Thanks

Earlier today this site (according to Site Meter) got its 400 thousandth hit. I would have turned it earlier, but Site Meter lost two weeks worth of data. But, then, it is free and with free stuff you get what you pay for. According to the stats on my hosting service, which I beleive to be more accurate, I am up over a million. This only reflects from December of 2002. I was on Blowspot before then. That site is still up and it has over 26,000 hits as of today.

I started blogging about the same time that Kim du Toit and Rachel Lucas did. They're both wee over one million. Unfortunately, I am not as talented as either of them. Also, I have had only one Instalanche and that was on my old site. But from that Instalanche I met Kim du Toit and picked up readers Addison and Ralph Gizzup. I also went on Daily Pundit's blogroll. Rachel Lucas and Kim du Toit put me on their blogroll also. That's when she had a blogroll.

I have been doing this for over 2.5 years and I still enjoy it. At this time I would like to thank all my readers and all my commenters and that includes Robin and Matthew. Robin and Matthew are both bright people who have been indoctinated with socialist ideas during their educational experiences. I'm hoping that we can change their views.

I would also like to thank all the people who have blogrolled me.

And what would I do if I didn't have people who send me all the links, cartoons, jokes, and puns like the Barbaras, Greg, Woody, Charlieb, Matt, Catfish, and Airboss. I will buy a gun this year. Honest!

I have made many new friends blogging. There are too many to name, but a few are Addison, Kim du Toit, Pumpman, Catfish, Airboss, Kelley, Jessica, Key, Jim at SOTW, Eric, Jim from New Jersey, Velociman, and the list goes on. These are just the people I have met in person. Yeah. Yeah. I should have had links for these, but they are all over there on the blogroll.

There are others, Like Rachel Lucas, whom I have only met electronically. I owe Rachel a lot since she is the one who moved me off Blowspot and installed MT for me and built my site. I just wish she had been at Kim's birthday party so I could have met her in person.

This year is almost over and I want to wish everyone best wishes for a good 2005. I will probably reveal the true name of TCIDNN (The Company I Dare Not Name) sometime in January.

Airboss supplied a New Year's Boobage for Sturday Boobage.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Clinton's Book

How did I miss these?

Dear Sandy

It's the last Thursday of 2004 so I figgered I would publish another Fax From Babs.

To: Cynthia McKinley, Congressthingie from Alabama
From: Barbra Streisand

Dear Sandy:

Hey girlfriend! You're back and I am so pleased. We need more liberals like you in Congress. I am so glad the people of Mississippi sent you back to the Senate. I'm hoping that we can elect more people like you next year in the next elections and we can elect Helen Clinton in three more years.

I've been waiting to hear you speak out about that horrible sununu that happened over in Asia. You took that horrible Busch to task on allowing 9/11 to happen so his buddies at Holiburton could make a lot of money. Now you need to speak up about how stingy our country has been in supplying aid money. All the European countries like France ( $177,00 so far - GOC) are giving lots more money than we are and that's a disgrace. Maybe Mickey More can make a movie about it called Sununu 911. I'd suggest it to him, but he keeps hanging up on me.

I really think the sununu was a result of global warming. All Bush had to do was sign that Tokyo Treaty, like Bill Clinton did, and have the House ratify it and it would have saved all those people in Australia. (When Bill Clinton signed the Kyoto Treaty, the Senate voted against it 98-0 - GOC)

And if we had elected John Carey and that cute Jim Edwards, cripples would walk again. Edwards said that and I know that he would never lie to us like our current unelected president. I know that there was massive voter fraud in Iowa. All we have to do is keep recounting the votes, like they did in the Oregon governor's race and eventually we will win. It takes at least three recounts to overcome the Republican voter fraud.

I'm really worried that there is going to be a draft so we can fight that stupid war in Iran. Everyone knows it is all about oil. It has nothing to do with catching Obama been Loading. If only we didn't have to put up with all those stupid people in the red states who voted for those evil Republicans. Renfield really needs to be fired.

You live in a red state but were still able to get elected so that shows that there are some smart people in Arkansas.

I'm really looking forward to you expressing your opinions. Maybe you can appear on Earl Franklin's show on that liberal radio network. I can't remember the name because I haven't been able to find it in Los Angelos where I live.

Give 'em hell Ms McKinley!

Luv ya,
Babs

A Real SOB

Good News, Bad News

First the bad news. Cynthia McKinney is my congresscritter. That means I have to put up with two years of having the most annoying member of the House of Representatives in my district. Jihad Cindy is even more annoying than Maxine Waters and Sheila Jackson Lee.

Now the good news. I will have a wealth of material for the next two years. Supposedly she's learned her lesson about shooting off her big fat mouth but I'll bet she hasn't.

Tha Atlanta Urinal and Constipation which excoriated her two years ago and was instrumental in her losing the Dimocrat pirmary is now positively gushing over her.

Cynthia McKinney won back her congressional seat in Georgia's 4th District this year by doing what she didn't do when she lost it two years ago: avoiding intemperate rhetoric and focusing on local concerns.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Give her time. I bet two weeks after she's sworn in (if not sooner) she'll be in full moonbat mode.

"It's a new day, y'all," McKinney shouted to supporters on election night.

Yep! Welcome back to Loony Land. A land where all whites are racists and all Jews are bad.

But as she prepares to return to Congress next week, there are indications that things won't be so new and different for one of Congress' most outspoken critics of the Bush administration and most passionate defenders of the poor and minority rights.

See what I mean about gushing. "defenders of the poor" Actually she is for policies that keep the poor on the public teat. Majette was every bit as liberal as Cindy but at least she wasn't a loudmouth and an embarrassment.

Remember this?

"We now know that there were enough warnings prior to Sept. 11 that we didn't even have to experience Sept. 11 at all," McKinney said on Pacifica Radio, sparking a national uproar and drawing criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike.

Think she's changed?

"People can't help thinking about me when they hear about Richard Clarke," McKinney told From the Wilderness, an Internet publisher, in April, referring to the former White House intelligence officer who publicly confirmed pre-9/11 intelligence lapses and described a rush to war by the administration.

Is that the same Richard Clarke who has changed his story multiple times?

Yet, while McKinney talked about 9/11 at out-of-state appearances this year, she kept her election campaign focused on landfills near DeKalb neighborhoods and congestion on local roads.

Did you know that there is a road in her district called Cynthia McKinney Parkway?

Denise Majette, who defeated McKinney in 2002, ran for the U.S. Senate seat Zell Miller vacated rather than re-election to the House.

Majette said that God told her to run. God must have a real good sense of humor since Majette got clobbered and we got stuck with Cindy for two more years.

"The people of DeKalb and that district will be No. 1 for her, I believe, but she will always be Cynthia," Brooks said. "She will be there to speak to the issues of the poor and the downtrodden. And she'll be challenging Congress and the administration."

In other words she will shoot off her big fat mouth and be the loose cannon she has always been.

"There'll be no difference," her father, former state Rep. Billy McKinney, said flatly.

Billy (who once pulled a knife on another representative on the Georgia House floor) trained her well. This is the man who said the night before she lost the primary in 2002 that it was the Jews, J-E-W-S, who were behind her loss. Like father, like daughter.

"While she was out of office, she spoke all over the country and all over Europe," he said. "She was in great demand. That's because she spoke truth to power. . . . The 4th District put her back in office for that same reason."

Just like Michael Moore. If there was a gathering of people who hated America, Jihad Cindy was there. I'm hoping the 4th District put her back in office because they thought she had changed her ways, but, then, the 4th District is a majority black district and she was the most prominant black running. And just to set the story straight, it wasn't crossover Republicans in Dunwoody responsible for her loss in 2002. It was middle class blacks in the 4th District who threw her out.

"Losing a primary after a decade of service typically means the end of a career," said Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution in Washington.

If God hadn't told Majette to run for the Senate it probably would have meant the end of Cindy's career. Now you know why I'm an atheist. A compassionate God would not have done sumpin' like that. That's just mean.

And those who do make a comeback typically run at the urging of their party's leaders, something that didn't happen in McKinney's case.

They are tired of her bullshit too. Her loud mouth is gonna cost them votes in the future.

"She's one of the lone voices who offers an opposing view on many questions," said William Boone, a political science professor at Clark Atlanta University.

McKinney's critics, he said, "all think that she's some person who's so far out there and doesn't have a firm grasp of reality. That's totally wrong,"

I would disagree with that.

The article goes on with more bullshit. It's hard to believe that this is the same newspaper that savaged her two years ago, but then, this is the Atlanta Urinal and Constipation.

How Was Your Day?

I'm Back

Sorry my site was unavailable yesterday. My domain registration expired and needed to be renewed. My hosting service took care of it this morning.

I'm also back at GOC Central which means I have access to my pictures so I should resume posting pictures of cats (or as Richard calls them, pussy pictures) and bad taste pictures.

Gotta get the house ready for my cleaning lady and then go down to Shepherd and work out. Normal posting will resume when I return.

Stay Home You Whining Maggots

As you know, I don't link much but Ron sent me this link that shows there are some Canadians who have some sense. Just remember on Kim du Toit's proposed map of the new United States, Calgary is with us.

Here's an excerpt:

In the wake of the U.S. presidential election -- in which I cheerfully took a Sun assistant city editor, who figured Senator John Kerry couldn't lose, for $10 (a quick pause to gloat here) Americans disenchanted with President George W. Bush's re-election romp back into the White House, continue to deluge the Canadian immigration website.

How anybody can be unhappy with the president's re-election is beyond me.

Bush has my admiration in no small part because he manages to simultaneously annoy France and Germany, not to mention those renowned deep, geopolitical thinkers, the Dixie Chicks, Bruce Springsteen, P-Diddy or whatever he's calling himself now, Gwynneth Paltrow and Ben Affleck.

Thanks to Ron for the link.

Last Day At Lake Carolina

Sunday night the weather report said that there was a good chance of sleet, freezing rain, or snow. Columbia was supposed to get 1 to 3 inches of snow. Fortunately Ryan's (my brother-in-law) mother who came down from Rock Hill for Christmas dinner was spending the night. When we got up the next morning all we had was sleet.

Ryan and Sherry took his mother to the mall to buy her Christmas present. I vegged out and read. I then watched the Falcons lose and Carolina win.

We had leftovers for dinner.

Ryan and I watched the Sunday night NFL game. It really sucked. Sorry Ralph, but the Browns really suck this year.

Today (Monday) we drove over to Boykins on the Mill to get some grits for Ryan. He is a genuine Southerner. He grew up in Westville South Carolina. Anyway, Boykins was closed. Kershaw County got hit real bad by freezing rain. The trees were coated with ice. It was really beautiful. The people who lost power from broken branches falling on power lines probably had a different opinion.

Tonight we went to a real nice Italian restaurant called Travinia. It was good and very inexpensive.

Tomorrow I'm driving back to GOC Central where I can return to being my grouchy old self.

See ya then.

Monday Pun 12-27-2004

These are late Christmas puns from Richard.

What do you call people who are afraid of Santa Claus?
Claustrophobic.

What did the Gingerbread Man put on his bed?
A cookie sheet!

Who sings "Love Me Tender," and makes Christmas toys?
Santa's little Elvis.

Which of Santa's reindeer needs to mind his manners?
"Rude"olph

What reindeer has the cleanest antlers?
Comet

Drunks In The Senate

There was an article in the Sunday South Carolina newspaper, The State this morning about Senator Foghorn Leghorn Hollings.

In his farewell speech last month, U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings recalled his early days in Washington, when a good slice of the Senate was alcoholic.

Today, the retiring South Carolina Democrat said, “there is nobody drunk in the United States Senate.”

I guess he hasn't observed Ted "the swimmer" Kennedy, (D as in drunk), from the Peoples' Republic of Taxachusetts.

Known perhaps as much for his irreverent jibes and impenetrable Lowcountry drawl as for his crusades against budget deficits, Hollings is among the last of a dying breed in Washington — the funny, quirky senator.

But were we laughing with him or at him?

“They’re all so serious now,” agreed Warren Tompkins, a Columbia-based Republican political consultant. “With all the political correctness that exists today, you really can’t afford to be a little flippant and take yourself less than seriously.”

Speaking of political correctness, if you were a former member of the KKK, but were a Dimocrat, you could say "nigger" on national TV and get away with it. Ol' Foghorn got away with a few politically incorrect words also. But then, he is a Dimocrat.

After reading this article it seems The State prefers characters to senators who will actually take their jobs seriously. Oh wait! The article was written by someone in their Washington bureau. Now I understand.

A Reminder From Airboss

Airboss sent me this link to remind me to get my concealed carry permit.

Christmas Spirit

On Christmas Eve my sister, Sherry, her husband Ryan, and I went to a party at one of their neighbors'. Sherry told Ryan and me that we had to be on our best behavior and don't talk politics! It seems our hostess is from the Peoples Republic of Taxachusetts and Sherry thinks that she might be a Dimocrat. Horrors!

It turns out we didn't have to worry about our hostess. We did have to put up with the LMB (Loud Mouth Bitch).

Our hostess had put out a real nice spread with roast beef for sandwiches, chicken wings, veggies with dip, fruit, and shrimp. Yummy!

I was calmly drinking wine and eating shrimp when all of a sudden my ears were assaulted with ranting from the LMB about Turkey joining the European Union. She was against it, I guess, because her husband (a rather mousey fellow) was Greek. I pointed out (very calmly I might add) that it wasn't likely to happen and even if it did, it would only weaken the EU which is good for us. Anyway, the EU is doomed because France wants to run it. BWAHAHAHAHA!

She kept on ranting so I went back to drinking wine and eating shrimp and tried to ignore her. Fat chance!

The next thing I know she's going on about the war. The first thing she said was there was gonna be a draft and if it happened she was gonna send her two sons to Canada. We could only hope that she would go with them.

I very calmly asked her who had introduced the two draft bills in Congress? Correct answer: Charles Rangel in the House and Ernest Foghorn Leghorn Hollings in the Senate. Both Dimocrats. Ryan also pointed out that the current Army doesn't want draftees. He's more of an authority on that than the LMB. His son is in the Army. It didn't matter to her. Bush was gonna have a draft. Remembering what my sister had made me promise, I just shut up and went back to drinking wine and eating shrimp.

Good wine. Good shrimp.

Somewhere along the line, the LMB claimed that she was a moderate. Yeah and Bill Clinton is honest and celibate.

And how could she be a good "moderate" if she didn't mention Haliburton. Holy crap! She's getting her talking points from the "moderate" wing of the Dimocrat Party. She also stated that thousands (Yep! she said thousands) of our soldiers were dying in Iraq.

I'm still sitting there with my mouth closed except when I'm putting in shrimp or veggie dip and sipping wine.

Good wine. Good veggie dip.

Then she said how much she hated living amongst bible thumpers who wanted to control women's bodies. At that time Ryan almost said sumpin' about how the South Carolina bible thumpers were his people. He was born and raised in South Carolina. I thought of the old Lewis Grizzard line about Yankees who complained about Southerners: Delta is ready when you are.

It is hard to believe, but neither Ryan nor I got into an argument with this booger eatin' moh-ron.

That was true Christmas Spirit.

By the way, did I tell you how good the food and wine was?

Christmas Boobage

Here is a special Saturday Boobage for Christmas. I posted this sometime in the past as a quiz as to which were real and which were fake. I don't know the answers but who cares. Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas Pumpman

Knowing how much Pumpman likes cats, this is my Christmas greeting to him. Ain't they cute? Thanks to Charlieb.

Ya gotta click on the picture to get the right effect.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all my readers. To those of you who are offended by anyone saying Merry Christmas, please observe where the mistletoe is in the following picture.

Do you get the hint?

Holiday Eating Tips

From Pres.

Holiday Eating Tips

1. Avoid carrot sticks. Anyone who puts carrots on a holiday buffet
table knows nothing of the Christmas spirit. In fact, if you see
carrots, leave immediately. Go next door, where they're serving
rum balls.

2. Drink as much eggnog as you can. And quickly. Like fine single-malt
scotch, it's rare. In fact, it's even rarer than single-malt scotch. You
can't find it any other time of year but now. So drink up! Who cares
that it has 10,000 calories in every sip? It's not as if you're going to
turn into an eggnog-aholic or something. It's a treat. Enjoy it. Have
one for me. Have two. It's later than you think. It's Christmas!

3. If something comes with gravy, use it. That's the whole point of
gravy. Gravy does not stand alone.Pour it on. Make a volcano out of
your mashed potatoes. Fill it wit gravy. Eat the volcano. Repeat.

4. As for mashed potatoes, always ask if they're made with skim milk or
whole milk. If it's skim, pass. Why bother? It's like buying a sports car
with an automatic transmission.

5. Do not have a snack before going to a party in an effort to
control your eating. The whole point of going to a Christmas
party is to eat other people's food for free. Lots of it. Hello?

6. Under no circumstances should you exercise between now and
New Year's. You can do that in January when you have nothing
else to do. This is the time for long naps, which you'll need after
circling the buffet table while carrying a 10-pound plate of food
and that vat of eggnog.

7. If you come across something really good at a buffet table, like
frosted Christmas cookies in the shape and size of Santa, position
yourself near them and don't budge. Have as many as you can before
becoming the center of atttention. They're like a beautiful pair of shoes.
If you leave them behind, you're never going to see them again.

8. Same for pies. Apple. Pumpkin. Mincemeat. Have a slice of each. Or,
if you don't like mincemeat, have two apples and one pumpkin. Always
have three. When else do you get to have more than one dessert?
Labor Day?

9. Did someone mention fruitcake? Granted, it's loaded with the
mandatory celebratory calories, but avoid it at all cost. I mean,
have some standards.

10. One final tip: If you don't feel terrible when you leave the party
or get up from the table, you haven't been paying attention.
Reread tips; start over, but hurry, January is just around the corner.

Remember this motto to live by:
"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of
arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather
to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, martini in the other, body
thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a
ride!"

The Twelve Cats Of Christmas

I know Pumpman will like this one, even tho' I posted it for my sister. I did not write this. It was sent to me by a friend.

Bah! Humbug!

Catfish sent me this.

Wait until my sister finds out that I didn't put up my tree this year.

Sequels And Remakes

Ya wanna know what really burns my ass? A flame about three feet high. No, seriously, it's sequels and remakes.

Hollywood is really good at this bullshit.

"Hey, we made a lot of money on Police Academy. Let's make about twenty sequels to it."

Why would anyone want to see a sequel to Porky's?

Short Circuit was a funny movie. Short Circuit 2 sucked.

Every now and then Hollywood does a good job on a sequel. Aliens was actually better than Alien. Alien3 sucked! Ripley just finished killing a bunch of aliens and won a cat fight with a queen alien. Now you're gonna have a bald Ripley deal with just one again? What rocket scientist came up with that idea? Alien Resurrection? Puh-lease! Give it a rest!

I'm sick of the Terminator franchise. Terminator. Good movie. Terminator 2 and Ah-nold is a good guy. Why didn't they send the super cyborg back to kill Sarah in Terminator instead of that obsolete Ah-nold model? Better yet, why didn't they send the babe cyborg from T3? C'mon. How many times can you have robots chasing humans? And if the machines could make babe robots, how did they lose the war? Get some new writers and have them develop some new plots.

Loved the Matrix. The only part of Matrix Reloaded I liked is when they are trying to get the Keymaker out. The rest of the movie sucked. I've only seen parts of Matrix Revolutions.

And remakes. Why remake a movie that was really good in the first place? The original Thomas Crown Affair was much better than the remake. If you haven't seen the original you should. And to add insult to injury, Rene Russo has ugly tits. They should have left the boobage shot out.

I haven't seen the remake of Oceans Eleven. It probably isn't as good as the original. Remakes seldom are.

It's Christmas. Is there gonna be another version of A Christmas Carol? How many versions of that are there? Jesus! Everyone knows the story. Why keep making different versions of it?

I think there are two versions of Miracle on 34th Street. We're probably due for another one. I'm surprised they haven't remade It's a Wonderful Life. I have a confession to make. I'm probably the only person in the United States who hasn't seen that film.

Now on to books. I loved Dune. The sequels sucked. Herbert hit the big time with Dune and decided to cash in by writing bullshit.

I read a real neat book by Nancy Kress called Beggars in Spain. My sister told me there were sequels. I shouldn't have read them. They sucked.

Riverworld went on and on and on and on.

The Cities in Flight series by James Blish was good except for the last one.

The Honor Harrington series by David Weber is primo. Think of a female Horatio Hornblower in the future as a starship captain.

Isaac Asimov was good on sequels. The foundation trilogy is a prime example of that. Ditto the Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun.

Speaking of Asimov, I am reading an anthology called the Science Fiction Century that has fiction by writers who are supposed to be the best science fiction writers of the 20th Century. Notable by their absence are Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and Arthur C. Clark. Huh? How can you put together a science fiction anthology of the 20th Century and not have those three in it. Nancy Kress is in it. Isaac Asimov isn't. There are other writers that I have never heard of in it. Heinlein and Clark aren't.

So let's summarize. Movie sequels usually suck. Remakes are seldom as good as the originals. Some book sequels are good. Some suck. A good stand alone novel like Dune should have remained a stand alone novel.

By the way, Lord of the Rings sucks also. I think Kim du Toit and I are the only ones who weren't able to even make it through the first book. I've seen parts of the movies. Liv Tyler is a babe. They did a good job with Golum. Frito and Dildo suck.

But that's just my opinion.

I'm seldom wrong.

Monday Pun 12-20-2004

Since It's almost Christmas, here are a whole big bunch of groaners sent to me by my friend Gwen.

ETERNAL QUESTIONS TO PONDER:

If you take an Asian person and spin him around several times, does he
become disoriented?

If people from Poland are called "Poles," why aren't people from Holland
called "Holes?

When cheese gets its picture taken, what does it say?

Why are a wise man and a wise guy opposites?

Why do overlook and oversee mean opposite things?

If horrific means to make horrible, does terrific mean to make terrible?

If 99 is Ninety Nine and 22 is Twenty two, why isn't 11 pronounced onety one?

Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?

Why is a person who plays the piano called a pianist, but a person who
drives a race car not called a racist?

If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?

Why do women wear evening gowns to nightclubs? Shouldn't they be wearing
night gowns?

If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?

When someone asks you, "A penny for your thoughts," and you put your two
cents in, what happens to the other penny?

Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?

Why do croutons come in airtight packages? It's just stale bread to
begin with.

If you mixed vodka with orange juice and milk of magnesia, would you get
a Philips Screwdriver?

Why do we say something is out of whack? What is a "whack"?

"I am" is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language.
Could it be that "I do" is the longest sentence?

If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn't it follow that
electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged,
models deposed, tree surgeons debarked and dry cleaners depressed?

Do Roman paramedics refer to IV's as "4's"?

Why is it that if someone tells you that there are 1 billion stars in
the universe you will believe them, but if they tell you that a wall has wet
paint you will have to touch it to be sure?

Getting Old

I'm starting (What? Only starting?) to feel old. I went to Michael and Cindy's for dinner and to exchange presents last night. As usual we drank three bottles of wine. We had two Champagnes and a 1995 Bordeaux that I supplied. I also give them a bottle of Delamain cognac every year so we had to have some of that also.

I'm a little pissed at the drop of the dollar versus the Euro. I can always buy California wine, and Michael finds me good values in French and Italian wines. Also, I bought some 2003 Bordeaux futures so I locked in a good price on them at the exchange rate when the futures price was set. 2003 is supposed to be a dynamite year for Bordeaux reds. The same weather that killed all those French people in the summer of 2003 was good for the grapes in Bordeaux. It was a win/win scenario.

So I can get wine from other places. Unfortunately, I can only get good cognac from France and as the dollar dropped in value, the price of Delamain went up. Arrrgggghhhh!

I wonder what's gonna happen to the French wine industry when they surrender to the Muslims and let them take over the country in another 30 years? Fortunately, I won't be around, but I sure would miss good French cognac.

When I got ready to leave Michael and Cindy's we had the normal game we play called See how many tries it takes Denny to get out of the chair. The last few times it has taken one or two tries. This time it took about 15. Those of you who attended the 2003 Jawja Blogfest in Helen got to watch a version of that game. In that version, I just stayed in that room, and Eric got to move into my room. Last night it was the two glasses of cognac that did me in.

Before I went to Michael and Cindy's, my sister called. Our cousin Rosemary, who is my sister's godmother, just had a stroke.

There are only three people left in my parents' generation and they are all on my mother's side. My father was the baby in his family. There might be some Freemans floating around in my father's generation. My great grandfather Cyrus Freeman had 19 children: twelve by his first wife, who is my great grandmother, and seven by his second wife. My grandmother was the ninth child in the first twelve.

We didn't even know about the Freemans until my sister starting doing genealogy research. We knew nothing about my father's side of the family. Now my sister has taken them way back, especially the Freemans. She can only take the Wilson branch back to the early 1800's. There were four John Wilsons in southern Missouri and she can't figger out which one is our great great great grandfather. I think I've got that right. Granfather - James Halleck Wilson. Great grandfather - John Alexander Wilson. Great great grandfather - William Neil Wilson. Great great great grandfather - John Wilson.

If I got that wrong, my sister will correct in in the comments. She has most of this stuff memorized.

Our cousin Rosemary, and her brother Russell, who's my godfather, and his wife Shirley, are the only ones we know who are in my parents' generation. They are all in their 80's but people in our family live long.

Rosemary has not been the same since my mother died. She and Mom were not just cousins, they were best friends. She and Mom went to line dancing together. They talked on the phone a lot. Russell always said that Mom and Rosemary could spend all day together, and then talk for two hours on the phone. Mom kept Rosemary active. Mom was a high energy person. I had trouble keeping up with her before I became a cripple.

Rosemary had to quit driving a few years before Mom died because she started having fainting spells. Mom drove her a lot of places. Hell, Mom drove lots of old ladies places. She was the only one who could still drive.

When Russell and Shirley sold their house and moved into an old folks apartment complex out in Valley Park, Rosemary lost another transportation option. She eventually sold her house and moved into a semi-assisted living complex. She hated it. In her house she would walk to church and talk to people along the way. Even though the facility she moved into was a Catholic facility (Rosemary is a devout Catholic. I always referred to her as Rosemary, the saint.), eventually she moved out to where Russell and Shirley live.

Rosemary's health has been failing for some time and I was not surpried at the stroke. We don't know how serious it is and I'm still going to South Carolina for Christmas, but Sherry and I might wind up going up to St. Louis if Rosemary gets worse.

Getting old really sucks.

Christmas Gifts For Men

For all of you women out there doing Christmas shopping for your male loved ones, and in some cases, your husbands, here is a tip on how to buy Christmas gifts for men. Needless to say, it was sent to me by a woman.

RULE #1:
When in doubt - buy him a cordless drill. It does not matter if he
already has one. I have a friend who owns 17 and he has yet to
complain. As a man, you can never have too many cordless drills.
No one knows why.

RULE #2:
If you cannot afford a cordless drill, buy him anything with the word
ratchet or socket in it. Men love saying those two words. "Hey
George, can I borrow your ratchet?" "OK. "By-the-way, are you through
with my 3/8-inch socket yet?" Again, no one knows why.

RULE #3:
If you are really, really broke, buy him anything for his car. A
99-cent ice scraper, a small bottle of deicer or something to hang
from his rear view mirror. Men love gifts for their cars. No one
knows why.

RULE #4:
Do not buy men socks. Do not buy men ties. And never buy men
bathrobes. I was told that if God had wanted men to wear bathrobes,
he wouldn't have invented Jockey shorts.

RULE #5:
You can buy men new remote controls to replace the ones they have worn
out. If you have a lot of money buy your man a big-screen TV with the
little picture in the corner. Watch him go wild as he flips, and flips,
and flips.

RULE #6:
Do not buy a man any of those fancy liqueurs. If you do, it will sit
in a cupboard for 23 years. Real men drink whiskey or beer.

RULE #7:
Do not buy any man industrial-sized canisters of after shave or
deodorant. I'm told they do not stink - they are earthy.

RULE #8:
Buy men label makers. Almost as good as cordless drills.
Within a couple of weeks there will be labels absolutely everywhere.
Socks. Shorts. Cups. Saucers. Door. Lock. Sink. You get the
idea. No one knows why.

RULE #9:
Never buy a man anything that says "some assembly required" on
the box. It will ruin his Special Day and he will always have parts
left over.

RULE #10:
Good places to shop for men include Northwest Iron Works, Parr Lumber,
Home Depot, John Deere, Valley RV Center, and Les Schwab Tire.
(NAPA Auto Parts and Sears' Clearance Centers are also excellent men's
stores. It doesn't matter if he doesn't know what it is. "From NAPA
Auto, eh? Must be something I need. Hey! Isn't this a starter for a
'68 Ford Fairlane? Wow! Thanks.")

RULE #11:
Men enjoy danger. That's why they never cook - but they will
barbecue. Get him a monster barbecue with a 100-pound propane tank.
Tell him the gas line leaks. "Oh the thrill! The challenge! Who
wants a hamburger?"

RULE #12:
Tickets to a Red Wing/Lions/Pistons/Tigers game are a smart gift.
However, he will not appreciate tickets to "A Retrospective of 19th
Century Quilts." Everyone knows why.

RULE #13:
Men love chainsaws. Never, ever, buy a man you love a chainsaw. If you
don't know why - please refer to Rule #8 and what happens when he gets a
label maker.

RULE #14:
It's hard to beat a really good wheelbarrow or an aluminum extension
ladder. Never buy a real man a step ladder. It must be an extension
ladder. No one knows why.

RULE #15:
Rope. Men love rope. It takes us back to our cowboy origins, or at
least The Boy Scouts. Nothing says love like a hundred feet of 3/8"
manila rope. No one knows why.

Saturday Boobage 12-18-2004

Helping out the tree, or maybe I should call it ornamental boobage. Thanks to Joe.

Joke Of The Day

Jimmah Carter is gonna supervise the Palestinian elections.

Other headlines:

Kofi Annan vows get to the bottom of the Oil For Food scandal.

Bill Clinton takes a vow of celibacy.

Michael Moore goes on a diet.

Barbra Streisand gets a brain.

Yassir Arafat is still dead.

News at 11:00.

Yet Another Reason

Another reason I hate being a cripple:

I have a low battery in one of my smoke detectors and the goddam thing keeps chirping at me. There's no way I can replace the damn thing. Aaarrrggghhhh!

Why Did They Lose?

I am having so much fun listening to the Dimocrats trying to figger out why they lost. Once of the best excuses I've heard so far is that they didn't package their message correctly. In other words, they didn't do a good job of lying. John Kerry was no Bill Clinton.

Let's look at how Dimocrats have done since Nixon.

Jimmah Carter won because of Watergate and Gerald Ford pardoning Nixon. Even so, Ford closed the gap and almost won. We saw what a success Jimmah Carter was. His mishandling of the Iranian hostage fiasco made the turbans think we could be had. I will also admit that Reagan pulling out of Beirut without a going away present was a mistake and also emboldened the turbans.

Reagan crushed Jimmah.

Mondale ran as a liberal. "I'm gonna raise your taxes." That was a winning strategy. Reagan crushed him.

Michael Dukakis ran as a liberal. The one time he tried to look strong on defense, he looked like Rocky the Flying Squirrel riding around in the tank. Bush crushed him.

That's when the Dimocratic Leadership Council was formed to try to pull the Dimocrat Party to the center. Clinton ran as a "New Dimocrat", and helped by Ross Perot, was able to garner 43% of the vote (hardly a mandate) and win the election.

Clinton immediately became an old Dimocrat by raising taxes, trying to implement a gays in the military policy (which I support by the way. Why should heterosexuals be the only ones dying for their country?), and attempting to nationalize health care. Clinton was the best thing that ever happened to the Republican Party. They captured Congress and should control it for the next twenty years.

Clinton got re-elected by running as a Republican. Imagine a Dimocrat supporting NAFTA and welfare reform. Even so, he only got 49% of the vote.

Algore got 49% of the vote and lost. Without the Clinton scandals he would have won going away. Thanks Monica!

So what have the Dimocrats learned? The smart ones have learned that they can run a liberal as a conservative and almost win. They just have to learn how to lie like a Clinton. Zell Miller has told them what they need to do. Fortunately for the Republicans, they probably won't listen. After all, Moveon.org has already stated that they have bought the Dimocrat Party and they better listen to them.

Fatboy (Michael Moore) has his opinion. From his website: (Italics are my comments -GOC)

Total members of Move On: More than 2,000,000
*Total Attendance at Vote for Change Concerts: An estimated 280,000
(Dude! I'm too fucking stoned to go vote!)
*Total Union Members in U.S.: Around 16,000,000
(And we know how union members are for high taxes, gun control and gay marriage)
*Total Number of People Who Have Seen “Fahrenheit 9/11”: Over 50 million
(The people who believe Farenheit 9/11 are too stupid to find their polling places. Ooops! I'm sounding like a Dimocrat. Calling the opposition stupid, but then anyone who believes Michael Moore's bullshit is stupid.)
*Total number of you reading this: Perhaps 10 million or more
(Total number of people laughing at this, at least one, me.)

He continues:

The days of trying to move the Democratic Party to the right are over. We lost a very close election (a one-state difference) by running the #1 liberal in the Senate. Not bad. The country is shifting in our direction, not to the right. But the country was attacked and people were scared. They were manipulated with fear. And America has never thrown a sitting president out during wartime. That’s the facts. Oh, and our candidate could have run a better campaign (but we’ll have that discussion another day).

But Kerry ran as a conservative not as a liberal. The centerpiece of his campaign was the Viet Nam War, which Mikey opposed. Had he run as the #1 liberal in the Senate he would have gotten clobbered. Ann Coulter says that both Dimocrats and Republicans run as conservatives. Republicans sometimes doublecross the voters, Dimocrats always do.

Mr. Creosote, Babs, and the moonbats at Moveon.org want the Dimocrat Party to move to the left not the center. The nice thing about that, if it happens, is we won't have to watch some liberal out goose hunting anymore.

Before the election I used to get pissed off at the conservatives telling the Dimocrats what they were doing wrong and how they could actually win elections. I was afraid the Dimocrats would listen and would indeed "package their message" better. I see I don't have to worry.

So go ahead Dims. Listen to Michael Moore, Babs, and Moveon.org. Here's what you should run on in 2008: Gun control, higher taxes, affirmative action, gay marriage, attacking the Boy Scouts, eliminating Christmas, unbridled socialism, weak defense, and socialized medicine.

And here's your dream team: Dennis Kucinich and Nancy Pelosi. The order doesn't matter.

Failure

Didja ever read the book or see the movie The Mouse That Roared? The premise of the book was a small country figgered out that it was very feasable financially to lose a war to the United States because unlike most countries that win wars, the United States always pays to rebuild the country and gives substantial aid, i.e. The Marshall Plan after World War II. Unfortunately, the small country inadvertantly won the war.

Contrast France after World War I which imposed harsh reparations on Germany (one of the causes of Hitler's rise to power) to the United States which paid massive amounts of money to rebuild post WWII Germany and Japan. This had an additional adverse economic effect on the United States in the area of steel production. The Europeans and Japan had more modern steel production facilities and could produce steel cheaper than United States steel companies that had older plants.

I bring this up to illustrate what is going on in Fallujah. Despite what the naysayers are preaching, the Fallujah operation was a military success. The only thing that would be considered a success by the liberals, other than the insurgents winning, would have been zero casualties.

As we know, according to Michael Moore, these insurgents are equivalent to our Minutemen. Yep! How fondly I recall being taught about the American Revolution and how the brave Minutemen at Lexington and Concord used ordinary Americans as human shields when fighting the British. And who could forget the beheadings by the Minutemen as they screamed "God is Great"?

The Romans knew how to take care of their enemies. When they defeated Carthage for the final time, they sold the inhabitants into slavery, razed the city, and sowed the ground with salt.

We are rebuilding Fallujah. We are giving grants to citizens to help rebuild the houses that were destroyed in the operation. The Romans would definitely not be proud of us.

I keep saying we're not too good with this empire shit. Haven't we stolen any oil yet? And when are we gonna start building that pipeline in Afghanistan? That's why we went to war there isn't it? That's what Michael Moore said. It's been three years. Why hasn't Haliburton been given that contract yet?

All the previous empires raped and looted the defeated countries. We spend money on them. WTF is going on here?

And what's with all these captives we take? After Caesar had conquered Gaul, a leader by the name of Vercingetorix arose and lead the Gauls in an insurrection. Vercingetorex was good, but he was no Caesar. Caesar quelled the uprising. One of the last towns he reconquered was Uxellodunum. Caesar didn't put up with any bullshit. He didn't put panties on the heads of the captured enemy. He cut off the hands of the warriors and sold the women and children into slavery. This was a message: Don't fuck with Caesar. The French have been pussies ever since.

We've come a long way. We rebuild the infrastructure. We build schools. We innoculate children.

Three years after overthrowing the Taliban, Afghanistan held their first ever election. Women were allowed to vote. Still no oil pipeline. Failure.

Iraq is gonna hold elections in January. Failure.

All this is happening faster than what happened at the end of WWII.

Liberals call this failure.

I wonder what they would consider a success?

Oh Crap!

Speaking of being soooo fucked.... Here is Social Security today.

Here is Social Security tomorrow.

Happy Birthday Sherry

Tomorrow, of if you are reading this on Wednesday, today is my sister's 62nd birthday. Do you know what that means? It means she can start collecting Social Security and she is not waiting until she is 65. She's starting immediately. And guess what else? She has done geneology on our family. Women, and some men (like my Uncle Pump who lived to be 92), live a long time in our family. I expect my sister to make it to 90. That means she is gonna collect Social Security for 28 years. Do you hear that Gen X and Gen Y? Y'all are gonna be giving her money for 28 years!

But I hear you say, "What about the Social Security Trust Fund? It's flush with money isn't it?"

Uh, no it is not. The Social Security Trust Fund is broke. There isn't any money there. It's all been spent. If you look in the lockbox you will find a piece of paper that says, "We owe you a whole big shit load of money. Signed, the Gummint."

Ya see, back during the Johnson Administration, the politicians (both Republicans and Dimocrats) thought it would be a good idea to mix the Social Security revenues with the other tax revenues to mask the size of the budget deficit. And it worked. During the Clinton administration, they even crowed about a budget surplus. Wrong! There was no surplus.

If a private organization were to set up sumpin' like Social Security the people running that organization would be hauled off to jail. It's already happened. Social Security is nothing but a Ponzi scheme that depends on new investors to make the payments to the old investors. As such, it needs even more new investors. Unfortunately, there aren't enough new investors to sustain the committments to the old investors.

There are only three things that can happen in the future to save Social Security in its present form:

1. Benefits will have to be cut or they will have to be delayed. Look for elegiblitiy to be pushed back to 70 and cost of living adjustments frozen. It's gonna happen even though AARP and the geezers will oppose it.

2. Taxes will have to be raised. Hear that Gen X and Gen Y? Your taxes are going up. You dumbfucks don't vote. Geezers do. Taxes are gonna go way up. I mean, to the moon, Alice!

3. A combination of 1 and 2.

Now the liberals, like those socialist asswipes at the Atlanta Urinal and Constipation and the socialists in the Dimocrat Party seem to think that all Social Security needs is a little tweaking. Yeah, and all I need is a little exercise and some stem cells and I'll be running marathons. The system is broke and the longer we delay trying to come up with a fix the worse the train wreck is gonna be and as it stands now ol' Casey Jones is heading for a world of hurt.

Can someone tell me why a pissant little country like Chile can scrap their Ponzi scheme system and introduce privatization and make it work but we refuse to do so?

But don't we have to honor all the existing people in the system? Yep, we do, and it will be expensive to do so, but no more expensive than not fixing the problem and less expensive than putting off the day of reckoning. We're only talking about taking approximately 1/3 of the money currently being contributed and allowing people to put that in 401K/IRA type accounts. If people do not want to do that, they can stay in the existing system. By the way, this would be money that the politicians would not be able to get their greedy hands on for vote buying schemes.

Social Security is broke. It cannot be "tweaked". It needs to be fixed.

By the way, I turn 62 in less than four more years. I'm gonna start hitting the system then. I'm gonna vote for higher Social Security taxes. So will my sister.

Gen X and Gen Y, you guys are soooo fucked!

My Monday

I got an e-mail from Airboss asking me if I had bought a gun yet. Nope. Haven't had time. You'd think that now that I've retired I would have a lot of time on my hands. Hasn't happened yet.

After I got back from attending Kim's birthday dinner in Dallas it was time to get ready for Thanksgiving. Then last week just seemed to go by and I don't know what happened to it.

Take today, for example. I got up and read the paper. The Atlanta Urinal and Constipation usually is good for at least one blog post a week. Reading the sports page this morning was a real joy since the Falcons clinched their division title. Yesterday was actually one of the few games that they actually looked like a good team. Most of their wins have been really ugly and they've only played two teams with a winning record and those were two of the teams that they actually beat. Their three loses were to teams with losing records.

After I read the paper I had to check out my mail and surf the web for a while looking for more material.

Then I drove down to Shepherd to start my workout regimen. I've decided to work out Monday, Wednesday and Friday and do mall walks on Tuesday and Thursday. While there I ran into Angie, the recreational therapist who usually goes on the dive trips with us and she's not gonna be able to go diving with us in February. Bummer!

Anyway, I worked out on the machines for about an hour. I'm glad I went in my wheelchair because when I stood up to put it in my truck my legs were really weak from the workout. I'm gonna use the mall walks to test my leg strength.

I got back from Shepherd and then it was off to the doctor's for my pre-screen for an upcoming colonoscopy. Ugh! Since they're gonna dope me up I need someone to take me to the procedure and give me a ride home. I called Cindy while I was in with the nurse to see what day she could take me, but she was in a meeting. We set it up for January 5. I called Cindy later, and she cannot get off that day so I have to reschedule.

Got home. Took a nap.

Got up and made supper.

Watched CSI on Spike.

Logged on. Read my mail.

Decided to write sumpin' short that wouldn't require any thinking. Voila! This post.

Now I'm off to answer an e-mail about the evils of Republicans controlling the three branches of gummint. I mean I would like to see a rational opposition party. One party controlling Congress and the other party controlling the presidency can lead to gridlock. Gridlock is good. Unfortunately, the Dimocrats do not fit the bill. As long as they are controlled by the Michael Moore/Barbra Streisand wing, giving them any power is tantamount to suicide.

Off I go.

Cheers!

Monday Pun 12-13-2004

Today's Monday Pun is a riddle sent to me by Nancy. Can you name this animal?

It's a dill-doe.

Doom And Gloom

The leading communist at the the Atlanta Urinal and Constipation, Cynthia Tucker, wrote in her column in Sunday's paper about how bad the situation is in Iraq.

Never underestimate the power of myth. It can solder broken resolve, fuel astounding acts of courage and overwhelm evidence and reason.

Or used by liberals it can weaken resolve and turn public opinion against the war on terror just like it did during the Viet Nam War. She continues:

It has also served to keep rank-and-file soldiers and their families back home squarely behind the president. Few soldiers or their families have publicly expressed doubts about the Iraqi mission, despite clear evidence of a con job --- from pre-war assurances they would be greeted as liberators to a post-invasion backdoor draft that will keep many overseas past their tours.

Dontcha just love these armchair general liberals? How many things do go right in war? Remember, these are the same people who said that Afghanistan would be a quagmire and there would be thousands upon thousands of refugees, not to mention all the body bags that would be needed for the thousands of American casualties. They've been remarkably quiet about the first elections ever held in Afghanistan.

They said the same thing about Iraq. There would be so many refugees from the war that any relief efforts by humanitarian organizations would be overwhelmed. Part of the reasons the families and the soldiers are behind the president is that they are hearing a different story than what Old Media is telling.

The latest bad news is the lack of armor for Humvees that was brought up by the soldier, who was coached by a news reporter (go figger).

War is unpredictable, but the idiots on the left think that the generals should have been prescient enough to predict the insurgency. This, of course, is the fault of Bush and Rumsfeld they say. Can you imagine if these dickheads had been around on December 16, 1944? This was the Germans' Ardennes Offensive, better known as the Battle of the Bulge. There were 81,000 American casualties, including 23,554 captured and 19,000 killed. I can just hear our current crop of leftists: I thought we were winning. The generals should have known about this. Fire Ike! Bring the troops home!

We've lost 1200 men and the chattering magpies on the left are trying to compare Iraq to Viet Nam. Cynthia continues.

Painful reality hits hard, too, when families see horribly maimed young men and women who will never recover anything resembling a normal life. While the numbers of war dead have been faithfully reported --- even as the Bush administration has deflected attention from them --- the number of casualties, closing in on 10,000, has gone little noticed.

Goes little noticed? Everytime I read an AP story about Iraq, it always has the number of men killed. Yes, I hate to see anyone killed but this war, by any standards, other than those used by liberals, has been an unqualified success. And I have heard from soldiers in Iraq, like my nephew, who have said what we have done to improve conditions in Iraq. The press does not want to talk about that. All they want to talk about is the insurgency going on in the Sunni Triangle.

And then she goes on about one of the wounded men.

The New England Journal of Medicine reports on one airman who survived even though he lost both legs, his right hand and part of his face. "How he and others like him will be able to live and function remains an open question," the article noted.

Howza 'bout Max Stumpy Cleland? He lost both of his legs and an arm. In his career he was head of the Veterans Administration, Georgia Secretary of State, and a United States Senator. And just recently he was John Fonda Kerry's mascot on the campaign trail. He also had a short stint as a postman trying to deliver a letter to the president.

And it wouldn't be a Cynthia Tucker column without the requisite class warfare.

These burdens are borne by a relatively small sliver of the American population --- the working class. Enlisted men and women tend to come from households earning between $32,000 and $33,500, according to a 1999 Defense Department study. (The median American income is $43,300.) The poorest of the poor don't go; neither do the affluent.

Maybe if the poorest of the poor did go, they would learn a trade. I learned electronics in the Navy. I also went to college on the GI Bill. My nephew, by the way, comes from a very affluent household. His parents, in retirement, earn more than the median American income. Pat Tillman was not a pauper. Anyway, what does it matter what class they come from. It is a volunteer military. The only thing missing from this column is the race card. I'm surprised she didn't say sumpin' about that.

It is downright weird that so many of them have been taken in by his story of a just war when their sons and daughters, husbands and wives --- not the scions of the wealthy --- are the ones paying the ultimate price for it.

This contradiction simply cannot hold much longer, and perhaps it won't have to. Bush may be planning to use the cover of January elections in Iraq to declare victory and leave --- whether the country is stable or not.

And that's what Cynthia, and Michael Moore, Barbra Streisand and the rest of the people on the left want us to do. Pack up and come home. After all, what we should have been doing from the start is asking "why do they hate us?" To them we need to determine the root cause of terrorism and address that. Then we can sit down with Osama bin Laden, Kim Yuk Foo from Korea, and the mad mullahs from Iran and sing Kumbaya.

All Cynthia is saying is, "Give peace a chance".

It worked for Viet Nam didn't it?

Count The People

Are their 12 people or are there 13? This was sent to me by Nancy.

Saturday Joke

This one's from Charlieb.

A Baptist minister was seated next to a Marine on a commercial airline flight. After the plane was airborne, drink orders were taken.

The Marine asked for a scotch and soda, which was promptly placed before him. The flight attendant then asked the minister if he would like a drink.

The minister replied in disgust, "I'd rather be savagely raped by brazen whores than let liquor touch my lips."

The Marine handed his drink back to the attendant and said, "Me too. I didn't know that was a choice."

Saturday Riddle

Instead of Saturday Boobage this week, I shall present a Saturday Riddle from Greg and Michelle.

RIDDLE (THINK FIRST AND THEN VIEW THE ANSWER) :

WHAT IS:

qdjggsdqklgds fkgmgqkfjdmqie lgq fsqfmqdsldmfq

sfqssfdbvnlklfvnoze ?

Where's My Money?

Now I see why I was supposed to start the retirement process 90 days before I retired. Unfortunately, I only Knew I was retiring 45 days before I retired. Here's what has happened so far:

1. My retirement coordinator called me right before I retired. She said I would start receiving information shortly.

2. The first stuff I received was medical. I called her up and told her my options. Cool! She said I would shortly receive my pension calculations.

3. Two weeks later I called her. Where were my calculations. She told me they mailed them out yesterday.

Three most often told lies:

1. The check's in the mail.
2. Of course I'll respect you in the morning.
3. I promise I won't come in your mouth.

4. I get the pension numbers and select my options and mail them back before Thanksgiving.

I'm still waiting for my first check. I've been retired since October 29. Fortunately, TCIDNN (The Company I Dare Not Name) gave me money to leave early, so I'm living off of that.

Maybe that is why my blood pressure was up when I went to the doctor today. Was I ill? Nope. I joined the health club at Shepherd Center since they have adaptive equipment I can use to work out. Before I can work out, I need approval from my doctor. Simple, huh? Three weeks ago they faxed an approval form to my doctor. It was never returned. I'm with an HMO and evidently it got lost in HMO Faxland. So, I made an appointment with my doctor to get her to sign the form and also to increase one of my pain medications.

On the way to the doctor's office, I stopped to mail some birthday and Christmas cards. (Note to Sherry: Your birthday card is in the mail.) I also had a deposit to mail to my credit union. The birthday and Christmas cards made it into the mailbox. The deposit envelope made it to the ground. I was too close to the mailbox to open the door to pick up the envelope. In moving my truck away from the mailbox, I managed to run over the envelope. I think that was what elevated my blood pressure.

I got to the check in desk and watched the lady try to figger out how to replace the paper in the machine that prints out the credit card receipt. Just my luck. I planned to pay with a credit card. Since she has reached her level of incompetence and is unable to replace the paper, I have to pay with cash. At least I didn't have to wait very long to see my doctor.

My doctor told me she thought she had already signed this form which means it probably got lost in Shepherd Faxland. Anyway she signed the form I brought with me. She asked if the physical therapy had helped my back. It had. She asked me if the Orthopedic Surgeon she had referred me to was any help. He wasn't. I asked her to increase my neurontin which she did. She was also worried about my blood pressure. I am on medication for it and it was a higher than she liked. I'm hoping that increasing my exercise will bring it back under control. She wants me to check it next week and e-mail the results to her.

Maybe when I start receiving my pension my blood pressure will drop.

Proper Weapon Retention

I'm posting this for Kim du Toit and Airboss. It was sent to me by Nancy.

Hooded winter jacket with large inside pocket to conceal identity & carry gun:
$65.00

9mm Handgun purchased up the block:

$150.00

Failure to master proper weapon retention during your planned armed robbery:

PRICELESS!!!!!

A Request

Jon sent me this request from a soldier in Iraq that he asked me to post. He has already called in the request to KICKS 101.5 in Atlanta but would appreciate multiple requests.

Allegations

Dontcha just love the way Old Media bitches about blogs? Y'know, the way we just throw shit out there without fact checking it. I mean, respected news organizations like CBS News wouldn't do stuff like that would they? Or how we don't have people to edit our stuff for accuracy, y'know like the New York Times did with Jayson Blair or The New Republic did with the guy who made stuff up (Can't remember his name off the top of my head. Guess I must need an editor.). That's the trouble with us bloggers. We specialize in gossip and innuendo. Old Media would never do that, would they?

For example, Richard Cohen wrote an op-ed that was in Thursday's Atlanta Urinal and Constipation that reflects the high standards of Old Media. Some excerpts follow:

Right up front I should state that Kerik has always maintained he had nothing to do with making homicide cops lost-and-found monitors. It's possible. Sometimes you don't have to order subordinates to do something. They just do it to please the boss.

This was the case with Henry II. He uttered his famous lament about Thomas Becket, who was subsequently dispatched to sainthood by some overly zealous knights. We all know such things can happen.

Innuendo? Nah! About another allegation he wrote:

This saga, reported in The Washington Post just this week, is once again only an allegation (although from several people) --- and a dated one at that.

Once again, no proof, just an allegation. I'm glad to see that Cohen and the Washington Post are maintaining the high journalistic standards we have come to expect from the New York Times, CBS News, and the Washington Post.

Is there anything here? I don't know.

But that won't stop him from repeating unsubstantiated allegations.

So in the spirit of Fake But Accurate, and anything goes, I've decided to apply Old Media standards to tonight's post.

I don't know if this is true or not, but I heard that Hillary Clinton is a stone cold lesbo and had wild unbridled sex with Janet Reno at Camp David.

Didja hear that Ted Kennedy got drunk and drove a car off a bridge into the water and drowned the passenger, a girl named Mary Jo Kopechne? He saved his worthless ass and left the scene of the accident. Wooops! This is true. Fortunately for Ted being a murderer does not disqualify one from being a Senator from Massachusetts.

I'm not sure if this is true or not, but I hear that Bill and Hillary Clinton had Vince Foster murdered.

Bill Clinton had sex with an intern in the Oval Office. No shit? Ooops! This one is true. They found the blue dress. That sure was a stain on his presidency.

Was it true that John Kerry didn't really receive an honorable discharge? What is the true story of his medals? Why won't he sign the form 180 to release his records. Could he have sumpin' to hide? To quote Richard Cohen "Is there anything here? I don't know".

Isn't this fun? I just love using the journalistic standards of Old Media. I'm not sure if any of the following statements are true but they may be.

Is Teresa Heinz Kerry a drunk? I'm not saying that she is but she sure has acted wacko on occasion.

Didja know that Dan Rather wears women's underwear?

I'm not sure if this is true, but I hear that Katie Couric is being nailed by Tom Brokaw.

Peter Jennings is a member of the Communist Party.

Rosie O'Donnell is really a man. She's just pretending to be a lesbian.

Michael Moore is a closet homosexual and is having an affair with Barney Frank.

So there ya go. I'm sitting here waiting for the New York Times to give me a call. Why not? I can be the next affirmative action hire like Jayson Blair.

Do they have a cripple writing for them?

Optical Illusion

Charlieb sent me this neat optical illusion. If you stare at it long enough you will see a giraffe. Try it.

Halfwits

BDS (Bush Derangemnt Syndrome) and PEST (Post Election Selection Trauma) are contagious. Whodda thunk it?

I talked to someone Tuesday night who was in Europe during our elections and he said everyone he talked to was really upset that Bush won. Poor babies! Like I really give a flying fuck what the rest of the world thinks.

My friend told me that his cab driver in Munich couldn't quit bitching about how bad Bush was. The cab driver was from Sierra Leone. Nice to know that Munich uses Third World cab drivers. It gives them sumpin' in common with American cities. It's nice to see that someone from Sierra Leone is so knowledgable about world affairs. I forgot, what has Sierra Leone contributed to the world?

Frequent commenter Matthew checked in with this comment on my A Pest With PEST post to show that he too is afflicted with BDS and PEST

better 2b mr. creosote than the bloody gumbyman you halfwits elected.

\"ooh, my brain hurts. lets invade somewhere, fry a few people with learning disabilities, oh, and we better pay than nice man who made the ballot-machines."

frankly, the mere fact that you accussee more of being unamerican simply because he tells unpleasant truths is infantile.

See BDS and PEST know no boundaries. He's also parroting the Dimocrat talking points: The only reason Kerry lost is because

1. The American people are stupid.
2. The voting machines were rigged.

I don't really understand his fry people with learning disabilities comment unless he's talking about Clinton taking time out from the 1992 campaign to go back to Arkansas and execute someone who was so stupid that he saved the dessert from his last meal to eat later. Oh wait! Clinton's a Dimocrat. It's OK for him to execute stupid people and bomb countries like Afghanistan, the Sudan, and Serbia.

Matthew, you need to take a reality pill. We have tried to educate you and everytime I think we are making progress you slide right back into your leftist delusions.

It's really amazing that it was we American halfwits who had to bail the Europeans out of two wars, namely WWI and WWII. We halfwits used money from us halfwit taxpayers to rebuild Europe. We halfwits also provided for Europe's defense during the Cold War. We paid for the defense while you Europeans installed socialist economies which are now starting to implode.

Our unemployment rate is 5.4%. What is Great Britain's? Howza 'bout France and Germany's?

We halfwits live in the most prosperous country with the strongest economy on the planet and you fucking Einsteins call us halfwits?

Who put a man on the moon? Who invented the transistor?

D'ya know why I call Michael Moore un-American? Because he waddles all over the planet telling everyone how stupid Americans are.

Let's see. Afghanistan was supposed to be a quagmire. The British Empire and the Soviet Empire both failed miserably there. Yet "the bloody gumbyman you halfwits elected" managed to throw the Taliban out in about three months with minimal casualties and guess what just happened? The first free elections were held in Afghanistan three years after we halfwits went into the country. These are the first free elections ever. Women were even allowed to vote. I'll tell ya if we are halfwits, the rest of the world consists of fucking booger eatin' moh-rons. I guess it's all relative.

I've been to Great Britain. I've been to France, Germany, Spain, Russia, Italy, Austria, and Greece. Guess where I'm glad I live? Yep. With all the halfwits here in the United States, altho' I will admit I wouldn't mind spending a summer in Tuscany.

Go ahead Matthew. Keep getting your news from the BBC (Bullshit Broadcasting Company) and al Guardian. Keep badmouthing us halfwits in the United States. We're fine because we know you do it out of jealousy. We also know that the next time the shit hits the fan in Europe, and it's coming with your Muslim problem, we'll be the country you'll call. And y'know what? We'll come probably because we're just a bunch of halfwits.

Your solution to terrorism is appeasement. Read your history. Y'all tried that back in the 30's with a dude named Hitler. It didn't work then, it won't work now with these Islamic nutballs. They started the war and we halfwits intend to finish it with or without your help.

And as long as we halfwits can keep the Dimocrats out of power we will finish it and we will win.

The rest of the world can kiss our halfwitted asses.

Guild Tasting Recap

What a surprise! I got to Violette last night and someone had left me a note saying nice things about my blog. This person lives near Violette and had left the note for me. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

The food, as is always the case at Violette, was delicious. We also got large servings. That's one of the reasons we usually have at least two tastings a year at Violette.

I'm not all that good at rating Champagnes. I know a killer one when I drink it, but cannot differentiate Champagnes that are close to one another in taste. My favorite of the night was the Veuve Clicquot. The Piper Heidsieck was a very pretty red color. These were all Rose Champagnes, which tend to be more expensive than regular Champagnes. They still were not as expensive as two of the Champagnes we had at last year's tasting. Last year we had a Dom Perignon and a Tattinger. They both kicked ass.

Since we had a small crowd and lots of Champagne, the pours were very generous. I had to pour a lot of Champagne into the dump bucket. Ouch! As a result I didn't get shitfaced, but the same thing happened to me as happened in Dallas when I ate dinner at the du Toit's. I drank enough to get mildly drunk. When that happens, I don't sleep well. I toss and turn half the night and don't really start sleeping well until about 4:00 AM. I woke up around 8:00 AM and listened to the rain. I got up long enough to feed the cats and take some pills. I went back to bed and slept until the crack of noon. Is retirement great or what?

I looked in last night's comments and Denita had posted sumpin' funny enough to move to the front page. Denita and Ironbrear may be found here. It's a really small world. Denita's mom attended Webster Groves Senior High School and was two years behind me. I sent her my senior picture to see if her mother remembered me, but I think she is still laughing at it and is afraid to show her mother in case she were to die from a laughing fit. No. I'm not gonna post it.

Champagne Tasting

Every December the Sommelier Guild of Atlanta holds a Champagne tasting. This year's tasting is tonight at Violette Restaurant on Clairmont Road (for those of you who live in Atlanta)

Here is what we're eating and drinking tonight.

Some of my readers have asked me to do a review of some of the wines we drink. I may start doing that. I'm not much good at rating Champagne so I probably won't have any notes from tonight's tastting. And golly, I don't have to go to work tomorrow. Too bad. So sad.

A Pest With PEST

Lookee here. Michael "Mr. Creosote" Moore is suffering from PEST (Post Election Selection Trauma).

Conspiracy filmmaker Michael Moore was so devastated by President Bush's election victory last month that he refused to get out of his pajamas or leave his bedroom.

And this is bad because...?

"He was so unhappy over Bush's win, he didn't roll out of bed for three days," reports gossip columnist Liz Smith, after chatting with the left-wing movie man.

That's an image I can do without: Michael Moore rolling out of bed Eeeewwww!

Smith adds, "I could live forever without that visual."

Yeah. Me too.

Asked why efforts to install John Kerry in the White House failed, Moore said simply, "I think Bush got more votes."

Homer Simpson: Doh!

"The Republicans - I'll give them this - they had a story to tell," he told host Jay Leno. "The Democrats, oftentimes, aren't very good at telling a story."

Especially when the story is based on four months in Viet Nam. And it doesn't help when this guy is one of your spokesmen.

Please. Please. Just one more farking paper thin mint.

Monday Pun 12-6-2004

This week's Monday Pun is a link sent to me by my friend Phil. This one is really bad.

News From France

Is this a great story or what?

Paris --- Police at Paris' top airport lost track of a passenger's bag in which plastic explosives were placed to train bomb-sniffing dogs, police said Saturday.

Mon Dieu! Ve have lost ze bag! Quick! Call Inspector Clouseau!

Warned that the bag may have gotten on any of nearly 90 flights from Charles de Gaulle, authorities searched planes upon arrival in Los Angeles and New York. No explosives were found on any of the flights.

On the other hand the explosives are still missing, but don't worry.

French police said the explosives were harmless and there was no chance they could go off because they were not connected to detonators.

In a related story, terrorists have access to detonators.

More than 300 passengers were evacuated and their luggage searched when their Air France flight from Charles de Gaulle arrived in Los Angeles late Friday, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration said.

No luck! The explosives are still missing.

French police at Charles de Gaulle deliberately placed up to 5 ounces of plastic explosives into a passenger's luggage Friday evening, said police spokesman Pierre Bouquin.

But a ''momentary lack of surveillance'' led to the bag being lost on a conveyor belt carrying luggage from check-in to planes, he said.

Sacre bleu! I thought Pierre was watching ze bag.

Authorities immediately alerted the relevant airlines that one of among 80 and 90 planes that departed the French capital from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Friday could be carrying the explosives, Bouquin said.

French security at its finest. Geez! These people are managing to make the TSA look competent.

''These dogs must be trained in the most realistic situation possible . . . to be the most effective,'' Bouquin said.

Uh, Monsieur Bouquin, the dogs flunked.

''Indeed, it's possible that someone will have a surprise when he opens his bag.''

Honey, what's this plastic stuff in your suitcase?

I feel real good about French security.

Any Questions?

Saturday Humor

Yeah Yeah I know I'm just linking stuff, but they're good links like this one.
I couldn't stop laughing. And if you read a little further you will find that the person running the sessions is a "facilitator'. Any group session run by a person who calls himself a facilitator is, by definition, a bullshit session.

Twenty John Kerry supporters met for their first group therapy session in South Florida Thursday, screaming epithets at President Bush as they shared their emotions with licensed mental health counselors. The first of several free noontime therapy sessions at the American Health Association in Boca Raton was designed to treat what mental health counselors have dubbed Post Election Selection Trauma (PEST). “If I had a cardboard cutout of President Bush, and these people wanted to throw darts at it, I would let them do it,” Robert J. Gordon, AHA executive director, told the Boca News after the session. “It’s no joke. People with PEST were traumatized by the election. If you even mention religion, their faces turn blister-red as they shout at Bush.”

Read the rest but make sure you're not drinking any liquids. Must not splatter your computer.

Horse And Cat For Pumpman

I haven't cat-bombed Pumpman lately but I just had to post this picture that Charlieb sent me. It's sure to warm the cockles of his heart.

Sniper

I'm posting this for Kim du Toit and Airboss. It was sent to me by Charlieb.

FALLUJAH, Iraq (Nov. 27, 2004) -- A U.S. Marine sniper waited patiently inside a one-story house deep within the city. Lying in the prone position for several hours, he scanned the area through his scope before he finally found the three insurgents responsible for two previous mortar attacks.

Sgt. Memo M. Sandoval, a platoon sergeant with Scout Sniper Platoon, Headquarters and Service Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, needed to positively identify the insurgents before he could take his shot.

Sandoval, 26, saw that one of the men was about to place a mortar in a mortar tube. He knew he had to make a well-aimed shot before the insurgent gunner launched the deadly round. Sandoval cleared his thoughts and slowed his breathing as he gently squeezed the trigger of his M-40A3 sniper rifle. The 7.62 mm round covered the 950 yards in a flash, slamming into the chest of the first insurgent.

"The battalion (executive officer) ordered me to 'make the mortars stop,'" said Sandoval, a native of El Paso, Texas. "I took it personally and went out specifically to stop the insurgents."

Read the rest here.

Canada

Frequent commenter Cat Shit decided to try a lame attempt at humor by commenting: George Bush arrested in Canada? Haha

That's really funny, Cat Shit. Now here's real humor from Rich Galen.

Canada's principal export has been comedians who come to the US because one of the many things Canadians lack is a sense of humor. And Mad Cow Disease. They export that. And a dreadful baseball team which is moving to Washington, DC.

Canada's principal import from the US has been draft dodgers. If we're lucky, frustrated Kerry voters will produce the next great wave of immigrants into places like Saskatoon.

Read the whole thing.

Saturday Boobage 12-4-2004

Advice To Dimocrats

Some people have observed that I have not been my grouchy old self lately. One person even said that retirement has mellowed me. Granted things have been going rather well.

I don't have to put up with my ex-CDSM® (Clueless Dipshit Manager) any more.

I don't have to put up with the bureaucratic bullshit at TCIDNN (The Company I Dare Not Name - At least for another month) any more.

I was able to retire with full benefits (including medical and a pension) from TCIDNN and they gave me three months pay to leave early.

The people suffering from BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) are now suffering from PEST (Post Election Selection Trauma) and their wailing and gnashing of teeth is fun to watch.

Babs and Mikey Moore were actually silent for a few days after the election.

The people in the blue states who vote to raise taxes on themselves are supporting those of us in the red states who vote against tax increases. How neat is that?

Even though Cynthia McKinney is once again my Congresscritter, she hasn't shot off her big fat mouth yet.

So yeah, things are going real well and in the spirit of the holiday season I am gonna give advice to the Dimocrats on how they can regain power.

They need look no further than than this op-ed from the Wall Street Journal written by Joe Trippi.

The staggering defeat of the Democratic Party and its ever-accelerating death spiral weren't obvious from the election results. Two factors masked the extent of the party's trouble. Without the innovation of Internet-driven small-donor fund-raising and a corresponding surge in support from the youngest voters, John Kerry would have suffered a dramatically larger defeat. And the true magnitude of the Democrats' abject failure at the polls in 2004 would have been more clearly revealed.

And the fact that Old Media was overwhelmingly behind Flipper and the Dimocrats also helped to prevent a landslide.

Mr. Kerry's lead among young voters hid just how bad Election Day really was for Democrats. In 2000, voters between 18 and 29 split their votes evenly: nine million each for Mr. Bush and Al Gore. But in 2004, two million more voters in this age group turned out to vote. And while Mr. Bush won the same nine million, 11 million voted for Mr. Kerry. But when we set aside his two million new younger voters, the true disaster is revealed. In 2000, Mr. Gore and Ralph Nader won a combined total of 54 million votes. This year Mr. Kerry and Mr. Nader got 53 million (ignoring the two million new young voters).

Holy shit! Bad news for the Dims.

Meanwhile, Mr. Bush, received 50 million votes in 2000, and 59 million in 2004. He added nine million votes. That's because Karl Rove had a plan and the campaign executed it brilliantly. But the problem for Democrats is not Mr. Rove; it's that they're doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. That's the definition of insanity.

Let's hear it for the diabolical Karl Rove. But Joe has a master plan to reverse the tide.

Democrats can't keep ignoring their base. Running to the middle and then asking our base to make sure to vote isn't a plan. And to those who say talking to your base doesn't work--Read the Rove 2004 playbook!

Exactly! Run to the left. That's a good plan. Raise Taxes! Abortion on demand! Gay marriage! Support the ACLU! Stamp out religion! Racial preferences! Racial quotas! That's the way to become a majority party again. And what's with Harry Reid as Senate Minority Leader? He's a moderate. Name someone like Ted Kennedy. Really drag the Dimocrat Party to the left in the Senate. Look how successful Nancy Pelosi has been in the House.

Democrats must reconnect with the energy of our grass roots. One of the failures of the DLC was that its ideas never helped us build a grass-roots donor base. As a result, Democrats held a lead over Republicans in only one fundraising category before this election cycle: contributions over one million dollars. That shows how far the party had strayed from grassroots fundraising before the Dean campaign. We must build a base of at least seven million small donors by 2006. With the Internet it's possible. But it can't just be about the money, it also has to be about ideas.

That's where you made your big mistake. Howard Dean connected with the grass-roots. He should have been the nominee. He would have won in a landslide! Especially if he would have named Dennis Kucinich as his running mate. Willie Nelson was for him.

The one thing we learned in the Dean campaign was that the 30 people in Burlington weren't as smart as the 650,000 Americans who were part of our campaign. Instead of a DLC in D.C., Democrats should be holding Democratic Grassroots Councils in every county. Democratic National Committee members in each state, along with the state party, should host and moderate these meetings to develop ideas that come from the people, instead of the experts in D.C.

Exactly. You need to listen to people in San Francisco, Massachusetts and other progressive bastions of liberalism. Those are the ideas that will sell in the red states. Also you need someone from the left to run the DNC. Not Howard Dean. He's still too much of a centrist. Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton would be ideal.

A party that ignores the needs of state and local parties is doomed. We must begin to invest aggressively in states we continually write off in national elections. If we don't, the decline of the party in these states will continue until we're non-existent. Look at the south.

Yep! Look at the south. And whatever you do, do not take Zell Miller's advice. He's nothing but a turncoat anyway.

In a world in which companies like Wal-Mart pay substandard wages with no real benefits, our party has got to find innovative ways to support organized labor's growth. A declining union membership is not good for the country, it's not good for working people, and it certainly isn't good for the Democratic Party.

Unionize everything. Let unions do to the technology companies what they have done to the gummint and to public schools.

The Democratic Party has to be the vehicle that empowers the American people to change our failed political system. We all know the damn thing is broken. Democrats should lead the way by placing stricter money restrictions on candidates than the toothless Federal Election Commission does. A party funded by contributions from the people can do this. A corrupted and corroded party cannot. The Democratic Party shouldn't wait for campaign-finance reform--it should be campaign-finance reform.

And put Bill and Hillary Clinton in charge of that effort.

Finally, what is the purpose the party strives for today? What are our goals for the nation? You couldn't tell from the election. Very few good ideas come from the middle, and they tend to be mediocre. Consultants have become adept at keeping candidates in that safe zone. But the time has come to develop bold ideas and challenge people to sacrifice for the common good. Experts will tell you that you can't ask the American people to sacrifice individually for the common good. Those experts are wrong--it's just been so long since anyone has asked them.

Listen to Michael Moore and Barbra Streisand. Let them be the voices of the Dimocrat Party.

Joe has some good ideas, but he still does not go far enough. You Dimocrats need to espouse complete socialism. All industries should be nationalized. We need to have socialized medicine. All guns should be abolished. If you Dimocrats would just run on those issues the country would be much better off.

I guarantee it.

Damn Cat

From my sister.

Poor Kid In The Middle

Ouch! Sent to me by Pres.

Stolen Stuff

I stole this:

And this:

From this guy. He was a lifer, but I won't hold that against him. Turns out he was on the USS Bexar APA-237 from April 1967 to September 1968. I was on the USS Comstock from October of 1966 to December of 1967. The Bexar and the Comstock steamed together a few times.

He actually got to go to school on some equipment like the WRT-2 transmitter. Dude, the only thing that went wrong on WRT-2's was the power amp. Pull out the tuning coils and soak them in trichlorethane every three months and those suckers would transmit like a champ. I once transmitted from Viet Nam to San Francisco.

He also mentioned how imcompetent the MOTU dudes were. The antenna couplers (these were things that matched the impedance of the transmitter to the impedance of the antenna) every now and then would fry the coil in the coupler. I had a MOTU guy in Guam who swore that nothing was wrong and insisted on looking at everything else for about two hours until all that was left was tearing apart the coupler. Lo and behold, the coil was fried. These assholes were civilians and they mad a damn sight more than I did.

And he talked about the wondrous boat radios. Like an APA, we had boats called LCVP's AKA papa boats, that had small radios in them. They used vacuum tubes. And they really used them. Everytime a papa boat returned from the beach we had to repair a radio which usually meant replacing tubes.

Somehow this guy got lucky and got out of the Gator Navy. I went from an LSD to an LST. At least on the LST we used VRC-46's which were solid state and modular for boat radios. Unfortunately we used TED/REDS for UHF communications.

Ah, memories.

Act Your Age

From Pres.

Fair Tax Question

Denise (who's from Missouri, just like me) asked if 23% for the Fair Tax was rather steep. No it is not.

Currently if someone was in the 15% tax bracket and was paying payroll taxes (Social Security and Medicare) which everyone has to pay, the tax bill would be a maximum of 22.15% (15% + 7.15%) or if the person was self-employed and had to pay the employer's share of payroll taxes 30.3% (15 + 15.3). Under the Fair Tax plan, that person would pay no taxes. Now granted, a person in the 15% bracket in all probablility does not pay 15%, but he does have to pay payroll taxes. Once again, under the Fair Tax plan that person would pay no taxes.

Howza 'bout those of us in higher tax brackets like me. I carry a $200K mortgage on my house which gives me a pretty good mortgage deduction.

Wait a minute. You just retired and you have a huge house payment? How can you afford it?

It's called saving and investing since I was in my late teens. The Eighth Wonder of the World is compound interest.

Anyway let's just say I'm in the 28% tax bracket. I actually paid around 15% (Thanks to the mortgage deduction) on my taxable income (I have some tax free investments) plus my payroll taxes of a little less that 7.15% since I made enough to pay off the maximum Social Security portion of FICA. So, I'm around 22%. Would I be willing to pay a 23% sales tax? You bet. It would be worth it to me not having to buy Turbotax every year and keep all the records required for my taxes. I have been audited and I know how important it is to keep everything.

Remember, this 23% is only on stuff you buy. Let's run some nice round numbers. Let's say someone makes $100K adjusted gross income. With itemized deductions he can get it down to $80K. (No, this is not me.) A single person would pay around $15K. He'd pay a little less than 7% in payroll taxes since the payoff for Social Security is around $88K. So this guy would pay around $22K in federal taxes. Under the Fair Tax plan, if he spent his adjusted gross income, 80K, he would actually spend $98.,440 (80K + 18.44K) the way I read the plan. That leaves him with and additional $1600. And remember, he decides how much money he will pay in taxes by how much money he spends.

I have saved over 15% of my taxable income for most of my working career. Under the Fair Tax plan I would have paid no taxes on that money. Under the current system that money has been taxed and the dividends, interest, and capital gains on that money have been taxed. The Fair Tax plan rewards saving and investment.

Since the Fair Tax will eliminate the costs of complying with our current tax system, prices on goods and services should actually drop.

So, no, I don't think 23% is too high of a federal sales tax.

Rules Of Getting Older

From Pres.

Implants

A little early for Saturday Boobage.

Hah! Made ya look! From Pres.

Fair Tax

So why didn't I write anything last night? I was dead tired all day. I had to get up very early to take my little girl cat Ashley to the vet to have her teeth cleaned. My friend Cindy came over to help me. She made the mistake of bringing the cat carrier in the house with her. Bad move. The proper procedure is to catch the cat, then bring the cat carrier in. Ashley is dumb but she does know what the cat carrier means. Fortunately in anticipation of that event, I had closed my bedroom door so she couldn't hide under the bed.

Ten minutes later, after playing chase and catch the cat, Cindy handed Ashley to me and I put her in the carrier. Then it was off to Roswell Animal Hospital with the plaintive meows of a pissed off cat resounding in our ears for the entire trip.

After dropping off Ashley, Cindy returned me to my house. I read the morning paper over a cup of coffee. Many of you may wonder why I subscribe to the Atlanta Urinal and Constipation. By and large it's a pretty crappy paper. The editorial staff is predominantly liberal. But the letters, ah the letters. Granted they are not as hilarious as the letters you would find in the San Francisco Chronicle. I remember my yearly visits to my sister in the Bay Area over Christmas and just howling at the letters they printed.

This morning I came upon this letter:

Rep. John Linder's national sales tax proposal is actually a 30 percent sales tax --- not 23 percent --- on the value of products and services.

He proposes including the tax in the price of every item subject to the tax. To explain: If you bought an item for a dollar, 23 cents would go to the government. This means the value of what you bought was 77 cents.

The word "value" is important, because that's the way state sales tax is applied to purchases. You buy something for $1 and then the sales tax percentage is added. In Linder's proposal, you're not applying 23 percent to the purchase price; it is already included in the price. In order to get 23 cents from a product valued at 77 cents, it takes 30 percent of 77.

I went out to John Lindner's web site and read his Fair Tax information and I didn't see it working this way. Maybe I missed sumpin' but I read both the FAQ and the Overview.

What I did see was that this would eliminate the IRS which is a good thing. Just imagine not having to struggle with taxes every year.

It would also eliminate withholding and that includes Social Security and Medicare. When someone asked you how much money you make you would not have to say, "I take home ..." (or none for your farking business!). If you made $50,000 a year you would take home $50,000 a year. How great would that be?

It is estimated that eliminating businesses' costs of compliance with our current tax system would cause the prices of goods and services to drop. Some economists say by the amount of the sales tax.

This would even soak the rich. Tuh-ray-sa Kerry paid 12% in taxes last year. With a sales tax, every time she bought Johnny a new toy, like his powerboat, she would have to pay a 23% sales tax on it. How's that for soaking the rich?

And the poor get a rebate.

Also it encourages savings and investment, since that will not be taxed. You can determine how much you will be taxed by how much you spend.

I suggest y'all follow the links and read up on the Fair Tax.

Back to yesterday.

After I read the paper, I went back to bed.

I got back up and did my internet reading but wasn't really up to posting anything other than some cartoons.

The vet called around 3:30 and said that there had been some complications with Ashley. One of her teeth needed to be pulled. According to the vet it has probably been bothering her for some time. Even under anesthetic, when they touched the tooth her jaw quivered. When they pulled it there was a lot of bleeding and the infection had worked its way up near her eye.

I picked her up at 5:30 and was given three different medications for her. Her right eye was a little swollen and the vet said it had improved since the surgery.

Everyone told me what a friendly little cat Ashley was. Well yeah, that's why she's still alive.

Ashley was a research cat at the University Of Georgia Vet School. Normally they put the animals to sleep after they are done with them since they don't make very good pets. Ashley, on the other hand, had such a good disposition that they didn't want to put her down. As luck would have it, I was looking for a female cat and a friend of mine's daughter, who was attending vet school knew it. She asked if I would take her and I said yes.

Unfortunately, when they spayed her, they messed up on the anesthetic and she woke up temporarily blind. They thought it might be permanent. I took her anyway. A week later when I saw her stalking an ant, I knew her vision was OK.

It's now a day later and although her eye is still slightly swollen she is in good spirits. She's even more affectionate. She should be OK.

I told her she should brush and floss.

A Fight

Sent to me by Phil.