevet at 12:58 AM | Comments (0)
January 01, 2004
The Dance.
Looking back on the memory of
The dance we shared 'neath the stars alone
For a moment all the world was right
How could I have known that you'd ever say goodbye
And now I'm glad I didn't know
The way it all would end the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance I could have missed the pain
But I'd of had to miss the dance
Holding you I held everything
For a moment wasn't I a king
But if I'd only known how the king would fall
Hey who's to say you know I might have changed it all
And now I'm glad I didn't know
The way it all would end the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance I could have missed the pain
But I'd of had to miss the dance
Yes my life is better left to chance
I could have missed the pain but I'd of had to miss the dance.
Garth Brooks
You keep the faith however you can. Strength comes only partly from within, the faith that others place in you can make all the difference, it can pull you out of the darkness of your own pain. It can make you reach out when your body cries out for you to pull back. It isn't indeed yet the end, not for many years hopefully. Garth is wrong about one other thing.
"Hey who's to say you know I might have changed it all."
I wouldn't change a damn thing, and I still can find it in me to chuck someone through a window, it just costs me more than it used too. (Grin), a used up Grizzley bear, is still....
A Grizzley.
BTW............HAPPY NEW YEAR!
A Toast to us all.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:48 PM | Comments (1)
When it's not so much fun anymore
At the same time, attacks against coalition troops are now just as likely, if not more so, to kill Iraqi bystanders as they are to hurt the soldiers, who wear body armor and travel in armored vehicles.
More and more Iraqi civilians now use the word terrorist to describe the attacks, not resistance.
Earlier this week, a roadside bomb aimed at a U.S. military convoy killed two Iraqi children and an American soldier in the Baghdad neighborhood of Karrada. Two days after that, another roadside bomb in the same neighborhood again killed and wounded Iraqi civilians, but no Americans.
On the streets of Karrada after the second bombing, Abbas Mahmoud said the insurgents have crossed the line. He said, no Americans have been hurt. This is not resistance. The resistance should not attack poor, innocent people, or kill his Iraqi brothers. He says if they want to fight the Americans, let them do it face to face.
I saw this coming a couple of months back, they can hardly be the "peoples" resistence when they actively try to punish the civilian population of Iraq with bombings. They are making as many converts to our side as we are. We may now be on the downhill side of the ending of the terrorism in Iraq. With Saddam in chains, reconstruction proceeding, elections scheduled, and no prospect that we will be driven out,.....The quickest way to Iraqi independence is to co-operate with the coalition, less of course,.............you happen to be a murdering baathist goon. or jihadi from Syria.
As has been pointed out by many, once the Iraqi's take over, the resistence may long for the days of the gentle treatment at the hands of the US. At least we don't hang them from streetlights.
Posted by Nukevet at 01:01 PM | Comments (1)
December 31, 2003
When you have a bad day.
I promise, no more of this for a while. But, I feel compelled to show this information, for a couple of reasons. One, if you have strange and persistent pain, see a doctor ASAP, don't just bite it down, get help, I didn't. Second, I should be specific about the type of damage I have, so that when I say my day sucked, you know exactly what I mean.
Caution, medical information to follow. If you don't care to know, don't read it, I won't blame you for not doing so.
Clinical Symptoms
Pressure on a nerve by a bone spur may irritate the nerve resulting in pain in the neck and arm. Headaches similar to tension headaches that are worse during cervical extension may be due to cervical arthritis. Severe nerve compression or spinal cord compression may not cause pain as the body accommodates to the compression but incoordination, numbness and progressive weakness in the arms and hands. Pressure on the spinal cord can cause catastrophic injury with loss of strength in arms and legs, loss of bowel and bladder control or true paralysis may occur.
Nearly everytime I get tired at work, at home, though the arm and shoulder pain is the worst. This is cervical.
This is lumbar.
Clinical Symptoms
Patients usually complain of a dull pain in your lower back when they stand or walk. The pain often radiates into the buttocks and thighs. The symptoms are made worse with walking and tend to improve with rest. Patients often report improvement when walking if they bend forward and flex at the waist, such as over a shopping cart or over a cane.
As the nerves become compressed, patients complain of several symptoms including: pain in one or both legs, numbness or tingling in the legs, weakness in the legs , or progressive bowel and bladder difficulties. Back pain is very common as the joints are inflamed and the nerves to the joints and back
muscles become irritated.
The third and final area the Thoracic, I have the bulk of my arthritis there, that was where it began. Three crushed vertebre and time did the rest. I can find little on the web about that specific area, because arthritis there isn't very common. I have learned this, it's where your ribs connect to your spine, and mine is unstable there, I can crack my back, just by shrugging my shoulders, and it's not a pleasant sensation. Coughing, sneezing hurt like a bitch, just having someone pat me on the back elicits an indrawn breath most of the time. I somettimes get soft tissue damage in the material between my ribs, as the ribs stretch apart from the instability when I do a no no. Like having a broken rib for a week, hurts to breath deeply.
The good news is I have no aparent spinal stenosis, no compression of the spinal cord itself. I have what appears to be the compression of nerve roots, by inflammation and bone spurs growing on my vertebre. Its not life threatening, it is however, a motherfucker to live with.
And yes, I had a bad day today.
But that's neither anyone else's fault, or problem. I was young and invulnerable once, or so I believed. The damage is a sort of pennance for past sins and arrogance. I can't quit though, my wife and kids, I won't have my children talk of me with shame in their hearts. I can't do that to them. Sadly, as I've said before, you can get used to anything in time, even this. My doctor tells me I'm outside the curve, I shouldn't be able to function as well as I do. I shouldn't be strong still, shouldn't be as mobile as I am. For that I blame my genes, my grandfathers upper body mass, my fathers stiff neck. My wife just thinks I'm pig headed,.....guilty of that too I guess.
So a warning then, if you're young and full of life. Enjoy it, but not stupidly. The price of that kind of pride is more than you would want to bare. I wouldn't, if I had a choice.
Posted by Nukevet at 04:40 AM | Comments (5)
December 27, 2003
It's all relative I suppose.
Brain Imaging Confirms That People Feel Pain Differently.
"We have all met people who seem very sensitive to pain as well as those who appear to tolerate pain very well," said Robert C. Coghill, Ph.D., lead investigator. "Until now, there was no objective evidence that could confirm that these individual differences in pain sensitivity are, in fact, real."
Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to assess brain function, Coghill and colleagues found that study participants who said that a heat stimulus was intensely painful had pronounced activation of brain regions that are important in pain. In contrast, people who said that the same stimulus was only mildly painful had minimal activation of these same areas
I believe this is merely documenting what people have always known really. I think it's all what you're used too as well. I don't feel small pain much at all anymore. Especially hand injury, the arthritis combined with my lessening vision,....accidents happen. I move my hand sharply to grab, say a falling object, and I miss judge the distance a little. Smash my hand full speed into the edge of a cabinet ot table top. Ten years ago that would have really friggin hurt. Now I barely notice any discomfort at all from it. Almost beneath the radar. It happens more frequently these days, my hands are rarely without some fresh scars. My job requires me to use my hands quickly, and with my balance often messed up.....
The arithritis in my spine always registers, everything else minus the occasional toothache rarely so. The human body and mind can adapt to almost anything. The pain increases, but so does your tolerance of it, never as much as you would like, but it does increase. You get used to it. Sometimes at work a teenager will witness me getting an injury like skinning a patch of skin off a finger and just about wet his pants. "Jesus" doesn't that hurt?" Well,....yes and no. I feel it, but it's usually a dull pain, something small and in the background. If I'm not thinking about it, it isn't there. It doesn't make me proud to be like this now, it just makes me tired. Long term pain does that, it wears you out constantly fighting it. It may make you much tougher than when you were eightteen, but the cost is hardly worth it.
I'm glad they are doing pain research, I'm not sure this study is giving us something that wasn't already apparent though.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:54 AM | Comments (4)
December 19, 2003
That's the rub isn't it?
I read this piece and quickly my eyes began to glaze over. I had to force myself to finish it. It's not really mean spirited, it's merely foolish in the extreme.
I'm going to surprise some people right now. I actually respect pacifists. I mean real ones, where nonviolence is an article of faith and there are no exceptions. Where they don't mean nonviolence for one side only, but turn away from carnage done in the name of non-Americans. I mean real Ghandi style pacifists. They are wrong, hopeless romantics and they are deluding themselves about the nature of conflict between men and nations. I respect them to the point where they live the talk that they talk.
MacArther said once that no one hates war more than a soldier, and I believe that's true. Few if any sign up because they wish to kill, that's not what motivates a man to take that oath. He may have many reasons, all good and all reasonable, but they really boil down to a simple reason, he wants to share in defending something. To protect, his family, his nation, the God he worships or even something he can't articulate. It's not a killers instinct but a father's that motivates a man to use his life in defense of his country. Killing is what you learn to do, but you hope you don't have to. You also feel the deaths of GI's strongly, because you can often put a face in a uniform where a lot of civilians see just a symbol. You know a man has died, not a faceless drone of a policy you hate, but a real breathing person, just like the men you shared the trials of service with. You know the cost, and you know the nature of such a death.
So yes, you do hate war. But you hate something else far more. You hate the cost of doing nothing, the cost to your own people, your family, your nation. You won't suffer them to be a victim. Not while you breathe.
What people like Bernice do not grasp is that evil is a very real thing. It's not a misunderstanding as she and others seem to think. Nor is it purely poverty, that's projecting your politics on a situation where they simply don't apply. The Iraqi's had oil wealth, a thriving culture, and a monster smothered it for his own gain. So how would feeding the poor have changed this? And what justice was served by Saddam's treachery? Bernice is a fool to make that arguement when it's so plainly and easily disproven.
I wish it was as simple as she seems to think. I wish we didn't have to shed blood, ours or theirs. I wish we could just spend a little more and just make it all go away.
It won't, and pretending that it can, is suicidal.
It's a foolish view she has, but I can respect her having it. Just that she should remember one thing. She couldn't exist, couldn't survive, if it weren't for millions of people who find the courage to risk their lives so that she could have such a safe haven to dream her dreams in.
I don't expect her to thank us, but it would be nice if she acknowledged the debt.
Posted by Nukevet at 03:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Surely this can't be right?
My reaction on reading this was , Huh? How can you live in the west and not know this? Have they gone too far in the PC drive so zealously persued in Europe? Taken the real reason for Christmas away entirely?
I don't now, but it's sad really.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:03 AM | Comments (1)
One step at a time, making friends.
This is what Americans do, sharing something we love with others. It won't make them Christian, that's not the point. It does show that friends are where you find them, and when shown a need, we will make an effort to help.
Posted by Nukevet at 01:51 AM | Comments (0)
December 07, 2003
A crack in the solid left, and a peek of sunlight.
I wonder if they still talk to her in the Hallways at the Guardian?
To contemplate the thought processes of such individuals makes any decent person want to wash their hands until the slime of hypocritical hatred is swept away. But when whole sections of society peddle such lies, it's scarier still. And when carriers of the disease are shielded by those who govern us, you start to believe the lunatics have taken over the asylum: the EU's racism watchdog recently suppressed a report on the rise of anti-semitism because it concluded that Muslims were behind many incidents. What sort of world do we live in, when racism is "allowed" to be reported only if it comes from the white and the right? What about a stubborn, shimmering little thing called truth?
Jarjar would not approve of this piece. The Guardian has, as leftwing as it is, exhibited a touch of sanity on occasion. I'm sure they'll get over it as soon as they can.
Posted by Nukevet at 03:33 AM | Comments (1)
November 26, 2003
Sooner, rather than later.
The Army is pushing to get this weapon sooner than planned, largely because of problems that have continued to occur with the M-16. This is a good source about the weapon.
I wish they would reconsider the 7.62mm round though. Knock down power is important. AK is the resident expert, and I value his judgement, so what do you think about it my friend?
Posted by Nukevet at 01:47 AM | Comments (11)
November 16, 2003
Just a quick note.
My profound apologies for the greater than normal typo's. I was in a rush yesterday trying to get the house ready for my son's 2nd birthday party, and was posting largely on the fly between projects. Sadly too, my vision is blurring a lot more lately and I suspect that my right eye is still deteriorating rapidly. (Old service injury, a stupid accident, clearing debris from a security fence in a high wind and caught some in the face, tore the cornea). Time for new lenses again.
Everybody will be here in a couple of hours. His birthday is the 19th, but this is the only day before when we could get everyone together.
I'll correct the more glaring ones as time allows.
Update, some corrections are now made, sorry, I know that typo's happen to all of us, but I try to not do it this often most of the time.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:44 AM | Comments (0)
November 15, 2003
A few dozen jobs lost.....
How about thousands? I'm in general sympathy with most people who lose a job through no fault of their own, it is a part of modern life. This however annoyed the Hell out of me.
WASHINGTON - Dozens of Forest Service employees in Utah and Montana were told last March they would be among the first victims of the Bush administration decision to bid out work by government employees to private contractors, who could do it cheaper.
Bad enough, but it soon becomes apparent that we are talking about high paid jobs with marketable skills. Everyone knows government jobs are soft and cushy, but damn it why should I pay for this, why do I have to subsidize someone to make twice what I do? Especially when something like this happens.
At an auction scheduled Dec. 3, other companies will have a chance to outbid Kroger for the 11 stores, as well as other Big Bear assets including stores, store leases and warehouses.
The Big Bear chain has 67 stores, most in Ohio and seven in West Virginia, company spokesman Marc Jampole said. There are two stores in Licking County, including the downtown Newark location and Southgate Shopping Center in Heath.
The proposed Ohio sales to Kroger include four stores in Columbus, two in Wapakoneta and one each in Marietta, New Bremen, Springfield, St. Mary's and Westerville.
Penn Traffic last month requested permission to close 41 of its less profitable stores in four states by mid-December, eliminating 2,000 jobs.
I have some personal knowledge of this, I worked for Big Bear for 14 years, I took my military leave while working for them. I resigned in 89, several months after Penn (the fuck) Traffic took over in a hostile buy out. I have since put in 14 years with a competiter. The point is simple, those people are screwed, no fancy government union to go to court for them, they get shown the street, some with over 40 years on the job. On Dec. 3rd. three weeks before Christmas.
I have a lot of friends among them. So what happens when you are 40 with no transferable skills and get dumped? What company will hire you for a novice position?
It's how the world works, I understand that, our system is harsh, brutal sometimes. The only answer is that all the other systems suck even harder. I asked an old aquiantence who's fairly high on the corparate food chain wether we could absorb some of them. He said yes, we would try to pull in that core of experienced people. The catch, is that they will be starting all over again, at the bottom. But it's a job. I'm doing what I can, locally, calling in favors with people I know, tweaking some guilt, twisting a bit. Just to try and get some of them hired where I work. I know my influence is tiny, miniscule, but if I can get even a few some work, it will be a good thing.
If I hadn't resigned then, I would be with them now. I believe in our system, our economy, but I'm realistic about it. People get hurt, The only comfort is that we need to look out for eachother. Not a government gimme, just one worker offering a helping hand to another. It's community, helping our own without being told too, or being taxed to absolve of us responsibility. It's not a difficult concept.
It used to be common, maybe you have to be small town to remember that.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:29 PM | Comments (1)
November 01, 2003
a riddle.
You are charged with protecting the president, terrorists would love to get to him. Then something like this happens. Suggestions are being made that the president was left vulnerable to a car bomb style attack. It's not that simple. They could have stopped the car sure, by killing everyone in it. But in this case it's a disturbed woman and three innocent children. This opens a whole can of worms.
Totally safe is a myth, I think the cops did as best they could. The only thing they could do better would be to park a ring of cars around the exits, blocking entry. That way, even a car bomb would have had to detonate away from the building. Depending on the size of the blast, even that isn't a necessarily a safe bet. An 18 wheeler would roll over cars, and how big could the bomb load be?
No simple easy answers. I suspect the Secret Service is well aware of the example set today. There will be changes, just not ones you read about in the papers. They do not discuss procedures.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:51 PM | Comments (1)
Reality rears it's head again.
Remember the wide spread condemnation of the US military after the Bagdad bombing of the UN headquarters? It was all our fault, we screwed up the security or somesuch nonsense from people who wouldn't understand security procedures if they smacked em in the face with a coal shovel.
The independent report is in, the verdict?
UN report slams Canadian for lapses in Baghdad blast
Steven Edwards
The Ottawa Citizen
Annan responds to 'dysfunctional' security in Iraq
By Evelyn Leopold
November 1, 2003 - 11:47AM
Panel to look into U.N.'s lax security
Annan
By Edith M. Lederer
Associated Press
The last one has this liitle jewel.
The report on the Aug. 19 truck bombing criticized the United Nations for shunning protection from U.S.-led coalition forces and for ignoring "credible information on imminent bomb attacks in the area." It also accused the United Nations of violating its own security rules.
This is not a case of I told you so. This is a case of sit down and shut up you moron.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:59 PM | Comments (1)
October 31, 2003
Truth in advertising, and presentation.
From Drudge, an update on the Reagan mini-series. No doubt the writers and producers of this show will scream interference, and censorship, but is it really? If I got the money together to produce a mini-series of say....Jimmy Carter, and then proceeded to write in whole passages of fiction, ignoring all requests by the Carter family to at least try and be fair. Would a request that I run a disclaimer at the bottom,
Gillespie said that if CBS denies the request, he will ask the network to run a note across the bottom of the screen every 10 minutes during the program's presentation informing viewers that the miniseries is not accurate.
Really be so unfair? Fiction is fiction, when you mix it with fact in such a way as that people who do not know their history can't tell the difference, then what purpose is served other than a purely partisan one. That everyone who's publicly connected to this in an important way is a member of the opposition party just ads to the suspection a hatchet job is in the works.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:30 PM | Comments (0)
October 30, 2003
This has got to annoy the democrats
I'm no economist, I follow the numbers, watch for what others I respect have to say, but it's not an area of interest for me. I do understand the basics, growth is good, no growth is bad, and that jobs are dependent on a thriving economy.
The democrats know that their only hope of challenging Bush in 04 is for the economy to be in the dumps. That's when their strengths come into play. They no matter how much they complain, can't change the nations perception that the democrats are very weak on national security. During the nineties Clinton used those trends and perceptions to take and hold the White House. But there is a major difference now, war, and the threat of continued attacks on American soil have shattered the easy times feelings that nurtured Clinton. So unless they can run on a poor economy, the democrats haven't a hope in Hell of retaking the White House. Enter the following,
WASHINGTON (AP) - The economy grew at a blistering 7.2 percent annual rate in the third quarter in the strongest pace in nearly two decades. Consumers spent with abandon and businesses ramped up investment, compelling new evidence of an economic resurgence.
As I said, economics aren't my area of interest, and I'm quite sure many of our readers understand the numbers far better than I. This has got to be devastating news to Dean and Kerry. Their pet issue has just disappeared in a cloud of dust, a confidant economy is the last thing they need. Which leaves the deficit, they can run on it if they like, but if we could pay it down in the nineties, then people can be forgiven for thinking that we can overspend a little in wartime.
From Drudge.
Posted by Nukevet at 12:50 PM | Comments (1)
October 21, 2003
You know, I kind of feel sorry for her
As a rule, I never comment on celeb's outside a political context. But this plays like a rerun of an old Cops episode. I grew up watching Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland in the old movies series Andy Hardy. I watched the mother self destruct in reruns of old shows.
So, this is really kind of sad. I was never a great fan of Lisa, but still, I think it's just,......I really do feel sorry for her.
Frankly, if that guy was in my life somehow, I'd probably beat him too.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:46 PM | Comments (0)
October 05, 2003
Maybe God
DOESN'T have a sense of humor.......
Via newcomer jcrue
Posted by Nukevet at 11:17 AM | Comments (0)
Data be Damned. Hand over your gun.
Hoooo, baby. This must have been a tough report for the CDC to release - and for CNN to report. I mean, we've been told for years that "gun control laws work" and that they "save lives" and "prevent violent crime" - despite evidence to the contrary in the UK,
So, what does an objective evaluation of the data suggest?
A sweeping federal review of the nation's gun control laws -- including mandatory waiting periods and bans on certain weapons -- found no proof such measures reduce firearm violence.
Ahhhh, but these things are always open to interpretation, you see:
The CDC said the report suggests more study is needed, not that gun laws don't work. But the agency said it has no plans to spend more money on firearms study.
Yep, they didn't get the results they wanted - so it means more study is needed. BUT, they aren't going to spend any more money doing so. Is this because it's no longer considered to be an important question, or because they know that spending more money will yield the same results. The CDC has been VERY active in the gun control arena: you can bet that the study was designed to find a positive effect for gun laws, and that the data were massaged every way possible to see if there was an effect. The fact that they were unable to find any benefit, coupled with their decision to not pursue the matter further, speaks volumes about what the CDC did (and did not) find when they tabulated their data.
And, of course, the Brady Center takes the opportunity yet again to tell us that gun control laws work - even if their benefit can't be discerned by reviewing the literature on gun control laws as was done by the CDC:
A spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence said the laws work, but it is nearly impossible to prove it [how convenient - ed] because people can buy guns in one state and carry them into one of the handful of states with strong antigun measures.
"It's hard to study whether gun control laws work in this country because we have so few of them," said Peter Hamm. "Talking about studying gun control in this country is like talking about studying democracy in Iraq."
So few gun laws? I thought there were something like 28,000 gun control laws already on the books across the US (I have no idea what the real number is, just that it is huge. If anyone can provide the real number, let me know). The Brady Center response is, however, typical of any ideologically driven argument. There is no evidence that gun control laws work. The CDC was unable to find any evidence that they work. But the Brady Center knows they work, and knows what is best for you. So they want the federal government to keep funding studies until they get the results they want. Then, once they get the results they want (from the taxpayer-funded studies that will be performed until the "appropriate" conclusion is reached, of course), they will try and get the same federal government to undo the second amendment. It doesn't matter what the data says - it only matters what THEY say. After all, THEY are the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, and have some kind of omnipotent knowledge when it comes to the effectiveness of gun control in the US. Study results be damned - THEY KNOW GUN CONTROL WORKS, DAMNIT!
But, of course, it is not that gun control laws don't work, it's because the studies are flawed:
"When we say we don't know the effect of a law, we don't mean it has no effect. We mean we don't know," said Dr. Jonathan Fielding, chairman of the CDC task force. "We are calling for additional high-quality studies."
This is classic researcher mental masturbation. We all go into a research project (including this kind of meta-analysis reviewing all of the literature on a topic) with pre-conceived ideas. This so-called "researcher bias" is very difficult to control for, and why, in the biological sciences, things are typically done in a "blinded" fashion. For example, if we are testing to see if a new cancer drug increases survival, then there will be a study done that compares the effects of the drug against a placebo - and the researcher won't know which compound an individual patient is receiving. This is harder to do for social sciences research, and allows investigator bias to come through, sometimes even in the face of perceived objectivity. So, if these results had come out of a meta-analysis performed by the NRA, you would be right to be skeptical and wonder where the bias lay. However, these results came from the pro-gun legislation CDC - which is telling indeed.
Of course, the CDC spokesman tells us their negative results aren't really negative, and offers all kinds of reasons why this is so - most of which blame the quality of the studies evaluated. This is also a classical researcher two step. If the results of the study support your pre-conceived ideas - then you are perfectly willing to believe that the study is well designed and appropriately controlled. If the results are NOT what you wanted, the tendency is to look for the problems with the study - after all, it couldn't possibly be your preconceived ideas that are in error, right?
I don't doubt the CDC spokesman's claims that the studies were less than ideal - retrospective meta-analyses never are. There are a huge amount of confounding factors involved. But I would be willing to bet a small fortune that, if there had been even the slightest positive benefit shown, these results would be being presented to us as definitive proof that gun control works, and there would be nary a word about how "inadequate" the studies reviewed were.
First Kyoto gets dissed by Russia, now this. It�s been a bad week for the tree-hugging "we know what's best for you" crowd.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:48 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
October 04, 2003
Ooooooops
You gotta protect the furry little animals, man.......
We recently had some ALF nonsense here at my university. Extensive damage was done to a lab in our building, with years of research destroyed and hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage.
It really is time to start dealing with these people like terrorists, rather than letting them continue to do whatever they want under the guise of "protectors of animal rights".
The net result? We now have cameras in all of the labs, and much more intrusive security. Aren't these ALF morons the same ones screaming about erosion of civil liberties, and the evils of "big brother"? Well, thanks for doing your little part to help "Patriot Act II" become a permanent fixture.
Posted by Nukevet at 08:45 AM | Comments (0)
September 21, 2003
At least they can't blame McDonalds for this one.
Globalization has felled another business that was a pure and unsullied example of regional pride.
More alarming was the news this week that some of Bavaria's most storied beer brands � including Lowenbrau � are being sold to Belgium's Interbrew conglomerate.
"It's sad," Munich resident Monika Heckel said Saturday, sitting in the late-summer sun in the Lowenbrau beer garden. "In Bavaria, you want to drink a Bavarian beer. I think the tourists do, too."
The Belgians did it, those sneaky little capitolists have struck at the heart of German culture. Life will never be the same.....sob sob..........sniff.
They will continue the name and product lines, leave the brewries in place, yet you just know at the next anti-global rally harmonia will be wearing black. Besides, this has no resonance in America. It's like saying a Hoosier bought Smuckers Jelly company from the Buckeye state. If they change little, the reaction would be a collective yawn......................For all the whining about us all living in a shrinking would where the opinion of foriegners is vital to do anything.....The anti-globalists are awfully provincial about these things. The rhetoric just doesn't match the actions. This will be considered bad, horrible, yet I doubt the Germans will even notice the change.
Crybabies and whiners the lot. It becomes clear quickly that they really don't think through their own positions. I don't really care if Belgium owns the Germans brewries, There's barely a dimes worth of difference between them anyway. But I expect that demands will be made to block the sale. If the companies just die, then at least they die German owned. A serious comfort to unemployed Germans I'm sure.
I await the complaints, this ought to be good.
Posted by Nukevet at 08:00 PM | Comments (0)
September 18, 2003
OK, what is it?
Some of you may know, but it was a fixture of military service for a long time. I still have one on my key ring.
Here's a clue.
C-rations, the terror of the cold war servieman, it would keep you alive, just not very happy about it. If you have lived on these for a while, then nothing much fazes you when it comes to food. I know good food, and I know maintenince fare. I can eat hash cold out of the can, and have when I was single and in a hurry. But I was kind of sorry to hear they were gone, that the MRE has totally replaced it.
I know nothing of MRE's, but I found this and it took me back.
From their research so far, they said one thing is certain.
�Hands down, the U.S. meals have won the MRE war,� Paston said.
�Not only was the taste of our MREs preferred, but the majority of more than 25 participants said they are much more convenient to eat from, and portability is easier. They are lighter, produce less trash and (are) more compact.�
But then, US rations always have won that contest, I heard horror stories of Brit rations, read my WWII history. The Japanese troops just carried a ball of sticky rice with some seaweed and vegetables in it. Maybe some dried fish. The French find mention here in the article.
�We found that many people enjoyed the taste of the French MREs over most; � particularly the lamb,� Paston said.
Well some people eat Brie too, which I consider one step below paint chips. Pity the French don't spend more time worrying about fighting to win as opposed to the size of their field kitchens.
Posted by Nukevet at 01:15 PM | Comments (8)
Have you heard this one?
From Cigar Dave, a little story.
THE BUNNY AND THE SNAKE
Once upon a time in a nice little forest, there lived an orphaned bunny and an orphaned snake. By a surprising coincidence, both were blind from birth.
Once day, the bunny was hopping through the forest, and the snake was slithering through the forest, when the bunny tripped over the snake and fell down. This, of course, knocked the snake about quite a bit.
�Oh my,� said the bunny, �I�m terribly sorry. I didn�t mean to hurt you. I�ve been blind since birth, so I can�t see where I�m going. In fact, since.
I�m also an orphan, I don�t even know what I am.�
�It�s quite OK,� replied the snake. �Actually, my story is much the same as yours. I, too, have been blind since birth, and also never knew my mother. Tell you what, maybe I could slither all over you, and work out what you are, so at least you�ll have that going for you.�
�Oh�that would be wonderful� replied the bunny. So the snake slithered all over the bunny and said, �Well, you�re covered with soft fur; you have really long ears; your nose twitches; and you have a soft cottony tail. I�d say that you must be a bunny rabbit!�
�Oh, Thank You! Thank You!� cried the bunny, in obvious excitement. The bunny suggested to the snake, �Maybe I could feel you all over with my paw and help you the same way that you�ve helped me.�
So the bunny felt the snake all over and remarked, �Well, you�re smooth and slippery. You have a forked tongue, no backbone, and no testicles.
I�d say you must be French!�
Badaboom daboom,..................................
Posted by Nukevet at 03:42 AM | Comments (4)
September 12, 2003
One of the reasons I live in the country
Is because I want to have my own land, and my own property, and be able to do with it as I please.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:00 AM | Comments (2)
September 06, 2003
Whispering in the dark sometimes
Just paint your face and shadow smile
Slipping me away from you
Oh it doesn't matter how you hide
Find you if we're wanting to
So slide back down and close your eyes
Sleep awhile - you must be tired
Some of you may recognize the lyrics. Burn, from The Cure. I was exposed to them a little from the soundtrack to The Crow movie. But it came during a dark time for me, I was working through some issues on death. Music sometimes has a very theraputic effect, allowing you to drain off some of the pain, to release some of the emotion. I listen to Meatloaf's Objects in the rearview mirror may be closer than they appear, for similar reasons. I chose music to fit my mood. Tonight it's quietly dark, sad, but not hopeless. Tomorrow I'll feel differently.
But for now, it's The Cure.
Posted by Nukevet at 03:53 AM | Comments (4)
August 31, 2003
Bizarre
I wonder if the pizza delivery guy really was trapped by some pycho, or if this is some wierd suicide kind of act?
Posted by Nukevet at 08:08 AM | Comments (1)
Nuclear Engineering 101
This post is a response to Puggs' comment that the Soviets made excellent submarines... I replied that while they made a LOT of submarines, they were not, by my standards, excellent. My standards involve getting your average crewman (me, for instance) back to the pier in one piece, and with the reasonable assumption of living for more than a few months or years after leaving the service.
Ship designs (as with all engineering projects) are a series of trade-offs. If you bulk up the armor, you have to reduce armament to maintain the same acceleration and top speed. If you go heavy on magazine space, you lose some independent deployment capability because there's not as much room for food. You install a kick-ass C3I (Command, Control, Communication, and Intelligence) suite and now your budget won't allow for ice-cream machines in the Wardroom.
In the Soviet Union's case, they decided to skimp in three major areas in their nuclear sub program: design testing and proofing, crew training, and reactor safety. This allowed them to play to their strengths: mass production, a large pool of labor in the form of conscripted sailors, and a reckless disregard for human life, or for the safety of their own personnel and the general public.
Lack of concern for human life is deeply embedded in Russian culture. This a topic that is probably un-PC in the extreme, and deserves a post of its own someday. However, briefly: the peasant class of Czarist Russia were considered chattel (a possession that was a part of a particular property; much like slavery except that they couldn't be sold off to another owner unless the land itself was sold) until the mid-19th century. Even after their emancipation their prospects were poor, and they formed the bulk of Russian armies, in the feudal traditions of old. Plow fodder at home, cannon fodder in the field, their lot in life was suffering and misery. When the Czar was overthrown, the new Communist dictators essentially continued the system under a different name. The People were the property of the Party, and if thousands had to die to complete an objective, well, there were always more where they came from. This lack of concern, in my opinion, is the base cause of the Russian nuclear Navy's abysmal safety record.
"Reactor shielding? That's a lot of weight for a submarine. Cut it by half. And that whole emergency cooling system seems like a lot of extra money for an unlikely occurrence. What's that? Crew health? They're conscripts, who cares if their cancer risk is tripled and their life expectancy drops by a quarter? If we don't have these subs rolling out of the yards in a year, we'll all see the firing squad."
"Crew training? That's very expensive and time-consuming, and a lot of these guys won't have much education anyway, would they understand what the hell we're talking about? Just train up the officers, they can tell the crewmen what to do."
The US Nuclear Navy has never had a serious reactor incident in more than 50 years of operation. This is because attitudes like those above are the antithesis of what Admiral H. G. Rickover demanded of the officers, crew, and contractors who were a part of the Nuclear Program. He was an asshole and a martinet, but he was perfect for instilling the anal retentive, eyes-open, double-checking mindset the Nuclear Program needed to survive.
Nukes in the US Navy use equipment designed ten, twenty, some times forty years earlier, not because there isn't newer stuff available, but because the old design has been proven to work in all sorts of conditions. The Navy evaluates new designs for years; they test to destruction. Nuclear-selected officers and enlisted personnel are trained exhaustively for almost two years before they even see a ship. They are schooled in theory, then trained in practice, and tested continuously to ensure that they retain their knowledge and skills. Enlisted Nukes don't follow the orders of seniors blindly; they are trained never to do so. In fact they are encouraged to contradict an officer (politely, of course) if they know the officer's planned course of action is wrong. This can lead to friction between Nuclear-trained junior enlistees and non-Nuclear senior NCO's and officers, as the Nukes are wont to suggest improvements or question decisions in a way that seems insubordinate to people accustomed to hearing "Yes, sir" and not much else.
That culture of safety in design, training and questioning attitudes is what keeps the US Nuclear Navy running smoothly. Without it, we might well have had as many early accidents as the Soviets. We certainly wouldn't have had as many recently, because the program would have died in infancy.
Yes, the Russians had a lot of submarines. Yes, they may have been able to go fast, or dive deep, or shoot far. But the price they paid for those abilities is higher than any right-thinking Navy would have accepted.
Posted by Nukevet at 04:48 AM | Comments (3)
August 30, 2003
So, does this make you feel
Posted by Nukevet at 12:10 PM | Comments (5)
August 29, 2003
Greetings, Earthlings...
Hello to all you RNS readers! My name is Erik Moll but I go by the name Mollbot 'round these parts, by which I mean the Blogosphere. Having heard that I was unable to blog because my computer was packed up for a move, Nukevet, Puggs, and the Analog Kid graciously offered me the chance to write for RNS now and again. I was, and am, honored that they felt I would add to the flavorful mix that is RNS.
Read on if you dare...
A little bit about me: I'm 25 years old. I was born on the eastern side of Washington state but soon moved northwest and was raised in a town north of Seattle. I love the outdoors; I went on my first campout when I was about 5 months old, I think. I'm told I was very little help with the camp chores. I still love to camp, hike, hunt and fish. For fun I memorize Robert W. Service poetry and recite it around the campfire, following my father's tradition. I was a Boy Scout, and earned Eagle Scout in 1995. Now I am an Assistant Scoutmaster for Troop 70, Chief Seattle Council. I am an unapologetic Christian, a member of the Queen Anne United Methodist Church. I love reading, and devour books at a tremendous rate... my favored genres are Fantasy and Sci-Fi, especially Military SF, but I can find time for a good Mystery or nonfiction History book. I like tinkering with computers, surfing the 'net and I play a lot of computer games; I spend more time on a computer than is healthy, most likely. I also enjoy writing, mostly short fiction stories, and blogging, more recently. I am a Country music fan, classic Country and new. I also like Oldies and Glibert and Sullivan musical numbers. (Hey, I'm a man of many parts.)
I joined the US Navy after graduating from High School, and served six years in the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, the last four of those years aboard the USS Enterprise, CVN-65. For you Nukes who happen along, I was an ELT. For non-Nukes, that stands for Engineering Laboratory Technician, and it means that I controlled water chemistry in the reactors and secondary systems and provided oversight for radiological controls operations. If you really want to know more about it, let me know, and I'll send you a link to a Navy recruiter; they're always trying to fill their quota of Nukes for the month.
I am currently a sophomore at the University of Washington. I haven't selected a major yet, I am tending toward a couple types of Engineering, but that may change.
I started a blog in the Spring of 2003 with my partner in crime and Navy buddy Captain Morpholine. We call it "What Hath I Wrought?" because we couldn't think of a catchier name at the time. Head on over, I've started posting there again, and maybe the Captain will grace the page with his words a time or two as well.
That's all for now, I am worn out and I have to work early again tomorrow. Glad to be here, I hope I can add something worthwhile to Random Nuclear Strikes.
Posted by Nukevet at 04:42 AM | Comments (6)
August 26, 2003
When this kitty purrs....you listen.
Cait from Caiterwauling has come up with a list of new names of interest. A sample.
Fuckachoo An idiot with hay fever
Fuckallueia A religious zealot idiot
Fuckknocker A Jehovah's Witness idiot
Fuckwaaah A whiny idiot crybaby
Fucklygamist A Mormon idiot
This lady has wit, as sharp as a kittens claws. Enter her lair, but bring a saucer of milk with you.
You have been warned, now go forth and tremble.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:08 AM | Comments (3)
August 25, 2003
Have I mentioned
That insomnia sucks?
Posted by Nukevet at 02:01 AM | Comments (4)
August 24, 2003
Pedophile Priest Killed in Prison
So, what do you do with guys like this? They are dead if they are left in the general prison population, but I'm sure someone would scream "cruel and unusual punishment!" if he were placed in solitary for his entire sentence.
It seems to me that prisoners should get some level of protection - you shouldn't get raped if tou're not strong enough to defend yourself, you shouldn't get killed when you weren't given the death penalty. Or, am I completely missing the boat, and we should be happy that some monstrous pedophile is no longer costing taxpayers money. I think John Geoghan was scum. He certainly ruined enough lives, maybe it's appropriate that his was ended by someone who very likely suffered from a similar abuse as a child.
Posted by Nukevet at 11:02 AM | Comments (7)
August 20, 2003
You scream, I scream,
we all scream for ICE CREAM!
2 scoops of Iraqi Road, please.
Or maybe I should get I hate the French Vanilla?
Posted by Nukevet at 07:09 PM | Comments (3)
July 07, 2003
More BB nonsense
I have changed the BB so that it does not require activation - we'll see how this works out. A lot of people are reading the boards, but not very many are commenting.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:54 AM | Comments (1)
June 07, 2003
Add my voice to the list
Saying "Thank You" to those in the armed services. AK penned a little screed about the movement of our troops in South Korea; a movement that has all of the younger Koreans who "hate" the US a little nervous. There have been quite a few comments to this post, including some by individuals currently or previously stationed in Korea.
I never served in the military. I went down to the post office and registered on my 18th birthday, and would have done what I was told in the unlikely event that the draft ever was reinstituted. I guess I don't really know how most in the military view us, the "citizens" of America. It would piss me off royally to go somewhere horrible, fight for my life to preserve the ideals I believe in, and then come home to hear some piss-ant pontificate on the horrors of war, how I was a baby killer and war criminal, etc. I hope that those in the military know that most Americans support and appreciate the sacrifices made on our behalf.
Anyway, the only point of my post is to say that I, for one, realize how lucky I am to live in a country where I am afforded the luxury of doing what I want, saying what I want, and having a dedicated force of men and women who see it as their duty to protect me and mine.
Memo to the ungrateful (Both American and French and South Korean and....): This attitude of "put your life on the line to protect me while I revile and vilify you" just really needs to stop.
Posted by Nukevet at 08:59 AM | Comments (3)
June 06, 2003
Kill the Peace
Let's see now, who controls Hamas?
Posted by Nukevet at 08:48 AM | Comments (0)
Get a move on
Finally!
Our troops in South Korea are going to be moving soon, so expect to hear the anti-US dodo's over there get reeeal quiet. Now that the folks we put on the DMZ aren't waiting to be overrun, and the SORKs are going to have to man that position, people over there are getting nervous.
"When people hear the news, their immediate reaction often is, 'What? Who's going to defend the border? Are the Americans moving south so that they can leave our country fast when the war breaks out?'" said Song Young-sun, an analyst in Seoul's Korea Institute of Defense Analysis."
But "The Pentagon says it can better deter North Korea by moving U.S. troops farther south from the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas."
No date has been set for the move, but just the idea gives me warm fuzzies.
I never liked the idea that our service men and women were being used as a tripwire. Human fodder that were only there to try to draw the fire and slow down of the NORKs until we could get more troops over there. The expected KIA rate was over 95%. All the while being told to go home by the succeding generations. Squirm now, you little brats.
Thanks to Right Thinking from the Left Coast for the directional sign.
Posted by Nukevet at 08:12 AM | Comments (14)
May 23, 2003
Keep 'em Stupid
So, some 2,500 protestors shopwed up outside of Florida governor Bush's office to protest the FCAT - a standardized test that has the gall to try and assure minimal competency before students are allowed to enter the next grade.
Third graders are generally required to pass their reading test before advancing to fourth grade and, beginning this year, high school seniors must pass the 10th grade exam to receive their diplomas.
So, high school seniors must pass the 10th grade exam to graduate. Oh, the horror. What ever happened to expecting someone in the 12th grade to perform at a 12th grade level before they were allowed to graduate? But noooooooo - if students can't pass with stringent guidelines - then let's loosen the guidelines until they can. And people wonder why we have so many uneducated people running around trying to enter the workforce (or not) without being properly prepared. And look at this photo from the article:
See the sign that says "Look into the eyes of the children you are hurting"? Well, which hurts the children more - holding them back a year until they gain minimal proficiency, or giving them a free pass so that they graduate without basic reading comprehension, writing, and math skills? But heaven forbid that some child feel "demeaned" because they weren't given a free ride through the educational system.
Maybe the sign the person is holding should be changed to this:
Posted by Nukevet at 11:46 PM | Comments (4)
May 22, 2003
All of a sudden
Ottawa's our friend again! Or at least they want to be sure that the US embargo of Canadian beef is as short lived as possible.
Pettigrew (Canadian trade representative - ed) said he had talked to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick on Tuesday.
�He (Zoellick) of course volunteered to do everything he could within his administration to make sure collaboration and cooperation between Canada and the United States prevailed in this case. So we will make sure the embargo is as limited as possible, as short-lived as possible,� Pettigrew said.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:44 AM | Comments (1)
May 21, 2003
I have found my animal totem
And it seems about right:
What Is Your Animal Personality?
brought to you by Quizilla
Posted by Nukevet at 04:34 PM | Comments (5)
May 20, 2003
Don't outlaw guns
Posted by Nukevet at 01:18 PM | Comments (0)
May 19, 2003
Damn!
I'm going on vacation more often. Analog Kid tells me he is already receiving hate mail, so I guess he's doing something right!
Many thanks to AK for holding down the bunker in my absence. I'll try and catch up tomorrow, after I dig myself out from under the flood of e-mails that appeared while I was away.
Internet access was 0.75$/MINUTE on the cruise ship, so I didn't even check work related e-mail.
I do love our new troll "arabs make nukes quickly". I wonder if that text is enough to get carnivore interested? I'll have to do a little traceroute on our friend, and see where he really comes from.
Posted by Nukevet at 03:59 PM | Comments (0)
May 13, 2003
Who you calling a statistics geek?
I wrote this piece a while back, but it meshes nicely with AK's post below.
Posted by Nukevet at 01:53 PM | Comments (1)
May 11, 2003
Kentucky Derby Cheat?
Apparently, there is some question about whether the jockey of the Kentucky Derby winner had something other than his whip in his hand during the race. Now, I am not a big racing fan, but the fact that the jockey and the stable have changed their story 3 times is not such a great thing. Their current story is that the reporters misunderstood what the jockey was saying (he speaks with a heavy accent), and that what the images show is a copper bracelet that he wears for arthritis. Look at the pictures below, and tell me what you think - is that a bracelet? Why is he holding it in his hand instead of wearing it on his wrist? And, as I read in one report, other photos of the jockey do show him wearing the bracelet, but it is always on the left wrist, and this is the right wrist in the photo. So, all in all, I am pretty skeptical of the "it's a bracelet" claim. Plus, the stable is denouncing the investigation with a verve and vigor that would make a French Diplomat to Syria proud - which makes me even more suspicious.
The thing that interested me enough about this to write a post on it was these 2 pictures, from the MSNBC website dealing with the story. They are supposed to be 2 different photos of the "hand in question", taken from slightly different angles. One of these photos shows the mystery object (right), and the other does not (left). But, doesn't it look like the photo on the left has been retouched? And not very well, either. It looks to me like someone took the color of the shirt from the jockey seen behind the hand, and colored out the suspicious object with it. Doesn't it appear as if the color of the shirt is somehow in exactly the same place, and actually covers the webbing between the fingers? I mean, come on, if you're gonna use photoshop, at least try and make it convincing. Or, am I completely wrong and misinterpreting what I see?
UPDATE:
This definitely looks like a bad photoshop job in this close-up of the Easley photo.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:13 AM | Comments (0)
May 10, 2003
Farm Pond Bass
Louisiana has millions of small bodies of water that hold bass and panfish. If you are willing to do a little hiking, you can get to secluded ponds that have had minimal fishing pressure on the local inhabitants (read: the fish are neither too timid nor too bright). However, there are a few bad things that go along with these secluded ponds. Lots of biting bugs and, worse, biting snakes. My least favorite is this critter:
Water Moccasins (cottonmouths) are mean, ill-tempered, and aggressive. They will chase you around the pond, and I've even had a couple try to get into my boat if I annoyed them enough.
Fortunately, in Louisiana, they sell really effective snake repellant. Today, I just took my "small size" snake repellant with me.
Posted by Nukevet at 04:36 PM | Comments (1)
Need something to wear
For that "special occasion - you know, wedding, anniversary, first date with someone you REALLY like"?
Posted by Nukevet at 10:38 AM | Comments (3)
May 02, 2003
Blair defends Bush
And challenges the "Bush as moron" mantra so common from the left these days (hell, since day 1, actually)
Which begs the question - if you call someone a moron, and that person repeatedly outmaneuvers and outflanks you, then that makes you .........what, exactly?
Posted by Nukevet at 05:21 PM | Comments (1)
Lots of reaction to Bush's Speech in the blogosphere
The general take seems to be that the speech was just about right for the occassion, and the aircraft carrier setting was perfect. Instapundit liked the speech, but didn't care for the "publicity stunt" landing. It seems most pundits disagree with the Instaman on that score. Bill Quick over at DailyPundit has a view opposite of GHR's, and his comments section provides some interesting fodder for thought as well.
Some of the interesting points brought up by Bill's commenters:
The landing took place on the Abraham Lincoln - named after another Republican president who fought a war to liberate an oppressed people (OK, trying hard to leave southern feelings out of this one for the time being......)
That Bush referred to the "Battle of Afghanistan" and the "Battle of Iraq" - as in, we won the battle, but the war is not yet over. Think Damascus was listening to that bit with interest? And what about this little bit of news?
but the best one - that the event took place on May Day - the official "workers party day". Heh, nice little bit of upstaging.
And as for the cries of "political grandstanding" - so effin what? The Democrats started politicizing the war as soon as it started, so why shouldn't Bush get a little love now that the major combat ops have ended? Yeah, there's still a lot of work to do in both Afghanistan and Iraq - there will still be suicide bombings and attacks from Ba'ath party hardliners. But we will just have to deal with those things as they arise. I'm sure every attack on US forces will be pointed at as proof that certain elements of the "Arab street" still hates and resents us, which will undoubtedly contain a central core of truth. But if true, I would still prefer the "Arab street" to hate and FEAR us, rather than just hate us.
Posted by Nukevet at 11:55 AM | Comments (1)
I don't know if Anna
Will love this site, or hate it.
Found via the Volokh Conspiracy
Posted by Nukevet at 12:15 AM | Comments (4)
April 30, 2003
Isn't hacking someone's website
Posted by Nukevet at 10:45 AM | Comments (3)
April 26, 2003
Speaking of Organized Religion
Have more people been killed:
1) In the name of organized religion
2) Because of their religious beliefs
3) 1 and 2 are the same, just depends on which side of the fence you are on at the time the killing starts
4) By Secular Utopian evils, like Communism, Socialism
5) By the horrible evils inherent in the pursuit of Capitalism
And really, think about the answer a bit before you just decide to start bashing Capitalism in a leftist frenzy of "must protect Marx"ism. Really try and count up the numbers, and let me know what you think.
My choices, in order, would be 3), followed by 4), with 5) running a VERY distant 3rd.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:11 AM | Comments (13)
January 02, 2003
Booby Traps?
Following up on my "Madman style bunnies" comment below, a question occurs to me:
Has anyone ever seen the Unablogger and the Madman together in the same room?
Posted by Nukevet at 09:02 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 26, 2002
RNS Snowballed!
Just goes to show ya, you can't let down your guard, even for a major non-sectarian winter festival.
The Madman has snowballed the RNS bunker. We now prepare to retaliate with a terrible vengeance!
Snowballs? We don't need no freakin snowballs!
Posted by Nukevet at 10:21 AM | Comments (5)
December 23, 2002
Merry Christmas
Back sometime in the next few days. Everyone have a safe and happy holiday!
Posted by Nukevet at 06:39 PM | Comments (5)
December 19, 2002
And meanwhile
In a seperate but related story to the one immediatly below, we have a report that a local grand jury will refuse to indict a New Orleans man, Sean Minor, who shot and killed a teenager who was breaking into cars in his apartment complex. When they got to his, he opened fire.
I'm not sure how I feel about this one. The guys doing the vandalizing were a couple of teenagers, and probably would have been scared off by Minor turning on his porch light and yelling at them. However, just because they were teenagers doesn't preclude them from having guns and attacking anyone they thought saw them, either. The story just sounded too much like the car owner laid in wait, and then blasted the kid once he got to his car. The reason the case went before the grand jury is that the local police decided that Minor was not justified in using deadly force, since only his property was in danger.
UPDATE
Apparently the New Orleans DA will pursue a prosecution for manslaughter.
Posted by Nukevet at 07:29 PM | Comments (4)
Man, I wish I could write
Posted by Nukevet at 12:50 PM | Comments (1)
December 18, 2002
No Comment
Posted by Nukevet at 11:43 AM | Comments (2)
December 16, 2002
Columbia giveth...
and Columbia taketh away. The trustee's of Columbia University have voted to take away the Bancroft prize awarded to now-disgraced Emory University historian Michael Bellesiles.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:45 AM | Comments (0)
Angel Decoys
I posted this once before, back in my Radio Userland days. It is a really cool video, so it seems like it deserves a home here on the MT site of RNS as well. This is a high bandwidth video (2MB), so be forewarned before you follow the link.
Posted by Nukevet at 10:26 AM | Comments (3)
I'm baaaack
Well, real life took over everything for the last few days. A consulting trip to Joisey, followed by the death of my wife's car and the need for an immediate replacement (hence the need for consulting jobs) have pretty much occupied all of my spare time. I hope to get in the groove over the next day or so.
And thanks to those people who noticed I was gone and asked if everything was OK. That is soooo cool. You guys rock.
Posted by Nukevet at 09:14 AM | Comments (1)
December 11, 2002
Sent by a reader
Offer your own captions. Seems like a friendly bunch of guys.
Posted by Nukevet at 03:26 PM | Comments (10)