Friday, September 30, 2005

'The Donald' is a sissy compared to this guy.

Your Fired, and I am going to feed you to a pride of lions.

This is like a scene out of Casino.
Scott-Crossley, 37, sacked Nelson Chisale after the two men disagreed over work at his farm in the north-eastern Limpopo province.

The court at Phalaborwa heard that when Mr Chisale returned to collect his belongings he suffered a prolonged assault by Scott-Crossley and two farm workers.

Scott-Crossley, Simon Mathebula and the third man, who will be sentenced later, then bound Mr Chisale and drove him to Hoedspruit, near the Kruger National Park, where rare white lions are bred. They threw the blood-soaked man into the enclosure where he was set on by a pride of lions. All that remained of Mr Chisale were his skull, ribs and a single finger.

I don't even own a pornograph....

I want to see if the ACLU files a suit in this case.

Woodland has one less 'stop and rob' selling porn. If the landlord doesn't want you selling porn, buy your own market where you can pedal your 'marital aids', or just sell groceries like your sign says.

The one thing that made me think was the fact Manmohan Deol was making more money selling porn at the Market than she will be in her new business cashing checks. Will the City of Woodland use Eminent Domain to take the store from its owner and give it to Deol because she could bring in more tax revenue peddling porn?
Deol says she has her rights as well.

"What about my conscience to view pornography? ... I swear to you that I intend to sell you pornography again," she said. "Free choice should be available."

She says she has abided by city ordinances in selling adult products. She sold everything from adult toys to X-rated videos amid a store full of beverages and snack items. Men and women - many of them middle-aged - would buy the products, she said.

"I haven't had an issue with society about pornography," she said. "I have even helped make some marriages very nice."
The last quote was a little more information than I needed.

Screw the Kyoto Treaty eh.

Do you feel the warm breeze coming from the North? The cause has been determined to be the hot air that the Canadians have been blowing our way. It seem that while our neighbors to the North have been preaching how Canada is leading the way in the fight against greenhouse gases and global warming, they have been doing nothing about it. They do seem to have a lot of ribbon cutting ceremonies, but they just can't get their giant socialist bureaucracy to change.

"They're constantly praising themselves. Why aren't they cleaning the air? We couldn't breathe this summer. [It was the] worst smog season ever and yet you've got the Liberals out there saying that we're the champions of the environment and the best that you're going to find globally."

Layton - no fan of President Bush - said the U.S. president "has a better record when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions than Canada. That to me summarizes it for Canadians

Thursday, September 29, 2005

Feminism - Islamo-fascists style

I wonder if she received equal pay for her work?
A woman disguised in a man's robes and headdress slipped into a line of army recruits Wednesday and detonated explosives strapped to her body, killing at least six recruits and wounding 35 the first known suicide attack by a woman in Iraq's insurgency.

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

PETA - People Entertaining Their Audience


They should be a dance troop or street art performers, but protesting mulesing, cmon.
Maybe the PETA folks should have to treat a maggot infected sheep or bury those who die from the terrible infections caused by flystrike. By the way, they want to protest Austrailian live sheep exports.
Half-naked, blood-covered PETA protesters have resumed their campaign against the wool industry outside the Australian embassy in the US capital, Washington.

PETA is again urging international retailers to boycott Australian wool as part of its campaign against the practice of mulesing, where some of the skin is removed from the sheep's backside to prevent flystrike.

PETA is also campaigning against the live export of sheep.

Organiser Christy Griffin says the PETA activists have not been shy about making their point.

Tom DeLay indicted. We need to clean our own house.

Could the 'Hammer' be on his way to the slammer? Time will tell. DeLay and the spend happy leadership in the House should hear the wake up call now. Corruption is corruption, integrity matters and no one is above the law.
A Texas grand jury on Wednesday charged Rep. Tom DeLay and two political
associates with conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme, forcing the House
majority leader to temporarily relinquish his post.

DeLay, 58, was
accused of a criminal conspiracy along with two associates, John Colyandro,
former executive director of a Texas political action committee formed by DeLay,
and Jim Ellis, who heads DeLay's national political committee
.

DeLay may be the target of a Democratic witch hunt, and the charges may be dropped, but he will be an anchor around the necks of Republicans in 06' if he stays majority leader. Even if no laws were broken, his choice of business partners stinks.

Delay and Hastert are spending like drunken sailors, Republicans need to find fiscally conservative leadership, and fast.

Monday, September 26, 2005

Paid to go out on strike, by you!

You want to strike? Great. You want me to pay for you to go on strike? Go pound sand.
Only Democrats could come up with this.
AB 391 by Assemblymember Koretz (D-West Hollywood) would force employers to pay unemployment benefits to employees that choose to strike. The legislation would allow striking workers to still receive unemployment checks even though they are employed, thus requiring taxpayers to fund the union?s strikes. "

The unions would no longer be forced to have "strike fund", they would be able to buy more legislators to pass these type of bills. Imagine, those who continue to work for a company where other workers refuse to work, forced to pay for the folks on strike.

If you don't like your contract, or don't like the coffee facilities or your boss, don't quit, go on strike and still get paid. Oh, if the company fires you for failure to show up for work, then the government will fine the company for expecting its employees to work. What a great deal, for the workers on strike, not the consumers, not the honest workers (honest that they either stay or go without being subsidized by the taxpayers for their views).

The principle here is a simple one. workers should have the right to voluntarily join a union. Employers should have the right to hire those they believe to be the most qualified personnel. If they agree, a contract can be entered into defining pay, benefits and working conditions. If the employer doesn't like the agreement, they shouldn't sign. If they sign, they should live up to the terms.

The union shouldn't sign an agreement they don't like. If they sign it, the union needs to live by the terms.

Sunday, September 25, 2005

Judicial Imbecility -The 9th Circus

Are all the members of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals smoking hippie lettuce?
That would explain some of their decisions, like this one.
Men's Temper Tantrums That Bother Women May Be Sex Discrimination:

Screaming and yelling by men at work may now be sex-based discrimination if women at work find the behavior more intimidating than men do. On September 2, 2005, in E.E.O.C. v. National Education Association, (No. 04-35029), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the “reasonable woman” standard applies to workplace abusive conduct, even if there is no sexual content to the behavior. This decision significantly expands the types of behaviors that may furnish a basis for a claim of discrimination.

Three women working for a labor union, the National Education Association, sued for gender discrimination claiming that the NEA created a sex-based hostile work environment for them through the conduct of an interim assistant executive director who frequently “screamed” at female employees in a loud and profane manner, with little or no provocation, shook his fists at them, stood behind an employee as she worked, and lunged across the table at another. The conduct was not sexual, nor was it marked by sexual language, gender-specific words, sexual stereotypes, or sexual overtures. While there was evidence that the same director raised his voice with men on occasion, and once frightened a male subordinate, male employees seemed to deal with that abuse with banter, and did not express the same fear of the director, did not cry, become panicked or feel physically threatened, avoid contact with the director, call the police, or ultimately resign, as did one woman.

HT to ABP

What is this Yolo?

Yolo County is where I call home. It is a very interesting place to be sure. The history dates back to 1850, when California became a state, it was one of the original 27 Counties. Home to Woodland, Davis, Winters and West Sacramento.

Yolo County is a slice of America, while geographically the majority is red, there is one town in the county that is cobalt blue. The city of Davis, home to the University of California Davis. It is a island of liberal utopian ideology surrounded by a sea of rural farmers, ranchers and regular folks that would love nothing more than to have Davis secede from the County.

From big city culture to rural history you can find it all here.

In Yolo County you can;
See a play at the Woodland Opera House, established in 1885.
Stay at a bed in breakfast in the beautiful Capay Valley.
Sample some award wining wines at one of our local vineyards.
Take a white water trip down Cache Creek.
Visit a real working cattle ranch and take a tour of its rolling hills and cattle range.
Take the family out for a day of great fishing and water sports at Lake Berryessa.
Visit the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts on the UCD campus.
Eat at a great steakhouse.
Watch the River Cats win the PCL AAA title.
Spend a day at one of the last free County Fairs in California.

I could go on and on, but I am not getting paid to be the Yolo County Visitors Bureau. (that may be a good idea)

50 minutes from San Francisco, 50 minutes from Sacramento and I still can look at my cows from my back deck. Not bad at all.

Friday, September 23, 2005

Get Lost!



Get lost, or at least confused in Woodland this fall.
If you fly into Sac Metro, I refuse to call it Sac International, look to the west, just over the bypass and you will see the Corn Maze. It is a pretty cool sight from the air, and somewhat difficult to navigate from the ground.

It may not be Shakespeare in the park, or Le Mis on Broadway, but you can take the whole family and it won't set you back $300.

Who says Yolo county is dull?

Thursday, September 22, 2005

Tina Brown gives Bill Clinton a editorial Lewinski.

Relieved from the necessity of guarding cities and particular points, important but not vital to our defense; with an army free to move from point to point and strike in detail the garrisons and detachments of the enemy; operating in the interior of our own country, where supplies are more accessible and where the fore will be far removed from his own base and cut off from all succor in case of reverse, nothing is now needed to render our triumph certain but the exhibition of our own unquenchable resolve.
Jefferson Davis, after the fall of Richmond, April 5th 1865.

I am not sure why this statement struck me, but it did. I filled in a few new words and come up with this.

Relieved from the necessity of hosting a show that had less than a 1% share on most nights, Tina Brown is free to move about liberal circles and rub elbows with the Hollywood elite, striking blows against all things Bush. Nothing is now needed to render our liberal triumph but another Hurricane to blame on Bush and more dead US soldiers. Oh, and our unquenchable resolve to have Bill Clinton back in a position of power.

This is idol worship at it's liberal worst.

To be sure, Clinton, the big intellectual showoff, had never been less than brilliant on his feet, but he never knew when to stop. And all that promiscuous lateral thinking ended up sucking the air out of the room. We got so tired of his lack of discipline that by 2000 we thought we were ready for a presidency that operated by assertion. Five years later we see what that's brought.

Clinton seems to have found his role as facilitator-in-chief, urging us to give up our deadly national passivity and start thinking things through for ourselves. Commandeering the role of government through civic action suddenly feels like a very empowering notion -- the alternative being to find oneself stranded in a flood waving a shirt from a rooftop.


She is a hack, pure and simple.

Too many pigs for the teats.

In a letter I recently sent to my Congressman, I explained that the people in his district sent a Republican to Washington to keep a lid on wasteful spending. I didn't find any pork projects in my district, yet. If there are, I will publicize them, count on it.

Dear Representative Herger,

Let me first say that I live in your district and have supported you on many issues. I read the statement you and 25 other Representatives sent to President Bush on the 21st of this month. While I applaud your sentiment to curtail spending due to the rebuilding cost of the gulf coast areas, I believe it is your duty as an elected representative to find the 'pork' in the bills the Congress passes. You should have a "Top 10 pork projects" area on your website to shame these members of Congress, Democrat and Republican alike into cutting these pet projects. The people of your district sent a Republican to the Congress to keep a lid on wasteful spending. I am having a hard time telling my 12 year old son that Republicans are the party of fiscal constraint. Lead the way Representative Herger.

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Grenades don't kill people, stupid bureaucrats do.

From the what the *&$# were you thinking department;

A hand grenade kept as a souvenir from Lebanon's civil war exploded in a Kuwaiti government office as a worker played with it, killing the man and injuring two other people.

The dead and injured were all Lebanese employees of the Kuwaiti Information Office. Ayas al-Alayli, 36, took the grenade from a shelf and threw it to the floor to show Mirna Mugharbel, a secretary, that it would not explode, an employee in the office said.

It was unclear why the grenade was kept in the office, but the Kuwaiti ambassador told reporters it had been there for more than two years.

Next time you want a souvenir, take a picture.

Robert Mugabe hates white people.

Why would you remove at gunpoint the only citizens in your country that are capable of feeding it? Ask the far left dictator Robert Mugabe. He has amended the constitution of Zimbabwe for the 17th time to take all remaining property rights away from white farmers. He is giving the land to black farmers, especially his friends and those who grease his palms. How are the new 'indigenous farmers' doing with their new found land? Sending one third of the population into starvation. Socialism, mixed with reparations and racism is a terrible recipe for a nation.
About 3,500, or 90 per cent, of white commercial farmers have been forced out by Mr Mugabe and his cronies since 2000. Irrigation systems are broken, rich land is fallow, most dairy cattle have been eaten and hundreds of thousands of Africa's most skilled farm workers have fled abroad or are unemployed.

Zimbabwe was a net exporter of food but now depends on imports and the United Nations says up to four million people, or a third of the population, need emergency feeding.
At what point do you tell your people you don't have anything to eat because we hate white people?

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Stuck on stupid.

I first heard this phrase through a friend, let's call him 'Will'. Will had been an Army Ranger once, he was a young guy and mildly crazy. Not barking at the moon crazy, more of the 'go pull the tail of that bull over there" kind of crazy. He was a great source for military jargon and had an advanced degree in profanity. Not the kind of guy to invite to the church elders picnic, but a great guy to have behind you in a scrap.

When General Honore told a reporter today "You are stuck on stupid" I almost drove off the road. I will bet that every military commander that ever sat in front of a microphone has wanted to say that very same thing at least once.
Male reporter: General, a little bit more about why that's happening this time, though, and did not have that last time...

Honore: You are stuck on stupid. I'm not going to answer that question. We are going to deal with Rita. This is public information that people are depending on the government to put out. This is the way we've got to do it. So please. I apologize to you, but let's talk about the future. Rita is happening. And right now, we need to get good, clean information out to the people that they can use. And we can have a conversation on the side about the past, in a couple of months.

The press is going to defend their own, you can be sure. Maureen Dowd will have a column with the same title saying that the President is the one who is stuck, but as far as today goes, I have a warm feeling that things are right with the world.

The power of words.

Michael Ackley's column is a great piece on how the media subtly changes a few words to send the reader the message they want.
Anyway, let us look at some examples of word choice in post-hurricane reporting
last week: A CBS radio report said President Bush 'conceded'
that relief efforts had not gone well and 'admitted' more help was needed.
Now, the reporter should have used the less colorful 'said' for the quoted words. For the former implies Bush had taken the opposite view and the latter implies a
confession of error. Neither was accurate

Monday, September 19, 2005

Topic A with Tina Brown or monkeys throwing spaghetti at each other-

Which would you rather watch?

If you look at Brown's ratings, a strong case could be made for the pasta throwing chimps. But she's not bitter. When the left fails, they slam FOX, or at least Rupert Murdoch.
Friends and colleagues were all floored in 1998 when he suddenly dispatched Anna, his second wife of 31 years, with breathtaking speed, fired her from the News Corp. board and married a 32-year-old go-getter, Wendi Deng. Anna, it's said, had wanted Rupert to ease down the work drive. Rather than change his life, he changed his wife, a familiar pattern in other moguls but surprising for the famously uxorious Rupert.
Today, a fox executive had this great line back to Brown.
"Tina Brown discussing ratings is like Courtney Love dispensing advice on how to stay sober -- neither one knows how to achieve it." Brown's show scratched 52 times out of 66 episodes during her 15 month run on CNBC --

Sunday, September 18, 2005

The French worker, an endangered species.

A 35 hour work week, 13 weeks of paid vacation, what are we, slaves? How dare you want us to work in these sweatshop conditions...
We'll go on strike.
Hundreds of Hewlett-Packard employees walked off the job Friday to protest planned job cuts by the U.S. maker of computers and printers.

The largest of three walkouts was at the company's Grenoble site in southeastern France, which drew several hundred employees led by local officials and Mayor Michel Destot.

"Grenoble needs Hewlett-Packard, but Hewlett-Packard doesn't need Grenoble," Destot said
.
The Mayor makes a great point, for the other side. HP doesn't need you, so you strike?
Great thinking. Why not ask for a raise and another week of paid holidays?
Maybe I don't understand Euro-think.

Dude, check out my bulge.

For sale, a piece of property in Oregon? Quiet, secluded, beautiful view of the valley, and if doesn't have a panoramic view now, wait a hundred thousand years.
Scientists say it probably started growing in 1997 and has been rising 1.4 inches a year since. The likely cause of the bulge is a pool of magma. Larry Chitwood, a geologist at Deschutes National Forest, told The Oregonian the pooling magma is under tremendous pressure causing the Earth's surface to expand and bulge. The uplift could be anything from the early stages of a volcano, to a pooling of liquid rock. USGS geologists admit, they just don't know.


It must be Bush's fault. Why doesn't the FEMA do something now to save people, why not evacuate Oregon now, why tempt fate. Why the slow federal response?

President Bush hates white farmers and cattle ranchers. Oh, and folks over in Ashland smoking the hippie lettuce, he hates them too.

Saturday, September 17, 2005

Can I see some ID?

Here are the rules.

Register to vote if you are eligible, do it before the deadline.

Show up at your voting place with a valid State issued photo ID.

Vote, once.

Done.

Now, why is that so hard for the left to figure out? I read an opinion piece by Cynthia Tucker from the Atlanta Journal Constitution. What a load of liberal horse manure.
Perhaps that reader has changed his mind after reading or watching wrenching accounts of the devastation by Hurricane Katrina, which so grievously punished the poor - families so destitute they couldn't buy a bus ticket to get out of town. They certainly didn't have cars, so they had no need for driver's licenses. But they are Americans, too, and they have every right to cast ballots for the candidates of their choice.

When Louisiana adopted a new voter ID requirement in 1997, it acknowledged the possibility of disenfranchising a large number of voters with a law drawn too rigidly, so it installed a fail-safe. Voters without photo IDs were allowed to sign an affidavit swearing that they weren't lying when they declared themselves to be Mattie Simmons or John Tate. That way, their votes can still be counted. Those ballots may be contested, however, by any candidate demanding a recount in a close race.

Georgia, by contrast, dumped its fail-safe mechanism. The old law allowed voters without IDs to sign affidavits attesting to their identities but that didn't satisfy callous lawmakers determined to restrict the franchise. Its new voter ID law, the most restrictive in the nation, will undoubtedly block from the ballot box thousands of poor and elderly Georgians - solid citizens and regular voters who simply have no driver's license or other state-sponsored ID.

Poor people and the elderly cannot be expected to have a valid State issued photo ID. It it too much of a burden for them. They don't have cars, they don't need drivers licenses so why force them to get an ID? They should be able to sign an affidavit that says that's who they are.

Sounds great, if you are a Democratic politician. How can the Democrats expect to win back the south without from the dead, from convicted felons and multiple votes from really enthusiastic constituents?

Why does the left expect so little from the poor and elderly?

All these people without cars, how do they get around? Have they ever ventured outside their homes? Do they have any family? How did they sign up for government assistance? Could they ask a friend to take them to the DMV? The AARP will be holding bus tours of DMV offices to get seniors registered you can bet. How hard is it to get a photo ID? Churches will be doing much of the same thing. People who want to vote legally will have that chance. People who are ineligible to vote, well they will be "disenfranchised".

The more I think about this, the more it makes me think the left has the problem with prejudice.

Friday, September 16, 2005

A great job for Cindy Sheehan.

Vice President of Venezuela. Cindy can stand beside Hugo Chavez and demand that the US military get out of their hemisphere.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says he has documentary evidence the United States plans to invade his country.

Chavez, interviewed on Saturday on US television's Nightline, said the plan is called "Balboa" and involves aircraft carriers and planes. A transcript of the interview was made available by Nightline.

He said US soldiers recently went to Curacao, an island off Venezuela's north-west coast. He described as a "lie" the official US explanation that they visited Curacao for rest and recreation.

"They were doing movements. They were doing manoeuvres," Chavez said, speaking through a translator.

He added: "We are coming up with the counter-Balboa plan. That is to say if the government of the United States attempts to commit the foolhardy enterprise of attacking us, it would be embarked on a 100-year war. We are prepared."


A 100 minute war would be more like it Hugo.

Two precision guided bombs through your bathroom window should bring the war with Venezuela to a quick end.

The ultimate in media bias.

The ultimate has to be when you are an 'independent journalist' but your second job is an Al Qaeda terrorist.
Spain's High Court ordered the re-arrest on Friday of Al Jazeera journalist Tayseer Alouni and another defendant who had been freed for health reasons during a trial of 24 alleged al Qaeda members.

A court official said Alouni and Jamal Hussein were arrested in the southern city of Granada because they were considered a flight risk. They are due to appear before the High Court in Madrid on Monday where their bail will be formally revoked.

The High Court is expected to announce its verdict in Europe's biggest trial of suspected Islamist militants by September 26 at the earliest, the court official said.

Alouni and Hussein are accused of belonging to a terrorist group and could face nine years in prison if convicted. Both say they are innocent.

The pay and dental plan are better working for Al Jazeera, but the getting to attack the Great Satan is just something that started more as a hobby.

The International Criminal Court - no thanks, I'll pass.

For those who have never heard of John Keegan, or read any of his wonderful books on military history, here is a short piece on the ICC and why it does not work in a battle zone.

The legal code, in short, is highly destructive of the emotions, comradeship, mutual concern and responsibility of seniors for juniors on which the military system operates. Traditionally, the British Army always recognised that the intrusion of civilian law into its way of life was undesirable. In consequence it maintained its own legal system in which, under court martial, soldiers were judged by other soldiers.

There was a lot that was wrong with the court martial system, which produced much rough justice. There was, however, also a lot that was right. Under court martial, it is unlikely that officers or soldiers, pleading that their actions should be understood within the military realities of fear, confusion and concern for each other's safety, would be condemned for lack of understanding of such circumstances. Good civil law is likely to make for bad military law. Only a lawyer would argue otherwise.
Keegan and Ambrose are my favorite mil-history authors, Keegan for his in-depth analysis of the why behind the what, and Ambrose for the who that was doing it.

H5N1 - The Monty Python kind of flu.

I have been keeping up on the 'bird flu' for a month or so, but it was not until last night's ABC piece with Brian Ross that I began to see what a life altering, and possibly life ending threat this is. The H5N1 flu in it's current form is not passed human to human.

If it mutates, we are in heep big trouble Kimosabe.

"Bring out your dead!"

"Each year different flus come, but your immune system says, 'Ah, I've seen that guy before. No problem. Crank out some antibodies, and I might not feel great for a couple of days, but I'll recover,'" Garrett says. "Now what's scaring us is that this constellation of H number 5 and N number 1, to our knowledge, has never in history been in our species. So absolutely nobody watching this has any natural immunity to this form of flu."
While there is no vaccine to stop the flu, there is one medicine to treat it. Called Tamiflu, it is made by the Roche pharmaceutical company in Switzerland. Roche has been selling Tamiflu for years.

Only recently, however, did scientists learn of its potential to work against the killer flu, H5N1. That has since created a huge demand and a critical shortage.


"All of the wealthiest countries in the world are trying to purchase stockpiles of Tamiflu," says Garrett. "Our current stockpile is around 2.5 million courses of treatment."

According to Leavitt, that is a long way from the country's ideal stockpile. "Our objective is to have 20 million doses of Tamiflu or enough for 20 million people," he says.
If this flu turns into the pandemic that most researchers fear this winter, George Bush will be nailed to the barn door. I may drive a few nails myself. I would love to know how much money is being spent in the HHS and the CDC for AIDS while we leave our entire population vulnerable to an influenza strain with a 50% fatality rate.

Hopefully this winter will pass without an H5N1 outbreak, if it does and we buy ourselves another year to purchase enough doses of Tamiflu to protect our citizens, I will sleep a little sounder.

Thursday, September 15, 2005

America, the land of self starters.

I was listening to my buddy Craig on KFIA tonight, but did not get a chance to phone in. He was a wonderful fill in for Joe Pursch. Craig is a utility player of the first degree.

He was talking about the principals our nation was founded upon, and that started me thinking. You know that can only mean trouble.

Two issues more than any others, were the reasons people came from far and wide to live the new world. The first being Private Property rights. In Europe, if you were poor, you stayed poor. Your children stayed poor and they would never own a piece of ground, no matter how small, that they could call their own. In America, indentured servitude was a way where a poor man could come to the new world, work four, five or seven years and be free to homestead a farm in the wilderness.

It was not much of a start, many could not carve a living out of the wilderness, but those who did had the satisfaction of eating a dinner they raised, at a table they built, in a house they built, with a family they loved.

If you were a man of wealth, but little property in England, you could purchase a vast amount of good farmland, or a stand of fine timber here in America. You had to be a hard working person, devoted to your own future, but you had the chance to achieve wealth and status.

America was the land of "Self Starters'.

Europeans also came to this new world to escape the Anglican Church. It's a long story, but a King had a little disagreement with the Pope and told him to pound sand. The King started his own church, and chose those who presided over it. When England founded it's state run church, you had very little choice but to play along if you wanted to keep your land, your titles or your head. If the Bishops said you were a heretic, you had better be on the next boat to anywhere.

The freedom to worship God, in your way, without outside influence or taxation from the government, was hard to comprehend for a new settler. The protestant reformation truly received it's second wind here in the land of free. It was not freedom from religion, it was freedom to practice religion.

Sadly, these foundations of our nation are slowly being eroded by the secular left. The recent Kelo ruling is an outright trampling on the principal of private property. The good of the people, seems to have been trumped by the good of the government, for the good of the people.

The recent attempt to ban under God from the pledge only shows most Americans think the wall between church and State is in the Constitution, it is not. Instead of the keeping the government from establishing the Church of American, taxes and membership dues on the first of every month, the secular left wants to make you think that the government cannot mention God in any way.

George Washington would be loading up his musket and marching on the ACLU if he were here.

The flu, for lack of a better word, sucks.

I was going to call my local ( well, somewhat local ) Wendy's to see if anyone had complained of food poisoning on Tuesday. It sounded like the right diagnosis, my son started vomiting two hours after we had ate dinner there. It came on very sudden and very hard. The next morning I started with the same symptoms. We both ate a jr. bacon cheeseburger and shared a fry and a drink.

Food poisoning, gotta be.

That was until my daughter came down with it yesterday, followed by my wife. When she is the last one to come down with a sickness that the family has had, she seems to think that we infected her on purpose. She gets downright cranky.

The sickness buckets are all put away now and all the bedding has been washed. The house smell like a Lysol distillery. As I went back to work today, I was thinking of raising the plague flag over the house to warn any salesmen or bingo players wanting directions to the casino, but I didn't.

I am a devious person at heart.

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

A rebate by any other name...

Nothing says we need to remodel the kitchen, like a free hour at a brothel.
A Polish hardware store has offered an hour in a brothel to customers who spend more than 10,000 zlotys (about $4000) on materials. "It's a case, if you like, of different strokes for different folks, in terms of doing business," Roman Myszko, the owner of the Bepol shop in Elblag, in northern Poland, told Agence France-Presse. The owner of the brothel "came to our shop to buy some paintbrushes and paint. I knew immediately what her line of business was, and I talked with her [about proposing the special offer] and she agreed."

Roberts can't get to the Supreme Court fast enough.

A screaming liberal judge sides with a screaming liberal athiest.

SAN FRANCISCO - Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools was declared unconstitutional Wednesday by a federal judge ruling in the second attempt by an atheist to have the pledge removed from classrooms. The man lost his previous battle before the
U.S. Supreme Court

U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton ruled that the pledge's reference to one nation "under God" violates school children's right to be "free from a coercive requirement to affirm God."

Karlton said he was bound by precedent of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which in 2002 ruled in favor of Sacramento atheist Michael Newdow that the pledge is unconstitutional when recited in public schools.

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

I needed a good laugh today and I stumbled across Wazzadem.

The O'Reiley interview with Yoda is classic. Plan to spend twenty minutes there.

Watch out Senator Boxer, Mary Landrieu is gunning for your title.

The title of 'Dumbest Senator' in Washington DC.
It's a parody, but it hits close to home for poor Mary.
If you close your eyes, you can actually hear Landrieu saying these things. The real transcript is almost as funny.


Let's move on. Senator, what are your feelings about New Orleans' mayor Ray Nagin ordering a mandatory evacuation, and then leaving hundreds of buses to flood instead of using them to get people out of the city? Here's a picture of the buses.







Chris, I don't know if you noticed, but those buses were flooded.







They weren't flooded on Saturday or Sunday, when they could have been used to aid in the evacuation effort.







Not if they were flooded.







But they weren't flooded







Let's see that picture again.














Hel-LO?

Monday, September 12, 2005

Note to Zarqawi, if we go non-conventional, you will know it.

You will know it because the sun will rise in your apartment, ok not the 'real sun' but a micro version of it. A tactical nuke on Tal Afar would not be off the table if we knew Zarqawi was there. But gas? If we were going to take the heat for using a WMD, let's use the right one.
The US military denies an accusation that American and Iraqi forces have used toxic gas during an attack on the Iraqi town of Tal Afar in which up to 200 insurgents have been killed.

The accusation was made in an audiotape by a man believed to be Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

The message was posted on a website on Sunday, the fourth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

"Anything the man (Zarqawi) says is probably not true. But for certain, the claim of poison gas is not true," a Pentagon official said.

Sunday, September 11, 2005

The Duce Four is coming home.

If you haven't read Michael Yon's blog from Iraq, please do. While the mainstream reporters have been home safe or on assignment in Aruba or the Gulf Coast, Michael is the middle of hottest hot spots in Iraq.

Courage? Commitment to reporting the truth? You darn right.

As for The Duce Four, thank you for your service, we will never know how much you gave for our nation.

A day in the life of a nation.

We can remember where we were when we first saw the terrible images of the North Tower trailing a line of black smoke across the Manhattan skyline. Was this an accident? Was it a small plane or a airliner? Then the images of flight 175 smashing into the South Tower.

We were under attack. Then the smoke cloud coming from the Pentagon and word that a fourth plane was squawking the highjack code. That plane was later driven into the ground in Pennsylvania.

We were under attack. Not from the rock throwing, flag burning, 'death to America' cowards you see on TV, but a real enemy who has the time, planning and resolve to take American lives on American soil.

Like all Americans, I look on 9/11 as a terrible tragedy. I didn't know anyone who died in the attacks and while I grieved for those lost and prayed for those they left behind, I hoped that the nation would finally wake up to the fact that there are people who want us dead, not just Republicans or Christians, but all Americans right down to your little dog.

As time has passed the grief faded and the resolve was dissipated into a something less. It reminded me of a person who had a mild heart attack. He suddenly found God, the love of his family and the will to change his bad habits. He watched his diet, quit smoking and bought some comfortable walking shoes for those daily trips around his block.

Then something amazing happens, after a few years with no other heart trouble, he doesn't see the harm in a few beers and pizza with the guys a few times a week. Those walking shoes, well they were really ugly and it's been too hot to walk lately. He only smokes a half a pack a day. The closeness to his family has been replaced by the old feelings of jealousy and blame from the past. He hasn't gone to church for a few years now and doesn't know where his Bible is, let alone bringing his troubles to the Lord in prayer.

In a word, he is in denial. He won't visit the doctor because he doesn't want to hear what the doctor has to say. He wants to live his life just like he did before the heart attack. Oblivious to the threat to his life. Maybe he will have a mild chest pain and go see the doctor before it's too late or the last thing he sees maybe the horrified look of his family as he lies on the floor clutching his chest.

Saturday, September 10, 2005

My wife thinks I am addicted to blogging.

My wonderful wife, or 'She who must be obeyed' as she is know in our household, thinks that I am addicted to my computer and blogging. That just silly.

I could quit, if I wanted to, I could.

I think.

Do they have a twelve step program?

I am The Yolo Cowboy and am a bloggaholic.

Friday, September 09, 2005

Democrats, take back your party, please.

I was watching the news last night with my 7th grade son. Nancy Pelosi was in full Moonbat mode blaming the President for anything and everything that has happened or has not happened in the Gulf Coast region. He asked the question, "are all Democrats bad?"
Good question.

I explained that at one time, the Democratic Party stood for things that made America great, but that was long ago. I told him that historically Democrats want to spend more on welfare than defense and want the government to be as large and in control of as much as possible in your daily life. That being said, the old Democratic party wanted the best for America, they may have disagreed with Republicans on how to get there, but they strived toward a common goal. American leadership and dominance in the world.

What a difference 30 years make.

I give you the New Democratic Party, it's leader, Howard Dean - 'Grand Wizard Moonbat'
My point is that John Roberts has a record. John Roberts appears to be a wonderful, decent family person. But again, we get back to the question about whether you really care, and whether you really have compassion. It's not enough to say you care. It's what you've done. John Roberts' legal career has been about taking away every protection for young girls and women who want to participate in sports, for African-Americans and Hispanics who want the equal, same right to vote as everybody else, for taking away from women who believe they should determine what health care they have, instead of having politicians do it. His entire legal career appears to be about making sure those folks don't have the same rights everybody else does. That's probably not the right thing to do, two weeks after a disaster, where certain members of society clearly did not have the same protections that everybody else did, because of their circumstances. Americans are fair people, and they want a sense of justice. I know Judge Roberts loves the law. I'm not sure he loves the American people.

"I do not think that this president cares about everybody in America".

I know there are millions of center left Democrats who think that President Bush is doing a terrible job. That's fine, but they don't think he is Hitler, or that he wants only poor black people to die in a natural disaster. They think that although John Roberts wouldn't be their first choice, he is a good man and is an extremely qualified justice. They don't like the war in Iraq but they understand that we are there now, and we can't cut and run. We must win this war on the enemies turf. These people used to be the backbone and voice of the Democratic Party, no longer.

The Moveon, Code Pink, Sean Penn, Michael Moore liberal extremists have hi-jacked your party. Please take it back so we can have a thoughtful debate about the issues that face our great nation. Who knows, you may even win an election now and again.

Thursday, September 08, 2005

Tammnay Hall on K Street

As the Governor of our State is doing battle against the 'Axis of Moonbats', Don Perata, Fabian Nunuez, Jackie Speier and the gang under the dome, he has been fighting a defensive strategy since early this spring.

The Governor is now shifting into campaign mode, as the special election is about 60 days away.
Good for him.
"Clearly, we're organizing our forces here," Mike Murphy, Schwarzenegger's chief political strategist, said in an interview last week. "We're going to make a major effort and we're going to win."

Today the Democrats throw one of their own under the bus to pressure Schwarzenegger to approve drivers licenses for Illegal Aliens.
The Democratic legislators are going to have to explain why they took out a competent, Democratic ... director purely because they are focused on getting this driver's license bill for undocumented workers," Thompson said. "It's a prime example of Democratic lawmakers playing politics as opposed to focusing on good public policy
The Governor will veto the gay marriage bill , saying that it went against the will of the people as they clearly showed in prop 22.
"We cannot have a system where the people vote and the Legislature derails that vote," the governor's press secretary, Margita Thompson, said in a statement. "Out of respect for the will of the people, the governor will veto (the bill)."

Again, good for him.

His threatened veto of Lois Wolk's bill AB 1328 forced Wolk to pull it back for an additional 30 days consideration. Hooray for Ahnold.
The governor had apparently requested Wolk pull the bill under threat of veto. Schwarzenegger took the action after apparently meeting with Yolo County Republican insiders, who have been opposed to the legislation.

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

4 Things that will become apparent when a full review of Katrina is complete.

1 Mayor Ray Nagin did not follow his own evacuation plan. A complete failure.

2 Governor Blanco's turf fight with the White House and FEMA will be seen as one the main reasons why Federal relief was delayed. The Red Cross hasn't faired much better with Blanco.

3 The corruption in the City of New Orleans and Louisiana will be exposed.

4 FEMA should not be under the Department of Homeland Security.

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Pat Robertson must be a founding member.

He that is without sin among you let him cast the first stone. John 8:7

A dumb statement-
Just days before "Southern Decadence", an annual homosexual celebration attracting tens of thousands of people to the French Quarters section of New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina destroys the city.

"Southern Decadence" has a history of filling the French Quarters section of the city with drunken homosexuals engaging in sex acts in the public streets and bars. Last year, a local pastor sent video footage of sex acts being performed in front of police to the mayor, city council, and the media. City officials simply ignored the footage and continued to welcome and praise the weeklong celebration as being an "exciting event". However, Hurricane Katrina has put an end to the annual celebration of sin.
Way to go guys, it must feel good to know that when a tornado strikes a small town of hard working God-fearing people in Kansas, they better get the message. Cancel your subscription to Showtime, I am watching you!

If New Orleans was wiped out because of Girls Gone Wild and Southern Decadence, what do you think will happen to San Francisco?

If God were still in the 'smite your city' business, He had better start with the City by the Bay. If he lets San Francisco exist, he owes Sodom and Gomorrah an apology.

I'll see your Chief Justice Roberts and raise you a Justice Luttig

Now is not the time to be timid and I don't think President will. He may not appoint Mike Luttig to the SC, however he will pick a conservative and a young one. The President knows how much is at stake with the courts, the left knows too. Save Alberto Gonzales for when John Stevens retires. Right now you need a good pair of hole cards.

With that pair, I'm all in.

Monday, September 05, 2005

Tribes a great post

I have been around construction for a good part of my life and have heard more cursing than I ever wanted to hear. I used to be pretty good at it too. Now, there are a few times where I looses my temper and curse now and again. When I smash myself with something heavy, or when I spend two hours installing a water pump on my Jeep only to find I forgot to install the gasket.

My point is that there are times when a thoughtfully induced four letter word is not condoned, but rather understandable when making a point. While I don't usually link to R rated post, Bill Whittle from Eject, Eject, Eject has written a post that you should read.

That has nothing to do with me being white. If the blacks and Hispanics and Jews and gays that I work with and associate with were there with me, it would have been that much better. That's because the people I associate with 'my Tribe 'consists not of blacks and whites and gays and Hispanics and Asians, but of individuals who do not rape, murder, or steal. My Tribe consists of people who know that sometimes bad things happen, and that these are an opportunity to show ourselves what we are made of. My people go into burning buildings. My Tribe consists of organizers and self-starters, proud and self-reliant people who do not need to be told what to do in a crisis. My Tribe is not fearless; they are something better. They are courageous.

I only hope that I can find my name among those registered on the membership of the Gray Tribe.

Sunday, September 04, 2005

New Orleans mayor fears the CIA will take him out.

I'm not kidding. This is what he said.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said he's feeling better about his city, he feels confident he has gotten the attention of Gov. Kathleen Blanco and President Bush, but he said he fears the Central Intelligence Agency may take him out because he's been yelling at these officials.

He didn't say it once. He said it twice.

Last night he told a reporter for the Associated Press: "If the CIA slips me something and next week you don't see me, you'll all know what happened."

Today he told interviewers for CNN on a live broadcast he feared the "CIA might take me out."
I am not sure that the CIA has the resources to take out Mayor Nagin right now, they might be busy covering up the evidence that they killed Justice Rehnquist to avert the media scrutiny over Bush's handling of hurricane Katrina.

Saturday, September 03, 2005

Justice Rehnquist dies at home.

It looks like things are about to go into overdrive in the Senate.

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist died on Saturday at his home in Arlington, Virginia, after battling thyroid cancer since October, a court spokeswoman said.

Rehnquist, 80, had experienced "a precipitous decline in his health in the last couple of days," and died in the evening surrounded by his three children, court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said.

Smaller, more nimble.

As anyone who has worked for a large corporation or government agency can attest, change is slow, sometimes agonizingly so. I once heard a speaker tell a story about a small silicon valley company he worked for. One day the entire company held a meeting to address the changing business conditions in their industry. About sixty people were there, and in the course of the day they completely changed their business model from hardware production to software development. One day. They adapted to the market and within a year they flourished.

That is the speed and flexibility that has lead America to the front in almost every endeavor we have attempted. At times this rapid change has lead to mistakes and miscalculation, but taken as a whole, our ability to asses and improvise has made this nation great.

Why should it be any different in Government. How can a huge government agency with layer upon layer of bureaucracy hope to move quickly and adapt to a changing situation? When the President and Congress established the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA was put under it's control, I didn't think that was a good idea. How can another layer of management and a longer decision making tree make for a rapid response to a disaster?

Hurricane Katrina was the ultimate test of how nimble our federal government is. The Feds get a F for speed, but as you can see now by the reports from New Orleans, once they arrive, they arrive in force and bring the cavalry. For that, they get an A+. The problem is the first 48 hours of a regional crisis, what we need is a rapid response force. That force is you and me.

The people who were on the scene first, the real 'first responders' were smaller local charities, churches and local chapters of large charities. Private citizens who know the area and have the equipment to get in and help are crucial. Those folks saved thousands of lives. FEMA and HS should give a small portion of their budgets to fund these smaller more nimble charities and volunteers.

A local volunteer fire department training volunteers with boats on search and rescue. A church with an auditorium with a line of credit at the local Wal Mart or Costo to use for refugees. Every region of every state should have a local outreach and volunteer center. These centers would have back up generators and satellite phones and internet. The would keep a database of names of people who are willing to provide shelter for victims of a disaster. Who has flat bottom boats? A list of 4 wheel drive clubs who can get into places with no roads. Small nimble organizations who feed the homeless everyday. These types of volunteers can give realtime assessments, something that was woefully inadequate in the City of New Orleans following Katrina.

Organizing and deploying thousands of soldiers is not a one day process, but when they get to the scene of a disaster they are the most welcoming sight a wet,tired and hungry taxpayer could hope to see. We need to rethink how we stage assets and how we can work with grassroots responders to buy time until the full measure of federal aid can be brought in.

Friday, September 02, 2005

How prepared are you for a real emergency?

Imagine if you will, being stranded in New Orleans during the height of the looting and lawlessness. Could you survive? Could you protect your family? Could you keep the supplies you stored for this situation from being taken?

This is not a question that most Americans would ever think of. I have thought about it, I believe that I could answer in the affirmative to those questions.

Growing up in the country, I have plenty of experience with small scale disasters. When you live 40 miles from town, the power going out is a regular occurrence. I remember the having to live without electricity for two weeks at a time. Without power, your well does not work, that means no water. You learn to adapt and more importantly, to prepare.

Water is life, most everything else you can do without for weeks. If you have never thought of what you would do if the water from your tap stopped for two weeks, and you could not get out of your house or city, what would you do?

What would happen if the power went out for two weeks and your community had been cut off from the outside world? What if you looked out your windows after the third day to see looters kicking in doors on your block? No 911, no police, nobody to come to your aid. Could you protect yourself and your property?

Scary? You bet.

Please don't think I am some 'survivalist nut' who has a 6 year supply of MREs in my basement, I don't even have a basement. I do not advocate people who have never handled a firearm to go out a buy one to throw in a drawer. That is a recipe for tragedy. I believe that everyone should take a training course before they think of buying a firearm. If you are willing to buy a $200-800 firearm, you should be prepared to purchase a safe to store it in. You will also find the safe very useful for storing all those important documents and heirlooms that are not protected right now.

A firearm in the hands of a trained owner is an essential part of protecting home and family.
A water filtration device that can handle liters of water, not ounces is expensive but not that expensive.
A 3500 watt generator and spare gas cans, safely stored, can be the difference between a week of agony or relative comfort.
A few hundred or thousand dollars in cash, in your safe, can go along way when the lights go out.
With the threat of terrorism as well as a natural disaster always a possibility, you may want to look at your emergency kit. A flashlight and a transistor radio are nice to have, but nothing says 'get out of my house' quite like the sound of a pump shotgun putting a round in the chamber.

Thursday, September 01, 2005

One man, doing what he can

I just spoke with Pastor Darryl Johnson of the Walk of Faith Church in Mound Bayou, Mississippi.

He told me the church made it through the Hurricane, Mound Bayou is inland and his congregation is holding up well. In the few minutes we spoke he told me that Walk of Faith Church is taking in refugees from coastal cities and his own home is filled with as many displaced people as it can hold. God Bless those folks in need, and those who are opening their hearts and homes to them.

Pastor Johnson is truly a compassionate man dealing with a tragedy the best way he knows how, appealing to God and getting things done. He said that he is organizing a trip into the more rural areas of Mississippi to help however he can. He says that there are dozens of small, isolated rural towns that are well off the freeways. The large rescue efforts are going into the most populated cities, it is just a logistic fact, they can save more people in a shorter amount of time if they concentrate their rescue efforts there. You can bet that the same tragedies in the cities are being played out on a smaller scale in hundreds of small farm towns in Mississippi and Louisiana. Those people must feel abandoned and all alone.

I asked what I could do to help him and his church with their efforts. I didn't even finish the question when he said "keep us in your prayers", I asked what items he needed to help those with nothing but the clothes on their backs, he was almost embarrassed to ask for financial help. "We need water and food and blankets and everything else" I told him that is seems the best way to get the items he needs is to send money rather than ship the clothes and blankets. He said whatever I could send him would be greatly appreciated and would go along way right now. He said his congregation is giving as much as they can.

I am mailing him a check today, he is one person, among thousands who are making a critical difference right now. I am keeping him and his congregation in my prayers.

Walk of Faith Church
PO Box 3
Mound Bayou, MS 38762
662-741-2000

Pastor Darryl Johnson
faith@nexband.com