Saturday, March 27, 2004

Another Parent Who Doesn't Deserve To Be

I was on the couch last night, trying not to die from coughing, and I had the TV on for background noise. Dateline NBC came on, with some special on overweight kids.

Anyways, it's not so much the overweight kids that made me blow my top, it was one of the kid's mother.

The show was following three kids who were trying to lose weight at a "fat camp". You know the deal, make the kids excersize, get them active, lower calorie counts, and all that. But in the middle of the show, one of the kids they were following around gets a call at camp from his mother. Want to guess what dear mommy said?

"I'm leaving for Arizona with my new husband. You're on your own."

One parent is absent from the weekend retreat: TJ's mother. For most of his life, she's been more buddy than parent, but lately, she's been neither. TJ can't understand it. But then, finally, she does call -- and what she says is a bombshell. Over the phone, she tells TJ she is leaving, moving to Arizona with her second husband. TJ will have to fend for himself in California, hopefully living with relatives. And now TJ, a 17-year-old heading to senior year in high school, is an angry and grief-stricken mess.

Red Curtain of Blood. How in god's name can such a worthless sack of shit dare to call herself a parent when she does things like this? As if this poor kid isn't have enough problems in life already, he now gets to deal with the fact that mom F**KING ABANDONED HIM! WHAT THE HELL??

So they hunt down this worthless c**t and ask her what the hell happened. Again, the Red Curtain of Blood decended over my eyes.

Trina says TJ and his step-dad never got along. She was caught in the middle of that, she says. So this summer she decided it would be best to move with her husband and leave TJ behind.

Natalina Guerra: “He's a great kid and I know he'll do good. He just has to find himself and I can't find that for him.”

Morrison: “Even if he feels abandoned?”

Natalina Guerra: “Oh, don't say that.”


If I were the cameraman, I would have stopped filming and beaten this bitch to death with the sound mic. I don't think there are enough foul words in the English language to describe how I feel about this ... thing. I'm not going to consider it as human, because it obviously doesn't have one thing that I think separates humans from animals - compassion. The kid was 17 and this foul blob of shit just dumped him on his ass. Gee, thanks "mom"!

People like that should be shot.

Still sick

I'm still fighting off this damn virus. Not only did I forget to post last weeks council winners, but I forgot to vote on this weeks entries. Gah!

So, this weeks winners are The Smarter Cop, Twenty Questions I'd Like To Ask John F*** Kerry, and Citizen Smash, Down The Rabbit Hole. You can see all the results here.

Friday, March 26, 2004

Hindsight is 20/20

This whole Richard Clarke-9/11 commission thing irritates me. Yes, we probably could have done something earlier, yes we should have been more aggressive against Al Qaeda earlier, no we didn't, and no we weren't. Fine. But looking at it now, 3 years after the fact, is neither important nor useful.

The fact of the matter is that everyone makes mistakes. Perhaps the current administration was too lax before 9/11, but they were no worse than the administration before them (something which, interestingly, Richard Clarke has also pointed out, though the media is trying to pin this squarely on Bush). Everyone at every level of government ignored this problem, and as such everyone -- including the commission members themselves -- bears some responsibility for it.

So what's the practical upshot of this? Nothing, really. Conspiracy theories aside, no one really believes that Bush would have let 9/11 happen had he known about it. He wants to be a two-term president, as all presidents want, and that would have been suicide. I'm not sure I'd called Bush the brightest bulb in the pack, but he's not a total dimwit, and he is politically savvy.

So what's the point of this? The only one I can think of is to publically blast Bush for something important during an election year. And in that context, it doesn't surprise me at all that one of the commission members was... John Kerry.

Richard Clarke Update

Here was his tune in 2002.

Wow

David Horowitz. Looooooooong essay. Well worth reading.

Found via the Geek.

Well, well, well......

Once again, Analog Kid asks a rather important question regarding a few facts from Richard Clarke's book. As usual, all emphasis is mine.

The media are fascinated with the parts of former White House terrorism czar Richard Clarke's book that trash President Bush as being out to lunch on the al-Qaida threat before 9/11.

But reporters aren't talking about the chapter of "Against All Enemies" that describes how Osama bin Laden cooperated with Iraqi scientists to make weapons of mass destruction - a development that, if true, would more than justify President Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq.

In his book, Clarke describes how the Clinton CIA determined in 1996 that Sudan's Shifa chemical plant, which was allegedly bankrolled by bin Laden, was producing the chemical EMPTA.

"EMPTA is a compound that had been used as a prime ingredient in Iraqi nerve gas," writes Clarke. "It has no other known use, nor had any other nation employed EMPTA to our knowledge for any purpose."

"What was an Iraqi chemical weapons agent doing in Sudan?" the terrorism authority asked.


So, was Clarke lying then, or is he lying now? And more to the point, if the Barking Moonbats are going to take this book at face value, doesn't that automatically prove the Al-Queda/Saddam link? Do we no longer have to listen to ignorant twits scream that Iraq and Al-Queda were separate?


Thursday, March 25, 2004

Not Civilized

I don't care what anyone else says. People who make a teenage boy put on a bomb belt and tell him to die for their god are NOT CIVILIZED! Is that understood?

Targeting women and children is not civilized.
Targeting busses, discos and pizza joints is not civilized.
Targeting birthday parties, Passover feasts and Bar Mitzvahs is not civilized.

People scream about Israel committing genocide - let me ask you this. Is there any doubt, given Israel's military capabilities, that if Israel wanted to flatten the Gaza Strip and West bank they could do so?

Why haven't they?

They're civilized. Something that the people sworn to destroy them cannot say about themselves.

Job Market

Now, we've all heard about how horrible the job market is, from the Donks to the local rags. Everywhere you look, people on the left are screaming about how horrible the economy is. Granted, they're somewhat insulated from reality, but that's to be expected.

Anyways, Analog Kid has a question for them.

Read and discuss.

Spring Cleaning

It's a rainy, miserable day here in Seattle. I had a meeting to go to, I'm stick sick, and I decided to at least get something done around the house. So, dishes are done, and my bathroom smells of bleach. I have a hunch that the mildew which is so prevalent in the Pacific Northwest may be part of the cause of my illness. The crap is damn near impossible to get rid of. So I soaked the corner of the bathroom in bleach. If it doesn't kill it, it will at least keep it at bay for a while. I'll go back and wipe the wall down later.

I got some of those zinc drops that Mollbot suggested. They seem to be working, although rather slowly. I spent a good portion of last night coughing up a lung. Blah. I'm not pleasant company to be around right now. I've had to call in sick to work twice this week, and I hate that. We're short staffed, so if I call in sick, they have to pull someone else in to cover for me. Grrrrrrr. I feel like I'm slacking, but when I'm producing vile crap from my nose and chest, I can't work.

So, now that I've at least done some work around the house, it's blog-hopping time. So, let's see what they have.

The Rott has found an interview from a year and a half in the past, chock full of interesting tidbits of info. Such as:

Q: You're saying that the Bush administration did not stop anything that the Clinton administration was doing while it was making these decisions, and by the end of the summer had increased money for covert action five-fold. Is that correct?

A: All of that's correct.


Uh oh, another Bush bootlicker covering his boss' ass, right?

Q: What is your response to the suggestion in the [Aug. 12, 2002] Time [magazine] article that the Bush administration was unwilling to take on board the suggestions made in the Clinton administration because of animus against the — general animus against the foreign policy?

A: I think if there was a general animus that clouded their vision, they might not have kept the same guy dealing with terrorism issue. This is the one issue where the National Security Council leadership decided continuity was important and kept the same guy around, the same team in place. That doesn't sound like animus against uh the previous team to me.


Yep, just another Bushie bootlicker. It has to be, right?

Q: Now the five-fold increase for the money in covert operations against Al Qaeda — did that actually go into effect when it was decided or was that a decision that happened in the next budget year or something?

A: Well, it was gonna go into effect in October, which was the next budget year, so it was a month away.

Q: That actually got into the intelligence budget?

A: Yes it did.


By the way, the person giving the answers is non other than Richard Clarke. Just so ya know. You wonder why I don't trust this guy any farther than I can throw him? Because he's changed his story almost as much as Kerry, who he's tied to by personal aquaintances and prospects of high level government employment. Not the best guy to have in your corner.



Coughing Chronicles

Like Dave, I am sick as a donkey today. Unlike Dave, I find not the energy to post while thus afflicted.

Wednesday, March 24, 2004

Gas Prices on the Rise

Democrats Blame Bush. Oh, wait, that's not news, is it? The sun rises in the East, June is warm while January is cold, and Democrats blame Bush for just about everything. Facts that everybody with a room-temp IQ should know about now.

But what are the real reasons for the price of crude oil going up? Let' ask Kim du Toit, shall we?

They get particularly incensed to discover, as Fred Leuffer points out in NRO, that a key reason for the high oil price is that the Bush administration is buying oil to top up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), which was depleted by the Clinton Administration to help depress oil prices. Typical Democrats. Never mind national security: as long as Joe Citizen can afford to drive his minivan to Disneyworld, all's well with the world.

Anyone remember 1999? Oil prices went up, heating oil costs went up, and Bill Clinton/Al Gore opened the faucets to the SPR. While that in itself doesn't cause any kind of rage, the fact that they did not make plans to REFILL the SPR means that it was just one more problem that they kicked along down the road for someone else to clean up.

We still pay less per gallon than almost any other country on Earth. Try filling up your car in Canada. Make sure to take out a loan first.

Memo to France

Though I'm sure you will ignore it, I'll say it anyway.

Appeasment does not work.

Thatisall.

Shrieking Socialist Snotballs

Tell me, has the EU put out any kind of software that can compete with Microsoft? I don't think so. Sun Microsystems? American. Real Player? American. QuickTime? American. So far all the software that I've seen competing with MS in the open market is American.

So why are the EUnichs screaming about this?

European antitrust regulators imposed a record $613 million fine on Microsoft today and ordered the company to change the way it does business in Europe.

The penalties came as the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, found that the Redmond-based software giant broke competition laws on the continent, gaining an unfair advantage by failing to give rivals necessary information and by packaging its media player with its Windows operating system.


First of all, I'd tell the EU to take their $613 million fine and shove it straight up their ass. If they didn't like it, tough. Yank all product and support off that continent faster than they can blink, and then watch as they flounder.

"Dominant companies have a special responsibility to ensure that the way they do business doesn't prevent competition on the merits and does not harm consumers and innovation," said Mario Monti, the EU's competition commissioner, in a statement announcing the widely expected decision.

Hey Mario? Microsoft has done more to promote innovation than any other company out there. I know of several groups who create software and form a company FOR THE EXPRESS PURPOSE OF BEING NOTICED BY MICROSOFT. These people know that if they put out a good product, and Microsoft notices them, they're almost guaranteed to be millionaires, plus have jobs WITH Microsoft. More to the point, Microsoft isn't stopping anybody from coming out with a new OS. Ever heard of Linux? Many of the people I associate with don't run any kind of Microsoft product on their computers. There are alternatives, you morons. You're just too damn lazy to find them and use them!

The commission also gave Microsoft 120 days to provide more information about Windows to rival companies developing servers, which connect personal computers to a network such as the Internet. These companies have complained that by withholding crucial information about Windows, Microsoft gives its own servers a compatibility advantage.

Monti said in a news conference today that the European Commission was ensuring that companies developing new software have a fair opportunity to compete in the marketplace. Additionally, he said, consumers and computer makers ought to be able to decide which media player they want.


And NOW we get to what this whole thing is about, don't we? Yes, yes we do! Someone with more computer info may correct me if I'm wrong, but what I read here is this: "We can't come up with our own code, so we're going to make you give us YOURS!"

So, the software code that Microsoft produces, spends millions of dollars testing, tweaking, and putting on the market, is what these socialist fuckwits REALLY want. Having stifled their own citizens creativity, they now have to steal what they want from somewhere else. Having regulated themselves into obscurity, they now have to force someone else to give them what they need in order to compete.

Why don't the EUnichs try this: COME UP WITH YOUR OWN OPERATING SYSTEM, YOU NUMBSKULLS! But that would be too hard, wouldn't it? Not to mention the fact that you've already squeezed your best and brightest out of your EUrinal, through over regulation, crippling taxes, and a system that punishes success and rewards mediocrity.

Bah. If I were Bill Gates, I'd pull every last Windows system off of the frigging shelves in EUnuckistan. Let them flounder. Hey, maybe someone might actually come up with an operating system all on their own!

Heh. Who am I kidding?

Die, Virus! Die!

I must have been pushing myself a little too hard as of late. I was sneezing and coughing Monday, and trying to convice myself that it was just an allergic reaction to being back in Seattle. No suck luck. I spent yesterday hacking up a lung. Today my body is producing some vile crap. Being that I work in a place that requires a rather high amount of cleanliness and sanitation, I can't go to work like this.

Gah. I hate being sick. And I hate missing work more than I hate being sick.

Tuesday, March 23, 2004

Yay for Capitalism!

The stickers have been ordered. I found a cheaper printer, so the cost will be less as well. If the quality isn't up to snuff, I'll go back to the original printer.

So, now to wait until I get them in my hot little hands.....

Whipping Richard Clark

DANEgerus has links to four different NRO articles, all of them the written equivilant of ripping out Richard Clark's intestines and hanging him with them.

The guy is scum.

Allah Is In The House

This place is really quite humorous in a tongue-in-my-cheek-and-a-gun-in-my-hand sort of way.

The Next Big Thing?

What appears here is a rather lengthy compendium of John Kerry's involvement with Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

The Scarlet Letter

Back when I was in the Army, I took a DUI detection and deterrence course. Training focused on the signs that someone might be drunk, Field Sobriety Testing, other illegal drug use, and the like. There was also a small segment of the class that focused on other countries and their DUI regulations. I cannot remember which countries they talked about at this moment, but I do remember some of the punishments handed out to drunk drivers.

One country took the drunk driver, drove them 25 miles out of town, and forced them to walk home. One country tossed you in jail for a year automatically, with your spouse. That's right, if you got busted for DUI, not only did you get tossed in the hoosegow, but your spouse got tossed in the SAME JAIL CELL with you. Germany, I believe, has an automatic five-year loss of license, and one year in jail.

The point of all this is that many countries have creative ways to prevent people from driving drunk. There are laws in the USA that are creative as well, and a judge in Ohio is using those laws.

A new state law in Ohio requires judges to brand convicted drunk drivers with special "scarlet letter" license plates, with red numbers on a yellow background so other motorists will know exactly what they've done.

Though the crimson-numbered plates have been a sentencing option for the past 37 years, Ohio Municipal Judge John Adkins was one of the few to use it as punishment for DUI before the state law mandate went into effect.


I love it. I really do! If people know that a DUI arrest gives them a virtual brand that screams "I'M A DRUNK LOSER!" maybe they'll think twice about getting behind the wheel after they've had a few.

Let me clarify a bit, if I may. I have picked up the body parts left by a drunk driver. I have seen the damage that drunk driving causes. If I had the power, I would toss DUI offenders in jail, and not let them see the light of day for a full year. Approximately 15,000 people die every year from drunk driving. And it's not just the drunks who die, folks. It's people on their way home from a movie, or a couple celebrating their wedding anniversary, or some poor schmuck on his way home from work who got nailed by some drunk son-of-a-bitch that crossed the center line and plowed headfirst into a car. 140,000 people are seriously injured from drunk drivers. Not a little whiplash, not a small scratch, SERIOUSLY INJURED. Missing limbs, missing sight, missing the use of their legs because John Doe had one for the road, and one ON the road, and ... you get the point.

And if these were actually "accidents", I wouldn't be so pissed off at the drunks. But these aren't "accidents", folks. These are people to make the choice to drink themselves silly and get behind the wheel of a vehicle. These people make the CHOICE to drink and drive. They make the CHOICE to have one more before they go home. These people make the CHOICE to threaten everyone else's life by driving drunk. And no, that's not hyperbole, that's not an exaggeration. A drunk behind the wheel of a one-ton vehicle is a threat to everyone else's life. Two thousand pounds of metal, rubber and plastic rolling down the road at high speeds carries massive amounts of force with it. And when the driver cannot control that vehicle, that force could go anywhere. Including your car, or your body.

15,000 people dead. Think about that. That's an Army division. If the 4th ID was wiped out in Iraq, would America stand for it? Besides the usual anti-American Leftists and communists, no! 140,000 people seriously injured. Imagine everyone you know in a wheelchair. Or in a cast. Or getting fitted for a prosthetic arm. Then go to work, and imagine everyone THERE in a wheel chair, or a cast, or a prosthetic arm. You're not even getting close to the number of people yet.

So seeing these plates makes my heart warm, just a little bit. I WANT drunk drivers humiliated. I WANT drunk drivers tossed in jail. And if you kill someone because you're drunk, I want you in jail for the rest of your life. I want you ruined. I want to see the pain in your face every damn day, because if you choose to drink and drive, you choose to threaten everybody on the road. Nobody holds a gun to your head and forces you to drink. Nobody makes you get behind the wheel when you're drunk. It is PERSONAL CHOICE.

Hell, let's get all the states to adopt the "scarlet letter" plates. It would be a small step towards removing drunks off the road.

Monday, March 22, 2004

Guns, guns, guns!

Order now! The Martyr-Gun™!

The hidden story of Building 7

Did it fall as a result of the WTC towers collapsing around it?

Or was it felled with controlled demolition charges and then carted away before the evidence could be examined?

You Decide

Anti-War Protests

Citizen Smash has a plethora of words to peruse.

BAM!

Yet another piece of writing that I believe should be printed out and nailed to the head of every blithering idiot and moron who babbles about Isreal's "occupation" of "Palestine".

At this point, I no longer care if people are on one side or the other. That they choose sides is fine with me. I have chosen mine and I expect my enemy to be as forthcoming. But enough with the false pretenses of peace. People are blowing up in cafes and in the streets of Israel on a regular occurrence, and this is not a new euphemism for peace. Dead people, en masse, means war. Regardless of which side you prefer, this situation is untenable as a negotiating point in time. There is no peace, there is no cease-fire, and there is no road map. There is war, and that is the sad reality. When everyone understands this, and when Israel decides to do something about it without restraint, then there will be a victory and perhaps a new dawn shall emerge.

Found at the Rott.

Amazing Stuff...

...from J. Lileks.

One Missed Opportunity

So, for those who don't know, I was in Idaho over the weekend. And several people are now high up on my shit list. Why, you ask?

I was in Idaho. I had my 30-06 and sixty rounds of ammunition. I had my truck with four wheel drive. I had a full tank of gas. I could have been anywhere in that state in less than a day. I had my cell phone.

And nobody.... NOBODY.... bothered to call me and tell me that THIS sack of shit was going to be there!

Not only is that festering pustule daring to foul my great state, where I own land, and where I plan on living as soon as humanly possible, but I had a chance to remove that fucking canker sore on humanity's ass, and NOBODY LET ME KNOW THAT ASSHOLE WAS THERE!!!!

There will be hell to pay.

Gah.... I now regret staying away from the news. My Zags got their ass handed to them on a platter by Nevada this weekend, and now I find out that I missed my one great opportunity to clean out America.

More Bullshit from the Biased Media

Why is it that if there's any slight alligation against Bush, the media trumpets it on the front page. But let any of their precious Donks turn up with a smoking gun, bloody clothing, and a missing intern, and it's "a non-story".

Thank god for the internet. We can now find stories like these.

Back in the Saddle Again.

Well, the trip went well. It wasn't relaxing by any means, but it was productive. Plus, much scotch was consumed, cigars were smoked, and my cousins Cathy and Tim were gracious hosts to the Raging Girlfriend and I. Details of the trip to follow later.

I just tallied the votes for the bumper sticker, and the totals are Six votes for B and Six votes for C. Screw you people. But, since many folks wanted the font from B, that's what I'm going to send to the printers. It'll be sent off tonight, and it'll take anywhere from two - eight weeks to get them back. Once I have them in my hot little hands, I'll let you all know. Any suggestions or complains need to be emailed to me before 6 PM Pacific Time.

I've kept myself out of the political news for a few days, so once I catch up, I'll start raging again. From what I heard on the radio, it won't take long.