A shot in the foot

So, a judge just tossed out Prop 8 in California.

 The optics are uniquely bad — a federal judge imperiously tossing out a public referendum enacted by citizens of one of the bluest states in America on the shoulders of a multi-racial coalition. If the goal of gay-rights activists is to make same-sex marriage palatable to the public, then embittering opponents by torpedoing a hard-fought democratic victory seems like … an odd way to go about it. 

I look forward to watching the applicants for bigamy, polygamy and the various other marriage types come forward.  And that's exactly what's going to happen.  When black-robed tyrants change or create laws through judicial fiat, you're going to open up Pandora's box.  The hard fact is this:  When you destroy the traditional definition of marriage, and you don't replace it with anything, then you've allowed anyone and anything to claim that they are "married".  Hell, Bob the pervert could marry his goat, and that's OK under the law.  You can't claim that "Well, it's OK for Bob and John to get married, but not Bob and John and Joe." because you've already said that the traditional definition of marriage is null and void but didn't place any boundaries on it.  The people pushing for gay-marriage CAN'T place any boundaries on it, because the moment they even admit that there's a boundary they've lost the argument against people who want to preserve traditional marriage.

Ah well.  This country is going to hell anyways.  Let's just remove the blocks and pick up speed.

I'M SORRY, WHAT???????

The biggest open secret in the landmark trial over same-sex marriage being heard in San Francisco is that the federal judge who will decide the case, Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, is himself gay.  

Nah, no conflict of interest there, right?  Jeebus H. Christ on a fucking pogo stick.  Would you allow a polygamist judge to decide the legality of Warren Jeff's cult?

I'm of the opinion that there is no saving this country from it's self-inflicted poisoning.

LTG Stultz

He's the Commanding General of USARC, or the United States Army Reserve Command, for all you civilians out there.

He gets it, from both an operational and strategic standpoint.  And that's all I'm going to say.

Motivation

More information about PFC Manning, the Soldier who leaked classified information to Wikileaks.

First, Private Manning is openly homosexual. Did you know that? I didn't; if the fact has been reported in the American press, I've missed it. Moreover, Manning was an activist who demonstrated against Congress's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. His Facebook includes a photo of him at a gay rights rally, holding a sign demanding equality on "the battlefield." Further, he has posted anti-military comments on his Facebook page. An uncle describes him as "an introverted kid who loved computers and was fired up politically." That tantalizing reference is left hanging. Whether he was fired up about something other than gay rights remains unknown, for the moment.

The more I see of the press in America, the more I wish that every newspaper and every reporting agency would fall into an open portal to hell, and then maybe we could have a press corps that actually reports the news.

That being said - if you're looking for motive, I think an uber-liberal, politically "fired-up" homosexual Soldier explains a lot, doesn't it?  And I don't know what "anti-military" comments he posted.  It could be something as simple as "I can't stand my Company Commander" or it could be as extensive as "I hate the military and want to destroy it".  We don't know, do we?  That's because the press corps in America is worthless.

In the meantime, I'm willing to bet money that some poor Afghan, who thought the US could keep his assistance a secret, has already been killed because Little Boy Manning threw his temper tantrum.  And that is what pisses me off the most.  This immature little shit wanted to "get" America for perceived slights, and his actions are going to have real-world consequences.  But he won't have to face them.  He won't have to watch the Taliban come in and rip his family to shreds.  Oh no, that's going to happen to someone else.  He'll be able to sit in his jail cell and smugly think that he's done something good, the worthless little fucking shithead.  If this was a just world, Manning would be stripped naked and airdropped into Taliban-controlled territory, where he could enjoy all the comforts that Islam regularly visits upon homosexual men, like being stoned to death.  Because of the tolerance, you see.

If Manning's leaks lead to someone's death at the hands of the Taliban, then Manning needs to be executed.  And if you think that's harsh, then put yourself in the shoes of someone who has helped the US military, and died a horrible, painful death for it because of Manning's little fit.

Sunday Music

O Sanctissima, one of the most beautiful hymns that I ever remember.



O Sanctissima O Piissima Dulcis Virgo Maria Mater amta intemerata Ora ora pro nobis Tota pulchraes O Maria Et macula non est in te Mater anmata intemerata Ora ora pro nobis Sicut lilium inter spinas Sic Maria inter filias Mater amata intemerata Ora ora pro nobis In miseria in angustia Ora Virgo pro nobis Pro nobis ora in mortis hora Ora ora pro nobis

Smoking a Brisket

Got a nice, large brisket covered in a dry rub and waiting for the charcoal in the grill to get started.  Once it's hot, I've got applewood and black walnut waiting to go.

Beer is in the fridge.  It's gonna be a good day.

Rangle Re-Introduces Draft Bill

Remember when all the moonbats were screaming that Bush wanted to reinstate the draft?

Remember how the Democrat Propaganda Wing said nothing as a Democrat American Communist Party member was the actual person trying to reinstate the draft?

Yeah.

A bill introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., would reinstate a compulsory military draft during wartime and require U.S. citizens not selected for military duty to perform a "national-service obligation" – as defined by President Obama – for a minimum of two years.

What do you expect?  To the Democrat American Communist Party, you're nothing but a bunch of slaves anyways.  Shut up!  Do what you're told, you stupid prole!  Get back on that plantation!

Keep your guns oiled and your powder dry.

Found at the indispensable Eternity Road.

Boy Scouts or "The View"?

So, the Marxist Messiah blows off the 100th Boy Scout Jamboree to go sit on a daytime TV show filled with one sane woman and a bunch of liberal hags.

Well, what did you expect?  The Boy Scouts teach things that Obama opposes.  Just look at the Boy Scout Oath:

On my honor I will do my best

to do my duty to God and my country

and to obey the Scout Law;

to help other people at all times;

to keep myself physically strong,

mentally awake, and morally straight.

Duty to God and Country?  Obama doesn't even like this country, and as a Marxist he's fundamentally opposed to the notion of God.  That's why he was so comfortable sitting in Jeramiah Wright's church, which was based on black liberation theology instead of Christian theology.

And let's not forget Scout Law:

A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.

Those are certainly not any characterizations Obama would ever follow.  And the Boy Scouts of America is a Christian organization.  So, it's pretty much everything that Obama is not.  Whereas the View has brain-dead idiots who give Obama a metaphorical blow-job every single day.  Of COURSE the Liberal Lord and Messiah is going to go on that show.

What a classless fucking dipshit.

Gulp

Do you trust your government to be competent enough to run this?




No, I do not.  And as the man says "The actual bill is even worse."

Federal Judge invalidates Federal Law

Hot Air says the judge has some sound arguments.  Be as it may, the ruling is going to make things worse, not better.  The law was copied from FEDERAL LAW, which means that the ruling against the Arizona law is a ruling against Federal law indirectly.

Great.  This isn't going to help this country or the State of Arizona one bit.

SEC no longer has to abide by FOIA

Yes, really.  And the more you read of the story, the more upset you're going to get.

Under a little-noticed provision of the recently passed financial-reform legislation, the Securities and Exchange Commission no longer has to comply with virtually all requests for information releases from the public, including those filed under the Freedom of Information Act.

Have you noticed that every piece of legislation that's been passed by the anti-Constitutional rat bastards in Congress makes it easier for them to continue being a bunch of traitorous crooks?

Morgan Freeman solves racism

I know the title sounds snarky, but it really is that simple.

The Sherrod Saga continues

Over at Riehl World View, where Dan Riehl has a 26 minute video of a speech that Charles Sherrod, Shirley Sherrod's husband, gave at UVA.  "We must stop the white man and the Uncle Toms from stealing our elections!"

Yeah, that's a real post-racial speech right there.  And it's from 2010, so it's not ancient history.

Now, tell me again about context?  Given that it's the full half-hour video?

Dear Senator Boxer

Watch your mouth, you filthy hag.  You don't have a clue what you're talking about.  Being in Congress is like serving in the military?  Not a chance, you clueless harpy.  Why don't you take this opportunity to go play hide and go fuck yourself?

Gah.  That dimwit is an embarrassment to other dimwits the world over.

Found at C&S.

Journolist

And who they work for.  Lots of colleges there, along with the newspapers.  The more you dig, the more you want to vomit.  These are the people who pushed their ideology on America, and claimed to be "objective".

I wish all newspapers would burn in hell right about now.

Grump

You know, with the sheer amount of time I spend traveling, my riding time has been cut in half.  Literally.  And so when it's cloudy with a chance of thunderstorms, that cuts my riding time even more.

Not good.

Fuck it, I'm still riding.  If I get wet, so be it.

And even more

bullshit, this time from Massachusetts, where (in case you haven't seen it) John Fucking Kerry bought a yacht from New Zealand and docks it in Rhode Island in order to hide from the taxes in Masshole.

Let's see here, can there be anything more emblematic of the Democrat American Communist Party than John Fucking Kerry?  He got his money from someone else, buys fancy toys at the expense of the American worker, and then evades the laws of his home and finds a way to not pay taxes.

Granted, that doesn't begin to encompass the sheer moral perversion of the Left, but as a description it's a good start.  And lets face it - that little list is just scratching the surface of all the reasons John the Backstabbing Traitor Kerry is going to burn in hell.

Sign......

Did you see this yesterday?  Obama Administration backed release of Lockerbie Bomber.

Just......  wow.  Way to go, Barry!  If there was a way to step on your dick, you've found it!  There's no way you can make this look good!

Question - what benefit can be derived from this, other than helping out BP, who gave lots and lots of money to Obama?

More Media Lapdogs

Serenity has the perfect example of the Democrat Propaganda Machine in action.  Let's roll with the facts, shall we?

Only 21 states saw job increases in June, the lowest this year.  650,000 people have given up looking for work.  The layoff of temporary census workers, which the government used to puff up their economic numbers, has the chickens coming home to roost, and businesses are not hiring.

Now, given all that, what do you think the headline on that story is?  Anyone?  Anyone?  Bueller?

How about:  "Unemployment rates fall in 39 states in June"

I shit you not.  All we heard when Bush was in office was economic disaster, when the unemployment rate was around 5%.  HALF that of the Liberal Lord and Messiah!  But thanks to the economic hellhole created by St. Hope and Change and the Democrat American Communist Party, we have unemployment hovering around 10%, and the propaganda whores of the media have sunshine shooting out their asses as they desperately try to pull their Marxist Master out of the hole he's created.

I would love it if every major newspaper burned to the ground overnight.

Shirley Sherrod is a gift

That keeps on giving.

I don't know if this is a gift that landing into Andrew Breitbart's lap, or if he orchestrated this entire thing.  Given the way he handled ACORN and their repeated lies, it can go either way.  However, the way the Obama administration and the NAACP has been jumping around, you know he's struck a nerve and struck it hard.  And the more you watch the video, the more you're struck with the fact that the audience, a bunch of NAACP members, were applauding Sherrod's act of racism even if it happened decades ago.  So the act was old, and the approval was up to date.

It still shows a bunch of racism at the NAACP.  Breitbart doesn't owe anyone any kind of apology.

No Free Ice Cream Today

Woke up early, got home late.  Sorry.  Maybe tomorrow.

Walking the Dog

Took the dog to the park.  Tossed a tennis ball for him.  While I was walking around, I met an old gent who was planting a tree.  His name is Charlie Palmer.

He was a "Water Boy", a water filtration apecialist, with the 95th Division in Europe during World War Two.  His company landed at Normandy four days after the battle was over.  He spent three years and eight days in the US Army, and proudly says that he made the rank of PFC three times.  He lives in a house darn near in the middle of the park, and enjoys it because it gives him a steady stream of pretty girls to look at.  Claims that if he ever looses the urge to ogle the ladies, he might as well cash his chips in right then and there.

I shook his hand, and told him that I was damn proud to meet him.  These days, your chance of shaking the hand of a WWII vet is slim to none, and I wasn't about to pass up the opportunity.

He finished with his planting, we gave our salutations and I headed back home, just a little bit richer.

Scary

Via GOC I found this little quiz, and got all 11 questions correct.

What scares the shit out of me is that the questions aren't that hard.  And I scored better than 95% of the other people who took the test?  I need my readers to go take it to raise that particular side of the bell curve.

Dear TSA

To the TSA agents at Indianapolis International Airport,

At least you had the good graces to look somewhat embarrassed as you gave me a body cavity search and swabbed the inside of my notebook that had my rank and last name on the ACU cover.  Seriously.  I've flown to Kuwait with an M-16 on board, yet one machine beeps in Indy and they start whipping out the long latex gloves.  You would think that at some point, someone would look at the situation and say "Um....  no, he ain't gonna blow up a plane."  Especially when you have my military ID in your hands, with my non-muslim name right there in front of you.  How many terrorists who attacked us were named "Dave", anyways?  Even little Johnny Taliban gave himself a muslim name before he started killing Americans.

I am NOT a terrorist.

However, the free WiFi at the airport rocks.  Keep that up.

Signed,

Ragin' Dave

This is my shocked face

The media was in collusion to get their Liberal Lord and Messiah elected?  Say it isn't so!

Others went further. According to records obtained by The Daily Caller, at several points during the 2008 presidential campaign a group of liberal journalists took radical steps to protect their favored candidate. Employees of news organizations including Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Salon and the New Republic participated in outpourings of anger over how Obama had been treated in the media, and in some cases plotted to fix the damage.

In one instance, Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent urged his colleagues to deflect attention from Obama’s relationship with Wright by changing the subject. Pick one of Obama’s conservative critics, Ackerman wrote, “Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists.”

Michael Tomasky, a writer for the Guardian, also tried to rally his fellow members of Journolist: “Listen folks–in my opinion, we all have to do what we can to kill ABC and this idiocy in whatever venues we have. This isn’t about defending Obama. This is about how the [mainstream media] kills any chance of discourse that actually serves the people.”

“Richard Kim got this right above: ‘a horrible glimpse of general election press strategy.’ He’s dead on,” Tomasky continued. “We need to throw chairs now, try as hard as we can to get the call next time. Otherwise the questions in October will be exactly like this. This is just a disease

How long have I been saying that the media is nothing more than the propaganda wing of the Democrat American Communist Party?  Do you need more proof?  The old Media in America cannot be trusted.  They have a political agenda, and they'll use their influence in the media to push that agenda on America.  All their claims of objectivity are a lie.  All their claims of non-bias is a lie.  Everything out of their mouths is a lie, designed to push their political ideology, and nothing more.

Let them all choke.

The New Media Wins Again

A USDA official who's racist speech was videotaped and then played over the internet has resigned.

The Agriculture Department announced Monday, shortly after FoxNews.com published its initial report on the video, that Sherrod had resigned.

“There is zero tolerance for discrimination at USDA, and I strongly condemn any act of discrimination against any person,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a written statement. “We have been working hard through the past 18 months to reverse the checkered civil rights history at the department and take the issue of fairness and equality very seriously.

Good.  Every time the Obama administration has to jump because of the New Media, that's a good thing.  Keep them jumping.  Light is the only cure for the corruption in D.C.  You can see the video referenced at the link.  "I took him to his own kind" is not the words I ever want to hear coming from a government official's mouth.  But the Obama administration revels in racial strife - it's how he got elected, and he's going to ensure that there's more than enough to go around while he's in office.

How to make mead

First thing you need to know is this - if you ask five people how to make mead, you're going to get five different answers.  So all I'm going to do is give you a basic description, because anything after that is going to cause various other winemakers to snort and say "That's not the way to do it!  THIS is how it's done!"

Mead is a honey wine.  It's the earliest form of alcohol, and probably the simplest form of alcohol to make. You need honey, water, and yeast.  And something to ferment it in.  And gas locks (bubblers).  And sanitizer.  Lots and lots of sanitizer.  So, the process goes like this -

First, you sanitize anything that's going to come in contact with your mead.  Yeast, while really really good at turning sugar into CO2 and alcohol, it's not that much of a fighter.  So other bacteria, viruses and fungi who also love to eat sugar will crowd out the yeast if they get half a chance.  Therefore, don't give them half a chance.  We use an alkaline sanitizer that we buy at a local home brew shop.  It'll turn organic matter into goo if it sits for a while, so use gloves.  Or use a different sanitizer, but we like the alkaline stuff.

You need large bottles.  We separated our batch into five different gallon bottles, but if you want you can ferment the entire batch in one big container.  The reason we separate is that we like to mess around.  The Ragin' Mrs. made a container of pomegranate mead this time.  One container we used honey that had separated, so it has a different flavor.

(FYI, mead with fruit added is called a "melomel")

Once you sanitize the bottles, you add the honey and water.  Mix it first, trust me on this.  You don't want to spend your day shaking bottles full of honey and water trying to mix it up.  The ratio is roughly three or four pounds of honey (a little over one quart) to each gallon of water.

Yes, this means you're going to end up with about six gallons of honey/water mix.  It's called "must".

Once you have your must in it's sterilized fermentation container, you add the yeast.  Again, we got it from a local home brew shop.  We used Sherry yeast for this batch, which means we'll get an alcohol content of about 15%.  Once we reach that level of alcohol, the yeast die off, so it's pretty much self regulation on that score.  There are a ton of different kinds of yeast out there, and they'll all give you a different alcohol level, different flavors, yada yada yada.  If you can find a home brew shop, talk to 'em.  Better yet, if you can find a home brewing or wine-making club, talk to THEM.  Chance are they'll not only give you more advice than you can use, but they'll have lots of equipment they might let you borrow.

While the yeast is fermenting, it's going to let off a lot of CO2.  That's what the gas lock is for.  Oxygen is alcohol's enemy, so you want something that will let the CO2 escape while keeping oxygen out.  When the yeast is fully working, the gas lock will actually bubble.  You let the mix sit in it's bottle and ferment for about two weeks.

After two weeks, you siphon it out of one bottle and transfer it to another and let it ferment all over again.  This is called "racking".  It re-energizes the yeast, helps remove sediment and prevents the mix from getting....  well, really bad flavors from all the dead yeast sitting around in it.

After two more weeks, you siphon once again (and filter it if you want) and then put it in it's last bottles, where it'll sit for anywhere from three months to a year.  If you've got a good bottling system, you can let it sit for a couple of years.  This isn't a red wine here, you don't let it sit for decades.  Once it's a year old, it's drinkable.  Hell, depending on the sugar content and the yeast you use, you could drink it in three months.

As long as you keep everything sterilized before you use it, you should have no problem.  And there you have it.  It sounds a lot more complicated than it is.  The biggest things to remember is keep everything sterile.  The more honey you add, the sweeter your mead will be.  And different yeast will give you different results.  Don't go buy bread-making yeast and dump it in.  You won't get the flavor you want.  You can find sherry yeasts, champagne yeasts, you name it and it's there.  The shop we use has about twenty different kinds of yeast for sale.

That's the basics.  Everything else is negotiable.  You can infuse your mix with tea leaves, mint, fruit, extracts, pure fruit juice, or anything else you think you might like the flavor of.  You can use different yeast.  You can change the ratio of honey to water.  All of that will give you different flavors.  You can serve it different ways as well - you can put it in a crock pot and warm it up with a sachet of clove, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice to get mulled mead, which flat out rocks on a cold winter night.  For those of you in more southern climes, chill it and serve it with a good tart fruit that'll cut through the sweetness.  Maybe some good really dark chocolate.

Any questions?

Yesterday

Went to church.
Dug up potatos from the garden.
Harvested beans.  Ever heard the phrase "a hill of beans"?  I now own that hill.  They're drying on the front porch as we speak.
Started a five gallon batch of mead.

Today?  Back on my head.  Ever heard that old joke about a man who dies and has to choose between heaven and hell?  He chooses hell because heaven is people standing chest deep in shit, and hell is people standing in shit that's up to their calf.  Only after he chooses hell, Satan comes in and says "OK People!  Break's over!  Back on your heads!"

That's my phrase for my little lovely office.  "BACK ON YOUR HEADS!"

More and More

The Obama Administration reminds me of the Soviet Union.  The "Senior Policy Advisor for Healthy Food Initiatives"?

Comrade Citizen Advisor for Ensuring Correct Thin-ness!  It helps if you say it with a Russian Accent.

To Do List, revised

Bought honey.
Cleaned Garage
Bought ammo.
Cooked dinner.

Hot damn, I made it through three out of four things on my list yesterday!  Of course, that just means that I have another list today, but still.....  three out of four!

To Do List

Part of the problems that come from traveling as much as I do is that the To Do List never goes away.

Today it was buy honey (gonna make mead!)
Clean up Garage.
Buy ammo
Work on cleaning up just about everything else I've neglected.

So far I've completed the first task.  Haven't made it to the others yet.  I'm working on it.

Running late this morning

But I just wanted to toss this out there - the NAACP is one of the most racist, leftist organizations in America today.  For them to call the Tea Parties racist is nothing more than projection writ large.  Whenever someone accuses me of racism due to my political views, I know that they have lost any argument we were having, because the race card is the last, desperate gasp of a political idiot with nothing left in the tank.  And I call them on it.  And I hammer them on it.

We need to do the same with the NAACP.

Just tossing this out there

In case you're one of the five people left in America (along with me!) who hasn't seen it.  The guy Obama tapped to head Medicare and Medicaid?  Big fan of health care rationing.  On you, not him.  So while you watch your mother choke to death and die due to lack of heath care in a government-sponsored charnel house, this guy and his family get all the health care they want, for free.

Are you finally ready to start shooting the bastards yet?

Surfing

The Daily Gator, via RNS, the 178 Federal Agencies we should abolish right now.

Oh.  Hells.  Yes.

Hmmmmmmm.....

Declaration Entertainment



Thoughts?  Remember, just click on the post title to get to the comment's page.

Sacrifice?

Hot Air has a piece from Tim Pawlenty about just who needs to make a few sacrifices.

Americans have sacrificed enough; it’s time for government to sacrifice for a change. When Washington Democrats talk about balancing the budget, they speak gravely about painful choices and sacrifice — but what they mean is tax increases. In other words, we sacrifice so they can spend.

The article then goes on to describe how the Democrats will not even pass a friggin' BUDGET this year.  Complete and total failure.  Complete and total abdication of responsibility.  And they'll whine and snivel and cry and try to blame someone else just like they always do.

And I'm just sitting here, rubbing my forehead and waiting for the shooting to start.  Quite serious here, folks.  When the people in charge are actively trying to run this country into the ground as hard and as fast as they possibly can, what other outcome can there be?  When the elected leaders of this country are so anti-American that they deny the plain language of the US Constitution, lie repeatedly to their constituents who then re-elect them, and act as if they've been crowned king, what other options are there?  If Nancy Pelosi kicked the bucket tomorrow, the city of San Fransicko would elect someone just as dumb, just as crooked, just as corrupt, just as moronic, just as anti-American as she is.  Because the city of San Fransicko is going to elect someone who represents them, in all ways.  Just like everyone else does.

Bah.  I'll be over here sighting in my deer rifle.

Motorcycle Time

I'm going to see if I can get in a few miles before the thunderstorms hit.  See ya!

Last Day of Vacation

I've been growing a goatee out while I've been away from work.  I hate shaving.  I truly do not like scraping my chin clean every morning.  It's annoying and time consuming.  So I let it go while I'm on leave.  I looked in the mirror yesterday as I was getting ready for bed, and damn.....  there's a lot of grey silver in that there beard.

And I'm not that old, either.

Ah well, that reminds me of why I took the mustache off to begin with.

I saw this yesterday

But had to digest it for a little while.  Hell is on the way.  We are rushing towards an economic collapse the like of which we haven't seen.  Not "we haven't seen since the great depression", but that we simply have not seen before.  States have maxed out their credit cards.  The Feds are doing the same.  The government is taking all the wrong steps and killing our economy before it has a chance to recover.  Small businesses are running scared.  When White Castle is saying that Obamacare is going to eat up 55% of their income, what does that mean for them?  Shutting down.  Do you know how many people White Castle employs?  Now multiply that by millions as business after business shuts down or lays people off due to over regulation and taxation.

I at least have skills that I can barter.  Lots of other people don't.  If you can't pay for electricity, you don't need someone to fix your computer.  If you get all your food from a box, bag, or can, what are you going to do when the trucks stop delivering those items to your local store?  This country can't even handle taking care of itself for three damn days.  You think I'm kidding?  Look at New Orleans after Katrina.  One day is all they lasted before the hysterics started.

Of course, there are parts of this country who's mentality better prepares them to survive.  But it ain't in the big cities, folks.  What's going to happen when the supermarket doesn't have anything left on it's shelves?

Hell is coming.  If that Doug Ross piece doesn't scare you, then go read the Eternity Road piece I linked to yesterday, and then go read his newest one as well.  Life is going to get real sucky.  How long it sucks depends on us.  If we can remove that pseudo-American from the Oval Office and repeal the damage he's inflicted, then it might not be as bad as advertised.  But if we can't, well.....

Stock up on ammo.

I am unshocked

Illegal felon voters won Al Franken his seat.  You know what shocks me even less?  The fact that the county election board is refusing to do anything about it.  Communists and Socialists never want elections to be fair.  They can't win in a fair election.

Added to my Lexicon

"Pseudo-Americans"

Read it all.

Catching up

Checking all the email I've ignored for a week.  Thank god for spam filters.

Vacation Blogging V7

A little newer, if you will.  Most folks brush this group off as a modern "jazz" quartet, and to be frank some of their music is just plain out there.  But they've got talent by the sheer bucketload, and if you're looking for some good music you don't have to look very hard.



And now a classic -

Vacation Blogging V6

Today.....  Count Basie



And to tie it in with an earlier post, Count Basie and Frank Sinatra.

Vacation Blogging V5

OK, check out yesterday's post.  See that song "Little Birdie"?  It's off of Joe Cool's Blues by Wynton and Ellis Marsalis.  It was inspired by the music of Vince Guaraldi.

Who's Vince Guaraldi?  If you've ever seen a certain cartoon, I guarantee you've heard his music.



Some older tunes....

Vacation Blogging V4

Wynton Marsalis.  Trumpet.  Unreal good.  You want to know how good is unreal good?

Flight of the Bumblebee.  On a trumpet.

On.  A.  Friggin.  Trumpet.



Damn near all of humanity can't play that on a piano with ten working fingers.  He plays it ON A FRIGGING TRUMPET!!!!!!

And here's a piece from the album "Joe Cool's Blues", which if you like jazz you need to go pick up now.  Right now.  Yes, right now.

Vacation Blogging V3

Yesterday we had the King of Cool, Frank Sinatra.  Today, we have someone who has more musical talent in his left nostril than Frankie had in his entire body.



Some of his newer material:

Vacation Blogs V2

Yesterday we had Ernestine Anderson. Today we have some Frank Sinatra.  The man defined "cool" for decades.  I know some people have their quibbles with him, but he was a major force in music for decades.



Hell, my favorite Italian joint in town is always playing Frankie.

Ernestine Anderson

I had the pleasure of watching this woman perform live at the Experience Music Project in Seattle.

Wow.  Just wow.  Here's a talent that never really made it out like Ella Fitzgerald, but she's got the talent.

Testing

We're going to see if this works on BlogSnot or not - I'm going to be away from my computer for a week.  Period.  It's vacation time, dammit, and I'm going to focus on my wife and my family and not even touch the computer.  However, I'm going to attempt to follow the first rule of blogging, which is post something every day.  So I'm going to see if I can schedule a post and have it show up.  If it works, you get more free ice cream!

Side note - it's raining like the dickens here, and my dog smells of wet fur.  But he's a good mutt.

4th of July

I'm going to be busy today.  You should be too.

Tight

I did say that I quit smoking in last night's post, yes?  Well, I haven't touched a cigarette since.  Cigars, however.....

I once had an Army Chaplain explain it like this - God creates, Satan corrupts.  So God created tobacco, for men to age and roll and turn into cigars.  And God saw the cigar, and had himself a stogie, and it was good.  But Satan, seeing the cigar goodness, corrupted man, and had man make a cigarette.  Thus did God's gift to man turn into the Devil's Weed.

A good cigar, one that's been aged, is a thing of beauty.  You want to know how you can tell you're smoking a good cigar?  After you've been smoking it a while, you can do this:

That, my friends, is the tobacco leaves rolled so tight that even after you smoke them the ash will support the rest of the stogie.  And despite being rolled tight, it still had a perfect draw, not difficult at all.

Hey, I'm on vacation, these are the posts you get!

Results

So, I quit smoking some time ago.  Up until then, I had been a hard-core smoker for years, with all the resulting health problems that come with it.  I was pretty much at hypertension levels when I left my last post, which was a result of both smoking and the insane levels of stress I was dealing with.  After I quit smoking, I starting running a bit more, trying to "be healthy", although it was more stress relief than anything else.

Anyways, when I was in the doctor's office a little while ago, the nurse checks my blood pressure, looks up at me and says "You're a runner, aren't you?"  I say yes, and she says "With blood pressure this good, you've got to be some kind of athlete."

Sometimes, it's just the little affirmations that keep you going.  They're cutting hay around here, and my allergies are in full-on "Knock Dave Flat" mode.  My run today wasn't all that great, but that nurse's comment kept playing in my mind.  I just hope I can do this thirty years from now.

Vacation

I'm on leave for the first time in a year.  I woke up yesterday and didn't know what to do.  I'd been going so hard for so long that once I don't know what to do with myself now that I don't have to go anywhere.

I think I know what a lot of retired people feel like.

And while I'm at it

Is there a better example of just what a lying piece of shit Obama is than his nominee for the SCOTUS, Elena Kagan?

Good Lord.  It's liberalism personified.  "The document is certainly in my handwriting"?  WHAT THE FUCK????

Hey, here's an idea!  When someone asks you if you wrote a fucking memo, you either say YES or you say NO.  You do not sit there and babble that the memo is "certainly in your handwriting"!  This is a perfect example of a liberal desperately trying to avoid responsibility for her actions, even when the evidence of her actions is right there in black and white!  She doesn't have the spine to answer a simple yes or no question, and we're supposed to think she's fit to judge the Constitution?  Oh hell no.

As far as I'm concerned, Kagan needs to be blocked at all costs.  Bork her ass right out of D.C.  She's unfit to sit on ANY court, much less the highest court in the land.

Cry for the Gulf Coast

Because that worthless anti-American asshat in the Oval Office isn't going to do a damn thing except let the Gulf Coast die.

Remember, folks - PRESIDENT ZERO'S RESPONSE IS NOT AN ACCIDENT.  It is in Obama's best interests to destroy America, because at heart he is not an American.  He never will be.  If you think that Obama is going to do what's best for this country, you are sorely mistaken.  Obama will do what is best for his radical Marxist ideology, and helping America ain't on that list.

I am sleeping in tomorrow

I've had more than a few gin and tonics tonight, I'm on leave tomorrow, and there's no way in hell I'm turning my alarm clock on.

Toodles.

Back

But still busy.  But sweet, sweet vacation is just a day away!  WOO HOO!

The Good

Supreme Court affirms the right to keep and bear arms!

The bad?  This battle will never be done - all you need to confirm THAT is to look at all the braindead fucktards we have living in America.  Like Roger Ebert.

"At Least 29 Shot In Chicago Over The Weekend." It's the fault of our damn unconstitutional gun laws.

People that fucking dumb need to be sterilized so that they don't reproduce and spread their idiocy genes throughout the country.  "Unconstitutional gun laws"?  I guess the 2nd Amendment is unconstitutional.  Who knew?  And of course, a culture that celebrates single parent homes, violence, drug use, criminal activity, hostility towards the law and the police, racial tension and gangs has NOTHING to do with those people getting shot.  Nope, none at all.  It's all the fault of the gun laws!

What a pathetic joke.  But that's OK, because the Sad Little Clown known as Roger Ebert is probably hiding behind his curtains and pissing his pants over the SCOTUS upholding the US Constitution, while I'm laughing and dancing for just a little bit.  And Nanny Bloomberg can go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut too.

Robert C. Byrd dead

If you want to see what's wrong with this country, look no farther than Robert C. Byrd, Democrat, Grand Kleagle of the KKK, first elected to Congress in the 1950's.  The man had been in power for far too long and was completely drunk on it.  There was no money he wouldn't spend for his self promotion (the "Robert C. Byrd Memorial Highway, the Robert C. Byrd bridge, etc).  And the people of West Virginia kept electing him.  

I remember Byrd giving some speech or another castigating George W. Bush during the build up to the War in Iraq, and thinking "Oh dear god, why is he in office?"  The nicest thing that I can say about his death is that he's going to make life in Congress much easier with his passing.

Atlanta

Not as hot or as humid as Fayetteville.  Thank goodness.  Running didn't kill me here.

Fayetteville

Is hot.  And humid.  Good lord, is it humid.  I came back from a run yesterday afternoon with my shirt fully soaked with sweat.  I had to use the hair-dryer in the hotel room to finish drying it out this morning before I stuffed it into my laundry bag.

Next up, Atlanta.  Again, hot and humid.  I think I detect a trend in the South.

And again....

Off to do my senile Uncle Sam's bidding.  Although this time I get to bring my own computer, so you might actually get some blog posts!

On GEN McChrystal's problems

I have no proof.  I have nothing more than my gut instinct, but my gut has been correct more than I care to count...

GEN McChrystal allowed the Rolling Stone report to occur.  He set in motion the events that allowed that report to be published.  And he did it because Obama is a fucking idiot, and has put even more brainless fucking idiots into Afghanistan, and McChrystal can't win so long as Obama is keeping those fucking idiots in place.

Look, McChrystal knows all about OPSEC, or Operational Security for you civilians out there.  For the love of Pete, he ran the SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND.  The man wears the "Tower of Power" on his left arm, and that's not just baubles they hand out for showing up.  So how could he do something so stupid as to allow a Rolling Stone reporter access to his staff and have unedited comments given?

Answer:  It wasn't a mistake.  It was done on purpose.  I'm willing to bet that McChrystal weighed the consequences of his actions, and he chose to let events unfold as they did.  Because to follow Obama's so-called "leadership" in Afghanistan means letting more Americans die needlessly.  And the only way to change course was to embarrass Obama publicly.  Like with an article in a widely read international publication.

I don't know if I agree with Michael Yon about GEN McChrystal, and if I had to bet my paycheck, I would say that this was a deliberate act.  You don't get to be the commander in Afghanistan by allowing stupid, easily preventable accidents such as this one.  Since Obama doesn't feel the need to communicate with his military commanders, this was a pyrrhic act by McChrystal to change the course of Afghanistan.

Sorry, no free ice cream

Got writer's block, if you will.  But to be honest, if you look at most of my posts you'll see that I blog in the morning.  Normally I get up, I check the news, I comment, I go to work.

This morning I woke to my alarm, hit snooze, and cuddled with my wife for the rest of the morning.  Soooo......  given that I don't have much time to blog at night, sorry folks but this is all you're getting.  Just enough to let me know that I'm alive.

Maybe tomorrow.

I got nuthing today

Although I have found some old photos, some of which remind me that people used to do some really dumb crap.  And that humor hasn't changed much over the years, it's just been done with different props.  And....  hey, is that Godzilla?

Happy Father's Day

Call your fathers, if you can.

And those of you who ARE Fathers, kick back and relax today with your kids.  You deserve it.

Didn't Peggy Noonan vote for Obama?

Yeah, I thought so.  And now she's calling him "snakebit".  Hey, Peggy - he's not snakebit, he's FUCKING INCOMPETENT, YOU WORTHLESS "INTELLECTUAL" PIECE OF CRAP!

Just what the hell is it that makes people with more diplomas than brains swoon over the Marxist Messiah? I think that the big-I Intellectual love affair with Obama is the most damning indictment of our colleges and universities that can be presented.  If educated, supposedly intelligent people are so easily fooled by an empty suit with a fancy teleprompter, then that education obviously doesn't amount to a hill of beans!  And yet these so-called "smart" people like Peggy Noonan and Christopher Buckley and Colin Powell voted for a hard core communist who ran on all hype, no record, and who's greatest accomplishment was voting "present" when he was there to vote at all.

Great.  Just fucking great.  Thanks a lot.  HEY YOU FUCKING JACKASSES!!!!  GUESS WHAT!!!!!  OBAMA IS STILL VOTING "PRESENT"!!!!  THAT'S ALL HE KNOWS HOW TO DO!!!!!

And in the back of my mind, I keep hearing Rahm Emanuel saying "Never let a good crisis go to waste."  You know what?  Once that well blew, I think Obama saw a good way to destroy America, and he let it happen.  After all, successful, independent businesses are antithetical to the state-controlled economy that he wants to impose on America.  So what better way to remove all those independent businesses than just let the oil kill them off?  You want a conspiracy theory?  There's one for you right there.  Now prove me wrong.  Because you can't.  Even if those were NOT the Liberal Lord and Messiah's motivations, his complete and total incompetence will give us the same results no matter WHY.

And I'm not the only one who disagrees with Peggy "I Heart Obama" Noonan about that whole "snakebit" thing either.

No, Mrs. Noonan; I don't call that "snakebit"; I call it stupid.  I call it arrogant and unprepared.  I associate that with lack of experience and vision.

And useful idiots like Peggy "I Heart Obama" Noonan can go take a long walk off a short pier, preferably into a lake of oil that's been siphoned off from the Gulf Coast.

Darn Skippy

Dr. Helen nails it with regards to what's happening with men these days.  Think about this for a second -

The majority of Americans are divorced, at some point in their lives anyways.  Maybe they've re-married, but they've been divorced before.  I mean, we're over a 50% divorce rate in this country right now.

The majority of divorces end up not just badly, but oh-my-god horribly for men.  Alimony, child support, a guy with a divorced wife and two kids that he never gets to see is working 80 hours a week to support both his household and his ex's household at the same time.

Most guys in their 30's have seen this happen their entire lives.  They've watched people that they love and care about go through hell because of marriage and subsequent divorce.  And then people wonder why those guys don't want to get married?  Throw in the fact that thanks to modern feminism and it's abolishment of moral standards, those guys can still get laid on a nightly basis.  Why buy the cow, and the subsequent alimony and child support, when you can get the milk for free?

Had I not found an angel here on earth, I'd still be single.  I honestly believe that.  And had I never met my wife, I think I could have been happy still being single.  I know plenty of guys who are of the same mind.

I'd caught this earlier

But now I've found a blog that has the transcript - Mexican President Caleron blames America for Mexico's drug cartels.

"The origin of our violence problem begins with the fact that Mexico is located next to the country that has the highest levels of drug consumption in the world," Calderón wrote. "It is as if our neighbor were the biggest drug addict in the world."

Right.  The reason that corrupt, third-world shithole of a country has violent drug cartels in control of the upper half of it's territory is because of America.  Gotcha.  It has nothing to do with the corruption that is legendary.  It has nothing to do with weak leadership.  It has nothing to do with decades upon decades of economic failure.  It's all someone else's fault.

Right now, my only response is "Fuck Mexico".  At this point, I say we invade, annex the shit out of them, and turn them into step one of Pax Americana.  I'm actually serious at this point.  They all want to come up here anyways, let's just accelerate the process.  And send in a few BCTs as point, with ROE to kill any coked up cartel boogyman on the way to Mexico City.  Suddenly, all those Mexicans are now Americans, and the drug cartels have a serious shortage of gunmen.  It's a Win-Win!

Big Labor vs. the Gulf Coast

The more we dig on Obama's horrible, terrible lack of response to the oil spill, the more we learn.

Crucial offers to help clean up BP’s oil spill came “from Belgian, Dutch, and Norwegian firms that . . . possess some of the world’s most advanced oil skimming ships.” But the Obama administration didn’t accept their help, because doing so would require it to do something past presidents have routinely done: waive rules imposed by the Jones Act, a law backed by unions.

“The BP clean-up effort in the Gulf of Mexico is hampered by the Jones Act. This is a piece of 1920s protectionist legislation, that requires all vessels working in U.S. waters to be American-built, and American-crewed. So” the U.S. Coast Guard “can’t accept, and therefore don’t ask for, the assistance of high-tech European vessels specifically designed for the task in hand.”

This really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, unfortunately.  Obama is such a radical Marxist that he will choose his ideology and it's allies over America every day of the week.  Bush waived those rules in order to get help after natural disasters.  Obama?  Not so much.  And I bet he has no interest in doing so, either, despite the fact that we could have hundreds of oil-cleanup vessels in our waters that are currently not there.

Yet another example of how Obama has hurt this country.  Of course he wants the Gulf Coast to die.  Successful businesses are normally not dependent on the government.  So kill off the successful businesses, and you have more slaves for the government!

I will say it again - I do not think that this country can recover from the damage that Obama has done to it.


On top of all that, Cold Fury details just how the Obama administration is pushing forward with their Marxist goals at the expense of America.  Once again, ideology trumps country.  Obama doesn't give a shit about American unless he can promote and reward himself.  He's a hard-core communist, willing to excuse any crime if he can gain power from it.  And America voted him into office.  Congratulations.  Pardon me while I vomit, and watch my country die.

So Hey Dave....

"Why didn't you put up a post for the Army's Birthday?"  Because I was friggin BUSY, that's why, and I didn't have the internet!  Didn't you listen earlier?  Luckily, Big Dick put up a post to celebrate the birthday of Our Beloved Army.

Oh, and that post is so NSFW it's not even funny.

One thing I missed

Was Helen Thomas getting canned for her anti-Semetic comments.

Well fucking FINALLY!  How long has it been since Tony Snow thanked that senile woman for presenting the Hezbullah View?  Only now people are waking up to the fact that she's an anti-semetic piece of trash?

Sheesh.

Yeah. I'm back.

For a while.

Give me a bit to re-engage.

HOLY SCHNIKIES!

170 emails?  Ouch.

Sorry if I haven't gotten back to you.  I didn't have internet access for a week and a half.  Now I gotta go through them and see what I missed.

A Cigarette and a Psalm

sorry... I can't offer you a smoke.

"The War Prayer" Mark Twain (kind of long)

My beloved son always enjoys reading me stories. Tonight he read me "the War Prayer" by Mark Twain. It is about 2 pages and really hit me. I hope ya'll enjoy.

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.

Sunday morning came -- next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams -- visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation

*God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!*

Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory --

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, "Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside -- which the startled minister did -- and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:

"I come from the Throne -- bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import -- that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of -- except he pause and think.

"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two -- one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this -- keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

"You have heard your servant's prayer -- the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it -- that part which the pastor -- and also you in your hearts -- fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. the *whole* of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory--*must* follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

(*After a pause.*) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!"

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

Grand Prairie, Texas

Hot.  Humid.  And the air is brown.  I can deal with the hot and humid.  Not the brown air.  Can't breathe during a run.  That flat out sucks.  By the way, the base I'm on isn't a base.  I don't quite know what it is, but it ain't a base.  I'm sitting in a Starbucks logged on, since there is no internet access on "base".

Had to make a trip to Wal Mart to buy sunscreen and bug spray.  Had flashbacks to Puerto Rico, as I didn't hear a word of English once I passed the greeter.

You want to see fat people?  Wal Mart, baby.  I'm talking the earth-shaking fat.  So fat they have their own gravitational field.  So fat they take up an entire row all on their own.  Rolls upon rolls of fat.  Either that, or they're greasy, dirty, haven't showered, stink to high heaven, and are wearing wife-beater T-Shirts.  If I were from Texas, I'd try to disown Grand Prairie.  I really would.  Walking around here is the greatest motivator for weight loss that I can think of.  "OH GOD, I NEVER WANT TO LOOK LIKE THAT!!!!!  HELP ME JENNIE CRAIG!!!!"

And most of them are Mexican.  I keep hearing about fat Americans.  But the fat people here don't speak English.  Does anyone else have a problem with that?

I've seen more pimped out SUV's than I care to count.  You want to know what I call an SUV with low-profile tires, chromed out rims and shiney paint?  A compensation mobile.  They have a very tiny penis, and they try to make up for it with a big, flashy vehicle.  Men, if you have a truck or an SUV, and it doesn't have dirt or signs of actual use, I am going to make fun of you.  Don't like it?  Then get that vehicle dirty.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I'm out of here.  See you in two weeks or so.

Headed out

Again.

Just.....  well anyways, I'm off again.  See you in two weeks.

And guys, I'm at the point where I wonder if I shouldn't just shut this thing down, seeing as how I'm not going to be posting a whole lot this summer.  I've said before this is the crazy time.  I wasn't kidding.

And this is why

I don't use Google.

Meh.  I have Dogpile set up as my search engine.

Detail

The very first funeral detail I was ever on, I wasn't ready for.  The NCOIC came up to me and asked "Dave......  are your Class A's ready?"  I answered yes, and he said "Good.  You're leaving tomorrow".

And I left, my uniform prepped.  I wasn't ready for it at all.  I'd never done a funeral detail.  I didn't know what was required.  I didn't  know much.  But I learned.

I spend the next two days prepping for the funeral.  Due to circumstances, the pall bearers doubled as the rifle team.  So we carried the casket to it's place, then marched over to the rifles, fired the twenty-one gun salute, and then marched back to fold the flag.  In retrospect, it helped me prepare for all the funerals I would do in the future.  We practiced for longer than I care to remember until we carried the casket and marched to the rifles without a single verbal command.  Once we had the rifles, it was READY!  AIM!  FIRE!  READY!  AIM!  FIRE!  READY!  AIM!  FIRE!  Then we set the rifles back down and marched back to the casket.  After that, all orders were given in a low voice.

Ready.  Down.  Up.  Fold the flag.

The Deputy Commander of US Army South, a Brigadier General whose name I'm withholding presented the flag to the parents.  The father, a retired Soldier himself, was struggling to hold himself together.  The mother and the brother had started weeping long ago.  You want to know the hardest part of being in the funeral detail?  Holding yourself together when the entire family is being ripped apart with grief.  We managed to do it, god only knows how.  When we first arrived, the casket was being moved from the airplane to the hearse.  I almost lost it right then, but it wasn't the parents that got to me.  I expected their grief, and was prepared for it.  No, what got to me the most was this - as the mother was collapsed, crying on the coffin, as the father was doing his best to comfort his wife and contain his grief, the brother was behind them both, with tears streaming down his face.

And that's the most he showed.  He had his hands on his mothers shoulder, and he was leaning against his father, and he was crying hard but without making a single sound.  He had tears streaming down his face, and you could see that he was struggling not to break.  Struggling, and losing that struggle, as he tried to deal with the fact that his brother was dead, only not just dead but dead so horribly that it would be a closed casket funeral, and we only had to carry half the weight of a normal body.  And he was trying to comfort his mother and his father as they wept, and still grieve himself.

I was locked up at the position of present arms, heels together, fingers to my eyebrow, and he was directly in front of me.  And as I watched him grieve and simultaneously try to comfort his parents, I almost lost it.  I had a single tear roll down my face as I watched this family deal with the death of their son and brother, and the only thing that kept me from losing it was the simple fact that this Soldier deserved better than to have some pansy-assed dipshit lose it while escorting him to his final resting place.  I kept that in mind while the hearse was loaded.  It was easier once the actual funeral started, because it's a lot more formal.  You don't have the raw, primal displays of grief that you do when you first off-load the casket.  But it's still hard.  The mother cried the entire time, and the father......  the father, how can I explain this - the father was a retired Warrant Officer in the US Army.  Once he had retired, he joined a volunteer organization who's entire focus and function was to help the families of Soldiers who had been killed in combat.  I can't remember the name of his organization, all I remember is the fact that he was able to give us the instructions he wanted followed, and then he was pretty much broken from his pain.  And the entire time I was doing this, my first funeral detail, the only thought I had in my head was "Don't you dare break.  Don't you dare break down.  You fucking wimp, you haven't gone through one tenth the pain these people have, don't you DARE FUCKING BREAK DOWN!"

But it's hard, when you're faced with the sheer open pain of a family who has just lost their son and their brother or their sister.

We managed to do it, that first time.  I was lucky in that I had excellent leadership who helped guide me through the process.  Shortly after that, I became the leader of the rifle team for funeral details.  I've stood at Parade Rest for over an hour and a half for certain funerals.  You never know what it's going to be like.  I've had the mother grab hold of us and tell us tales of her son, to the point that we were doing footraces in the street with the Soldier's brother, because that's what they used to do as kids.  And when you have a teenager who's just lost his brother in Afghanistan, and he asks you to race, what are you going to do?  Say no?  Hell no.  You kick your shoes off and race him in the streets.  The mother was drunk to high heaven, trying to kill her pain, and we spent hours and hours talking to her.  By the time the night was up we all got maybe three to four hours of sleep, but it was worth it to make sure this mother knew that her son didn't die in vain.

For the record, her son was a medic in Afghanistan, and had saved the lives of too many people to count.  A Sergeant from his unit escorted his body home, and we pretty much press-ganged him into the funeral detail.  The thing I remember most about that funeral detail is that as we folded the flag and prepared to move away from the burial site, this Sergeant knelt down by the Soldier's little brother, and took off his jump wings, his Airborne insignia, and gave it to the Soldier's little brother, and said "These are the wings your brother wears.  You keep them safe."

I don't think a single member of that funeral detail had dry eyes.  And I'm crying as I type this now, and I'm not ashamed to admit it, remembering what happened.

I think I didn't know just how bad the funeral details were effecting me until I found out that my NCOIC was telling the command "Leave Dave alone.  He's done enough."  I can't remember how many funerals I've done.  I just know that I never once, not fucking ONCE did I ever say no to one.  The least I could do for my fellow Soldiers was make sure that they were remembered with respect and reverence.  I stopped counting after about twenty.  At one point I was doing one a week, sometimes two.  And I made damn sure that those families knew that their loved ones were going to the great hereafter in proper style.  Part of the reason I was picked to be the rife team leader was because I memorized the commands and didn't just say them, I barked them out so that the funeral would hear them from a football field away.

TEAM!  ATTENTION!  PORT, ARMS!  HALF-RIGHT, FACE!
READY!  *click*  AIM!  FIRE  *BANG*
READY!  *click*  AIM!  FIRE  *BANG*
READY!  *click*  AIM!  FIRE  *BANG*

HALF LEFT, FACE!  PRESENT, ARMS!

That was my job, and I'll be damned if anyone did it better than I did.  Those Soldiers deserved no less.  The families who wept and grieved deserved no less.  If nothing else, they deserved to know that their loved ones died for something more than just politics, or something more that just the BS that gets presented day after day in the media.  I had a mother grabbing my arms and crying and asking what her son died for, and I told her then, and I still believe it now - her son died a hero, saving the lives of his fellow Soldiers, laying down his life for them, all in an attempt to make this world a safer, better place.

I wish I could put the names of all the Soldiers I've served on this blog.  I hate to say it, but I've done so many that I've forgotten half of them, and that fact makes me ashamed.  I wish I could remember all of them, but my brain just doesn't hold that information and OPSEC stops me from naming the ones I do remember.

I said in the post below that I couldn't find a thing to write.  That's not entirely true.  I couldn't find a thing to write that would be appropriate for the people who I've saluted and respected on their final journey, and to be blunt this post doesn't do them justice.  But it's the best I can do.  And I hope that when I meet them on the other side, they shake my hand and say "Thank you.  You gave me the respect I deserved."

I will try to do so until the day that I die.  They deserve no less.  And I ask you, anyone who reads this blog, to just take a moment to think about all the people who have died in the service of this country, and think "Thank you."  One of the best, and most simple prayers I've ever heard, was from a guy named Pete who used to work at my building.  He was a former alcoholic, an AA member, who did his best to pray on a daily basis.  And he told me once in passing that sometimes the best he could do was "Good morning, God.  It's Pete.  Thank you."  I think that's what our fallen heros need.  "Good Morning.  This is an American.  Thank you."

I know I say that.  How about you?

Memorial Day

I've been trying to come up with a fitting Memorial Day post, and to be honest with you guys, I got bupkis right now.  So many other people have come up with fitting tributes, and pictorial essays, that I look around and think to myself "How can I say anything to match that?"

So let me just be plain and simple, the way I like to be -

I have had excellent leadership in the Army, and I've had horrible leadership.  I've seen selfless service and greedy bastards.  I've spent less time in theater than some, and more time than others.  But we have the best damn military in the world, who does more with less support than anyone could ever dream.  Which might sound trite and cheap when you think about the billions of dollars in the military budget, but we have Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines in over 100 countries around the world right now, building schools, vaccinating kids, teaching people how to farm and how to grow food, setting up water purification sites, acting as deterrents against hostile dictators, rebuilding and strengthening cities, on and on and on and on.  We have Soldiers on six continents full time.  We are spread over the world, and only in a few places are shots actually being fired.

We're not just the world's police force, we're the world's engineering force.  We're the world's construction force too.  We're the world's rescue service.  And we do it better, faster, and cheaper than anyone else.  I'm humbled to be a part of it all.  Grateful as well, because the Army has given me a hell of a lot, starting with the self-discipline I needed when I was a stupid young punk way back when.  But in everything I've accomplished in the military, I did it while standing on the shoulders of the giants who came before me.

There's a Wall of Heros as you enter my building.  It's roped off and lit up, and has the faces of the Soldiers from my unit who have died in combat.  I look at that wall every day, and thank them for what they did and what they gave, so that my wife and I could sit in the comfort of our home here and enjoy life together.  It's a humbling experience to do day after day.  And it's a necessary one, so that the Soldiers and civilians who I work with never forget the sacrifice others made for us.

I won't say "Happy" Memorial Day, because I don't know if cheeriness and happiness is what is required.  So I will simply say to enjoy this day, and remember why it exists.  See you tomorrow.

It ain't the Foxholes that are the problem

One of the biggest strawmen argument I've ever heard when it comes to gays in the military is "I'd be happy to share a foxhole with (name that homosexual)!"  But the foxhole isn't where the problems come in to play.  When you're in a foxhole, you're in combat.  You most likely won't be having sex while the shells are coming down.  No, the problems crop up once you're out of that foxhole and back in the rear.

Once again, does anyone think that the military would force me to room with a female?  "OK Dave, here's your barracks room and here's your room mate, Private Nancy Smith.  Enjoy!"  No, not only would the military not force me to do that, they PROHIBIT that by regulation.

Does anyone think that the military would force me to shower with the females?  "OK Dave, we have one latrine, so just drop trou and get clean.  By the way, that's PFC Shirley Jones in there right now, but she won't mind!"  Hell no I couldn't do that.  In fact, if I got naked and jumped in the female shower, I'd be arrested and charged with violating several different UCMJ articles.

And yet, the very same people who would slap me with sexual harassment charges if I tried to shower with PFC Shirley Jones are demanding that I accept that very same sexual dynamic being forced on me just because it's now someone of the same gender.

It's not about an individual Soldier's fighting skills.  It's not about a desire to serve.  It's about bringing a sexual dynamic into a situation that cannot have sex involved without negative and desultory effects.  If you want proof of sex being a negative influence in theater, all you have to do is look at what Gen Cucolo faced when he tried to enforce UCMJ punishment on Soldiers who either got pregnant, or got another Soldier pregnant while in Iraq.  This wasn't just a joke.  When a Soldier gets knocked up, they have to go back home, which means that the unit is either one Soldier down, or they have to pull someone from home station and cross level them into the unit.  That's not as easy as it sounds, and it puts unnecessary strain on the unit and the new Soldier, disrupting operations and causing resentment among other Soldiers who don't have the option of getting pregnant and going home to their family.

And let me tell you, if you want to see a unit go from decent headspace to negative headspace in less than a week, you just tell them that PFC Martha Johnson is preggers and getting to go home, but the rest of them have to stay in country.  It just does WONDERS for the moral of the unit!

Soldiers getting pregnant in theater is a problem across many levels, and this General was trying to deal with a few of the more harmful side effects.  But because of the political correct ideology that has infested the military, this Commanding General can't even punish Soldiers who violate General Order #1 and get knocked up.  You think that allowing homosexual Soldiers won't be a problem?  Sure, let's just add ANOTHER sexual dynamic into a mix that is already strained.  And the first time some guy cops a feel in the shower and gets his ass beaten like a drum, the lawsuits start flying.  The accusations of "EEEEK!  EEEEEK!  HATE CRIME!  HATE CRIME!" start flying around.  Even MORE politically correct bullshit infects the Army, like a tapeworm that keeps on growing.  No, scratch that, it's not a tapeworm, because you can shit out a tapeworm.  Heartworm.  Infecting the organ that keeps you moving and alive, eventually killing you as you stagger around coughing and wondering why you can't seem to breathe anymore.

Not one single person pushing for allowing open homosexuality in the military has bothered to answer any of the concerns people have brought up.  In fact, the people bringing up the concerns have been ignored, shouted down, silenced, insulted, called names, and pushed aside.  That tells me that the people pushing for repealing DADT know about the problems it will cause, but they don't care.  They'd rather push their ideology on the military come hell or high water, and when shit starts to fall apart they'll most likely blame the military for it because it's easy to blame people who can't respond or act.  It's easy to blame people who have to keep their mouth shut.

If you think that repealing DADT is a good thing, you are wrong.  Plain and simple.  The Army is not a social program.  We're not a civilian workplace.  We cannot operate under the same rules and principals of the civilian world, because we do not operate in a civilian environment.  And I really, really wish to hell that people would remember that before they try to push the next social experiment on us.