Oh Mr. Prime Minister, Hellfire Missile For You on Line One

This is really great stuff...if only our own politicians had the testicular fortitude and backbone to take our enemies, both foreign and domestic, at their word when they say they mean to destroy us by any means necessary. Captain Ed at Captain's Quarters says it better than I, but Israel is dead on correct with their response. After being showered with rockets, threatened with chemical weapons, having one citizen murdered in cold blood, and having a soldier kidnapped for use in an extortion attempt to secure the release of terrorist prisoners, they have apparently decided that Hamas means business when they say their goal is the destruction of Israel. Having already rounded up several Cabinet ministers in response to the kidnapping, sending a Hellfire missile into the office of the lead terrorist, er, I mean, "Prime Minister", of Hamas, sends the appropriate message that no one is safe if any harm comes to the abducted Israeli soldier. To borrow and modify a quote from Wyatt Earp in "Tombstone", "Hamas has called down the thunder boy, and now they've got it. Tell them the IDF is coming, and Hell is coming with them!"

So You Wanna Come to My Hotel?

I could just as easily put up a headline that says, "Party over here!" because the housekeeping folks could clean up while I was at work and save me the trouble. My roommate and her man closed on their house about 3 weeks ago and finished moving all their stuff in today. The lease we had was until July, but since it was ended a month early, I have to find another place to stay. For anyone who doesn't know this area well, every place around here (just about) is ghetto/Section 8 or should be. Although I am glad they provide me with a job, I don't want to live near my clients. In addition, certain areas of my life are sufficiently unsettled/in flux that I am not sure how good an idea it is to sign a lease that I might not live up to until its completion.

That, and the fact that the only apartment complexes around here that don't require me to wear neutral gang colors and do not come with complimentary gunshot wounds are ridiculously, insanely expensive have led to my decision to stay in an extended-stay hotel. The rates there include utilities and cable and are less than even the rent for an apartment, much less the security deposit, utility hook-ups, etc., so it only makes sense, and I will be moving in on Saturday. So if any of my peeps are in my 'hood in the next month or so, let me know and we will kick it without worrying about the clean-up, lol.

Modern Day Common Sense Preamble to the Constitution

Via Spatula City, this is at once hysterical and sad, funny because it is so true, and pathetic because this is the state to which a majority of the "sheeple" in our society have devolved. Read it all, it's funny and worth it :)

NEW PREAMBLE TO THE CONSTITUTION

We the sensible people of the United States, in an attempt to help everyone get along, restore some semblance of justice, avoid more riots, keep our nation safe, promote positive behavior, and secure the blessings of debt-free liberty to ourselves and our great-great-great-grandchildren, hereby try one more time to ordain and establish some common-sense guidelines for the terminally whiny, guilt-ridden, delusional, and other liberal bed-wetters. We hold these truths to be self evident: that a whole lot of people are confused by the Bill of Rights and are so dim they require a Bill of NON-Rights.

ARTICLE I: You do not have the right to a new car, big screen TV, or any other form of wealth. More power to you if you can legally acquire them, but no one is guaranteeing anything.

ARTICLE II: You do not have the right to never be offended. This country is based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone not just you! You may leave the room, turn the channel, express a different opinion, etc, but the world is full of idiots, and probably always will be.

ARTICLE III: You do not have the right to be free from harm. If you stick a screwdriver in your eye, learn to be more careful, and do not expect the tool manufacturer to make you and all your relatives independently wealthy.

ARTICLE IV: You do not have the right to free food and housing. Americans are the most charitable people to be found, and will gladly help anyone in need, but we are quickly growing weary of subsidizing generation after generation of professional couch potatoes who achieve nothing more than the creation of another generation of professional couch potatoes. (This one is my pet peeves...get an education and go to work. Don't expect everyone else to take care of you!)

ARTICLE V: You do not have the right to free health care. That would be nice, but from the looks of public housing, we're just not interested in public health care.

ARTICLE VI: You do not have the right to physically harm other people. If you kidnap, rape, intentionally maim, or kill someone, don't be surprised if the rest of us want to see you fry in the electric chair.

ARTICLE VII: You do not have the right to the possessions of others. If you rob, cheat, or coerce away the goods or services of other citizens, don't be surprised if the rest of us get together and lock you away in a place where you still won't have the right to a big screen color TV or a life of leisure.

ARTICLE VIII: You do not have the right to a job. All of us sure want you to have a job, and will gladly help you along in hard times, but we expect you to take advantage of the opportunities of education and vocational training laid before you to make yourself useful.

ARTICLE IX: You do not have the right to happiness. Being an American means that you have the right to PURSUE happiness, which by the way, is a lot easier if you are unencumbered by an over abundance of idiotic laws created by those of you who were confused by the Bill of Rights.

ARTICLE X: This is an English speaking country. We don't care where you are from, English is our language. Learn it or go back to wherever you came from!

ARTICLE XI: You do not have the right to change our country's history or heritage. This country was founded on the belief in one true God. And yet, you are given the freedom to believe in any religion, any faith, or no faith at all; with no fear of persecution. The phrase IN GOD WE TRUST is part of our heritage and history, and if you are uncomfortable with it, TOUGH!

R.I.P. Rob, a.k.a. "Acidman"...You Will Be Missed

Acidman, a blogger, whose real name was Rob and who posted at Gut Rumbles, just passed away. He had some severe health complications for a while now, and I just hope he is no longer feeling any of it. He was a cantakerous old cuss of a man, with an endless streak of vitriol and boundless reservoir of sarcasm for all things idiotarian. In his honor, here's one of his funnier posts, about a man who received $400K from a jury for implanting something in his hoo-ha and then complaining when it, er, adversely impacted his life. Read the whole hilarious story and poke around the blog for other ribald laughs if you choose. R.I.P. Rob...you will be missed.

So THAT'S Why They Sell Out Our Intelligence Programs...

***UPDATE! Michelle Malkin is one of my favorite authors and columnists around. I sent her a copy of a letter I e-mailed to AG Gonzales about the media's disclosure of the classified SWIFT program, and she republished it in its entirety on her blog on Monday! I am very heartened at the massive response from other readers on this issue, and maybe it will lead to something being done about this. Very cool indeed, good times...check out this link (scroll about halfway down the post) and behold my writing skills, lol:

http://michellemalkin.com/archives/005442.htm

Via Ace of Spades, this sounds like as rational and reasonable explanation as any as to why leftist partisans in the media and intelligence communities continue to blow the cover on programs necessary to prevent further 9/11 style attacks, or worse. They can't be bothered to see past their own deranged sense of hunger for a return to power to put the welfare and best interests of the country and its citizens, regardless of political affiliation, front, first, and center, not even for a moment. If that's true, then there is no reason these leakers should not be locked up for 5-10 years in a federal pen to think about their lawbreaking ways (see previous post for applicable statutes), although a blanket prohibition on federal intelligence officials talking to New York Times reporters and employees is almost certainly unconstitutional, except in at-will employment states like TN, where people may be fired for any or no reason, so long as it is not for a discriminatory or otherwise illegal purpose.

"The left continues to undermine national security in the most despicable, cynical way. I'm quite sure the reasonable liberals at the NYT and WaPo know full well that programs like this are absolutely vital, and their secrecy is likewise vital. However, they have made the most anti-American and evil sort of decision: While tools like this are vital for saving American lives, they will not permit any Republican President to use them. Only Democratic Presidents are permitted to employ the full panoply of powers for protecting American lives.

It's blackmail, pure and simple. Either let a Democrat into the White House, or we will continue to sabotage American security and, in effect, kill Americans. We will keep secrets when a Democrat is in office, but not a Republican. So we offer the American people a choice: Let the politicians we favor run the country, or we will help Al Qaeda murder you. I don't believe it's politically practicable to arrest reporters. Reporters don't have the primary responsibility for protecting American secrets; and the cries of "Fascism!" would be hysterical should a few part-time reporters/part-time Al Qaeda intelligence agents frogmarched off to jail.

But (expletive deleted -Ed.), the cocksucker liberal partisans in the CIA and NSA have signed contracts promising to keep secrets secret, and voluntarily exposing themselves to long periods of jail should they breach those obligations. It's time to start putting them in jail for 5 or 10 years. If this is all a matter of "conscience" to the terrorist Helpy Helpertons in the CIA and NSA, well, then, they shouldn't mind cooling their heels in prison for 10 years in the name of their "consciences."

Starve The Beast: There has got to be a way to declare, and enforce, a "Death Sentence" for the NYT. A total lockout. No access to any government official anywhere. Impose an immediate ban on any government official in any security-oriented agency from speaking to the NYT. They're already forbidden from disclosing national secrets; but apparently that doesn't matter to them. So just make it a firing offense to even be seen talking with a NYT reporter. Unconstitutional? I don't know. We'll let the courts work it out. In the meantime, fire anyone known to talk to any NYT employee for any reason."
Also, a fantastic smackdown for Abu Musab al-Keller and his band of merry leakers from an angry soldier's momma, at Some Soldier's Mom, with a prize-winning excerpt below, which will most definitely leave a mark:

Some Soldier's Mom

"So, Bill, the next time a group of terrorists drives a few vans of C4 into a building in Iraq and tries to kill my son and the other soldiers in his unit, Im going to call you up and ask you who paid for the explosives. The next time an IED blows up under a Bradley or a HUMVV and kills the soldiers inside, I'm going to call you and remind you that the money that paid for the bomb might have been stopped had it not been for your shi**y little attempt to bolster your newspapers sagging circulation numbers. You should be made to attend the funeral of every U.S. service member killed from now on in Iraq and Afghanistan, Bill, and know that you might have prevented their deaths by NOT publishing the details of secret programs meant to intercept information between the terrorists. You should be made to hear the sobbing of the mothers and wives and families of the service members who are out there putting it on the line protecting your right to write the crap you do and know that perhaps the one transaction that was not seen because of your exposé bought the bullets that killed their son or husband."

What if I Don't Like What's in the Magic Box?

This is just a random, horribly politically incorrect musing, and I couldn't care less. As Jeff Foxworthy famously said, "Getting married to have sex is like flying cross-country to get the free peanuts." I'm also reminded of Robin Williams, who said, "God gave men a brain and a penis, and only enough blood to operate one at a time." I wonder how many men, especially back in the 50's, "voluntarily" married a woman just so they could have sex with her and then regretted it intensely afterward. I've heard so many women say that things will be different in the bedroom once they're married, that they'll spend days together in the sack once they get that ring, etc., and it makes me sick. It's a bunch of baloney, because, for the most part, they can't promise any such thing. For instance, what if the man is awful at sex and never gets any better? What if it's physically painful? What if they just plain don't like sex? I could go on for days with thoughts just like this off the top of my head.

Before anyone starts hurling Scripture at me, I know very well what the Bible says about premarital sex. That said, I'm not a virgin and I know there are some women out there who are horrible kissers and even worse in bed. If I'm going to stand up and swear before my friends, family, and God that this is the last person I'll ever have sex with, I want it to be with someone I'll actually enjoy having being naked and having sex with. I think some of the physical compatibility risk can be alleviated by paying attention to how the person moves on the dance floor, how they kiss, and how it is being with them doing things short of sex itself. Maybe I won't demand sex before marriage, but the same idiots who says looks and compatibility don't matter at all are the same liars who claim money doesn't matter at all. Such misguided yahoos are wrong in both cases, and unless I'm satisfied within myself, one way or another, that there's sufficient physical chemistry, attraction, and compatibility between myself and a woman, I will not marry her. Likewise, any woman who owns an ounce of self-respect should take the same stand re: any man she considers marrying. In closing, to quote the immortal Forest Gump, "That's all I have to say about that."

New York Times + L.A. Times = Treason Charges

First off, congratulations are in order for Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) for being the first Congressman to explicitly call for prosecution of the New York Times under applicable statutes. Maybe the apologists and CYA crowd supporting these two bird cage liner papers could be troubled to read the following section of the U.S. Code, 18 U.S.C. § 798(a)(3) (Hat Tip to the Weekly Standard for pointing this out):

"Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person, or publishes, or uses in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States or for the benefit of any foreign government to the detriment of the United States any classified information . . . concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States . . . shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both [emphasis added]."

In case you haven't heard, for at least the third time since 9/11, the New York Times has managed to give our terrorist enemies around the world something more valuable than the America-hating propaganda they already provide...free intelligence. Now added to the entirely legal data-mining operations performed by the government to track terrorists' phone calls and internet usage and the disclosure that our intelligence community had traced a particular kind of cell phone via satellite being used by top AQ leaders, including bin Laden himself, we now have a third U.S. intelligence operation blown by the MSM. This time, the Treasury Department was using computer monitoring to track known and/or suspected terrorist money movements overseas. This program led to the capture of the one of the world's most dangerous Islamic terrorists, Hambali, who was responsible for the Bali nightclub bombing that killed nearly 200 innocent civilians in Indonesia.

The tips and intelligence from this program will surely dry up now that it has been shouted from the rooftops in the drive-by media. I don't care if caring and being outraged about this stuff makes me a dork because our survival as a nation means more to me than Brangelina's spawn or Ms. Federline's doomed marriage...it is too important not to care, not to shine sunlight on these cockroaches. It heartens me greatly to know that people (myself included) are still capable of outrage at dangerous loose lips that could cost American lives. These treasonous crapweasels have crossed over from annoying sideshow to dangerous national security liability. After sending a strongly worded letter to the Dept. of Justice (gotta be heard even if it bears no fruit right away), I came across a perfect zinging for the terrorist-enabling Fifth Column in our midst, written to the NYT by a reader of Michelle Malkin's, which is so good I had to repost it in its entirety here. Rope, tree, journalist, some assembly required.

"As I'm certain you've already discerned, the vast majority of Americans are not terrified of their government leaders in this time of war; yet they are most certainly furious, and yes, terrified, at the MSM's willingness to endlessly betray the best interests of our nation's security. I have chafed and groaned at each and every disclosure of vital national secrets and programs; at the inevitable harm they will cause our nation; and at the vacuous grounds on which your organizations assert the right to betray our nation. No more.

Our nation has preserved itself and the entire free world from seemingly innumerable despicable tyrannies bent on global domination over the course of her existence. In none of those ultimately successful struggles has America suffered the deliberate discord and demoralization of an unfettered fifth column gnawing at her resolve, and, indeed, her very foundations. Vietnam notwithstanding, the degree of aid and comfort, of crucial and actionable intelligence that is being provided to our current enemies, has no precedent. Only in the few spectacular cases of individual spies have we seen this level of willingness to compromise our intelligence and defense capabilities by American citizens.

This treasonous behavior is beyond reprehensible. Were your organizations to sport newly grown beards and fly the standards of the innumerable terrorist organizations arrayed against us upon your rooftops, you could no more demonstrate your support for our enemies and your disdain for our nation than you have with these endless publications of state-secrets.

You have shown no light of truth upon a travesty or an injustice; you have not bravely spoken truth to power; you have simply acted upon an irrational hatred of your own country and contempt for the current administration in a time that represents the greatest vulnerability our nation has ever faced; for your own egos and will to power. It is disgraceful, disgusting, and completely unacceptable.

The program that you just blew was entirely legal, unopposed by its Congressional overseers, outside of American territory, targeted very few Americans, and was both vital and effective in our efforts to prosecute the war against the Jihadis. Simply watching the movement of money with the hopes of spotting terrorist funds and their abettors is not a threat to Americans. It is a threat to our enemies, and you have aided only them by your actions.

Our nation is a nation of laws. We have chosen the leaders who will act on and under those laws. They have done so with an amazing degree of conciliatory concern for the sensitivities of those that pretend to have reason to suspect the benign intentions of our executive branch. It is not your right to take their every action and decision directly to the American populace for the purposes of second-guessing and ankle-biting. You may express the great difficulty that you suffered in deciding whether to expose this latest program, but the truth is that you all glory in your foolish notion that you are a legitimate branch of our government charged with putting even potentially harmful information in the hands of the citizens. The decision was not yours to make. This administration has been too soft, too kind, too timid in dealing with the likes of the NY and LA times and their treasonous revelations. You have broken the law. You have broken faith with America; her values, her well-being. Your cheering section is much smaller and much less wise than you seem to believe. You need to start looking beyond your self-constructed echo-chambers and see what Americans really think of treason.

It is time that Americans refuse to accept the Administration's molly-coddling of traitorous and treacherous elitists bent on self-aggrandizement and political tomfoolery at the expense of our security. From this point forward I will demand that the Administration prosecute the organizations that engage in such acts of sedition and espionage. I will encourage everyone I can in every way I can. If reporters will not reveal their sources in the face of a criminal investigation, then they must be jailed, and every layer of editorial and managerial responsibility above them as well, until we have eliminated the leakers, or, if need be, paralyzed their means of disseminating their seditious wares by imprisoning the entire lot of you.

Valerie Plame's identity means nothing to anyone, and should legions of such once faceless nobodies be revealed to be regular commuters to Langley, our nation will be no less secure. Yet you undermine the very means of detecting the dots that we desperately must connect to preserve the fabric of our nation and the lives of her citizens: and you do not see the hypocrisy or irony of it. Hypocrisy is certainly not a crime. What you have done, repeatedly, and continue to do, IS a crime. It must not be allowed to continue, or go unpunished. I suggest you open your phonebooks to the legal pages: you're gonna be real busy soon."

Moral Equivalency...or Worse

I have held off commenting this week about the kidnapping and grisly mutilation of two American soldiers in Iraq, hoping against hope that somewhere amongst the three remaining functional neurons in the otherwise vacant heads of the terrorist aiding MSM and drive-by media that some degree of moral outrage could be directed at terrorist vermin who actually, you know, murdered people. I could have lived with even a fraction of the venom spewed at our military forces with such glee re: Abu Ghraib or alleged murders of "civilians" (who may have been aiding and abetting the terrorists) being directed at these 7th century Sharia savages. As usual, I was disappointed, which then turned to rage at the sight of this cartoon from Mike Luckovitch of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, via this link at the Something...and Half of Something:

(complete with two extra added bonus rants on the same topic, here and here free of charge)

It is disgusting, as it goes beyond merely comparing our troops to mass murdering sludge in the gene pool of life, it actually implies they are worse! This type of moral relativism is not only outrageous, but scary in its stupidity and lack of perspective. All I can say to that, is what, precisely, in the hell is wrong with people like this?! Screw you Mike, you and all your like-minded cohorts for using the freedom of speech American soldiers died for to slander and defame them, all while giving al-Qaida an invaluable propaganda victory. Our country and our civilization is in a hard and dirty fight for our very existence, and this is all you have to contribute...?! Mr. Luckovitch and ilk (gene pool sludge), meet Clorox, some mixture required. The verbal smackdown at the blog site is truly righteous...here are some key excerpts:

"What could possibly be worse than being captured by Al-Qaida operatives? What could be worse than your facial features cut off and/or mutilated, your heart cut out, your testicles cut off, your penis cut off and stuffed in your mouth, your arms contorted and your eyes gouged out, your head sawed off with a kitchen knife, your corpse dumped in the street, stuffed with explosives as a trap to kill your friends and countrymen who come to find you? Why, being captured by the United States of America and having a pair of women's panties put on your head! Or being threatened by a barking dog! Or being stacked with other naked terrorists into a pyramid. Or being put on a leash. ...

Saddam would have chopped off your hands and feet, he would have had your wife and children raped to death before your eyes, he would have dipped you feet first into a vat of acid, dragged you through the streets behind a car, shot you, stabbed you, whipped you with chains, tied you to a tree and beaten you with a stick, electocuted you, or, a combination of the above and then dumped your remains into a mass grave. Saddam would have done the same to Mike Luckovitch, as would Al-Qaida. Congratulations Mike, today, you have promoted the enemy agenda and I'm sure Al-Qaida is grateful for your efforts on their behalf."

Penalizing the Producers is No Good

In the process of looking for a new place to live, I contacted a local apartment complex yesterday afternoon to inquire about rates and vacancies. They first quoted me a rate of $250/mo. with no deposit, and said they were not Section 8 housing (gov't assistance housing where many of my clients live, and hence, where the danger of death by gunshot wound is sunstantially higher than where I live now). I wondered what the catch was, and they did not disappoint. The rental rate was either $250/mo. OR 30 percent of your gross income, whichever is higher. That is absolutely ridiculous because it penalizes me for success and for making responsible choices in my life. Because I am not on government assistance and don't have a brood of kids I can't support, my rental rate would be somewhere north of 400 percent higher than someone who is in such a situation. On top of that, as an attorney, I am far more statistically likely to be a responsible tenant, a lower credit risk, and a non-existent crime risk.

And for that, I would get the screws put to me for a ridiculous premium that is pure profit for the owners. I know it would be pure profit because if the owners could not turn a profit charging the $250 a month rate, they would not be able to stay in business. This is discouraging example #4,812 of how our ever-increasing welfare state of a country actually encourages laziness and government dependency, and I don't like it a bit...suffice it to say I won't be living there or any place like it, ever.

The Three Minute Management Course

The 3-Minute Management Course

Lesson 1:

A man is getting into the shower just as his wife is finishing up her shower, when the doorbell rings. The wife quickly wraps herself in a towel and runs downstairs.
When she opens the door, there stands Bob, the next-door neighbor.

Before she says a word, Bob says, "I'll give you $800 to drop that towel."

After thinking for a moment, the woman drops her towel and stands naked in front of Bob. After a few seconds, Bob hands her $800 and leaves.

The woman wraps back up in the towel and goes back upstairs. When she gets to the bathroom, her husband asks, "Who was that?"

"It was Bob the next door neighbor," she replies.

"Great!" the husband says, "did he say anything about the $800 he owes me?"

Moral of the story:

If you share critical information pertaining to credit and risk with your shareholders in time, you may be in a position to prevent avoidable exposure.

Lesson 2:

A priest offered a Nun a lift. She got in and crossed her legs, forcing her gown to reveal a leg. The priest nearly had an accident. After controlling the car, he stealthily slid his hand up her leg.

The nun said, "Father, remember Psalm 129?"

The priest removed his hand. But, changing gears, he let his hand slide up her leg again.

The nun once again said, "Father, remember Psalm 129?"

The priest apologized. "Sorry sister, but the flesh is weak."

Arriving at the convent, the nun went on her way. On his arrival at the church, the priest rushed to look up Psalm 129.

It said, "Go forth and seek, further up, you will find glory."

Moral of the story:

If you are not well informed in your job, you might miss a great opportunity.

Lesson 3:

A sales rep, administration clerk, and the manager are walking to lunch when they find an antique oil lamp. They rub it and a Genie comes out.

The Genie says, "I'll give each of you just one wish."

"Me first! Me first!" says the admin clerk. "I want to be in the Bahamas, driving a speedboat, without a care in the world." Puff! She's gone.

"Me next! Me next!" says the sales rep. "I want to be in Hawaii, relaxing on the beach with my personal masseuse, an endless supply of Pina Coladas and the love of my life." Puff! He's gone.

"OK, you're up," the Genie says to the manager. The manager says, "I want those two back in the office after lunch."

Moral of the story:

Always let your boss have the first say.

Lesson 4:

An eagle was sitting on a tree resting, doing nothing.

A small rabbit saw the eagle and asked him, "Can I also sit like you and do nothing?"

The eagle answered: "Sure, why not."

So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the eagle and rested. All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it.

Moral of the story:

To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up.

Lesson 5:

A turkey was chatting with a bull. "I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree," sighed the turkey, "but I haven't got the energy."

"Well, why don't you nibble on some of my droppings?" replied the bull. They're packed with nutrients."

The turkey pecked at a lump of dung, and found it actually gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree.

The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch.

Finally after a fourth night, the turkey was proudly perched at the top of the tree. He was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot him out of the tree.

Moral of the story:

Bullsh*t might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there.

Lesson 6:

A little bird was flying south for the winter. It was so cold the bird froze and fell to the ground into a large field. While he was lying there, a cow came by and dropped some dung on him.

As the frozen bird lay there in the pile of cow dung, he began to realize how warm he was. The dung was actually thawing him out! He lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy.

A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate. Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung, and promptly dug him out and ate him.

Moral of the story:

(1) Not everyone who sh*ts on you is your enemy.
(2) Not everyone who gets you out of sh*t is your friend.
(3) And when you're in deep sh*t, it's best to keep your mouth shut!

This ends the 3-minute management course.

House GOP Locates Party Backbone on Illegal Immigration, Film at 11

Via Yahoo News, thank goodness for the House GOP, who actually decided to listen to their constituents instead of the Beltway press core and the thronging hordes of illegal immigrant marauders parading through our streets. By over a 2-1 margin, every reputable poll shows that Americans want the border secured first before any discussion of an amnesty or guest worker program. Voters were sold this pig in a poke last time with Simpson-Mazzoli back in 1986, and thankfully some of our elected leaders have learned from this. Most of the Senate and the President are more concerned about being niiiice and understaaaaanding than they are about enforcing the law. Such a stance not only demonstrates incredible political tone deafness, but it's also a shameful show of cowardice and operating from a base of fear, and it's no way to govern at all. No bill at all is much better than the disastrous giveaway that spewed forth from the Senate. Had such a bill passed, it would have guaranteed a GOP loss at the polls in November's midterm elections, as well as cementing in the process a permanent Democrat majority, based on the millions and millions of new Democrat voters created by such an amnesty. Congratulations go out to Reps. Boehner, Hastert, and Tancredo in the House, and to Sens. Sessions, Ensign, and Grassley in the Senate. Keep up the good fight, and hopefully border enforcement first will prevail.

There are Worse Things Than Being Part of the Broken Road

"One day my broken road will reach its end, and I can't wait for that day. Until then, I look back on us then and smile, and look at us now as friends and smile even bigger."

This is a quote from an e-mail I sent an old college friend of mine after a conversation about times past. We dated for a while in college, and then our lives inevitably went different directions. Immediately after departing from me, she met the love of her life and has since married him. That makes three instances of that phenomenon in my life, with two women already married and another engaged to be married.

About half of all love songs are written in celebration of love, and the other half are written of the heartbreak inherent in its failing, even if tempered with optimism for the future. Such is the case with Rascal Flatts' "Bless the Broken Road", and it actually gave me a new perspective about these situations from my life.

Life, after all, truly is about perspective, and I have said so many times. I am sure I could sit around and lament the loss, the good times that were once but which will never be again, and the future good times I hoped for but which will never come to pass. I could also beat myself up mercilessly inside, wondering just why it is that women I love seem to always manage to find their true love and happiness, just not with me. I will admit to having done that on occasion, only to find that it did not the slightest bit of good.

Then I come across the words to this song, and it all makes sense to me now. Even though it isn't me with whom their happiness was to be found, people come into your life for a reason and a season, and most of them leave sooner or later because that's just the way life is. I won't lie and say that I would prefer being a part of their broken road, because truth be told, anyone who is honest would, more than anything, have rather things worked out with the person they loved. Short of that, however, I believe there are worse things than being a part of someone's broken road and they yours.

Taking the next logical step, I asked myself what is it that I wanted most at my core for these women I once loved, and I answered...their happiness above all. So that fulfillment isn't to be found with me...so what?! Though it's certainly of little comfort while healing after a failed relationship, it is of some consolation that, without me, but for my time with and impact on that person's life, they might never have found their soulmate. After all, although it didn't turn out that I was to be the leading man for these women, I like to think of myself as a quality supporting actor who helped them along the way to be the best and happiest person they possibly could be, and vice versa.

I am man enough and grown-up enough to say good for these wonderful ladies that they found the love of their respective lives and actually mean it...which leads me back to my quote and the song lyrics below. I know very well that one day my broken road will reach its end...it'll be an amazing time and I can't wait for it to get here. Until then, my dear friends, with whom I shared my life for a reason and a season, have found their heart's desire, and that, I say, is cause for celebration indeed.

Artist: Rascal Flatts
Album: Feels Like Today
Title: Bless The Broken Road

"I set out on a narrow way many years ago
Hoping I would find true love along the broken road
But I got lost a time or two
Wiped my brow and kept pushing through
I couldn't see how every sign pointed straight to you
Every long lost dream lead me to where you are
Others who broke my heart they were like northern stars
Pointing me on my way into your loving arms
This much I know is true
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you

I think about the years I spent just passing through
I'd like to have the time I lost and give it back to you
But you just smile and take my hand
You've been there you understand
It's all part of a grander plan that is coming true

Every long lost dream lead me to where you are
Others who broke my heart they were like northern stars
Pointing me on my way into your loving arms
This much I know is true
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you

That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you."

"Boston Legal" Marathon

The majority of this weekend has been and will yet be spent watching the entire first season of one of my favorite shows on TV, Boston Legal, about 16 episodes worth. I have been thinking about why I like it so much, and there are some obvious reasons...there is pretty good star power, attractive people whose roles on the show mesh well with their personalities, heck, there are even some novel and contemporary legal arguments taking place from episode to episode. What's more, the show is ridiculously funny and makes me laugh as an attorney and a human being, and it tugs sometimes at the ol' emotions and heartstrings.

I can't say it is the most accurate reflection of the practice of law itself or the intra-office politics in a law firm of any size or reputation for that matter, but then again, neither is any other show out there allegedly based on reality (save maybe Convictions, which also happens to be very good but which has a limited audience because it comes on Fridays.) Besides, who am I to be nitpicky? :)

I think what gets me the most, why I really like it, is because the show actually allows me to think, feel, and process for myself. So much of what passes for TV entertainment these days, let's face it, is packaged for mass appeal to drooling, mouth-breathing, recliner jockeys. That means there is no such thing as nuance, interpretation, etc. anymore. Consumers have become so afflicted with attention deficits and utter laziness that they want everything to be handed to them...indeed, they demand to be beaten over the head with something, have the point or the joke driven home ad nauseam, or they will simply change the channel, because they are too lazy to be bothered with thinking when they aren't punching the clock. God help us all if that's as true as I perceive it to be...that said, I think Boston Legal is a bastion of intelligence and some depth in a sea of shallow, steam-shovel fed idiocy we call television, and for that I am grateful...oh look at the time, now it's off to breakfast :).

P.S.- It is cool to have a show I like well enough to stage an all-night season watching marathon over...hasn't happened in a while, and when it does, the only thing that makes it better is a good friend to watch with you.

The Creeping Dangers of Socialism and Political Correctness

This is a very good piece on why socialism and political correctness are so dangerous and harmful to free societies. It is precisely because of these two things that most of Europe will be under Islamic rule in my lifetime, and the new Islamofascist overlords will impose horrific conditions that make Adolf Hitler look like an amateur or a piker and threaten the survival of civilization as we know it. I take it as a duty and personal responsibility to confront and dismatle these two threats at every opportunity, because it beats the alternative of turning into Europe and my childrean and grandchildren being forced to live under sharia law.

Via Gates of Vienna:

"Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to. (Theodore Dalrymple)

Karl Marx himself has stated that The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism, a sentiment that corresponds almost exactly to the Islamic idea that peace means the absence of opposition to Islamic rule. Cultural Marxism (a.k.a. Political Correctness and Islam) share the same totalitarian outlook and instinctively agree in their opposition to free discussion, and in the idea that freedom of speech must be curtailed when it is offensive to certain groups. Former Muslim Ali Sina notes that there is very little difference between the Left and Islam. What is lacking in both these creeds is the adherence to the Golden Rule. Just as for Muslims, everything Islamic is a priori right and good and everything un-Islamic is a priori wrong and evil, for the Left, everything leftist is a priori oppressed and good and everything rightist is a priori oppressor and evil. Facts don't matter. Justice is determined by who you are and not by what you have done. Political correctness is an intellectual sickness. It means expediently lying when telling the truth is not expedient. (emphasis mine --Ed.) This practice is so widespread and so common that it is considered to be normal. Sina also quotes historian Christopher Dawson in writing: It is easy enough for the individual to adopt a negative attitude of critical skepticism. But if society as a whole abandons all positive beliefs, it is powerless to resist the disintegrating effects of selfishness and private interest. Every society rests in the last resort on the recognition of common principles and common ideals, and if it makes no moral or spiritual appeal to the loyalty of its members, it must inevitably fall to pieces. This will be the end result of Multiculturalism, and one suspects that this was the point of it to begin with.

...Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus, who has personal experience with living under Socialism, warns that it may not be as dead as many seem to think: We can probably confidently say that its hard version communism is over. However, fifteen years after the collapse of communism I am afraid, more than at the beginning of its softer (or weaker) version, of social-democratism, which has become under different names, e.g. the welfare state the dominant model of the economic and social system of current Western civilization. It is based on big and patronizing government, on extensive regulating of human behavior, and on large-scale income redistribution. The explicit socialism has lost its appeal and we should not have it as the main rival to our ideas today. Klaus warns that illiberal ideas are making a comeback in different shapes: These ideas are, however, in many respects similar to it. There is always a limiting (or constraining) of human freedom, there is always ambitious social engineering, there is always an immodest enforcement of a good by those who are anointed (Thomas Sowell) on others against their will. The current threats to liberty may use different hats, they may better hide their real nature, they may be more sophisticated than before, but they are in principle the same as always.

I have in mind environmentalism (with its Earth First, not Freedom First principle), radical humanrightism (based as de Jasay precisely argues on not distinguishing rights and rightism), ideology of civic society (or communitarism), which is nothing less than one version of post-Marxist collectivism which wants privileges for organized groups, and in consequence, a refeudalization of society. I also have in mind multiculturalism, feminism, apolitical technocratism (based on the resentment against politics and politicians), internationalism (and especially its European variant called Europeanism) and a rapidly growing phenomenon I call NGOism.

Given the fact that Muslims in Canada had quite recently been pushing for the partial implementation of sharia laws in the country (before the recent discovery of a massive terrorist bombing plot of almost 2 dozen young Muslims in Canada --Ed.), one would suspect that smart integration would mean that non-Muslims should demonstrate a little more appeasement. After all, if Canadian authorities listen to the advice of their compatriot Naomi Klein, these planned mass-killings of Canadian civilians were all due to Canadian racism and because the country wasnt Multicultural enough. Muslims want to kill Canadians, Canadians smile back, tell them how much they respect them and ask what more they can do to please them.

This is what Political Correctness leads to in the end. It's not funny and it's not a joke. Political Correctness kills. It has already killed thousands of Western civilians, and if left unchecked it may soon kill entire nations or, in the case of Europe, entire continents. As I have stated before, Islam is only a secondary infection, one that we could otherwise have had the strength to withstand. Cultural Marxism has weakened the West and made us ripe for a takeover. It is cultural AIDS, eating away at our immune system until it is too weak to resist Islamic infiltration attempts. It must be destroyed, before it destroys us all.

Very few Americans realize that Political Correctness is in fact Marxism in a different set of clothes. As that realization spreads, defiance will spread with it. At present, Political Correctness prospers by disguising itself. Through defiance, and through education on our own part (which should be part of every act of defiance), we can strip away its camouflage and reveal the Marxism beneath the window-dressing of sensitivity, tolerance and multiculturalism. Political Correctness is Marxism with a nose job. Multiculturalism is not about tolerance or diversity, it is an anti-Western hate ideology designed to dismantle Western civilization. If we can demonstrate this, an important part of the battle has already been won."

A High-Quality First Amendment Read

I really like this, because folks like John McCain, the drive-by media, and other members of the lunatic PC brigades need to realize that free speech is in fact, free. Not only that, the First Amendment exists to protect icky and unpopular speech, so if some speech offeeeeends you or hurts your feeeeeewings, debate the speaker or let it go and move on. What you may not do, however, is file a lawsuit or pass a law making it illegal for certain things to be said just because you don't like them, period, end of story.

Via From the Grand Stand:

Discrimination Rights

"Part of the problem with functioning in our chaotic society is the blatant hypocrisy of some of our activists.

For reference purposes:

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

If I were to make this statement: "People should not be promiscuous," I'd get all sorts of comments along the lines of "The government shouldn't be in the business of passing morality laws!"

Of course, I didn't say anything about the government getting involved. I only stated my opinion. I never suggested or inferred in that statement that The People should get the government involved. But the point is that a lot of folks would get their panties in a knot for suggesting that we intrude on the morality of others. (It is my opinion that being promiscuous is a bad idea, that it threatens society as a whole, and should be avoided with all the pressures society can bring to the party-up to the point of getting the government involved.)

Try this statement: "Publishing cartoons that demean another man's religion are in poor taste and should be avoided." I'd have the Free Speech absolutists down my neck in a second.

But again, I did not suggest that we should surrender our freedom of speech, only that it is a good and wise idea not to exercise rights irresponsibly, nor is it logical to presume that a right to do something automatically means that doing it is a moral and proper thing. You don't need to express your every thought and opinion. Further, exercizing a right doesn't mean you are free from The People's consequences of choosing to exercise ityou are only free from The Government's consequence. The government cannot impose the consequences. THAT is what the Bill of Rights protects and no more.

It is the consequences where we've gotten things all screwed up. The Constitution of the United States, and the Bill of Rights specifically, were not written to control what The People may do. The Bill of Rights was articulated to limit what the government may do. The government cannot infringe on your right to express your opinions, especially with respect to political speech.

Further, the government cannot pass laws which limit your access to your Representatives ("and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances"), ie, lobbying. If your church group elects a member to petition the government to change some law, and you support that, you can't turn around and suggest that the NRA or Sierra Club are prohibited because they have more money or members. ALL groups (large and small) and individuals are entitled to equal access to our representatives and the government cannot restrict that access because of the First Amendment (and screw the USSC for finding McCain-Feingold constitutionalit is only Constitutional in some sort of alternate reality where "Congress shall make NO law" is interpreted to mean "Congress can do whatever it damn well pleases, regardless of Constitutional prohibitions.").

The government must remain impartial. The government cannot declare an official national religion, but an individual may adopt a religion. In other words, you can say what you want, associate with whomever you want, and believe whatever you want. Expressing your religious opinions is protected speech. Expressing your political opinions is protected speech. You have freedom of consciencethat is, in a nutshell, what the First Amendment is all about. You have freedom OF conscience and freedom not to have one at all.

"The clergybelieve that any portion of power confided to me [as President] will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion."

Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, 1800. ME 10:173

Expressing your opinion of others, to associate with them or not, is protected behavior. The Government cannot do anything to stop itpass laws or engage in any activities, which would infringe on your rights to do those things. But The People can respond however they want, within their same rights.

Nowhere inferred in the Bill or Rights is there a restriction on individuals or a suggestion that private individuals or businesses are "the government." An individual or business cannot "pass laws." An individual or business can establish policies, based on their opinions, and the government is prohibited from passing any law which would limit the expression of that opinion.

All this came to mind because of a post over at Classical Values. In a nutshell, a man has put up a sign that says "Speak English." The Mayor of the city has said the man has a right to express himself and there is nothing the city can do to make him take the sign down (of course the Mayor qualified his statements with "I think." Ya Think?). But so far, so good. But then the Mayor goes on to say, in a classic bait and switch, "if he faithfully and without any kind of discrimination serves anyone who comes up to that window, no matter the language that person speaks, in spite of the fact that he has a sign."

EXCUSE ME?

Not only does the property owner have a right to the sign, he has a right to refuse to do business with anyone he chooses, based on whatever opinions he wishes to put in practice. That kind of policy and exercising of speech and action may cost him customers, but it cannot violate any laws. There can be no law, which is Constitutional, which prevents the man from discriminating against anyone. THAT is protected behavior.

We have all sorts of unconstitutional laws on the bookslaws which prohibit an individual or business from discriminating against someone or expressing "hate speech" against a person or group. I'm sorry, where in the First Amendment does it have an asterisk that says "except when we find it icky"? The PURPOSE of the First Amendment is to protect that which is distasteful, hateful, horrid, and disturbing. You have a right to express your opinions, no matter how vile they might be.

Now I might boycott you for doing so, but that is in my rightthat is the power that The People bring to bear to keep people in line-those are the consequences for exercising your rights. I'm choosing to discriminate against you because of the discrimination you've shown. Failing to recognize that boycotts (or even buycotts) are a form of discrimination is nuts.

So I'd get applauded by some activist for boycotting a store that put up a sign that demanded customers speak English. I'd get similar praise for refusing to do business with a company who didn't hire minorities. THAT kind of discrimination is OK and I'd get applauded for it. If, however, I recognize a store owner's right to do the same thing, even when I disagree with him, I'd be attacked.

Discriminating against people for their race, creed or religion is disturbing, but you have a right to do that. Failure to support discrimination when it makes you feel good to do so requires that you also support a person's right to discriminate when their opinions make you sick. Otherwise, you're attempting to enforce morality through the power of the government, an action not supported when it limits sexual behavior, but fully supported and applauded when it curtails the expression of bigotry. I don't have to do business with that person, but I cannot demand that the government get involved because the government is prohibited from getting involved "Congress shall make no law" Remember?

To suggest otherwise is hypocrisy, plain and simple. Take your pick. Pick your poison. You either recognize that people have the right to make decisions, express opinions, and demonstrate behavior and the government has no authority to get involved or you don't.

You can't choose to have the government involved when someone discriminates because of bigotry and at the same time suggest that the government should not get involved when you discriminate against them because they ARE a bigot. Both are discrimination. One is considered good, the other bad. TOUGH. Both are protected.

The People can respond with their feet and their dollars, but the government has no authority to intervene, pro or con. To suggest otherwise means that you want the government to pass morality laws when the action is repulsive to you, but not when you think it is OK.

You have a RIGHT to discriminatein your personal and business affairs. But recognizing a right means you have to extend that same recognition to others, even when it galls you to do so. This sometimes requires that we support a kind of discrimination that we find repulsive.

We have to prevent people like the Mayor of Philadelphia from sticking his nose into affairs in which he has no authority. Yeah, it sucks when we have to defend a bigot, but that is the price of freedom. We either respect freedom in all its guises or we don't respect freedom at all."

What I Can't Suffer

Not long ago, one of my best friends asked me how it felt to make a decision, to stand up and take control of my life and move forward. I told him it felt great, and he told me that was awesome, and not to ever let him hear of it being any other way ever again. This would be much funnier if you knew my friend, and frankly, had it been anyone else but him, I would have had the urge to smack them one, lol.

There have been times where I have known what the answer is, where I have seen clearly what has to be done in the situation at hand, and yet it did not happen. Although I had come to a concrete conclusion and charted the necessary course of action, I either put it off or didn't do it at all, usually with poor results. The money question then is...why?

As much as it shames me to admit it, the answer was that I was not man enough to stand up and do the right thing by myself and others, thereby displaying a reprehensible brand of cowardice. Because I was scared, I simply would not follow through with the actions required of my decisions, and the consequences that flowed naturally therefrom. As my friend so astutely pointed out, that is unacceptable, and the alternative is actually far better. Accordingly, I don't operate from a place of fear any longer, and it feels great.

Having learned that lesson myself, I have some sympathy when I see others struggling with the same thing, but my sympathy is not unlimited. I know the world would be a much better place in so many ways if people would stand up in the courage of their convictions, and let the chips fall where they may. The reason I didn't do that in the past was because I was afraid of uncertainty, or because I was absolutely certain of what would happen and didn't like the result it produced. On a more general scale, I think it was because I preferred the devil I knew to the ones I didn't, and that's no way to live.

I can't suffer for very long anyone who fails to do what is right for them, what they know they must, simply because it is unpleasant or uncertain. The moral of this story: trust your judgment and instincts, stand firm in your decisions and proceed boldly in the actions that must flow from them, and even if you stumble a bit along the way, you will always land on your feet in the end.

2nd Lieutenant Ilario Pantano (U.S.M.C.)

This post is dedicated to a now former Marine (although, since he served with honor and distinction, he's forever a Marine), 2nd Lt. Ilario Pantano. He now has a book out, entitled "Warlord", detailing his real life struggle to be exonerated and recover his good name after being charged with premeditated murder in the allegedly unlawful killing of two Iraqis.

He has since resigned his commission in the Corps, but he served and was discharged honorably. Thankfully, justice was done and the charges were dismissed prior to a court-martial trial on these trumped up charges, based almost solely on testimony from a disgruntled sergeant who had served under Pantano. I think his story is particularly of interest given all the conclusions that are being jumped to by the MSM and others, considering they also believed and printed the worst about Mr. Pantano prior to his exoneration. This is also why I think it would be cool to be a JAG officer, to be able to be involved in defending our troops. If I make a career of defense work, this would be the arena in which I could see myself doing it.

Via Defend the Defenders:

"The Marine Corps dropped all charges yesterday against 2nd Lt. Ilario Pantano, whom the Corps had accused of premeditated murder for shooting two Iraqi insurgents operating in the Triangle of Death south of Baghdad last year.

The decision by Maj. Gen. Richard Huck, Lt. Pantano's commanding officer, ends one of the most traumatic criminal cases in recent Marine Corps history. Talk-radio hosts nationwide had come to the combat officer's aid, as had retired Marines and donors to a defense fund set up by his mother on the Web.

In an e-mail to The Washington Times, Lt. Pantano said, "My family and I are grateful to our community in Wilmington [N.C.], to our friends, our families and to all of the Americans that have stood up to be counted when the chips were down. As we approach this Memorial Day, thankful for so much, we will not forget those that have gone before and the families who have given the ultimate sacrifice. Semper Fidelis -- we will always be faithful," he wrote, signing off with the Marine Corps motto.

Lt. Pantano gave up his Manhattan lifestyle as a TV producer to re-enter the Corps after the September 11 attacks and fight in Iraq. He was considered a stellar platoon leader by his men and superiors. But the 33-year-old officer found himself back at Camp Lejeune, N.C., facing the possibility of the death penalty for a shooting in Iraq's dangerous al Anbar Province, where Marines were dying every day at the hands of insurgents.

That "nightmare," as Lt. Pantano has called it, is now over. Charles Gittins, his civilian defense attorney, declined to comment on the officer's future. "We're elated that the process intended by Congress to avoid trial on baseless charges worked in this case," Mr. Gittins said. "However, it would have been better if a real investigation was done before the charges were preferred. Don't rely on a disgruntled sergeant who had been demoted. Nobody ever asked those questions."

Gen. Huck's decision came two weeks after Lt. Col. Mark E. Winn, the case's investigating officer, recommended to the general that murder and related charges be dropped instead of proceeding to a court-martial. Col. Winn, who conducted a five-day open hearing at Camp Lejeune, concluded, "The government was unable to produce credible evidence or testimony that the killings were premeditated." Lt. Pantano said he fired in self-defense after two Iraqis rushed him.

Col. Winn singled out for criticism the key witness on which the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and Marine prosecutors based much of their case. The witness, Sgt. Daniel Coburn, testified that Lt. Pantano shot the two Iraqis in the back.

But Sgt. Coburn acknowledged on the witness stand that he did not see the shots being fired. Other platoon witnesses told of how Lt. Pantano had removed Sgt. Coburn as a squad leader for incompetence weeks before the April 15, 2004, shooting. Sgt. Coburn also had received a negative fitness report from Lt. Pantano.

"I think now [Sgt. Coburn] is in a position where he has told his story so many times, in so many versions, that he cannot keep his facts straight anymore," Col. Winn wrote of the chief witness. "There is only one eyewitness to events that precipitated the shooting, and that is 2nd Lt. Pantano."

In a new twist, a Marine Corps statement yesterday announcing the decision disclosed for the first time that autopsies on the two Iraqis helped Gen. Huck make his ruling. The two men's bodies had not been exhumed by the time the pre-trial hearing was held in April because fighting in al Anbar had made the environment too dangerous to remove them.

Second Lt. Barry Edwards, a spokesman at Camp Lejeune, said Navy investigators arranged with family members to recover the bodies before the hearing and conducted the exhumation after Col. Winn's report was completed. The autopsies were completed last week at Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Maryland and they supported Lt. Pantano's statement that he shot the men as they came at him.

"The initial findings of the autopsies did not support the allegation that 2nd Lt. Pantano committed premeditated murder," Lt. Edwards said. "Rather, the initial findings corroborated 2nd Lt. Pantano's version of events." In another boost for the officer, Gen. Huck overruled Col. Winn's recommendation that Lt. Pantano receive administrative punishment for firing too many shots at the Iraqis."

Random Life Musings, Part 2

--Spring Break and long distance relationships are like the "Titanic" romance, ideal on the boat, doomed in the real world.

--A "We Clear?" moment is when you regulate on and lay the law down to some fool, followed by "We Clear?".

--If the meek ever inherit the earth, they'll keep it for less than a week before the strong take it away from them.

--I don't know how much my next vacation will cost, but when my axle decided it was lonely and paid my transmission a visit, it cost about $1300.

--If you want less of anything to happen, tax it.

--When a woman says, "I'll be ready in a minute", that's about the same amount of time as when a guy says "Honey, there's only two more minutes left in the game."

--Cats will eat burritos, and dogs will not eat beans unless surrounded by chili, and as for the results of that eating, well, some things are better left unsaid.

--I have always thought it would be fun and interesting to smack a penguin. The penguin did not tell me to do this.

--"Much maligned" means whoever is maligned has been getting their tail kicked recently and is trying to make up for his previous wanker-dom.

--Air drying after a hot bath, some reality TV, and warm chocolate chip cookies are among the best of life's guilty pleasures.

--Even Ben Affleck buying her a $108,000 toilet seat could not buy Jennifer Lopez's love, which supposedly don't cost a thing.

--If you sing like a cat being drop-kicked, your grill looks like it could make cole slaw without aid of further kitchen instruments, and/or you resemble a drag impersonator attempting to impersonate Meat Loaf, perhaps, and I am going out on a limb here, perhaps "American Idol" isn't for you.

--Some of the most fun things to do are: having a good, long talk with someone you care for that lasts well into the wee hours, staying up all night watching movies, or finding yourself ensconced in a good book...sometimes sleep just has to wait.

--Obnoxious, tin-eared politicians of both stripes think because "We the People" use words, computers, and peaceful demonstrations these days that we have forgotten how to use guns, tar and feathers, and ropes and scaffolds when they go too far...they would be wrong.

--Also on the fun things to do list is to put a cassette type of Cypress Hill's "Insane in the Brain" into a Teddy Ruxpin doll and watch the poor bear try to keep up...just priceless.

--Speaking of bears, a friend of my brother growing up had a miniature schnauzer who loved nothing more than to hump his little sister's Care Bear dolls without mercy...he was an equal opportunity banger, decorating both the boy and girl bears alike. At least now he won't get slapped with a sexual discrimination suit, so he has that going for him, which is nice.

--Pro basketball and international soccer have become so rigged and the outcomes so determined by officiating, they should just have the head of FIFA and all the refs and NBA Commissioner Stern and all the refs stroll out arm in arm to Vince McMahon's (owner of WWE) theme music, entitled "No Chance in Hell", because that's about as much chance as the non-chosen team has of winning anything meaningful in those sports. In the future, after one mistaken call for the non-chosen team, upon a second offense, referees shall be disciplined by a chair shot to the skull...it's in the Rule Book, look it up.

--Except for the playoffs and World Series, nobody watches baseball on TV anymore because both the season and the games move like old people have sex.

--OK, I'll say it, John Murtha was channeling Grandpa Simpson in his most recent appearance on "Meet the Press".

--The words Mexican and buffet should never go together, ever.

--Just once, when someone asks me how I am but doesn't really care to hear anything other than "Fine, you?", I am going to tell them some horrible story with a ring of truth to it just to mess with their head. I think the old people working the Wal-Mart greeting stations would be a fine experimental location.

Random Life Musings, Part One

--The headline for this link, "Richardson Says Goodbye to the Backstreet Boys", writes its own jokes, but I will throw one in for starters...don't you have to leave a boy band when your 15 minutes are up because you begin drawing Social Security?

--No matter how much big brothers might wish it so, baby brothers can not be pulled through crib slats for playitme. Baby brothers also can not fly...write that down.

--Putting keys into strange holes only causes walls to move that reveal cars and other fun prizes hiding behind them on "The Price is Right"...trying this at home only reveals the fun of electrical shocks.

--Although 5 out of 5 vets recommend against it, a baby can ride his favorite St. Bernard around like a horsey wearing nothing but a smile and a cowboy hat.

--Everything remains in constant motion until it needs gas or a taco or something...it's a law of physics, I swear.

--Unbreakable plastic peanut butter jars, when hurled Nolan Ryan style against a wall, aren't.

--There are very few things cooler than writing something that makes the blog page of one of your favorite writers. I have had that good fortune now twice as of today, I hope it happens many more times in the future, and yes, it betrays my supreme level of dork-dom.

--Asking for the same set of directions 5 times from the same convenience store clerk and then driving off down the road and sidewalk at 6 A.M. is statistically more likely to result in an involuntary meeing with law enforcement.

--Sometimes the only thing thugs, goblins, and hooligans understand or respect is the business end of a firearm.

--It is perfectly natural to moonwalk across the kitchen floor of the restaurant you work in, with no music playing, at 1:30 A.M., if you have consumed 19 drinks in a shade under nine hours.

--Child rapists, once all appeals are exhausted, should be castrated for the first offense, and executed for any future offense(s)...same goes for people who make false rape allegations.

--Most humans can tolerate spinning around as fast as possible without puking or pooping on themselves...as I found out at age 5, kitties and puppies, not so much.

--Life is learned backwards, experienced in the present, and lived forward.

--New kids in school have a hard enough time making friends without crushing on the cutest girl in school and scooping up all the academic and athletic awards in sight.

--The same standards you apply to decide whether to allow people to enter and remain in your life should hold no exceptions for relatives. You do the crime(s), you do the time.

--The radical feminist movement and women's failure to stop its spread means that any woman who is lamenting her inability to find a "real man" should first look in the mirror for who is responsible. Any real man who feels out of place in today's world because of that should do the same thing.

--Square pizza, three veggies, a roll, and chocolate milk for $1.35 was taken for granted in high school. It is a deal most broke college students would kill for a few short years later.

--If my last name was Pancake, I would change it before I entered into any beauty pageants.

--Pile drivers, submission moves, and leaping onto another human from great heights are not nearly as much fun in real life as it appears to be on WWE.

--If you have enough true friends to fill up even the fingers on one hand, you are truly blessed.

The Hammer Goes Out Swinging

It should be said that I do not agree with the now departed House Majority Leader, Congressman Tom DeLay (R-TX) on everything, especially his silly statements pronouncing that there was nothing else that could be cut from the federal budget. All things considered, however, he was one of the most staunch and articulate conservative voices among the members of Congress, and the party will badly miss his work on the inside. That said, this reminds me of the liberals in the drive-by media who got Nashville blogger Bill Hobbs canned from his job at Belmont for things posted on his personal weblog, thereby leaving him more time to devote to his new consulting company and to blowing the whistle on shady shenanigans by local liberals both government and private citizens via that same weblog. I think the Dems may learn via the phony indictment secured by hyper-partisan Texas D.A. Ronnie Earle that the rule of unintended consequences has some teeth when the now private citizen Delay goes to work on behalf of the conservative cause from outside the Beltway.

From DeLay's farewell speech today, which is as ringing an endorsement of conservative principles as I've heard in a long time:

"What a blessing this place is, Mr. Speaker. What a castle of hope this building is, this institution is for the people of the world. It's one of those things in political life that you always know but seldom notice. The schedules we're forced to keep during our days in Washington are not always hospitable to sitting back and reflecting on the historical significance of our surroundings. In the weeks since I announced my retirement, however, I found myself doing just that.

I noticed things like I haven't in years. I noticed the monuments on The Mall. I noticed that in Washington's obelisk, the father of our country is represented not as an object of glory, but as a dutiful sentry at attention minding his post for eternity. I noticed that under Jefferson's dome the statue of the man is relatively understated while his etched words still thunder from the marble with the power to drive history. I noticed that Lincoln's chair, the man who sought above all peace and reconciliation, keeps one of his hands in a perpetual fist.

I walk these halls with a keener perspective. I notice now the statues of old and great and, in some cases, almost forgotten heroes that line the halls of this building that stand in Statuary Hall. In these halls, I have also noticed in recent weeks the number of tourists in the Capitol who speak no English. They are not from America, most of these visitors, and yet in a certain sense of course they are. They may speak Italian or Polish or Japanese, but the freedoms they enjoy, both here and in their own countries, have been inspired, won and secured by the ideals and the courage and the compassion of the American people. These pilgrims come from all over the world to the House of Representatives to sit up in these galleries, photograph the statues, and stare up at the Rotunda, to bear witness to the awesome feat of human liberty we have achieved right here. The dome above us, Mr. Speaker, is a lighthouse, a star even, by which all the people in the world, no matter how oppressed, how impoverished, how seemingly without hope can chart a course toward security, prosperity and freedom.

It is worth considering -- though I'll admit, it is considerably easier to consider after you've announced your retirement --whether the days we lead here, the debates we wage, the work we do is always worthy of the elevated ideals embodied in that dome. I submit that we could do better, as could all people in all things at all times, but perhaps not in the ways some might think.

In preparing for today, I found that it is customary in speeches such as these to reminisce about the good old days of political harmony and across-the-aisle camaraderie, and to lament the bitter, divisive partisan rancor that supposedly now weakens our democracy. Well, I can't do that because partisanship, Mr. Speaker, properly understood, is not a symptom of democracy's weakness but of its health and its strength, especially from the perspective of a political conservative. Liberalism, after all, whatever you may think of its merits, is a political philosophy and a proud one with a great tradition in this country, with a voracious appetite for growth.

In any place or any time on any issue, what does liberalism ever seek, Mr. Speaker? More -- more government, more taxation, more control over people's lives and decisions and wallets. If conservatives don't stand up to liberalism, no one will. And for a long time around here, almost no one did. Indeed, the common lament over the recent rise in political partisanship is often nothing more than a veiled complaint instead about the recent rise of political conservatism. I should add here that I do not begrudge liberals their nostalgia for the days of a timid, docile and permanent Republican minority. If we Republicans had ever enjoyed that same luxury over the last 12 years, heck, I'd be nostalgic too.

Had liberals not fought us tooth and nail over tax cuts and budget cuts and energy and Iraq, and partial-birth abortion, those of us on this side of the aisle could only imagine all the additional things we could have accomplished. But the fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker, they didn't agree with us. So to their credit, they stood up to us, they argued with us, and they did so honorably, on behalf of more than 100 million people, just like we did against President Clinton and they did against President Reagan.

Now it goes without saying, Mr. Speaker, that by my count, our friends on the other side of the aisle lost every one of those arguments over the last 22 years, but that's beside the point. The point is, we disagree. On first principles, Mr. Speaker, we disagree. And so we debate, often loudly, and often in vain, to convince our opponents and the American people of our point of view.

We debate here on the House floor, we debate in committees, we debate on television and on radio and on the Internet and in the newspapers and then every two years, we have a huge debate. And then in November, we see who won. That is not rancor, that is democracy.

You show me a nation without partisanship, and I'll show you a tyranny. For all its faults, it is partisanship, based on core principles, that clarifies our debates, that prevents one party from straying too far from the mainstream, and that constantly refreshes our politics with new ideas and new leaders.

Indeed, whatever role partisanship may have played in my own retirement today or in the unfriendliness heaped upon other leaders in other times, Republican or Democrat, however unjust, all we can say is that partisanship is the worst means of settling fundamental political differences -- except for all the others.

Now, politics demands compromise. And Mr. Speaker, and even the most partisan among us have to understand that, but we must never forget that compromise and bipartisanship are means, not ends, and are properly employed only in the service of higher principles.

It is not the principled partisan, however obnoxious he may seem to his opponents, who degrades our public debate, but the preening, self-styled statesman who elevates compromise to a first principle .

For the true statesman, Mr. Speaker, we are not defined by what they compromise, but by what they don't.

Conservatives, especially less enamored of government's lust for growth, must remember that our principles must always drive our agenda and not the other way around. For us, conservatives, there are two such principles that can never be honorably compromised: human freedom and human dignity.

Now, our agenda over the last 12 years has been an outgrowth of these first principles. We lowered taxes to increase freedom. We reformed welfare programs that however well intentioned undermined the dignity of work and personal responsibility and perpetuated poverty. We have opposed abortion, cloning and euthanasia, because such procedures fundamentally deny the unique dignity of the human person. And we have supported the spread of democracy and the ongoing war against terror, because those policies protect and affirm the inalienable human right of all men and women and children to live in freedom.

Conservatism is often unfairly accused of being insensitive and mean-spirited, sometimes unfortunately even by other conservatives. As a result, conservatives often attempt to soften that stereotype by overfunding broken programs or glossing over ruinous policies. But conservatism isn't about feeling people's pain, it's about curing it.

And the results since the first great conservative victory in 1980 speak for themselves: millions of new jobs, new homes and new businesses created thanks to conservative economic reforms; millions of families intact and enriched by the move from welfare to work; hundreds of millions of people around the world liberated by a conservative foreign policy's victory over Soviet communism; and more than 50 million Iraqis and Afghanis liberated from tyranny since September the 11th, 2001. To all the critics of the supposedly mean-spirited conservative policies that brought about these results, I say only this: Compassionate is as compassionate does.

The great Americans honored here in bronze and marble, the heroes of our history and the ghosts of these halls, were not made great because of what they were, but because of what they did. George Washington and Abraham Lincoln have almost nothing in common with Junipero Serra and Jack Swigert, except the choice they each made: to live, to fight and even to die in the service of freedom. We honor men with monuments not because of their greatness or even simply because of their service, but because of their refusal even in the face of danger or death to ever compromise the principles they served. Washington's obelisk still stands watch because democracy will always need a sentry. Jefferson's words will still ring because liberty will always need a voice. And Lincoln's left hand still stays clenched because tyranny will always need an enemy.

And we are still here, Mr. Speaker, as a House and as a nation because the torch of freedom cannot carry itself. Here on this floor, I have caught and thrown spears of every sort. Over the course of 22 years, I've probably worked with and against almost everyone in this chamber at least once. I have scraped and clawed for every vote, every amendment, for every word of every bill that I believed in my heart would protect human freedom and defend human dignity. I have done so at all times honorably and honestly, Mr. Speaker, as God is my witness and history is my judge.

And if given the chance to do it all again, there's only one thing I would change: I would fight even harder."

Iowahawk Describes Zarqawi's Afterlife...Riotous Laughter Ensues

Not to spoil the whole thing, and because the rest is a little crude, here's a taste of and link to one of the funniest things I have read in a long time. Via Iowahawk, I very much hope that it's what the late terror al-Qaeda terror master Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is going through right about now:

"Anyway, I'm standing there trying to figure out my next step, when this badass crew of straightup masked assassins comes around the corner. Talk about a relief, I was beginning to wonder if Allah had made some sort of mistake. And I'm like, "yo, cuz, which way to the virgina?" Then the assholes start eying me up and down, lauging. And then I'm like, "come on, holmes, don't bogart the cooch," and then you know what those douchebags did? Throw a friggin' burqqa over my head and drag me into an abandoned warehouse. I'm goin' finally, some action.

I will spare you the ribald details, but let's just say after that 12 hour train bang I know how Marilyn Chambers felt after Behind the Green Door III. Dude, I can't even fart anymore, I hoot. And I'm so bowlegged they call me Hopalong. But, hey, I'm thinking it was just part of the Paradise Club for Martyrs initiation, because we sometimes did the same thing with AQ recruits. Not gay or anything, just to make sure the new jihadis knew who the boss was.

I pulled up my trou, and they were sitting there smoking cigs, and I'm like, okay homeslices, you had your fun, bring on the bitches. And then you know what the bastards did? Pull out the scimitars and start slicing off my fargin' head. What the flock??? If you've never been beheaded, let me clue you in: it. hurts. like. a. muthafuka. And being the ball in an alley pickup soccer game is no picnic either. Man, I'm telling you, you Omega Q-dogs ain't got shit compared to this initiation ceremony."

Ding, Dong Zarqawi is Dead

This, my friends, is what we call celebration time. Terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi met a fittingly violent death yesterday, confirmed about 3:30 A.M., when U.S. forces dropped a pair of 500 pound bombs on the house in which he was meeting his spiritual adviser, who was also killed. Zarqawi was pure evil, the number 3 man in al-Qaeda, the head AQ terrorist in Iraq, and was responsible for the murder and beheadings of countless people. Iraq and the rest of the world are much better off without him, and here's to hoping, as columnist Frank Salvato put it, "I can only hope Zarqawi is in a place where he is starting to understand that the only virgin in the immediate vicinity is he, and that Satan is thinking he's looking pretty attractive right about now". Here is a good link to a CNN article with a solid roundup and video clip of the airstrike that killed him:

For extra added bonus victory over terrorism fun, coalition forces said the now 39 raids executed after the fatal Zarqawi airstrike have led to a "treasure trove" of information on terror netowrks operating in Iraq, which will surely lead to more arrests and rolling up terror cells there. Later that day, Israeli forces killed the No. 2 terrorist enforcer in Hamas, who was responsible for numerous rocket attacks and civilian deaths among Israeli citizens, with a Hellfire missile strike. All around it was a real bad day to be a terrorist and 24 hours of massive wins for the good guys. Although this joke, entitled The 72 Virginians, was originally written with Osama bin Laden's name in it, here it is reposted with the late Zarqawi's name substituted in honor of his demise...good times indeed!

"After getting nailed by a Daisy Cutter, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi made his way to the pearly gates. There, he is greeted by George Washington. "How dare you attack the nation I helped conceive!" yells Mr. Washington, slapping Abu in the face.

Patrick Henry comes up from behind. "You wanted to end the Americans' liberty, so they gave you death!" Henry punches Zarqawi on the nose.

James Madison comes up next, and says "This is why I allowed the Federal government to provide for the common defense!" He drops a large weight on Zarqawi's knee and plants a solid kick to his groin.

Abu is subject to similar beatings from John Randolph of Roanoke, James Monroe, and 65 other people who have the same love for liberty and America. As he writhes on the ground, Thomas Jefferson picks him up to hurl him back toward the gate where he is to be judged.

As Zarqawi awaits his journey to his final very hot destination, he screams "This is not what I was promised!" An angel replies "I told you there would be 72 Virginians waiting for you, idiot. What did you think I said?"

Passage of Time Versus Physical Distance

My mind functions similarly to that of a tinkerer or engineer, except without stuff strewn about the garage, lol. I think about many things, rather a lot actually, and some of those thoughts are more concise, clear, and coherent than others. When I come to a conclusion that makes good sense to me, one that I can put to good use, one I want to stick with, I sometimes post it on here. I do this not only for myself, but also in the event that someone else might read it and take some comfort or learn something from it as well. I enjoy figuring things out if I can, and heping others in the process is a good bonus. I am not a sad, depressed, or overly negative person, just a realistic thinker with a full and active mind. With that disclaimer now out of the way, onward and upward we go into insomnia land!

I think that moving on from a relationship, the physical distance of a person walking away and staying there and the passage of time each present a unique set of difficulties in moving on and forward.

I believe the physical distance carries with it the most immediate and acute pain, especially on the day of the actual breakup. Watching that person walking away, the physical distance growing between you until they are eventually out of sight, and wishing more than anything at that moment that it wouldn't unfold that way is one of the hardest and most emotional things anyone can experience. I think this goes double when the relationship itself was long distance, because there is the double whammy of the person walking away from your presence and the leaving your geographic area on top of that, likely never to return. It is most immediate because up until that moment(s) in time, that person was with you and you loved them, and watching them walk away is the opening act of a painful play of second guessing, heartbreak, and eventual healing, only with no idea as to when the healing will ever arrive...and as badly as you hurt in that moment, you don't really know the healing will ever come.

The passage of time going away from the end of a relationship is different because it is more grinding and constant, if slightly less of an acute pain, than is the physical distance. Every day moving forward without a phone call or voicemail, every log in to check your e-mail, every time you hear a song that takes you back (especially for popular songs with high airplay rotation) is yet another reminder that the person you once loved is gone for good. It gets even better when you do hear from them and they tell you they have found the love of their life only after they parted ways with you. I should know...this has happened to me, twice, lol.

The passage of time is at once relentless and merciless, but there is a silver lining. Ironically enough, that silver lining simultaneously exists in the passage of time...call it another immutable law. In spite of and because of everything you go through trying to heal, the thinking, the prayers, even the tears, over time, you manage to work through it. Each day that passes and the pain is a little less, and a little less, and a little less, until one day you wake up and it's OK. Even if you don't necessarily know why or how, it's just OK, because you don't hurt anymore and you're now able to take away the good lessons you have learned and remember the good times had, while leaving everything else behind.

This takes work, but the reward, being in sufficiently good emotional shape to recognize, go after, and win the love of your live when he/she comes along...as MasterCard says, "Priceless."

Is a Slowdown Ever Really Good For You?

Dierks Bentley's new hit, "Settle for a Slowdown", carries in it the basic idea that the singer would like for the woman who is leaving him to at least slow down a little. He has resigned himself to the idea that she isn't coming back, but her leaving so fast makes him feel like their relationship meant very little, if anything.

That got me to pondering whether such a slowdown would actually be a good thing for either party, the leaver and/or the person being left. On the one hand, it is understandable for someone to want to see some tangible sign, to have some idea that the time, energy, and feelings they invested into another person actually meant something. It's also plausible that someone who is the leaver in a romatic situation might want to take some action to show the person they are leaving that they really did care in spite of that person not being the long-term answer for the leaver. These are gut-level, emotional responses that make total sense to someone who is in pain due to an intense breakup.

Despite the emotional sense these feelings might make, I believe they are actually harmful to both parties if undertaken by either. On the leaver end of the equation, such an attempt to slow down and show they actually did care could be miscontrued by the leavee (yes I know that isn't a word) as the leaver having second thoughts about leaving and potentially as a sign they want to resume the relationship. Further, it prevents the leaver from fully moving away from someone who, in their mind and heart, has already been determined to be a lost cause...in the process, the leaver might even end up sabotaging a relationship they do want for the long term if they mishandle the process of moving on from a past relationship. It isn't worth it to sacrifice a potential true love by wallowing in the past and trying make an ex feel better about a now defunct relationship.

The same problems I just described above for leavers apply equally for someone who is being left behind in a failed relatioinship. The main thing I would add to the above dangers is that a slowdown is not what the leavee wants anyway, and would not be satisfactory even if it happened. The true desire of the person being left was for the leaver not to take off in the first place. Now that that's happened, a slowdown on the leaver's way out the door is not only a poor substitute for staying, but just as I laid out earlier with the leaver, it's similarly contrary to the continued sanity and well-being of the leavee. It's similar to having a Band-Aid pulled off...I would rather have it pulled off quickly and get the worst pain over immediately and ASAP rather than drag out that same excruciating pain over time any day.

The moral of the story is this: if there is a mutual interest and ability to maintain a friendship after a romantic couple has parted ways, then by all means those two individuals should give it a try and see if it works. If on the other hand, the person being left is still too emotionally involved and/or hurting too badly for a mere friendship to work, or both parties decide the break should be permanent and complete, then it would be better to simply end all contact and move on, painful though that may be. Though I truly dig the song, I simply can't see any situation where the slowdown Dierks Bentley sings about is ever a good idea.

"Settle for a Slowdown"
by Dierks Bentley

I must look just like a fool, here in the middle of the road
Standing there in your rearview and getting soaked to the bone
This land is flat as it is mean, a man can see for a hundred miles
So I'm still praying I might see the glow of a brake light

But your wheels just turn down the road ahead
If it hurts at all you ain't showed it yet
I keep a lookin' for the slightest sign
That you might miss what you left behind
I know there's nothing stopping you now
But I'd settle for a slowdown

I held on longer then I should
Believing you might change your mind
And those bright lights of Hollywood would fade in time

But your wheels just turn down the road ahead
If it hurts at all you aint showed it yet
I keep a lookin' for the slightest sign
That you might miss what you left behind
I know there's nothing stopping you now
But I'd settle for a slowdown

But your wheels just turn down the road ahead
If it hurts at all you aint showed it yet
You're just a tiny dot on that horizon line
Come on tap those brakes baby just one time
I know there's nothing stopping you now
I'm not asking you to turn back around
I'd settle for a slowdown
Come on just slow down
I'd settle for a slow down