Random Flickr Blogging

IMG_3847.JPG, originally uploaded by boyonabike.

OMG! I know I'm cute, but are my cheeks big or are they just swollen from everyone squeezing them? Then they mess with my hair! Mom, your friends have got to get control of themselves.


Random Flickr blogging explained.

I Have A Question

I had this idea that taking a day off to recharge my batteries, might give me a more positive perspective on things. And it did, even after I stepped on the hot barbecue coal and burnt one of my middle toes and the ball of my foot. Right up until this morning, when I stupidly started reading an article that would only confirm the accusations I made while the national shame that was Katrina, was occurring. Now I'm absolutely positive that the Bush administration never had any intention of ever helping the citizens of the Gulf Coast and every day that goes by it looks like they actively worked to prevent them from getting help. Even if it didn't cost this country a dime.

So, my question is this. Exactly what constitutes high crimes and misdemeanors in this country? Even if we blow off the incompetence of preventing 9/11; the lack of pursuit of Osama bin Forgotten (by the crew without clue that is);, Abu Ghraib; Guantanamo; Pat Tillman and the cover-up; the varied and false premises for war with Iraq; the debacle of said war; the lack of a connection between Saddam and al-Qaeda; the abuse and lack of support for our troops (both during and after service); still no WMDs; deliberately outing a member of the CIA; the destruction of the Bill of Rights and the flagrant disregard of the Constitution; doesn't deliberately refusing while actively preventing to help the citizens of the country you supposedly are in charge of, deserve some type of formal charges? There are dictatorships that have been held to more accountability than these guys.

Crossposted at 3Bs and If I Ran The Zoo.

It's Ten In The Morning

The sun is shining, the temperature is 70 and my garden is calling me. I planted tomatoes (Cherokee Purples, Mamma Mia, Ace, Pink Caspian and Early Girls), Serrano chiles, Beets, Fennel, Boston and Red Leaf lettuce and Japanese cucumbers. In an herb pot, I have garlic chives, chives, parsley, cilantro, sage, thyme, sage and dill.

Oops, I still have to transplant the flowers; fuchsia, kimono, marigold and some other colorful varieties. I love warm weather and who knew I'd like gardening? I hate dirt under my nails but gardening is relaxing. Hopefully, it will be productive.

Early Morning Wanderings

In a true conservative world, wouldn't the states have final say over what gets built, and where? If this keeps up,, there will be no undoing the damage. To the environment or state's rights. And just why would that be?

"This proposal isn't about preventing blackouts. It is about giving energy companies the upper hand in their interactions with state and local governments," Waxman said. "Moreover, it could undermine progressive energy policies that many of these states have adopted."

You don't say, wish that had been a surprise. Bad boy for pointing that out, no Benjamins under the table for you.

The one redeeming part of Halloween has always been being able to hear Monster Mash and all its variants. I know it's dorky, but I enjoy listening to it. Bobby "Boris" Pickett passed away from leukemia at the age of 69. Rest in peace, you will be missed. By both Bob Dylan and myself.

Snark of the week

Let’s face it, the “debate” pits the Bush administration’s model-democracy delusion against the Democrats’ let’s-just-get-out state of denial.

If it had been up to me, we wouldn't have been there in the first place and I'm tired of throwing good money after bad. One more American casualty is too many and the scores of Iraqi victims is unconscionable. For everyone except the politicians.

General failure, indeed.

"After going into Iraq with too few troops and no coherent plan for postwar stabilization, America's general officer corps did not accurately portray the intensity of the insurgency to the American public," he writes. "For reasons that are not yet clear, America's general officer corps underestimated the strength of the enemy, overestimated the capabilities of Iraq's government and security forces and failed to provide Congress with an accurate assessment of security conditions in Iraq."

The Vietnam war was virtually over by the time I got done with training, but while I was stationed at Ft. Lewis one of the radio stations had a running gag featuring "General Nonsense". I see nothing has changed. Unfortunately, this is more depressing than surprising. Mild-mannered team players. That's a good one. We used terms that were a little more descriptive.

Help Is On The Way

Living here in California, I watched the housing boom with quite a bit of interest, fascinated by how desperate people were to "own" (miss a payment and you find out the truth) their own home. The prices were out of control, the properties weren't worth what people were paying for them, the job situation was precarious in the region and the financing was fishy. How can you pay less than the interest accruing every month and still expect to pay off the loan? Just because I don't have the money, doesn't mean that I can't do simple arithmetic.

When I was 22, I owned a house in Santa Maria, CA. It was a cute little thing, with a vegetable garden that I didn't appreciate. Even though the loan was financed using my G.I.Bill, my income wasn't considered because I was a woman. The loan was for 33K and the interest rate was around 6%, the payment was a little more than $300 (it's been a long time). It was a little more than a quarter of our income. Property tax, insurance, car repairs, etc., all added up. If the loan payment had been any larger, chances are we would have been in trouble eventually, which is why I was so fascinated by these new loans.

Everybody was so focused on the brass ring, both lenders and borrowers, that they failed to consider the old bromides of what goes up, must come down and that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Which is becoming painfully clear to lenders and borrowers. So, unlike the crew without a clue, lenders have decided to be proactive and forestall the foreclosures.

• Fannie Mae, America's leading mortgage lender, says it plans to help as many as 1.5 million "subprime" borrowers – people with low credit ratings – refinance out of high-interest loans.

• Freddie Mac, which like Fannie Mae is a government-backed corporation, is creating new products to make homes more affordable to buyers with poor credit. Freddie Mac doesn't make loans directly but pledges to buy as much as $20 billion worth of these mortgages from participating lenders.

• Washington Mutual, another giant lender, says it will refinance $2 billion in subprime loans, helping borrowers avoid foreclosure. The new loans will come with below-market interest rates.

Remember those commercials from a few years ago, the tearjerkers that convinced people to clean up their credit and they could move into the home of their dreams? They pulled out all the stops in their effort to sell as many homes as they could and make those that couldn't afford to buy, feel guilty. Now reality is setting in, sticker shock has given way to payment shock and the only way to save the situation is for the lenders to give up some of their profit or they will have none.

Hindsight is always 20/20.

Dumb, De Dumb Dumb

There was an article about fascism that I (did you know that you can't highlight one letter?)and quite a few others linked to, for varying reasons. If you are a new conservative, it was wild speculation from a liberal who just doesn't understand how safety is everything and the President is always right, even if he's wrong. To a raging liberal, it was confirmation that the sky is falling and the world is coming to an end. To me, the article was a harbinger of things to come, if the citizens continue on the path of blithe indifference.

Item number 2 screams; look at me! Create a gulag. Combined with number 10, suspend the rule of law, they engender a frightening view of the future. As in, the pretty doggone near kind of future. Like the one we have in Guantanamo, where the Bush administration wants to limit access to lawyers, read privileged communications between lawyer and client, even though according to another article, only 80 of the 370 prisoners is going to be charged with aiding the Taliban or al-Qaeda. So why can't they have lawyers and trials so the 310 innocent ones can go home? How can anyone justify this type of behavior and still believe that we are spreading freedom and democracy across the world?

Why is it that a fifteen year old boy or girl is treated as an innocent and fragile teenager (especially if they're blond) for being the victim of sexual assault (and they are, don't get your panties in a bunch!) but are considered to be adults who knew the consequences of their actions when they commit a crime orthey've been brainwashed by the adults around them? We have lost all sense of perspective and therefore, are well on the way to losing our humanity. Instead of being a beacon of light and freedom, we have become a black hole of despair and torture.

If we sit around and do nothing, our state sponsored terrorists will win. Now isn't that a pretty pickle for the land of the free and and the home of the brave?

One Toke Over The Line

Pot 2.0, maybe it would be funnier if I smoked some. Oregon pot has 33% THC? Wow. This month's fear mongering story about marijuana has been released. Am I going to have to give pot its own label? Moderation is the key to all things. Chronic use can lead to happiness or to the hospital if you don't know what you are doing. Maybe the author should have checked in with Time, they could have coordinated the articles.

Update: Once I saw this article, I just had to add it to the drug edition. What will they think of next? If Prozac can make young adults suicidal, how will it affect dogs? And how would you know if your dog was suicidal? Shai was crate trained and she always had a Kong filled with a treat when we left her alone. She knows if we are going out and once she comes to the conclusion that she isn't going on a puppy ride, she sits and faces the door with the treats. Her attitude is; get going so I can have my treat, what are you waiting for? She's a good dog and I love her dearly.

Return Of The Dark Ages

Just when you think it couldn't get any worse for the people of New Orleans, it does. If you're black and looking for a place to live, don't get your hopes up. Racism is alive and well in the Big Easy. Why an accident of birth should be held against someone, is beyond me. Paris and Britney are two shining examples of money cannot buy you class. This country has slipped so far backwards that the Dark Ages are beginning to look advanced.

I'll drink to that and I won't feel guilty later. So there.

Can the Republicans get any more childish? If you investigate our President's emails then we'll investigate Clinton's. Waah, waah, waah. It sounds like their diapers need to be changed, they are getting cranky, wallowing in all that crap. Boo hoo.

Back to the Dark Ages, how long will it be before they call us serfs or slaves instead of just treating us like one? Worker safety (to say nothing of consumer safety) has meant nothing for the last seven years under the present "administration". The media was distracted by something and never followed up on the safety issues from the mine disasters and now this story comes to light. I don't like popcorn and the only use for microwave popcorn is to get rid of other smells in your house. A fireman once told me that it was excellent for getting rid of that just burnt smell after a house fire. Anyway, if people are getting sick from making it, wouldn't others get sick by eating it? Voluntary compliance, what a joke. It's more like the fox guarding the henhouse, and we all know how well that doesn't work.

Not A Big White Lie

I may be liberal, but at least I'm not stupid. Or white. The conservatives have done so much good for the country lately. Our borders are secure. Not. The economy is stable. Not. Quality of life is improved. Not. Freedom to be an American is encouraged. Not. Our standing in the world is admired. Not. A good education is available to everyone who wants it. Not. We take care of our own cities after a disaster. Not.

If he plays poker the same way he thinks, I can see why he was banned from the monthly poker session. Nobody likes it when you consistently draw to a one out or play 7-2 offsuit. It doesn't matter if you get there or not, it's just a stupid way to play and it gets tiring. Playing every hand, badly, can ruin more than one persons night out. It destroys the game.

This, I believe, is the reason conservative politicians so often lose their nerve, why they back down in debate even when they’re clearly right. No one wants to be condemned as a brute—especially not conservatives, who still retain some vague memory of how worthy it is to be a lady or gentleman.

And because we’ve allowed leftists to define the language of political good manners—don’t say women are less scientific; don’t remark that black people bear the same responsibility for their actions as whites; don’t point out that the gunman was a Muslim, it’s not nice—the sort of person willing to speak the truth isn’t always the sort of person you want to be seen with. It sometimes takes, I mean, a Rush Limbaugh or a Sean Hannity to withstand the obloquy attached to stating the facts of the matter. If these people in their public personae seem harsh to more genteel conservatives, it may be because it requires that extra dollop of aggression to shatter the silence created by the Left’s increasingly elaborate sensitivities.

Exactly when have you guys ever been right? The only nerve the conservatives have lost is the one that enabled them to lie, cheat and steal from the American public. First liberals were too angry and called the never right bad names, now we're too civil. Let me be one of the many to point out that you are an ignorant, insufferable dick-head. You guys are crybaby central. And that's no lie.

Crossposted at Big Brass Blog.

Sad But True

There are ten easy steps to becoming a fascist state and the United States is using all of them. Naomi Wolf lays out the facts and follows them up with examples . If you are interested, which most Americans aren't, the article can be found here. The only question left to be answered is, which jail am I going to be in?

Popped out his penis and cut it off. In a crowded restaurant. Now he's being evaluated for his mental health status. Any guesses as to what they will decide?

I did a shift at the San Diego Hospice (awesome place) and one of the doctors was vehemently against assisted suicide. She felt that all terminally ill people needed was proper pain management. Well, it's ten years later and I wonder what her opinion is now that the Bush administration has made it a practice to prosecute doctors for helping patients to manage pain. It's easy for those who don't have chronic pain to not understand how it controls your life and that the person can operate normally with extremely high doses in their system. This is just one more example of the destruction of the patient/doctor relationship. The government is now in the business of practicing medicine. Without proper training. Must be an intelligent design thing. Whatever. It's stupid and dangerous.

Once again comic books are ahead of their time. White kryptonite was found in a cave in Siberia. And somebody has already adjusted the Wikipedia entry.

Random Flickr Blogging

The sand wizard focuses on creating a sand storm

IMG_3318, originally uploaded by cifu.

As the army of stones gathers beneath their leader,
,
originally uploaded by Martin Thomas,

preparing for the final assault on the soft beach people.

Random Flickr Blogging started over here.

Blame It On The Women

What a load of flying elephant doodoo! Each paragraph gets more outrageous than the last and the article can only be described as bizarre. More innuendo and supposition than a bad Harlequin romance, but I repeat myself.

Camille Paglia, professor of humanities and media studies at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and author of Sexual Personae, believes Cho is emblematic of the crisis of masculinity in America. “Women have difficulty understanding the mix of male sexual aggression with egotism and the ecstasy of self-immolation,” she says.

I have difficulty understanding where she gets off spouting that horseshit. Does she eat with that mouth? How can she hate herself so much? Unfortunately, she's not alone in the kingdom of the misogynists.

According to that intellectual whizz, Frances Fukyama, it's all women's fault. To protect society from unemployed men between the ages of 15 and 30 who have no clear place in society, women should take one for the team and treat them as if they are normal and/or desirable or they will become terrorist suicide bombers or homicidal maniacs who shoot helpless people to make themselves feel like men. Almost fascinating, if it wasn't so stupid. It sort of reveals which group he belonged to in school.

Granted, both the suicide bombers and the disenfranchised nutjobs determined to make others as miserable as themselves, are not getting laid in this lifetime, but for vastly different reasons. One culture expressly forbids it and makes it hard to accomplish and in the other, women have the right to wash their hair instead of satisfying some guy who would be just as happy with an Idoll, if he knew about them.

Trying to blame anyone and anything for the actions of a madman is almost as demented as the act itself. The wingnuts have felt free to blame the victims, because they didn't rush a guy with an automatic weapon, free to blame women and a "feminised" society (please don't let inconvenient facts stand in the way of that little misconception) instead of placing the blame where it really belongs, because they think it would be an infringement on someone's liberty to carry an assault weapon that could never be used to hunt anything except a human being!

There have always been people who prefer to "solve" their problems by making other people suffer, they just never had the equipment to be able to do it en masse, until recently. Perhaps that strategy should be rethought. Instead of blaming women (Jezebels, trollops, shameless hussies and the only ones who tried to get the man help), why not just understand that the only purpose of an assault rifle is to kill indiscriminately? Hunting for food is one thing, hunting human beings is another.

Irony, Sarcasm And Cynicism

Heaven forbid that people can tell the difference. As much as I may like Jeff Foxworthy, redneck humor should not be the sole representative of our level of thinking, but something tells me that it is. The ability to think deeply about a subject (longer than a 30 second sound bite) is discouraged by our "leaders", whose agenda is encouraged by the media and reinforced in the schools by standardized testing so "no child is left behind." To think. Rote memorization produces an unquestioning (because they are no longer capable of independent thought) populace who willingly traipse down the path to destruction. Because they were told to and it's much easier to go along with the crowd than it is to stand up and think for yourself, therefore anyone who does is an idiot and a traitor.

In case it isn't obvious, I'm irritated. And disappointed. My country is gone, killed by the lowest common denominator, abetted by acquiescence and stupidity. Doesn't anyone else think it strange that people can use the internet to spend more time reinforcing their opinions than they do learning new information? That they spend more time trying to find fault than they do answers? It makes me wonder, do they eat the same thing day after day? It certainly smells like it.

Irritation doesn't begin to cover how I'm feeling. Extrapolate that.

Crossposted at Big Brass Blog.

Top 8 Morons of 2006!

TOP 8 MORONS OF 2006

1. WILL THE REAL DUMMY PLEASE STAND UP? AT&T fired President John Walter after nine months, saying he lacked intellectual leadership. He received a $26 million severance package. Perhaps it's not Walter who's lacking intelligence.



2. WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM OUR FRIENDS: Police in Oakland , CA spent two hours attempting to subdue a gunman who had barricaded himself inside his home. After firing ten tear gas canisters, officers discovered that the man was standing beside them in the police line, shouting, "Please come out and give yourself up."


3. WHAT WAS PLAN B??? An Illinois man, pretending to have a gun, kidnapped a motorist and forced him to drive to two different automated teller machines, wherein the kidnapper proceeded to withdraw money from his own bank accounts.

4. THE GETAWAY! A man walked into a Topeka , Kansas Kwik Stop and asked for all the money in the cash drawer. Apparently, the take was too small, so he tied up the store clerk and worked the counter himself for three hours until police showed up and grabbed him.

5. DID I SAY THAT??? Police in Los Angeles had good luck with a robbery suspect who just couldn't control himself during a lineup. When detectives asked each man in the lineup to repeat the words: "Give me all your money or I'll shoot", the man shouted, "that's not what I said!".


6. ARE WE COMMUNICATING??? A man spoke frantically into the phone: "My wife is pregnant and her contractions are only two minutes apart". "Is this her first child?" the doctor asked. "No!" the man shouted, "This is her husband!"


7. NOT THE SHARPEST TOOL IN THE SHED! In Modesto , CA , Steven Richard King was arrested for trying to hold up a Bank of America branch without a weapon. King used a thumb and a finger to simulate a gun. Unfortunately, he failed to keep his hand in his pocket. (hellooooooo)!

8. THE GRAND FINALE!!! Last summer, down on Lake Isabella , located in the high desert, an hour east of Bakersfield , CA , some folks, new to boating, were having a problem. No matter how hard they tried, they couldn't get their brand new 22 foot boat, going. It was very sluggish in almost every maneuver, no matter how much power they applied. After about an hour of trying to make it go, they putted into a nearby marina, thinking someone there may be able to tell them what was wrong. A thorough topside check revealed everything in perfect working condition. The engine ran fine, the out-drive went up and down, and the propeller was the correct size and pitch. So, one of the marina guys jumped in the water to check underneath. He came up choking on water, he was laughing so hard. NOW REMEMBER...THIS IS TRUE.
Under the boat, still strapped securely in place, was the trailer!

The Moral Of The Story

Moral waivers or is that morality wavering? Either way, we no longer have the moral high ground, as if we ever did, and the body count of innocents (military and civilians) continues to increase. And no, I don't think this was the reason they hid this report. They didn't want the public to have the information, it might have made the election results worse than they already were for the warmongers.

Though Bargewell completed his secret report in June 2006, it has not been publicly released because of ongoing criminal investigations of three Marines on murder allegations and four Marine officers who allegedly failed to look into the case. Bargewell's report, now unclassified, focuses on the reporting of the incident and the training and command climate within the Marine Corps leadership; it does not address the actual incident in detail.

The officer in charge, Lt. Kallop is getting immunity to testify against his troops. Exactly when are the so-called superiors going to take responsibility for any of the tragedies in this debacle? From Abu Ghraib to Pat Tillman to Abeer Hamza to Haditha, the only ones who pay are the troops and the civilians. What's up with that?

When we were stationed in Germany, we lived on the economy (off base) and most of the troops referred to the German citizens as Herbies (after the original Love Bug, not the Lindsey Lohan remake!). It wasn't nice, it wasn't polite, but we were generally respectful of the people and obeyed their laws and customs, of which the beer drinking was very popular for some reason and speeding along the autobahn just rocked, usually when a BMW or Mercedes blew past my Gremlin.

Things are different now, we treat the Iraqis like they are interlopers in their own country. We force them to identify themselves, to stop their cars on a dime or be shot, we burst into their homes unannounced, shoot first and ask questions later. Maybe. Meanwhile, back here in the States, we have no empathy for those who are injured or killed. As people rush to help the Virgina Tech survivors, we act like this is the biggest tragedy in the world. A tragedy that is suffered daily by the Iraqi and Afghanis (remember them?) and we expect them to pick up their lives and go on as if nothing has happened. Until the next time, which can be in just a few minutes, hours or days.

There is a whole generation of children who are growing up knowing nothing but war and suicide bombers, not unlike the Palestinians and the Lebanese, except that we are the perpetrators of the Iraq war. We started it and we are incapable of finishing it. We are responsible for every innocent man, woman and child who have been, and will continue to be, maimed and killed by our actions. And our inactions.

It is no longer possible to convince the world that we are right, because we aren't. We can drop all the Number Twos we want, the smell of this debacle will never improve. Nobody believes us anymore, we don't even believe our own government and we certainly don't believe their reports.

The only moral to this story seems to be to do unto others what you think they are going to do to you, but do it first and leave no survivors. And people are wondering why our kids feel so disenfranchised and react with violence.

Crossposted at If I Ran The Zoo.

Taking Out The Trash

So they are building walls around neighborhoods in Baghdad. Now the Sunnis have their own little gated community and they aren't all that happy about it. How clueless do you have to be to understand that the lives of Iraqis are completely in the toilet? Little to no electricity, shopping at the market is the equivalent of taking their lives in one hand and a glass of nitro in the other, and now they are enjoying the wonders of segregation. Palestinian style.

Now for the good news.

Overall, U.S. combat casualties in Iraq have remained relatively flat since the start of the security crackdown in Baghdad. There were 156 U.S. troops killed in combat from Feb. 14 to April 14. That compares with 151 U.S. combat casualties from Dec. 16 to Feb. 13.

Or you could look at it another way, on 307 troops lost their lives in 120 days. A little more than two per day. Isn't that great? I'm so glad the mission has been accomplished and that the Iraqis are standing up so we can stand down.

Duh! Mom grew up on a restricted diet, has walked everywhere for most of her life, gets hours of sunlight per day and eats whatever she wants to, when she wants to. She is built like a bird and has the handshake of a macho bodybuilder. She has smoked for 60 of her 76 years and while she may have had a stroke, she is still in better shape than I am. I woof and creak when I get up after sitting for a little while and my knee will not allow me to walk longer than a half mile. I'm fifty, at least for the next month, don't smoke and I eat healthy foods but I am incredibly sedentary. I've been telling may patients for years that our generation was going to be the first no to live as long as our parents and we wouldn't be as healthy in our old age. Freakin' right again. And once again, I'm not happy about it.

Can someone tell me exactly when Homeland Security is going to do its job? Running around tapping phones, opening mail, spying on people with Mohamed in their name and we're supposed to believe that they are protecting us from terrorists. Meanwhile, back at the trailer park next to Los Alamos (the place that likes to make radioactive bombs) security left quite a bit to be desired.

It was only after several years on the job that she was caught with bomb designs in her trailer and fired. But the investigation reveals that Quintana had taken her cell phone into a vault filled with secret documents where she worked — another major security violation. She also had access to a high-speed classified printer, even though such access was "not required by her job," and used the device to run off hundreds of copies of classified documents that she also brought home. The young woman received inadequate supervision — government documents show that the security administrator responsible for Quintana's area was not around roughly half the time, because that person had "other duties." Quintana's lawyer, Stephen Aaron, told TIME that, on occasion, she would be locked into a secure vault to work until colleagues returned. "We hope that the lessons learned from this episode can be used to make the Lab more secure in the future," he added.

Quintana's motive for breaching the rules appears to have been benign: Falling behind on her work scanning paper copies of nuclear-weapons designs into a digital format, she would save highly-classified documents onto a "thumb drive" and then take the material home to work on after hours, she has said.

She sounds like a perfect candidate for the new Attorney General job except for one minor little detail. The leader of the crew without a clue is happy with Albert "I don't recall" Gonzales.

The Attorney General has the full confidence of the President, and he appreciates the work he is doing at the Department of Justice to help keep our citizens safe from terrorists, our children safe from predators, our government safe from corruption, and our streets free from gang violence.

Has any of this been done in real time or are they in a drug induced haze that makes them see things that aren't there and miss things that are glaringly obvious?

In The Neighborhood

I hate meetings! They are almost always a waste of time, all talk and no action, let's check out this information and we'll meet again later to discuss it. Grrr! Bet you can't tell where I'm going in a few minutes.

Can't we all just get along? Neighborly behavior has certainly changed. Not necessarily for the better.

Taxes, Trouble And Tragedy

Several things spring to mind when contemplating giving FEMA the lead role in collecting trash on the freeway, much less the responsibility for coordinating food, shelter and first aid immediately after a disaster. The first wasn't printable and the rest aren't any more positive than my original assessment. They can't even get a plan together before a deadline, someone is probably insisting that all requests for help must be filed from the victim's home computer within 24 hours of a disaster in order to reduce fraud.

The pet food recallkeeps expanding. Natural Balance Venison and Brown Rice was one of the first formulas that Shai tried and she didn't like the size of the kibble. Right now she is eating Merrick's Wilderness blend with a little hot water to make gravy. She also enjoys having some of their wet food mixed with her dry. No she isn't spoiled, just well-loved.

Once again, the difference between us and the rest of the world is evident. Two shootings, two vastly different reactions. One country's citizens want more accountability, the other doesn't want their freedoms infringed upon. One country has a low homicide rate and the other doesn't. Just what we need, more unstable people with guns, whipping them out for little or no provocation. The fight or flight response coupled with excess testosterone is a fantastic recipe for disaster. Interesting how people want their safety regulated under almost every circumstance but feel it is okay for almost anyone to have a deadly weapon.

Yesterday was the last day to file taxes if you owe the government money. If you have a refund coming, why didn't you file earlier? You still have until October 15 to file if you have a refund coming, the government doesn't really care when they get the paperwork when they owe you. if you owe the government and tried to file electronically at the last minute, well you waited too long and now there are penalties. Better luck next year. Do your taxes earlier and if you owe, it won't be so traumatic. I did three sets of taxes online yesterday and it took longer than in previous years. All of them were free so I shouldn't complain too much.

Tuesday's Oddities

My friend owns a coffee shop, and when she set her hours, she worried about staying open later. My response was, why? People shouldn't need to drink coffee after ten in the morning, if they do, they need to rethink their sleeping patterns. Coffee is not a substitute for sleep and unlike sleep, it won't improve your memory retention. But with a Starbucks across the street from a Starbucks and Peets is just down the road and all of theem are making money, what do you think the odds are that sleep will win? In TCM this is called running on evil qi. It gets the job done but the long term consequences are liable to be detrimental to your health.

The Virginia Tech shootings are a tragedy, nobody disputes that. True to form, the never right wing sprang into action and started lobbing accusations and assumptions, none of which were based on fact. Or reality. Numbers don't lie and sooner or later, we, as a nation, are going to have to face the fact that in our zeal to protect only the Second Amendment and not the others, we have let unstable people have access to deadly weapons. And they use them, with increasing frequency.

To the rest of the world, this is just one more example of American arrogance and lawlessness. While they may feel sorry for us, one more time, they must be wondering when we are going to get a clue and start regulating guns and ammunition. Technically, it's the bullets that kill you, not the gun. We worry more about drinking and driving than we do about inappropriate people having access to lethal weapons.

I know how to handle a weapon and even with being optically impaired, I hit what I aim for. I do not own a handgun, precisely because I know I would use it. On whoever was pissing me off. You can't go hunting with a pistol, therefore a gun must be for killing people. So why can any Tom, Dick, Harry, Janice, or Cho just walk in a buy a hand gun? We don't need the ability to conceal a weapon, we need the ability to regulate them so wackos can't pick one up when they decide to go off the deep end and we don't need to turn campuses into security zones. If guns are hard to get...

Speaking of the deep end, what an apt headline. My question is, from where? And can he crawl back in? Vice Presidents should be seen and not heard. In this case, not even seen.

Of course Einstein was right. Now if only they would learn to spell Vandenberg. It is berg with an e and Lompoc is pronounced Lompoke. As in pokes along.

What a load of crap. Whatever happened to a government of the people? When a government excludes people because they have opposing viewpoints, you end up with leaders who think everyone supports them and their ridiculous lies. Which is what we have been enduing for the last seven years and look at where the country is now. A constant cloud of tragedy, scandal and warmongering.

Lying eyes. How can you tell when these guys aren't telling the truth? Their lips are moving.

Random Flickr Blogging

IMG_4374, originally uploaded by randytownley.

Take them off! I don't need rose colored glasses, Besides, they are too big and they don't match my outfit.


RFB explained here.

Moments in love. Intellidating, now that is a great concept. Absolutely brilliant idea. A rather important question springs to mind. Is this option available for the over fifty crowd or am I a preemie?

Highly doubtful. Eff u and up yours springs to mind. Minorities having a higher rate of cancer can be attributed to a host of factors, one of which are nice. From poor prenatal nourishment to economic conditions that cockroaches find abhorrent, to societal pressures that induce rage and anger, to poor nutrition and little to nonexistent health care and you have a malignant soup that is served to those sections of society that are deemed not worthy of anything else.

My third night of insomnia. This crap is getting old. I'm so bored with not sleeping that I started playing with iTtunes. While I listen to Vikingman by Rodrigo y Gabriela, here are the my last ten music purchases.

1 Laugh, Laugh by the Beau Brummels
2. Relax by Fankie Goes to Hollywod
3. War by Edwin Starr
4. Always Something There To Remind Me by Naked Eyes
5. Fight The Power by The Isley Brothers
6. Inner City Blues (Makes me wanna holler) by Marvin Gaye
7. Rviera Paradise by Stevie Ray Vaughn
8. Secret Agent Man by Johnny Rivers (an alltime favorite!)
9. The Thrill Is Gone by B.B. King (oh yeah, a classic)
10. When the Levee Breaks by Stanton Moore, not Led Zeppelin

Additional music played by the randomizer included Brandy by Looking Glass, Angry Young Man by Styx, Feels Like the First Time by Foreigner and Word Up by Cameo .

Quotes Of The Day

It is going to be really hard to top this one.

“But with many men,” he added, “if you use the words ‘scalpel’ and ‘penis’ in the same sentence, they say ‘put me to sleep!’ So then we do it under general anesthesia.”

Duck! Cheney, who lives on the planet Notintouchwithreality, has this gem about the budget bill.

"There may be some people who are so irresponsible that they wouldn't support that," Cheney said. But the majority will send Bush the bill he wants "once they've gone through the exercise and it's clear the president will veto the provisions that they want in," he said.

Only if they want to face the wrath of the American people, just 31% of the people care what Bush wants.

Travesties Of Justice

Twenty years behind bars after being declared innocent. This doesn't surprise me at all since I've seen a version of it happen before my very eyes.

I was the first alternate in an armed burglary trial and alternates don't get to participate in the deliberation process unless one of the jurors is unable to complete his duties. It took them five days to find the defendant guilty of twelve counts of robbery, even though he was only guilty of ten and they were just tired of debating and decided that since he was guilty of the majority of the crimes, what the heck. It was physically impossible for him to have committed one of the crimes and in the other, the witness was blind as a bat and making it up as she went along. Please don't let me ever get arrested for a crime and have to be tried by a jury of my peers. Anyway, we three alternates wandered the halls of Superior Court in the San Fernando Valley.

We wandered into a courtroom just after the victim had given her testimony in a rape case and there was some sparring between the lawyers. It was so fascinating that we decided to come back the next morning. The next day we were there bright and early. We waited for about a half hour and then the judge, assistant DA and the defendant's lawyer came into the courtroom. The first two, both women, were radiating anger.

The judge dismissed the jury and waited until they had left the courtroom, then she called the defendant to the stand. She told him to describe the events in question, and he did. Quite humorously in fact. After he was done, the judge said that she was extremely disappointed and that she had been sure he was guilty and that if he hadn't videotaped (turns out he filmed porn videos) the incident in question she would have made sure he spent many years behind bars. She then revoked his parole for a previous charge of having an open beverage container and sentenced him to finish out his year in county lockup, which was supposed to be eleven months but since he had spent the last six behind bars he could do the remaining five. She wouldn't even let him out to visit his mother, who had just had a stroke, in the hospital. She was actually shaking with anger. So was I.

We were wide-eyed and open mouthed. In astonishment That was when I finally understood how the justice system could be rigged and used to punish the innocent. Previous to that I had always believed that not being guilty would set you free. Now I know better. Our government is so anxious to make sure that everyone has a criminal record for something besides white collar crime, that they will even try someone again on the same charges after they have already received a conviction and the defendant has served his sentence, just because they want to waste the taxpayers money in order to prove a point. Ed Rosenthal can tell you all about that little scenario. If only they would use that pent up frustration to punish someone who dearly deserves it, like Osama bin Laden. But they would have to catch him first and they obviously aren't interested in doing that.

Jimmy Lee Page doesn't deserve to be behind bars any more than the guy I watched get railroaded into prison did. Hopefully Mr. Page will get true justice and be released before too much longer.

In one of those flukes that you usually only see on television, the innocent rapist became my boyfriend's roommate a few months later. Nice guy, he liked my cooking.

Crossposted at If I Ran The Zoo.

Bubble, Bubble, Toil And Trouble

Tiny bubbles in the wine, make me happy, make me feel fine. Tiny bubbles made me feel warm all over when I was a kid. I can still see the bubbles floating up on the screen or the girls dancing in hula dresses in the background while he sang. Don Ho passed away today at the age of 76. Rest in peace and thanks for the memories.

What is up with the state sponsored racism? While everyone gets their knickers in a knot over a more sexist than racist comment that Don Imus made, Tony Blair blames crime on the black culture and now some members of the German army have starred in their own little training video with African Americans in the Bronx as target practice. Nice. Don't you just love progress? I wish we had made some.

Frank (behind the bleeping paywall) Rich points out some of the hypocrisy surrounding the Imus incident. Michael Richards got away with his extremely offensive behavior because he didn't have a regular gig and it was hard to organize a boycott.

It’s possible that the only people in this whole sorry story who are not hypocrites are the Rutgers teammates and their coach, C. Vivian Stringer. And perhaps even Don Imus himself, who, while talking way too much about black people he has known and ill children he has helped, took full responsibility for his own catastrophic remarks and didn’t try to blame the ensuing media lynching on the press, bloggers or YouTube. Unlike Mel Gibson, Michael Richards and Isaiah Washington, to take just three entertainers who have recently delivered loud religious, racial or sexual slurs, Imus didn’t hire a P.R. crisis manager and ostentatiously enter rehab or undergo psychiatric counseling. “I dished it out for a long time,” he said on his show last week, “and now it’s my time to take it.”

One should only have to pay for one's mistakes, not the weight of history. The punishment did not fit the crime, it went overboard, forcing one man (what about his producer?) to pay the price for his predecessors mistakes. Imus should have tried to convince somebody he needed some kind of rehab, it worked for everybody else.

And yes, Al Sharpton needs to STFU.Tawana Brawley. Definitely need to shut the firetruck up. Unless he's willing to apologize for his previous behavior. Like that's going to happen.

Walk This Way

Cardio exercise is not for everyone, strength and endurance training are also extremely effective in losing weight. People who already have a high metabolism (never stop moving or talking, most everything they do is fast) are most likely to benefit and enjoy aerobic exercise. In Traditional Chinese Medicine terms, they have a major Heart component to their existence. They also tend to be a little manic in their devotion.

Others of us don't fall into that category. America is a Liver nation, we tend to think we are right and that everyone should do as we way. Walk softly and carry a big stick as the old saying went. We still carry the stick but our footprint is much heavier. When the Liver gets arrogant it overwhelms all the organs, causing them to display their not so good qualities.

The Heart loses its way, becoming feverish and unreasonable, holding to beliefs that don't always fit the facts. The Spleen (in charge of muscle) becomes weak, leading to obsessive thought and a flabby constitution. The Lungs become congested, no longer capable of filtering pollutants and one's sense of justice becomes virtually nonexistent. The Kidneys, overtaxed by fear and repeated sexual stimulation (no, I'm not a prude), can no longer provide the backbone to face the future and perceives everything as a threat.

We are an obsessed nation. About everything. Our weight, the weather, our neighbors that we don't know personally, the latest blond in the news that it seems like we do. Everything except how the people whose lives we destroyed are going to do in the future. That's someone else's problem.

This was supposed to be a post about exercise so let's get back on topic. There is no one size fits all approach to proper health maintenance. There are plenty of people who have tried the aerobic route and gotten nowhere. Endurance increases but the weight stays right where it is, on the wrong side of the scale. I'm one of those. If I lift weights or do a lot of walking, the weight starts to slide off. The more muscle I build, the faster my resting metabolism. Forty-five minutes on the elliptical trainer increases my appetite while doing nothing to decrease my weight, I know because I did it for six months and only lost five pounds. Before my accident I lost fifty pounds and the only exercise I got was walking. Since then, I've gained thirty of it back. The orthopedist says no walking and wants to inject some artificial cartilage into my knee. Meanwhile, he wants me to lose weight and suggested the elliptical trainer. Sigh.

Whatever a person chooses to do, the activity should be fun, cost as little as possible, and be done on a relatively daily basis. Include friends and the quality of your life improves tremendously. Quality is just as important as quantity. It isn't how long you live, it's how well you live. So speaks the hedonist in me.

Crossposted at Big Brass Blog.

Are We There Yet?

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Friday Morning Quickie

I'll stick to sibling rivalry if you don't mind. I mean I like my brothers, but let's get a grip on reality.

The term "boner" is about to take on a whole new meaning.

In the furor over the death of Kurt Vonnegut, the passing of Roscoe Lee Browne has been overlooked. He had one of those really great voices, in the mold of James Earl Jones, Patrick Stewart, and Sean Connery. These guys could sit around and read the phone book and it would be pleasant and entertaining. Rest in peace.

It's A Small World, After All

Good days, bad days, now that's an understatement. There isn't enough lipstick on the planet to make this pig look pretty, no matter how much they try. And boy, are they trying.

"This is bad news, but they've been trying to secure a large area in the middle of a war zone, and the fact is that it has so far happened rarely," said Michael E. O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution. "The Green Zone is still the least of our concerns."

Speaking of the least of their concerns, didn't the acting White House Press Secretary look really smug when she said that the emails that they were trying to hide from the beginning couldn't be recovered? Downright cheerful she was, as if they were putting one over on the public and thought nobody would notice. She had the Bush smirk down perfectly. I wonder if he knows she imitates him?

Taking responsibility for your actions - even if they are mistakes - is a lesson that the Bush family and his so-called administration could stand to learn, preferably in our lifetime. To think that an entertainment figure, not as famous as John DeLorean or Robert Downey, Jr., admits he was wrong and is willing to pay the price, saving the taxpayer the cost of a trial. Unfortunately for him, prison is nothing like Prison Break, there will be no tattooed hero to help him escape. Responsibility, what a concept.

When my parents married in 1954, they literally were one in a million, now not so much.

Did you know that Chicken Little is related to Gertie the Dinosaur? If they were real, they would have several bone proteins in common. Recent research has shown that dinosaurs are the ancestors of birds, as well as having something in common with frogs and newts. There's a joke in there somewhere.

Have you ever had an earworm or earwig? I don't get them often but right now I Think I'm In Love by Beck, crawled into my brain and it won't leave.

But that's not an earwig. An earwig is a vile, despicable thing, an auditory abomination so loathsome that my regard for you, the reader, prevents me from suggesting some of the more common manifestations of this infestation. (Afternoon Delight) No, it would be a rude host indeed (Milkshake) who would even mention (Who Let the Dogs Out) some of the more horrific (Anything by Abba) parasites that can become wedged (Achy Breaky Heart) among the malleus, incus and stapes of the memory (Mr. Roboto). Earwigs are not mere figments (Leather and Lace) of our imagination; they have a scientific basis. (Barbie Girl)

It's not that I dislike pop music. (New York, London, Paris, Munich) I used to program Top-40 radio stations and promote records for a major label.

No mention of the big one, the one that should never be named. Or hummed. Or used as a blog title.

Alone Again, Naturally

One of the best things about being single is that you rarely have to explain yourself or your behaviors. My other favorite part is having the temperature, lighting and home entertainment just the way I want. The loneliest I have ever been was when I was married. There weren't enough romance novels to fix that mistake. Marriage doesn't complete you or make you a happier person, no matter what the novels, television or the movies tell you. The bloom usually falls off that rose. Singles are happier and more content than ever, no matter what yiour family tells you.

From nappy headed hos (What the heck was Imus thinking? Those women were from Rutgers, not the ghetto.) to being willing to being willing to endorse slavery to blaming black culture instead of poverty and a lack of education, the real attitudes are starting to become more public. Racism is definitely simmering but stupidity is at a rolling boil.

Been there, said that. Quit talking and do something constructive for the troops. Why does somebody who has suffered a traumatic brain injury need to be evaluated for disability? Needless paperwork, designed to delay paying injured veterans for as long as possible. Till death seems to be the goal. Meanwhile they want to spend hundreds of millions to fix Walter Reed. Till they close it down as soon as possible.

And if anybody believes that emails regarding the US Attorney firings are lost, they must be fans of the tv show and not reality. Every day that goes by it becomes harder to ignore the scent of three day old dead skunk. Stinking to high heaven.

Penny wise, pound foolish. Recruitment and reenlistment will drop, divorces will increase, PTSD will affect even more troops and WE STILL AREN'T GOING TO WIN! This is also known as throwing good money after bad. Our current administration obviously isn't familiar with waste not, want not. But they do like to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I guess it's too late for if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Way too late, but it only took them four years to get the picture. Now if only someone would turn the light on for them.

Wednesday Observations

If you have time, this is a very interesting article that explains why in four hundred years our descendants will have a 25 hour day. Who knew all those leap seconds would add up? And will they still be strapped for time?

I used to live in downtown San Diego and my local polling place was in a federal building. In order to vote you had to produce identification and then go through a metal detector. At all times there were officers with guns watching your every move. It was irritating and intimidating, so I started voting absentee, unlike others who just quit voting altogether. Imagine that intimidation on a national scale and you can see why conservatives are so gaga over their plan to pack the ballot box with only those voters who can afford the hassle and are less likely to be harassed.

This is so not a surprise. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Unless you are in Mississippi or Louisiana and are trying to collect on your homeowner's insurance for the damage incurred during Hurricane Katrina. Or your company was responsible for estimating the damage and you kept submitting reports of wind damage instead of the preferred "we have no intention of paying" water damage. Well my consclusion, which is supported by the evidence (New Orleans still looks as bad as it did a year and a half ago), is that this is another instance of insurance companies that like to receive premiums but have no intention of living up to their end of the bargain when their services are finally needed.

No kidding. Only three? Nobody wants this debacle on their resume and they realize who is the real power behind the throne. Or as one of the three general who have turned down the job so eloquently put it.

"The very fundamental issue is, they don't know where the hell they're going," said retired Marine Gen. John J. "Jack" Sheehan, a former top NATO commander who was among those rejecting the job. Sheehan said he believes that Vice President Cheney and his hawkish allies remain more powerful within the administration than pragmatists looking for a way out of Iraq. "So rather than go over there, develop an ulcer and eventually leave, I said, 'No, thanks,' " he said.

Uh huh, just like in Empire Strikes Back, all the good officers have been "removed" from duty, now nobody wants to face Darth Vader Cheney. The writing for this disaster was on the wall from the beginning. Even hindsight can't make them face reality.

Forget what the people want, forget that last November the people thought they had made it clear that we wanted the troops home from Iraq. forget that some of these soldiers have been to Iraq more than once, twice, I mean three times. Forget that there are piss poor medical services once they have been stablized and are into recovery, forget that the more time in Iraq, the more incidences of PTSD, lets extend the tours of duty for every one there in a foolish hope that things will get better.

More shenanigans (you have to watch a commercial to access the article) at Walter Reed. It seems that the VA had a report detailing the problems by late 2004 and just ignored it, disavowing all knowledge until confronted with the evidence in a major newspaper. Now Bush has nominated someone who knew about the problems and kept quiet, to be undersecretary of health at the VA. Isn't this a little like the fox watching the hen house?

The crew without a clue wants more power to spy on us. They try and pretty it up, but if you have to break into someone's home to copy a hard drive, you should have a warrant and come in the front door. I know that isn't how this administration likes to operate, but with their current track record of screwing up every thing they touch, I don't want them touching me. Or my hard drive. Not that there is anything on it of interest to anyone but me, but way too many rights have been circumvented already.

Running With The Bull

Josh mistakenly babbled something similar on an episode of West Wing. It didn't go over very well.

Speaking of flights of imagination. We have equipment that can hit a dime sized target from ten miles away but we can't find Osama bin Ladin. And we're winning.

Back in the news again. Why do they always revert to banging the war drums to try to divert us from scandals?

So why even bother? If it isn't going to be a negotiation, what's the point? Balls and bluster, the hallmark of the crew without a clue. These guys are so out of touch with the American and Iraqi people that they occupy a whole different dimension, one that is not grounded in reality. Virtual or otherwise.

Another glaring example of Bushworld's do as I say, not as I do. If these guys talked to each other to get their stories straight, they wouldn't spent so much time opening their mouths to switch feet. Or, and I know this is a radical concept, they could tell the truth.

Vindicated once again. As anyone who knows me can tell you, I love to be right. Especially when it takes years to be proven so. Dieting is not good for you, but a change of lifestyle is. L has lost 100 pounds since Labor Day and while he still has another 70 or so pounds to go, he is no longer part of one of the fastest growing segments of society. He is not dieting. He changed his approach to food, added vegetables and fruit on a regular basis, still has bacon for breakfast, chips for a snack (Trader Joes Chinese Mustard Wonton chips), and gets regular exercise by walking. Instead of being ignored and dismissed as useless at work, he is now a preferred worker because of his increased stamina and positive attitude. He thanks me at least once a week for showing him how to change his life. Right on, it's always nice to be appreciated. Especially for a good cause.

History Lessons

On this day in history, the Mercury Seven were announced. Where did all that hope, energy and promise disappear to?

What is it with our so-called leaders and the wannabees who want to be in charge? Hamid Karzai has taken leave of his senses, in the McCain/Cheney/Bush fashion, and has stated that the Taliban are not coming back. Do they know that? Things seem a little explosive in Afghanistan. Sheesh.

Oh yeah, there is this. Whatever happened to the flowers? Oh well, at least they are in the streets, which is more than I can say for us.

Desertion and prosecution of it are increasing. This is to be expected when it is an illegal, immoral war, that some of the troops are on their third tours and with the lower enlistment requirements, you get what you pay for. Commitment is everything when the chips are down and if you are enlisting anybody that can breathe, most of their focus will be on continuing to breathe. Plus, it's pretty obvious to the troops that they don't count, especially if they are injured. You reap what you sow.

He should be embarrassed. I used to like him when I lived in New York. Jimmy the Greek got fired for less.

Revisiting The Past

IMG_5900, originally uploaded by vmh.

Wow! Doesn't she look great? One of my first entries in the Random Flickr Blogging meme was an older version of the Atomium, before it was refurbished.

This looks nice and modern, very lovely and futuristic. What were the odds of bumping into it again> Randomness is highly overrated.

A big thanks to Tom for starting this weekly project.

Star Wars: A New Pope

Rick, thanks for the link.

A WaPo Morning

How can the VA be adding people, who are greatly needed, to its staff when their budget has been cut so many times? Now, common sense tells us that if a majority of the current troops are or will be experiencing PTSD and that more troops are surviving devastating injuries, that there will be an increase in veterans who will be filing for benefits? While I appreciate the so-called speed at which our new veterans are making their way through the system, the older veterans should never have had to wait this long. And if they've been awarded a purple heart, why do they have to prove anything?

So little Johnny McCain has an article in the Washington Post this morning. He blathers on about how the media doesn't report the progress in Iraq and then, unfortunately for him, he writes this.

· Extremist Shiite militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr is in hiding, his followers are not contesting American forces, sectarian violence has dropped in Baghdad and we are working with the Shiite mayor of Sadr City.

There is just one teeny weeny little problem, I think somebody forgot to tell al-Sadr.

The statement, stamped with al-Sadr's official seal, was distributed in the Shiite holy city of Najaf on Sunday — a day before a large demonstration there, called for by al-Sadr, to mark the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad.

"You, the Iraqi army and police forces, don't walk alongside the occupiers, because they are your archenemy," the statement said. Its authenticity could not be verified.

In the statement, al-Sadr — who commands an enormous following among
Iraq's majority Shiites and has close allies in the Shiite-dominated government — also encouraged his followers to attack only American forces, not fellow Iraqis.

"God has ordered you to be patient in front of your enemy, and unify your efforts against them — not against the sons of Iraq," the statement said, in an apparent reference to clashes between al-Sadr's Mahdi Army fighters and Iraqi troops in Diwaniyah, south of Baghdad. "You have to protect and build Iraq."

Yup, sure sounds like he's in hiding. John, you could save yourself a lot of time and money, the American public from lots of commercials they won't watch, if you just drop out now. You are never going to be President, the American people don't support this war and they won't vote for you because there are better and more in touch candidates. Buh bye.

Flaming Mad

What a flying crock of doodoo this article about women in combat is. That it was written by a woman is even more shameful. It starts out innocently enough and poses a good question. Why do we send the mothers of toddlers off to war? Why do we send their dads, who will be missed just as much, no matter what she thinks? I guess she wasn't daddy's little girl so she doesn't think he's all that important to a child's life.

Then she flits over into bashing women in the military, where they are fighting and dying while performing their duties. Just. Like. The. Men.

Women may be able to push buttons as well as men can, but the door-to-door combat in Fallujah proved the irrelevance of that argument. Meanwhile, no one can look at photos of the 15 British marines and sailors and argue convincingly that the British navy is stronger for the presence of Acting Leading Seaman Faye Turney -- no matter how lovely and brave she may be.

But let's assume for the sake of argument that women, despite all evidence to the contrary, are as capable as men in any battle. If our goal is to prevail, shouldn't we also consider other ramifications of putting women in combat and other positions of risk?

What evidence? She doesn't provide any data, just an opinion. And a stupid one at that. But then it gets worse.

Rape, though not a likely risk in this case, is a consistent argument against putting women in or near combat. While advocates for women in combat argue that men are also raped, there is an important difference. Women are raped by men, which, given the inherent power differential between the sexes, raises women's rape to another level of terror.

What kind of man, one shudders to wonder, is willing to allow his country's women to be raped and tortured by men of enemy nations? None that I know, but our military is gradually weaning men of their intuitive inclination to protect women -- which, by extrapolation, means ignoring the screams of women being assaulted.

And the horse you rode in on. I so want to cuss here. What an insult to the men who serve. What a slap in the face to even infer that they would stand by as a woman is being raped, Abeer Hamza notwithstanding. It makes me want to send her one of those nasty emails some of the women bloggers have been receiving.

This is a not so subtle attack on women in the military, for our own good. War is hell. Period. We shouldn't send anyone into harms way unless there is a darn good reason. So far, none has been provided for this little venture, therefore nobody needs to be in Iraq. As a veteran, I am so offended by the tone of this article, as if women are fragile, delicate little flowers that need to be protected, not do the protecting. Why not go all the way and say that women shouldn't be allowed to serve as police or fire officers?

This is a war like no other in a myriad of ways and should not be used as an excuse to roll back the achievements of many fine women. Maybe the callousness of some members of the military can be traced to a lack of respect, that comes from the top down instead of the dehumanization of women in the military. If torture is condoned and encouraged, how long can the perpetrators keep their humanity?

Ms. Parker, please crawl back into your Stepford world and leave the doing to the big girls. And the thinking.

Crossposted at If I Ran The Zoo.

Playing Politics With The Troops

Our very own babbling Bush is at it again. Doesn't anybody in the crew without a clue have at least a small grip on reality? Even the average American can remember that his nibs was on vacation during Katrina and couldn't be bothered to help a major city and its inhabitants because he was too busy setting a record for ...wait for it ...vacation days. That he flew back from vacation to sign a useless bill for a brain dead woman, which means that Congress was in session while he was clearing brush.

In his latest radio address, he tries to make the point that the Guard and Reserve troops are going to be sent in without appropriate training and equipment, that some troops stay will be extended and others might have to go to Iraq earlier, like that isn't already happening. How is that any different from the beginning of the war? They were sent in without the proper equipment, were issued shoddy armor and forced to fight in conditions they were unprepared for, or has everybody forgotten the first disaster at An Nasiriyah? The report on that debacle is quite fascinating.

The American people have spoken; their elected representatives have tried to hedge their bets by setting a timetable to go along with all that funding, sort of like paying a loan back to the bank, and the president still feels that he is the decider and everyone else is wrong. He completely ignores the fact that when it was a Republican led Congress, it took longer to pass his spendinhttp://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifg bills. Since when has doing the will of the people been classified as partisan politics? Why are you still wasting the lives of our troops in a war that can't be won? Chasing ghosts, what a waste.


3Bs

Vandals And Scandals

I don't consider the web a sexist paradise, it's more of a hierarchy thing. Recently it has come to my attention that some female bloggers are being threatened with bodily harm. I've stayed out of the brouhaha, mainly because I do my best not to offend anyone except the crew without a clue; and then there's the fact that my blog isn't all that popular in blogtopia (skippy coined that phrase) and I'm sort of okay with that. I've had more than a few run ins with arrogant know-it-alls of the "I can pee standing up and that makes me better than you" subset of humanity and the most important thing to remember is this; never argue with a fool or a drunk, it's hard for the people watching to tell the difference. When all else fails and you have to get into it, don't allow anonymous posting and there is the old standby of the delete button. This should be used as infrequently as possible, but sooner rather than later. We all will offend somebody eventually, but it is not necessary to make a habit of it and allowing yourself to be intimidated only leaves you open to more abuse. That's a life rule that translates easily into the blogging world. Oh yeah, and don't comment on sites where the mentally deranged will follow you home.

Have you ridden the housing roller coaster? It will help you put things into perspective. What goes up, must come down. or so I've heard.

Now that most of the nation is working in service jobs, the crew without a clue can claim the nation is at full employment. They tout an hourly working wage of $17.22 and one wonders if executive salaries included in that number, because most of the jobs quoted are closer to minimum wage than a living wage.

Attorneygate, the scandal that keeps on giving. And giving.

Friday Morning Quickie

Pot and acid as weapons? What were the researchers high on that would lead them to believe that drugs could be crafted to be useful on the battlefield? Oops, so they tried the drugs too. After they noticed that the volunteers were having such a good time. No wonder the testing went on for seventeen years. One question. If pot can make people laugh at absolutely nothing and the effects can be mitigated by lying down and resting, why is it considered so dangerous?

The battle of the operating systems is virtually over, since you can do almost everything online, from editing photos to storing mp3s. Firefox is the browser of choice for those in the know..

Seems that Time came to the same conclusion about the disparity in sentences for the American and Australian Taliban. Bush isn't going to commute his sentence. Somebody has to be held accountable and Lindh is the sacrificial lamb.

They weren't waterboarded, stripped naked and humiliated, forced to commit humiliating sexual acts, or threatened with dogs. Isolation, being blindfolded, and sleeping on piles of blankets doesn't qualify as torture. America is looking less civilized by the day.

It's only a matter of time before the troops start getting hit with gas attacks. The surge in chlorine suicide bombings is not a good thing, six in two months, and the surge in American deaths is even worse. Eighteen in six days cannot possibly be considered an improvement. How many of those troops had the proper training before being deployed? For three years we have been losing valuable troops and equipment and the country looks worse off than before we got there. What is this week's justification for the debacle?

The Metaphor Edition

How much wood can a woodchuck chuck before he realizes he's being f***ed? Whip me, beat me, make me write bad checks, but whatever you do, don't let any more Americans pay a ridiculously high price with little to no positive return. Discharged while in a coma. How compassionate. Perhaps if people had known how poorly an injured veteran was treated less than three months after the war started, history might have been vastly different for both the United States and Iraq. It's too late to change the past, but we can change the future. Unless its too much trouble or people really enjoy voting for the worst.

No mask. No cape. No problem. No reason not to see the trailer. Definitely will see this one on the big screen, the special effects look awesome.

More does not make merrier. The Republicans have a wealth of candidates to choose from, and aren't really supporting any of them. Some want to blame it on donor fatigue, hopefully it's what's left of the middle class taking their business elsewhere.

Poor Bob. Now that the curtain has been peeled back and the emperor has been revealed to have no clothes. the loyal minions are pointing out the splinters in each other's eyes. Never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. That's rich.

After five years of being isolated, how much can these people know and other than reaping what we sow for the shameful and inhumane treatment, what harm can they possibly be? They haven't been able to prove their innocence because they haven't had trials and barely have representation and we haven't been able to prove their guilt because we haven't had trials because we don't have any proof. Otherwise it would be done already.

We've known for a while that the Bush administration talks out both sides of their mouths. They say one thing and do another. The disparity of the sentences for Lindh and Hicks is a prime example. One got sentenced during the somebody has to pay since we aren't going to get Osama bin Laden phase and the other during the one of our last members of the coalition of the willing is up for reelection and it doesn't look good phase. Thereby showing that justice in America is all about politics. Sadly, that is no longer a surprise.

Phones, Drones And Broken Bones

Helmet laws. Should people who are too stupid to protect their most valuable organ be forced to wear a helmet so society doesn't have to pay for their vegetative care? Not that I have an opinion on the matter. Let them ride free, there are many people on the transplant lists that will appreciate a second chance at life. They aren't called donorcycles for nothing.

Is depression overdiagnosed? Yes, and instead of figuring out why, give them a pill. When my dad died, my doctor gave me five valium. That was it and it was all I needed. Today's solution is to prescribe an antidepressant and if that doesn't work, you can take two. Not trying to figure out if the depression is situation related but the patient answered five questions affirmatively, therefore they need these drugs to get through their lives. Whatever happened to "time heals all wounds"? Or a more personal intake and getting to know your patient before handing out a crutch instead of support. Happiness isn't overrated, it's underappreciated.

When Verizon disconnected me for using more than my unlimited usage, I discovered that the limit was 5GB. Tech support told me that I could download tv shows from occasionally and that if I upgraded to Rev A, it would really mean unlimited. Oops, and I seem to be in breach of contract, but they never said anything before. Can I let them know and get out of my contract without the fee? It also says they can terminate you when your contract is up. Nice company. Must have gotten their consumer service ideas from Microsoft. I want an iPhone. Oops, wrong company.

Tuesday Tinkerings

So Bush thinks (!) that Congress should hurry to give him a bill that he plans on vetoing so they can get down to business and fund his little war. This isn't about funding the troops, otherwise they would already have appropriate armor and vehicles, it's about his determined belief that he's in charge and that no one else matters. Not Congress and certainly not the American people. Counting the days, what a wanker. This isn't a Terri Schiavo kind of situation and you don't have that kind of clout anymore. Perhaps anger management classes would help with perspective.

Have you seen the Stress Eraser? Sounds like it might work, but the stress of accumulating the sales price might do one in. How about a nice mood ring instead?

This woman should have been included in my list of women that I admired, but I had never heard of her until today. Charlotte Winters passed away at the age of 109, one of the first women to serve iin the Navy and one of the last remaining veterans of WWI. Now there are three. Rest in peace.

Shamelessly lifted from Vitae, a slightly different view of surfing the internet.

***warning*** if you are reading this then this warning is for you. every word you read of this useless fine print is another second off your life. don't you have other things to do? is your life so empty that you honestly can't think of a better way to spend these moments? or are you so impressed with authority that you give respect and credence to all who claim it? do you read everything you're supposed to read? do you think everything you're supposed to think? buy what you're told you should want? get out of your apartment. meet a member of the opposite sex. stop the excessive shopping and masturbation. quit your job. start a fight. prove you're alive. if you don't claim your humanity you will become a statistic. you have been warned......tyler

This going to sound so dismissive and I don't want it to be, but isn't it nice to be young and see the world in such clear terms? I surf the internet because it is faster and more informative than the nightly news. And because I don't have to deal with arrogant whippersnappers in person.