What the HELL?

So I'm watching the news tonight, and they have this nicey-nicey story about some protest or another in downtown Seattle.  Big whoop.  There's a protest in Seattle every time you turn around.  Some cities have a night life.  Seattle has a protest life.  You know, old hippies protesting to try and bring back their youth, young men protesting in an attempt to get laid, young women protesting so that they can be around other young women with armpit hair, yada yada yada. 
 
Anyways, there was a protest, and they showed one guy in a wheelchair protesting along with the rest of them.  At the end of this little story, the wheelchair guy starts talking about how protest is patriotic, and then the voice-over comes in about some hooey about how protesting is this guy's little part of America, and the camera stays on the guy while he rolls away WITH A FUCKING CANADIAN FLAG ON THE BACK OF HIS WHEELCHAIR!!!!!!
 
I mean, OK, protest away, try to get laid by hairy-armpit chicks, do whatever floats your boat, but don't tell me about how you're a good American WHILE YOUR WAVING THE FLAG OF ANOTHER FUCKING COUNTRY!
 
Satire is dead, folks.  It's been beaten to death by real life.

Ouch....

I just stumbled upon a website for POW/MIA families against Kerry while I was checking out this blog.  Some of it is pretty brutal, if you happen to be a Kerry Fan.  As usual, all emphasis is mine.
 
Former POW Paul Galanti:  He says Kerry broke a covenant among servicemen never to make public criticisms that might jeopardize those still in battle or in the hands of the enemy.
Because he did, Galanti said, "John Kerry was a traitor to the men he served with."

Now retired and living in Richmond, VA., Galanti, 64, refuses to cool his ire toward Kerry. "I don't plan to set it aside. I don't know anyone who does," he said. "The Vietnam memorial has thousands of additional names due to John Kerry and others like him."
 
Former POW Mike Benge:  As Mr. Kerry contemplates a run for the presidency, people must remember that he has fought harder for Hanoi as an anti-war activist and a senator than he did against the Vietnamese communists while serving in the Navy in Vietnam
 
Former POW Mark A Smith:  "War Hero?" O.K., he received the Silver Star. But, "Expert" on war? No John, but those of us who are, will take the honest leadership of President Bush anytime over you. You have not changed a bit from the time of the Vietnam War. Your wet finger is still in the air checking the political winds, before making any decision or changing one already made. We are at war and I know war. Your brand of equivocation on every issue costs lives in a war and I don't want more dead and wounded here and abroad. You went to war and then marched against it and those of us who still fought.
 
The rest of the site is just as brutal to 'ol John Fonda Kerry (or as Kim du Toit calls him, Fuckface and the Ambulance Chaser.  FATAB)  I would say that many of the people who know him best are repulsed by him.
 
Personally, the more I read about the men he betrayed, the more I can't stand the sight of him.

The Council Has Spoken!

This weeks winners in the Watcher of Weasels council are:
 
Council Members:

1)  UN Admits Saddam Had WMD by Alpha Patriot

2)  Affirming Life - and Death by Exultate Justi

3)  Joseph and the Amazing Tinfoil-Colored Dreamhat by Damnum Absque Injuria
 
Non-Council Members:

1)  Believing In Bush’s Perfidy by Lileks (The Bleat )

2)  40 Reasons To Vote For George Bush Or Against John Kerry by Right Wing News

3)  Is Kaus Serious? by JunkYardBlog
 
You can find all the results here.

WHAT SHOULD THEY HAVE DONE?

The Spoons Experience: WHAT SHOULD THEY HAVE DONE?

Dissecting the Serpent

Reader Dan D. Doty send this along for the pleasure of our readership: 

One of the regular feature contributors over at Democratic Underground is a woman who calls herself "The Plaid Adder".  Her articles are weekly rants about the evils of the Republicans, railings of various ‘isms and objurgating about people who don’t share her narrow point of view. But this feature is not about her features.  P.A. has had pseudo success when she writes for DU; after all she is preaching to the dysfunctional choir. 
 
No, it is the fiction of the regressing reptile where criticism is most needed.

And badly. 
  
The reason why I can do this is simple. You see I’m a writer.  I write stories dealing with science, fantasy and horror.  I was one of the play testers for the 3rd edition of Dungeons and Dragons.  My poetry has been published as a chapbook as well as appearing in magazines and newspapers.  My shorts stories (twelve of them) are in a book called MONSTER NEWS –THE BOOK.  
 
Plaid Adder has a web site linked to DU, where she talks her unpublished novels and short stories.  After reading her work, I know why.  This article is for the most part explaining to the reasons to Ms. Adder herself.  If she’ll listen is another matter. 
  
The first reason why P.A. is not moving her work is simple. She bases the main character on herself. Most writers base the main character on elements of themselves, but totally on themselves. When the heroine is a red headed left wing lesbian, we all know who you are talking about.  The reading public expects a little imagination out of their authors. 
 
The second mistake P.A. makes is not following the rule of conservation.   For those who do not know what the rule is, it is simply this; don’t use a hundred words to say something that you could have done in ten.  Writers who ignore this rule usually do so to hear themselves talk. In other words being longwinded.  This tends to raise the yawn factor and lower your fan potential.  Not a smart move. 
 
The third and strangest mistake Plaid Adder makes is trying to create the anti-fantasy novel.
 
Trust me, there’s no market for that.

J.R.R. Tolken and Robert E. Howard are giggling in their graves. 
 
The fourth and most fatal mistake Plaid Adder makes is injecting a heavy dose of her politics into her works. People on the left have tried this before, and it doesn’t turn out well.   Socialism (both left and right) has been pushed on the American reader since the 1930’s.  Its always wordy gunk that tries to convince people that they would be better off having a statist government running their lives.  But when people discovered writers like Heinlein, Rand and Bradbury the Utopia peddlers fall by the wayside; left to slink along the ditches dreaming of the past that never was or will be.

After all, who wants to read a story where the hero is the all powerful, all knowing state who struggles to stop an individual from thinking and living for himself? 
 
The fifth and final mistake that Plaid Adder makes is putting her hates into her writings.

On her web site, Plaid Adder has a second rate drawing of her avatar constricting three classic Greek looking male statues (which is weird, because adders are in fact vipers).    These stony figures represent all she hates; Capitalism (the free market), Patriarchy (men) and Imperialism (America).  I can understand the free market because she can’t get anyone to publish her.  Men she needs to blame for her failings, after Adder can’t blame herself, now can she ?  America is that land that does not obey her commands. Its people do what they want and not what she thinks is better for them. How foolish. 
 
And one last bit of advice before I get back to my fantastic fiction. 

If you can’t put your real name on anything you write, then it wasn’t worth the time creating it in the first place.

Oy!

Gone drinkin'

The girlfriend and I are going to head on over to the other side of the water tonight and visit with her brother.  I figure that by 10:00 tonight I'll be three sheets to the wind from sucking down scotch and singing really bad kareoke in a bar in Kingston.  Tomorrow we're heading to a festival in Sequim.  It'll be a nice, relaxing time out of Seattle.  I'll see you all tomorrow.

Bush to speak to Urban League

And in his own special way tells the NAACP to get bent.

WASHINGTON — Leaders of the NAACP, through their "hostile rhetoric," have shown no interest in working with President Bush, the White House said Thursday. The president skipped speaking to the group, but will address the annual meeting of another civil rights organization next week.

The NAACP has been openly hostile and partisan towards Republicans for years, but with Bush it's just gotten worse. The insults, barbs, slurs and lies that have come out of both Julian Bonds and Kweisi Mfume aren't just bad politics, they're the venom and hatred of two very, very sick individuals.

On Monday, NAACP President Kweisi Mfume described Bush's black supporters as "ventriloquists' dummies" and said the president's decision not to speak at the convention was an insult. The same day, NAACP chairman Julian Bond urged members to oust Bush and condemned the administration's policies on education, the economy and the war in Iraq.

FULL STOP! Look at that first sentance! I want you to read that two or three times. "ventriloquists' dummies".

Can you feel the raw, unadulterated evil in that sentance? The racism? If you veer away from the official party line, you're nothing but a dummy! Get back on the plantation, you uppity git! That one quote right there sums up just how foul and corrupt the NAACP is. How DARE you think for yourself! How DARE you disagree with your unelected self-nominated leaders! How DARE you question what they say! You should be nothing but a non-thinking drone following their orders!

That one sentance insinuates the unthinkable; You should be their slave.

I won't go into how by the NAACP's own charter they're supposed to be non-partisan. I don't think I have to. Bonds and Mfume have shown their lack of character so many times it's stopped being painful, and is now relegated to the "Oh geez, there they go again" response.

It's disgusting.

Buh Bye, Whoopie

I guess making sexually explicit doody jokes about the President of the United States doesn't make many people happy.

"We are disappointed by the manner in which Ms. Goldberg chose to express herself and sincerely regret that her recent remarks offended some of our consumers. Ads featuring Ms. Goldberg will no longer be on the air," Slim-Fast general manager Terry Olson said in a press release Wednesday.

That would be the little get-together that Kerry and Co. refuses to release the transcripts of, by the way. Gee, I wonder why they would do that? I mean, according to Kerry the people there were the "Heart and Soul" of America. What does he have to fear?

Any guesses?

On A Roll

DANEgerus is having a field day over at his blog.

Ripping the Liberal Media and others to Shreds.

Yeah, that's a link for every word. Or you could just go to his site today and start scrolling down. Memo to the Donks: Never, ever, EVER piss off a man with photographic evidence of your misdeeds. The results ain't pretty.

Two Big Lies

So, Kerry is going around the country campaigning (too bad he hasn't actually done his REAL job, but that's a point for a later date), and while most of the crap that flies out of his mouth is a lie, people have caught him in two really big ones.

With documentation.

Vodka Pundit saw this one first:

"Don’t tell us disenfranchising a million African Americans and stealing their votes is the best we can do."

The problem? The US Civil Rights Commission, despite months of investigation, noted only 26 people with "disenfranchisement" complaints, most of which were found to be specious. (.pdf file can be found here.

Let's see here... A million, or 26? A million, or 26? Well, John Fonda Kerry is only off by 999,973 people, but if that's the way he runs his numbers there's no chance in hell he'll be able to run the economy. I can see that first SOTU address... "MY PERSONAL KNOW-HOW AND ACTION RAISED TEN GAZILLION DOLLARS!" Uh, nope.

The second lie? More of the same: "We've got more African Americans in jail than we do in college. That's unacceptable"

Once again, the facts are NOT on John Fonda Kerry's side, as Stephan Sharkansky points out.

In fact, it seems that there are more than twice as many African Americans in college than in jail.
U.S. Census Bureau (2000): African Americans in college: 2,224,181

U.S. DoJ Office of Justice Programs: "Prison and Jail Inmates at MidYear 2003" (p.11): "Table 13. Number of inmates in state or federal prisons or local jails" -- Black Americans in jail: 899,200.
Those nearly 900,000 incarcerated African Americans still represent a tragic waste of lives and potential. But fortunately, things are not nearly as gloomy as John Kerry wants to believe they are.

So not only does John Fonda Kerry lie his ass off at every chance he gets, the supposedly "objective" media lets it pass. Oh, THAT liberal media. But I digress. John Fonda Kerry wouldn't know the truth if it bit him in the ass, and he has shown NO reluctance whatsoever to play the class-warfare game, pull out the race card, or lower himself to whatever level he needs in order to grab the reins of power. What a sickening, disgusting, purile little man. And thank you VodkaPundit for exposing it a bit more.

Way Cool

Old retired couple who love baseball go on a trip to every baseball field in America and Canada.

Found it in the Seattle Times. I don't know if I love baseball enough to visit every ballpark, but my love of travel would keep me going for a while. From the newspaper article, a list of bests:

Best major-league park: Seattle Mariners, Safeco Field. (It's a kick ass field - not a bad seat in the house)

Best minor-league park: Altoona Curve, Blair County Ballpark, Altoona, Pa. The park is sunk into a hillside, and an active wooden roller coaster — The Curve — looms above the outfield.

Best atmosphere: Boston Red Sox, Fenway Park, Boston. (This, I can agree to. Going to a game at Fenway is like nowhere else)

Best view from stadium: San Francisco Giants, SBC Park, San Francisco.

Best seats they sat in: Oklahoma RedHawks, SBC Bricktown Ballpark, Oklahoma City; first row behind home plate.

Best sandwich: Kansas City T-Bones, CommunityAmerica Ballpark, Kansas City, Kan., T-Boneless T-Bone Sandwich.

Best promotion: Clunker Night with the Arkansas Travelers, Ray Winder Field, Little Rock, Ark. All ticket holders are placed in a drawing for a donated clunker car; it's guaranteed to run, but everything else may not work.

Biggest warning: They were told not to wear their Mariners jerseys at Philadelphia Phillies games, because the fans might get ugly. They didn't wear them in Yankee Stadium, either.

Best snapshot: The Flower Boy, dressed in a pink nightie, pink satin shorts, hot pink socks and a matching lei, presenting Andrea Siscel with a free bouquet at the Hudson Valley, N.Y., Renegades game.

Worst experience: None. They say it was all good.

Only place they didn't cheer for the home team: Yankee Stadium. (When the Yankees lose, the baby Jesus smiles)

Most unexpected (and now former) Mariner sighting: Ben Davis, playing with the Tacoma Rainiers in Memphis, Tenn. They made a quick call home to learn about Davis' demotion.

Michael Moore's Prodigy

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

The Next Time Someone Says "Without France, there'd be no America"...

...you can recall the information presented below:

When Adams took office in 1797, France presented his first challenge. The French had seen Jay's Treaty, between the US and Britain, as a signal that the US supported Britain in the ongoing war against France. The French had put off retribution, hoping for a Jefferson administration which might be more friendly toward France. Upon Jefferson's loss in the election, however, France began to seize American ships en route to British ports. After a year of this, the French had attacked and plundered over 300 American ships. As a further insult, France ordered that every American citizen captured aboard a British naval vessel be hanged.

Adams dispatched a peace commission to Paris to negotiate shortly after the beginning of these hostile activities. However, in what became known as the XYZ Affair, Charles de Tallyrand, the French foreign minister, refused to meet with the US delegation, instead sending three anonymous agents, X, Y, and Z. The agents delivered the message that Tallyrand would not begin talks until he received $250,000 for himself, and France received a $12 million loan. This widely publicized (in America) attempt at extortion aroused public outrage among the American people, some of whom called for war. Riding this tide, the Federalists overwhelmingly took the 1798 congressional elections.

SparkNotes

A.Q. Kahn - What we've learned from Libya's Cooperation

Following up on Lies Ignorance Democrats Libya WMD from earlier today, I present:

A.Q. Khan & Libya:

Evidence uncovered as part of Libya's decision to 'come clean' on its weapons of mass destruction programs show further implication on the part of A.Q. Khan and, possibly, Pakistan. Indeed, Libya's uranium enrichment program appeared reliant on both G-1 and G-2 (P-1 and P-2) centrifuge designs; material for which it reportedly paid substantial sums for.

Started in the early 1990s, Libya’s disclosed uranium enrichment program appears based on both Pakistan’s G-1 and G-2 centrifuge designs, with some of the centrifuges having been flown there from Pakistan.

A.Q. Khan has confessed to meeting with Libyans in Istanbul, Turkey, in 1990.

Libya was also reportedly provided by the Pakistanis with additional information on how and where to acquire additional components for this program. Using at first the G-1 design, it later upgraded to the G-2 model, which Libya is reported to have had set up a small number of. These were being manufactured at a facility in Malaysia arranged through Khan's netowrk. Components from that plant which were intercepted by the United States aboard a German-registered ship on their way to Libya in October 2003 after having been spotted whilst going through the Suez Canal.

Schematics for both G-2 centrifuges and bombs were reported to be among documentation given to both the United States and the IAEA by Libya.

The supply chain for Libya's program relied on Libyans contacting Pakistanis who would in turn contact middlemn. These would contact suppliers for the desired components which, once completed would then be shipped to the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai, from where they would be delivered to Libya. Items thus procured ranges from high-strength metals and vaccuum systems to electronics.

Who was A.Q. Kahn?

In early February 2004, Pakistan’s national hero and the father of its atomic bomb, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, admitted to masterminding an elaborate nuclear proliferation network that had transferred nuclear technology to Iran, Libya, and North Korea--and perhaps elsewhere.

For anyone interested in catching a glimpse of how serious the problem of having the powerful fruit of civilization in the hands of barbarians is, I suggest reading through those links as well as this one on Abdul Qadeer Khan.

Now for the tie in:

IF WE HAD NOT DEPOSED SADDAM HUSSEIN IT IS VERY LIKELY WE WOULD NOT HAVE THIS INFORMATION. THANK YOU PRESIDENT BUSH!

You'd think this information would see more daylight. No. That would highlight Gadhafi's cooperation. Which would highlight the success of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Democrats (and their ass muppets in the major media) seem to enjoy playing games with our national security.

For those who haven't seen "Troy"

And maybe for those who have, I give you "Troy in Fifteen Minutes".

Just don't drink anything while you read. You have been warned.

Giving up

That's it. I'm giving up. Throwing in the towel. I can no longer continue this charade. I have to just stand tall and admit the obvious truth.

My Mariners are finished.

Freddie Garcia? Gone, and just signed a big fat contract with the White Sox. They just unloaded Rich Aurelia. Edgar Martinez is past his prime and no longer scares the living daylights out of opposing pitchers. John Olerude has lost the pep in his bat, and Brett Boone seems to flail away without hitting anything other than air. Randy Winn's arm is exposed as lacking, and Scott Spezio seems to spend as much time on the DL as he does at third base.

They're bringing up rookies from Tacoma and letting them play, and you just KNOW that it's because those kids will be the starters next year. But this year?

My beloved M's are done. Stick a fork in 'em. They're toast. They've gone from the top to the bottom in less than a year.

Blah.

Hey, spring training for my Seahawks starts soon, doesn't it?

Lies Ignorance Democrats Libya WMD

Here is an example of Democrats arguing against the truth just because the facts happen to agree with President Bush.

Fox reports on a speech by President Bush citing justification for removing Saddam

Important part:

The White House has long portrayed Libya's pledge to abandon programs to develop weapons of mass destruction as affirmation of Bush's hard-line strategy on arms proliferation. It suggested the U.S.-led war in Iraq helped convince Gadhafi that he should act.

Democrats, however, dismiss any such claim, saying instead it was the softer hand of diplomacy that helped score the turnaround in Libya.

Who's right?

Let's ask Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi

Hans Blix, former chief U.N. weapons inspector, said he imagined "Gadhafi could have been scared by what he saw happen in Iraq."

Asked about his decision, Gadhafi acknowledged that the Iraq war may have influenced him, but he insisted he wanted to focus on the "positive."

The Donks insisted that Gadhafi's words meant nothing and cited years of attempts to get the thug to comply with international requests as being responsible for his decision despite the following:

1)Saddam was captured on December 14, 2003
2) Gadhafi agrees to cooperate December 19, 2003
3) Libya approached British and U.S. officials in mid-March, about the same time the war in Iraq began.
4) As mentioned previously, Gadhafi's own admission.


So are they stupid or lying? This is what it always comes down to with Democrats. Are they ignorant of the information I just presented you? If not, why...oh why would they lie and say our liberation of Iraq from the rule of Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with Libya's cooperation with international requests to disarm and stop supporting terror? They lie because it is politically advantageous to do so. After all, they can't admit that President Bush did something good. That won't give them the power they lust after.

UPDATE
Just in case they try to deny how they addressed Libya's new found desire to cooperate:

John Kerry on Libya's new cooperation - "''An administration that scorns multilateralism and boasts about a rigid doctrine of military pre-emption has almost in spite of itself demonstrated the enormous potential for improving our national security through
diplomacy."
Former Democrat Presidential Candidate Wesley Clark - "It's a program of squeezing Libya that's gone on for more than a decade. The Clinton administration was very much involved with this."

Oh, THIS is going to be interesting!

I've often though that the USA was a little too nice when it came to killing bad guys. It seems that we always take a stance which comes back to bite us in the butt. It's part of our culture, the "Be Nice" mindset that people in this country seem to have.

The Iraqis, however, have a different culture. And now that they're in charge, things might just go a little differently.

Iraq will soon offer amnesty to insurgents so long as they haven't performed "atrocious acts" but the interim president is threatening to use a "very sharp sword" to fight guerrillas threatening the country's security.

"We are offering an amnesty definitely, for people who have not committed too many atrocious acts," Iraqi interim President Ghazi al-Yawer told The Financial Times on Monday. "Everybody except murderers, rapists and kidnappers."

OK, so quite a few people will get a chance to remain among the living. I don't know how they'll be able to tell the difference between a murderer and some guy who just likes to torture people, but that's their choice not mine.

Al-Yawer appealed to insurgents to accept the amnesty and lay down their weapons.

"This is your last chance, otherwise there will be the sword," he said.

Foreign and local insurgents have launched numerous attacks in Iraq in an effort to force U.S.-led coalition forces to leave and to thwart the country's postwar reconstruction. The attacks have killed scores of U.S. troops and hundreds of Iraqi civilians.

"Terrorism isn't just killing and blowing up bombs, whoever threatens the ordinary life of the people is a terrorist," al-Yawer told reporters Monday. "We have a very sharp sword ready for anyone who threatens the security of this country."

Now here is where I pause to chuckle for a bit. By and large, the "insurgents" that are fighting in Iraq are not Iraqi. They're Iranian, or Syrian, or Lebanese, or Palestinian. They aren't going to stop fighting or causing trouble, because a free and stable Iraq is what they're fighting AGAINST. Which means that the Iraqi government is going to be able to wipe them off the face of the earth without hesitation. These terrorists have three options: 1) Leave Iraq (which they can't do without admitting failure), 2) Stay in Iraq but stop fighting (which they can't do without admitting failure), and 3) Stay in Iraq, keep fighting, and die.

And I'm going to sit back and grin.

Michael Muqtada al-Moore

Ouch.

Bush may be vulnerable to substantive criticism of his personal capabilities and his policies and motivation. There might be a rational and convincing argument to be made for voting for "anyone but Bush".

But we won't find out in 2004. Michael Moore has done more than any other single man to guarantee that. Someone on the left may voice such an argument, but he'll be drowned out by rabid LL jihadists as they stridently deliver a message tailor-made to alienate the broad electorate in style of presentation, in attitude, in substance, and in underlying message. Moore holds a locus of extreme political positions, and most Americans will consider at least one of them to be utterly odious. (For instance, Moore strongly favors gun control, but Americans actually own more guns per capita than do the citizens of any other nation.)

It is rare for a political faction to be blessed with an opponent who is so charismatic to his fanatical supporters, so repulsive to non-supporters, and so vulnerable to criticism and caricature. I can't think of a high-profile leftist I'd rather have "at the centre of things" than Michael Muqtada al-Moore.

And THAT is why I read den Beste

Let's frogmarch him in handcuffs out the door!

Remember Joe Wilson? The guy who wanted Karl Rove frogmarched in handcuffs out of the White House?

Yeah, that guy. The poor little picked on Wilson, who's wife was "outed" (and then who had a nice photo spread!)

Turns out he's full of shit.

Wilson last year launched a public firestorm with his accusations that the administration had manipulated intelligence to build a case for war. He has said that his trip to Niger should have laid to rest any notion that Iraq sought uranium there and has said his findings were ignored by the White House.

Wilson's assertions -- both about what he found in Niger and what the Bush administration did with the information -- were undermined yesterday in a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report.

The guy is a lying snake, willing to sell his country down the river in order to hurt the current administration. Gee, what a nice guy.

The report also said Wilson provided misleading information to The Washington Post last June. He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on documents that had clearly been forged because "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong."

"Committee staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the 'dates were wrong and the names were wrong' when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports," the Senate panel said. Wilson told the panel he may have been confused and may have "misspoken" to reporters. The documents -- purported sales agreements between Niger and Iraq -- were not in U.S. hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip to Niger.

Wilson's reports to the CIA added to the evidence that Iraq may have tried to buy uranium in Niger, although officials at the State Department remained highly skeptical, the report said.

Wilson said that a former prime minister of Niger, Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, was unaware of any sales contract with Iraq, but said that in June 1999 a businessman approached him, insisting that he meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Niger and Iraq -- which Mayaki interpreted to mean they wanted to discuss yellowcake sales. A report CIA officials drafted after debriefing Wilson said that "although the meeting took place, Mayaki let the matter drop due to UN sanctions on Iraq."

According to the former Niger mining minister, Wilson told his CIA contacts, Iraq tried to buy 400 tons of uranium in 1998. (all emphasis mine)

Hang him high, boys. Rope, tree, asshat. Some assembly required.

Hat tip to DANEgerus.

More crap from Seattle

Actually, from Bainbridge Island, but the attitude is the same from Olympia to Seattle.

Think about the Seattle area -- Bainbridge Island to be exact -- and you think scenic views and liberal-minded tolerance.

At least the killer views are still there.

The bucolic island's deep reputation for civility got a gut check this week during the annual Grand Old Fourth of July celebration.

That's when Jason Gilson, a 23-year-old military veteran who served in Iraq, marched in the local event. He wore his medals with pride and carried a sign that said "Veterans for Bush."

Walking the parade route with his mom, younger siblings and politically conservative friends, Jason heard words from the crowd that felt like a thousand daggers to the heart.

"Baby killer!"

"Murderer!"

"Boooo!"

I've had a few people ask my why I haven't blogged on this sooner, since the incident happened in my neck of the woods. My answer?

It's nothing unusual for the Seattle area. This is typical. Bringing this up would just be yet another example of the bullshit that this area regularly produces. I've got a neighbor who's truck and house have both been vandalized because of the visible "Bush/Cheney" stickers and signs. And to top it all off, the guy has a sign in his window that states "I'm a Proud Friend of Israel" sitting in his window. He was flying a 101st Airborn flag in his yard for quite a while. The guy has balls of brass. But the reactions he's getting are not out of the norm. The vandalism, that's normal. Trying putting a Bush/Cheney sticker on your car and then parking it anywhere near Capitol Hill. You won't have any windows left. My neighbor has had paint poured over the signs on his house, which of course means that the paint was also poured on his house.

Yeah, really nice people around here, really "tolerant", really "inclusive". Bullshit. This is the average attitude for the Loony Left here in the Pacific Northwest. King County is by and large a one party system, unless you count the Communist party, Socialist party and the Green party, who do get quite a large chunk of votes. Would you like to see a statue of Lenin? I can show you where a Seattle neighborhood has proudly put one on display. Jim McDermott represents Seattle in the US House of Representatives. Lest we forget, Baghdad Jim is one of those proud congresscritters who A) Went to Baghdad before the war and proclaimed Saddam Hussein more trustworthy than George Bush, B) Is a registered member of the Democratic Socialists of America, and C) Has advanced more loony conspiracy theories than almost any one else in Congress. And oh by the way, the last time he was up for re-election he got 71% of the vote. That was AFTER we went to Baghdad and gave Saddam a blowjob on international TV.

You think I'm surprised at this soldier being slandered and insulted? Nope. I'm surprised he wasn't pelted with rotten fruit as well. But seeing as this was a 4th of July parade, I'm sure the rotten fruit was already thrown at the color guard up front. They ran out long before this soldier came along.

If those folks on Bainbridge had cheered when that soldier walked by, I'd have blogged on it. It would have been newsworthy. But lies, slander, insults, vandalism, hatred, and violence from the Loony Left in Seattle?

That's normal.

Weekend Update

It's been a pretty good weekend so far. The girlfriend and I continued our work on refinishing the chair, until we were interrupted by a thunderstorm that blew in suddenly. Typical Seattle weather; if you don't like it, wait five minutes and it'll change. Still, we managed to get all the varnish off the disassembled pieces. Unfortunately I had to use such a coarse grit to remove the crud, we're having to sand each piece two or three more times in order to smooth it out before we stain it. It's slow going, but it'll be worth it.

Took the new camera out for a spin downtown last night. I bought a cable shutter release, and toyed around with holding the shutter open to see how it works. Hopefully I'll have some cool pictures, but if not I can chalk it up to a learning experience. I'm using a tripod that my father bought in the 1960's, and gave to me a few months ago. I just think that's kinda cool. The girlfriend and I made a date out of it, had a nice dinner, and then we walked around for a few hours.

It's getting harder and harder to find a restaurant that allows cigar smoking in this town. I'd like to be able to sit back, fire up a good stogie and have a glass of scotch after dinner. That seems to be fading away in Seattle. If there's any businessmen reading, here's an idea for you to run with: Start up a restaurant where you can smoke a good cigar, and you don't have to hide in some little room to do so. It'll be a hit, trust me. Market yourself to the smokers, place ads in cigar magazines, put up ads in all the smokeshops. You'll be rich. With all the BS that cigar smokers have gone through in this state, we'd welcome a place that looks at us like decent customers. Seriously, you're talking about people who will spend $10-$15 for a single good cigar, do you think we're gonna skimp on the dinner that we have right before we smoke it? Hell no.

All in all, it's been a relaxing weekend. If I see anything that gets my heartrate up, I'll post it.