Busy busy

You know how it is before a trip. Trying to wrap up things at work. Packing. Getting the house in order. Ensuring that any idiot who messes with your wife gets a face full of pepper spray, a steelstick across the knees, and sixty pounds of pissed-off canine hanging from their testicles.

And yes, I really do mean that last part.

So I'm heading out tomorrow morning. By tomorrow afternoon I should be in a place where I don't sweat the moment I walk outside. And I don't think anyone truly knows just how much I'm looking forward to that. If I only knew then what I know now. There's no reason for a gringo from Idaho to be in Puerto Rico, I'm telling ya. NO REASON! But I'm here, and I need to make the best of it.

Anyways, I gotta go pack some more socks. Toodles!

So.......

Anyone live in Virginia?

I'm going to be in Fort Lee taking a course for three weeks. I'll be busy during the day, but free in the evenings and weekends. I should be there from Sunday evening, (yes, this Sunday) till early November.

So if anyone wants to meet the crazy bastard they read on the web, drop me a line. wraithwulf@yahoo.com

Unless you know my other address. By the way, if you have my Pacifier account email addy, that's no longer good. It went tits up after a glitch from the ISP that controlled it. So use my Yahoo email, unless you're one of the people blessed with my other, OTHER email address.

I know how he feels

Helo over at Drumwaster's Rants just got his first taste of Pepper Spray.

Back when I was young, dumb, and a member of the Army Military Police Corps, I got to go through that wonderful thing known as Pepper Spray Training. Learn about it, watch videos of it in use, and then get hit with it. Because you can't use it if you don't know what it feels like.

What it feels like is a dozen blowtorches being lit up and held directly against your face. What it feels like is burying your face in a fire ant nest. What it feels like is dunking your head into a vat of hydrochloric acid.

Ever accidently rubbed your eyes after cutting peppers? Multiply that. By a million.

Anyways, go read his description. It's pretty spot on, especially the after experience shower.

OK, I'm confuzled

Which is it? Is unilateralism bad, or is unilateralism good?

After ridiculing George Bush as a unilateralist cowboy for most of his term in office, the New York Times demands more unilateralism from the White House in its editorial today. The Gray Lady wants Bush to start bypassing the United Nations on a range of issues, a rather startling 180-degree turn:

So, the coalition of over 60 countries that dealt with Iraq was "Unilateral Cowboy Diplomacy", and that was bad, but now we must deal with a runty communist Elvis impersonator unilateraly because that's good.

Actually, wait, I think I see a common thread between all the Left's demands. Whatever is worse for America is good. That's the only logic behind their "Up is Down, Port is Starboard, Black is White, Good is Bad" mindset.

Just wondering

What would life be like if the media in this country reported the NSA wiretapping program and the bank monitering program with the same downplayed fashion that they're giving the economy?

I mean, how many stories about the economy have you seen in the paper? Front page? A1, above the crease?

I haven't seen too many. But then, there's a Republican in the Oval Office, not a Dimocrat.

Showing the Symptoms

The universities in this country are bastions of Leftism, something that no serious person can argue about. From the staff to the professors to the students, if you want to observe Leftism in action, just head to a university and observe.

Which is why I'm disappointed but not surprised at this news:

How do you avoid political embarrassment at Columbia University these days?

Disinvite invited guests to a talk sure to interest conservatives and other hawks in the larger NYC community. A talk, by the bye, well advertised in several major conservative blogs.

Why, we wonder, at 4:45 in the afternoon, a mere 3:15 hours before Walid Shoebat and his panel were to speak to an audience at Columbia University, all of whom had RSVP'd to the Columbia University College Republicans who were sponsoring the talk, and received invitations from them to the event, has Jewelnel Davis, the advising officer to Student Governing Board groups at Columbia decided to rescind all of the invitations?

Can it possibly be that, having been severely embarrassed by last week's events - when radical leftists at Columbia were left free to act as thugs and attack the Minutemen - and the blogstorm it precipitated, resulting in severe, public criticism of Lee Bollinger, President of Columbia University, for his lack of initiative at solving the problem, this week they decided to solve the problem - at the last minute - by restricting their popular lecturer to Columbia students and 20 invited guests.

Columbia, where a professor made a wish for "a million Mogadishus". Columbia, where, well, just go here and scroll to the bottom of the post for a good long list of things that Columbia SHOULD be embarassed about. But like good little Leftists, they just ignore anything that doesn't fit their pre-conceived notions and drive on, going ever Leftward.

Free speech? Doesn't matter anymore to the Left. I'm sure that it never did, they just pretended until they had enough power to shut it down in their enclaves. From Columbia, to Harvard for firing it's president who dared suggest that men and women might be (gasp) different, to the pro-communist and pro-socialist mindsets at U of Washington, to the sheer lunacy of UC Berkeley, Leftism has taken root in this nations universities and it's not letting go.

Which means that free speech on a college campus is a thing of the past.

Pictures Test

I'm a masochist

So we got some jalapenos last week to make jalapeno poppers. Now, jalapenos aren't all that hot as peppers go. In fact, if you bring some jalapenos to a fire-mouth convention, you might just get kicked out for being such a soft-mouthed wuss. So getting jalapenos didn't seem too dangerous to the wife and I. After all, this is the woman who eats jalapeno peppers the way I eat pickles. There isn't much that fazes the wife when it comes to spicy foods. She eats foods that are hot enough to make me curl up into a ball, sucking my thumb and whimpering "Make the bad pepper stop!"

So when she couldn't finish one simple jalapeno because of the heat, we should have known something was wrong. But we figured "Hey, we're going to take the seeds out, that'll cut the heat, and the filling is going to be cream cheese, gorganzola cheese, and bacon. It'll be fine!"

Yeah, right.

You know the peppers are hot when they burn you twice, once going in and once going out. Holy hell. I'm talking ice cubes rubbing down your asshole the next morning hot. Jump up and slap your momma hot. Dear God Make It Stop hot. Shove dry ice in your mouth hot. Slap my ass and call me Susan hot. Montezuma's Revenge? Pshaw. That's a light case of gas compared to what these peppers did to me a few nights ago.

But the worst part is that this is happening not because of habeneros or scotch bonnet peppers. No, this is from JALAPENOS!!!!! These are the hottest damn jalapenos I have ever seen! They qualify as a concealed weapon. You never expect a damn jalapeno pepper to be hot like that.

So, having been burnt (twice!) by these peppers, what do the wife and I do? Do we run away and never buy peppers from this commisary ever again? Do we avoid spicy food for a while to let our guts recover? Do we use common sense and insure that we don't suffer gastromicial thermonuclear meltdowns in the near future?

No, of course not. This is the Raging Couple, after all! We go and buy five pounds of the firey bastards, which are currently in the smoker turning into chipotole peppers, some of which will be turned into a chipotle sauce, and some of which will be dehydrated and stored.

Yes, I will be in pain. Yes, I will sweat buckets. Yes, I will chug milk and swear and tell myself just how stupid I am for eating another little green atomic bomb.

But you know what? I bet there are a bunch of you out there who would do just the same. And if you don't understand why we do it, well, I don't know if I can explain it to you.

I wonder....

If I say that my religion demands that I have public sex on an airplane, will anyone buy it? What if I say that my religion demands that I wear nothing but saran wrap, is that OK? How about if I say that my religion demands that I don't get a body-cavity search every time I enter an airport?

Oh, wait, there's already a religion that can do that for me.

Isn't it amazing that the religion that wants to blow up America is also the religion that demands they don't get searched? Don't want to upset those cultural values, yaknow. I guess my cultural value that demands I don't get murdered by an Islamonazi takes a backseat.

Things we can learn

from the Foley Affair.

* If you’re a Democrat, sex with sixteen year old pages is not only okay but downright heroic
* If you’re a Republican, masturbation is grounds for criminal investigation

* If you’re a Democrat, oral sex with a nineteen year old intern (NOTE: see third update - ed) isn’t really sex at all
* If you’re a Republican, cybersex with an eighteen year old is not only “sex with a minor,” but a crime that ought to at least cost you your job, and with any luck will actually get you locked up

* If you’re a Democrat President, lying under oath about the affair you’ve been having with a nineteen year old intern isn’t perjury and is in fact perfectly understandable; no harm, no foul, and anyone who seems at all concerned is to be dismissed as a “prude”
* If you’re a Republican Speaker of the House, failing to take action over salacious IM’s you didn’t even have knowledge of is grounds for dismissal and, hopefully, criminal proceedings

* If you’re a Democrat and homosexual, your sex life is perfectly normal and no one’s business but your own, even if your young boyfriend is running a male prostitution ring from your apartment; your denials of any knowldege of said criminal activity will instantly be accepted without question, and in the end you’ll be considered just another victim yourself
* If you’re a Republican and homosexual, your sex life (actually, your fantasy life) is “sick sick sick sick,” and you’d best keep your junk locked away lest your private life be publicly mocked and denounced by tolerant, sensitive, caring liberals

* If you’re a Democrat, personal privacy is paramount, trumping even national security considerations; listening in on any phone conversations you may have with overseas al Qaeda leaders is verboten, but hey, that’s the risk we must take to safeguard our precious liberty from the predations of fascist Republican chimperors
* If you’re a Republican, better shred anything a dumpster-diving “journalist” might conceivably make political hay out of, and best not be relying on those privacy-rights “absolutists” to come galloping to your rescue when there’s political advantage to be gained from exposing your private correspondence

* If you’re a Democrat, “principles” such as tolerance and respect for lifestyles other than your own are malleable, negotiable, and open to interpretation during election season
* If you’re a Republican, the tiniest human frailty will get you upbraided as a “hypocrite” by braying liberal jackasses starved for election-day wins; noticing that their blowhard perorations are themselves the rankest, basest sort of hypocrisy will get you a lot of infantile whining about what’s “fair” and what isn’t

* If you’re a Democrat, lying about your opponents is perfectly within the bounds of decent and honorable behavior
* If you’re a Republican, telling the truth about your opponents is “Swift-boating”

* If you’re a Democrat, slavish adherence to the party line by the “oppressed” victim-classes that make up the entirety of your party membership is evidence of your “diversity” and respect for “freedom of thought”; any who stray from the liberal reservation and dare to think for themselves are fodder for any sort of vicious, despicable punishment that can be dreamed up — such as, say, “outing“; conformity “unity” is everything
* If you’re a Republican, you’re a mindless drone, a “grey man” incapable of independent thought

I've always wondered, who's making the rules and why do they keep changing whenever the Democrats are about to get hammered?

Appropriate

I was reading a Ben Stein speech on this thread of a forum I go to, and came across this little tidbit:

Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her "How could God let something like this Happen?" (regarding Katrina) Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, "I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out.
How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?"

God wants to help, but we've told him to piss off. That whole "free will" thing. Anyone seen the movie "Bruce Almighty"? There's one scene where God is giving Bruce his power for a week, but warns him of a few basic rules, one of which is that you can't make someone do anything they don't want to. Bruce asks "Can I ask why?" and God says "Yes you can. That's the point!"

You can't get something for nothing, even in the theological world. And let's face it, when you look at what God says he wants us to do and what he doesn't want us to do, it's pretty simple. It's not like he wants you to ride a unicycle while reciting the Gettysburg Address and juggling flaming chainsaws in order to get into Heaven. But what he asks requires discipline. Don't murder. Don't steal. Honor your parents. Don't cheat on your spouse. Be honest. Help each other out.

Seems to me like there's a huge portion of the world that has a problem with all of that. And most of what He asks goes against the whole "If it feels good, do it" midset that permeates modern society today.

While I am a religious man, I'm certainly not the best person to give religious advice. Mr. Poretto from Eternity Road is someone I try to read on a regular basis, not only for his insight but for his Sunday Ruminations, which contain his thoughts on religion. We're both Catholics, and we both spent a period of time away from the Church. At least, I believe we both did. I know I spent a number of years staying away from any house of worship, and if I read his posts correctly so did he. In any case, my Chaplain (who will be retiring shortly to my dismay) has always stated that you can't expect God to give you the world if you don't even bother to ask for it. And what is prayer but a request to God? "Dear Lord, help me get through this trial" has got to be one of the most often uttered prayers in the history of human speech. But how many people even ask for that much? And then they get pissed off when God doesn't fix things. "How can God let this happen? Doesn't he care?" Yes, he does care, but the element of free will means that YOU and ONLY YOU can control what happens. God doesn't stick his fingers into things willy-nilly. God doesn't just say "You know what? I think I'll make Dave a rich SOB today."

As far as I'm concerned, I'm rich already. I own ten acres of land. I have a wonderful wife. And I have a job that I can hold my head up while doing and say "I make a difference." How many people can say that? Oh, I may bitch and moan quite a bit, but I have to pull myself back every now and then and say "You know what, Dave? You've got it pretty damn good. Sure, life could be better, but life can ALWAYS be better. That's just life. Appreciate what you have before you start demanding more."

I think this is the longest post I've ever written on a religious subject. At least on a personal level.

Norks pop a firecracker

Can we please get serious about North Korea now? As in, shut down all aid from every country until North Korea is so far back into the Stone Age that they think making sparks with flint and rocks is high-tech? A public execution of Kim Jong Il would also suffice.