I’m Back

Had a wonderful weekend with Crusader and family, and it seems Sis actually dodged a hurricane this time.
‘triffic.
Looting in NOLA. Nice.
I hope the cops shoot to kill.

Sir Rob of Apple Lane, Crabbeton

Hope you’re all ready to go, good friend. Looks like the ball’s moving to your court and we’re thinking of you.

Note to Kraut and Cullen

It’s looking like you should get whatever you need at the mall NOW.

A Snapshot of Our Lives This Past Year

Besides the obvious inference, these are the actual screws we use to attach the 1 by 4’s that frame our plywood shutters to the masonry. They’re called Tapcons (Even come with their own carbide tipped drill bit!). We’ve gotten new ones for each storm so far, but Ebola has just assured me we can re-use the ones from Dennis. One less thing to buy this weekend.

Is This Not Poetry?

…Joan Baez, now 64, has descended from the mists to sing songs at Cindy Sheehan’s Crawford ditch in Texas. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, respectively 62 and 61, have decided to cap their careers with a new song called “Sweet Neo-Con” (“It’s liberty for all . . . unless you are against us, then it’s prison without trial.”) The ghost of Tom Hayden showed up on Bill O’Reilly this week to announce, with the confidence of experience, that “an exit strategy is an art form all in itself.”…

The mists? The ghost? Oh, ya gotta love it. Daniel Henniger expounds* on themes touched by George Will yesterday.
UPDATE: Saints forgive me, but I couldn’t resist adding this when I found it.

CINDY SHEEHAN: America has been killing people, like my sister over here said, since we first stepped on this continent. And we have been responsible for death and destruction.
It’s OK for Israel to occupy Palestine, but it’s — Yeah, and it’s OK for Iraq to occupy — I mean, for the United States to occupy Iraq, but it’s not OK for Syria to be in Lebanon. They’re a bunch of f—ing hypocrites. And we need to… We just need to rise up.

Was there ever a more articulate advocate? A vociferous voice?
A bigger, blithering idiot? And this is the stuff that galvanizes the Democratic Party? Ye gods and little fishes.
Someone send a camera on down here. I’ll string a sentence together.
Oh, you betcha.
*Reproduced in ‘continue reading’ for non-WSJOp subscribers

Read more »

Divine Intervention?

Saving the beer from Europe’s floods
A German monastery, famous for its brew, is safe for now
WELTENBURG, Germany – This was no ordinary day, even for a Benedictine Abbey that has survived 1,400 years, including damage in the Napoleonic wars…
…Overnight, there the raging waters of the Danube River were rising by the hour. By noon, the rushing water had already flooded the ground floor kitchen and dining rooms used by the monks…
…Father Thomas knew a massive flood could destroy its famous church, full of Baroque masterpieces, and even worse, the jewel that attracts many of the Abbey’s half million visitors a year: its beer…
…Throughout the afternoon the tide kept rising, so dozens of firemen and forklifts were quickly called in to fortify a makeshift flood wall with sandbags. Despite the efforts, the Danube kept rising…

And prayers answered.

Boneheads

You live on a frickin’ island. An island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. You’re so far out you can’t even make a map of the U.S.. They give you a little ‘Hawaii’ box, for God’s sake! Things have to go thousands of miles BY BOAT to get to you. That costs more money than a freight train to Topeka or a semi to Sioux City. And why it cost us lots of money if we want to fly to your island (ISLAND!!) to spend our money. So STFU. Ride a bike, paddle an outrigger. Because you’re going to be the first ones screaming when no one can afford to send your dumba$$es any oil.

Hawaii sets caps on wholesale gas prices
Some analysts warn move may spur supply problems
HONOLULU – In an effort to gain some control over what motorists pay at the pump, Hawaii on Wednesday became the first state in the U.S. to set caps on the wholesale price of gasoline.
The 2004 law authorizing the caps was intended to force Hawaii’s two refiners, Chevron Corp. and Tesoro Corp., to set their wholesale prices closer to mainland rates. Proponents of the law said the refiners were taking advantage of the small, isolated market to charge exorbitant prices.

(And from the prices I see in the background of the photo AND in the text, I know people in California would be happier than dog schnoodles to pay $2.76 a gallon. So STFU and quit being stupid.)

Major Dad Knows I Do the Best I Can

The 152 year old Labradork is a difficult proposition. Poor MacDaddy ~ 11 1/2 people years, congestive heart failure, old man skin, 6 hairs left on his body and Cushings syndrome ~ subjected to the ultimate indignity. His skin is now so fragile that he’s rubbed a raw spot on his jelly belly. We’ve gotten it coated for the past few days with spray-on bandage and it’s started to heal. Ergo, started to itch, so he’s started to lick, which started to tear it up again ~ the whole Rube Goldberg thing. So I cleaned him up, sprayed the liquid bandage/made sure it was dry one last time…then slapped an ultra-thin maxi pad on the sore and yanked a pair of what looks to be a pair of black puppy SpeeDos up over it (to hold it in place and protect him from himself). But they’re not SpeeDos. I lied to him. It’s a pair of girly puppy underdrawers designed for when they’re in heat.
Poor Schmacks. An Always Thin Ultra Maxi Pad and a pair of ‘Bitches Britches‘. Don’t worry, Houndie.
We’ll all be there someday.

Not Only Does the Man Know Baseball…

…he sets a pretty scene as well!

…Many warmhearted and mildly attentive Americans say the president should have invited Sheehan to his kitchen table in Crawford for a cup of coffee and a serving of that low-calorie staple of democratic sentimentality — “dialogue.” Well…
— it is difficult to imagine how the dialogue would get going.
He: “Cream and sugar?”
She: “Yes, please, filth-spewer.”

It’s a dee-LISH-ous read.

This Is Great

Until your partner runs off to Florida with your kid. Then you’re screwed.

California court affirms gay parenting
…In California, the landmark decisions – which granted full parenthood to former partners despite the absence of legal adoption or, in two of the cases, a biological connection – have made the terrain a little clearer and solidified the direction in which many courts are moving: conferring the rights and responsibilities of parenthood based on intent and psychology rather than biology, adoption, or marriage.
But as the decisions have been lauded and decried across the country, they’ve also underlined the vastly different patchwork of how states handle the often-murky relationships at the nexus of reproductive technology and shifting family structures…
…At least nine states officially allow second-parent adoption – often sought by gay couples – and several confer visitation rights or have ordered child support from nonbiological or nonadoptive parents.
But the California cases are the first in which such individuals have been declared full legal parents, with the rights of, say, inheritance or social-security benefits.

They Were All Glassy Eyed…

…literally!!

Scientist finds secret Renaissance ingredient
Tiny pieces of glass shown to give paintings special glow
…Using an electron microscope, Barbara Berrie, senior conservation scientist at the National Gallery of Art, discovered one of their secrets: tiny bits of glass the artists mixed with their pigments.
“By looking beyond the limits of their usual practice and transforming materials from other trades to their painting, the great artists of the Renaissance created a palette that gave them an immediate and lasting reputation as brilliant colorists,” Berrie said.

Ain’t science great? I love it when someone finds stuff like this.

T. H. Sister, ‘Woman of Mystery‘…

…has the con.

Stand by.
*Ed. Note* THS forgets that tho ole Bingley is on the road again, I still have access from work and home.

UPDATE: Get back to work, you little PUKE !!!

Hurricane Katrina and I are Off

To North Cackalacky and Crusaderville for a long weekend. Hopefully THS will not make too much of a mess whilst I’m gone…

Hey Major Dad

I just shot an 84. And I was playing off of a 22 handicap.
Do you have any6 idea how much moiney I made?
And How pissed off some people are at me?\\
Oh, and I guess I drank too much at dinner.
yippee!

FAT Is the Problem…

…a FAT HEAD, that is. Puts a whole new spin on “you can’t handle the truth!”

Doctor in trouble for calling patient obese
N.H. woman filed complaint; state attorney general asked to investigate
ROCHESTER, N.H. – As doctors warn more patients that they should lose weight, the advice has backfired on one doctor with a woman filing a complaint with the state saying he was hurtful, not helpful.
Dr. Terry Bennett says he tells obese patients their weight is bad for their health and their love lives, but the lecture drove one patient to complain to the state.
“I told a fat woman she was obese,” Bennett says. “I tried to get her attention. I told her, ‘You need to get on a program, join a group of like-minded people and peel off the weight that is going to kill you.'”

And good for Dr. Bennett!

Bennett rejected that office’s proposal that he attend a medical education course and acknowledge that he made a mistake.

It’s Looking Like…

…the Bush Administration has f@cked this one up royally.

Iraq secularists denounce “Islamist” constitution
Secular Iraqis said on Wednesday a proposed new constitution left no room for doubt about the Islamist path the country was heading down two years after a U.S.-led invasion was supposed to produce greater freedoms.
The document presented to parliament on Monday is suffused with the language of political Islam in defining the state, and assigns a primary role to Islam as a source for legislation.
“The draft aborts the democratic process Iraqis hoped for and is a big victory for political Islam,” said writer Adel Abdel-Amir. “Islamic law, not the people, has become the source of authority.”..
…Language guaranteeing “rights and freedoms” is subordinate to the primary position given to Islam, opponents say.…
…The prominent women’s rights campaigner denounced wording that grants each religious sect the right to run its own family courts — apparently doing away with previous civil codes — as an open door to further Islamicise the legal system…
…Souhail said the United States, a crucial backstage player keen for a deal that meets U.S.-backed deadlines, had let the Shi’ite Islamists and Kurds in government do as they wish.
“We have received news that we were not backed by our friends including the Americans. They left the Islamists to come to an agreement with the Kurds,” she said.

Getting a draft of any f@cking thing signed by an arbitrary date is more important than ensuring a free and open society, huh? Where are all the big mouths of the opinion press or the feminist v-word agenda on this one? I’m just a wee voice in the wilderness here, but, as an American, I sure as hell don’t want to be responsible for creating the new Iran. Or condemning my vibrant, educated, free Iraqi sisters to the despicable black hole that is Sharia. And that’s what’s happening, because the Bush Administration wants to be seen as ‘hands off’ ~ as long as a ‘deadline‘ is met. “DEAD”, indeed.
Oh, that’s one hell of a promise kept, Mr. President.

Baghdad Bob Has Been Found

He’s in Peru:

“The plane did not crash. It did not fall. The plane made an emergency landing,” said TANS spokesman Jorge Belevan, adding that it did not appear the crash was caused by a technical failure.

Uh-huh

Now, That’s Research!

Boozy Brits most likely to reach for the bottle
Britons are drinking more, while alcohol consumption among health-conscious French and Germans is falling as consumers increasingly turn to non-alcoholic drinks, according to new research…
…Volume sales of wine increased by an impressive 23 per cent between 1999 and 2004…
…Under the new alcohol licensing regime, from November 24 any business without a licence will not be allowed to serve alcohol. Licensed premises will also be able to apply to extend their opening hours beyond 11pm. The government claims – alongside the Portman Group, an organisation representing the UK drinks industry – that 24-hour opening will help to combat binge drinking.

In my youth, booze was available 24 hours a day, in a manner of speaking. Even as our customary haunts boarded for the night, we’d already pooled our resources and bought as many cases of Michelob as our pennies would permit. After a double check that one or two were safely on ice in the truck, the caravan headed out to the cornfields. We got pretty efficient.

Cullen, Tell Them to Get The Heads Squared Away.

You could have guests by this weekend. Busloads of them. Courtesy of the ‘Hurricane Katrina’ travel service.
UPDATE: She’s already costing you money. Oil’s up over $66/barrel today.

Stoking bullish sentiment, the AccuWeather forecasters said that a new tropical depression formed over the Atlantic and was expected to reach the Gulf of Mexico later this week. Oil companies have shut down facilities in the Gulf as precaution against storm damage.

UPDATE to the UPDATE: You have GOT to be sh*ttin’ me. Who put that sudden turn to the NNW in there in the last hour?!!? I have NO ROOF YET!!!
AGAIN with an UPDATE: Looks like old girl is headed to Appalachiacola, not PensaCOLA, which is a very good thing. Now, I would never wish it on someone else (even though I sure as hell don’t want it here) but they shouldn’t get hit too badly, thank goodness. The track up the west side of the peninsula will keep the east side of the storm over land (with much less time on the water all around) than when the track that was pointing at us. This allows for a whole lot less development than we were looking at if it came fully out into the Gulf. Now, they’re gonna get way wet, but I think we can all be a smidge more optimistic. Woo hoo!

Watching World News Tonight, It Suddenly Struck Me

You know. The difference between (Pat Robertson’s hateful dumba$$ aside.)

us:
Sister Mary Michael protests the Da Vinci Code film.

…and

them:
Salman Rushdie

No one’s dropped a fatwa on Dan Brown. No one’s gonna.
Us and them.

“I Did NOT, Suh!”

‘Mockingbird’ actor Peters dies at 78
He also played Admiral Cartwright in ‘Star Trek’ films

LOS ANGELES – Actor Brock Peters, best known for his heartbreaking performance as the black man falsely accused of rape in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” died Tuesday at his home after battling pancreatic cancer. He was 78.

One of the most powerful, charismatic and classy actors I’ve ever seen. Tom Robinson makes me cry every time I see the movie.

Why Does This Picture…

…remind me of ‘The Hunt For Red October’?

I can hear a certain sexy, manly, dee-lish-us someone in a Russian sub saying in a Scottish brogue…

“Let them s(h)ing…“

Gah-RRROOwwwwllllllll.

Marines Who Run the Bombing Ranges at MCAS Yuma…

…find corpses all the time. The coyotes who get the illegals over the border then tell them to head for the ‘lights in the night’. The numbers are staggering.

But the incursion is relentless. Since Oct. 1, Border Patrol agents have caught more than 500,000 “undocumented aliens” in the agency’s Tucson and Yuma sectors, which include all of Arizona and a 16-mile stretch of California’s border. No one knows how many got through.

Those lights are, depending upon where you cross unfortunately, either the beacons on the range towers or the superstructures on base.

The problem stems from federal border policies dating to the late 1990s. First, the government moved to stop illegal immigration in California and Texas. Next, Border Patrol agents clamped down in urban areas along the nation’s 1,951-mile border with Mexico.
As a result, smugglers and their human clients have been funneled to a deadly passageway – Arizona’s remote desert.

If you luck out and head toward MCAS Yuma, you might actually make it to civilization. There’re farm houses and little oasises on the way in where you can steal something to eat or, at least, livestock troughs to drink out of. But if you head out and chase automated range beacons, you’re led deeper and deeper into either the desert or the Chocolate Mountains, and further from any hope of ever seeing another human being. Or getting out alive. It’s as desolate out there as any of those TV shots of Afghanistan. And there’s no way to know which light to choose, or that there even is a choice. A life or death choice. The Marines who go out to change the range beacons might only come to that particular section of range once a month. Less, if it hasn’t been used in a while ~ they’ll do routine access/tower maintenance. The base SAR (Search and Rescue) crew has stories to tell about who and what they’ve found. They’ll point spots out when you’re in the Huey with them in the Chocolates. (As I was lucky enough to be.) The SAR crew will call in location reports of illegals on the move, but they’re in no position and have no authority to apprehend them. All they can do is call it in and hope they’re caught before the environment gets them. Both groups have told me that the bodies they find often look like Egyptian mummies. It’s unforgiving out there.

Paging Julie Andrews

Yet another crazy nun gets in trouble with her Mother Superior:

A Belgian nun’s acrobatic and indecorous dancing with a missionary during the Catholic World Youth Day in Germany over the weekend earned her a reprimand from her mother superior, a Belgian paper said on Tuesday.
Daily Het Laatste Nieuws showed pictures of a dancing Johanne Vertommen being held up in the air by the missionary, and then clinging to him with her legs wrapped around his body.

How do we solve a problem like…

Bingley Thinks the V-Word Is Funny. I Do Not.

Oh, and I got funny for ya pal, right HERE.