I've got TERRI SCHIAVO on my mind today

Not because I'm on one side or the other of the TERRI SCHIAVO debate. I am usually pretty good about seeing media overhype comming, but I have to admit TERRI SCHIAVO kinda snuck up on me. In retrospect I should have known that the TERRI SCHIAVO bruhaha was a media event, weather TERRI SCHIAVO would have wanted it, or TERRI SCHIAVO wouldn't have wanted it I can't say. There are alot of things that touch a nerve after being over exposed, but I don't think TERRI SCHIAVO would notice a nerve being struck.

If I remember right, TERRI SCHIAVO told her husband that if she, TERRI SCHIAVO was struck down into a vegetative state, then TERRI SCHIAVO didn't want to be around.
Now I'm a little curious, not much- just a vague curiosity about why the TERRI SCHIAVO case? I mean there had to be plenty of other cases to rally around and force a name like, , , TERRI SCHIAVO into everyones pores. Who, besides TERRI SCHIAVO is going to benefit from all this free publicity? Not that TERRI SCHIAVO knows anything anyway. In case you hadn't noticed, I'm getting a bit fed-up with hearing about TERRI SCHIAVO. I'm so fed up that I drove home from Castroville with the radio off so I wasn't forced to hear about TERRI SCHIAVO. I wish they'd just fix it one way or another, so I wouldn't have TERRI SCHIAVO forced down my throat every 5 minutes.
I know that if TERRI SCHIAVO could know what's going on, that even TERRI SCHIAVO would just have to say "SHUT the F*CK UP about me".

I thought the 9-11 hype was bad, but that was almost 3,000 people killed, not just one TERRI SCHIAVO saturating the airwaves of America by dint of nothing but having her -->TERRI SCHIAVO's<-- autonimous nerves being able to breath on their own.

Hell, I'd rather listen to Ron Reagan(jr) talk about dogs he has known.

Lets hope they figgure out something in the TERRI SCHIAVO case, so that TERRI SCHIAVO can have her name used by people who have TERRI SCHIAVOs best intrests at heart- instead of using it for free publicity.

How can you support the troops here?

Alot of returning troops have extremity injuries (arms and legs) that need rehabs on their homes.

I came accross Homes for our troops
over at Black Five blog.

Basically it's a 'habitat for heroes' kinda thing. I only glanced thru it, seeing if they had anything around San Antonio (didn't see any), but it looks worthwhile.

Alot of libs are decrying the tradeoff in lost limbs for lost lives, as 'too many soldiers are loosing limbs".

Homes for troops looks like it rehabs homes for injured military. Go check it out now, I can wait.

It was a semi-productive Sunday

We finally got rid of the car- the guy partied to hard yesterday, and hadn't even left (woke-up) untill we called him sitting in Seguin. He had a party Fri. nite. He rolled in around 11:30 this morning and drove off with us holding a handfull of hundreds.
I didn't get much done around the house- by the time we got done wasting a 60 mi. drive, I finished putting up the outer window trim. It was getting dark (storm clouds), and I decided to mow the bad part of the lawn- the lazy teen said she'd do it the week she was off school.

She had 8 days to do it.
She didn't get her lazy ass away from the TV unless her mom took her away.
I said some things when I got in- pissed off her mom (again). She says I'm too hard on her.
I "upset" the teen this morning(again), and P.O.'d her mom(again). Got in and unloaded the grorceries on the porch, opened the door- and there she was in all her glory:Slack-jawed in front of the boob-tube. Said she didn't notice me outside-in front of the window unloading the truck onto the porch.

I'm going to be damn glad when she turns 18, and I don't have to waste food, shelter or A/c on her. "Happy 18- bye"!

Gas is over $3/gal in Cali

I really can't say I feel bad for them- it's more like; Well they got what they deserved. They're the ones that elected the libs to screw-up almost anything that has to do with energy.

They're the ones that didn't build powerplants or distribution lines- they blighted the mountain ranges with those ugly-ass windmills that

KILL BIRDS

and produce less power than a small conventional plant would.

They won't let any development take place unless costly and questionable practices are in place curtail land use.

They mandated specially blended gasoline to help air quality, while poisoning the water with the same addetive.

Nope don't feel bad for The Peoples Democratic Socialist Republic of Californistan at all.

It's a beautiful Saturday in S. Texas

We may have a renter for the house, we're getting the Cavalier out of here for about what I wanted for it, and it's a mild sunny day.

The Texas Blogfest has started up in Dallas. I hope they're having fun and don't forget to update us about the events- both stange and normal.

Have fun guys, and ZiPpo, be sure you splice that mainbrace with El Capitan while you're up there.

Boy am I glad it's Friday

Bad news on the closing front, the seller can't find what she wants, and is getting cold feet. The closing date has moved back to Mar 31 and the realtor is handling her with kid gloves, just to keep the sale going.
It's a 115 mi. one way trip from here to work, I drop wife off on the way and pick her up when I come home. It's saving some gas that way, but the Mitsu uses almost as much gas as my Ram pick-up. It just doesn't have as big a fuel tank, so we have to fill up every day.

Sorry, but I'm tired, and the wife is watching her bad sci-fi on the sci-fi channel at too high a volume. I'm having trouble putting thoughts tohgether now, so another post tommorrow when I can remember what I was going to post.

Mark Maguire's condensed biography

Titled: Eat the Big Mac

"I'm not here to talk about the past."

Another day closer to the move

I worked harder today than I have in the last 6 months- which means I actually broke a sweat. We're relocating a 2" PE service at the school. The school where the ONLY people working don't have any connection with the school.

The Administrators and teachers are off with the kids. Along with every other vacation the kids have off school. And they want you to pay them for NOT working when your kids aren't in school. The ones who maybe work 7 months out of the year and make as much as I do all year, and the TEA wants even more money for not working.

OOPs got on a bit of a rant, there. Anyway the girls will probably be starting their new school in about a week, and they cant get registered because the Admin doesn't even bother with an ANSWERING MACHINE, just- you know in case something, , , happens.
Gawd, I wish I was smart enough back when I was young to get a job in education, hell, I'd be getting money for nothing, hell, I might even use an answering machine.

Well it looks like the Republicans are FINALLY realizing they're in the majority

I just hope that they remember that they're also supposed to be the ones who are conservative- or as conservative as you can be in DC.

They approved drilling in ANWAR.
Now before everyone gets their undies all wadded up, lets look at this~

• Anwar is about as big as Texas (not as big, but close).
• The drilling site would be about as big as, as Maxwell, Tx (about 500 pop.)
• This isn't Soviet Russia, the drillers don't gratuitusly wash the landscape with oil.
• 90% of ANWAR is nothing more than a frozen dessert for 9 months out of 12.
• The enviro-wackos were 180 degrees wrong on the pipeline, they say we'll endanger more threatened species. Hell, if we drill, and the tree huggers tell us that, we should save most of the citters up there with the activity, lights, heat and food.

We got that thru, now we need to get some refineries built.
And lets open the way for nukes, we don'thave enough glowing green possums walking around.

The world is comming to an end- a lawyer is sueing himself

acidman sends a link to a layer who is 'acting in the best interests of his client'

The shark owns a title company, and it charges an un reasonable tax fee. The shark is also getting a percentage on the results.

"Emert Wyss, wearing his hat of Centerre Title company, collects the fees from Ms. McLaughlin, and now we have six, seven, eight months later, Emert Wyss wearing his hat as Ms. McLaughlin’s attorney suggests she file suit over the very fees his title company collected from her, is that right?” Brown asked.

Wyss replied, “That is right. It oversimplifies it, but that is correct."

Here's the whole transcript.

Well, Texas decided to "revamp" its tax system
But you have to remember the ones that are "revamping" are pols.
So, they raised the Sales Tax by 1%, and one day will "do something " about lowering the property tax to compensate. Yeh, next time I'll see any property taxes being lowered is when I hit 65.

They're also going to do something with the school funding, too. Probably going to see how much MORE money they can throw at it.
That reminds me- as you know, we're moving soon and need to get the girls registered in Medina Valley ISD. Problem is that it's spring break there- and the School OFFICES are closed, too.

Remember to ask next time someone mentiones teachers saleries, that they're off work as much as your kids are out of school. If they're making that much for effectively 6 months work, that ought to average out to twice as much if they WORKED full time.

I was going to say something about the DC schools cost per student VS the abyssimal results- as in money doesn't equal quality, but I've had a long day.

Tomorrow, March 15 2005 is the Third Annual International Eat an Animal for PETA Day

Remember, it's up to YOU to do your duty, now MOOooove.

And as an added incentive~

Eat steak, eat steak eat a big ol' steer
Eat steak, eat steak do we have one dear?
Eat beef, eat beef it's a mighty good food
It's a grade A meal when I'm in the mood.


Cowpokes'll come from a near and far
When you throw a few rib-eyes on the fire
Roberto Duran ate two before a fight
'Cause it gave a lot of mighty men a lot of mighty might


Eat steak, eat steak eat a big ol' steer
Eat steak, eat steak do we have one dear?
Eat beef, eat beef it's a mighty good food
It's a grade A meal when I'm in the mood.


Eat meat, eat meat, filet mignon
Eat meat, eat meat, eat it all day long
Eat a few T-bones till you get your fill
Eat a new york cut, hot off the grill


Eat steak, eat steak eat a big ol' steer
Eat steak, eat steak do we have one dear?
Eat beef, eat beef it's a mighty good food
It's a grade A meal when I'm in the mood.


Eat a cow, eat a cow 'cause it's good for you
Eat a cow, eat a cow it's the thing that goes "Mooooo"


Look at all the cows in the slaughterhouse yard
Gotta hit'em in the head, gotta hit'em real hard
First you gotta clean'em then the butcher cuts'em up
Throws it on a scale, throws an eyeball in a cup


Saw a big Brahman Steer standing right over there
So I rustled up a fire cooked him medium rare
Bar-B-Q'ed his brisket, a roasted his rump
Fed my dog that ol' Brahman Steer's hump


Eat steak, eat steak eat a big ol' steer
Eat steak, eat steak do we have one dear?
Eat beef, eat beef it's a mighty good food
It's a grade A meal when I'm in the mood.

-The Rev. Horton Heat.

I started the new job today

But I got there wayyy to early, had to watch Dian Sawer on GMA.
Does anyone know what she's got on whoever hired her for THAT job? She's got the personality of a wet dishrag.
I'd quit watching her after seeing her drooling with amazement at a new $20 bill- her keepers didn't let her spend her allowance, I guess- exept for the small bills. I mean I'd had the new bills in my wallet, and I know I don't earn a quarter of what she does.

I guess that just shows how little I've missed the MSM.

Our move continues apace

Got the call from the underwriter yesterday. As soon as we sign the appraisal, and get a termite inspection we're pretty much set. We should be able to close next Monday.
I'm starting to clean out the workshed. We had a pretty good bonfire last nite and watched the planes between the two major airports (Austin and San Antonio). I don't know if we'll be able to have open fires at the new place. We're not supposed to shoot, either if we have less than 10 acres, but the RR has made a real nice backstop for the .22shorts that no-one can hear. . .

There is also a public range in La Coste, so we can shoot real rifles, too. It's right in front of our City Gate, just hope they have some protection for the piping.

La Cose has a VFW and Castroville has the American Legion, so I'm set there.
The only problem is the grorceries, we're a good 30 mi. from San Antonio, and "big" H.E.B., so we'll have to stock-up on the weekends. Castroville has a super S, and Hondo has an older H.E.B.

Not much else happening here at Rancho Trainwreck; the back neighbor let a small heard of cattle out in his back 10 acres and the dogs haven't noticed them yet, but we'll know as soon as they do.

Free healthcare in Cuba, Who doesn't want THAT?

Val over at Babalu Blog has some more info on tio Fidelitos hospitals.

Yep, I had Gov't healthcare in the Navy- I'd rather pay for a Dr who was in the top 50% of their class.

Ready for some good humoUred Canada bashing?

From The weekly Standard, Matt Labash writes about(aboot?) out northern neighboUr.

Vancouver, British Columbia
WHENEVER I THINK OF CANADA . . . strike that. I'm an American, therefore I tend not to think of Canada. On the rare occasion when I have considered the country that Fleet Streeters call "The Great White Waste of Time," I've regarded it, as most Americans do, as North America's attic, a mildewy recess that adds little value to the house, but serves as an excellent dead space for stashing Nazi war criminals, drawing-room socialists, and hockey goons.

Henry David Thoreau nicely summed up Americans' indifference toward our country's little buddy when he wrote, "I fear that I have not got much to say about Canada. . . . What I got by going to Canada was a cold." For the most part, Canadians occupy little disk space on our collective hard drive. Not for nothing did MTV have a game show that made contestants identify washed-up celebrities under the category "Dead or Canadian?
<, , ,>
Equal outrage was caused when Conan O'Brien showed up to help boost tourism after the SARS crisis. Along for the ride came a Conan staple, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, who in dog-on-the-street interviews relentlessly mocked French Canadians. When one pudgy Quebecer admitted he was a separatist, Triumph suggested he might want to "separate himself from doughnuts for a while."

Canadians seethed--though polls show they pride themselves on being much funnier than Americans (don't ask me why, when they're responsible for Dan Aykroyd, John Candy, and Alan Thicke). One MP from the socialist New Democratic party called the show "vile and vicious," and said it was tantamount to hatemongering. Historians believe this to be the first time a member of parliament has so categorically denounced a hand puppet.
WITH THE REELECTION OF BUSH, however, this poor man's Cold War may be swinging Canada's way. Trend-spotters on both sides of the 49th Parallel have taken note of "the Bush refugee," the American progressive who has decided to flee to Canada after growing heartsick at the soul-crushing death knell of liberalism that pundits declared after the president's two-point victory.

A cottage industry was born. Anti-American/pro-Canadian blogs proliferated, as blogs unfortunately do. Websites like canadianalternative.com are open for business, trying to entice emotionally vulnerable Americans to turn their backs on family, friends, and country with boasts that Canada has signed the Kyoto protocol, legalized gay marriage in six provinces, and seen its Senate recommend legalizing marijuana. Vancouver immigration lawyer Rudi Kischer took a whole team, complete with realtors
and money-managers, to recruit in American cities, helping potential defectors overcome immigration concerns, such as how to pass Canada's elitist skilled-worker test for entry (Give us your affluent, your overeducated, your Unitarian masses yearning for socialized medicine).

Dejected Americans, most of whom already live in progressive enclaves, began sounding off to reporters, vowing to check out of the Red-American wasteland before true misfortune befell them. In footage of a Kischer seminar in San Francisco that I obtained from a Canadian documentary film crew (working title of the piece: "Escaping America"), one attendee who looked like a lost Gabor sister but with more plastic surgery said, "I really can't stand George Bush. I can't stand this culture, which is very selfish, aggressive, and mean, violent I think." After going to Canada for just a half an hour from Buffalo, she concluded, "It was like a completely different country. . . . The people seemed more internationally aware, not so isolated and unilateral. There was less evidence of commercialism and corporations. People were friendly."
<, , ,he went to Canada>
To see Canadian progressivism in action, though, I trekked down to the East Side, Vancouver's Compton, where the storefront Supervised Injection Site caters to junkies on the government teat. With the surrounding streets hosting an open-air drug market, the Site was conceived as a way to rid the neighborhood of discarded drug paraphernalia and promote "safe" drug-taking practices. In typical Canadian fashion, it's a long way around the barn to get rid of litter.

If the Site has in fact encouraged addicts to do their drugs off the streets, they still buy them right outside. To reach the place, I have to pass through a herd of about 100 junkies over a four-block radius. They offer to sell me all manner of substances my company won't let me expense. When I make it inside the Site, along with several itchy, twitchy customers in search of free cookers and needles and a clean booth to shoot themselves silly, an attendant tells me that unless I'm there to take drugs, I can't stay without a media relations escort. "What we do here is important, so we try to keep a low profile," he says, perhaps oblivious to the hypodermic needle that's embossed on the door.
<, , ,>
RUDI KISCHER, the immigration lawyer who went trolling for clients south of the border, has probably done more than any single person besides George Bush to induce Americans to become former Americans. At the top of a high-rise building overlooking Coal Harbor, where seaplanes land in steady succession, Kischer invites me into his office. He is tall, with the bland good looks of a soap-opera extra. By way of an ice-breaker, I tell him I flunked the skilled-worker test, and so became a journalist. He says not to worry. Up until a few years ago, lawyers were completely banned from immigrating, the first fact I've heard that recommends his country.

While numbers are hard to come by, it is generally thought that some thousands of Americans are poised to change countries, making them the largest influx Canada has seen since our draft dodgers came this way during Vietnam--much less since Brit-loving Loyalists were shown the door to what was then New France by American revolutionaries. Whether or not this is true, Kischer has plenty of horror stories from interested clients: concerned parents who are moving so their children won't be drafted into Bush's war machine, the rich guy who lives on a yacht and would rather pay exorbitant Canadian taxes than bear the shame of flashing his imperialist American passport when sailing into foreign ports.
<, , ,>
MY FIRST INTERVIEW with an American comes not in Canada, but in Bellingham, Washington, about 90 minutes from Vancouver. I drive south and clear the Peace Arch border faster than I could a McDonald's drive-thru line (note to Homeland Security), and meet up with Christopher Key in his middle-class rambler with a for-sale sign in the yard. Key is still a patriot, but he hopes to soon be an expatriate. He's descended from "Star Spangled Banner"-writer Francis Scott Key, who he admits "wasn't much of a poet."

He has become a minor celebrity of sorts, profiled by everyone from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to the New York Times (whose reporter flies in the day after me). The silver-haired Key looks like a Chamber of Commerce burgher. He likes to point out he's not some stereotypical longhair, having just left his editor's gig at a failing business magazine. He's had several other career incarnations too: everything from art gallery owner to charter-boat skipper.

But Key's weirdest job was in the military, when he served in Vietnam. "They called it 'press liaison,' I think, but I was a news censor," he says. As a wet-behind-the-ears 19-year-old, he was supposed to tell media bigshots like Ed Bradley what they could and could not cover. They all ignored him. "My take," he says, "is that while I had an odious job, I managed to do it very poorly."
<, , ,>
Where Canada fails is no big secret. Most of us know that its universal health care is a great thing, if you don't mind waiting, say, nine months for an MRI on your spinal cord injury. We all know Canadians are overregulated, to the point that Canadian rocker Bryan Adams was denied "Canadian content status" for cowriting an album with a British producer, limiting the play his songs could receive on the radio (a policy that's supposed to encourage Canadian talent, but that in Adams's words "encourage[s] mediocrity. People don't have to compete in the real world. . . . F--ing absurd").

We all know the Canadian military has become a shadow of itself. Things have gotten so dire that a Queen's University study (titled "Canada Without Armed Forces?") predicted the imminent extinction of the air force. This unpreparedness has become such a joke that Ferguson says their military ranks just above Tonga's, which consists of nothing more than "a tape-recorded message yelling 'I surrender!' in thirty-two languages."

What many don't consider is how much Canada has oversold itself in the areas where it purportedly does succeed. While it's true that the government has been much friendlier than ours to gay marriage, only 39 percent of Canadians decidedly support it. While Canada is supposedly more environment-friendly, it has been cited for producing more waste per person than any other country. While Canada is supposedly safer, a 1996 study showed its banks had the highest stick-up rate of any industrialized nation (one in every six was robbed). And while a great deal is made of Americans' passion for firearms, the Edmonton Sun, citing Statistics Canada, reported that Canada has a higher crime rate than we do.

Canadians are supposedly less greedy than Americans, yet they lead the world in telemarketing fraud, and most of their victims are Americans. Are they more generous? Not by a long shot. The Vancouver-based Fraser Institute publishes a Generosity Index, which shows that more Americans give to charity, and give more when they do.

Is the Canadian "mosaic" more successful than the American "melting pot," a distinction they constantly make? You be the judge. Imagine every decade or so America's Spanish-speaking southwesterners holding a referendum over whether to secede. It's happened twice since 1980 among the Francophones of Quebec, and some say it's going to happen again. While America has figurative language police on its college campuses, Quebec has literal ones--"tongue troopers," the locals call them--who ruthlessly enforce absurd language laws requiring, for example, that restaurant trash cans feature the word "push" on their lids in French instead of English.

Apart from the Anglo/Franco teeter-totter that Canada can't ever seem to get off, are Canadians less racist, as many of them claim? Well, like America, they saw both slavery and segregation. If Canadians today are less racist, someone ought to tell their aboriginal peoples, who've spent centuries getting their land annexed and being generally mistreated (as of 2000 in Nova Scotia, there was still a law on the books offering hunters a bounty for Indian scalps).

Recent polling shows 35 percent of Canada's "visible minorities" (such as blacks and Asians) have experienced discrimination in the last five years. Another poll showed 54 percent of Canadians believe anti-Semitism is a serious problem in Canadian society today. It certainly was yesterday. Around World War II, a few Jews did manage to squeak in--despite the policy summed up by Canada's director of immigration as "None is too many." Will Ferguson points out that more Nazi war criminals are thought to have found sanctuary in Canada than refugees fleeing the Holocaust.

I'll let you enjoy the rest, but leave you with a good potsmoking expat hippy quote-which is true!

"America is built on people leaving places. We're a country of people who've left. Constitutionally, the pursuit of happiness is something we not only honor, but something we legally protect. This ain't Russia. I don't have to stay. This ain't Cuba. I can leave.

"In fact, find me one American who would make me stay and fight. They'd say no, go, do what's right for you. I found happiness here. I'll be in BC the rest of my life. I pray to God that I don't die somewhere else, that I'm not vacationing somewhere when I die, because that would bum me out. . . .

"Pursue your happiness. We were the first country to do it. And we live for that, the fact that people have personal rights. Go where you want. Do what you want. The fact that I chose Canada is almost a bigger embodiment of the American dream. . . . I still love America."

"So you're saying being unpatriotic is an act of patriotism?" I counter, though my heart is no longer in it

Sounds like I'm not the only one selling something on E-bay

If you enjoy a sarcastic rant, you have to read this sale on ebay.
Be sure to read all the way down to the questions and answers.

After you'ver seen that sale see the SCRABBLE set he's selling. Be sure to read the Q&A too.


Thanks to Kim du Toit

I finally got me a troll!

Too bad it was an e-mail for the car on E-bay:


Dear kangroo78656,

why is your reserve met at 800. and you are trying to get 1500.you sound like an ass!!!

So I had to tell him that the reserve price was the least I wanted(actually it was $500), and this is an E-bay AUCTION the $1500 was the buy-it-now price for the two that were going the low road in my mailbox.
What a moron.

I'm ex Navy, but this is pretty good
A Soldier, a Sailor, an Airman and a Marine got into an argument about which branch of the service was "The Best." The arguing became so heated the four service men failed to see an oncoming truck. They were run over by the truck and killed instantly.

Soon, the four servicemen found themselves at the Pearly gates of Heaven. There, they met Saint Peter and decided that only he could be the ultimate source of truth and honesty. So, the four servicemen asked him, "Saint Peter, which branch of the United States Armed Forces is the best?" Saint Peter replied, "I can't answer that. However, I will ask God what He thinks the next time I see Him. Meanwhile, thank you for your service on Earth and welcome to Heaven."

Some time later the four servicemen see Saint Peter and remind him of the question they had asked when first entering Heaven. The four servicemen asked Saint Peter if he was able to find the answer. Suddenly, a sparkling white dove lands on Saint Peter's shoulder. In the dove's beak is a note glistening with gold dust. Saint Peter opens the note, trumpets blare, gold dust drifts into the air, harps play crescendos and Saint Peter begins to read the note aloud to the four servicemen.

MEMORANDUM FROM THE DESK OF THE ALMIGHTY ONE:

TO: All Former Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines

SUBJECT: Which Military Service Is the Best

1. All branches of the United States Armed Forces
are honorable and noble.
2. Each serves America well and with distinction.
3. Serving in the United States military represents a
great honor warranting special respect, tribute,
and dedication from your fellow man.
4. Always be proud of that.

Sincerely, GOD, U.S.A.F. (Retired)

And in another circus on the Fla coast,
Via Schnitt
Is the Tonya Harding, , , ummmm, , , " sports" event.

She's going to 'box on a wrestling card' against a tranny (kof)

(snicker)

FORT LAUDERDALE -- Sure, I was in a beachside bar Tuesday afternoon, standing with Tonya Harding and a transvestite stage-named Daisy D., asking questions, taking notes and wondering whether I would roast in sports-writing hell for showing up.

But what of it?

I've hung out with some low people, frequented some questionable places, involved myself in some tangled conversations and been around some strange, strange sports events. And that was just in covering the 2004 Dolphins.

So how could I pass up a chance to be around the lowest, most questionable, certifiably strangest event you'll ever -- alas, perhaps never -- see? Tonya vs. the Transvestite. It's a pseudo-boxing match scheduled for Thursday night at Beach Bums on Fort Lauderdale beach.

<, , , >
Well, that's why I'm here. But let's move to the main event. Let's talk with Tonya. All of her. And, just for the record, yes, that really is her. I had to ask. There's no sense being mean about it. Let's just say she's really grown as a person.

"When I was a figure skater I had to have a figure like a pixie," she said. "Now I have the figure of a boxer."

What is it about Tonya that makes enough people curious, more than a decade after her Olympic embarrassment? Is it our reality-show society? Is it people rubber-necking at a car wreck? Is it the last time everyone saw her was in Norway, in the winter of 1994, when she slid across the ice, feet first, to end one of the highest-rated embarrassments in sports history?

They have a pic if you're interested.

SEXY ALLIGATOR

A guy walks into a bar with a pet alligator by his side. He puts
the alligator up on the bar. He turns to the astonished patrons.
"I'll make you a deal. I'll open this
alligator's mouth and place my genitals inside. Then the gator
will close his mouth for one minute. He'll then open his mouth and
I'll remove my unit unscathed. In return for witnessing this
spectacle, each of you will buy me a drink."

The crowd murmured their approval. The man stood up on the bar,
and dropped his trousers, placing his privates in the alligator's
mouth. The gator closed his mouth as the crowd gasped. After a
minute, the man grabbed a beer bottle and rapped the alligator
hard on the top of its head. The gator opened his mouth and the
man removed his genitals unscathed as promised.

The crowd cheered and the first of his free drinks were delivered.

The man stood up again and made another offer. "I'll pay anyone
$100 who's willing to give it a try."

A hush fell over the crowd. After a while, a hand went up in the
back of the bar.

A blonde girl timidly spoke up. "I'll try, but you have to promise
not to hit me on the head with the beer bottle so hard."

We're selling the little Corvette on E-bay

And I didn't put a Buy-It-Now price on it because I want the highest price I can wring out of it.
I got three people asking about buying it behind E-bay. I told them to bid on the thing.

Here's one copied e-mail that makes this blog look relativly good.

Dear kangroo78656,

ill give u a grand for it couse i need a car for collage thanks let me know

Ahhh, the future leadership of our country.

(and no-it's not really a Corvette, it's a Cavalier)

Mike Walker (National Enquirerer) sends Danny off with a bang

Over on NRO they have a Q&A about Danny Boy. I hate to write about him, but it's relief that I won't be force fed the Rather tireing stuff anymore.

Mike Walker, who describes Rather’s enthusiastic loyalty to those damn National Guard documents as “hotter than a rooster on Viagra,” answered some questions from NRO Editor Kathryn Jean Lopez to commemorate Dan Rather’s step down from the CBS anchor chair today.

National Review Online: Was “Memogate” a fluke in Dan Rather’s career? Or could a keen observer have seen it coming?

Walker: Even a not-so-keen observer could have seen it coming. When Dan was a fledgling White House reporter, it was noted in the book The Boys On the Bus that “Rather would go with an item even if he didn’t have it completely nailed down with verifiable facts. If a rumor sounded solid to him…he would let it rip. The other White House reporters hated Rather for this.” Like the time he reported, erroneously that J. Edgar Hoover had stepped down as FBI director. Not long after that gaffe, he again reported that Hoover had decamped. Again he was wrong. He was obsessed with the conviction, again erroneously, that deceased CIA director William Casey was still alive and hidden away somewhere. He spewed the f-word on camera at a TV reporter who angered him. And he admitted to persuading a Houston police officer to inject him with heroin — in the belief it would make him a better reporter. The first time CBS considered firing him was when he insulted President Nixon on national TV. He followed that with his outrageous on-air badgering of then-Vice President George H. W. Bush.
<, , , >
NRO: What lessons could the CBS news division learn from The National Enquirer?

Walker: Stop ignoring the most basic rules of journalism. Don’t try to authenticate copies of documents. It’s impossible. You need originals. And stop dealing with transparent wackos who have axes to grind — a la that loopy Texas Bush-hater and Texas Air National Guard malcontent. Above all, when a source tells you he had documents from a guy, call the guy and ask him if that’s true. A high-school journalist wouldn’t be suckered by your phony story.
<, , ,>
NRO: You recount a weird incident at a presidential press conference in 1974. What the heck was Rather up to with Nixon that day? And how did he manage not to get fired?

Walker: President Nixon had just recognized an ABC reporter at a 1974 press conference, but the guy barely got his mouth open before Rather butted in and boomed: “Thank you, Mr. President. Dan Rather of CBS News. Mr. President … with respect.” Reporters booed Rather’s brazen interruption. Nixon said jokingly, “Are you running for something?” Snapped Rather, “No, Mr. President, are you?” The crowd gasped. Rather’s crack was beyond rude, it was downright pugnacious, disrespectful, and flat-out dumb. No one knows what was percolating through Dan’s lizard brain that fateful day, but after their White House correspondent sassed the president, CBS execs asked, “Should we fire the SOB?” NBC’s Tom Brokaw claims CBS considered hiring him to replace Rather. But Dan survived. He was all CBS had to replace Walter Cronkite.



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If we didn't have enough to worry about with "Global Warming"

Now, somewhere, sometime a 'Super' volcano will freeze us out.

And now the bad news: There's not much anyone can do about it.

The eruption of a super volcano "sooner or later" will chill the planet and threaten human civilization, British scientists warned Tuesday.

Several volcanoes around the world are capable of gigantic eruptions unlike anything witnessed in recorded history, based on geologic evidence of past events, the scientists said. Such eruptions would dwarf those of Mount St. Helens, Krakatoa, Pinatubo and anything else going back dozens of millennia.

"Super eruptions are up to hundreds of times larger than these," said Stephen Self of Britain's Open University.

"An area the size of North America can be devastated, and pronounced deterioration of global climate would be expected for a few years following the eruption," Self said. "They could result in the devastation of world agriculture, severe disruption of food supplies, and mass starvation. These effects could be sufficiently severe to threaten the fabric of civilization."

Well, on the other hand, maybe it'll cancel out

GLOBAL WARMING!

(but aren't they kinda backing off and calling it 'climate change?)

Twenty-six reasons why men have 2 dogs and not 2 wives

1. The later you are, the more excited your dogs are to see you.
2. Dogs will forgive you for playing with other dogs.
3. If a dog is gorgeous, other dogs don't hate it.
4. Dogs don't notice if you call them by another dog's name.
5. Dogs like it if you leave a lot of things on the floor.
6. A dog's parents never visit.
7. Dogs do not hate their bodies.
8. Dogs agree that you have to raise your voice to get your point across.
9. Dogs like to do their snooping outside rather than in your wallet or desk.
10. Dogs seldom out live you.
11. Dogs can't talk.
12. You never have to wait for a dog; they're ready to go 24 hours a day.
13. Dogs find you amusing when you're drunk.
14. Dogs like to go hunting and fishing.
15. Another man will seldom steal your dog.
16. A dog will not wake you up at night to ask, "If I died, would you get another dog?"
17. If a dog has babies, you can put an ad in the paper and give them away.
18. A dog will let you put a studded collar on it without calling you a pervert.
19. A dog won't hold out on you to get a new car.
20. If a dog smells another dog on you, they don't get mad.
They just think it's interesting.
21. On a car trip, your dog never insists on running the heater.
22. Dogs don't let magazine articles guide their lives.
24. Dogs like to ride in the back of a pick-up truck.
25. Dogs are not allowed in Bloomingdale's or
Neiman-Marcus.
And, last but not least:
26. If a dog leaves, it won't take half of your stuff.

SCIENCE

Finally the pictures of the shredded car of the Commie reporter(hostage terrorist film editor-whatever)

Captains Quarters Blog has pics from the Italian source.

Personally I've seen cars in worse shape driving around in San Antonio.

(Sorry about the lack of posting, wife and 14 yr-old were playing a word game- education first)

I'm listening to Fox News this morning, and I'll make a prediction
I'm sure others have made the same one, but I haven't heard of it. I predict that the 'peacefull' HAMAS lead unity tour will end in loss of life, or people wounded anyway.
These people are terrorists, they can't use any kind of presuasion exept coercion of some kind.

AND gee, Martha is on TV again- it's like they're trying to convince me that she's worth something to me, or is somehow newsworthy.

Yet another Arcticle about the Ozone hole, exept now it's over Britain

This time they're using an old Soviet spyplane, guess satellites just aren't giving them the info they want?

Read all about the new EUro-hole here.

Ok, it's a nautical Monday

Thanks to Drudge, we have a stranding of a Dolphin Pod because (maybe) a US Sub was holding exercises 45 MILES away.

I'm glad those concerned 'scientists' are so knowlegable about marine mamals:
Some scientists surmise that loud bursts of sonar, which can be heard for miles in the water, may disorient or scare marine mammals, causing them to surface too quickly and suffer the equivalent of what divers know as the bends — when sudden decompression forms nitrogen bubbles in tissue.

Obviously, dolphins stop in stages to prevent "the BENDS" just like human divers who use COMPRESSED air to breath underwater. Well, if they'r not scared from loud noises from evil US subs that is . . . Unlike you know eco-friendly Russian and Chinese subs.