Trying to avoid the news

Because I keep reading things like this:

If this report is correct, Nancy Pelosi was carrying on her own foreign policy in opposition to that of the United States, trying to work with the socialist Hugo Chavez and the Communist FARC terrorists to undermine America's ally, Colombia. In normal times, this would be unthinkable. Given the crazed state of today's Democratic party, I'm not so sure.

Further, the statement that Pelosi designated the outrageously left-wing Jim McGovern to head up her mission to the terrorists is also interesting. It may tie in with this document, which, as reported by the Associated Press, apparently records an attempt by Democrats to encourage FARC to hold on until Barack Obama becomes President:

and this or this and this. Or maybe this:

First they claim that the Assault Weapons Ban (that wasn't) kept machine guns "off the street" and that a pre-ban AK-47 could destroy cinderblocks that a post-ban AK-47 couldn't, then they decried the use of Gunkote with an example of a (REAL!) Glock, now it's the claim that "55% of gun owners use them in suicide attempts."

No, I am not sh!**ing you.

And I realize that yes, the Left is still attempting to destroy America, or at least the part of this country that makes it great. And I wonder just when the hell the next civil war is going to come. Because to be frank, you cannot have a country where half of the citizens are attempting to destroy it from within while the other half tries to save it from the destructive half.

And of our two choices for the upcoming election one of them is an unrepentant Marxist with a failed ideology, failed plans for America (he copied them from Jimmah Fucking Peanut Carter, for Pete's sake!) and nothing but the same old tired rhetoric, bullshit racist accusations, and class warfare. The other is a "Maverick" who has spent more time crapping on the base of his political party, the heart and soul of the conservative movement, taking a good long piss on the First Amendment and playing kissy-kissy-smoochie-smoochie with the very people he's running against. Yeah. I'm thrilled. These assholes aren't fit to be elected dogcatcher, and yet ONE of them is going to be the next leader of the free world? The only reason I'm going to vote for McCain is because Obama isn't fit to lick dog shit off of my combat boots. I'm not really voting for McCain insomuch as I'm voting AGAINST that festering pustule of Commie-loving crap Obama.

God help us all. God help America, because I can honestly see either of those two being the end of America as we know it.

I don't think I'll be looking at the news for a while. I don't want to get arrested when I break a table in half in a RCOB raging fit here at the coffee shop.

Just dropping in for a few

I'm sitting at a coffee shop with Wi-Fi right now, enjoying some iced coffee and the wonderful weather up here. The 4th of July was outstanding. The Marine Corps League led the parade with the US Flag, and they were followed by the 25th Army Band. Loved it.

I've been working pretty hard despite trying to relax. Seems that my parents have infected me with a disease called "can't-sit-on-my-ass-itis" or something like that. So far I've helped my dad split about four cords of wood, and I'm redoing some steps that my mom had put in a while ago. The guy to did the steps just didn't know as much as he thought he knew, and so there have been some problems. End result is that I'm having to dig the steps out and redo them properly. That's halfway done so far. Actually, all the digging is done, and that was the hard part. All the rest is hauling the fill and tamping it down. Weed-block, gravel, coarse sand, and then the paving stones and fine sand to set them in place. I figure that I'll be done with it by Thursday around noon.

I've been taking flaming assloads of photos and shaking my head at all the buildings and houses that have sprung up. Seems that while there has been a lot of growth around here, it's been done with such a lack of class that you just wince and wonder what idiot bought THAT pile of crap. I mean, doesn't anyone ever think about that that particular color, or shape, or texture is going to look like in twenty years? The only analogy I have is someone buying a hot-pink polyester leisure suit back in the early 70's and saying "Yeah baby, that's HOT!" Yeah. Now translate that into these people up here buying a house. You can just see people driving by in twenty, hell, TEN years and asking "What the hell were those people thinking?" I blame the influx of Californians.

And the most distressing thing is the fact that there are huge developments going up on the Rathdrum Aquifer, the main water supply for hundreds of thousands of people. When it was farmland, water was able to be filtered by the ground before it made it's way into the aquifer. Now, it's all houses and roads, which means that the water is polluted from the get-go with oil, and pesticides, and fertilizer, and can't get filtered because the surface area just isn't there any more. So I wonder how long it's going to be before people downstream start having massive problems with their water supply.

Anyways, I'm not going to spend too much time online. I have a wife that's happy to see me (if ya know what I mean!) and a beautiful lake to swim in. I'll check in later.

TheDick Durbin(D) called our troops Nazis...

But now... as Gateway Pundit reports

The actions of American troops are akin to something that "must have happened by Nazis, Soviets in their Gulags, or some mad regime, Pol Pot or others, that had no concern for human beings." -- TheDick Durbin(D) video in 2005

...here is Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) lashing out at Republicans for not supporting the troops in the Democratic Radio Address, July 5, 2008...

Wouldn't it be nice if we had a free press that would report what a hypocritical partisan smear-master that this walking dirt bag really is?

Cross Posted at DANEgerus

I had one of those a while ago

Joe Huffman got someone on his blog from the US Senate Sergeant at Arms. I remember that I had a couple of hits from the US Senate a while ago, right after I put up this post and this post.

Now I wish I had told them how I really feel..... the worthless, yellow-bellied, corrupt, parasitic vermin.

Your State's Gas Tax

Coyote Blog has up a handy map detailing just what you pay for taxes on a gallon of gas in your state.

Found at BabyTrollBlog.

Finished clearing

I am officially signed out from the 1st MSC. I get on a plane tomorrow and meet my dear Ragin' Mrs. somewhere hidden and out of the way.

I have to admit, there's been a lot that I have NOT liked about Puerto Rico. Part of that dislike has been the fact that I've lived in the middle of San Juan for three years. After four years in Seattle and three years here, I am officially fed up with the city. Any city. I think this one was especially trying because I could hear gunshots from my front yard, and yet I couldn't have my own weapons here with me. That's maddening.

I don't know if I've written about this before, but one of my troops here heard me bitching about the fact that I couldn't have a gun in Puerto Rico, and told me that he could get me a gun. I looked at him and asked how much the permits would be. He said "Oh no Ragin' Dave, I didn't say it would be legal. I said I could get you a gun." I didn't quite believe that he could get me a gun that easily, so I told him to get me a price for a mil-spec Springfield M1911. He came back the next day and said "$300.00 even, for a new one."

$300.00 for a BRAND NEW M1911! That's cheaper than I could find it in a gun shop in the States!

I didn't buy it, of course. I can't afford to do anything illegal, and I would do anything illegal in any case. I was raised properly. But it blew my mind. I only half-believed it until another acquainted of mine who will remain nameless told me that he personally was able to acquire a fully automatic AK-47 for under $500.00. And he was able to get it in less than two hours.

TWO HOURS.

But anyways, I have less than 24 hours to deal with this, so I'm going to focus on the things that I liked here.

I liked the beaches, once you got away from San Juan. Going diving between two reefs while schools of fish only seen on National Geographic after-school specials swam around you. Watching a Nurse Shark below you slowing gliding into the bottom of the reef.

I loved watching flocks of macaws and other bright parrots flying overhead.

I loved the lizards. I have a picture of an iguana that was hanging around my backyard when I was going to mow the lawn. I ran to get my camera, and he stayed right where he was until I got back and started snapping shots. For that matter, I have a picture of another iguana, a huge old male, strolling across the 7th fairway of the Ft. Buchanan Golf Course while I was playing golf a year ago.

I'll miss the fresh tropical fruit. I had banana trees growing as a fence for my backyard, and when they produced fruit I could just go out back and pick what I wanted. We had mango trees all over the place. Coconuts. Guava. Papaya. All of it fresh.

I'll miss the beauty of the mountains here. I once went over the mountains in the early morning, and the clouds hadn't been burned away by the sun yet. The sun came up just as we crested the pass near Cayey, and the clouds had settled into the valleys. It looked like lakes of fog, with the mountains rising up in steep slopes on either side. It took my breath away.

I'll miss the friendliness of the people outside of San Juan. As far as I'm concerned, San Juan is a shithole. But once you get away from the city, the people change. They're friendly. Helpful. When I first got here and didn't speak much Spanish, the Ragin' Mrs. and I took a nice drive around the island, just being tourists. We stopped at a roadside stand for lunch. Despite the fact that I didn't speak much Spanish, and the lady at the stand didn't speak much English, we managed to communicate through hand gestures and broken sentences until I was able to buy lunch. And she smiled the whole time. Whenever I was feeling like I wanted to blow something up, if I could get away and go out of the city to the mountains, someplace like Guavate, it refreshed me.

By the way, Guavate has some of the best Lechon (a pig roasted whole on a spit) as I have ever tasted. The town is famous for it's Lechon. After I sampled it, I agreed that the town deserved it's reputation. It was that good.

I'm going to miss the colors here. This place is a photographer's delight. Everything is vibrant. Every color seems to just scream out LOOK AT ME, whether it's the leaves of the plants that cover the hills, or the flowers of the flamboyon, a tree that looks like it's on fire when it's blooming. The seas, either a deep sapphire blue or a mix of colors in the sunlight. A riot of color from the plants that put out flowers - yellow, red, orange, blue, purple, if there's a color in life there's a plant here with flowers in that color.

I'm going to miss the history of Old San Juan.

I'm going to miss the cigars. Don Rey and Don Collins. Sooooooooooo good. And the folks at Don Rey damn near treated me like family. They knew what I liked. They would give me some darn good prices on cigars. Once I hit Wisconsin and I have my humidor back from the moving company, I'm going to be calling them up. "HEY! TONY! I NEED SOME XANDERS, BRO!" And if you're ever in San Juan, you have got to go to the Don Collins store. I never go to Old San Juan without stopping in.

I'm going to miss the rum, most of which you can't get off of the island. There's a lot of rum distilleries that came here from Cuba when Castro took power. Cuba's loss is Puerto Rico's gain. If you can find Ron de Barrilito, Tres Estrellas, grab it. Don't ask questions, just grab it. It's the best rum I have ever had in my life. I drink it like I would drink a good scotch - put a shot in a glass, wave an ice cube over it and then sip it slowly. Don't put the ice into it, that would just dilute the pure heaven.

I'm going to miss quite a lot of the people I've met and worked with here. I've learned a lot. Well, "a lot" doesn't quite cover it. Sure, I've had my run-ins with idiots and slackers, but I've also been able to learn an amazing amount of knowledge from people who have the experience that I don't. And I'm grateful for that.

I'm going to miss the friends that I've made here. Moving is part of the military life, but still, you miss the folks that are important to you. My neighbors (and they know who they are), I'm going to miss terribly.

So, this concludes another chapter in my life. But for every ending, there's yet another beginning. And in a month's time I'll be in a new post, with a new job, and ready to look forward in life. I'll post a little here and there until then, but I'm hoping to avoid politics for a while. There will be enough time for that in the upcoming election race.

Till then.......

Antiwar Rep. Mahoney (D-FL) Honors the Troops...

The Soviet Troops

Mahoney (D-FL) is the guy that got the Florida seat because the (D)emocrat lawyers fought to keep Foley(R)'s name on the ballot after he got "outed" by the (D)emocrats. Gateway Pundit notes:

...the Democrat Congressman is man enough to support the troops... The troops who defended the Soviet Union.

The (D)emocrats are so blinded by hatred of our troops they can't even identify them... again.

Cross Posted at DANEgerus

We're winning, so (D)emocrats issue Fatwa

Ed Morrissey : In case no one’s noticed, we’re winning

Gerard Baker wonders in his Times of London column why the West wears such long faces regarding the war on terror. On every front, we have prevailed far past the hopes we had after 9/11. The radical Islamists have managed to marginalize themselves among even conservative Muslims, and both Iraq and Afghanistan continue to advance towards stability and moderation. The al-Qaeda network has not been able to stage a major terrorist attack in over three years. By any measure of war, the West has not just taken the initiative but has delivered a series of major defeats, especially in stripping AQ of its easy shelter in Afghanistan, from which it launched a series of attacks in the decade before 9/11.

Instapundit notes : LONDON TIMES: Cheer up. We're winning this War on Terror.

And yet the evidence is now overwhelming that on all fronts, despite inevitable losses from time to time, it is we who are advancing and the enemy who is in retreat. The current mood on both sides of the Atlantic, in fact, represents a kind of curious inversion of the great French soldier's dictum:

“Success against the Taleban. Enemy giving way in Iraq. Al-Qaeda on the run. Situation dire. Let's retreat!”

Van Helsing : Liberal Congressman Roots for Al Qaeda to Kill American Official

Hugo Chavez's buddy William Delahunt is spinning like a dervish after wishing publicly that Cheney aide David Addington would be identified by al Qaeda and presumably killed.

The (D)emocrats seem quite sure that Al-Qaeda will return the quid pro quo.

Michelle Malkin has the video : Caution: Clown congress at work

I tuned into the Gitmo interrogation hearing by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties. Serving as human voo-doo dolls: Berkeley law professor John Yoo, who served in the Office of Legal Counsel and authored the so-called “torture memos,” and the Vice President’s chief of staff, David Addington.
...
One of the most hostile and ignorant questioners was Rep. William Delahunt (D-MA)–who is not even a member of the subcommittee. When subcommittee member Steve King (R-Iowa) politely objected that Nadler had not followed the rules in obtaining unanimous consent for Delahunt’s questioning (King did not object to his presence, just the failure to follow House rules), Nadler obnoxiously acknowledged the point of order, regretting that he had been called out. Later, after King had left the hearing room, Nadler personally attacked King and snarked that he must not have cared about the rules enough to stay. (At the end of the hearing, Nadler withdrew those remarks with all the sincerity of a, well, Democrat politician.)

I almost drove off the road when Delahunt sarcastically told Addington that he was “glad” al Qaeda finally got the chance to watch him on TV.

Instapundit : Reader C.J. Burch emails

If this isn't in a Republican television spot pronto the Republicans deserve to be run out of poltics and replaced with a living party."

Kathryn Jean Lopez notes the MainStreamMedia is still cheerleading : When Anonymity Fails, Be Nasty, Brutish and Short

Dana Milbank seems outraged at David Addington. How about a little outrage directed at Congressman Delahunt? Nope, Delahunt's al-Qaeda line is a "joke," and Addington is the creep in Milbank's world.

Gateway Pundit : It's Settled Then... Rep. Delahunt (D-MA) Finally Proves That Dems Are Not Just Anti-American-- They're Pro-Al-Qaeda

Rep. Delahunt(D) and FARC's Rep. McGovern(D) want the UN to take over in Iraq.

Ed Morrissey : Delahunt backpedals on cheerleading a terrorist attack on administration official

It sounds to me like Delahunt only regrets that he got quoted accurately.

Cross Posted at DANEgerus

The A-10 still kicks ass.

"Do you see that blinking light in the sky? That is the hand of God."

Lack of Posting notice

OK folks, you know that I'm packing up the house and getting ready to move. Part of that means turning in the internet antenna. It'll be gone either sometime this afternoon or tomorrow morning. In any case, there's going to be a distinct lack of posting for the next month as I'm on leave, relaxing and traveling around the country visiting family and friends.

So don't expect much posting from me for a while. I hit Wisconsin in late July, and hopefully I'll have a house in early August. I'll post intermittently when I can. Until then......

DAMN!

How could I forget to link to this? From the Frontlines, and online broadcast to raise money for care packages for troops that are deployed.

If you have any clams you can spare, whip out your credit cards and go hit them up.

UPDATE: $1,055,719 raised! And the mark they were hoping for was $500,000. Outstanding. I was watching the webcast last night while I was getting the house ready to ship, and Melanie Morgan broke out in tears when the total was announced.

And it's all going to the troops overseas. Good stuff.

It's been two years

Since this grouch passed away. His blog is still up and running. Someone's pulling old posts and posting every day. And I still go there every day. This is what I wrote when I heard the news:

The other people are individuals to the core, and you know when you meet them that there ain't anyone else in the world quite like this guy or gal. Put twenty people in identical clothing and identical haircuts, and you can still pick those other people out, because the sheer act of fitting in with everyone else is so alien to them that they just can't do it.

The other people know that you don't get rich, or famous, or achieve greatness by sitting on your front porch bragging about what you did in highschool. You find the highest peak you can, and start climbing it, because the reward at the top of that peak is worth all the risks involved. And if you only made it halfway there, you can at least look down at all the miserable pukes who didn't even try, and pity them. Or tell them where the hand-holds are. Or both. What if the Wright Brothers said "Nah, too risky!'? What if the Pilgrims said "You know, Greenland should be good enough don't you think?" What if Christopher Columbus had said "Turn it around boys, it's too risky."? But they didn't. They were the other people.

Rob Smith was one of those other people. You read his blog, and you didn't know whether to curse him out or laugh out loud. You looked at the things he did in life, and you had one of two thoughts. It was either A) "Oh hell, I wish I'd done that!" or B) "Did you mean to fuck it up that bad, or was it an accident?"

Never once did you read his writing and go "Meh. Whatever."

There's still nobody like him writing today.

Ladies and Gentlemen

Every freedom loving American should be cheering right now.

More congressional stupidity

I know that Congress, being filled with self-serving parasites as it is, shouldn't shock you when even MORE evidence of corruption comes out of it. But day-um, they're really looking bad. They might just be worse than even I think. And considering that I think most congresscritters are a bunch of sub-human filth... well.

I would ask

When the hell these morons are going to learn. But they never do. They haven't learned squat in decades. To wit:

It is now a certainty that the "birth certificate" claimed by the Barack Obama campaign as authentic is a photoshopped fake.

The image, purporting to come from the Hawaii Department of Health, has been the subject of intense skepticism in the blogosphere in the past two weeks. But now the senior spokesman of that Department has confirmed to Israel Insider what are the required features of a certified birth document -- features that Obama's purported "birth certificate" clearly lack.

The image became increasingly suspect with Israel Insider's revelation that variations of the certificate image were posted on the Photobucket image aggregation website -- including one listing the location of Obama's birth as Antarctica, one with the certificate supposedly issued by the government of North Korea, and another including a purported photo of baby Barack -- one of which has a "photo taken" time-stamp just two minutes before the article and accompanying image was posted on the left-wing Daily Kos blog.

When the whole "Was Obama born in the USA?" flap came out, I really couldn't give a hoot. But more and more, I'm wondering if there's any "there" there, and the answer I keep finding is "Yes". The more important question is "Was Obama born to American Parents?". But the fact that the Obama supporters keep throwing this kind of crap up means they got nuthin. Nada. Zip, zilch, zero.

If their messiah Obama can't even prove he was born in the USA, what else is he hiding?

As if I didn't have high enough blood pressure

Frankie sends me this news story.

U.S. officials were shocked that a Mexican judge had freed a man imprisoned in connection with the death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said.

Jesus Navarro Montes was arrested Jan. 22 in northern Mexico in the killing of Agent Luis Aguilar and had also been held over for trial there on migrant smuggling charges. The circumstances of his recent release from a Mexicali prison couldn't be determined Wednesday.

Any bets on if this turd is ever going to be brought to justice for killing a US Border Patrol agent? I'm putting money down in "Never". And meanwhile, we still have two agents in jail for shooting a drug-smuggling illegal alien in the ass. They should have shot him in the friggin' head. Dead men don't get immunity to testify against you.

A tale of two mindsets

On one hand, you have people now fighting back against the Supreme Court in it's decision to stop the execution of child rapists.

Me? I say that if someone is a child rapists, you toss 'em into Old Sparky. Seriously - child rape is so sick and disgusting, the damage done to the child is so severe, that I don't want any child rapist left alive. Hell, do a public execution. Behead the bastards with a dull axe.

Hyperbole? No. Child rape, in my opinion is worse than murder. Because the damage from being raped as a child continues for years, if not decades. The pain inflicted is more than just the act, it's the mental and emotional damage that goes on long after the pedophile is gone. So I want the punishment to be as severe and horrible as we can possibly make it. And I'm willing to bet that most Americans feel the same way.

However, one guy (a Democrat American Communist Party member, surprise surprise) feels the opposite.

A Massachusetts politician and defense attorney has touched off a firestorm with his shocking public vow to torment and "rip apart" child rape victims who take the witness stand if the state legislature passed stiff mandatory sentences for child sex offenders.

Rep. James Fagan, a Democrat, made the comments during debate last month on the state House floor.

"I'm gonna rip them apart," Fagan said of young victims during his testimony on the bill. "I'm going to make sure that the rest of their life is ruined, that when they’re 8 years old, they throw up; when they’re 12 years old, they won’t sleep; when they’re 19 years old, they’ll have nightmares and they’ll never have a relationship with anybody.”

Fagan said as a defense attorney it would be his duty to do that in order to keep his clients free from a "mandatory sentence of those draconian proportions."

I have no comments that do not include many four-letter words.

A fine tax rant

From Kim du Toit, one of the most intelligent people on the web. Here's the problem: I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that most people in this country are rather ignorant. Maybe it's due to their own fault. Maybe not. But you start to talk about taxes and what the government is actually supposed to do, and most people get lost.

Maybe they just don't want to be bothered with it. I don't know. Meh. Go read.

Ouch

I just saw this via Protein Wisdom. It's a response to an attack ad put out by MoveOn.org. (hell no, I ain't linking to that filth). In the ad, a mother states:

“Hi, John McCain. This is Alex. And he’s my first. So far his talents include trying any new food and chasing after our dog. That, and making my heart pound every time I look at him. And so, John McCain, when you say you would stay in Iraq for 100 years, were you counting on Alex? Because if you were, you can’t have him.”

The actual BlueStar mother's response:

Does that mean she’d rather her son live in a terrorist state or under the constant threat of acts of terrorism? Does that mean that she wants other people’s sons to keep the wolves at bay so that her son can live a life of complete narcissism? What is it she thinks happens in the world?

Emphasis mine. And the answer to that is "yes". The left is all about abdicating responsibility to someone else. Kicking that can down the road. And I'm reminded of the story about the Sheep, the Wolves, and the Sheepdogs.

We know that the sheep live in denial, that is what makes them sheep. They do not want to believe that there is evil in the world. They can accept the fact that fires can happen, which is why they want fire extinguishers, fire sprinklers, fire alarms and fire exits throughout their kids' schools.

But many of them are outraged at the idea of putting an armed police officer in their kid's school. Our children are thousands of times more likely to be killed or seriously injured by school violence than fire, but the sheep's only response to the possibility of violence is denial. The idea of someone coming to kill or harm their child is just too hard, and so they chose the path of denial.

The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the wolf. He has fangs and the capacity for violence. The difference, though, is that the sheepdog must not, can not and will not ever harm the sheep. Any sheep dog who intentionally harms the lowliest little lamb will be punished and removed. The world cannot work any other way, at least not in a representative democracy or a republic such as ours.

Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that there are wolves in the land. They would prefer that he didn't tell them where to go, or give them traffic tickets, or stand at the ready in our airports in camouflage fatigues holding an M-16. The sheep would much rather have the sheepdog cash in his fangs, spray paint himself white, and go, "Baa."

Until the wolf shows up. Then the entire flock tries desperately to hide behind one lonely sheepdog.

I think the big difference between the Left and Right mentality is that the Right understands that there is evil in the world. And even if someone on the Right acknowledges that they are not the ones to fight it, they understand that someone has to do so.

More Government Health Care success stories!

Via RNS.

After weeks of bad news, things turned Barbara Wagner’s way this week.

Last month her lung cancer, in remission for about two years, was back. After her oncologist prescribed a cancer drug that could slow the cancer growth and extend her life, Wagner was notified that the Oregon Health Plan wouldn’t cover it.

It would cover comfort and care, including, if she chose, doctor-assisted suicide.

Then on Monday a representative of the pharmaceutical company Genentech called Wagner and offered the medicine for free.

Wagner said she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so she did both.

Didja catch that? They won't pay for her treatment, but they will pay for her to kill herself.

Holy. Shit. And this is what the Leftists want to push on America? NO THANK YOU! Actually, this is what the Leftists want to push on the REST of America, as it's already taken hold in Oregon. And yet people want to say that Government Health Care is happy-joyjoy, let's take care of EVERYBODY, there will be no problems once the government is in control.

What a load of crap. And once the government has it's hands on it, the government does not let go. We can't go back from there without violent conflict. Think about that.

And check out the news that Phil has from Toronto as well. Same link.