But they said they didn't want to do that?!?!

Your current President says he envisions a 'long term U.S. troop presence in Iraq', much like South Korea.

I would swear when they sold the dimwitted American Public on this boondoggle, they said they weren't going to do that.

What's one more lie?

Your next President

Will be Fred Thompson. He's asked out of his Law and Order contract.

Unless there is some serious dirt in his past, I don't think there is anyone out there now who can beat him.

I have no idea what to say

Because I sure can't say anything nice about Miss Roth, here.

I can't believe anyone would take this idiot seriously.





Via The Agitator

There's hope!

Via Newsbusters comes a website debunking much of AlGore's Inconvenient Truth.

From a 15 year old.

Have a look!

Some snippets:

Before I begin, it is important to note that according to NOAA, El Ninos and La Ninas are not affected by increases in CO2 or any global warming that CO2 is claimed to caused.



It was while I was trying to find the cause of the unusual cooling period from 1945 to 1975 that I noticed a possible breakthrough. The cooling period from 1945 should not have occurred according to either of the competing solar or greenhouse theories, nor does it make sense from the standpoint that both theories may have contributed equally to the warming of the last 40 years (Solanki 2007).



The graph below is temperature observations since 1880 from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Notice the cooling period between 1945 and 1975. According to the greenhouse theory, this cooling period should never have happened because the atmospheric CO2 was steadily increasing. The same is true for the solar theory, solar activity was on the rise since 1910, the end of the Kristen minimum, and continued until 1960, then leveled out and has slightly fluctuated since. Before that period there was striking correlation between solar activity and temperature

And...

Further research on the cooling effects of nuclear testing in the 1950’s and 1960’s needs to be done.



Solar activity is and has always been what drives the climate system.



Steps need to be taken to create distance between science and political parties, and science and financial motives.

Attagirl!

Democrats, true to their principles

When those principles are spending your money on other stuff. And the Republicans, especially this President, keep on letting them do it.

The Iraq 'war' funding bill will pass and get signed. How so, when the Democrats said they wanted a timetable to get out (a big reason they were elected, mind you), the President says no way to a timeable, no more pork, either.

In fact, Democrats initially offered to strip all of the additional money beyond Bush's $103 billion request in exchange for a timetable to end the war in Iraq. But the White House said no; the timetable was dropped and most of the money stayed.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (news, bio, voting record), D-Wis., a top negotiator, said any unhappiness among Republicans over the additional money pales when compared to disappointment from Democrats forced to drop the Iraq timetable.
"I'm sure they are (unhappy)," Obey said, "but not nearly as unhappy as we are that the administration won't encounter reality on this stupid war."
The $120 billion measure would fund the war through September as Bush requested and would not demand troops leave Iraq by a certain date. Nor does it restrict the deployment of units based on readiness standards. However, the bill does threaten to withhold reconstruction assistance if Baghdad fails to make progress on political and security reforms, although the president could waive that restriction.

Ahhhh. Principles. End the war, or fund me some programs.

Rich vs poor, not a zero sum game.

People on the Left often point out how wonderful life is, certainly in terms of income disparity, in the enlightened lands of Europe.

This post at Coyote Blog shows something a little more meaningful. Isn't it more important how you are doing on an abolute scale, rather than compared to others? I think so.

Of course, I'm a mean old rich guy.

Bad Wine

In showing wine is indeed a matter of individual taste... I bought a bottle of Luzon Verde, an organic red, on the advice of a local wine merchant, who thought my wife, who likes sweeter whites (and not much on the red side) would like it.

Blech. It tasted like grape juice with some sort of rancid citrus juice poured in. Really sickening sweet, with no real reason to drink it. J agreed - so down the drain it went.

I searched for a link to the wine or winemaker, and this is one of the many praises I found.

Either I'm a totally unsophisticated boor (which is entirely possible), or it just shows how fickle wine drinkers can be.

Cripple Fight!

The worst President ever calls George W. Bush the worst President ever.

Former President Carter says President Bush's administration is "the worst in history" in international relations, taking aim at the White House's policy of pre-emptive war and its Middle East diplomacy.

The criticism from Carter, which a biographer says is unprecedented for the 39th president, also took aim at Bush's environmental policies and the administration's "quite disturbing" faith-based initiative funding.

"I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history," Carter told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in a story that appeared in the newspaper's Saturday editions. "The overt reversal of America's basic values as expressed by previous administrations, including those of George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon and others, has been the most disturbing to me."

Carter spokeswoman Deanna Congileo confirmed his comments to The Associated Press on Saturday and declined to elaborate. He spoke while promoting his new audiobook series, "Sunday Mornings in Plains," a collection of weekly Bible lessons from his hometown of Plains, Ga.

"Apparently, Sunday mornings in Plains for former President Carter includes hurling reckless accusations at your fellow man," said Amber Wilkerson, Republican National Committee spokeswoman. She said it was hard to take Carter seriously because he also "challenged Ronald Reagan's strategy for the Cold War."

Carter came down hard on the Iraq war.

"We now have endorsed the concept of pre-emptive war where we go to war with another nation militarily, even though our own security is not directly threatened, if we want to change the regime there or if we fear that some time in the future our security might be endangered," he said. "But that's been a radical departure from all previous administration policies."

He might happen to be right, but his opinion doesn't really carry much weight.

Lucky for you, I have exclusive video of the ensuing battle between President Bush and President Carter. I can't tell which is which.

I'm nice.

And this test proves it.

Are You Hateful or Cold Hearted? Nice You dont hate anybody, and actually respect people. Click Here to Take This Quiz

Quizzes and Personality Tests

I didn't quite buy it all, either

But arguing against climate change and the required response to it is kind of like arguing religion.

Turns out, though, there are some people with actual credentials (unlike Al Gore and me), who don't quite buy man made global warming.

Via CoyoteBlog

Idiot of the Day

South Carolina has passed a bill 'allowing' law abiding citizens with concealed weapon permits to carry those weapons on school grounds. The logic clearly being that:

Schools aren't different, really, than anywhere else and,
More law biding citizens with firearms helps keep kids safe from not law abiding citizens with guns.

In showing his remarkable brilliance, the law enforcement Director at the University of South Carolina, Ernest Ellis, was quoted in this passage:

College police chiefs across South Carolina said such a law would make it difficult to pinpoint a criminal. "Today, if we respond, we know the person with the weapon is the bad guy," said Ernest Ellis, the law enforcement director at the University of South Carolina.

Because knowing who to shoot in a room full of dead students is much better than getting to a shooting where the only dead guy is the bad guy.

Idiot.

For the runner up slot, we get Rep. Doug Jennings, who is concerned about mixing firearms with alcohol in schools:

I'm concerned about more guns around younger people combined with emotions and sometimes alcohol," said Rep. Doug Jennings, a Democrat. "I don't think it's a proper reaction to the Virginia Tech tragedy."

Yeah.

Diving Practice

This is funny!

Unimpressed, and a little scared.

The GOP candidates 'debated' for the second time last night. I was out on my roof having a glass of wine after having driven home from New York, and skipped actually watching it. Lucky for me, I have the Internet, and can just read about it today.

Quite the unimpressive lot, don't you think. Even Ron Paul can't seem to get off Iraq and get on to other Libertarian points - maybe even talk about Liberty on a conceptual level, then tie it to illegal and unconstitutional attacks on nations that pose no threat to the US whatsoever...

Anyway.

This paragraph scared me:

Mr. McCain, who was tortured for years as a Vietnam prisoner of war, reiterated the anti-torture position he prominently took in Senate debate over a detainee-treatment law -- and which, he noted, was supported by senior military officials. By torture, the nation would "never gain as much as we'd lose in world opinion," he said, and "the more physical pain you inflict…the more they're going to tell you what they think you want to hear."

But Mr. McCain was alone, as the other candidates took hardline positions that pleased the conservative crowd. Mr. Giuliani said he would tell interrogators "they should use every method they could think of." Mr. Romney said "we should double Guantanamo" to hold more detainees -- far away from access to U.S. lawyers. Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback retorted, "Is it about U.S. lives, or how you're going to be perceived in the world?" Mr. Tancredo quipped that faced with suspects who might have information about an attack, "I'm looking for Jack Bauer at that time" -- a reference to the star character in the hit Fox TV drama "24" who often tortures suspects for information.

Scared me a lot.

Well, then

I'm not sure I can accurately describe the last month or so. I'm sure I'm not the only person on the planet who's had a time like this, where somehow work just consumes everything for a period of time, and the time I'm not consumed by work, I'm trying to get stuff done at my house (it's spring, and it's time to plant pretty things and get things in order to enjoy our urban outdoor space), and maintain something resembling a relationship with my wife.

So, the seven of you who read this regularly got put at the bottom of the list, right above 'Training'.

Some things of note:

I got to order my new company car. We are going green, and had been told we were all getting a Prius. This created an uproar of epic proportions, and they expanded the list, so I'm getting a Ford Escape Hybrid. Not what I was hoping for, but not a Prius.

J and I went to see 'Doubt'. Very good play.

I'm developing a taste for cigars. Had a Don Diego (very good) and an Ashton (excellent). I prefer a milder smoke. I'm open to suggestions.

Things should be settling down a bit now, and I'll be back to blogging and lifting soon.

May Day

Please go to Catallarchy and read all of the posts dated May 1, 2007.

They do a fantastic job every year pointing out how much damage socialism (what's celebrated on May Day) has done.

It's pretty horrifying, yet we keep inching closer, anyway.

Work = Lunacy

It's been one of the most trying 2 work weeks in quite some time. One more to go, then things should settle down.

Training has been on the back burner (more like still wrapped up in the refrigerator), but I have been trying to eat better, and not smoking is going well.

I should be back on track this weekend or early next week, and hopefully things will settle down enough that I can stay on track and actually make some progress.

Posting will resume as soon as I can.