Molly Loves Zinni

Who woulda thunk it? There's actually someone in the military (or who used to be in the military) that Molly Ivins likes and agrees with. Of course it is Gen. Anthony Zinni (ret) who was a Clinton hack so that is understandable. Let's see what the old barking moonbat has to howl about this week.

Too bad for anyone who tuned in to President Bush's speech Monday night hoping to hear something that would cheer us up -- like a plan.

There was a plan. There were five steps. Weren't you listening or were you and your dried up old hag friend Ann Richards still crying about how Dubya kicked her ass? Here is the excerpt that states the plan:

There are five steps in our plan to help Iraq achieve democracy and freedom: We will hand over authority to a sovereign Iraqi government; help establish security; continue rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure; encourage more international support; and move toward a national election that will bring forward new leaders empowered by the Iraqi people...

You were probably up pouring yourself another drink. But Molly continues.

That was as depressing as divorce. There he was, still peddling the phony idea that Saddam Hussein was connected to 9-11 -- I guess that one will never get too old or too disproved.

Actually Molly, it turns out that there were connections, but the only thing you liberals will accept is a picture of Osama and Saddam French kissing.

In case you think no one in public life is capable of intelligent thought about Iraq, I recommend a speech made by Gen. Anthony Zinni (well, OK, so he's slightly retired) May 12 to the Center for Defense Information. In it, Zinni lists the 10 mistakes he believes were responsible for getting us into this fine mess.

And as I stated before, Zinni is a Clinton hack, plus he's peddling a book so it does behoove him to make a lot of noise and the more anti-Bush he can sound, the more the lamestream media will support his book.

My own modest contribution to this task began the day we announced we would be using Saddam's main palace as our headquarters in Iraq. "No, no, no," I moaned. "We're Americans. We don't do palaces." We should have announced that all Saddam's palaces would be converted into universities.

It seems to me the military would want to set up headquarters where the best command and control infrastructure was. That would be Saddam's palaces, but since Molly is anti-military she wouldn't realize that.

"Should have" is not normally a helpful construction, but I thought Zinni's list useful indeed. Since Zinni expanded brilliantly on several points, I do disservice by simplifying -- even so, you'll see what I mean.

I guess if a military man worked for a Dimocrat president that automatically makes him brilliant. Zinni's points follow.

Misjudging the success of containment. Containment actually worked, we just didn't know it.

Tell that to the Kurds and to all the people in the mass graves. Tell all the people who were raped in the rape rooms by Saddam's sadistic spawn. Yeah, containment was a rousing success. You liberals are all pissed off at what went on at Abu Ghraib by a few asshole American soldiers but obviously think nothing about what went on at Abu Ghraib when Saddam was in power. He didn't humiliate them. He crippled, tortured and killed them. Yeah, containment. A rousing success. I thought you guys believed in human rights.

The strategy was flawed. that the road to Jerusalem led through Baghdad, when just the opposite is true -- the road to Baghdad leads through Jerusalem. In other words, an Israeli-Palestinian settlement is the key to peace and progress in the region.

This is the biggest piece of shit in his entire speech. I guess he's trying to justify hs failure in the Middle East. There will be no resolution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict while Yasser Arafat is alive! None! Arafat wants the obliteration of Israel. He will settle for nothing less. He walked out of the best deal the Palestinians will ever get. And, since we took out Saddam, there is no more money for suicide bombers' families from him. Since we took out Iraq, the booming in Israel has diminished. The Middle East needed an enema and Iraq was the best place to insert the tube.

We had to create a false rationale for going in to get public support. Zinni testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee just before the war and was asked if the threat from Saddam Hussein was imminent: "No, not at all," he said. "It was not an imminent threat. Not even close. Not grave, gathering, imminent, serious, severe, mildly upsetting, none of these."

One man's opinion, but opinions are like assholes: everyone has one. What if Saddam did have WMD's, and I think he did, and he gave them to al Qaeda and they were used on us? Zinni would be singing a different tune, unless of course, there was a Dimocrat in the White House. Then Bush would have been blamed for not taking out Saddam.

We failed to internationalize the effort. That's a point on which we have now reached near-universal agreement, including George W. Bush.

By internationalize, liberals mean we didn't get the permission of Germany and France. Great Britiain, Australia, Italy, Poland, Spain (until they turned tail and ran) and many other countries don't count.

We underestimated the task.

True. We won the war so quickly we didn't realize what the occupation would entail. But, there are more good stories coming out of Iraq than bad. It's just that the lamestream media is more interested in bashing Bush than reporting the good stuff. The electrical infrastructure is better than before the war. There are new schools. There is a good water supply. The southern marshes are being restored. Iraq, overall, is in better shape than before the war, but our liberal media wants us to bug out so they can get back to their agenda of implementing the socialist utopia and putting our country under the control of the United Nations. Asstards!

Propping up and trusting the exiles. Zinni ranks this as possibly our biggest mistake, taking up Ahmad Chalabi's "Gucci guerrillas." Zinni has the additional authority of having testified against the Iraqi Liberation Act back in 1998, telling the Senate then that the Iraqi National Congress was not credible and would "lead us into something that we will regret."

So we're fixing it.

Lack of planning. When Zinni was head of CentCom in the Mideast, they actually did a reconstruction plan. "The size of the CPA was about the size we felt we needed for one province, let alone the entire country."

Doesn't this fall under "underestimating the task"? I already covered this. So it looks like Zinni had nine points instead of ten.

The generals in Iraq, who are actually in Iraq, have stated that they have sufficient forces. Zinni is in Washinton DC. Whom are ya gonna believe? Someone who is in Iraq, or someone who is hawking an anti-Iraq War book?

Ad hoc organization. The extent to which the CPA never had a game plan is incredible and, as The Washington Post rather acidly reports, the place is staffed with busy little right-wingers whose only claim to competence is their political connections.

Yeah, like I'm gonna believe the Washington Post. Compared to other military operations, Iraq was a resounding success. Liberals would like to see a war where no one (including the enemy) gets killed, except when it's a Republican president. Then they want to see lots of deaths so they can cry about how bad we're losing and we need to give up and come home. Then we can vote in an asshole like John Fonda Kerry who thinks that the war on terrorism should be turned over to the United Nations. Like the Unitied Nations is gonna win the War on Terror.

A series of bad decisions on the ground. Disbanding the army, etc.

Hindsight is 20/20. So what would Zinni, in his divine wisdom, have us do?

First, Zinni recommends we stop digging the hole we're in. We need a U.N. resolution,

We had 14 UN resolutions over 14 years that were not enforced. Dammit! Ain't that just like a fucking liberal? We need more laws. Then they refuse to enforce the laws we already have on the books!

then we need a lot of Arab officers in as advisers, then he has a whole series of specific military steps. He also emphasizes jobs, jobs, jobs.

Has he not noticed that we are giving jobs, jobs, jobs to the Iraqis? We turned Fallujah over to an Iraqi officer. Does that not count?

"I would go to the contractors in there and say: 'I don't want to see truck drivers that are coming from Peoria, Ill. I want to pay truck drivers that are Iraqis.' It doesn't take a hell of a lot of talent to drive a truck. Why aren't Iraqis driving trucks for their own reconstruction and redevelopment?"

But Iraqis are driving trucks. We hear about that when an Iraqi is killed for working for the Americans.

He also notes there is no system of education for the electorate -- no political parties, nothing.

Iraq has been under one party rule for 40 years. Does he expect a political system with political parties to spring up overnight? People are taking this guy seriously? Poof! I now declare a full blown democracy! I, Anthony Zinni, the miracle worker. Put me in charge and I will have it accomplished in two weeks. How long did it take us after the Revolutionary War?

Another citizen with some valuable suggestions is New York lawyer Neal Johnston,

New York lawyer. Expect bullshit.

who was moved to write Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld concerning "proper controls upon the interrogation techniques of detainees held by our military forces abroad." Since we are extremely interested in getting the truth out of reluctant witnesses who may be covering up something, and since the Pentagon apparently feels it knows how to do this, Johnston wonders what would happen if the methods were more broadly applied. For example, he writes Rumsfeld, "When next you testify before a congressional committee, would your testimony be any more credible were you required to deliver it stripped naked? I think not.

Just gotta get Abu Ghraib in there dontcha Molly?

Even, Johnston suggests, shoving a rolled copy of the Bill of Rights up a delicate place on the secretary's person would not necessarily improve Rumsfeld's truthfulness at his next press conference. "My solution is really quite simple: The Iraqi scum should be handled with much the same restraint we would all want to be applied to you, should the present criminal investigations wind up reaching even deeper into your office than is already the case."

GMAFB! First off, the Bill of Rights does not apply to the "Iraqi scum". Neither does the Geneva Convention, since it is reciprocal and they do not abide by it. Even so, we treat our POW's better than the ragheads treat theirs. And, if there is another 9/11 and it turns out that any of the "Iraqi scum" had information we could have used to prevent it, you would be one of the ones screaming the loudest that the military did not use any means possible to extract that information.

It's Memorial Day and you America hating liberals make me sick to my stomach.

Time for another glass of wine.

Here Comes the Bride

I'd steer clear of this place.

John Fonda Kerry Aircraft Carrier

John Fonda Kerry has voted against every major weapons system since he has been in the Senate. This is an example of what he would do to the Navy if elected.

Monday Pun 5/30

A stuntman complained that he couldn't decide whether to buy a bike
with a high top speed and poor acceleration, or one with lots of torque
and fast acceleration, but a poor top speed. Eventually he decided on
the second one, because it cost a lot less. Why?

Torque is cheap.

Memorial Day Whack Job

Bastards! Pricks! Assholes! Buttwipes! Jerkweeds! Asshats! Traitorous commie bastards! I'm pissed. I mean I'm really pissed!

I opened up the Atlanta Urinal and Constipation (or as reader Harold calls it, the Al Jazzera & Constitution) and right there on the front page was a story about POW's. It is Memorial Day weekend and we should be reading stories honoring soldiers. That is what Memorial Day is all about. So I expected sumpin' about POW's from other wars, not a hit piece. The fuckhead started off his story like this:

Washington --- They are infamous memorials to the inhumanity of war: The Bataan Death March. Stalags. The Hanoi Hilton.

And now, Abu Ghraib.

GMAFB! This fucktard is comparing Abu Ghraib to the Bataan Death March? I am so fucking sick and tired about how the press is milking this story for all it's worth. I'm sick of it! Jesus H. Christ! We humiliated some fucking ragheads. These were not choirboys. Many of these assholes were our fucking enemies! It's not like we fed them into shredders or broke their arms and legs. Yeah, I was pissed when I first heard about it but now I'm getting pissed off at the press. The army was taking care of this before the booger eatin' moh-rons in the lamestrem media tried to make this story into the worst thing to have happened since the Holocaust. And now we have this asswipe trying to compare it to the Bataan Death March or the Hanoi Hilton. Enough of this shit! Stop it already!

It's like the poor sorry bastard who had to go see Doug Piranha:

Vercotti: Doug. (takes a drink) Well, I was terrified of him. Everyone was terrified of Doug. I've seen grown men pull their own heads off rather than see Doug. Even Dinsdale was frightened of Doug.

Interviewer: What did he do?

Vercotti: He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He was vicious.

Yeah, we stripped 'em naked and humiliated them. We were vicious.

But the asstard continues.

These POWs' courageous stories are almost beyond belief. And they speak with a perspective few have earned, from the hard side of steel bars and cellblock beatings.

''You would strip down and put hands behind your head and stand there and take it. They used a club that was like a baseball bat --- a little thinner but just as long,'' recalled Harris Chuck, 86, a Marine who was captured in Guam only days after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. He was a POW until the Allied victory over Japan four years later.

And we made 'em strip down and form pyramids. We scared 'em with dogs. We had a stupid girl laugh at them. No fucking comparison. None at all.

The beatings were usually ''warranted,'' Chuck recalled. The POWs would steal rations, loot ships they were forced to load and sabotage whatever equipment they could. The toughest hardship was the diet --- only soup and rice --- which reduced Chuck's weight from 165 to 137 pounds.

So how much weight was lost by the prisoners in Abu Ghraib? Did we make them perform physical labor?

What happened to the Iraqi prisoners was wrong, said Sterno, 82, who lives in Brunswick.

''But I can understand that Iraqi deal. Some MPs are bad people. I'm not saying all of them, but you get a few that were downright brutal,'' he said. ''Some were mean. Ninety percent of them are good people but there are always a few in every group. You find some who are sadistic.''

No shit! And we have a press that is so anti-American that this has been blown all out of proportion. We have some bad apples that the Army was in the process of courtmartialing and the press has made this the biggest violation of human rights that has ever occurred in the history of the world. We stripped some Arabs naked and humiliated them! The Army is trying and punishing the people involved. The President has apologized to the entire fucking world. He apologized to the fucking King of Jordan fer chrissakes! Let it go! I'm sick of it.

Harry Joslin said his Japanese captors never submitted him to sexual shame like the American MPs who stacked up naked Iraqi prisoners, forced them to masturbate, posed them degradingly and photographed it.

''They treated us rudely, and there was not much food and we got whacked up a bit,'' Joslin said. ''But it was not at all like the POWs got treated in Iraq. None of that humiliation.''

Give me a choice of getting whacked up or forced to whack off, I'd take the whacking off. Humiliation? Spend six weeks in a hospital. By that time so many people have seen you naked that you don't have any shame. Humiliation? Suffer spinal cord injury where a nurse has to stick a tube up your dick so you can piss. Humiliation? A nurse has to stick a finger up your ass so you can shit. Don't talk to me about humiliation. When we start breaking bones and feeding people through shredders then this story could last six weeks. It has been overblown. Give it a fucking rest already!

I will give the asshole who wrote this article his due for actually presenting one dissenting opinion. Harris Chuck.

He is hesitant to condemn the six enlisted MPs who have been charged with abusing Iraqi inmates. He believes the war on terror is different from the ones he waged.

''We were dealing with a different type of enemy than in Iraq,'' he said. ''Those bums are terrorists. They just hate our guts. So what are you going to do when they're captured?''

Let's feed 'em through shredders. The world didn't seem to bitch about Saddam Hussein doing that.

Look. What went on at Abu Ghraib was wrong, but the press just can't seem to get off of it. The brutal beheading of Nick Berg was news for about two days. Then it fell below the radar. Our lamestream media is still carrying on about Abu Ghraib.

I'm outraged that the bum who wrote this article about POW's used it to bash our military. Memorial Day should not be about Abu Ghraib. It should be about our soldiers who gave their lives for this country. It should be about all the soldiers who fought honorably for this country. That this asshole used Memoral Day to write a hit piece on the military just makes me sick to my stomach.

Can't they give this overblown story a rest for one weekend? Instead of asking the rest of the world, "Why do they hate us?", I think we need to ask the American press why do they hate America.

I just can't understand it.

It's a Sale

Whatta bargain!

Saturday Jokes

I'm pissed about sumpin' I read in the Atlanta Urinal and Constipation and I will blog about it tomorrow when I have calmed down a bit. Here are some jokes sent to me by readers.

From z:

media of the day -- the al-Gorzeera network
dance tune of the day -- the algorythym -- a klutz in 2/5 time (moves like a rock).
no-carb energy source of the day -- algore, the sail fuel.
animated feature of the day -- woodgore, from kerrytoon productions (move your head to make it move).
vulture feast of the day -- kerryon en heinzauce au gore.

From Ralph Gizzip:

An American tourist in London decides to skip his tour group and explore
the city on his own.

He wanders around, seeing the sights, and occasionally stopping at a quaint
pub to soak up the local culture, chat with the lads, and have a pint of
Guinness.

After awhile, he finds himself in a very high class neighborhood.....big,
stately residences...no pubs, no stores, no restaurants, and worst of
all... NO PUBLIC RESTROOMS.

He really, really has to go, after all those Guinness's. He finds a narrow
side street, with high walls surrounding the adjacent buildings and decides
to use the wall to solve his problem.

As he is unzipping, he is tapped on the shoulder by a London Bobbie, who
says, "I say, sir, you simply cannot do that here, you know."

"I'm very sorry, officer," replies the American, "but I really , really
HAVE TO GO, and I just can't find a public restroom."

"Ah, yes," said the Bobbie..."Just follow me". He leads him to a back
"delivery alley", then along a wall to a gate, which he opens.

"In there," points the Bobbie. "Whiz away,...anywhere you want."

The fellow enters and finds himself in the most beautiful garden he has
ever seen. Manicured grass lawns, statuary, fountains, sculptured hedges,
and huge beds of gorgeous flowers, all in perfect bloom.

Since he has the cop's blessing, he zips down and unburdens himself and is
greatly relieved.

As he goes back thru the gate, he says to the Bobbie "That was really
decent of you ....is that "British Hospitality ?"

"No" replied the Bobbie, with a satisfied smile on his face, "that is the
French Embassy."

Also from Ralph:

World's Thinnest Books

FRENCH WAR HEROES
by Jacques Chirac

HOW I SERVED MY COUNTRY
by Jane Fonda

MY BEAUTY SECRETS
by Janet Reno

HOW TO BUILD YOUR OWN AIRPLANE
by John Denver

MY SUPER BOWL HIGHLIGHTS
by Dan Marino

THINGS I LOVE ABOUT BILL
by Hillary Clinton

MY LITTLE BOOK OF PERSONAL HYGIENE
by Osama Bin Laden

THINGS I CANNOT AFFORD
by Bill Gates

THINGS I WOULD NOT DO FOR MONEY
by Dennis Rodman

MY WILD YEARS
by Al Gore

AMELIA EARHART'S GUIDE TO THE PACIFIC

AMERICA'S MOST POPULAR LAWYERS

DETROIT: a Travel Guide

A COLLECTION of MOTIVATIONAL SPEECHES
by Dr. J. Kevorkian

EVERYTHING MEN KNOW ABOUT WOMEN

EVERYTHING WOMEN KNOW ABOUT MEN

ALL THE MEN I HAVE LOVED BEFORE
by Ellen de Generes

GUIDE TO DATING ETIQUETTE
by Mike Tyson

SPOTTED OWL RECIPES
by PETA

THE AMISH PHONE DIRECTORY

MY PLAN TO FIND THE REAL KILLERS
by O. J. Simpson

And the world's Number One Thinnest Book ........

MY BOOK OF MORALS
by Bill Clinton
with introduction
by The Rev. Jesse Jackson

And finally from Barbara:

COWBOY WISDOM:

Three strangers awaiting their flights strike up a conversation in the airport passenger lounge in Bozeman, Montana. One is an American Indian passing through from Lame Deer. Another is a Cowboy on his way to Billings for a livestock show. And the third is a fundamentalist Arab student, newly arrived at Montana State University from the Middle East who is headed to a training conference in Detroit. (Wonder what he's training for? - GOC)

Their discussion drifts to their diverse cultures. Soon, the two Westerners learn that the Arab is a devout, radical Muslim who supports Osama Bin Laden's Jihad, so the conversation falls into an uneasy lull. The cowboy leans back in his chair, crosses his boots on a magazine table and tips his big sweat-stained hat forward over his face. The wind outside is blowing tumbleweeds around, and the old windsock is flapping; but still . . . no plane comes.

Finally, ! the American Indian clears his throat and softly, he speaks, "At one time here, my people were many, but sadly, now we are few."

The Muslim student raises an eyebrow and leans forward, "Once my people were few," he sneers, "and now we are many. Why do you suppose that is?"

The Montana cowboy shifts his toothpick to one side of his mouth and from the darkness beneath his Stetson says in a drawl, "That's 'cause we ain't played Cowboys and Muslims yet, . . . but I do believe it's a-comin'."

Yee Hah!

Saturday Boobage

I've posted a picture of her before. They're obviously fake and Key thinks the surgeon did a crappy job. You be the judge.

It's Friday

This has been kind of a blah week. My team lead was off Monday through Wednesday so I goofed off even more than usual. He was in Dallas on Thursday and Friday and we had a conference call on Thursday and one today with the Dallas folks to discuss the system moves to the new processor.

The mainframe team is split between Dallas and Atlanta. Three people are in Dallas and my team lead and I are in Atlanta. We also have one of the old Dallas folks, who moved to Alabama after she retired, as a contractor. She was in Dallas this week also. My team lead was visiting family in Houston, so he went up to Dallas for two days and took the team, plus the old network guy out to lunch.

Anyway, the conference calls were about the new processor. The IBM CE finished the install and I've put in a hardware configuration. I had one of our co-ops run the cables and I got an MVS system IPL'ed. I don't have any consoles or TSO terminals yet because I haven't done any IP work or configured the 2074 stuff.

GOC. WTF are you talking about?

Listen. If I can't dazzle y'all with my brilliance, I'll baffle you with my bullshit. I have to go to a meeting every Wednesday (I call it the Inquisition Meeting) where we talk about what went wrong last week and how we're gonna prevent problems next week. I could do an entire post just on this meeting. There was one young whippersnapper who claimed I was making things up when I said sumpin' like, "We ran out of SMS space so I had to add an SMS volume and update the ACS routines." or "That particular user did not have update authority for the opercmds profile in the facilities class". This is all real stuff.

I could have accomplished more this week, but as I said I have been in a strange mood all week. I guess my age is catching up with me.

I am looking forward to a nice three day weekend. Hopefully I won't have the excitement of last Memorial Day weekend when I caught a wine glass in midair only to have it break in my hand and nick an artery and sever some nerves. I wound up having to have surgery to reattach the nerves and I still haven't regained all my feeling in my ring finger and pinky.

That's all for tonight. Stay tuned for Saturday boobage and jokes.

See ya.

Cold Day In Hell

Does this mean Dimocrats are gonna start telling the truth?>

Bye Bye

Not My Job

Brain Farts

This is what you get when I've been drinking and don't want to spend a lot of time on any given subject.

On Thursday, we had an asshole who perched on an overpass over I-75 threatening to jump. They closed I-75 in both directions. GMAFB! This was some booger eatin' moh-ron who was trying to get attention. I'd like to be there with a bullhorn yelling, "Jump motherfucker, jump!" The cops finally rushed him and he slipped out of their grasp and fell off the overpass. They took him to Grady Hospital. Kennestone was closer, but they might have been able to give the butthead good medical treatment there. Grady is where they take the poor people. This is the second time in three months this has happened. Just shoot the dipsticks and put them out of their misery. Atlanta traffic is bad enough without closing highways.

Speaking of dipsticks my new troll got pissed off at me. He ragged on me for stifling his freedom of speech by editing his comments. There's just one thing wrong buttmunch, on this site there is no freedom of speech. It's a dictatorship. Read the fucking Rules over there on the left. Also, when you comment, I warn you that if you are a dickhead, I will edit your comments. FOAD! And come up with better insults than my readers are a bunch of hillbillies. Bill Clinton doesn't read this blog.

Speaking of our first hillbilly president, he's getting restless.

The restless Democrat's Harlem office hasn't worked out the way he'd hoped either, what with Mrs. Clinton's former chief of staff Maggie Williams redeployed to keep an eye on his comings and goings. Neighbors say Clinton seldom bothers to show up.

Too bad. The first black president can't score in Harlem.

"He's been looking for a place primarily on the Upper West Side with a couple of bedrooms for about $2 million," said one real estate agent familiar with Clinton's apartment plans.

He's come a long way from growing up as white trash in Little Rock.

Didja read this shit about a real war hero trashing John Fonda Kerry?

North Vietnamese jailers at the Hanoi Hilton invoked Sen. John Kerry's 1971 anti-war testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to taunt and demoralize U.S. POWs, Vietnam war hero Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, revealed on Wednesday.

Listen up John McCain, your buddy aided and abetted the enemy when he returned from Viet Nam and joined VVAW.

Johnson, who spent six years at the infamous prison camp, also called former Vice President Al Gore's remarks yesterday to the radical left-wing group Moveon.org "traitorous."

Jesus H. Christ! Gore has gotten worse than Howard Dean. The guy has turned into a raving loon. If not for some stupid old people in Florida, this sumbitch would be president. Did we ever dodge a bullet or what?

But back to John Fonda Kerry.

Asked if he'd heard about Kerry's speech while he was at the Hanoi Hilton, Johnson told WABC Radio's Mark Levin, "Yes, we did."

"[Hanoi Hilton jailers] played stuff on the loudspeaker darn near 24 hours a day - propaganda, of course - telling us about the 'uprisings' in the United States," he said.

Propaganda put out by John Fonda Kerry and his fellow traitor Jane Fonda.

Johnson told Levin that his North Vietnamese jailers found the anti-war activities of actress Jane Fonda, who teamed up with Kerry's Vietnam Veterans Against the War in 1970 and '71, to be particularly useful.

Hanoi Jane should have been tried for treason and shot thirty years ago.

"They played her speech to the guys on the front line, where she talked through a loudspeaker and told them to lay down their arms and quit fighting," he recalled. "And John Kerry was part of that anti-war movement."

John Fonda Kerry - Traitor.

"He was a Jane Fonda type, if you will," added Johnson, who referred to Kerry on the House floor last month as "Hanoi John." "That's what most of the POWs refer to him as," he explained.

And Viet Nam vet Max Cleland is out stumping for him. I bet you're proud of supporting a traitor Max, you fucktard! And John McCain, you are a fucking weasel for defending this asshole.

"[Kerry] let the veterans down. When you're in a war you don't go out there badmouthing your fellow soldiers," he noted, referring to Kerry's 1971 speech. "You know, that's a disservice to the veterans."

Just imagine John Fonda Kerry as commander-in-chief. The military is still recovering from eight years of that draft dodger Clinton. We don't need a traitor as commander-in-chief. And didja hear that bitch Hillary Rodent Clinton bitching about how the military was downsized? And she knew sumpin' about being commander-in-chief? I guess she was running the country when Billy Boy wa getting his knob waxed by Monica. It was when she was commander-in-chief that the military was cut almost in half! Just damn! The Clintons will say anything! They truly have no shame.

"Anybody who comes back and works against the best interests of the United States, in my view, doesn't deserve to be president of the United States," the former fighter ace said.

He's a Dimocrat. He's French. He hates America. What do you expect? He wants to surrender to the terrorists and implement the Dimocrats' plans for this country: a socialist utopia.

I guess you're wondering about Johnson's war record since he's badmouthing Kerry.

Rep. Johnson's war decorations include two Silver Stars, two Legions of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross, one Bronze Star with Valor, two Purple Hearts, four Air Medals and three Outstanding Unit Awards.

He also served as director of the Air Force "Top Gun" Fighter Weapons School.

This is a real war hero.

BTW, I'm drinking a real nice California Grenache tonight. Delicious!

Freudian Slip?

Dear Bob

From: The Imperial Wizard KKK
To: Senator Robert Byrd Grand Kleagle (Undercover) KKK

Dear Bob:

Since it is the 50th anniversary of that abomination Supreme Court decision Brown v Board of Education I thought I would write to you and congratulate you on your master plan to keep the nigras down in spite of that. I really didn't think your plan would work, but they fell for it hook, line, and sinker. You told me that you would be able to say nigger on national television and nothing would happen, but I didn't believe you. Damn! You are good.

The Great Society was a stroke of genius. First off, it broke up the black family and made 'em dependent on the government. Keep 'em poor and keep 'em voting for us Democrats. And then the Department of Education was another stroke of genius. The schools have been going down hill ever since. White folks are suffering, but them nigras are suffering more. And then they're blaming the Republicans for being racist.

You gotta admit, having David Duke run as a Republican was a stroke of genius on my part. That made 'em think that all Republicans are racists.

Aren't Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton wonderful? You did a wonderful job recruiting them. They've betrayed their race for money. They've gotten rich off them poor nigras and have done nothing for them. In fact, they've even got them thinking that everything is whitey's fault. Even better, they've instilled so much black pride that the kids think that doing well in school is acting white.

It also helps to have useful idiots like John Lewis and white liberals who want to lower standards for black children. That reinforces the belief that nigras are dumber than whites. As long as we have people like Maxine Waters, Shelia Jackson Lee, and Cynthia McKinney we can continue with the blame whitey rhetoric and keep the black folk down on the plantation. We got their own politicians screwing them.

I don't know how much longer we're gonna be able to get away with it because of people like Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams pointing out what we are doing. And despite all of our best efforts there is a growing black middle class that may finally realize how destructive our programs are.

Senator Dodd was correct when he said that you would have been a great senator at every point of our history. Thank God you have been a senator now to retard the progress of them nigras. You have been a credit to the Klan.

God bless you Senator Byrd and God bless the KKK.

For the dumb trolls and Dimocrats who may read this, let me point out that this is sumpin' called satire. It is also true that the greatest impediment to black progress today is Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and the Dimocrat Party.

Tough Golf Course

Michael Creosote Moore

Look what Matt sent me. Good Photoshop work dude!.

And finally, you lying sack of shit, America hating, socialist, traitorous pig, a wafer-thin mint.

Michael Moore Meets Mister Creosote

I see that fat, lying, socialist asshole Michael Moore just won the top prize at Cannes for his propaganda film Farenheit 911. I often wonder how it must feel to hate your country that much. I can understand the French hating us because France has been in decline ever since Louis XIV (Well there was that interlude with Napolean but he wasn't really French but Corsican so that doesn't really count does it?). They have been living on their past glories and are jealous of us. They can't even build airport terminals that stay up. And their grand aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, cannot stay at sea more than two weeks.

All you have to do to win an award from the Europeans is to bash your country. A prime example of that is the worst president of the 20th Century, Jimmah Carter, winning a Nobel Peace Prize. GMAFB! The only reason he won that was for bashing his own country. It was purely political and if he had been a real American patriot he would have told 'em to stuff the Nobel Peace Prize up their ass. But no. This was a chance to make his country and its current president look bad. Asshole!

People wonder why I dislike Dimocrats so much. It's simple. They put their party before their country. They did this during the Cold War, which we won in spite of all they did to hinder the effort. And the lamestream media is on their side. When did they decide to take the side of our enemies? I guess it must have been Viet Nam, since every war we have fought since then has been Viet Nam. Quagmire! Viet Nam! I can understand Peter Jennings being anti-American, since he's from Canada but what's up with all the other dipshits? Why do they hate America so much? Why do they want the terrorists to win? Don't they realize that if the terrorists win they won't be able to implement their socialist utopia? We will be living under Sharia. Hey perky Katie Couric, how do you like your burqa?

Just like WWIII when we were fighting the communists with no help from most of the Dimocrat Party and the lamestream media we're now in another world war, WWIV, which is the fight against radical Islam. There is no reasoning with these people. There is no appeasement. Kumba fucking ya will not work. You would think that 9/11 would have shown you nutsacks what we are fighting, but no, you have to ask stupid questions like, "Why do they hate us?" They hate us because we are free. If you assholes have your way we will not be free. What the fuck is it gonna take? Having an American city nuked? Sadly I'm afraid that will be the case and you dipsticks will blame Bush for it.

I cannot believe the left hates Bush so much that they are willing to destroy the country.

Anyway, everytime I see this

Lying, fatass, sack of shit, traitorous asshole.

I think of this

MAÎTRE D:
And finally, monsieur, a wafer-thin mint.
MR. CREOSOTE:
Nah.
MAÎTRE D:
Oh, sir, it's only a tiny, little, thin one.
MR. CREOSOTE:
No. Fuck off. I'm full.
MAÎTRE D:
Oh, sir. Hmm?
MR. CREOSOTE:
[groan]
MAÎTRE D:
It's only wafer thin.
MR. CREOSOTE:
Look. I couldn't eat another thing. I'm absolutely stuffed. Bugger off.
MAÎTRE D:
Oh, sir, just-- just one.
MR. CREOSOTE:
[groaning] All right. Just one.
MAÎTRE D:
Just the one, monsieur. Voilà.
MR. CREOSOTE:
[groaning]
MAÎTRE D:
Bon appétit.
MR. CREOSOTE:
[groaning

Oh man. If only that fatass motherfucker would explode!

I just wouldn't want to be in the same room when it happened.

Note To the Pilot

Another one for our Aussie friends.

Like I believe this is true. But It is funnier than hell.

The Church of Heavy Metal

A while back I said I wanted to start the Church of Heavy Metal right across the street from that mosque in Hamtramck Michigan which is gonna blare out their call to prayers five times a day, seven days a week. My church is gonna have its call to prayers every hour from 5:00 AM to midnight seven days a week. The speakers are gonna be pointed right at the mosque. With the help of many readers here's what I'm gonna use to call the faithful to prayers.

5:00 For Those About To Rock - AC/DC
6:00 Welcome To The Jungle - Guns and Roses
7:00 Running With The Devil - Van Halen
8:00 Reap What You Sow - Climax Blues Band
9:00 Hellion - Judas Priest
10:00 Highway To Hell - AC/DC
11:00 Lemon Song - Led Zeppelin (Just "Squeeze me baby 'til the juice runs down my leg" oughta piss off the Muslims.)
12:00 Jumping Jack Flash - Johnny Winter (His version is so much better than the Rolling Stones.)
1:00 Long Tall Sally - Cactus ("She saw Mary coming, She balled him in the alley." Yeah. That'll piss'em off. This is the best version of Long Tall Sally you'll ever hear.)
2:00 Thunderstruck - AC/DC (I know. AC/DC is in this list a lot. But they're good and loud. Everytime I hear Thunderstruck, I think of the video I linked to a while back that had the gunships going after the bad guys. )
3:00 Angels of Death - Hawkwind (Sent to me by Clutch. I thought I was the only one who remembered Hawkwind. You're showing your age Clutch.)
4:00 Hell's Bells -AC/DC (Again)
5:00 Evil - Cactus
6:00 Dazed and Confused - Led Zeppelin (I would expect the assholes to be pretted dazed and confused by now.)
7:00 Highway 61 Revisited - Johnny Winter (Great slide guitar work.)
8:00 I Don't Need No Doctor - Humble Pie (Good and loud. Peter Frampton was in this group before he went solo.)
9:00 Crossroads - Cream
10:00 I Want To Rock and Roll All Night - Kiss
11:00 Enter the Sandman - Metallica

Just when they think we're done for the night at midnight we'll blast 'em with
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida by Iron Butterfly.

Can I hear an amen?

Not Now Kid

For my Australian readers.

Monday Pun 5/23

This one is really bad.

There are reports of a new problem in Australia. Some of the kangaroos
have developed a thirst for revenge against the traffic that keeps
knocking them down. Drivers have reported that they'll pass a herd of
roos that are hopping along peacefully, but as soon as they've passed
them, the roos suddenly change direction, and veer right towards the
vehicle. The driver then has to drive as quickly as possible to escape
the rampaging marsupials. So the Australian authorities have issued a warning to drivers.

Drivers are being urged to keep an eye on their veer-roo mirror at all times.

It's All About the Oiiil

I acquired a new troll and he sounds like he is straight from the Dimocratic Underground. I mean it's the same old bullshit talking points that they spout over and over and over again ad infinitem:

1. Bush Lied.
2. Bush and bin Laden are buddies.
3. We deserved 9/11
4. Everything in the Middle East is Israel's fault.
5. Haliburton.
6. It's all about the oiiil.

Hey asshole, you left out how Bush stole the election and Ashcroft is a Nazi. You're slipping butthead.

He also called me and my readers a bunch of hillbilly rednecks. He's right ya know. My neighbors in Beautiful Dunwoody have been bitching about the two cars I have up on blocks in my front yard. They're also not too fond of the washing machine and refrigerator I have on the front porch. And my coon dogs keep 'em up all night. Didja know that when my television broke, I went out and bought another one and put it on top of the broken one? And to top it all off, my sister is livin' in a trailer parked in my driveway. Now where the fuck did I put that jug of corn squeezins?

Arentcha tired of <whine>"It's all about the oiiil. Bush and Cheney are owned by the oiiil companies."</whine>?

OK. Let's just pretend it is all about the oiiil. All of you stupid left wing banana slugs can do sumpin' about it.

If it's all about the oiiil sell your car.

If it's all about the oiiil don't take the bus. The bus uses oiiil.

If it's all about the oiiil don't fly. Airplanes use oiiil.

If it's all about the oiiil write to your senator and congressman and demand that they open up ANRW.

If it's all about the oiiil demand more offshore drilling.

Isn't it amazing that the same people who keep bitching about Iraq being all about the oiiil are the same nutsacks who won't let us drill for more oiiil here in the United States? Makes 'em look pretty fucking stupid doesn't it? That's why I call them Dimocrats.

But I digress.

If it's all about the oiiil let the utility companies build more nuclear power plants to replace oiil fired plants.

If it's all about the oiiil quit using plastic products.

If it's all about the oiiil don't buy any food in the grocery store. That food gets there on trucks which use oiiil. Grow your own food.

If it's all about the oiiil turn off your air-conditioner. The electricity may have been generated at an oil fired plant.

If it's all about the oiiil turn off your lights. Same reason as above.

If it's all about the oiiil sell your house and move into a hut. Your house was built with lumber that was cut down with chainsaws that use oiiil. It was transported in trucks that use oiiil.

If it's all about the oiiil let us build more dams to generate electricity instead of worrying about a fucking fish or frog.

If it's all about the oiiil give up all creature comforts since most of them are connected in one way or another with oiiil.

Since you dipsticks are not willing to allow us to do anything to acquire more oiiil, you're not willing to let us use alternate sources of energy that work today (nuclear and hydroelectric), and you're not willing to make sacrifices on your own why don't you have a big ol' glass of STFU. You pissants are part of the problem.

Solar and wind are still not practical, but here's a deal. Why don't you buttwipes agree to get all your power from solar and wind and put up with the extra cost and unreliability? No? Why not? It would save a lot of oiiil. Isn't that what you want? Oh, I get it. You want me to suffer because you are a bunch of fucking idiots.

Here's my solution. Round up all the environmentalist wackos and ship them off to the Amazon and let them get back to nature. Ooops! Clancy already did that in Rainbow Six.

Here's my other solution.

1. Open up ANRW. Now! Today!
2. More offshore drilling.
3. Build more nuclear power plants.
4. Do absolutely nothing about the price of gasoline. Let the market set the price. We went through this back in the late seventies and early eighties. When gas gets too expensive, people will alter their behavior. They'll drive less or buy more fuel efficient cars.
5. Build more refineries.
6. Come up with one blend of gasoline for the entire country. Having fourteen different blends is stupid and raises the price of gasoline.

For the future.

As much as I want to see advances in space flight I say forget about Mars. Instead launch a challenge like Kennedy did in 1961. Start a Manhattan project to come up with alternate energy sources and completely wean us from Middle East oiiil within twenty years. Then we can tell the camel jockeys to go fuck themselves.

And then we won't have to listen to the whiney liberals say, "It's all about the oiiil".

Wouldn't that be pleasant?

A Wish

Thanks For the E-mails

Sent to me by Donna.

Saturday Boobage

Doesn't she have pretty eyes?

Night Off

Taking the night off so here are some cartoons.

Oh wait a minute! Maybe I'll write sumpin' for the computer geeks.

We got our new processor in on Monday and I've been working on the hardware configuration since Wednesday. I need to move four systems off the old processor and onto the new one. I have to make this as transparent to the users as possible. I'm creating the IODF (I/O Definition File) and drawing cabling diagrams. Operations started laying the first cables this afternoon.

<EsotericSysprogStuff> I'm gonna have to do most of the network stuff since our network guy has DKS (Doesn't Know Shit) Syndrome. I asked him to do some research. We use a lot of OSA (Open Systems Architecture) Adapters and the z/900 now supports OSA Express. I had been told that with OSA Express you do not need the OSASF (OSA Support Facility) to configure the adapters. I asked the network guy to research this for me and find out if it were true. He sent me softcopy of the forkin' books. I didn't ask him to send me the forkin' books but to find out the forkin' answer. I found another resource who told me that what I had heard was true. I know I should have gone to the other resource first, but I'm trying to force the network guy to actually learn sumpin'.

Last week I moved some Canadian systems to another processor so we could shut down the processor those systems were on and move it out the door. We couldn't get the RSCS/NJE (SNA file transfer stuff) links to work so we assigned that problem to the network guy. This was actually a joke by my team lead and myself since we knew there was no way he was gonna figger it out. Our VM guy, who does the RSCS stuff, sent the network guy the failing VTAM message to help him figger it out. Now the VM guy was in on the joke also since we knew the VTAM message (which he is supposed to know) would be beyond his comprehension. Anyway the VM guy told me that we were missing a CDRSC on his VM VTAM and should we have the network guy code it. I said the dipstick doesn't even know what a CDRSC is and I would code it on Monday. </EsotericSysprogStuff>

So why do we have an incompetent network guy? This is a legacy of my ex-CDSM® (Clueless Dipshit Manager). The new network guy was told he was gonna be the network guy a full year before the old network guy retired. He drug his feet on getting up to speed until after my team lead told my ex-CDSM® many times that this guy would not be ready. So about three months before the old network guy retired, my ex-CDSM® told the new network guy he was it and had better start preparing. Not enough time. So guess who has to do most of the troubleshooting for network failures? Yep. Me.

Over the past week as I've been trying to figger out the best way to make the network changes (It's gotta be me since we need to get this stuff done.) I've been mumbling over and over, "I wish Bill (the old network guy) were here." My team lead has even gone to our financial guy and asked if we could bring Bill back on contract to do the network move. Nope.

So next week we should have our first test system up on the new processor. I'm hoping to have the first system moved to the new processor with all the OSA stuff done for that system the following week. I'm gonna have to set up some VTAM CTC's (Forget the network guy. Like many of you reading this, he doesn't know what I'm talking about either. ) Then before I move the next system I'll have to decide what to do about the CMC's and start recoding the NCP gens.

As an aside here, the reason I get away with a lot of the crap I do at work is because I know and can do a lot of shit that no one else can. My team lead realizes this and he has told me that as long as I do what he asks he will protect me from myself. That is a monumental chore, but I actually have been behaving myself for the last two years. I can retire anytime I want. The end of my career is in sight. Management is not gonna waste any money on me in the form of raises or promotions so there is no incentive for me to bust my ass. This is a mistake on their part since with the proper motivation I could be twice as productive as I am.

No one ever said management had to be smart.

Off to bed. G'night!

Arab Love Object

The Arab world: Where men are men and sheep are scared!

Arab Honor

Our left wing anti-American press (Which wants to end this War on Terror and get back to the important things like electing John Fonda Kerry so we can surrender to the Islamofascists and get back to creating a socialist utopia) continues to milk Abu Ghraib for all it's worth. What ever happened to Nick Berg? Remember him? He was the guy who was beheaded by those members of the Religion of Peace™. That story was a one day wonder wasn't it? Well after all he was an American so he deserved it. Everything that is wrong in the world today is a result of Bushitler and the United States. That's OK. When we elect the man whom Neal Boortz calls the poodle (because

1. He looks French
2. He has to be groomed before he goes out in public.
3. He's a pet of a rich woman.)

he'll go groveling to France, Germany, and the United Nations and beg forgiveness. Then, we'll turn tail and leave Iraq and we will have to fight the war again at a later date. It took us forty years to win the Cold War because of cowardly Dimocrats. I don't want the War on Terror to take that long.

But back to Abu Ghraib. They convicted Army Spc. Jeremy Sivits for his part in the prison scandal. During his trial, he apologized to the Iraqi people. He was sentenced to a year in prison, reduced in rank and given a bad conduct discharge. Needless to say, that was not enough for the Arabs.

''One year in jail is very, very little in Iraq,'' said Ali Abbas, an Iraqi who works for a European news agency. ''It is not enough for a crime this big.''

Yeah. Let's give him some Iraqi justice and feed him feet first through a shredder.

Adult language follows.

GMAFB! Are you as sick as I am about hearing about fucking Arab honor and the fucking Arab street? Howza' bout American honor and the American street.

First off, our president and the Secretary of Defense and God knows how many other people in the American gummint and the military have apologized over and over again about Abu Ghraib. Where are the fucking apologies for 9/11? My friend Marieke pointed out to me that there were some apologies from the Arab world for the Nick Berg beheading, but they were tepid and few and far between. Hamas and Hezbollah condemned the beheading but Hamas said

U.S. President George Bush and (Berg's) killers are equally responsible.

That's like saying that the United States and Saddam Hussein are responsible for what went on at Abu Ghraib.

We are demonstrating American honor right now. We are trying the people responsible for Abu Ghraib and they will be punished. I'm sorry Mr. Abbas, we ain't gonna stone the fuckers. We're gonna kick 'em out of the military and send them to jail. That's how a civilized nation works. We don't take to the streets and celebrate when people die. And we don't strap bombs onto people and send them out to kill civilians. That's the Arab's gift to the world. I guess that's another demonstration of Arab honor.

Arab honor. I'm sick of hearing you camel fuckers talk about Arab honor. You dipsticks don't have any honor. None. You are a bunch of 7th Century barbarous savages. You treat your women like shit! If your daughter gets raped, rather than doing the right thing and going after the asshole who did it, you blame your daughter and kill her. What kind of honor is that? You're too much of a coward to go after the man so you kill the woman. Arab honor. Bullshit!

We had to come in and rescue you from Saddam Hussein who had brutalized you for forty years because you assholes were too cowardly to do the job yourselves. Now you bitch about some prisoners who were stripped naked. "It violates our Arab honor to be seen naked." Why is that? Because you are needle dick camel fuckers? Jesus H. Christ! I spent two months in hospitals when I broke my back. I had female nurses shoving catheters up my dick and helping me shit. It didn't fuck up my American honor. You assholes need to get a new concept of honor. The one you're using now ain't worth shit. And from what we have seen of you fuckers for the last forty years you don't have the slightest idea what honor is.

If it weren't for all the fucking oil in the Middle East you fuckheads would be off fucking your goats and we wouldn't have to put up with all your bullshit.

It was you fucking Arabs who declared war on us on 9/11 when some of your fucking asshole brothers flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Thanks to some brave Americans the Capitol was spared. You didn't see the American street running out and shouting "Death to the Arabs!" did you? Fuck no! We are civilized. Unlike what you may hear from the assholes at CAIR there have been almost no assaults on Muslims in this country. That's because American honor does not require us to go grab an Arab and saw his fucking head off.

So STFU and thank us for liberating the people of Iraq.

And take your fucking Arab honor and cram it up your fucking asses. We're sick of hearing about it.

Hey Pumpman!

Pumpman commented on one of my cat pictures that I was even cat bombing him while he was on Costa Rica. Hell, I got a whole buncha cute cat pictures that I've been saving until he got back. But until then ...

Obviously an Atlanta cat.

Women Only Parking Lot

Mark sent me a picture of a women only parking lot in Minnesota.

Hey! I just post 'em.

Gas Boycott

Didja get a copy of this e-mail?

LET'S DO IT!

IT HAS BEEN CALCULATED THAT IF EVERYONE IN THE UNITED STATES DID NOT PURCHASE A DROP OF GASOLINE FOR ONE DAY AND ALL AT THE SAME TIME, THE OIL COMPANIES WOULD CHOKE ON THEIR STOCKPILES.

AT THE SAME TIME IT WOULD HIT THE ENTIRE INDUSTRY WITH A NET LOSS OF OVER 4.6 BILLION DOLLARS WHICH AFFECTS THE BOTTOM LINES OF THE OIL COMPANIES.

THEREFORE WEDNESDAY MAY 19TH HAS BEEN FORMALLY DECLARED "STICK IT TO THEM" DAY AND THE PEOPLE OF THIS NATION SHOULD NOT BUY A SINGLE DROP OF GASOLINE THAT DAY.

THE ONLY WAY THIS CAN BE DONE IS IF YOU FORWARD THIS E-MAIL TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN AND AS QUICKLY AS YOU CAN TO GET THE WORD OUT. WAITING ON THIS ADMIINSTRATION TO STEP IN AND CONTROL THE PRICES IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE REDUCTION AND CONTROL IN PRICES THAT THE ARAB NATIONS PROMISED TWO WEEKS AGO?

REMEMBER ONE THING, NOT ONLY IS THE PRICE OF GASOLINE GOING UP BUT AT THE SAME TIME AIRLINES ARE FORCED TO RAISE THEIR PRICES, TRUCKING COMPANIES ARE FORCED TO RAISE THEIR PRICES WHICH EFFECTS PRICES ON EVERYTHING THAT IS SHIPPED. THINGS LIKE FOOD, CLOTHING, BUILDING MATERIALS, MEDICAL SUPPLIES ETC. WHO PAYS IN THE END? WE DO!

WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE. IF THEY DON'T GET THE MESSAGE AFTER ONE DAY, WE WILL DO IT AGAIN AND AGAIN.

SO DO YOUR PART AND SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW. MARK YOUR CALENDARS AND MAKE MAY 19TH A DAY THAT THE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES SAY "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH"

There is just so much wrong with this I don't know where to begin. This must have been written by a Dimocrat. This is just as bogus as the other e-mail that said not to buy gas from Exxon or Mobil.

First off the writer assumes that this must be some sort of conspiracy by the oil companies to raise prices and all we have to do is to not buy gas for a day and the price will magically drop. This totally disregards the law of supply and demand, but then, most liberals and socialists (redundant) constantly try to bypass the law of supply and demand.

The only way this boycott could have any effect on the price of gas is if everyone parked their cars for a day and took a bus, rode the subway, used a bicycle, or walked. Otherwise, the gas they didn't buy today, they would buy tomorrow. The demand for gasoline would still be there.

Do you want to see the price of gas go down? There are only two ways for that to happen: Increase the supply or decrease the demand. That's it. There is no other way. It's just like watching all those weight loss commercials that promise incredible results just by taking a pill. There is only one way to lose weight: Expend more calories than you take in. That means eat less or exercise more. Better yet, do both.

Do you want someone to blame for high gas prices? Blame an environmentalist. It's the environmental wacko's who will not let us drill in ANWR. It's the environmental wacko's who keep campaigning against offshore drilling. If you cannot drill for more oil, you cannot increase the supply.

Another reason we're paying more for oil is all the boutique blends we have to have for clean air. Atlanta is paying 5 cents more per gallon in the summer due to the special blend we have to use because of EPA mandates. Have you kissed an environmentalist today?

Even if we had more oil available, our refinery capacity is stretched to its limits. We have not built any new refineries in over thirty years. Have you hugged an environmentalist today?

That pretty much takes care of the supply. How about the demand?

The last time we experienced high gas prices, we decided we didn't want to pay them and sold off all of our gas guzzlers and bought fuel efficient cars. Voila! No more high prices! Gas has been cheap for so long (and adjusted for inflation it's still cheaper than it was at its highest, which was during Jimmah Carter's administration) that we went back to buying gas guzzlers with our love affair with SUV's.

The last thing I want to hear is some asshole who drives an SUV drinking a $3 Starbucks bitching about gas prices.

You know what's coming next dontcha? The gummint is gonna increase gas mileage standards on SUV's.

Why do many people drive SUV's? Most of them will say because they feel safer. They're higher up (Which actually makes the SUV less stable than a regular sedan) and they're surrounded by all that wonderful heavy metal so if they get in a crash, they're gonna be better off than the other cars in the crash (unless they're also SUV's).

How are the car companies gonna increase gas mileage in an SUV? They're gonna need smaller engines. Just like they did in sedans and coupes when they put smaller engines in them, they're gonna have to decrease the weight. There goes some of that wonderful crash protection.

Now I don't give a shit whether or not anyone buys an SUV or not. I own two BMW's and a pickup truck. I don't bitch about gas prices because I know why they are high. If they were too high for me (And that would take a bit because I am after all one of the eeeviiil rich!) I'd sell off my 25 mpg cars and get a Honda or some other fuel efficient car.

Ya see due to the wonderful environmentalists and our love affair with gas guzzlers we are responsible for high gas prices. It's not the oil companies or the gummint. It is us.

As Pogo said, "We have met the enemy and it is us."

French Terror Alert System

Photoshopped and sent to me by Brent.

A Sea Story

When I was in the Navy we had a saying: The only difference between a fairy tale and a sea story is the fairy tale starts off "Once upon a time..." and a sea story starts off "This ain't no shit..." This cat is telling a sea story.

Drug Cost Bullshit

There is now a total bullshit e-mail circulating around the internet about drug prices. Here it is.

WHAT DRUGS REALLY COST

Did you ever wonder how much it costs a drug company for the active ingredient in prescription medications? Some people think it must cost a lot, since many drugs sell for more than $2.00 per tablet. We did a search of offshore chemical synthesizers that supply the active ingredients found in drugs approved by the FDA. As we have revealed in past issues of Life Extension, a significant percentage of drugs sold in the United States contain active ingredients made in other countries.

In our independent investigation of how much profit drug companies really make, we obtained the actual price of active ingredients used in some of the most popular drugs sold in America. The chart below speaks for itself. This is based on 100 pills.

Brand Name of Drug / Consumer Price per 100 tabs / Cost of General Active Ingredients / Percent Markup

Celebrex 100 mg /$130.27 / $0.60 / 21,712%
Claritin 10 mg / $215.17 / $0.71 / 30,306%
Keflex 250 mg / $157.39 / $1.88 / 8,372%
Lipitor 20 mg / $272.37 / $5.80 / 4,696%
Norvasc 10 mg / $188.29 / $0.14 / 134,493%
Paxil 20 mg / $220.27 / $7.60 / 2,898%
Prevacid 30 mg / $44.77 / $1.01 / 34,136%
Prilosec 20 mg / $360.97 / $0.52 / 69,417%
Prozac 20 mg / $247.47 / $0.11 / 224,973%
Tenormin 50 mg / $104.47 / $0.13 / 80,362%
Vasotec 10 mg / $102.37 / $0.20 / 51,185%
Xanax 1mg / $136.79 / $0.024 / 569,958%
Zestril 20 mg / $89.89 / $3.20 / 2,809%
Zithromax 600mg / $1,482.19 / $18.78 / 7,892%
Zocor 40mg / $350.27 / $8.63 / 4,059%
Zoloft 50mg / $206.87 / $1.75 / 11,821%

Since the cost of prescription drugs is so outrageous, I thought everyone I knew should know about this. Please read the following and pass it on.

It pays to shop around. This helps to solve the mystery as to why they can afford to put a Walgreens on every corner..................

On Monday night, Steve Wilson, an investigative reporter for channel 7 News in Detroit, did a story on generic drug price gouging by pharmacies. He found in his investigation, that some of these generic drugs were marked up as much as 3,000% or more. Yes, that's not a typo..... three thousand percent!

So often, we blame the drug companies for the high cost of drugs, and usually rightfully so. But in this case, the fault clearly lies with the pharmacists themselves. For example, if you had to buy a prescription drug, and bought the name brand, you might pay $100 for 100 pills. The pharmacist might tell you that if you get the generic equivalent, they would only cost $80, making you think you are "saving" $20. What the pharmacist is not telling you is that those 100 generic pills may have only cost him $10!

At the end of the report, one of the anchors asked Mr. Wilson whether or not there were any pharmacies that did not adhere to this practice, and he said that Costco consistently charged little over their cost for the generic drugs.

I went to the Costco site, where you can look up any drug, and get its online price. It says that the in-store prices are consistent with the online prices. I was appalled. Just to give you one example from my own experience, I had to use the drug, Compazine, which helps prevent nausea in chemo patients. I use! d the generic equivalent, which cost $54.99 for 60 pills at CVS. I checked the price at Costco, and I could have bought 100 pills for $19.89. For 145 of my pain pills, I paid $72.57. I could have got 150 at Costco for $28.08. I would like to mention, that although Costco is a "membership" type store, you do NOT have to be a member to buy prescriptions there, as it is a federally regulated substance. You just tell them at the door that you wish to use the pharmacy, and they will let you in.

I am asking each of you to please help me by copying this letter, and pasting it into your own email, and send it to everyone you know with an email address.

End of bullshit e-mail.

OK Let's just address the first part of this where they talk about the cost of the ingredients versus the price of the drug. Did you know that if you removed all the water from the human body the left over materials would be worth less than $20? Does that mean that a human is only worth $20?

Now let my brother-in-law Ryan take over. His response to the person who forwarded him this note.

I am convinced that most name brand drug prices are hideously inflated, especially some of the more exotic sounding names listed in your forwarded message. Certainly, eliminating their marketing budgets would take a hefty chunk out of the consumer cost of purchasing these products. I am equally certain that markups, especially for newly developed and released drugs, are grossly inflated. This is particularly true during the first 3 to 7 years after release of a new product and of drugs for which no competing chemical therapies have been developed.

The persons origininating this message are being very disengenuous, however, when they calculate markup solely against the cost of active ingredients used to manufacture the product. Using that index, I should have been able to purchase my home for about 10 to 15 thousand dollars plus, say 15% to cover the 6 months of labor and skills his crews and subcontractors comitted to its construction.

The single greatest cost, by several orders of magnitude, associated with production of a new chemical therapy is R & D. You can investigate this for yourself, but I expect the lead time for development and approval of new drugs is somewhere between 7 and 10 years. During that time, the mavens of manufactured medicine are fronting millions of bucks for chemists, engineers, stastisticians, and legal analysts, to name a few of the more highly paid. Over the same period, they must also acquire some of the most expensive, highly calibrated technical equipment on earth to provide the infrastructure within which uniformly controlled testing and analysis can take place. The cost of an operation on that scale is hardly peanuts and none of it guarantees production of a successful product.

The cost of combining ingredients can begin to come down only after the developer of the drug has recovered 100% of development costs. If a drug is sucessful and widely used for a significant time, manufacturers formulate competing products. Different name brands and generic products become widely available at lower cost.

While I support serious effort to bring drug costs under control, I worry that spreading emotion, hysteria, and trumped up hyperbole will create the kind of politically mandated solution to drug price controls that will ultimately remove any incentive for drug manufacturers to create and produce chemical therapies that keep us healthy, active, pain free, and alive. That price would be higher than any yet paid.

Thanks Ryan.

Another cost he left out is the cost of going through the FDA approval process. That is one reason that many drugs are available in Europe and other countries before they are available here. I know it sounds funny that there are less regulations in Europe over sumpin' but we are far more stringent in approving drugs than the Europeans are. Running a drug through the FDA approval process ain't cheap and it taks a long time. If you have a powerful lobby, like the AIDS lobby, you can get drugs pushed through the pipeline faster.

Liberals (Socialists) are always against companies making profits. But why do companies exist? They exist to make money. If drug companies cannot turn a profit, they will go out of business. Why do you think that there are only two companies left that make influenza vaccine when there used to be fourteen? Because of trial lawyers like John Edwards the potential liability involved in the manufacture of vaccines was not worth the risk. Hence, we had a shortage of vaccines this past flu season. Look no further than the Dimocrats who want to socialize health care and drugs.

But why are drugs cheaper in Canada? Good question. This I will blame on the drug companies. They signed a deal with the Canadian health system to provide cheaper drugs. In my opinion, this was a bad move on their part. They are having the United States subsidize drugs for Canadians. This will wind up backfiring on the drug companies since I'm sure our gummint is gonna let us import drugs from Canada. Hopefully, this will make the drug companies come to their senses and let the Canadians help pay for the cost of developing the drugs. There is no reason for us to subbsidize drug costs for the rest of the world.

As for shopping around for drugs as the e-mail said, that's always a good idea.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I let Ryan do all my work for me tonight, but I'm still tired from the power outage. It's not like I'm getting paid for this.

Later this week, I'll address another bullshit ploy to lower gas prices.

Alcohol Research

From Woody.

At least he's honest.

Screw a Kennedy

Car Talk

The last one from Tina.

My Day Sucked

On Sunday thunderboomers roared through Atlanta. As happens so often the building where I work lost power. My team lead was called in around 7:30 at night and he called me around 9:00 to find out what activation profiles to use on the Sysplex machines. About an hour later he called back and asked if I would do the POR's on them. Ain't gonna try to explain. It's a mainframe thing.

I had to go out to my car to get my laptop. Booted it up and did my thing to get on the network and I couldn't get Internet Explorer to hook up to our VPN to get to the HMC's. I fired up Netscape 7.0 and it worked, kind of. I got to two of the machines and did my thing. I called into Operations and told him I couldn't get to the other two machines but told him what profiles he needed to use. He said we had really bad network problems. He also told me that one of our processors got fried and IBM had been called and a CE was on the way.

About 2:00 AM my phone rang. It was my team lead. He asked me to call in on our conference call line. We were on the phone with the rest of my team for about 45 minutes discussing where we were (In the shitter.) and what we were gonna do about it (Cuss a lot!).

IBM was working on the fried processor. We were still having problems with the VPN. Could I come in early?

I got back to sleep and made it in to work a little after 7:00. Went upstairs and my team lead was still there. We couldn't get our SNA network going because the VPN was fucking up real bad. Just our luck that we had users in Malaysia, China, and Australia this week. The Australians were gonna be on the fried processor (which still wasn't fixed and wouldn't be until Monday night maybe). China was gonna be on another processor that they could get to as soon as we got the network up.

The network guys finally ran another cable over the floor from the router to the failing hub and all of a sudden the network was up. We were now able to get our CMC's working and get the SNA network up and running. This was around 10:00 in the morning. My team lead went home to get some sleep. I started trying to get network connections to two other machines.

While I was working on that, my phone rang. It was the loading dock and they said there were two big boxes being delivered. It was our new processor! We had been trying to upgrade our infrastructure since last year when we started on the German project. It was supposed to pay for our upgrades, but when it fell through there was no backup plan. Finally, last month we got funding and got the new processor on order.

I had to drop everything and show the movers where to take it. In a nice twist, this processor is gonna replace a processor that will replace the processor that got fried on Sunday.

I went back down to my desk and did some more work on the network. I checked, rechecked, and checked again all my network definitions but I still couldn't get it to work. I have another set of network connections, but they run through the fried box. The set of connections I was working on may never have worked and I never knew it, since the other connections worked flawlessly.
I had been planning on putting some IP connections to them through their OSA adapters, but never got around to it.

My team lead called in and we worked on the network together for another couple of hours. Everything looked good. It just wouldn't work. I tried some magic and tried to connect via another system with no luck.

Hopefully the fried processor will come up tonight and the rest of the network will connect up through that box.

All I know is that I worked eleven hours today and I am beat. I am going to bed early tonight.

Hopefully tomorrow won't suck.

Paperless Toilet

Monday Pun 5/17/04

I almost forgot the Monday Pun.

This piece of string walks into a bar. But he's hardly through the
door when the bartender yells, "Hey, String! Get outta here!" Hours
later, the piece of string is still trying to find a drink. So he
ruffles his ends and contorts himself. As he goes into yet another
bar, the bartender says, "Are you a piece of string?"

The piece of string says, "No, I'm a frayed knot."

The Wrath of Dr Khan

A dipstick who calls himself Dr_Khan commented on this post. In fairness to assheads, I thought I would share his comment with y'all. The spelling and grammar are all his.

Hi Americans!

Hi douchebag.

Let me introduce first. I’m a doc from Pakistan.

And I think we're gonna find out that you are also a stupid jerkweed. What are you a doctor of? Ashattery? Did you get your doctor's certificate out of a box of Crackerjacks?

The video of nick berg was horrifying. And the height of your grief and anger correlates with this.

You're fucking right there Doc. Barbarism in any form makes most civilized people angry. But since you come from a Third World shithole you probably wouldn't know anything about a civilized culture.

But I’m not here to console you people.

Nope. You think that everything bad that happens on this planet is our fault so it's OK to behead Americans. And after all, Nick Berg was a Jew so what's the fuss all about, right?

I just want to enlighten those things which you people rarely think about.

Oh please enlighten us! We are waiting with bated breath for you to display your wisdom.

Ok lets refresh our memories.

Working. Memory refresh routines up and running.

Your fucking BUSH senior inserted his ass in Iraq and the so-called terrorism started.

Wrong dripping dick! Bush senior was asked by Kuwait to intervene. He was saving one Arab state from another. And I got some fucking news for you. The terrorism started long before that. Ask Leon Klinghoffer's family. Ask the other Americans who have been murdered by you Islamic nut cases. What about the Marines in Lebanon who were there to protect the Palestinians from the Israelis? They were rewarded by being blown up by you raghead bastards. That was way before Kuwait. You need to refresh your own freaking memory dipshit!

Basically it’s not terrorism,

A rose by any other name... Or a pile of shit by any other name would still be a pile of shit.

I would rather call retaliation to the US’s intrusion into the Moslem countries.

Do you think we want to intrude into your pissant Moslem countries? That's the last thing we want to do, but since you've made such a mess that is now starting to affect us, we have no choice and have to do sumpin'.

I understand that Mr. berg was innocent and shouldn’t have been killed this way. But I guess he was killed so brutally to put you in the condition in which we have been since so many years.

No. He was killed because you fuckers are a bunch of barbarians. His murderers were also cowards since they hid their faces. Cowardly barbarians.

Now the bullshit really starts.

No motherfucker could justify the savage bombing of Afghanistan killing hundred thousand people.

Hundred thousand people? Where the fuck did you get those figures asswipe? I guess Captain Kirk and the Enterprise did some saturation bombing with photon torpedos.

"Mr Sulu, target Afghanistan with a barrage of phton torpedos so we can kill 100,000 Afghan civilians."

Were there no children and women there. And how could you justify the war in Iraq.

It's easy. We need to try and reform all of your fucking gummints. That's the only way to end Islamic terrorism. Attack the root cause. The root cause is that all of your people are living in desperate poverty and you blame us for it when it is really your imcompetent gummints, and your 7th Century culture. Iraq was just the start. Syria will probably be next. Remember, you asswipes started this war. We're gonna end it.

Your problem is that your media is totally controlled by ass hole Jews and they tell you all the time that you are liberators of Iraq.

Actually doc, most of our networks are against the war. They want us to cut and run.

Where are the people welcoming liberators with flowers?

Actually doc, most Iraqis do look at us as liberators. Maybe if you didn't spend so much time watching al Jizz or listening to Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi you would know that.

Iraqis hate USA thousand times more than they hated Saddam.

So you've talked to the Iraqis? You know this for a fact?

I mean who the fuck gave you idea to liberate Iraq.

Don't you know? It was the Jooooooz. It's all about the oiiiillll!

Why the hell you inserted your ass there.

Because we wanted to kick some Arab ass! We needed to give the Middle East an enema and Iraq just happened to be the best orifice to insert the tube.

Excuse was faulty intelligence.

No butthead! We think most of the WMD's were moved to Syria.

STUPID.

Yeah doc, you are pretty fucking stupid aren't you?

Somebody said what our forces done to the prisoners in Iraq is chicken feed as compared to Saddam regime.

Panties on the head versus being fed into a shredder. I'll take the panties on the head please.

So let me tell you one important fact. “We can tolerate bullet from our dictators but we will retaliate any so called CHICKEN FEED from Americans”.

So let me get this straight. You would not like to be stripped naked and forced to put panties on your head, but it would be all right for an Arab dictator to put you feet first through a shredder. Yep! Makes perfect sense to me. No wonder all Islamic nations are mired in the 7th Century. Not only are you assholes barbarians, but you are also incredibly stupid.

Now we're gonna see where he is really coming from. It's all about Israel. Whatta surprise!

Everyday on the news we here “20 people killed in Iraq, 15 people killed in Afghanistan, or 20 people killed in Palestine”.

If you fuckers hadn't declared war on us maybe there wouldn't be all those deaths in Afghanistan and the Taliban could still be oppressing women and forcing fanatical Islam on the Afghanis. And golly, Saddam could still be filling all those mass graves. And his sons could still be raping women.

And about Israel, maybe if you dickheads would have accepted Israel in 1948 instead of trying to wipe it off the map for the last 56 years all those people wouldn't be dying in Palestine. The Palestinians can have a state as soon as they recognize that Israel is here to stay and renounce terrorism. Since all you buttheads know how to do is kill and shoot weapons in the air that ain't gonna happen anytime soon. Don't you get it? You are all shitheads and don't have a clue as to civilized behavior.

Murder is murder and it doesn’t matter with knife or tomahawk.

I'll take the tomahawk (missile) myself.

After listening to such news everyday you still want us to feel pity about any American dying in Iraq.

If it is an American civilian brutally murdered by five cowardly Arabs, you're fucking right.

Now I come to the main reason of the terrorism. And that is rascal Israelis.

I'm shocked! Shocked I say! An Islamic nutball blaming the Jews for everything? Whoda thunk it?

They are firing with the gun on your shoulders. You don’t understand that they have pulled you into a war, which has turned up to be very similar to Vietnam for you.

C'mon doc. Tell the truth. You're not really from Pakistan are you? You're one of the dirtbags that hangs out at the Dimocratic Underground, right?

You cant leave Iraq because of Ego and believe me you cant win it either till the last Iraqi is alive.

Works for me. Then the Kurds could have the entire country. They seem to like us.

You call suicide bombers as terrorists and the brutal killers of their relatives as defenders.

Lemme 'splain this to you doc. The suicide bombers target women and children. Israel targets the people who sent the bombers.

Could you imagine what we feel about USA when two of Hamas’s leaders were killed within a month (one of them on the wheelchair).

I don't really give a flying fuck how you felt about us when the Yasin and Rantisi were killed. They were both evil men and deserved to die. And the fact that Rantisi was in a wheelchair doesn't alter the fact that he was an evil man who deserved to die.

Ratsini

That's Rantisi doc. Get the spelling right.

was with his teenager son when a rocket was fired on his car.

Too fucking bad! How many innocent Isrealis were killed by suicide bombers sent to Israel by this man? I hope he's roasting in Hell right now. I know, I'm an atheist, but if there is a God, Rantisi is screaming in agony right now.

And Ahmad Yasin’s brains were out of his skull. And nobody felt any pain about it.

Nope. I actually felt pretty good about it. With any luck he is screaming along with Rantisi right now in two part harmony. I just wish Arafat were with them. It would be a concert of the Three Terrorists.

And the very next week president fucking Bush meets devil Sheron and supports his actions infront of the whole world.

Yep! All the Palestinians need to do is stop the terrorism and they can have a state. They are unable to do that. By the way, they killed three Americans in Gaza. We're just a little pissed off about that.

Why the whole world is shouting over beheading of nick and nobody says a word over the Genocide of Palestinians.

Anytime I hear some dickwad talk about the "Genocide of Palestinians" I have to ask him if that has really been going on, why are there still any Palestinians left? I mean, the Jews have been doing the "Genocide of Palestinians" thing for 56 years and there are now more Plastininans then when they started. They ain't too good at it are they?

It’ because the bastard Jews have total control over media.

Actually the world media, and most of the liberal media in the United States is anti-Israel.

If you don’t believe me then read the book “international Jew” by your beloved Henry Ford.

He's not my beloved Henry Ford. Ford was a rabid anti-Semite. You and he would have gotten along pretty well together.

Now I tell you a very simple solution of the so-called terrorism. Take your armies out of the whole Arab rather from all the Moslem countries and the terrorism will be over.

Yeah. I can really believe a line of bullshit like that. Here's a solution. You fuckers act like civilized beings and reform your currupt gummints and stop supporting international terroism and then we won't have to be in your shithole countries. Do you think we really want to do this? Do you think we want to be in countries with dumbfucks like you?

You see it’s so fucking simple. Forget about winning the war or eradicating us by nukes.

If we wanted to eradicate you by nukes, you'd be glowing right now asshole!

Stupid!

Yep! You sure are.

Wars are not won by the B2 bombers or by Tomahawks.

You sure could have fooled me.

Nor you can kill 1.3 billion Moslems.

That's just it. We don't want to kill 1.3 billion Muslims. If you fuckers would drag your religion into the 21st Century, the world would be a better place. Once again. We did not start this war. You dirtbags did. As long as we can keep the Dimocrats out of power we may be able to finish it.

If you keep on messing with us with your latest machinery, we keep on replying with suicide bombers and beheading your civilians.

There ya go, doc. You've admitted it. Civilians are fair game. That is the difference between you and us. We try to minimize civilian casualties. You try to maximize them. This war and the war in Afghanistan has probabky resulted in less civilian casualties than any war in history.

You kill our civilians and in return we kill yours. Yesterday it was pearl, today it was nick and tomorrow somebody else.

We are putting our soldiers in more danger by trying to minimize civilian casualties. You brave Islamic fighters, on the other hand, hide behind women and children to try and get us to murder your civilians. You fire on our troops from mosques, hospitals, and schools to try and get us to kill civilians and destroy holy places, hospitals and schools. You use our morality against us. You are fucking animals.

You people are also being mislead that you are the cream of civilization.

We may not be the cream of civilization, but we are at a much higher level of civilization than you fucktwits.

Yes your history starts from Hiroshima and continues with the same brutalities on the whole planet.

Actually our history starts a little earlier than that. Western Civilization probably started with the Greeks.

You people have killed more civilians on the planet than any other nation. And still you call yourself civilized.

Actually I think that honor belongs to Stalin.

IDIOT.

Yep! You certainly are.

Redneck Truck AC

When Appliances Talk Dirty

Yet another one from Tina.

Home Remedies

As a public sevice I am posting these guarnteed home remedies sent to me by many people.

Clear DayGuaranteed Home Remedies

1. If you are choking on an ice cube, don't panic. Simply pour a cup
of boiling water down your throat and presto! The blockage will be
almost instantly removed.

2. Clumsy? Avoid cutting yourself while slicing vegetables by getting
someone else to hold them while you chop away.

3. Avoid arguments with the ladies about lifting the toilet seat by
simply peeing in the sink.

4. High blood pressure sufferers: simply cut yourself and bleed for a
while, thus reducing the pressure in your veins.

5. A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you
from rolling over and going back to sleep when you hit the snooze
button.

6. If you have a bad cough, take a large dose of laxatives, then you
will be afraid to cough.

7. Have a bad tooth ache? Hit your thumb with a hammer, then you will forget about the tooth ache.

Sometimes we just need to remember what the Rules of Life really are:

You need only two tools: WD-40 and Duct Tape.
If it doesn't move and it should, use WD-40.
If it moves and shouldn't, use the duct tape.

If You Woke up Breathing, Congratulations! You have another chance!

And Finally. Be Really Good To Your Family and Friends. You never know
when you are going to need them to empty your bedpan.

Saturday Boobage

Reiggin didn't send me anything this week so I guess we'll have to go with the real thing.

Be Nice

Another one from Tina.

Thoughts on Islam

I got over 1350 hits on my site yesterday. People were looking for the Nick Berg video and I was number 3 on Daypop. I don't know why. I remember when I posted a link to the home page of the brunette on the Miller Lite cat fight commercial and Google had me high up on the list when searching for Kitana
Baker. I didn't get as many hits as I got yesterday. The only time I got more hits was my one and only Instalanche when I was just starting out.

I've attracted a couple more idiots. One booger eatin' moh-ron commented on this post from over three months ago. Since you would only come across his intelligent and reasoned comment if you were going back through my archives, I thought I would share his lucid and cogent thoughts with y'all.

Yeah lets kill all them damn towelheads, and keep the guy who cannot even speak correctly in office. Hey maybe he will legalive drunk driving and cocaine. How could you not vote for him?? Did u see how great he looked in a flight suit?? All you militairy pricks make me sick to my stomach. You are brainwashed into killing people for the name of "America" Instead of working on the worlds problems lets concentrate on our own. Like the homeless, or the misappropriation of wealth in this country. Like how someone can shoot a ball through a hoop or run with one and gets paid more than public servants who actually matter. What kind of a message does this send to our children.

The message your comment sends to me is that maybe you shouldn't have dropped out of school after the eighth grade.

I haven't seen the Nick Berg video and I have no intention of watching it. My stomach is not strong enough. I also did not watch any of the videos of 9/11 for the same reason. But I don't need those images to get my blood boiling. I know we're at war and it is a war we must win.

I would like to make the left wing, give peace a chance assholes watch 9/11 and the Berg video over and over until they see the evil that we are fighting. Our enemies are brainwashed fanatics. You do not reason with people like that. You kill them. It's that simple.

I had one person comment that the only way we would be able to win WWIV would be to wipe out every Muslim on the planet. I do not believe that. Not that we couldn't do it with our nuclear arsenal, but we do not have the stomach for it. Look at the revulsion we have for the pictures of humiliating Arab prisoners. The left wing is treating that story as if it were worse than the Holocaust. By their coverage, they think that the prisoner abuse is worse than the Nick Berg beheading.

I'm not against Islam. Yes, Islam has been primarily a religion of conquest, but so has Christianity at times. Look at the forcible conversions of Indians by the Spanish when they first came to the New World.

At its height the Islamic culture was one of knowledge and enlightenment. It excelled in mathematics and literature when Europe was in its dark ages. It saved much of the Greek culture and learning for us.

Unfortunately, as the West surpassed the Islamic culture, the Islamic culture stagnated and declined. All Islam can do now is look back at its past glories and wonder what it did wrong to decline so precipitously. Hence, the rise of fundamentalism. The fundo's think the reason for the decline is that the West has had a bad influence on Islamic culture. The fundo's preach that the people are not religious enough. They need to return to the roots of Islam and wage jihad and convert the West.

Unfortunately, that is only making matters worse. Name me one Islamic country that is a member of the First World. They are all Third World countries and the more fundamentalist they get, the worse off they are. If there were no oil in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia would be a bigger shithole than it is right now.

One of the few Islamic countries that is actually improving its lot is Turkey and that is because the gummint is secular rather than a theocracy.

I'm not just picking on Islam here. The wealthiest countries are those which have secular gummints. Our Founding Fathers realized that and although we were formed as a Christian nation, we wrote religious tolerance into our Constitution. There would be no official state religion and all religions would be tolerated.

One of the things that really pisses me off about Islam (And this has been true of other religions throughout history. Islam is just the latest.) is they demand religious tolerance when they are in the minority, but when they are in the majority they want to stamp out all other religions. There is no tolerance for any religion except Islam in Saudi Arabia. Look at what the Muslims are doing in Nigeria and the Sudan.

So no, I am not against Islam per se. I am against their desire to make it the world's only religion. I am against the fundo's who are fomenting all the killing in the name of Allah. And I am against the Islamists who want to force their culture on us. They left their shitholes and they want to turn our country into a shithole. The liberals are doing a good enough job with their multiculturist and diversity bullshit. They do not need any help from any fucked up Islamic jihad assbags.

I am still in the process of putting together my call to prayers for the Church of Heavy Metal. My thanks to all who have sent in suggestions. I hope to have it ready by next week.

And another thing. This is the United States Fatima and if you want a driver's license you need to take off the fucking burka. Otherwise, STFU and let Mohammed drive you around. If that's not good enough for you there are departing flights to take you back to the Third World shithole country you came from.

Delta is ready when you are.

Redneck Truck Shell

Why pay a lot of money for a shell when plastic and duct tape will do?

Get It On!

Another one from Tina.

Spanish Wine Tasting

Here are the wines we drank.

We had small plates of food to go with the wines.

Atlanta traffic sucks! It took me an hour to get from Beautiful Dunwoody to Fuego. God I hate Atlanta traffic! Where the fuck were all these people going?

Our next tasting will be in Alpharetta. The place will be easier to get to and the parking will be free. I'm the person responsible for setting up this tasting. Michael is helping me, but I gotta close the deal. I'm gonna talk to the owner next week and finalize all the arrangements. Michael, Cindy, and I ate there a few weeks ago and agreed that we could have a good white wine tasting there.

I'm half in the bag. Time for bed.

Redneck RV

Don't knock it. There's room for an ATV right behind the camper.

Dealing With My HMO

Dealing with my HMO when my primary care physician is on vacation. Thanks to Tina for this one.

Ping Pong

My medical travails continue.

On Tuesday things were looking up. I got a message on my phone at work that another doctor (My doctor is off all week.) had looked at my chart and had e-mailed the podiatrist to see if he could expedite my appointment since my toes were infected and waiting until July 26 to address the problem wouldn't be the best medical decision in the world.

In the meantime, my friend Cindy, who is a nurse, and had worked at Shepherd Center, and has experience with skin sores decided that maybe while we were waiting for my problem to work its way through the serpent that my HMO has become she should go ahead and start a chemical debriding. (I am so embarrassed. I spelled it "debreeding" in my original post. Ralph Gizzip, of all people, not someone known for tact, spelled it debriding without pointing out what an idiot I am.)

Cindy came by Tuesday afternoon and devised a method where she cut a hole in DuoDerm the size of the sore and placed it on each toe. The DuoDerm was to protect the good skin from the debriding solution. Then she mixed up a solution, soaked some gauze in it, and put it over each sore and covered it with Opsite. Voila! Chemical debriding. (She actually got an award for inventing this procedure.) She figgered by the time my HMO had resolved my problem, the sores would have already been debrided and well on their way to healing.

While Cindy was performing the medical procedure, my phone rang. It was Renata from the podiatrists office.

Renata: Mr. Wilson this is Renata. What do we need to see you for?

Me: I need to have two sores on my toes debrided.

Renata: The podiatrist don't do no debriding.

Me: Duh! That's what I've been trying to explain to people.

Renata: I'm gonna have to transfer you over to surgery.

Me: That's a good choice since that was what the referral was originally written for.

Ping.

A half an hour later the phone rang again. This time it was Janice from surgery.

Janice: Mr. Wilson what do you need to have done?

Me: I need to have two infected sores debrided. My doctor wrote a surgical referral for that.

Janice: Well, since it was on the foot we referred it to the podiatrist.

Me: The foot part is not the issue. It's the sores.

Janice: I know you think we're giving you the run around, but we want to try and ensure that we do the right thing.

Me: Does that include delaying my care so the problem only gets worse while I'm waiting for you guys to make a decision?

Janice: Dr. Lee is in surgery now, but when he gets out, we'll discuss the matter and make a decision as to what we're gonna do.

Pong.

I took Wednesday afternoon off to take care of some business and also go down to where Cindy worked so she could change my dressing.

I told the receptionist I was here to see Cindy and she paged her. After waiting 10 minutes and no Cindy, I got out my cellphone and called her. She answered and I told her I was out in reception. She was only 20 feet away. She hadn't heard the page.

She changed the dressing and I was off to Green's to pick up some wine for Thursday's tasting. BTW. Not much of a blog Thursday night since I'm going to Fuego for a Spanish wine tasting. As usual, I'll post the menu and the wines.

I got home and there was a message on my answering machine to call Daria at my HMO. While I was writing down her number, Renata called on my cellphone. Holy shit! I'm being tag teamed. Renata asked me what they needed to see me for? I told her. She remembered. I told her Daria called. Daria was her supervisor so she told me to call her.

Ping.

I called Daria and got her voicemail. I told her I was returning her call and I didn't really have a clue as to what was going on, did they?

Pong.

Right after I hung up from Daria's voicemail, Renata called back and said the podiatrist could see me next Friday. I was going through my song and dance about how my foot wasn't getting any better and Friday wasn't really acceptable when darned if Daria didn't call me.

So now I have Renata on my cellphone and Daria on my home phone.

Ping. Pong. Ping. Pong. Ping. Pong. WTF is going on? I am so confused!

Since Daria outranked Renata, I told Renata I was gonna let Daria handle it.

I got to go through my song and dance (With one bad foot, no less.) one more time about how it's the sore that's the thing and not the foot. Since Daria is the clinical supervisor for both surgery and podiatry she explained that surgery really thought that the podiatrist should look at my foot first. She also told me the podiatrist could see me at 2:00 on Friday.

After what has gone on so far this week I don't think I need a surgical or podiatry referral. I think what I really need is a psychatric referral.

These people have driven me nuts!

A REAL NASCAR Fan

Car Alarm

For those of you who cannot afford the car locking system depicted below here is the Sally Struthers' Car Alarm.

Stolen from here.

It's Our Fault

How long is it gonna be before we hear the first liberal say that the only reason that Nick Berg was beheaded was because of what the assholes did at Abu Ghraib? After all that is what al Qaeda is saying. They only beheaded Nick in retaliation for the humiliation of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Holy shit! It sure is a good thing we didn't do anything really serious like feed 'em into shredders. Who knows what they would have done then.

I bet the phone is just ringing off the hook on Bush's desk with the likes of Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah of Jordan, and Hosni Mubarik of Egypt calling up to apologize for the barbarism of the beheading.

Here's the difference between us and them. We saw the pictures of the humiliation and the sadistic smiles of the guards and even though some of us think the prisoners deserved the humiliation (These prisoners were not choirboys, after all.), we were still repulsed by what we saw. Americans are better that that. We are the good guys, no matter what the America hating asswipes like Michael Moore may think. The military started an investigation back in January and heads will roll as a result of this. Rumsfeld's head should not be one of them.

We are Americans and we believe what the guards did was wrong, we know it was wrong, we admitted to the entire world it was wrong, and we will punish the wrongdoers. They will probaly get prison time and will be thrown out of the military.

On the other side of the coin the Arab world is probably applauding what al Qaeda did to Nick Berg. It brings to mind the Palestinians dancing in the streets after 9/11. I'm sure there are a bunch of them high fiving each other watching the beheading on al Jazeera. I'm sure the Arab street is elated that an innocent American was beheaded. After all, we humiliated Arabs. For that an American, any American, must die.

This is the culture we are fighting. These are the people we are fighting while trying to retain our humanity. Let's imagine for one minute that you had seen the Danial Pearl video or you have just watched Nick Berg get beheaded and you are now some poorly educated and poorly trained person put in charge of Arab prisoners and were told to humiliate them. What would you do?

It's easy to sit back here in the United States and say that you would never do anything like that. It's easy to go off on a rant like Rachel did yesterday. Everything she said was true. How can we be expected to be taken seriously in the world if we act like the guards at Abu Ghraib?

Ask yourself what you would have done to a bunch of Arab prisoners six hours after 9/11. You've just watched Daniel Pearl's murder or Nick Berg's murder. What would you do? You've heard the Jessica Lynch was gang raped. What would you do?

I do not feel one iota of pity for any of the prisoners. Compared to what they would have experienced under Saddam's regime, what they got from the guards was chicken feed. As someone pointed out there are fraternity hazings worse than what they got.

What I hate is that this puts us at the level of the people we are fighting. We do not have the stomach to fight at that level and our enemies know it.

During the Lebanese civil war a Soviet diplomat was kidnapped by Hizbollah. The KGB captured a relative of the leader of Hizbollah, murdered him, cut off his testicles, stuck them in his mouth, and delivered him to the leader's house. Hizbollah never fucked with the Soviets again. Is this story true? I'm not sure. I only know that the KGB could do that. Maybe the CIA could do likewise but we would be appalled. We are too civilized or at least like to think we are.

The events at Abu Ghraib have disgusted us as Americans. It has damaged our prestige around the world. What is even worse is it has given the liberals ammunition against the War on Terror. This is what is most damaging of all. This gives the Michael Moores, the Al Frankens, the John Fonda Kerrys, the Hillary Clintons, the Nancy Pelosis, the Ted Kennedys and all the other blame America firsters and opponents of the War on Terror ammunition to use against us in fighting WWIV.

Just like during the Cold War, to the liberals everything was our fault, we are hearing the same mantra during WWIV. Why do they hate us? Root cause. Israel.

We are trying to be the good guys in this war. All I can say is that if the liberals get their way and hinder our efforts against the terrorists like they hindered our efforts against the Soviets during the Cold War, we will turn into animals just like the terrorists. All it will take is an American city to be destroyed by the terrorists, and if the liberals get their way, that will happen, and the Arab world will see death and destruction on a scale that they cannot comprehend.

Nothing will be able to stop America's thirst for vengeance.

And we won't give a fuck whose fault it is.

Redneck Car Lock.

Fuck the alarm! I'm padlockin' the sucker!

How My Monday Went

Where's My Bloody Wallet?

I've been going from Grouchy Old Cripple to Mildly Annoyed, Middle Aged, Disabled Person, back to Grouchy Old Cripple lately. I was in fine fettle when I wrote Dear Ragheads, but then I had to repost my annual Mother's Day entry, and I got real boring with my Lake Carolina weekend, but I'm pissed again.

When I got home from Lake Carolina on Sunday, I noticed the grass had been cut. I figgered the lawn guy would come back sometime later to get his money. I went to get it out of my wallet and couldn't find it. I must have left it in the car. That's all right. I have money stashed just to pay the lawn guy and the cleaning lady so I got it from there figgering I'd get my wallet out of the car on my way to work.

Why get it out of the car?

Because I wouldn't be driving that car. I'd be taking my truck. I always drive my truck to work on Mondays and Thursdays. I drive the Z3 on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I drive my BMW 325 on Fridays. Is that clear?

Geez. You are a creature of habit aren't you?

Yeah. There's a method to my madness, but I'm not explaining it tonight.

My friend Brian is in town and I usually go into work a little earlier than usual to go to the cafeteria and have a cup of coffee with him. So, I got up early this morning and headed out the door and looked for my wallet in the Z3. Not there. Hmmmm. I must have taken it inside. Nope. Not there either. I knew it was somewhere, but didn't have time to look so I grabbed some money and hoped I wouldn't get stopped on the Watermelon 500 going to work.

I made it OK. Got in about the usual time, but there was still time for Brian and I to have a cup of coffee.

I've got a virus on my PC that Norton won't pick off. I try to boot it up and the first time applications won't start and Windoz sez it's because the PC is shutting down and then my PC shuts down. The second time, one of the apps goes thru the program not responding bullshit and then gives me the option of ending the task or cancel. I click on cancel and the PC comes up. I haven't called the (No) Help (Whatsoever) Desk because it don't want to have to waste an hour or two with some Indian I cannot understand. I realize that after he strikes out (And I know he will.), a real human will finally come and fix my PC. Maybe later this week.

Now the day really starts going to pot. When I went to the doctor last week for my skin sores, she wrote me a referrel to see a surgeon to debreed my sores. They need to get the gunk off the top for the sores to heal correctly. She said she could do it, but would feel more comfortable with a surgeon doing it.

I was supposed to call today to get an appointment which I did. The person I talked to did the "Hmmmmm!" bit, which is never a good sign. Then she said she had to call me back, which is an even worse sign.

When she called me back, she said I didn't need to see a surgeon, I needed to see a podiatrist and she would make me an appointment. Then she said her computer was locked up and she would have to call me back.

Things are getting worse.

She called me back and told me that she could give me an appointment in late July. I very patiently (Really!) tried to explain to her that that was unacceptable. I had infected skin sores that needed to be debreeded and that's why I was supposed to see a surgeon. Late July was unacceptable because by then my foot might have fallen off. She was insistent that surgery said this was a job for a podiatrist and that was that.

About that time I finally lost it and said (Almost screamed actually) "Fine! We'll let my foot fall off and then I'll sue the shit out of you!" and slammed down the phone.

This is the future of our medical system when the gummint takes it over.

Speaking of screaming, didja hear about the ragheads in Hamtramck Michigan who got the OK from the city council to blast their call to prayer five times a day? They say it's religious freedom and it's like church bells. I got an idea. I want to start the Church of Heavy Metal right across the street from the mosque and blast my call to prayer five times a day. Howza 'bout AC/DC's Highway to Hell for the first call. The second can be Guns and Roses' Welcome to the Jungle. Then we can have Metallica with Enter the Sandman. We need two more really loud ones. Maybe Won't Get Fooled Again by the Who. One more. Hmmmm. Have to think about it. Suggestions welcomed.

On second thought, why stop at five times a day? Let's have a call to prayer every hour from 5 AM to 7 PM. Hey Ragheads! What do ya think of that religious freedom?

Back to my medical stuff. I called my doctor's advice nurse to get this shit straightened out. My doctor is out all week (Yeah this day is just going great!)
but she could have another doctor look at my chart and see what he could do. Probably nothing. I'm gonna call back and try tomorrow.

I got home and took a nap. I was awakened by the phone. It was work. I had forgotten to do some system setups on Friday. Not only is my body going downhill but my brain isn't far behind. I got the setups done and called Operations and had them notify the user. My performance at work is really degrading. I guess I deserve the low ratings I've been getting.

Hey! What about the wallet?

When I got home, I checked the car again and found it.

There is no history of Alzheimer's in my family. Must be the pot I smoked in my younger days.

Unlike Clinton, I inhaled.

Redneck ATV Transport

C'mon Bubba, we don't need no freaking trailor.

Too bad it won't fit in the trunk.

Monday Pun 5/9/04

Two hillbillies walk into a bar. While having a shot of whiskey,
they talk about their own moonshine operations when suddenly,
a woman at a nearby table, who is eating a sandwich, begins
to choke. After a minute or so, it becomes apparent that
she is in real distress.

One of the hillbillies looks at her and says, "Kin ya swaller?"
The woman shakes her head no.

"Kin ya breathe?" asked the hillbilly.

The woman again shakes her head no as she begins to turn blue.
The hillbilly then walks over to the woman, lifts up the back of
her dress, yanks down her drawers, and quickly gives her right
butt cheek a lick with his tongue.

The woman, shocked by this action, has a violent spasm and the
obstruction flies out of her mouth.

As she begins to breathe again and her turns back normal, the
hillbilly slowly walks back to the bar.

His partner then leans over and says,

Are you ready for this?

"Ya know, I'd been heerd of that there "Hind Lick Maneuver," but I ain't never seed nobody do it!"

Arafat's a Redneck?

"If you have six cars in your front yard and only one of them runs ... You might be a redneck" - Jeff Foxworthy.

Nah! Arafat could never have enough class to be a redneck. I apologize to any rednecks I may have insulted.

Weekend At Lake Carolina

I spent part of the weekend in Columbia, South Carolina with my sister. Her former neighbor from when she lived in Redwood City was visiting so I thought I would go up to see him.

I drove up on Saturday morning instead of Friday afternoon because trying to get from Beautiful Dunwoody to I-20 on a Friday afternoon (Trying to get anywhere in Atlanta on a Friday afternoon) is a pain in the ass. I would like to say Saturday was better, but since there was an accident on I-285 it still took me about the same amount of time to get to I-20 as it would have on a Friday.
Atlanta drivers are the worst drivers in the United States.

I read somewhere that someone named I-285, the highway that circles Atlanta, the Watermelon 500 because of how fast everyone drives on it. (Now that's just not a good name at all. Anyone who lives in Atlanta would think a better name would be the Peachtree 500. ) It is not uncommon to see people driving 85 to 90 mph. Anyone driving 70 mph is holding up traffic.

As fast as I-285 is, I-20 from Atlanta to Augusta is faster. Maybe we should call it the Peach State 500. On I-20 you can be driving 90 mph and still be holding up traffic. I was doing 90 Saturday morning and two cars came up on my tail and I pulled over and let them by. Just for curiosity, after they passed, I matched speeds to see how fast they were going. They were going 100. I would have followed them and let them pace me, but since I was eating a susage egg Mcmuffin with cheese and drinking a cup of coffee, I figgered I'd stay at 90 until I finished eating and drinking my coffee.

Once I got into South Carolina I slowed to between 75 and 80.

My sister still does not have all of her new furniture yet. They finally got their new bed but they are still waiting for their dining room set.

It was nice seeing my sister's former neighbor again. He's a real trip.

My sister made canneloni for him. All I had to do this time was roll out the pasta. Usually I get stuck with making most of it. Our canneloni is Northern Italian style. We use both a white and a red sauce.

For appetizers we had smoked salmon and champagne. It's a rough job, but someone has to do it.

We had an Italian syrah with the meal.

We had homemade apple pie for dessert. Yummy.

My brother-in-law had to get up early (5:30) to take my sis' former neighbor to the airport in Charlotte, North Carolina. I slept in.

I had trouble sleeping. I scraped my toes on my left foot last week, and even though I have no sensation in my feet (Which is why I was able to do such a good job of toe-scraping.) I have phantom pain, and this exacerbated that pain.

My sister wanted me to stay for dinner on Sunday, but I am on a strong antibiotic for my toe scrapes and even though I'm taking Lactaid (Here's a free medical tip. If a doctor ever puts you on a real strong antibiotic go to the drug store and get some Lactaid or any other lactose supplement and take it along with the antibiotic. The doctor always neglects to tell you that real strong antibiotics also kill off the good bacteria in your intestinal tract leading to disasters.), I still worry about accidents.

The drive back was OK except for the people who cannot read signs. The signs are Slower Traffic Keep Right and Keep Right Except To Pass. What is so difficult about that? I don't care if you are going the speed limit or not. If there are five cars on your ass it means they want to go faster. Pull over. Even the trucks drive 80 on I-20. One of the things that pisses me off is some dipstick sitting in the left lane when there is no traffic in the right lane. You would think that after the tenth car just passed him on the right that he would get the idea that he was in the wrong lane.

My friends Michael and Cindy had spent the weekend in Charleston, South Carolina, and around Covington, Georgia I wondered if maybe I had passed them along the way. About 45 minutes after I got home, Cindy called and said that they had seen me as we were passing Covington. Michael tried to catch me to see if that were me, but I was driving too fast. He figgered I was doing 80. Nope. More like 85. What's the use of having a BMW Z3 if you cannot drive it fast?

Cindy came over to look at my toes. They're not falling off yet. While she was there she put in the stakes for my tomato plants. They are looking good!

Did the laundry and now I'm blogging. Yawn! Booor - ing! Hey not everyday in my life is exciting. Some times my life is downright dull.

I'm looking forward to another exciting week at work. I expect some interesting stuff to happen. I got a user in China working on a system I just set up for him. We'll see how many problems he has.

More processor woes. But that is a topic for another post.

Uh Oh!

This gives a new meaning to gas station drive offs.

Happy Mother's Day

I wrote this post two years ago. My sister liked it so much she printed it off and showed it to a bunch of our relatives when she was in St. Louis year before last. She also showed it to our cousin, Patty, in Oklahoma City. One of my readers asked me last year if I had a picture of my mother. I'm posting a picture when she was a little girl.

This is my soft side. You won't see too much of it.

This is the picture I write about in the post. My mother is the little blonde girl sitting on her mother's lap. The boy is my Uncle Robert (AKA Uncle Pump because he got a penile implant when he was in his 70's. Medicare paid for it. My tax dollars at work. It must have been good for him since he lived to be 92.) The girl is my Aunt Ginny. She died in her 60's.

Happy Mother's Day

Have you ever looked at an old person and imagined what that person was like as a child? With some people it is inconceivable that they were ever children. With my mother, you could easily tell what she was like as a child, because she never lost her childlike love of parades, circuses, parties, and holidays.

I have a picture of my mother sitting on her mother's lap. She looks to be around three years old. As a child she was blond and had rosy cheeks and a sunny disposition. So, she was nicknamed Peachy. To the day she died, everyone in the family called her Peachy.

She was the youngest of three children and the most adventuresome. I always thought my Aunt Ginny and my Uncle Robert were exceptionally dull. Not so my mother.

She was a Girl Scout. I don't know if my aunt was, but I doubt it. There is no way I could ever picture her camping in the woods. When Amelia Ehrhart made a stop in St. Louis, Mom was the Girl Scout selected to present her with a bouquet of flowers.

High school cheerleaders used to be all male. The first year that Roosevelt High School, in St. Louis, had female cheerleaders, my mother was one of them. She showed me the article in the newspaper she had saved.

She had a friend, Janie, who loved to travel as much as Mom did. When they were around twenty years old, since this was the Depression and they had no money, they hitchhiked from St. Louis to the Grand Canyon. These were two young girls. No way they could do this today. They hiked to the bottom of the Canyon and spent Christmas with the CCC workers building Phantom Ranch. Think they had a good time? They were the only two girls there. Mom and Janie also thumbed their way down to Georgia. My sister has two little notebooks that my mother used to record expenses on these trips.

My mother met my father when she and a friend were canoeing on the Meramec River in Missouri. My father was canoeing with one of his friends. He got her number and the rest is history. They got married in 1939. Since my father worked for the railroad he got free travel privileges (like airline employees do today), and they went west for their honeymoon. I have a movie they took going through the Rockies.

My sister was born in 1942. My father went off to war, and when he returned in 1946, they had me.

In 1952, my father had a bad accident at work and sued the railroad company. He won. As a result, he lost his job. He used the settlement money to buy a new car and a bunch of camping equipment. This was before RV's. Everyone used tents or, if they had money, they bought trailers. They were nothing like the trailers of today. In the summer of 1953, we took off for five weeks and hit every state east of the Mississippi and two states west of the Mississippi. We also went as far north as Quebec City in Canada. Even though it was summer it was still cold at night in New England and Canada. I don't know how she did it but she managed to pack all the clothes we needed for the different climates we experienced.

We never had much money, but since both my parents liked to travel and liked to camp, almost every summer we would take off for two weeks and see the country. My dad drove, my sister navigated, and my mother thought of games to keep us occupied. I had been in 47 states by the time I was sixteen years old.

My mother always wanted to go to places outside of the country. My father, having spent WW II in Europe, had no desire to go back. After my sister moved to California, and I joined the Navy, she started her overseas trips. Still loving adventurous things, she went rafting on the Colorado River, through the Grand Canyon when she was in her sixties. When she retired, she, my sister, and my sister's husband hiked the Grand Canyon. Here was this little, sixtyfive year old woman with a backpack hiking the Canyon. At the end of the trip, when she reached the top, there were a bunch of hikers at the top who applauded.

But she wasn't finished. Two days later all of us went sailing in the Virgin Islands. It was a bareboat charter which means we sailed it ourselves. She went on three more sailing trips with us: Greece, the Grenadines, and the Florida Keys.

Fourteen years ago I had a freak accident and broke my back which left me partially paralyzed from the waist down. I had been to Europe a few times with my mother and now in my condition would be unable to travel. Wanna bet? After I had gotten out of a wheelchair and could walk with braces and crutches she suggested we go to England. It was a short flight and since there were a lot of old people on these tours I would be able to keep up. Previously, I had always taken care of the luggage. Now this little old lady in her seventies had to do it. My mother got me to Spain, Russia, Germany, Austria, Turkey, and Egypt. Europe, and especially places like Egypt and Turkey, are not very cripple friendly, but, with my mother's assistance, I made it.

She hated to sit around with nothing to do. Before my accident, on a trip to Italy, we had a free day and, since Venice was not in our itinerary, we took a night train from Rome to Venice, spent the day sightseeing, and took an evening train back to Rome. When in Turkey, we had a free day and she talked the tour guide into setting up a day trip to Troy. Travelling with my mother was always an adventure.

My father was an alcoholic and would lose jobs so my mother had to work. My sister and I also had to work. She had babysitting jobs and I did yard work and worked in the school cafeteria. My mother really knew how to stretch a dollar. My mother taught us self reliance and the fact that actions had consequences. My sister, being smarter, did well in school and won a four year scholarship to college. I flunked out of junior college. My mother welcomed me to the real world and told me I would now have to start paying room and board so I better get a job. This was the 60's. I was 1A, so I joined the Navy to learn electronics and stay out of Viet Nam. One out of two is not too bad. I learned electronics, but both of the ships I served on went to Viet Nam. I went back to college after the Navy, but burned out in my junior year, quit, and got a job with TCIDNN (The Company I Dare Not Name). I moved to Atlanta seventeen years ago to be a technical instructor with TCIDNN. My mother never tired of telling her friends that her college dropout son was now a teacher.

My mother had an ulcer and had surgery to remove part of her stomach. She had had two heart attacks. She had had a tumor removed from one of her breasts and took chemo for that. I remember she was talking to my friend Cindy after the tumor was removed and told Cindy she was not going on chemo because her cousin Rosemary had gotten very sick when she was on chemo. When Cindy asked what medication she was taking and she told her Cindy didn't tell her that that was chemo.

In her eighties, she developed macular degeneration. She could no longer drive at night and was worried that she might soon not be able to drive at all. This not only affected her, but all the other little old ladies she had to ferry around. The last time I saw her, she was blind in one eye.

My mother was the most active person I have ever met. She took aerobics, did line dancing and went on lots of one and two day trips with various organizations. We were at a night club in Egypt and the band started playing the macerena. Up jumped my mother to do the macerena! My sister and I had to buy her an answering machine since she was never at home and her friends could never get in touch with her.

We talked once a week. We alternated calling. It used to be on a Saturday, but we had to change, because she couldn't fit me into her schedule on a Saturday. We changed to Sunday morning. She only forgot to call once. So, one Sunday, when she didn't call, and she didn't answer when I called, I feared the worst. I had her cousins go to her condo and check and they found her dead. She had gone to a movie with friends on Saturday and returned home and died that night. She had dreaded going into a nursing or assisted living home so I'm glad that she was active to the very end. When my sister and I went to St. Louis to take care of affairs we found literature about activities for the blind. We also noted that her calendar was full of events for the next three months. Somehow I never thought that she would be able to ever fit dying into her busy schedule. She lived to be eighty five years old.

She died three years ago. Every Mother's Day I regret that I never told her how much I loved her and what a wonderful mother she was. She was one hell of a mom.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom, where ever you are!

A Joke From Woody

While walking down the street one day, a Democratic senator is hit
by an out-of-control truck and killed. His soul arrives in heaven and is met at
the entrance by St. Peter.

"Welcome to Heaven," says St. Peter. " However, before you settle in, there
seems to be a problem. We seldom see a high official around
these parts, you see, so we're not exactly sure what to do with you."

"No problem, just let me in," says the senator.

"Well, I'd like to," said St. Peter, "but I have orders from higher up. What we'll
do is have you spend one day in Hell and one in Heaven. Then
you can choose where to spend eternity."

"There's no need for that...I know I belong in Heaven," says the senator.

"I'm sorry, senator, but we have our rules."

And with that, St. Peter escorts him to the elevator, and he goes
down, down, down into Hell.

As the elevator doors open, the senator finds himself in the middle of a beautiful golf course. In the distance is an exclusive private club and standing in front of it are friends and other politicians who had worked with
him in Washington. Everyone appears happy and are wearing elegant designer clothes.

When they notice the senator, everyone runs to greet him and they immediately begin to reminisce about the good times they had while
alive. After a friendly round of gol everyone enters the club house where they dine on lobster, caviar and bottle after bottle of the finest vintage wines.

Also present is the Devil, a very friendly guy who
has a good time dancing and telling jokes. Everyone is having such
a marvelous time that, before the senator realizes it, it's time to go. Everyone
gives him a big hug and waves farewell as he steps into the elevator.

The elevator goes up, up, up, and the door reopens on Heaven
where St.Peter is waiting for him ...

"Now, senator, it's time for you to visit Heaven."

So, another 24 hours pass with the head of state joining a group of
contented souls moving peacefully from cloud to cloud, playing harps
and singing. The senator has a good, albeit quiet, time and, before he realizes it, the 24 hours have gone by and St. Peter is once again by his side.

"Well, you've spent a day in Hell and another in Heaven.
Now, you must choose where you want to spend eternity."

The senator reflects for a minute and then answers: "Well, I would never
have thought it, I mean Heaven has been delightful, but I
think I would be better satisfied in Hell."

So Saint Peter escorts him to the elevator, and down, down,
down he goes into Hell. The doors of the elevator open
and the senator finds himself in the middle of a barren land covered with rotting waste and garbage. He sees all his friends, dressed in rags, picking up the trash and putting it in black bags, which are stacked as far and as high as the eye can see. It's sweltering, miserably hot, and the odor is just vile.

The Devil comes over to the senator and smoothly lays his arm around his shoulder.

"I don't understand," stammers the senator. "The day before
yesterday I was here, and there was a golf course and club,
and we drank, ate lobster and caviar, danced and had a great
time. Now all there is a wasteland full of garbage, it's hot and smelly
and my friends look miserable."

The Devil looks at the senator, smiles and says, "Yesterday we
were campaigning ... today you voted for us.

Saturday Boobage

This was sent to me by Reiggin. Uh, Reiggin, I think you missed the concept here.

This is what the guys expect for Saturday Boobage.

Six Die In Tragic Accident

Redneck Olympic Event

Yee Haw!

Rachel's Back

I looked at my site meter and I saw some referrals from Rachel Lucas. How can that be? Her site has been totally blank for the last few months. I even finally recognized the inevitable and that she had quit blogging so I reluctantly removed her from my blogroll. Sniff. Sniff. No more Rachel.

She's back! She's back! I'm waiting for her first bitchslap of John Fonda Kerry. She says she can only spend an hour a day, but an hour of Rachel is better than three hours of 90% of all the other blogs out there, mine included.

Welcome back Rachel! Back on the blogroll you go.

Fun With Google

Go Google waffles. Heh. Heh. Heh. Thanks to Ramblings' Journal for pointing this out.

Dear Ragheads

Warning! I'm pissed. Adult language follows. Brian! Stop reading right now!

Fuck off!

Apologize? What the fuck for? We forced some Iraqis to strip naked and form pyramids. We humiliated them? Too fucking bad. You want us to apologize?

OK. We'll make you a deal. You apologize for 9/11. It was your Arab brothers who killed 3000 innocent civilians. We're waiting for your fucking apology. You're lucky we didn't nuke the Middle East you barbarous bastards.

And how about the fucking Palestinians dancing in the streets? How about a fucking apology from those dickheads? They're real brave the way they kill pregnant women and little children. Big brave Arabs. Where's the fucking apology there Mahmoud?

Where's the apology for the Americans killed in Gaza who were on their way to give out scholarships to Palestinian children. Where's the apology there you camel fucking assholes?

Tell you what we'll do. Since stripping down naked is humiliating, why don't we just go back to what you dickheads are used to? Why don't we just break your legs, rape your women, and feed you leg first into shredders? There was no outrage throughout the Arab world about that. I guess that would be OK. Even one of the prisoners said that what the American guards did to him was worse than what Saddam's torturers had done. Holy shit! We fucked up! Talk about cultural insensitivity. We need to give you fuckers real torture. That would fit right in with your fucked up culture.

Our mistake. Here we are trying to drag you kicking and screaming into the 21st Century from your fucking 8th Century fucked up culture and freeing you from a madman and his two sadistic sons who have killed and tortured thousands of Iraqis. We had a few bad apples fuck with a few prisoners. Guess what? Unlike you, we are gonna do sumpin' about it. You buttwipes would be dancing in the streets if Americans were tortured and humiliated. Check out the bodies hanging from the bridge in Fallujah.

We don't tolerate that kinda bullshit. The perps will be tried and punished. Some will go to prison. And I didn't see any Americans dancing in the streets when we saw the photos of what went on in the prison. We were repulsed.

We are civilized. We are not barbarians. Unfortunately, most of you Arab dipshits are. All we have to do is look at the way you treat your women.

We are trying to give you an opportunity for a better life. We have freed the Iraqi people from a brutal dictator. We are trying to establish a democracy in Iraq, a tough task indeed, since it doesn't appear that the Iraqis, like the rest of the Arab world are capable of self gummint. We didn't want to fuck with you people, but we had two choices: either try to get you to join the civilized world or to kill you all.

The second choice keeps looking better and better.

Purple Heart Band-Aids

Kerry to Endorse New 'Purple Heart' Band-Aids
05/06/04 NEW BRUNSWICK, New Jersey

Senator John Kerry, the recipient of three Purple Hearts, has signed a contract with Johnson & Johnson to endorse a new line of band-aids.

The band-aids will be small purple hearts designed to cover minor, superficial wounds like Kerry suffered as a lieutenant in the Vietnam War.

"We're proud to be working with Senator Kerry," said a Johnson & Johnson spokesperson. "We plan to use actual shrapnel removed from his arm in our ad campaign to highlight the small size of our J&J Band-Aid brand Purple Heart bandages."

The doctor who treated Kerry at Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam, recently described the procedure used to treat the wound that won the senator his first Purple Heart.

"First, I located the wound with the aid of a magnifying glass," said Dr. Louis Letson. "Then, I used a pair of tweezers to extract the shrapnel, which measured approximately one centimeter in length and two to three millimeters in diameter.

"Finally, I covered the wound with one of those little round band-aids people use to cover corns on their toes."

The Band-Aid endorsement is not the first for Senator Kerry.

It comes on the heels of two other high-profile endorsement deals Kerry has signed with Waffle House and Flip-Flops, Inc.

©2004 RealStupidNews.com

Anal Lube

I'm a Dictator

Didja know that there are people who read this blog that think it is a democracy? They think that my blog should be a forum for their beliefs. And they get mad when I edit or delete their comments.

Let's get one thing straight. This blog is a dictatorship and I'm the dictator. Nowhere have I ever said it was a democracy. Do you want to know how I run it? Go over to the left sidebar and click on FAQ. I have three entries under that category:

1. The Rules - My rules for this blog. If you don't like the rules too fucking bad. I pay for this site. You want different rules, start your own blog.

2. FAQ - All about me and who I am. I am a cripple. I am old. And I am grouchy.

3. This Is My Blog - A precursor to the rules and certain things that I will not discuss or debate because I consider them facts, such as Bill Clinton is a lying, draft dodging, scumbag. Therefore Bush's National Guard service should be a non-issue since the Dimocrats said that Clinton's draft dodging was a non-issue.

If you are a troll and put comments on my site, those comments are now my property. I reserve the right to edit the comments and ridicule you. I have been doing that with an idiot on this thread. He pastes in long bullshit articles eating up my bandwidth, I edit them out. I am not talking about BrigadeerGerard, because he started following the rules and we can engage in reasonable discourse.

I do not have problems with reasonable debate. Reasonable debate does not start out with insults. I have even chastised people on my side of the debate for insulting someone who had an opposing viewpoint. That person, Marieke, was polite and well mannered and although we agreed to disagree we did so without rancor.

On my New Constitution post, I have been having a discussion on taxes and the Constitution with Pennywit and it has remained polite though I did get a little testy when the 2000 election was brought up. We even found some common ground on taxes as both of us favor a consumption tax and user fees. After reading his last post I see that he leans toward the Constitution as a "living document" and I'm more of a strict fundamentalist. In that we are closer in agreement than it may seem. I don't mind the judiciary interpreting laws since that was the intent of the Founders. I object to the judiciary legislating from the bench by creating laws that do not exist. This is the money line from his last post.

I tend toward an incrementalist approach, myself. Rather than a constant march of sweeping decisions, I prefer narrowly tailored rulings that build upon precedent established in previous cases.

Bingo! I believe that was the intent of the Founders and I agree with that 100%.

Some of my debates I have taken offline, since they were better discussed one on one. Grognard and I have discussed the Palestinian issue. He has actually met Palestinians so he knows that not all of them want to kill all the Jews. We do agree that Arafat is an impediment to a peaceful solution.

I have also mistakenly insulted someone in my comments and have publicly apologized as in this post where I apologized to Marcel.

In writing this blog, I have met intelligent people and stupid people. I have noticed that trolls, by and large, tend to be stupid. Their main purpose seems to be acting like spoiled brats trying to get attention. Some of them have their own lame blogs that no one will frequent, so they post their troll droppings with links to their blogs hoping that will get them traffic.

I don't like spoiled brats. I don't tolerate bullshit comments. As I said before, this is a dictatorship and I'm the dictator.

Don't like it? Fuck off!

PS. Dear Frank Francis (or whatever your name is), Cinco de Mayo

The holiday of Cinco De Mayo, The Fifth Of May, commemorates the victory of the Mexicans over the French army at The Battle Of Puebla in 1862.

Thought this might interest you.

Irony

Nigerian Scam Baiting

Dontcha just love all those e-mails you get from Nigeria offering to let you, since of course everyone knows what an incredibly honest person you are praise Allah, share in a windfall of millions of dollars simply for helping some Nigerian offical move money out of Nigeria? Or how about the scam wanting donations for some Nigerian church that takes care of widows and orphans? Dontcha wish there were some way to stop getting all that shit? Earthlink has a nice spamblocker that takes care of that so I don't see too much of it, but other people have actually taken action on it.

I work with a guy who loves telemarketers. I mean he really loves 'em. What's the worst thing you can do to a telemarketer? Keep him on the phone and waste his time. One neat trick is to say, "Please hold", and then put the phone down and wait until you hear the noise that says your phone is off the hook. I've done that. It is a very satisfying feeling.

That's no fun with my friend. He has characters that he uses. He tries to keep them on the phone as long as possible. The longer the better. He's related some of the ones he's used, like Jeeves the butler or the German colonel who doesn't speak English very well. The trick is to get them to hang up on him, and they always do, after, of course, wasting at least five minutes of their valuable time. I wish I could do that but I don't have the patience to mess with them. I only answer the phone if I know the person who's calling.

It turns out there are people who do much the same thing that my friend does to the telemarketers with the Nigerians. I was searching the Net for some solutions to my comment spam. Yeah, I know there's MT Blacklist, but you have to be at MT 2.6 and I'm not. If I had more time, I'd upgrade, but since I didn't do the MT install in the first place (Rachel Lucas did it for me and she's disappeared) and the MT doc sucks big time (Hey, it's free. Can't bitch about that), I'm reluctant to try the upgrade. I hear MT 3.0 is supposed to have code to address the comment spammer problem, but once again that's an upgrade. You'd think a techie like me could do that, but the doc sucks. When 3.0 goes GA, I'll look at the install doc and check it out. Maybe I'll upgrade then. Anyway, that's when I stumbled on to the Nigerian Scam Baiters.

Before I get to what I was gonna give y'all let me tell you about my day. For some strange reason, some people like to hear about TCIDNN (The Company I Dare Not Name). My sister really loves it when I write about TCIDNN.

The (No) Help (Whatsoever) Desk improved. They actually patched the users through to me who needed help and I was able to help them.

A few weeks back I wrote about our new pay package at TCIDNN. Today my manager called me into her office to discuss pay. As I said to my team lead, "How long does it take to tell me I ain't gettin' a raise?"

I walked in, I sat down, and she closed the door.

Her: I saw you running upstairs yesterday (Holy shit! I wish I could run upstairs!), was there a problem?

Is there some rule in management school that says you must make irrelevant small talk with an employee before talking about what you are supposed to be talking about? I asked my friend Cindy if she did that with her employees and she said she didn't. I guess this is just taught in Large Corporation Manager Bullshit 101.

Me: Yesterday was a problem.

Her: Why? (Showing great concern.)

Me: The (No) Help (Whatsoever) Desk.

Her: What was wrong?

Me: They're idiots! (Hey! She asked.)

Her: This is the first day. There will be a learning curve. This is a bump in the road. Yadda. Yadda. Yadda. Blah. Blah. Blah.

A few minutes of interaction of what the (No) Help (Whatsover) Desk should have done. Then we get to the meat of the matter. I just love to watch managers squirm when they're trying to give you bad news and put it in a good light.

Her: You're being paid at 98% of market value. (Holy shit! The market has really gone to pot! Three years ago I was at 55% of market value for my job and my salary has gone up 3% since then.) Ummmm. So.... You're not getting a raise. (Tell me sumpin' I don't know.)

Me: OK

Her: Like I said. You're at 98% of market value and you received a performance bonus of ...

Me: Yeah. I know. OK. No problem. I make good money. I'm OK with that. (Like I'm gonna get any raises between now and the time I retire. It doesn't really bother me since I'm semi-retired now.)

She: (Somewhat astonished) Uh. Uh.

Me: Anything else?

She. Uh. Do you want this paper? (It's the bullshit that shows how much you made last year and your bonus and usually says sumpin' about how your compensation is not just money but benefits and all sorts of other corporate bullshit.)

Me: Nope.

So I left and went back to my office. Now many of you may think I hate my job. Au contraire. I actually love my job. Since my CDSM® (Clueless Dipshit Manager) was promoted, things have improved. My new manager is not as fucked up (yet) as he was. Granted he is her boss and might take her over to the dark side, but so far so good. My team lead realizes that I'm not gonna bust my ass, but I do a good job on all the projects he assigns me. He also realizes that I have some valuable skills that our group needs. He's already overworked. If I left, he would be even more overworked. I'm not gonna say I'm overpaid. I'm not paid for what I do, but for what I know.

Hey GOC! What about the Nigerians?

Hold your horses. I'm almost there.

I took my cat Scooter to the vet a few weeks ago and got a stern lecture about him being overweight. So, I have cut back on his food, which also means that Ashley, who is even more overweight than Scooter, is also on a diet.

What does this have to do with Nigerians?

People are starving in Nigeria. OK?

I always give the cats canned food when I eat well. Tonight, I grilled some chicken, and since my cholesterol levels are up (Had lab tests two weeks ago.) instead of fettucine al Fredo, I just had fettucine with some olvie oil and parmesan cheese. I gave the cats canned food. Scooter inhaled it. Unfortunately, he spent the next twenty minutes exhaling it. Did he do it in the kitchen? No. He did it in the great room where I have a white carpet. And, of course, he had to keep moving around to make more stains. Just great!

OK Finally! Here it comes. Fun with Nigerians. This is some really good reading. Sit back and relax and read about the Church of Bread and Wine.

That was enjoyable wasn't it? Here is sumpin' even better. This guy actually got a Nigerian to send him money! Granted, it was only $20, but this guy is good. He got the scammer to hold up a sign that said, "I take it up the arse." I stand in awe.

That's all for tonight. Gotta go clean up some cat puke.

Redneck Safe Driving

A Test

Take this test.

Monday At TCIDNN

If you don't like reading about what goes on at large companies or more specifically what goes on at TCIDNN (The Company I Dare Not Name) you might want to skip today's post. Some people actually enjoy reading about my trials and tribulations at TCIDNN.

Today was a fun day at TCIDNN. We outsourced our Help Desk to save money. I got three calls from them this morning where the dipsticks gave me information on problems that did not make any sense.

Me: What did the user say?

Them: Incomprehensible bullshit that makes no sense.

Me: I'm sorry but that's incomprehensible bullshit that makes no sense.

Them: That's what the user said.

Me: Have the user call me at this number xxx.xxx.xxxx.

What do you think the Help Desk did? They called another support person in another area that had nothing to do with Host Systems and tried to get them to fix the problem. Then they opened a record on our SPTS (Stupid Problem Tracking System) and routed it to me. They didn't put any contact information in it so I did not know how to get in touch with the user. Oh yes. This is gonna work just great.

We've been supporting Canada for a while now. When we took over their systems we put them on their own processor. It's an obsolete processor, but they run obsolete systems so that works out OK. We're in the process of moving their applications to one of our up to date systems, but it's a slow process so we still have to keep their systems active.

To prepare for our new processor, my team lead asked me to move their systems off the old box and onto one of our processors so we could move the obsolete processor off the floor, thus creating space for the new processor. This was actually a fairly easy project since these systems run under VM (Don't ask. It's a mainframe operating system) so I could move the systems to another VM system by copying their directory entries over with some minor changes. Then, I would have the VM guy clean up the directories and update their profiles to couple some virtual CTC's (Channel to channel connections. It's a way that mainframe processors and systems can communicate with each other.) I also had to have the network guy update some OSA (Open System Architecture) adaptor definitions to get the TCPIP stuff working.

I did this project last week. The VM guy did his stuff except for the virtual CTC's. I set up some real CTC's to another processor and mapped them to one set of the old virtual CTC's on the Canada system responsible for controlling the communications. So we had one working path. We could take care of the other connection later. I did this on Wednesday.

I came in Thurdsay morning and my team lead was on the phone with the network guy and the VM guy. I guess I should say sumpin' about the network guy before I go any further.

We used to have a real good network guy but he retired last fall. For over a year our current network guy was told that he would be replacing him and he better start getting his skills up. This guy knew absolutely nothing about SNA/VTAM networks. He knew nothing about MVS or VM. He was given a year to start building those skills. He waited until two months before the old network guy retired. The only reason he even started then is because after my team lead telling our CDSM® (Clueless Dipshit Manager) over and over about how this guy was not gonna be ready to take over the network, my CDSM® finally told him to start learning, or else.

So, here it is Thursday morning and the network guy has screwed up the OSA adaptor. Not really. He just thought he had. He actually did it right and was up until 3:00 AM working on it. He didn't understand why it wasn't working. It was working. It just needed to be attached to the system using the virtual address of the OSA adaptor it used to use. I had been very specific about that in my note. Five minutes into the door I had everything working. Then he wanted us to explain the concept of virtual I/O versus real I/O on VM systems. Can't do it with the knowledge that he had. It would be like trying to explain color to a blind man or logic to a liberal.

So the systems are now moved and everything is working except one minor problem that we hope to have fixed this week.

My phone rang around noon Saturday and it was my team lead. IBM had come out to run diagnostics on an OSA adaptor and work on one of our DASD boxes. To be on the safe side, my team lead shut everything down. When he brought everything back up. the Canada systems and one of the Atlanta systems didn't connect up. Whom do you think he called? Not the network guy. As he told me today, he wanted to get home in time for supper. I knew the CTC's for the Atlanta system so I told him to display them. They did not display the right status so I had him enter some VTAM commands and got that working.

I don't have the Canada connections memorized so I had him call up the diagram I updated on Friday. Lucky for me I did. I needed to know both the virtual and real addresses and I had added them to the diagram. One set of addresses hadn't attached properly so I had him attach 'em and recycle the PU's and, bingo, everything worked.

So why aren't I the network guy? Because I got enough stuff to do. And anyway I still do a lot of the network stuff. I'll do most of the design and implementation when we get the new processor in. I can just see the network guy trying to gen an NCP. Ouch!

As if enough stuff wasn't going on today, my team lead went out to lunch and went home. The network guy called him and couldn't reach him so he called me. It's bad news when you talk to the network guy. He asks a lot of questions which is good, but some of them are not answerable because he does not have the knowledge yet. A phone call from him lasts an eternity. Two weeks ago my team lead and I had been on the phone with him for an hour and all of a sudden some systems went down. We had to terminate the call to handle the problem. This was one of the few times we were actually glad sumpin' went down. Fixing a problem was preferable to trying to explain sumpin' to the network guy.

One of the things the network guy wanted me to explain to him today was CTC channels, CNC channels, and FICON channels. Try and explain that to someone who has no mainframe knowledge.

One good thing with all the bullshit that went on at work today: The day sure went by quickly but the Help Desk sucks and there are probably some pissed off users.

Oh well. Tomorrow is another day.

Redneck Spoiler

Monday Pun 5/2/04

All the monks in a certain monastery sing the simple word "Morning!"
from their windows each sunrise. Early one day after several "Morning!"
greetings have been sung melodiously into the dawn air, a single
greeting of "Evening!" rings out of one window. In the courtyard below,
Brother Timothy looks around startled, and says "Did you hear that,
Brother Edward?" "Hear what, Brother Timothy?" replied Brother Edward.

You're not gonna like what comes next.

Brother Timothy sang in reply: "Someone chanted evening..."

Cynthia On Kerry

Cynthia Tucker, the socialist head of the editorial staff of the Atlanta Urinal and Constipation is spouting the usual liberal lies about the Republican Right Wing Attack Machine (A subsidiary of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy). The link may require registration, but don't worry, I'm gonna hit all the lowlights.

John Kerry's campaign has suffered from a curious redefinition of patriotism and heroism -- a revisionism that glorifies armchair warriors while denigrating combat veterans. His combat medals haven't quieted the Bush campaign machine, which sends its minions out to denounce Kerry as unpatriotic and anti-military.

GMAFB! Look, it was Kerry who brought up the Viet Nam bullshit. That makes his Viet Nam record a campaign issue. What he did after the war is also an issue. No one is denigrating his combat record (except for the first purple heart). Yeah, Kerry was a hero, but so was Benedict Arnold before he turned traitor. Kerry came back and joined VVAW. He testified about made up atrocities. And who knows about the medals? He keeps changing his story. He has four different versions of the medal throwing incident. Which one is true. That's what the RRWAM (a subsidiary of the VRWC) is asking.

It is an odd thing, but it did not start here. Two years ago, Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) defeated Max Cleland -- a Vietnam veteran whose service left him a triple amputee -- partly by challenging his patriotism. Chambliss doesn't want to own up to that now, but many remember his attack ads that featured photos of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden and questioned Cleland's "courage." (Chambliss, by the way, avoided service in Vietnam because of what he says was a bad knee.)

Another lie. The ad did not attack his patriotism. Didja ever notice that it's always the left who bring up the "attacking his patriotism" meme? No one was attacking Cleland's patriotism. The ad pointed out that Cleland was more interested in union jobs than national security and that was the truth. So Chambliss avoided service. So did Bill Clinton. As I have said many times, Viet Nam should no longer be an issue since we elected a draft dodger to two terms as president. It seems it's only you fucking liberals who want to make Viet Nam service an issue which is ironic since you were against the fucking war in the first place.

So it comes as no great surprise that the latest Bush tactic is to denounce Kerry for his activism against the Vietnam War. In a display of gall that can only be described as astounding, campaign strategist Karen Hughes, interviewed recently on CNN, insisted that reporters ought to prod more deeply into Kerry's activities during the Vietnam War.

What's wrong with that? Kerry brought up Viet Nam. It seems to be the centerpiece of his campaign. So that makes his anti-war stance and his membership in VVAW fair game. That makes his testimony to Congress when he testified about atrocities that never happened an issue. There is a left wing web site that claims Kerry actually said that he was told by others that these atrocities occurred so he really didn't give false testimony. OK. How does that differ from Bush stating that he was told by British intelligence that Iraq got yellowcake from Niger? The left screams that Bush lied. Kerry related what he had been told. Bush related what he had been told (and British intelligence still stands by its story). If one is lying, then both are. Make up your fucking minds you liberal assholes!

Guess what's coming next.

Indeed, they should (as they should further explore the activities of President Bush during that same war).

Jesus H. Christ! Bush has produced all his records and you still are not satisfied. What's it gonna take? A fucking time machine? "Set the Wayback Machine to 1972 Sherman. We're gonna see where Bush was." And may I point out, that Kerry, who said military service didn't matter when he was defending the draft dodger in 1992, on Good Morning America, brought up Bush's National Guard service. Bush has said nothing about Kerry's service or his activities after the war.

What they will find in Kerry's past is a young man who had the courage to say what so many were thinking and some, such as former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, only belatedly admitted -- the war in Vietnam was folly, unwinnable, a quagmire.

Yeah, McNamara, who could fuck up a wet dream, totally fucked up Viet Nam. The war was winnable if the politicians would have taken the leash off the military and let them fight the war. Ask the grunts who were there. They were pissed about having to fight a war with one hand tied behind their backs. We were kicking their asses, but then we had people like Jane Fonda and John Fonda Kerry undermining the war effort.

Kerry was, as he now acknowledges, angry about the official lies, the ludicrous military strategies, the lives lost. His rhetoric, as he concedes, was over the top. But his crusade to end the war -- based on his observations as a naval officer who had come under fire after volunteering for hazardous duty -- was the very definition of patriotism.

And undermining the war effort when he returned was not. Anyway, the RRWAM(A subsidiary of the VRWC) is not questioning his patriotism. I am, but that's because I'm a Viet Nam vet who is pissed at John Fonda Kerry for stabbing in the back the soldiers he left behind in Viet Nam. No, the RRWAM (A subsidiary of the VRWC) is questioning his voting record while in the Senate. He has voted against every major defense system. Pointing that out is not questioning his patriotism. It's saying that he is weak on defense. It's only you people on the left who somehow equate being weak on defense as being unpatriotic.

That honorable definition may be returning to vogue as the war in Iraq grows increasingly unpopular. According to a New York Times/CBS poll, nearly half the country now questions the wisdom of the war. And nearly half -- 46 percent -- believe U.S. troops should come home as soon as possible.

And that's what you fucking liberals want isn't it? You want us to leave Iraq with our tails between our legs, like we left Somalia when the draft dodger was running things. Then you can continue on with your dream of making the United States a multicultural socialist utopia. Well fuck that! We are fighting WWIV and you liberals who have been on the wrong side of history since WWII are on the wrong side of history again. Because of you assholes it took us 40 years to win the Cold War (WWIII), and if you have your way it will take us 40 years to win the war on terror. The only problem now, is the terrorists are bringing the war to us. How many more innocent Americans will have to die before you fucking liberals realize what we are fighting?

But, in public at least, Bush seems almost obscenely serene about his decision to send young Americans to die by the hundreds in Iraq. Never mind that he avoided combat in the relative safety of a National Guard "champagne unit" that sheltered other sons of the wealthy and well-connected.

Yep! Let's bring up Bush's National Guard service again. He served. Clinton didn't. But it was OK for Clinton to send Marines to Haiti. It was OK for him to send troops to Kosovo who by the way, were only supposed to be there for a year. And another thing. We people on the right didn't dance with glee when American military men died on Clinton's watch. You assholes on the left just love it when an American soldier dies. Look at how the left reacted to Pat Tillman's death. You have a new poster boy in Rene Gonzales. When's he gonna run for Congress? He'd fit in perfectly with Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Lee.

His vice-president, Dick Cheney, is similarly self-righteous, though he had "other priorities" during the Vietnam era. Perhaps it is mere coincidence that his wife, Lynne Cheney, gave birth to their first child exactly nine months and two days after the Selective Service lifted its ban against drafting childless married men.

Once again, why is that an issue? We had a draft dodger as a president for eight years. Viet Nam service is not a requirement to be in gummint anymore. You assholes said that back in 1992. I am so sick of this bullshit!

Kerry, by contrast, has seen the waste of war up close. After the combat death of his close friend, Dick Pershing, in 1968, he wrote a letter to the girlfriend who would become his first wife, Judy: "If I do nothing else in my life I will never stop trying to bring to people the conviction of how wasteful and asinine is a human expenditure of this kind."

Give peace a chance. Kumbaya. What are you gonna say when some fanatic asshole sets off a biological bomb in a big city? What are you gonna say when there is another aircraft hijacking? There will be since clueless Minetta is trying to be oh so politically correct. Let's frisk little old ladies since it is not politically correct to take extra precautions with men of Middle Eastern origin. Tell me again, how many little old ladies took part in 9/11?

Goddamit! We're in a war, and people like Cynthia Tucker (Who is fast becoming the black Molly Ivins) wants to put in charge of the war someone who has spent his entire career in the senate trying to gut the military. And no, I am not saying John Fonda Kerry is unpatriotic by doing so. I'm saying he is a socialist asshole who cannot be trusted with national security.

If you liberals think that's calling him unpatriotic that's too fucking bad! If the shoe fits ...

Redneck Plumbing

Hello Earline? Is that you?

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

I have seen this many times on the internet. This latest was sent to me by Mark. In reading this I see honor and dedication that people like Rene Gonzales, Ted Kennedy, and Bill Clinton could never understand.

The following was forwarded by Col Chris Giaimo, USAF (Ret), Director,
MOAA Council and Chapter Affairs:


TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER

Interesting facts about the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the Sentinels
of the Third United States Infantry Regiment "Old Guard"

1. How many steps does the guard take during his walk across the tomb of
the Unknowns and why?

21 steps. It alludes to the twenty-one gun salute, which is the highest
honor given any military or foreign dignitary.

2. How long does he hesitate after his about face to begin his return walk
and why?

21 seconds, for the same reason as answer number 1.

3. Why are his gloves wet?

His gloves are moistened to prevent his losing his grip on the rifle.

4. Does he carry his rifle on the same shoulder all the time, and if not,
why not?

No, he carries the rifle on the shoulder away from the tomb. After his
march across the path, he executes an about face and moves the rifle to the
outside shoulder.

5. How often are the guards changed?

Guards are changed every thirty minutes, twenty-four hours a day, 365 days
a year.

6. What are the physical traits of the guard limited to?

For a person to apply for guard duty at the tomb, he must be between 5'
10" and 6' 2" tall and his waist size cannot exceed 30".

Other requirements of the Guard:

They must commit 2 years of life to guard the tomb, live in a barracks
under the tomb, and cannot drink any alcohol on or off duty FOR THE REST OF
THEIR LIVES. They cannot swear in public FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES and
cannot disgrace the uniform {fighting} or the tomb in any way.

After TWO YEARS, the guard is given a wreath pin that is worn on their
lapel signifying they served as guard of the tomb. There are only 400
presently worn. The guard must obey these rules for the rest of their lives
or give up the wreath pin.

The shoes are specially made with very thick soles to keep the heat and
cold from their feet. There are metal heel plates that extend to the top of
the shoe in order to make the loud click as they come to a halt. There are
no wrinkles, folds or lint on the uniform. Guards dress for duty in front
of a full-length mirror.

The first SIX MONTHS of duty a guard cannot talk to anyone, nor watch TV.
All off duty time is spent studying the 175 notable people laid to rest in
Arlington National Cemetery. A guard must memorize who they are and where
they are interred. Among the notables are: President Taft, Joe E. Lewis
{the boxer} and Medal of Honor winner Audie Murphy, {the most decorated
soldier of WWII} of Hollywood fame. Every guard spends FIVE HOURS A DAY
getting his uniforms ready for guard duty.

The Sentinels Creed:
My dedication to this sacred duty is total and wholehearted. In the
responsibility bestowed on me never will I falter. And with dignity and
perseverance my standard will remain perfection. Through the years of
diligence and praise and the discomfort of the elements, I will walk my
tour in humble reverence to the best of my ability. It is he who commands
the respect I protect. His bravery that made us so proud. Surrounded by
well meaning crowds by day alone in the thoughtful peace of night, this
soldier will in honored glory rest under my eternal vigilance.

More Interesting facts about the Tomb of the Unknowns itself:

The marble for the Tomb of the Unknowns was furnished by the Vermont
Marble Company of Danby, Vt. The marble is the finest and whitest of
American marble, quarried from the Yule Marble Quarry located near Marble,
Colorado and is called Yule Marble. The Marble for the Lincoln memorial and
other famous buildings was also quarried there.

The Tomb consists of seven pieces of rectangular marble:
Four pieces in sub base; weight A- 15 tons;
One piece in base or plinth; weight A- 16 tons;
One piece in die; weight A- 36 tons;
One piece in cap; weight A- 12 tons;
Carved on the East side (the front of the Tomb, which faces Washington,
D.C.) is a composite of three figures, commemorative of the spirit of the
Allies of World War I.
In the center of the panel stands Victory (female).
On the right side, a male figure symbolizes Valor.
On the left side stands Peace, with her palm branch to reward the devotion
and sacrifice that went with courage to make the cause of righteousness
triumphant.
The north and south sides are divided into three panels by Doric
pilasters. In each panel is an inverted wreath.
On the west, or rear, panel (facing the Amphitheater) is inscribed:

HERE RESTS IN HONORED GLORY AN AMERICAN SOLDIER KNOWN BUT TO GOD

The first Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was a sub base and a base or plinth.
It was slightly smaller than the present base. This was torn away when the
present Tomb was started Aug. 27, 1931. The Tomb was completed and the area opened to the public 9:15 a.m. April 9, 1932, without any ceremony.

Cost of the Tomb: $48,000
Sculptor: Thomas Hudson Jones
Architect: Lorimer Rich
Contractors: Hagerman & Harris, New York City
Inscription: Author Unknown

(Interesting Commentary)

The Third Infantry Regiment at Fort Myer has the responsibility for
providing ceremonial units and honor guards for state occasions, White
House social functions, public celebrations and interments at Arlington
National Cemetery and standing a very formal sentry watch at the Tomb of
the Unknowns.

The public is familiar with the precision of what is called "walking post"
at the Tomb. There are roped off galleries where visitors can form to
observe the troopers and their measured step and almost mechanically,
silent rifle shoulder changes. They are relieved every hour in a very
formal drill that has to be seen to be believed.

Some people think that when the Cemetery is closed to the public in the
evening that this show stops. First, to the men who are dedicated to this
work, it is no show. It is a "charge of honor." The formality and precision
continues uninterrupted all night. During the nighttime, the drill of
relief and the measured step of the on-duty sentry remain unchanged from
the daylight hours. To these men, these special men, the continuity of this
post is the key to the honor and respect shown to these honored dead,
symbolic of all unaccounted for American combat dead. The steady rhythmic
step in rain, sleet, snow, hail, heat and cold must be uninterrupted.
Uninterrupted is the important part of the honor shown.

Recently, while you were sleeping, the teeth of hurricane Isabel came
through this area and tore hell out of everything. We had thousands of
trees down, power outages, traffic signals out, roads filled with downed
limbs and "gear adrift" debris. We had flooding and the place looked like
it had been the impact area of an off-shore bombardment.

The Regimental Commander of the U.S. Third Infantry sent word to the
nighttime Sentry Detail to secure the post and seek shelter from the high
winds, to ensure their personal safety.

THEY DISOBEYED THE ORDER!

During winds that turned over vehicles and turned debris into projectiles,
the measured step continued. One fellow said "I've got buddies getting shot
at in Iraq who would kick my butt if word got to them that we let them
down. I sure as hell have no intention of spending my Army career being
known as the damned idiot who couldn't stand a little light breeze and
shirked his duty." Then he said something in response to a female
reporter's question regarding silly purposeless personal risk... "I
wouldn't expect you to understand. It's an enlisted man's thing." God bless
the rascal... In a time in our nation's history when spin and total b.s.
seem to have become the accepted coin-of-the-realm, there beat hearts - the
enlisted hearts we all knew and were so damn proud to be a part of - that
fully understand that devotion to duty is not a part-time occupation. While
we slept, we were represented by some damn fine men who fully understood
their post orders and proudly went about their assigned responsibilities
unseen, unrecognized and in the finest tradition of the American Enlisted
Man. Folks, there's hope. The spirit that George S. Patton, Arliegh Burke
and Jimmy Doolittle left us ... survives.

On the ABC evening news, it was reported recently that, because of the
dangers from Hurricane Isabel approaching Washington, DC, the military
members assigned the duty of guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier were
given permission to suspend the assignment. They refused. "No way, Sir!"

Soaked to the skin, marching in the pelting rain of a tropical storm, they
said that guarding the Tomb was not just an assignment; it was the highest
honor that can be afforded to a service person. The tomb has been patrolled
continuously, 24/7, since 1930.

Very, very proud of our soldiers in uniform!

Saturday Boobage

Blue is my favorite color.