Baby steps

First and foremost, I want to thank everyone for their kind words, thoughts, and prayers. There is no easy way to get through the death of a parent, but being part of “The Adams Family” certainly added to the entertainment value of the whole situation.

My dad was a big clown, being serious was not his forte’. He was a country boy through and through and I don’t think he ever met a man he didn’t like. Likewise, nobody who ever met him could resist falling in love with him. He lived in Kansas his entire life, and therefore most of his friendships were longstanding ones. His two best friends were boys he’d run around with since junior high school. I simply cannot fathom a friendship spanning some 60 years.

Like I said, he was a country boy, and as such, in his younger days was an avid hunter and fisherman. He also collected anything and everything that had to do with nature, such as rocks, bones, antlers, driftwood, barn wood, and actually any stick, twig, or log he thought was cool looking. He was always very proud to show these treasures to me because he knew I was just like him in this respect, and many of his treasures would come home with me. I can’t tell you how thrilled my husband was when he was moving me into his house and discovered boxes and boxes of rocks, antlers, and birds nests. I just couldn’t seem to get him to understand the value of the boxes of rocks (that took two people to carry) and it finally just came down to this; if you want me, the rocks come too.

Hello. I’m Moogirl, and I’m a redneck.

Anyway, after the funeral, the sister and I went to my uncle’s farm in Cherryvale, Ks (try finding THAT on a map, I dare you), which was the perfect place to be. It was my dads’ favorite place on the planet to be and it holds some of the best childhood memories I have. If anyone ever wanted to see why my dad was the way he was, they’d need look no further than the farm people. My uncle has four boys my age and older who also own farms nearby. I’m not sure who gets a bigger kick out of each other, them or us. We got to spend two days of laughter, old pictures, and even older stories.

There was still several inches of ice on the ground in Cherryvale, which only added to the excitement of cow feeding time. You just haven’t lived until you slipped on a frozen cow pie. I dare say that watching the cows try to ice skate to the troughs was the most entertainment I’ve had in a while.

I need to get out more.

For some unexplained reason, it was more important than life itself for me to get a picture of the cows all lined up at the trough...from behind. I just didn’t think I would be able to leave if I wasn’t able to get a picture of a long line of cow butts. I still can’t figure that one out, but it was just insanely important to me. So there I was, in 40 below temperatures (not really, but it was in the teens), with my $3,000 camera, trying to dodge ice, frozen cow patties, NON-frozen cow patties, and very non-trusting cows, trying to get the perfect shot of cow butts.

You just have no idea how uncooperative cows can be, and I wondered if Ansel Adams ever had problems like this. But I got the shots I wanted and it only cost me a pair of tennis shoes and a little dignity. (Blogger isn’t letting me post any pictures for some reason, or it would be wall-to-wall cow butts up in here. Perhaps this is a good thing.)

So now all that’s left is the icky part of returning to the real world. But I’m ok, just kind of wandering around the house not quite knowing what to do with myself. I will try to get back to the business of solving the world’s problems just as soon as the apathy wears off.

I have one piece of advice though. If your father is still living, and you have a good relationship, spend as much time as possible with him. If he is still living and you do not have a good relationship, please, please try to forgive, understand and make amends. If making amends is not possible, then at the very least, try to forgive, in your own heart, and let it go. When the time comes, you will be so grateful that you did.

Please forgive my absence, but my father has past away. I will be out of town until Sunday night.

This really sucks…

Swing low...

Dutch gym to introduce 'Naked Sunday'

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Self-conscious about what you wear while working out? A Dutch gym plans to introduce "Naked Sunday" for people who like to huff and puff in the buff.

Patrick de Man, owner of Fitworld gym in the town of Heteren, said he got the idea in part from two of his customers who are avid nudists.

He said the response had been overwhelming — positive and negative.

The 70,000-member Dutch Federation of Naturists was curious to see if Fitworld's plan would work, spokesman Bernd Huiser said.

"We recently conducted a large survey among our members, and most prefer to exercise with their clothes on," he said. "The most popular activities (for nudists) are things you do outdoors, like walking on the beach, or swimming in a lake, or maybe gardening."

De Man said the first question Fitworld customers were asking was whether it would be sanitary.

Nude exercisers would be required to put towels down on weight machines and to use disposable seat covers while riding bikes. All machines would be cleaned and disinfected afterward. "We clean them every day anyway," he said.

The first "Naked Sunday" is scheduled for March 4.


Ok, all together now: “eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwww!”

Now that we’ve gotten that out of our system, I see so many problems with this idea, I just don’t know where to start.

1. First and foremost, there’s a reason most people go to the gym. They go to lose weight or to tone up. ‘Nuff said.

2. Bicycles? Men, if you’re going commando on a bicycle, um….ok I just can’t go there.

3. Treadmills: I was thinking about them when I came up with the title of this post.

In fact, I can’t think of many pieces of gym equipment that wouldn’t be a potential neuterer for men.

I’ve pondered this idea for far too long now, and I’m pretty sure it would look something like this:

Good to know

Dr. Phil Predicts Early Spring

PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. - A new pair of hands pulled Dr. Phil from his stump this year, so it was only fitting that the talk show host offered a new prediction.

Dr. Phil did not see his shadow on Friday, which, according to German folklore, means folks can expect an early spring instead of six more weeks of winter.

Since 1886, Dr. Phil has seen his shadow 96 times, hasn't seen it 15 times and there are no records for nine years, according to the Punxsutawney Obnoxious Talk Show Host Club. The last time Phil failed to see his shadow was in 1999.

More than 15,000 revelers milled about in a misty snow waiting for the prediction, as fireworks exploded overhead and the "Pennsylvania Polka" and other music blared in the background.

"It's a lot of work, but it's exciting to know you're a part of one of the most phenomenal parts of American folklore," Hughes said.

Each Feb. 2, thousands of people descend on Punxsutawney, a town of 6,100 people about 65 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, to celebrate what had essentially been a German superstition.

The Germans believed that if a bloviating, pompous, ass casts a shadow Feb. 2 - the Christian holiday of Candlemas - winter would last another six weeks. If no shadow was seen, legend said spring would come early.


Cool, because after Wednesday's snow, this is what I look like when I go out to get the mail.


Ok not really. I try not to lick my nose in public.

But I’m still sick of it...


Read on...

Jon Stewart Tries to Relate to Cheney

As only Jon can...

Wow, way to miss the whole point, dudes

Church's 'Jesus loves Osama' sign criticised

The Australian prime minister has criticised a Sydney baptist church for erecting a sign declaring that "Jesus Loves Osama".

The slogan, a reference to Osama bin Laden, the al-Qa'eda leader, has provoked a storm of controversy across the country despite its apparently Christian message of forgiveness.

Small print at the bottom of the sign urges churchgoers to "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you", a quotation from Matthew 5:44.

But John Howard, the prime minister, said that the church should have chosen a less offensive way of spreading its message.

"I understand the Christian motivation of the Baptist church," he said.

"But I hope they will understand that a lot of Australians, including many Australian Christians, will think that the prayer priority of the church on this occasion could have been elsewhere."

Peter Jensen, the Anglican archbishop of Sydney, said that the sign - which has been put up outside several churches in the city - was confusing and potentially offensive.

"There is a truth in it," he said. "But, "what we've got to say is, 'Jesus doesn't approve of Osama.' It makes it sounds like, 'Oh, Osama's doing the right thing'."

A spokesman for the Central Baptist Church told the Australian Daily Telegraph that it was merely "sharing the gospel".

He said: "Osama is the head of terrorism. We are saying that Jesus Christ loves everyone in the world, even this man. ... All we are doing is sharing the gospel."


So the Prime Minister said, “…that the prayer priority of the church on this occasion could have been elsewhere.” Ok, he’s a politician, so he’s expected to say stupid things. I mean, who better to pray for than the planet’s most wanted criminal?

But the “Anglican archbishop of Sydney” (whatever that is, I’m assuming it’s Catholic) said, “…that the sign was confusing and potentially offensive” and that, “There is a truth in it, but what we've got to say is, 'Jesus doesn't approve of Osama.' It makes it sounds like, 'Oh, Osama's doing the right thing'."

ONLY IF YOU’RE AN IDIOT! I’m sorry, but shouldn’t he know better?

First of all, there isn’t “a truth in it”, it IS the truth. I love how certain “religious” people pick and choose the parts of the Bible they want to believe and abide by. How can he say “there is a truth in it”? We ARE supposed to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, and Jesus DOES love Osama, same as he loved Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, Custer, Saddam, and George W. Bush. That is not to say Jesus ever approved of anything they did.

Unfortunately, nowhere in the Bible does it say we get to choose which of our enemies we’re suppose to pray for. I can’t believe someone who considers himself a religious leader would say something so asinine.

But then again, I’m not so sure a Catholic leader is someone we’d want to hold up as an authority on Jesus anyway. Still, he should know better.

Like it or not, believe it or not, it’s still the truth. And it is the Gospel. And good for the Baptists in Australia. The American Baptists could learn a little something from their example. But that would mean actually having the strength of your convictions...

Father recovering from being strangled with stethoscope...

Big baby causes sensation in Cancun

CANCUN, Mexico - He is called "Super Tonio," and at a whopping birth weight of 14.5 pounds, the little fellow is causing a sensation in this Mexican resort city.

Cancun residents have crowded the nursery ward's window to see Antonio Vasconcelos, who was born early Monday by Caesarean section. The baby drinks 5 ounces of milk every three hours, and measures 22 inches in length.

Antonio's mother, Teresa Alejandra Cruz, 23, and father, Luis Vasconcelos, 38, said they were proud of the boy, and noted that Cruz had given birth to a baby girl seven years ago who weighed 11.46 pounds.


What the news fails to mention is that moments after this photo was taken, Jumbo ate his bedmate...

Read on

Does this net make me look fat?

What all the best dressed deer are wearing this year

This is the staggering sight of a buck mule deer who has got his antlers in a twist.

The impressive creature took it all in his stride after getting caught up in a bright purple volleyball net.

He is so taken with the unusual headgear a Colorado Division Wildlife officer decided to leave it on until his antlers naturally shed in February.

In the meantime, wardens in Durango are keeping a close eye on him to make sure he doesn't get himself in a knot.

And all the other mule deer, used to laugh and call him names...

Since I'll be a captive audience...

This is who I’ll be rooting for in the Stupor Bowl.

Colts star Manning sidesteps Pentagon plug

A US marine reporter tried unsuccessfully to get Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning to plug the federal government's Pentagon channel during Media Day at the Super Bowl.

Reina Barnett, wearing full Marine camouflage, was accompanied by a uniformed cameraman when she asked Manning on Tuesday to repeat "You are watching the Pentagon channel" which is be aired during Sunday's game for US troops watching in Iraq.

Instead Manning, who gave a colourful performance during Media Day with many one-liners that left reporters laughing, simply expressed support for the troops and thanked the soldiers for their sacrifice.

Others like Chicago Bears starting quarterback Rex Grossman and Colts guard Matt Ulrich weren't so apprehensive to plug the Pentagon.

Said Grossman, "Hi I'm Rex Grossman, Chicago Bears and you're watching the Pentagon Channel."

"I want to thank you guys for all you do keeping us free here," Ulrich said. "We will keep you in our hearts and prayers."


Oh get me a bucket. Rex Grossman couldn't find Iraq on a map. Good for Peyton for not allowing himself to be used as a tool of the White House propaganda machine.

Because I just can't type fast enough...

Before I could even finish the post below, this story now has a life of it’s own thanks to Matt Drudge and Fox News. Drudge has now linked to the video below. After reading the entire interview and hearing Biden’s explanation, I no longer believe Biden was making a racist comment about Obama when he said:

“I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

Taken in context of the entire interview and the fact that he was being questioned about Obama, Clinton, and Edwards, I truly don’t believe Biden meant what Drudge and Fox news are making it out to be. Biden is not an idiot. This is just another case of “Obama is Muslim”, much ado about nothing. Expect this a lot in the next year and a half from Drudge and Fox. If they can keep us on the offense, then nobody is talking about the real issues at hand, particularly, how the Republicans have flocked up this entire country.

Biden Responds to Obama Comment

Beware the Sludge Drudge!

Matt Drudge has a plan. His plan is to divide and conquer the Democratic Party.

Drudge is a right-wing Internet “reporter”. I use the term “reporter” loosely. He is a weasel with a hugely popular website, "The Drudge Report", a website chalked full of nothing more than headline links to legitimate news sites. Once in a great while he gets what he calls “an exclusive”, which may or may not be true. His track record for the truth is nothing to be proud of. But, as long as he sticks to linking to legitimate news sites, his site can be a rather interesting mish-mash of news from around the world.


But be forewarned, Matt Drudge will link up to any news story that mentions The Drudge Report simply because they’ve mentioned The Drudge Report. He does this so that everyone can see how important he is. I sent him an email a couple years ago asking if it was hard to type while tooting one’s own horn.

Needless to say, I never got a response.



Back to Drudge’s plan to divide and conquer the Democratic Party. Drudge knows that he can’t alienate half of his audience by only reporting favorable headlines for the Republicans. He also can’t come right out and bash the Dems. So his modus operandi is going to be to link to any and every story he can find that shines a less than favorable light on any and every Democratic candidate.

Any bit of gossip (whether true or not), any bit of backbiting or sniping, and you can bet it will be a headline on Drudge. His screaming headlines about Obama being a Muslim (which were proven to be untrue) have already been deleted from his archives. But that’s how he works. Print it, and if it turns out to be less than truthful, just delete it, regardless of the fact that hundreds of thousands of people have already seen it and believed it because it was on The Drudge Report. He's Fox News for the net.

As I said, Matt Drudge is a weasel. A Republican weasel, which is odd, since he’s gay. But, whatever floats your boat. I have never linked to The Drudge Report because he is such a weasel. Perhaps I’ll start, if for no other reason than to point out the obvious tactics he’s using against the Dems.

This is his screaming headline as of this moment, which reads:

SEN. BIDEN SHOCK INTERVIEW: 'I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy'...


This is the link to the Biden story. For some reason, page 2 and page 3 of this interview are no longer showing up at the bottom of page one. But you can access them through the links above.

I am not making light of Biden’s obviously bigoted comment. We certainly need to know if our presidential candidates are closet racists. But the reason for my post was to point out The Drudge Report’s tactics for reporting only the negative, in glaring headlines. First Drudge is churning out lies about Obama’s religious beliefs, and then he’s showing him as the victim of a racist comment by a fellow candidate.

All of this is to cast a negative light on the entire Democratic Party. And as popular as The Drudge Report (as a gossip rag) is, I dare say this tactic might just work.

And as far as Biden’s comment goes, he may have just pulled a Macaca and sealed his own fate.

Help is on the way!

Does your cat look like this?












Or this?


















Or perhaps this?













Or, Heaven forbid, this???







Never fear, help is on the way!

Maybe I was just tired...

Sorry to have been AWOL all weekend, we had a huge shoot Saturday, which kicked our collective arses. Because of that, last night I was too tired to do anything but lay here and surf the net for entertainment that didn’t require too many brain cells. I found it.

So I’m lying here, minding my own business (Clint’s already asleep), when I come across this Laughter is contagious video. It starts out innocently enough, but two minutes into it, I’m laughing so hard that I woke him up. Now I wasn’t making any noise, mind you, it was that silent laugh where your whole body shakes. I shook him awake.

Needless to say, Clint was not amused. So, I apologized for waking him and promised to keep it down to a dull roar. Not two minutes later, I came across this hamsters on meth video.

That was all she wrote. I had to get up and leave the room.

I wonder if he'll help with the dishes now...

Woman, 65, saves husband from mountain lion

Wildlife officials on Thursday credited a woman with saving her husband's life by clubbing a mountain lion that attacked him while the couple hiked in a California state park.

Jim and Nell Hamm, who will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary next month, were hiking Wednesday in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, 60 miles south of the Oregon state line, when the lion pounced.

"He didn't scream. It was a different, horrible plea for help, and I turned around, and by then the cat had wrestled Jim to the ground," Nell Hamm said in an interview from the hospital.

Jim Hamm was recovering from a torn scalp, puncture wounds and other injuries.

After the attack, game wardens closed the park and released hounds to track the lion. They later shot and killed two lions found near the trail where the attack happened.

The carcasses were flown to a state forensics lab to determine if either animal had mauled the man.

Nell Hamm said she grabbed a 4-inch-diameter log and beat the animal with it, but it would not release its hold on her husband's head.

"Jim was talking to me all through this, and he said, 'I've got a pen in my pocket and get the pen and jab him in the eye,"' she said.

"So I got the pen and tried to put it in his eye, but it didn't want to go in as easy as I thought it would."

When the pen bent and became useless, Nell Hamm went back to using the log. The lion eventually let go and, with blood on its snout, stood staring at the woman. She screamed and waved the log until the animal walked away.

This guy will never win another argument as long as he lives.

Read on...

Something is seriously wrong with these people!

Sweet, sweet Elly is back in the news.






The Parents-of-the-Year winners had to drug Elly to get her to act like a human being on the flight they took the next day!

OMG who are these people? And do we have any drugs that will make them act right???

Buried in the news reports about the incident was the real answer to the whole conundrum: When the family boarded another plane the following day, little Elly was apparently smuggling a dose (or three) of Children’s Benadryl in her tummy. It’s the dirty little secret — one of them, anyway — for all sanity-seeking parents. If the kids are prone to episodes during high-stress times such as airline travel, dope ‘em.

Nope, no problem there. I mean, what could possibly go wrong with this parenting skill?

Me thinks Mummy could use a little Benadryl also...

Ghosts of Mississippi, imbeciles of Texas

Two stories of racism. The first from 40 years ago, the second from today. No snark, just the ugly facts.


Reputed Klansman charged in 1964 deaths of black teens

On the morning of May2, 1964, Henry Dee and Charles Moore, both 19, were hitchhiking along U.S. 84 outside Meadville, Mississippi, when a Volkswagen pulled alongside them.

At the wheel was James Ford Seale, a 29-year-old truck driver. According to an FBI informant, this is what happened next:

Seale said he was a "Revenue agent hunting for bootleg whiskey stills," and told the two to get into the car. Seale pulled out a walkie-talkie and told the occupants of a trailing pickup truck, including his cousin, 31-year-old Charles Marcus Edwards, that he was bringing "two Negro boys" to talk with them.

Seale turned onto a forest road and, after traveling some distance, parked.

The Klansmen bound the two friends and began whipping them with beanpoles. Seale asked them over and over who was behind all the "Negro trouble" in Franklin County.

After the beating, the Klansmen loaded the unconscious pair into a car trunk, careful to line it with a tarp to catch the blood.

Driving to the Mississippi River, the white men dragged the barely breathing pair into a boat. Moore was lashed to a Jeep engine block, Dee to some old railroad tracks and wheels, the informant said.

Then the two friends went over the side, and the swirling, muddy water swallowed them alive.

That November, acting on information from a Klan insider, Mississippi state troopers arrested Seale and Edwards on murder charges.

(Seale on the left, Edwards, right)

In an interview with FBI agents, Edwards admitted that he and Seale had kidnapped and beaten the two black men. But Edwards said they were alive when he left them.

The agents leaned heavily on Seale.

"We know you did it, you know you did it," an agent said, "The Lord above knows you did it."

"Yes," Seale replied, according to an FBI report, "but I'm not going to admit it. You are going to have to prove it."

At the time, the FBI had its hands full with the so-called "Mississippi Burning" case, the murders of three civil rights workers.

The Dee-Moore prosecution was turned over to local authorities, who promptly threw out all charges.





Seale, now 70, was arrested Wednesday on federal charges of kidnapping and conspiracy and pleaded not guilty to those charges today, in front of a female, African American judge.



Charles Edwards, 72, has not been charged. People close to the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity said Edwards was cooperating with authorities.





Justice delayed is justice denied. Simply heartbreaking.






The Washington Post, gives a detailed background of this case, and The Clarion Ledger, Mississippi's leading newspaper, has much info, videos, and a photo gallery on it's front page (not sure how long they'll be on the front page though, you may have to look for the links).


That was 1964. Fast forward to 2007, when we are sooo much smarter.


“Martin Luther King” Party Causes Uproar on Texas Campus

Authorities at Tarleton State University in Stephenville. Tx, said they plan to investigate a Martin Luther King Jr. Day party that mocked black stereotypes by featuring fried chicken, malt liquor and faux gang apparel.

Photographs posted on social networking Web site Facebook.com showed partygoers wearing Afro wigs and fake gold and silver teeth. One photo showed students "mocking how African-Americans do step shows," Elder said. In another picture, a student is dressed as Aunt Jemima and carries a gun.

Wanda Mercer, the school's vice president of student life, said an investigation was planned into the Jan. 15 party.

More than 400 students attended a university-sponsored forum Wednesday night that Elder described as "a shaky baby step" in bridging a divide between black and white students on the campus, which had about 400 black students out of 7,800 overall last semester.

Elder said he sensed a racial divide at the forum, with black students sitting on one side of the room and whites on the other.

"It was civil, but it also escalated into a shouting match," he said in a telephone interview afterward.

Some of the students shown in the photos apologized, Elder said.

University President Dennis P. McCabe said the photographs were reprehensible.

"I am personally insulted by these photographs and am disappointed that Tarleton students have demonstrated such insensitivity," he said.


It’s sad to say, as much as I’d like to rag on Texas, this could have happened on any college campus in America. Unfortunately, racism and ignorance is alive and well in America, and no state is immune.

I was going to post pictures of these poor, retarded, college kids, but frankly, I didn’t want to have to look at them every time I’m on my site. I would, however, suggest you look at them to see the future leaders of America .

And remember, this party took place to celebrate Martin Luther King Day.

Teach your children well...

Hagel challenges all 100 Senators on Iraq resolution

Senate panel rejects Bush's troop surge in Iraq

Republican Senator Chuck Hagel from Nebraska is a ’08 presidential candidate and perhaps the only Republican candidate who owns a pair of kahones. Sen. Hagel had a moment of passionate fervor yesterday and called for accountability from all other Senators during the resolution debate. They were voting on the resolution opposing the president's new troop surge in Iraq. The resolution passed 12 to 9, with Sen. Hagel being the only Republican to vote in favor of opposing the surge.

I like this guy and am impressed with both his passion and courage. He basically challenged his fellow Senators to either oppose the president, or have the balls to face the public and tell them why they thought an escalation in Iraq was a good idea.

You have to love a politician who is willing to set his hair on fire over this issue. I don’t know who this guy is, but he sure could be fun to watch in the future.

Read on...

I’m entering an "Obamaholic Anonymous" program soon. I promise.

The first step is admitting you have a problem.

"Hello, I'm Moorgirl, and I'm a Obamaholic..."

The playing field just got leveled…

Hillary's Hollywood Friends Switch Sides

Is Hollywood abandoning Hillary?

On Wednesday morning, hundreds of Hollywood's movers and shakers received an invitation that they may find hard to refuse.

They've been invited to come meet Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic Party's new superstar.

Movie moguls Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg want their Hollywood peers to join them at a Feb. 20 fundraiser the three are throwing for Obama.

The fundraiser represents a major slap for Obama's main competitor, Sen. Hillary Clinton, who has received financial support from all three moguls in the past. Spielberg, Geffen and Katzenberg, along with other employees of their entertainment company, Dreamworks SKG, have contributed $47,000 to Clinton since her 2000 New York Senate campaign.

Spielberg alone has contributed $11,000 to Clinton since that campaign, and his political consultant, Andy Spahn, emphasized that Spielberg and Geffen have not yet officially endorsed Obama. "Mr. Katzenberg is endorsing Sen. Obama's candidacy," he said. "Mr. Spielberg is co-hosting the event but has not made any endorsements as of yet."

Spahn added that Spielberg "expects to be helpful to a few candidates during this exploratory phase," and may host fundraisers for Clinton and John Edwards as well. "Spielberg likes John Edwards and has a relationship with him — those are the two who he also likes."

Since the invitation went out just this morning, it was not clear who had R.S.V.P.'d for the event. But it is likely that those celebrities who've expressed support for Obama's candidacy — including George Clooney, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Oprah Winfrey, Oliver Stone and superagent Ari Emanuel — will be at the Beverly Hilton on Feb. 20.

My, my, what a difference a day makes. Seeing as how Hillary was favored to win because she can raise the most money, I’d say the playing field just got leveled.

Let’s face it, if Queen Oprah throws her considerable weight (and no, that’s not a fat joke) behind Obama, I would say that Hillary (and everyone else) can just go home. I have some serious opinions (not necessarily favorable) about Dame Oprah, but I won’t get into that now. It’s her minions (not millions) that will sew up this election for Obama.

I swear if Ms. Winfrey told her adoring lemmings to eat broken glass, 80% of the female population would be walking around with bloody lips. They hang on her every word as if she were a burning bush. If she throws her support behind Obama, Hillary can forget about the female vote.

Oprah has more ability to sway the general public than any single candidate. Right or wrong, good or bad, it’s a fact; as Oprah goes, so goes the country…

"Obama will not be swiftboated. Period."

Obama distributed a memo to reporters this morning completely debunking the lying piles of crap at Fox News and Insight Magazine.

From the memo:

To be clear, Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ in Chicago. Furthermore, the Indonesian school Obama attended in Jakarta is a public school that is not and never has been a Madrassa.

These malicious, irresponsible charges are precisely the kind of politics the American people have grown tired of, and that Senator Obama is trying to change by focusing on bringing people together to solve our common problems.

Fox News and the rabid Right will be the best thing that could ever happen to Obama. Every time they try to smear him with false accusations, he shows what he’s made of by rising to the occasion with class and style.


Keep it up, Fox. You’ll put Obama in the White House yet.


Read on...

I hate other children's parents...

Girl Kicked Off Plane After Tantrum

Flight attendants often deal with obnoxious passengers who won't listen to instructions by kicking them off the plane. But a Massachusetts couple think AirTran Airways went overboard by treating their crying 3-year-old daughter in much the same way.

Julie and Gerry Kulesza and daughter Elly were removed from the flight when the girl refused to take her seat before takeoff, airline officials said Tuesday. But her parents said they just needed a little more time to calm her down.

The Kuleszas planned to fly home to Boston on Jan. 14 from Fort Myers after a four-day visit with the girl's paternal grandparents. She was removed because "she was climbing under the seat and hitting the parents and wouldn't get in her seat" during boarding, AirTran spokeswoman Judy Graham-Weaver said.

AirTran officials say they were only following Federal Aviation Administration rules that children age 2 and above must have their own seat and be wearing a seatbelt upon takeoff.

"The flight was already delayed 15 minutes and in fairness to the other 112 passengers on the plane, the crew made an operational decision to remove the family," Graham-Weaver said.

But Julie Kulesza said: "We weren't giving an opportunity to hold her, console her or anything." (Ok, my head just exploded)

"Elly was sitting in front of our seat crying," she said in a phone interview. "The attendant motioned to a seat and asked if we purchased it for her."

They had paid for the seat. Gerry Kulesza said another attendant then approached the family and told him: "You need to get her in control and in her seat."

The couple told the attendants they were trying. Julie Kulesza said she asked the attendants if Elly could sit on her lap, but they said no.

The family flew home the next day.

The Orlando-based carrier reimbursed the family $595.80, the cost of the three tickets, and offered them three roundtrip tickets anywhere the airline flies, Graham-Weaver said.

But that's too little, too late for the Kuleszas. The father said they would never fly AirTran again.

OH SHUT UP, YOU WIMPY, WEAK, SOCIALLY MAL-ADJUSTED, DISCOURTEOUS, SELF-CENTERED, THOUGHTLESS, INCONSIDERATE, NEVER-SHOULD-HAVE-BEEN-ALLOWED-TO-REPRODUCE-IN-THE-FIRST-PLACE, TARDS!!!

Whew! I feel better.

Anybody who knows me knows that I am not a great lover of other people’s children. Not all children, just the ones who act like they were raised by wolves. And it’s not actually the children, it’s the parents. Ok, it IS actually the children, but it’s the parents’ fault.

If you can’t control your snot-nosed three-year-old after fifteen minutes, you just need to be sterilized.

The fact that this inbred couple draws the breath to be huffy about the whole situation makes me want to fly to Boston, find whatever trailer park they live in, knock on their front door, and smack the schnit out of both of them. I bet the other 112 passengers would erect a statue in my honor.

And then I have a little sum-sum special for Miss Elly…

"He'll be standing in front of a woman who's holding a hammer..."

I absolutely looked forward to Bush’s State of the Union speech last night. Not because of anything the Tard-in-Chief was going to say, but because of the choreography that always goes on at one of these speeches.

To stand or not to stand; to clap or not to clap; and if you do clap, how long do you clap and how enthusiastically? Do you hang on his every word with enraptured attention, or do you stare off into space to show your contemptuous disapproval? Every movement is planned out well ahead of time.

I LOVE THIS RITUAL!

It’s like a class of 10-year-olds at recess. But it’s also a way to publicly display your opinion of the president’s policies. It’s the political hokey pokey, and the Washington Post breaks it down perfectly:

Cheney and Pelosi Do the Two-Party Two-Step

A tale of two pictures...

"Hey Condi, didn't your mother ever tell you that if you didn't stop making that face it would freeze that way?"

The evil children over at C&L are having fun again...and so am I.

The trial of Scooter Libby, and why we should care

We should care because this goes straight to the top. We should care because this will be the first time in history that a sitting Vice President will be called to testify. We should care because, depending on what evidence comes to light during this trial, Cheney could get a little bit of it on him. We should care because it’s fun to watch roaches scurry when a little light is shed.

We should care because this is better than any reality show on TV.

Ok, here’s a quick breakdown of the situation. I’ll not provide dates or links for every point, this is just a simple, brief summary.

Joseph Wilson was the US diplomat to the African Nations and Iraq, who wrote a scathing editorial in the New York Times back in 2003 entitled, “What I Didn’t Find in Africa”. In this editorial, Wilson documents his February 2002 trip investigating whether Iraq purchased or attempted to purchase yellowcake from Niger in the late 1990s and accuses the Bush administration of "exaggerating the Iraqi threat" in order to justify war.

Remember, yellowcake is used in nuclear weapons, and was one of the main reason we had to invade Iraq.

Wilson is married to Valerie Plame who, at the time, was a super-secret undercover agent for the CIA.

In order to get even with Wilson for blowing the lid off the HUGE lie told by the WH, someone in the WH leaked to the press the identy of super-secret undercover agent Plame, thereby costing her her job and putting her life in danger.

This trial is about who exactly leaked that information to the press and the coverup that followed. The leak came from Cheney’s office. President Bush promised "to fire whomever was responsible".

Seeeee, I told you you should care!

Scooter Libby is actually the one on trial for leaking Plame’s identy. Libby was Cheney’s top aide. Libby blames Karl Rove for the leak. Rove is Bush’s chief political adviser and part-time Porky Pig lookalike. And just so’s ya know, Rove and Cheney are the evil masterminds who are really running the WH, the war, and the country. Just so’s ya know.

Most likely, Cheney and Rove got together and told Scooter to leak Plame’s identity to the press and are now throwing him under the bus. That’s pretty much their M.O. and I would imagine Scooter learned of Plame through Rove and/or Cheney, and lied about learning it from the press to cover for them.

Patrick Fitzgerald is the Special Prosecutor for the trial, which started yesterday.

Theodore Wells is Scooter’s attorney.

So those are all the players. Now on to today’s news.

There are actually two different plots going on here. The first is the plot to leak Plames’ identity to the press. The second is the plot to cover up who did the leaking. But the bottom line is, Rove and Cheney are in this up to their necks. Crimes were commited, such as perjury and obstruction of justice, which is what Scooter is charged with for lying to investigators when they started investigating the leak.

Scooter said he learned about Wilson and his wife from reporters, not the vice president. He says he learned of her identity from NBC News reporter and host of the Sunday morning talk show "Meet The Press", Tim Russert. Russert says "Nu-uh" and will testify against Libby. For this reason, MSNBC will probably be covering the trial closer than anyone and will be a good source to follow.

Attorneys for Scooter Libby said yesterday that the Bush administration officials tried to blame him for the leak of Plame's identity to cover up for Karl Rove's own disclosures.

Libby has said, "They're trying to set me up. They want me to be the sacrificial lamb. I will not be sacrificed so Karl Rove can be protected."

Stay tuned. It's going to be a bumpy trial...

MSNBC

Crooks and Liars will have periodic posts, live from the courtroom.

What could possibly go wrong?

Website offers whistleblowers chance to go global

THE internet could become even more difficult for governments to regulate with a new website, Wikileaks, promising to provide a safe haven for whistleblowers to upload confidential documents.

Comparing themselves with the leaker of the Pentagon papers that damaged the Nixon administration and eroded US public confidence in the Vietnam War, Wikileaks' creators say they will uncover unethical behaviour by developing "an uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis".

Wikipedia is the online encyclopedia built around content created by tens of thousands of contributors. It says its sophisticated cryptographic technology ensures users cannot be traced.

The Wikileaks spokeswoman said more that 1 million documents were awaiting publication.


Read on...

Smearing two birds with one lie…

A couple days ago, a commenter brought to my attention this ridiculous rumor of Barack Obama being a closet Muslim. What the commenter had cut and pasted (I don’t know what the source was, doesn’t matter) smacked of rightwing lies, fear, and racism. And let’s face it; if it’s lies, fear, and racism, it must be Republican.

I won’t bother to comment on the rumor, it was as transparent as it was untruthful. But leave it to the wingnuts to make a bad situation worse.

Apparently the original source of the “story” was a Republican rag called Insight Magazine. Insight Magazine is now claiming that they received the information that Obama is a Muslim from an “unnamed source” in Hillary Clinton’s camp. While I am not a great fan of Hillary, I have never thought she was a stupid woman, nor one given to much fear. This is simply not her style.

Naturally, the lie surrounding Obama’s heritage was repeated over and over on Fox News. Only Fox didn’t stop there. They’ve also been “reporting” that the information came from Clinton’s camp.

Now, we all know that rabid Republicans and Fox News wouldn’t know the truth if it came up and gave them a blowjob, but this is bordering on the insane. Not to mention that it’s WAY too early for Fox to be pulling out the swift boats. This story is so transparent that I could tell who was behind it from a simple comment left by a reader. I didn’t even have to read the story.

Hillary Clinton may be a lot of things, but she’s not a Republican, and this has Republican written all over it. First and foremost, Democrats are not the ones who immediately jump to “terrorist” every time someone says “Muslim”. Republicans are. Republicans are the ones who fear all things Muslim and who try to instill that fear in anyone who will listen. Rational, reasonable people know that, while all the evildoers are Muslim, not all Muslims are evildoers. This is where they show what racist hacks they really are. The only reason Fox newscasters don’t wear pointy white hoods to do the news is because they can’t read the teleprompters through the eyeholes.

Last time I checked, Hillary was the frontrunner, she just threw her hat into the ring, and the election is two years away. There would be no reason for her to “leak” this rumor, especially at this stage of the game. This was the act of a desperate party. And Hillary is anything but desperate.

But the Republicans are. Can you smell the desperation? I told you when Obama announced his candidacy that he was the Reps. worst nightmare, a Democratic black man in the White House. But that’s nothing compared to the apoplexy the Reps. are having over this: the prospect that Bill Clinton could be back in the White House. And while the Republican Party is well known for being full of racists and sexists, they are, above all things, Bill Clinton haters.

Hang on, folks, it’s going to be a mean season. Luckily, after two terms of George Bush, the American people recognize the Republican's handiwork when they smell it.

Bottom line is, Insight Magazine, along with the Washington Times newspaper, are owned by none other than the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. Yes, that Rev. Moon. The crazy, wackadoo cult leader. It is a well-known fact that the Rev. Moon is a huge contributor to the Republican Party.

Since serving his tax-evasion sentence in the early 1980s, however, Moon appears to have bought himself protection by spreading hundreds of millions of dollars around conservative causes and through generous speaking fee payments to Republican leaders, including former President George H.W. Bush.

Moon himself has boasted that he spent $1 billion on the right-wing Washington Times in its first decade alone. The newspaper, which started in 1982, continues to lose Moon an estimated $50 million a year but remains a valuable propaganda organ for the Republican Party.

How Moon has managed to cover the vast losses of his media empire and pay for lavish conservative conferences has been one of the most enduring mysteries of Washington, but curiously one of the least investigated, at least since the Reagan-Bush era.

Any questions?

Are you going to believe me, or your lying eyes?

Because I do this for a living, photo retouching always fascinates me. I stand in the lines at the store and see the magazine covers of all the beautiful people, fully knowing that these people look like slugs when they wake up in the morning.

Ok, maybe not Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp, but everyone else.

I tried for years to get it through the daughter’s head that these people don’t actually look like this in real life, that women don’t have perfect bodies, teeth, hair, and complexions. They are airbrushed, erased, and manipulated in some form or fashion. I curse the people in the advertising field and they are all going to Hell.
















(Click to enlarge in a new window)


Roll your mouse over the samples of before and after shots on the links below. Check them out, and then feel good about yourself!

This guy is really good. Check out his bikini girl and his blonde.

Scroll down, and forget that Wonder Bra...

Scroll down, and forget all those sit-ups...

Scroll down, and know that nothing you see in print is real...

For the love of all things stretchy…NO!

Leggings Are the New Must-Have.

For men!






No. NO! A thousand times NOOOOO! If I see any of you wearing these atrocities in public, I swear I will come up to you, point to your crotch, and laugh. I’ll do it. I’m not kidding. Because let’s face it, if you’re a man and you’d go out in public dressed like this, you deserve public humiliation heaped upon you in volumes.

The only man who should ever be seen in leggings is THIS guy!

I could just spit…

Hillary Clinton Launching Presidential Run

She’s running. I won’t go through the whole story, just a few of the highlights that really jerk my chain.

She said:

"As a senator, I will spend two years doing everything in my power to limit the damage George W. Bush can do," Clinton's statement added. "But only a new president will be able to undo Bush's mistakes and restore our hope and optimism."

Um, Hill? We’ve been listening for your dissenting voice for a couple of years now with nary a peep from you. Now that it’s safe, now that everyone has jumped from The Good Ship Lollipop and been plucked out of the waters by the USS Reality, now when it’s safe for you to speak out, NOW you think Iraq is a bad idea. You’re a day late and a dollar short, lady.

Many political watchers consider Clinton the Democrat to beat — particularly given her prolific fundraising abilities. Associates of Clinton say she will be capable of raising tens of millions of dollars in the year to come.

Isn’t that a crying shame? She’s deemed the Democrat to beat because she can raise the most money. Remember, America, you don’t always get what you pay for. Sometimes a bargain brand just works better because it has to.

Clinton's support is particularly strong among Democratic women; 49 percent favor her for the nomination, compared with 29 percent of Democratic men.

Ok, ladies, I’m talking to you here. Just because Hillary Clinton has a uterus, that’s no reason to give her permission to run the country. Voting for a woman simply because she’s a woman makes you stupid and not worthy of owning a uterus or a vote. While I agree it would be wonderful to someday have a woman president, not this woman. She has proven herself to be just another professional politician. I also agree that while it would be a comic delight to have Bill back in the White House, it would only be fun for about five minutes. Forgive me for what I’m about to say, but come on ladies, stop voting with your twat! I’m sorry, there was just no better way to put it. And I apologize for using the words Hillary Clinton and uterus in the same sentence. (Expect freaks who Google “twat” to show up any minute and be very disappointed.)

This past week, Clinton made a highly publicized trip to Iraq, where she met with top U.S. commanders. During that trip, she told ABC News' Jonathan Karl the situation in Iraq is "heartbreaking."

Way to use Iraq, the war, the young Americans spilling their blood because you supported this war, as a photo-op for your upcoming campaign, wench. The only other time she’s been to Iraq was in 2005 when she visited Baghdad with Sen. “What this war needs is a bigger body count” McCain and three others. They never left the safety and comfort of the Green Zone. Has anybody checked her card? Are we sure she’s a Democrat?

"I don't know that the American people or the Congress at this point believe this mission can work," she told ABC News.

You don’t know? Pick up a newspaper, girl. She knows damn good and well that the tide has turned for this war. That’s why it is now safe for her to jump on the cool kid’s bandwagon.

After returning to the United States, Clinton proposed legislation to cap the number of American troops serving in Iraq and to begin a redeployment of troops out of Baghdad, and eventually out of Iraq. She also supports putting conditions on the money being spent in Iraq.

Obama proposed similar legislation the following day. He often points to the fact that he never supported the war in the first place. Clinton did vote to authorize the use of force in 2002.

I’ll admit it, I get a certain amount of joy from the fact that the flag-waving, uber-patriots of 2002 are finally getting their comeuppance. Having voted for this war in back in 2002 is political poison now, and it should be. And while they’re all singing a different tune, now that it’s a safe thing to do, they should have had the strength, decency, and common sense to do it back then.

Prior to Clinton's proposal for legislation, John Edwards leveled indirect criticism at Clinton for not taking bolder action to oppose the war. In a speech commemorating Martin Luther King, Jr., he said: "If you're in Congress and you know that this war is going in the wrong direction, and you know that we should not escalate this war in Iraq, it is no longer okay to study your options and keep your own private counsel."

Now THAT’S how you do it. If you voted for this war in 2002, then you suck it up, admit your mistake, and come out firing both barrels against it now. Not some wimpy, milquetoast, “I don’t know that the American people believe this can work” crap. For someone who’s been labeled a pit bull, she sure seems to be a fence-straddling, chihuahua to me.

In my book, she’s the very essence of what a politician is. And that’s not a good thing. So unless some phenomenal woman throws her hat into the ring, we will just have to wait four more years. Voting for an unethical woman for president just to get a woman into the White House is an unacceptable option. After all, we want the first female president to go down in history as a good thing, don’t we?

Come on, Hill, stay in your cushy Senate job. I really don't want to have to vote Independant this time around.

And I know this is a typical, catty, question and has nothing to do with anything, but why is she wearing a wedding cake?

I'm just sayin'...

Wingnuts love the Nuge

Maybe it’s just me, but I always thought the Republican Party’s adoration of Fred Nugget Ted Nugent, and his love of all things wingnutty, was like a match made in Hell. Does the Republican Party seem like the type of people who actually listen to long-haired, no shirt-wearing, screaming banshee, hard rockers? I’m thinking no.

But it has always been a love fest between these two life forms. That is, until this past Wednesday. Now, I’ve never like Ted, never liked his music, liked him even less when he decided that he was Daniel Boone reincarnated, and actually loathed him when he started thinking anyone gave a schnit about his political views.

Now it seems as if he’s weirded out his own beloved party. I present to you Exhibit A, or what I like to call; "How many ethnic groups can I insult with one outfit?"















Rocker's Inaugural Act Creates Stir

Hours after Gov. Rick Perry kicked off his second full term in office, Ted Nugent helped him celebrate at a black-tie gala, but not all attendees were pleased by the rocker's performance.

Using machine guns as props, Nugent, 58, appeared onstage as the final act of the inaugural ball wearing a cutoff T-shirt emblazoned with the Confederate flag and shouting offensive remarks about non-English speakers, according to people who were in attendance.

Perry's spokesman, Robert Black, downplayed the Tuesday-night incident.

"Ted Nugent is a good friend of the governor's. He asked him if he would play at the inaugural. He didn't put any stipulation of what he would play," Black said.

Others said the appearance was inappropriate.

"I think it was a horrible choice," GOP strategist Royal Masset said. "I hope nobody approved it."

Nugent, a hunting and gun-rights advocate, couldn't be reached for comment Thursday because he was hunting, a spokeswoman said.

The guitarist — known as the "Motor City Madman" — lived in Michigan most of his life before moving to Crawford in 2003. He is famed for his 1977 hit "Cat Scratch Fever."












The man on the right is the governor of Texas. No, really.























These are your Republican values in action.

This gala event took place in Austin, Texas (sorry Cait), at the invitation of the Governor of Texas. The Governor’s office defended Ted’s offensive, racist, remarks and attire. This is the president’s home state. Bush and Ted have something else in common besides their love of crappy music. They’re neighbors in Crawford, Texas. Yes, Ted’s love of all things wingnutable prompted him to become a fulltime resident of Crawford.

I wonder if they have matching shirts…

Bush: “When the Iraqi Army stands up, we’ll stand down.”

Maliki Stresses Urgency In Arming Iraqi Forces

The Iraqi government's need for American troops would "dramatically go down" in three to six months if the United States accelerated the process of equipping and arming Iraq's security forces, Prime Minister Maliki said Wednesday.

Maliki disputed President Bush's remarks broadcast Tuesday that the execution of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein "looked like it was kind of a revenge killing" and took exception to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's Senate testimony last week that Maliki's administration was on "borrowed time."

The prime minister said statements such as Rice's "give morale boosts for the terrorists and push them toward making an extra effort and making them believe they have defeated the American administration," Maliki said. "But I can tell you that they have not defeated the Iraqi government."

At a time when Bush has committed an additional 21,500 troops to the fight in Iraq, Maliki went further than he has before in establishing a time frame for drawing down the U.S. presence.

"If we succeed in implementing the agreement between us to speed up the equipping and providing weapons to our military forces, I think that within three to six months our need for the American troops will dramatically go down. That's on the condition that there are real strong efforts to support our military forces and equipping them and arming them," Maliki said.

In the interview Wednesday, Maliki said many American and Iraqi lives would have been spared if the Iraqi forces had been better equipped.

Maliki spoke slowly and seriously for most of the conversation, but occasionally broke into a smile, such as when he was asked whether Bush needs him more than he needs Bush. "This is an evil question," he said, laughing.


I am beginning to lose interest in this whole game these two asshats seem to be playing with each other. It is so blatantly obvious that we are not in this war to win it, but to prolong it. And apparently Maliki is fine with that, at least until we start insulting his strength as a leader.

In order to prolong this war, Bush has had to shift the blame onto the Iraqi government and Maliki. Maliki, like any leader when challenged, is now rising up, calling a spade a spade and in turn, trying to embarrass Bush.

Does that last line not just give you the shivers?

“When he was asked whether Bush needs him more than he needs Bush. "This is an evil question," he said, laughing.”

Two observations:

1. The Iraqi government thinks Bush is as useless a tool as America does.

2. All the players are aware that this “war” isn’t really a war at all. It is an evil exercise in which two countries are trying to further their own agenda of power. We use them, they use us, everybody’s happy. Aren’t you happy?

So, Maliki is going to taunt the leader who is trying to “save” him. We all know how Bush’s personality defects respond to belittlement. Can you see what’s happening here?

We blame them for the cluster that is this war because let’s face it, we can’t tell the truth about it. They, in return, tell the truth about it. We point the finger at them, they narc us out. My God, what a razor’s edge Bush is walking on.

Bottom line is, we won’t arm the Iraqi army because we don’t WANT them to stand up. We haven’t achieved our goals in the Middle East yet. And until we have, we can’t afford for it to appear that Iraq doesn’t need us. But time and ego is running out.

I predict that Iraq will grow weary of having it’s manliness impugned by the likes of a dolt like Bush. I predict that Maliki will stop playing the game, stand up, and tell Bush that his country no longer needs us or wishes our occupation of their country. I believe this will happen before Bush is ready to leave Iraq. This will totally screw with Bush’s program.

I have no idea what Bush will do about it. Chances are he’ll take the easy way out and never equip the Iraqi army so it can take care of itself. Or perhaps something a little more evil, like stirring up another little war with Iraq’s neighbors. My money is on the evil option.

So people, if you ever want to train someone to do something, just don’t give them the tools they need to become fully independent of you. You’ll never be out of a job…

Read on...

Is "Poop Head" one word or two?

Ok, enough is enough. Today was Day 6 of being iced into the house. I feel bad complaining because many of our neighbors in surrounding towns have been without electricity for 6 days. But I’m going to complain anyway.

It started raining ice early Friday afternoon. It didn’t stop until Sunday night. Since then, the temperature has not been out of the 20’s, so needless to say, nothing has melted. There is at least 3-4 inches of pure ice on everything. It’s deeper in the drifts. This caused us to have to reschedule a big shoot last Saturday to this Saturday, and as of today, it has been canceled until further notice. That’s ok; we didn’t need that money!!! Screw the bills! It’s not like I can get to the mailbox to pay them anyway!

Clint spent at least two hours yesterday with a hammer and an ice pick, trying to chisel the truck out. It didn’t work. Luckily, since we work out of the house and because I saw this storm coming, we had plenty of food (for a week) and have had no reason to leave the house. This is a good thing, seeing as how venturing off the front porch is a death wish. It’s like walking on a wet ice cube.

Schools have been out all week because sand and salt crews cannot make it to the neighborhood streets. Even if Clint could get all the ice off the truck, there is a 4-5 inch ice drift in the driveway and behind all four tires. We could possibly get out, but getting back up the sloped driveway would certainly be entertaining for all the neighbors. We will be alerting the neighbors tomorrow though. The local news just announced that another storm in coming in Friday night through Sunday that will dump 4 to 8 inches of snow in top of the ice.

And there was much rejoicing...













And speaking of entertainment, watching the dog attempt to maneuver on the ice has been a source of great joy for me. It would be a lot funnier if Poop-Head, aka Charity, weren’t 15 years old, arthritic, and almost completely deaf. But like most dogs, she must find that PERFECT blade of grass, or in this case, that perfect patch of ice, on which to pee. This leads to much hilarity and glee on my part. Think Bambi on ice. I’m so evil.

Blame it on cabin fever...

Imagine there's no countries...

Take five minutes and play along, won’t you?

Imagine your neighborhood. Do you live on a street lined with other houses? An apartment complex? A trailer park? Do you know many of your neighbors? Do you visit each other’s houses, or do you perhaps just know your neighbors by sight? Do you know their names or the names of their children?

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that you know your neighbors like I do. Next door, on the east, there’s Jeremy and his wife Karen, their 2-year-old boy Jaxton, and their drooling bulldog Titus. On the west side there is a couple in their 30’s, a blended family with a new baby. I don’t know their names. Across the street is an older woman living with her daughter, a single mom, and her granddaughter who looks to be about five years old. I don’t’ know their names either. I could go on describing the occupants of most of the houses on my street. We don’t know them personally, but we wave, perhaps have a brief conversation in the summer when everyone is outside.

Now think about your neighbors. Are they married? Do they have elderly parents living with them? Just think about the occupants. You don’t need to know them personally for this exercise.

Now, depending on the size of your street, complex etc., randomly pick ten houses. Pick ten of the families that surround you. If you don’t have that many, then pick half of the homes closest to you. Think about the people who live there.

Now burn these houses down, with those people inside. Burn them to the ground, no one escapes. How many people just died? How many children burned alive? How many elderly? How many young couples embarking on a new life together?

Are you picturing it? The death, the pain, the heartache? How much carnage is there? Can you see the bodies from your house? Can you smell the burning flesh? Try to imagine the destruction of the home next door to yours, burned to ground. Try to wrap your mind around what it must have been like for your neighbors inside that home. Repeat this process for nine other homes.

Now think about the ripple effect that those deaths would cause. The parents of that young couple. The grandparents of those dead children. The brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles. The friends…

How much grief and suffering would consume your newly destroyed neighborhood? How many lives would be forever changed and irrevocably destroyed by the lives lost in those ten houses? How many mothers would never recover from the loss of a daughter? How many fathers, the loss of a son? How many children would mourn their elderly parents? Lives snuffed out in an instant, recklessly, carelessly. Now repeat this process in a new neighborhood, with new sets of houses and new sets of families.

Pretend the country responsible for all this pain was Canada. Pretend Canada envisioned itself your savior, embarking on a quest to save you from yourselves. Pretend Canada invaded our country, burning down house after house, neighborhood after neighborhood. Pretend Canada, in all its arrogance, decided that the children in your neighborhood were a necessary sacrifice, a means to an end, if you will. And while Canada thinks it’s all very sad, they believe your neighborhood will be the better for it on down the road, sometime, if there is anybody left on down the road. Canada didn’t ask you, or your neighbors. And they still don’t. Canada knows what’s best for you, and if a few hundred thousand of your friends and family members have to die in the process of forcing upon you what Canada has decided is best, then so be it. Canada has decided that it’s worth it.

Now, pretend you live in Iraq.

By different estimations, there have been some 300,000 – 600,000 lives burned to the ground in Iraq, give or take a few thousand. Let’s use the conservative number of 300,000. Three hundred thousand is a hard number to wrap your mind around. It’s easier and far more personal if you limit your imagination to your own neighborhood. We hear it on the news every night but it’s not personal to us. They’re not really people, just numbers. Three hundred thousand human lives snuffed out since we invaded Iraq. Three hundred thousand people who would still be alive, going to their jobs, loving their families, just doing what people do, had we not invaded their country.

Yesterday, the United Nations put out a report that puts the Iraqi civilian death toll at 34,000…for the year of 2006. Thirty four thousand. For one year. How many people is 34,000? I don’t know. Would that be the equivalent of two Rolling Stones audiences? How about the Super Bowl audience? Americans just can’t grasp a number like that. So we don’t.

This will not only be George Bush’s legacy, it will be our legacy also. That's assuming we are around long enough, as a country, to have a legacy. Someone will be held accountable for all the moms, all the dads, and all the children. These were human souls. Their lives were not lost, they were taken.

There is nothing we could possibly achieve in Iraq that will make those deaths forgivable. We are war criminals, and no good that comes out of this atrocity will be worth all the innocent lives that have been sacrificed while we, as a country, continue to argue, bitch, and moan about who was right and who was wrong. We will be judged as a country. We will be punished as a country.

One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all...

UPDATE: You know all those Iraqi souls you can’t put a price on? Apparently I was wrong, you CAN put a price on them. It appears the going rate for a human life these days is about $2,500. That’s generally what the US government pays the families of civilians we “accidentally kill”, give or take a few dollars. Man, woman, child. $2,500. No wonder it’s so easy. Iraqi lives are barely worth the price of a flat screen TV.

From June, 2006: The U.S. military recently announced in a Defense Department report provided to Congress that it paid out $19 million in compensation to Iraqis last year – half of which paid out by Marines in al-Anbar province west of Baghdad.

The military claimed the amount was paid in 600 separate incidents, but it is common knowledge in Iraq that the usual payout for a non-combat civilian death is $2,500.

A payment of $19 million compensation at $2,500 a person would suggest such killings in thousands.

And from CNN, there is a new video report out today. Look for the video titled “US pays $2,500 for each dead by-stander” or “Condolence pay”.

So, those kids who play next door to you? Slap a $2,500 price tag on their heads. Hell, for that matter, slap one on your own kid’s head. And you wife’s. And your dad’s. And yours…

Yeah baby!

Obama Takes 1st Step in Presidential Bid

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama said Tuesday he is taking the initial step in a presidential bid that could make him the nation's first black to occupy the White House.

Obama announced on his Web site that he was filing a presidential exploratory committee. He said he would announce more about his plans in his home state of Illinois on Feb. 10.

"I certainly didn't expect to find myself in this position a year ago," Obama said in a video posting. "I've been struck by how hungry we all are for a different kind of politics. So I've spent some time thinking about how I could best advance the cause of change and progress that we so desperately need."

It’s like coming in from the sewer to a clean, warm, shower, isn’t it? As much as I like John Edwards, I believe and trust Obama more. The worst thing anyone can say about him is that he’s inexperienced. Well, what exactly has experience done for us lately?

As far as I’m concerned, his lack of experience is a selling point. I’m sick of professional politicians. When you’re a good man, ruled by a good heart, AND YOU HAVE A CONSCIENCE, then experience isn’t necessary. You’ll make the right decisions as you go along.

You don’t need experience to do the right thing. The thought of an Obama White House is like light at the end of a long, dank, human waste-filled tunnel. It’s like the hero showing up on the scene and rescuing you from a room full of rapists. If he is judged on his heart and his integrity, he should have no problem sweeping the elections.

If he is judged on the kind of man that he is, he'll be neither black nor white, he'll be golden…


Read on...

Works for me!

Adultery could mean life, court finds

In a ruling sure to make philandering spouses squirm, Michigan's second-highest court says that anyone involved in an extramarital fling can be prosecuted for first-degree criminal sexual conduct, a felony punishable by up to life in prison.

"We cannot help but question whether the Legislature actually intended the result we reach here today," Judge William Murphy wrote in November for a unanimous Court of Appeals panel, "but we are curtailed by the language of the statute from reaching any other conclusion."

Technically," he added, "any time a person engages in sexual penetration in an adulterous relationship, he or she is guilty of CSC I," the most serious sexual assault charge in Michigan's criminal code.

No one expects prosecutors to declare open season on cheating spouses. The ruling is especially awkward for Attorney General Mike Cox, whose office triggered it by successfully appealing a lower court's decision to drop CSC charges against a Charlevoix defendant. In November 2005, Cox confessed to an adulterous relationship.



Read on , it's quite an interesting little story.

And in related news:


51% of Women Are Now Living Without Spouse

For what experts say is probably the first time, more American women are living without a husband than with one, according to a New York Times analysis of census results.

In 2005, 51 percent of women said they were living without a spouse, up from 35 percent in 1950 and 49 percent in 2000.

Coupled with the fact that in 2005 married couples became a minority of all American households for the first time, the trend could ultimately shape social and workplace policies, including the ways government and employers distribute benefits.



I blame it on football. Read on...

They want to come home

Service members join war protest

A growing number of active-duty military personnel are coming out against the war, despite a culture in the Armed Forces that frowns on public objections to presidential policy.

A recent poll of military personnel show their support of the war has dropped to 54 percent.

Active-duty military personnel are allowed to publicly object to the war, as long as they do not wear their uniforms when expressing their opinions.

"We served in combat and we've seen the futility of this war,'' said Sgt. Jabbar Magruder of Los Angeles, a member of the National Guard who served 11 months in Tikrit, a town northwest of Baghdad. "The soldiers want to resist. The soldiers want to come home now. We need the citizens to back us.''


Read on...

Bush's "60 Minutes", Part II

Actually, I thought this was one of the best interviews of Bush that I’ve ever seen, his slaughter of the English language aside. He was relaxed, he was at Camp David, out in the country, he was in his comfy clothes. He seemed very at ease, and why shouldn’t he be? This was his 365th day spent at Camp David. One whole year spent at this retreat, out of the six years he’s been in office (page 3). And that’s not counting all the cumulative time he’s spent at his ranch in Tx. Presidentin’ is hard work. One only has to check out his vacation record to see how much harder presidentin’ is for George compared to any other president in history. But I digress.

Bush is trying to instill confidence and assuage fears. His interview did neither. I looked at his affectation, his eyes, his expressions, and his body language. I listened to every word he said, trying to get some idea of the world he lives in. I came to the conclusion that he actually believes the things he says. Oh he skirted some questions, gave non-answers to others, but all in all he seemed convinced that he is absolutely doing the right thing. He is also convinced that he owns all the power to do it. I shudder at the thought.

See, there is no dealing with someone like this. There is no room for other ideas, no room for other opinions, no room for the tiniest of possibilities that he might be wrong. Which means, of course, there is no room for an alternative plan. When one is convinced that his ideals are golden, there just isn’t any reason for alternatives. And this is what makes him so dangerous. Napoleon and Hitler spring to mind, as does the leader of Iran, Saddam Hussein, and Jim Jong Ill. How does Bush differ from these other leaders, who are generally thought of to be insane? The short answer: he doesn’t.

I’d rather Bush had come across as an insincere liar. At least then you’d KNOW that he knows what he’s doing is wrong, but for ulterior motives, he’s going to do it anyway. Evil and dishonest don’t worry me nearly as much as maniacal with delusions of grandeur.

You can’t reason with crazy. And when your president is one cow shy of a herd, where do you go? A thoughtful commenter said that all this war needs is more time. Are we talking months? Years? Decades? It is a delusion to think that time is all that is necessary to lessen the deep, DEEP hatred the factions in the Middle East have for each other. This has been going on for generations. Children are born into this hatred. They are raised on it and fed a steady diet of it every day of their lives. This hatred has become part of their religion….for generations. How absolutely arrogant and delusional of us to think that we can ride in on our white horse of democracy and change that. Especially since nobody asked us to.

Let’s face it, if the Middle East didn’t have all the oil, and if Saudi Arabia weren’t so heavily invested in the United States, we wouldn’t be there, forcing them to adopt our brand of democracy. WE need them to become a democratic society. We need a permanent foothold in the Middle East to protect OUR interests. This war isn’t for them, it’s for us. It is no coincidence that the president who has the most entanglements with big oil is the president who decides to wage war on the Middle East.

Bush is not a smart man. He is not well educated. He’s not a deep thinker. Bush is a pawn, a pawn who wants to be great, a pawn who has been convinced by those around him that this war is his ticket to greatness. I believe he is a deeply insecure man who is convinced that this war is his ticket to finally impressing those he holds in esteem. And his need for that acceptance far outweighs anything else, like rationale.

Bush needs to be relieved of his duties. He needs to be permanently at the Crawford ranch, clearing brush and working out his daddy issues. He is a recovering alcoholic and drug addict. You can stop drinking, but if you don’t address and resolve the issues that made you an alcoholic in the first place, then you are just a mentally and emotionally damaged man who doesn’t drink.

I no longer care, necessarily, about Bush being brought up on charges, as we don’t usually punish people for being mentally ill. But neither should we allow them the position to control the free world, have their finger on the button, and continuously poke others who have a button of their own…