And another linkey love

Because I love this quote:

The culture I was brought up in, taught me to respect dangerous objects and situations. To be an adult, one was expected to be adult-like around such things as bandsaws, punch presses, moving belts, and firearms. Anyone who was not trusted, was not an adult.

I grew up in the country. There are a large amount of tools that are used out there in order to get about your day to day business. Axes, saws, splitting mauls, chainsaws, various machines used to clear brush, haul hay, plow the driveway and road, etc., etc., etc.

And before I was allowed to use any of them, my father made damn sure that I was going to be responsible with them. That I was going to be an adult, in other words. I don't see much of that going on today, and coupled with the fact that we as a society have taken the pain out of stupidity, I think that there are quite a few people headed for a fall. Or the hospital. And then blaming people like me for their stupid actions. Hell, I bet you all could cite examples of this off the top of your head.

Scratching my head here, Boss

OK, so I guess I'm the last person to see this, which tells you how little I've been online and paying attention. So Starbucks coffee did a logo makeover, and people are howling about how it looks like a woman with her legs spread.

Um, you do know why Starbucks is NAMED Starbucks, right? Anyone? Anyone?

Starbucks gets it's name from Captain Ahab's first mate in "Moby Dick".

The logo is an image of Melusine but is incorrectly described by Starbucks as "twin-tailed siren" (the siren of Greek mythology).^[37] The logo has been significantly streamlined over the years. In the first version, which gave the impression of an authentic 15th century European woodcut, the Starbucks siren was topless and had a fully-visible double fish tail. The image also had a rough visual texture. In the second version, her breasts were covered by her flowing hair, but her navel was still visible, and the fish tail was cropped slightly. In the current version, her navel and breasts are not visible at all, and only vestiges remain of the fish tails. The original "woodcut" logo can still be seen on the Starbucks store in Seattle's Pike Place Market, and on both the House Blend and Decaf House Blend packaging.

Gosh, a store named after a fictional sailor, with a historical nautical symbol as a logo? WHO WOULDA THUNK IT?

Granted, given how few people have even read "Moby Dick", I'm not surprised at their ignorance. But would it be too much to ask for folks to actually ASK WHAT THE HELL IT IS before they get all upset about it?

I don't even like Starbucks. I think their beans are roasted until they're bitter and burnt, and I avoid the stores entirely. But holy cow, people, it's not that big a deal! "Slutbucks". Sheesh. Talk about getting your panties into a wad over absolutely nothing.

Another must read

It seems that today is going to be a linkage kind of day. Hell, I've got enough on my plate so that I don't really mind havingf a linky love kind of day.

Anyone who knows me personally knows that I'm not very good at math. Oh, I can do basic math. Algebra. I loved Geometry. But anything above that level, and I'm done, just flat out unable to do it.

I've always felt a little stupid because of that. Some folks are able to whiz through math like it's nothing, making what is a prolonged torture for me look like a third grade reading book. The more I learn about how US Education is failing our young students, the more I'm wondering if perhaps the problem was not my ability to learn, but the teaching of the subject?

I looked through his textbook, one of whose authors was a recent president of NCTM, and I was surprised to find very few proofs of anything. More troubling, most theorems in the book were stated as postulates—that is, propositions stated without proof—and students were told to memorize them. The problems at the end of the chapter required students to do only a few simple proofs.

Proofs in geometry class have been a mainstay of mathematics. In fact, proofs were always considered an essential part of high school geometry, not only because of their importance in higher math, but because learning the rules of logical argument and reasoning has applications in science, law, political science, and writing. To see proofs being shortchanged in a geometry textbook was shocking.

Algebra texts were in no better condition, in terms of presentation and content—or, rather, their lack of content. Even if you accept the argument that geometry in general, and proofs in particular, are unnecessary for students to learn, at least algebra should be taught properly, since algebra is the common language of, and gateway to, all of higher math. The absence of clear explanation and logical development left students I later tutored in algebra as lost as my geometry student. Their textbooks (and, probably, their teachers too) encouraged them to use a graphing calculator. Operations with algebraic fractions, like a¼b + c¼d, were given little attention, to say nothing of quadratic equations, once the pinnacle of any first-year algebra course. Instead, the quadratic formula is presented for the students to memorize and apply—if it is even mentioned at all.

I remember being taught like that. "Mr. Teacher, what is this for?"

"Just memorize it".

"What would I use it for?"

"Just memorize it, Dave"

"But WHY does it work like this?"

"Darn it Dave, just memorize it!"

And now I'm not very good at math.

Here's a must read

That I found on Kim du Toit's blog. Peter Hitchens:

Their minds are fixed on the knives. We must have more searches, more bans, 'tougher' penalties (we all know what happens to those). They refuse to consider that this is a matter of the human heart. You need to be immoral to be able to stab another person. A person properly schooled in right and wrong is safe with any weapon. A person with no idea of good and evil is unsafe with a knitting needle, or the cap from a ballpoint pen. The prisons are full of home-made weapons constructed, with the aid of evil intent, from the most innocent things. Do they seriously propose to ban knives, to force us to eat with plastic cutlery at home? On this dim logic, it can't be long before kitchen shops are forbidden to sell knives without demanding background checks.

The crucial thing is to realise why their minds are closed to this blindingly obvious truth. The old rule, that there are none so blind as those who do not wish to see, applies here.

Emphasis mine. There is so much truth in that one statement alone that it needs to be carved into the foreheads of every last congresscritter who advocates gun control.

Nancy Pelosi(D) smears the troops

She says Iran is letting us win in Iraq...

Nancy Pelosi Puts Credit for Surge's Success Where It Belongs: The Goodwill of IRAN

Oh. My. God. -- Ace
...
Will she also thank Al Qaeda for scaling back its beheadings and bombings

Allahpundit

This sort of willful naivete about Iran’s motives — in this case coming from a woman who not only felt compelled to meet with Assad but whom one House Democratic aide admitted would be “furious” upon hearing Murtha’s report of progress in Iraq — is right at the heart of it.

Taranto

Who needs Barack Obama if the Bush administration is generating so much Iranian goodwill?

Gateway Pundit

Iran was responsible for killing at least 170 Americans in Iraq in 2007.

But, please don't question her patriotism.

Cross Posted at DANEgerus

Goober

There's a lot going on about Scott McClellan right now, since he just wrote a book that attempts to slam President Bush.

I'm not going to get into it too much. If you want to read about it you can go here, or here, or here.

All I can really remember about Scott McClellan is that he was rather ineffectual. Got railroaded by the press corps, and seemed to be out of his depth quite a bit.

Ah well. I'm not going to read his book. Haven't these guys figured out that President Bush can't be re-elected? He's not running for office again, ya know. There's this two term limit we have, and he's at the end of it. No, seriously.

Barack Hussein Obama's serial lies about the military

Previous smears:

“We’ve got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we’re not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there." -- Barack Hussein Obama Jr.(D)

At a fancy '05 Manhattan fundraiser, Obama told the approving crowd that the Bush administration was using soldiers in Iraq as "cannon fodder."

“You know, I’ve heard from an Army captain who was the head of a rifle platoon — supposed to have 39 men in a rifle platoon. Ended up being sent to Afghanistan with 24 because 15 of those soldiers had been sent to Iraq. And as a consequence, they didn’t have enough ammunition, they didn’t have enough humvees. They were actually capturing Taliban weapons, because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief.” -- Barack Hussein Obama

..."oftentimes our women servicemembers are more prone to post-traumatic stress disorder partly because they — there's a sad, but real, problem of sexual harassment and sexual abuse for women veterans, and that makes them much more prone, then, to have post-traumatic stress disorder." -- Barack Hussein Obama Jr.(D)

"If you talk to commanders on the ground there, they'll tell you, 'Instead of having another platoon, I'd rather have a couple of agricultural specialists." -- Barack Hussein Obama Jr.(D) who hasn't been "on the ground there" in Afghanistan

You've probably seen the video where the future Appeaser-In-Chief does claim his uncle was one of the first troops to "liberate" Auschwitz. As part of a lecture on how a "poor" uncle was so traumatized by his service in WWII he wouldn't come out of the attic for 6 months, implying our soldiers in Iraq are all crying out for help I suppose...

"I had an uncle who was part of the first American troops to go into Auschwitz and liberate the concentration camps. The story in our family was that when he came home, he just went up into the attic and he didn't leave the house for six months,"

I thought your mother was an only child?

Oh... I meant my great-Uncle...

Wasn't Treblinka already razed two years prior?

Er...

And isn't Auschwitz in Poland? Was your great-Uncle in the Red Army of the Soviet Union?

Oh... I meant a completely different camp in Germany...

If you are so proud of your "great-Uncle" why didn't you mention him in your previous two memoirs?

How dare you criticize my patriotism?

So, now it's your "grandfather" who "heard stories"... Did he spend 6 months in your attic too?

This is really a distraction from the larger issues of my campaign.

Byron York

How come he talks about his family a lot, but only one side? And then mostly just his grandparents on that side?
...
His mother was basically an expatriate, and his father was a visitor from Kenya. (Although Obama has at times portrayed his father as drawn to the United States by the immigrant dream, he in fact came to the U.S. for school and went back home.)
...
If Obama keeps talking about his mother's family, some commentators are going to ask, bluntly: "How come he talks mostly about the white side of his family?"

In the context of his previous smears... and his "crazy uncle" Jeremiah Wright, I think the question answers itself.
Cross Posted at DANEgerus

You've probably all seen this already

But I gotta link to it. The worst President of the Modern Age is hands-down the worst ex-President EVAH!

Keep talkin' there, Jimmah. Let's remind people of what the Democrat American Communist Party stands for, and who they stand with!

What's next?

We have Obama saying that he sees "fallen heroes" in a crowd on Memorial Day.

We have Obama saying that his uncle helped liberate Auschwitz. Now, I'm not some "higher educated" guy, but didn't the Soviets liberate Auschwitz?

Michelle Malkin has an entire list of things that Obama has said that would make any normal person scratch their head:

Earlier this month in Oregon, he redrew the map of the United States: “Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go.”

Last week, in front of a roaring Sioux Falls, S.D., audience, Obama exulted: “Thank you, Sioux City. ... I said it wrong. I’ve been in Iowa for too long. I’m sorry.”

Explaining last week why he was trailing Hillary Clinton in Kentucky, Obama again botched basic geography: “Sen. Clinton, I think, is much better known, coming from a nearby state of Arkansas. So it’s not surprising that she would have an advantage in some of those states in the middle.” On what map is Arkansas closer to Kentucky than Illinois?

Obama has as much trouble with numbers as he has with maps. Last March, on the anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march in Selma, Ala., he claimed his parents united as a direct result of the civil rights movement: “There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Ala., because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born.”

Obama was born in 1961. The Selma march took place in 1965. His spokesman, Bill Burton, later explained that Obama was “speaking metaphorically about the civil-rights movement as a whole.”

Earlier this month in Cape Girardeau, Mo., Obama showed off his knowledge of the war in Afghanistan by homing in on a lack of translators: “We only have a certain number of them, and if they are all in Iraq, then it’s harder for us to use them in Afghanistan.” The real reason it’s “harder for us to use them” in Afghanistan: Iraqis speak Arabic or Kurdish. The Afghanis speak Pashto, Farsi, or other non-Arabic languages.

Over the weekend in Oregon, Obama pleaded ignorance of the decades-old, multibillion-dollar massive Hanford nuclear-waste cleanup: “Here’s something that you will rarely hear from a politician, and that is that I’m not familiar with the Hanford, uuuuhh, site, so I don’t know exactly what’s going on there. (Applause.) Now, having said that, I promise you I’ll learn about it by the time I leave here on the ride back to the airport.”

I assume on that ride, a staffer reminded him that he’s voted on at least one defense-authorization bill that addressed the “costs, schedules, and technical issues” dealing with the nation’s most contaminated nuclear-waste site.

Last March, the Chicago Tribune reported this little-noticed nugget about a fake autobiographical detail in Obama’s Dreams from My Father: “Then, there’s the copy of Life magazine that Obama presents as his racial awakening at age 9. In it, he wrote, was an article and two accompanying photographs of an African-American man physically and mentally scarred by his efforts to lighten his skin. In fact, the Life article and the photographs don’t exist, say the magazine’s own historians.”

And in perhaps the most seriously troubling set of gaffes of them all, Obama told a Portland crowd over the weekend that Iran doesn’t “pose a serious threat to us” — cluelessly arguing that “tiny countries” with small defense budgets can’t do us harm — and then promptly flip-flopped the next day, claiming, “I’ve made it clear for years that the threat from Iran is grave.”

And we have Hillary Clinton, who seems to think that RFK's murder somehow plays into this election year. Clinton, who lied about taking sniper fire in Bosnia. Clinton, who's pure lust for power is so naked that it's scaring off a lot of DEMOCRATS this year.

Let's be honest, shall we? If it weren't for the whores, harlots and propaganda organs of the MSM, neither Clinton or Obama would have a snowflake's chance in hell of even getting the nomination, much less being President. But because the MSM has been carrying the load for the Democrat American Communist Party for so long, people don't know just how bad those two really are. Look at the long list of the gaffes, mis-steps, and outright lies told by those two.

Now imagine those things being said by a conservative. Or a Republican. Can you imagine the outrage, the spittle-flecked howls of anger that would come from the MSM? I don't have to imagine it, I can hear it every time Ann Coulter writes a new piece.

This is just one more way that the MSM has failed this country. By pushing their biased agenda, rather than reporting on real news, they have allowed this coming tragedy to happen.

Just another reason why I wouldn't wipe my ass with the New York Times, or watch CNN even if you paid me to do it.

Who has The Media Chosen?

Number of Newsweek magazine covers since Jan 1st 2008:
Obama: 6
Hillary: 2
MCain: 2

Number of Time Magazine covers since Jan 1st 2008:
Obama: 5
Hillary: 3
McCain: 1

Brought to you by your friendly, neighborhood unbiased, fair, and balanced Mass Media.

Damn, I feel dumb

I took this test and scored an 88%. Dammit. I should have done better.

But somehow, I feel better when I see this:

1.	Harvard University	69.56%
2.	Grove City College (PA)	67.26
3.	Washington & Lee University (VA)	66.98
4.	Yale University	65.85
5.	Brown University	65.64
6.	University of Virginia	65.28
7.	Wheaton College (IL)	64.98
8.	University of Pennsylvania	63.49
9.	Duke University	63.41
10.	Bowdoin College (ME)	62.86

Does this mean that when I go to college, I'll get dumber?

Groan

It's getting to the point where putting up stories like this one almost isn't worth it.

Children as young as six are being sexually abused by peacekeepers and aid workers, says a leading UK charity.

Children in post-conflict areas are being abused by the very people drafted into such zones to help look after them, says Save the Children.

The most shocking aspect of this abuse is that most of it goes unreported and unpunished, a new report argues, with children too scared to speak out.

The UN has said it welcomes the report, which it will study closely.

A 13-year-old girl described to the BBC how 10 UN peacekeepers gang-raped her in a field near her Ivory Coast home, and left her bleeding, trembling and vomiting on the ground.

No action has been taken against the soldiers.

Has there been a UN "peacekeeping" mission that didn't involve NATO where things went right? How many more tales of rape, drug running, and child prostitution are we going to be forced to listen to?

And some people STILL think the UN has "moral authority". Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

Memorial day

There are a lot of other people out there who can express themselves better than I. Better wordsmiths, if you will. So I'm going to keep this post short, because I don't want any of my miserable scrawling to dishonor today.

I'm one of the lucky ones. None of my family has ever died while serving in the military. Four generations of military service, and we've all come home safe. But this war has pushed me into contact with those who have lost a loved one. So this is for them.

This is for WO2 Santos and his family, who dealt with the grief of their son's death with more dignity than I could ever imagine possible.

This is for SPC Cedeño, who's funeral shut down four city blocks in Santo Domingo. The picture below is of his funeral. The way I was positioned for folding the flag, I was looking directly at his father. His father sat there like a rock, with a hard expression on his face that said "I will not break down". And even when tears were running down his face, he didn't break. He accepted the flag from the General with that same expression, those same tears.

This is for SPC Restrepo, who was saving people's lives up to the point he was killed.

This is for PFC Davila, and for every soldier I've ever given final honors to, and for their families who have to deal with the sudden absence of their loved one.

This is for everyone who is touched by the death of a Soldier. Never forget why they died. Never forget what they did.

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

I knew Pete Stark was an idiot

But I didn't know he was this much of a dick.

LETTER FROM REP. STARK TO SECRETARY GATES ABOUT POSSIBLE ABUSE OF MILITARY OFFICERS’ TIME

Below is the text of a letter sent today to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates by Representative Pete Stark (D-CA), regarding the possible abuse of military officers’ time.

May 16, 2008

The Honorable Robert Gates
Secretary of Defense
1000 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301

Dear Secretary Gates:

Yesterday, while voting on the war supplemental spending bill in the House of Representatives, I couldn’t help but notice a contingent of approximately 20 flag rank Army officers sitting in the House Gallery watching the debate and vote for a couple of hours. I was looking from below so I thought they were Army, but there could have been other branches present.

It’s possible they were on leave time or vacation. If so, I obviously have no concern. However, if they were doing this on military time, I want an explanation of why they were there.

At a time when our nation is at war, our troops are over-extended, and the Administration is literally asking for emergency military spending, what good to the “war on terror” is having US Generals and other top ranked officers - who were likely accompanied by staff and escorted by their chauffeurs - spending hours sitting in the gallery of the House of Representatives?

Please provide for me the name, rank, branch, and duties of each of these officers, as well as the number of additional staff and drivers that were used to facilitate their attendance yesterday. I would like this information by Monday, May 19th.

If they were here on official duty, this was an abhorrent misallocation of our military resources at a time of war.

Sincerely,

Pete Stark

CC: The Honorable Ike Skelton, Chairman, Committee on Armed Services

CC: The Honorable Jack Murtha, Chairman, Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Defense

I am aghast. I am stunned. And I am pissed off.

LC 0311 Crunchie has the contact info for the not-so-honorable Pete Stark:

WASHINGTON, DC
The Hon. Pete Stark
239 Cannon Building
Washington, DC 20515
202-225-5065
202-226-3805 (fax)

FREMONT
The Hon. Pete Stark
39300 Civic Center Dr.
Suite 220
Fremont, CA 94538
510-494-1388
510-494-5852 (fax)

I'll be writing his ass. Politely, of course.

BASIC TRAINING IN THE KITCHEN

This is for anyone who enjoys their time in the kitchen or just wants a novel cookbook to help support some of the retirees out there.

BASIC TRAINING In the Kitchen

And to think

Some time ago, when I was getting visitors from Glenn(s) the Sock puppeteer, someone objected to me using the term American Communist Party when referencing the Left.

Tell me again how I'm wrong? Because I gotta tell ya - the more the Democrat American Communist Party talks, the more I'm proven correct.

“And guess what this Liberal would be all about? This Liberal would be all about socializing — er, uh. [Pauses for several moments] …. would be about … [pause] … basically … taking over, and the government running all of your companies.”

Here's a response from Tam, which involves a lot less cursing than I would use.

And there they were, being blatantly threatened by this gerrymandered race-baiting footsoldier of the class war, this remora on the flank of Leviathan, this vacuous sinkhole of consumption that does nothing but suck in tax dollars and shit out red tape and misery. In a perfect world, they wouldn’t have sat for that. In a just world, they’d have stood as one and walked from that room and let little Maxine foam away at her tinpot Trotskyite fantasies. In an educated world, Rep. Waters would be hounded from office and reduced to asking if Mr. Hoffmeister would like fries with that; an occupation admirably suited to her self-evident lack of economic acumen.

In this world, however, her constituents will cheer her words, and vote her another term.

And this world will deserve everything it gets.

Gah - the Left wants to drag this country into a communist hellhole, and it seems like half the country wants to go running off that cliff with them. I guess the dipwads admire Hugo Chavez so much that they want to emulate his special way of collapsing the economy.

The fact that this woman, and I use the term woman lightly, is in office as a representative of any part of America shows just how far this country as sunk.